The Last Spell News

Hello Heroes!

Welcome to our new map, the one haunting your dreams and sending shivers down your spine every Night: Elderlicht!

A new map also means a new (big) boss. We won't be spoiling it to much in this blogpost, as we want you to live the Elderlicht experience fully... but you can already have a good look at this baddie in the official update artwork!

[h2]SUMMARY:[/h2]

• New map: Elderlicht
  
• Unique feature: Soul Vessels
  
• Unique starting setup
  
• New boss
  
• Damage Rework
  
• Enemies
  
• New Buildings
  
• Goldmine & Scavenger Camp Rebalance
  
• Panic Rework
  
• QOL
  
• Balancing
  
• Bug Fixes
  

We will be live on Twitch tomorrow at 15:00 CEST to discuss the new map, reworks, balancing and other novelties of this update! See you there, we will eagerly wait for your questions in the chat!

[h3]Important reminder:[/h3]
The next Major Update will be the Meta Rework (Schaden & Freude), and to do it properly we will need to wipe all the progress made by players in a few months (all runs & Meta progression). Since a lot of things will be changed, this will allow us to make the best possible rework.

We are sorry in advance about this inconvenience, and we will come back to you with more information in due time.

[h2]NEW MAP: ELDERLICHT[/h2]



Defend the mages while they break the last seal inside the underground ruins of a fallen civilization. Will the pillars and rubble serve the heroes, or hide and protect the monsters coming out of the fog? Be careful, as the fallen city of Elderlicht has a few secrets in store…



This map is unlocked after beating Glenwald, and is an even greater challenge. It lasts for 14 Nights, which is longer than any other map in the game, and will probably let you enjoy a few Nights with your heroes at the peak of their power… if you make it there!

The layout of the map is more geometrical than other maps, with a lot of pillars blocking paths or line of sight. As for the waves coming each Night, they have been designed to be a tough but diverse challenge: the types of enemies, density of the horde, number of sides, length of the Night… All these parameters will greatly vary during the run, and two consecutive Nights will probably feel more different than in other maps. And to top it off, we are introducing a unique feature that makes the Nights of Elderlicht even more of a challenge.

[h2]UNIQUE FEATURE: SOUL VESSELS[/h2]



Elderlicht is filled with Soul Vessels, a mysterious invention of Elderlicht’s past denizens. At Night, some of these will light up a flame and bring back the souls of ancient warriors to fight against you.



Due to their intangible nature, these Soulbound units are invincible, but they can still attack you. Be careful, as most of them have abilities whose strength is on par with that of your heroes! However, extinguishing the Soul Vessel that invoked them or taking care of all other enemies should get rid of them for the Night.

[h2]UNIQUE STARTING SETUP[/h2]

Elderlicht is not a human city, and only recently have the survivors of the mist settled here and built a magic circle. Their camp is different from other towns: only a few ruins are present, but a Seer and a Scavenger camp have already been built. How will you use this to your advantage?



[h2]NEW BOSS[/h2]

A new boss awaits you on the last Night of Elderlicht. What will you have to fight against this time? Be prepared, as a tough fight lies ahead of you.



Starting here, all of the features listed have already been the subject of blog posts during open betas. If you want more details on a given subject you can visit those blog posts: Damage Rework & New Buildings, and Economy & Panic Rework.

[h2]DAMAGE REWORK[/h2]

Since early stages of the development, we wanted The Last Spell to be a “classless” game, where players could build very diverse characters, combining any type of weapon. However, until now, and with a few exceptions, combining weapons of different damage types has always been pretty inefficient.

With the following changes, we are trying to make hybrid weapon combinations more viable for characters, without nerfing the character’s overall power level throughout runs. Feel free to try out those kinds of builds, and tell us if they feel viable or not.

[h3]Primary vs Secondary Attributes[/h3]

The gist of it is that the Physical, Magic and Ranged Damage attributes have been shifted to secondary attributes, while Damage, Resistance Reduction and Accuracy have become primary attributes.

The formatting of their value has been tweaked a bit too - Damage is now displayed as a modifier (default +0%) and Phys/Mag/Rang+ as multipliers (default 100%), and their min/max boundaries have been updated accordingly - but this is purely cosmetics/UX, their behavior remains unchanged: they still affect affect each other and the base damage multiplicatively.



From a systemic point of view, this almost exclusively affects where you can get them during level ups, and thus changes the character build dynamic since the various options in competition for your attention have changed.

These stats have also been rebalanced wherever they may appear: probability of appearing and values have been tweaked for level ups, equipment, traits and some perks. The entire list of changes is a bit too long, but as a rule of thumb, Damage appears more frequently and has higher values, while Physical/Magic/Ranged Damage appears less frequently and with lower values than before.

What this means is that, whilst still theoretically as strong as before to focus on a single damage type, it’s much less frequent to be able to specifically target one and rely on it as the main source of a hero’s potency ; meanwhile, it’s much easier to increase your overall damage, reducing a lot of the friction when switching damage type mid run - or even better, constantly during the battle! This hopefully will enable more variety in combat builds.

[h2]ENEMIES[/h2]

[h3]Enemies’ Accuracy[/h3]

The impact of Accuracy on enemies - mostly, using Accuracy Debuffs - has always been pretty underwhelming. Also, with Accuracy now being labeled a Primary Attribute, we wanted to improve upon that.

The first thing we did is really a detail, but at the same time is altering the perception of the whole Dodge mechanic in a subtle way that enables us to perform the rest: we re-labeled the little “Dodged!” pop-up over the units’ heads to “Missed!”.

Same thing, right?

Wrong! It allowed us to justify a brand new addition: attacks can now miss buildings!



In addition to that, enemies also have an Accuracy value, which scales over the duration of the run.

[h3]Enemies Damage Scaling[/h3]

We’ve changed the way enemies scale their damage to improve debuffs dealt to enemies. For example a -33% Damage debuff will now actually reduce 33% of the enemy’s damage ( this sounds silly but it was not the case before).

[h3]Enemies Skill Progression[/h3]

Up until now, only damage could progress on enemies skills but we decided to extend this to buff and debuff attacks. This will increase the dangerous nature of some enemies (for example the guardian).



[h2]NEW BUILDINGS[/h2]

We’ve added two new production building:

• The Alchemist: Produces potions and scrolls, costs 100 gold.
  
• The Jeweler: Produces trinkets, costs 100 gold. As you can guess, other production buildings won’t produce trinkets anymore.
  

[h2]GOLDMINE & SCAVENGER CAMP REBALANCE[/h2]

A lot of players were frustrated by the dynamic of Goldmines: they felt mandatory if you wanted to have a good run, made the first Nights pretty hard and the last Nights very easy. This problem has been reinforced by recent changes to other buildings, making it possible to build and upgrade nearly all buildings in your Haven.

With the changes we’ve done, we want to make goldmines more cost effective at the start, while greatly reducing their maximum gold output. The start of a run should feel less “tight” economy wise, and the opposite will be true for the later portions of a run.

As Scavenger Camps follow the same model as Goldmines, they were also changed.

You can read all the changes in the Balancing part of this blogpost.



[h2]PANIC REWORK[/h2]

The goal of this rework is to make panic less of a binary situation: up until now, you would get mostly S-Rank Night clears, until one difficult Night where suddenly a big part of the Haven is breached and you drop to a C/D-Rank. We want to make the Panic scale more meaningful and nuanced overall, with more situations where players can get intermediary rankings.

[h3]Panic Increase[/h3]

Panic generated when an enemy hits a building now depends on how much the building was damaged by the attack, instead of just multiplying the underlying Panic value of the enemy as it used to be.

ANY building inside the Haven will generate panic when hit, including Defenses. Buildings have varying panic values, meaning that some buildings generate more panic when hit:

• Walls, Barricades & Ruins generate a very low amount of panic. The more health a wall has, the less panic it will generate with each hit, since their total Panic value remains unchanged (and Walls have also been buffed a bit, cf. Changelog section further down).
  
• Other Defenses generate a moderate amount of panic.
  
• Structures (town buildings) generate a high amount of panic.
  
• The Magic Circle generates a lot of panic, as it should!
  

This means that Havens open to the four winds and with a lot of structures will tend to generate more panic than Havens fortified with a lot of sturdy walls, or with a more compact design. Panic should feel more gradual than before, especially when properly defended.

Another noteworthy change is that from now on monsters within your Haven won’t generate any panic as long as they are stunned.

[h3]Rewards[/h3]

S Rank now gives items with a slightly higher rarity than before..

A Rank now also gives an item! Albeit being of lower rarity (Common..Rare), this is not to be sniffed at.

All Gold and Material rewards have been rebalanced to fit the scale of the updated economy, which is expected to be less exponential.

As stated earlier, we tried to base our updated economy on getting an A-rank, as well as decreasing the resources penalty of ranking lower.



[h2]QoL[/h2]

As always we read all your feedback and it helps us to see what we can do to make the game more comfortable to play.

[h3]Oraculum[/h3]

You can now access the oraculum from the worldmap so that you don’t need to start a new run to buy or reclaim some favors.

[h3]Heroes Portrait[/h3]

We added information and changed the general layout of the little infopanel when hovering a hero and also on the portrait in the top right corner of your screen !



[h3]Optimization[/h3]

Again with this update we’ve done a ton of optimization. The game should run more smoothly on idle. Don’t hesitate to tell us if you notice a change in your fps count or not !

[h2]BALANCING[/h2]

[h3]Goldmine[/h3]

Gold cost: 45 => 60
Base gold production: 10 => 25

Mine action now costs 2 workers to perform.

Changed all upgrades. New upgrade list:

Production+
Costs 60 gold
Improves gold generated from 25 to 40

Mine+
Costs 20 gold
Workers required from 2 to 1

Mine++
Costs 30 gold
Uses per production from 1 to 2

[h3]Scavenger Camp[/h3]

Gold cost: 45 => 60
Base Material production: 20 => 40

Changed all upgrades. New upgrade list:

Production+
Costs 60 gold
Improves materials generated from 40 to 60

Scavenge+
Costs 20 gold
Workers required from 2 to 1

Scavenge++
Costs 30 gold
Uses per production from 1 to 2

[h3]Houses[/h3]

Limit on buildable Houses: 5 => 4
Base price: 40 => 30 Gold.
House Expansion price: 30 => 40 Gold.
House Expansion+ price: 80 => 70 Gold.

[h3]Production Buildings[/h3]

Armor Maker base price: 60 => 65 Gold.
Bowyer/Blacksmith/Magic Shop price: 60 => 65 Gold.

Added Alchemist and Jeweler with a base price of 75 Gold.

Production+ upgrade price: 110 => 100 Gold.
Production ++ upgrade price: 130 => 120 Gold.

Help + upgrade price: 50 => 40 Gold.
Help ++ upgrade price: 80 => 60 Gold.
Help +++ upgrade price: 100 => 80 Gold.

Production buildings now give +1 and +2 items from the start.
Removed one level upgrade. New list is as follows:

Level+, costs 150, gives +2 and +3 items.
Level++, costs 300, gives +3 and +4 items.
Level+++, costs 560, gives +4 and +5 items.

[h3]Walls & Gates[/h3]

Barricade price: 7 => 8 Materials.

Wooden Wall Health: 55 => 75.

Reinforced Wooden Wall price: 30 => 25 Materials.
Reinforced Wooden Wall Health: 110 => 150.

Stone Wall price: 45 => 40 Materials.
Stone Wall Health: 215 => 300.

Reinforced Stone Wall price: 60 => 50 Materials.
Reinforced Stone Wall Health: 330 => 450.

Wooden Gate Health: 50 => 75.

Stone Gate price: 45 => 40 Materials.
Stone Gate Health: 195 => 300.

[h3]Special Defenses[/h3]

Ballista price: 60 => 40 Materials.
Mounted Ballista price: 100 => 80 Materials.
Seasoned Operator upgrade price: 50 Gold => 35 Materials.

Catapult price: 100 => 80 Materials.

Watch Tower price: 70 => 60 Materials.
Construction limit: Unlimited => 12.

Warp Gate Health: 25 => Invincible.
Construction limit: Unlimited => 6.

[h3]Inn[/h3]

Accomodation+ upgrade price: 180 => 130 Gold.
Accomodation++ upgrade price: 260 => 200 Gold.

[h3]Attributes and skills[/h3]

Affixes balancing (the additional bonuses you get on uncommon+ equipment):

• Values, in relation to each other but also level ups (which are meant to be more important).
  
• Drop rates, according to the current state of the game and the current damage rework.
  
• Drop incompatibilities: some affixes can’t drop on some pieces of gear. This is still true, but since the game has changed a lot, some updated intentions have been reasserted (e.g. it was not possible to get +Propagation Bounces on a melee/ranged weapon, which was a bit sad for the 2H Hammer or Hand Crossbow builds… don’t ask!).
  

Some weapons’ skill have now a progression on their skill effects:

• Berserker Rage from the Two-handed Axe
  
• Watchout from the Longbow
  
• Suppressive Fire from the Rifle
  
• Wind Walk from the Magic Scepter
  
• Shocking Touch from the Magic Scepter
  
• Pillar of Light from the Power Staff
  
• Acid Spray from the Druidic Staff
  

The maximum base damage of all weapons has been increased à bit.

[h3]Perks[/h3]

Versatility: Removed from the game following the Damage rework.

Flexibility: Tier 2 => Tier 4 ; +15% Damage => +25% Damage.

Crippling Punch: New perk added to Tier 2.

Bodybuilder: Every 25 max Health after 115: +2% Physical Damage. => Every 10 max Health 100: +1% Physical Damage.

Harvester: Every 3 enemies killed => Every 4 enemies killed.

Head-On: +25% Physical Damage => +15% Physical Damage.

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

Critical is now equal to 0% for all enemies and therefore is not shown in their HUD anymore.

Rescaled enemy quantities on Glenwald (less enemies in early Nights, slightly more enemies on later Nights, and slightly less enemies on boss Night, which should make it a bit easier overall).

[h3]Bosses[/h3]

HARPIES

General changes

Overall pacing of the Night has been improved: Harpies after the first one will appear earlier than before.

Boss minions (Alerion) now spawn in smaller amounts but more frequently.

Boss wave will spawn less high tier units than before.

Harpy

Health: 810 => 630

Armor: 60 => 100

Base attack now deals less damage.

“Enraging Scream” (zone buff) now only buffs Move Points for 1 turn and buffs Damage for 2 turns. Additionally, targets’ Resistance will now also be debuffed for 2 turns upon application. It also no longer dispels targets’ Negative Alterations upon application and only self-dispel debuffs on the caster (it could previously also dispel poison).

Alerion

Health: 270 => 210.

CETUSIA

General changes

Overall pacing of the Night has been improved.

Invincibility phases have been removed from the fight.

Each phase now features one of the three versions of Cetusia, making the fight less repetitive.

Boss wave is now tougher.

Cetusia

Health: 3600 => 6000

Armor: 400 => 300

Block: 50 => 30

Dodge: 0 => 10

Resistance: 40 => 30

While not armored, Cetusia can use Putrid Water (poison attack) once again (it was changed in the previous boss balancing patch) after gaining a Charged status.

Cetusia’s tail

Health: 1800 => 2000

Armor: 400 => 300

Block: 50 => 30

Resistance: 40 => 30

Cetusia’s tail can no longer use Charged attacks.

Cetusia’s tail’s base attack no longer requires a Charged status.

Cetusia (armored)

Health: Invincible => 6000

Armor: 0 => 1200

Cetusia dives back into the water when you defeat her armored version.

Cetusia’s tail (armored)

Note: During a previous balancing patch, this version of Cetusia’s tail had been removed from the fight, but has now been brought back.

Health: Invincible => 2000

Armor: 0 => 1200

Cetusia (enraged)

Health: 3600 => 6000

The enraged version of Cetusia can now use an enhanced version of Putrid Water.

Wyrmling Egg

Armor: 0 => 600

Resistance: 80 => 60

Wyrmling

Health: 400 => 600

Armor: 0 => 300

Dodge: 40 => 30

Resistance: 20 => 30

Move Points: 8 => 7

DRYADS

General changes

Overall pacing of the Night has been improved.

Total number of Dryads: 15 => 12

Putrefied Dryad

Health: 1300 => 1800

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a soflock when using the escape key during a dialogue in the oraculum.
  
• Fixed a softlock on the screen “Finishing initializing”.
  
• Ballistas can’t shoot invincible enemies anymore.
  
• Fixed the lifetime stat “Nemesis” in the character sheet.
  
• Fixed the undo button which could be used after using theskill “Hammer Strike”.
  
• Fixed a softlock when Spiky Counter killed enemies with caster effect skills (for examples: Hunter, Harpy).
  
• Fixed the health number display that was remaining for no reason on enemies sometimes.
  
• Fixed some enemies having the poison/panic feedback displayed right after leaving the fog.
  
• Fixed the isolation bonus in damage calculation not being displayed (but still applied).
  
• Undoing a move while hovering the “Jump Over” skill lead to some UI problems.
  
• Fixed some weird camera movements when using the perk Human Ballista to kill the Harpy.
  
• Fixed softlocks happening in the Oraculum with screen resolution ratio different than 16:9.
  
• Fixed the “Potion Throw” perk that was not increasing the range of potions (how unfortunate…).
  
• Fixed a softlock happening when only one crawler was left on the map without any possible path to the Magic Circle for him to choose.
  
• The “Fatality” skill cannot be used on invincible units anymore.
  
• Fixed the “Legendary assassin” perk that was not displaying the right amount of enemies to kill to trigger the perk.
  

Thank you for reading! We will look at your comments and feedback with great interest, especially when you will misspell Elderlicht.

Join us on Discord, Twitter & Instagram to discuss with the team and other players!

Hello Heroes,

We've just implemented a small hotfix to the Beta Branch :

[h2]BALANCING[/h2]

• Fixed upgrading Walls via their individual upgrade not being the same cost than via building them (construction mode)
  
• Tweaked Gates Health & Cost to match recent Walls rebalance
  

Join our Discord!

Hello Heroes,

Yesterday, we published a new important update on the Open Beta with loads of new information and rework. Shortly after, we released a small update for the Open Beta to fix a few issues: unfortunately we made a mistake and this update wasn’t released on the Open Beta branch, but on the Main branch.

When we found out about this issue (thank you players for warning us), we were able to create a new branch with the latest stable version of Fear of the Lake. Thus, all players were able to pursue their ongoing run from the Main branch.



So first off, we are absolutely sorry about this issue and we hope it didn’t affect too many players and their runs.

Second, since this update was not supposed to be available on the Main branch, it contains untested changes only aimed at the Open Beta (where we learn what works and what doesn’t). We have therefore decided to revert this update to the former (and stable) version of Fear of the Lake.

Finally, if you started a new run on this unplanned update (e.g. after 17:00 CEST), this run may end up broken after the revert. If you want to complete it, you can still switch to the Open Beta branch which contains the exact version you started your run with. You can navigate through the branches by going on: Library => The Last Spell => Manage => Properties => Betas => Select the appropriate branch.

Thank you for reading, we will be looking closely at your comments to ensure everything is working smoothly with this revert.

Hello Heroes!

Welcome to our new important update for the Open Beta, in which the main focus is to fix the frustrations linked to the economy of the game.

The last Beta patch sparked a lot of discussion on the game’s economy and helped us get better information on how players perceived it. We were already aware of the problems with goldmines for example, but not that production buildings were frowned upon.

However, a lot of things in the game cannot be balanced in a vacuum, especially gold sources. Thus, we had to tweak a lot of aspects of the game, and even rework the way panic is generated. For this reason, this update is bigger than what we usually do in the beta branch.

We hope the following changes redirect the dynamics of the game in a more pleasant direction than before economy wise.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1105670/view/3222896627771752948
However, keep in mind that a lot of the changes are also meant to pave the way for the next big updates, especially the Meta Rework coming later this year, so some of them will make more sense when the time comes.

[h2]Summary:[/h2]

• Goldmine & Scavenger Camp rebalance
  
• Panic rework
  
• Changelog
  

[h2]GOLDMINE & SCAVENGER CAMP REBALANCE[/h2]

A lot of players were frustrated by the dynamic of Goldmines: they felt mandatory if you wanted to have a good run, made the first nights pretty hard and the last nights very easy. This problem has been reinforced by recent changes to other buildings, making it possible to build and upgrade nearly all buildings in your Haven.

With the following changes, we want to make goldmines more cost effective at the start, while greatly reducing their maximum gold output. The start of a run should feel less “tight” economy wise, and the opposite will be true for the later portions of a run.

As Scavenger Camps follow the same model as Goldmines, they were also changed.



[h3]Goldmine[/h3]

Gold cost: 45 => 60
Base gold production: 10 => 25

Mine action now costs 2 workers to perform.

Changed all upgrades. New upgrade list:

Production+
Costs 60 gold
Improves gold generated 25 => 35

Mine+
Costs 30 gold
Workers required 2 => 1

Mine++
Costs 40 gold
Uses per production 1 => 2

[h3]Scavenger Camp[/h3]

Gold cost: 45 => 60
Base Material production: 20 => 35

Changed all upgrades. New upgrade list:

Production+
Costs 60 gold
Improves materials generated 35 => 50

Scavenge+
Costs 30 gold
Workers required 2 => 1

Scavenge++
Costs 40 gold
Uses per production 1 => 2

[h2]PANIC REWORK[/h2]

The goal of this rework is to make panic less of a binary situation: up until now, you would get mostly S-Rank night clears, until one difficult night where suddenly a big part of the Haven is breached and you drop to a C/D-Rank. We want to make the Panic scale to be more meaningful and nuanced overall, with more situations where players can get intermediary rankings.

You may feel more pressured (ok, maybe not during the first nights…), but it is actually slightly easier to have better rewards than before - we tried to base our updated economy on getting an A-rank, as well as decreasing a bit the penalty of ranking lower.

On a side note, this comes together with the economic rework for a reason: hopefully, with the Gold Mines being less “resource hungry” and the potential dread of a lesser Panic rank, it might be more relevant in some cases to build a Scavenger Camp.

[h3]Panic Increase[/h3]

Panic generated when an enemy hits a building now depends on how much the building was damaged by the attack, instead of just multiplying the underlying Panic value of the enemy as it used to be.

ANY building inside the Haven will generate panic when hit, including Defenses. Buildings have varying panic values, meaning that some buildings generate more panic when hit:

• Walls, Barricades & Ruins generate a very low amount of panic. The more health a wall has, the less panic it will generate with each hit, since their total Panic value remains unchanged (and Walls have also been buffed a bit, cf. Changelog section further down).
  
• Other Defenses generate a moderate amount of panic.
  
• Structures (town buildings) generate a high amount of panic.
  
• The Magic Circle generates a lot of panic, as it should!

This means that Havens open to the four winds and with a lot of structures will tend to generate more panic than Havens fortified with a lot of sturdy walls, or with a more compact design. Panic should feel more gradual than before, especially when properly defended.

Another noteworthy change is that from now on monsters within your Haven won’t generate any panic as long as they are stunned.

As usual all of this can and will probably be tweaked over time.



[h3]Rewards[/h3]

S Rank now gives items with a slightly higher rarity than before..

A Rank now also gives an item! Albeit being of lower rarity (Common..Rare), this is not to be sniffed at.

All Gold and Material rewards have been rebalanced to fit the scale of the updated economy, which is expected to be less exponential.

As stated earlier, we tried to base our updated economy on getting an A-rank, as well as decreasing the resources penalty of ranking lower.

[h2]CHANGELOG[/h2]

[h3]Houses[/h3]

Limit on buildable Houses: 5 => 4
Base price: 40 => 30 Gold.
House Expansion price: 30 => 40 Gold.
House Expansion+ price: 80 => 70 Gold.

[h3]Production Buildings[/h3]

Armor Maker base price: 80 => 65 Gold.
Bowyer/Blacksmith/Magic Shop price: 90 => 65 Gold.
Alchemist/Jeweler base price: 100 => 75 Gold.

Production+ upgrade price: 110 => 100 Gold.
Production ++ upgrade price: 130 => 120 Gold.

Help + upgrade price: 50 => 40 Gold.
Help ++ upgrade price: 80 => 60 Gold.
Help +++ upgrade price: 100 => 80 Gold.

Production buildings now give +1 and +2 items from the start.
Removed one level upgrade. New list is as follows:

Level+, costs 150, gives +2 and +3 items.
Level++, costs 300, gives +3 and +4 items.
Level+++, costs 560, gives +4 and +5 items.

[h3]Walls[/h3]

Barricade price: 7 => 8 Materials.

Reinforced Wooden Wall price: 30 => 25 Materials.

Stone Wall price: 45 => 40 Materials.
Stone Wall Health: 215 => 275

Reinforced Stone Wall price: 60 => 50 Materials.
Reinforced Stone Wall Health: 330 => 385

[h3]Ballistas[/h3]

Seasoned Operator upgrade price: 50 Gold => 40 Materials.

[h3]Inn[/h3]

Accomodation+ upgrade price: 180 => 130 Gold.
Accomodation++ upgrade price: 260 => 200 Gold.

[h3]Boss Balancing[/h3]

HARPIES

General changes

Overall pacing of the night has been improved: Harpies after the first one will appear earlier than before.

Boss minions (Alerion) now spawn in smaller amounts but more frequently.

Boss wave will spawn less high tier units than before.

Harpy

Health: 810 => 630

Armor: 60 => 100

Base attack now deals less damage.

“Enraging Scream” (zone buff) now only buffs Move Points for 1 turn and buffs Damage for 2 turns. Additionally, targets’ Resistance will now also be debuffed for 2 turns upon application. It also no longer dispels targets’ Negative Alterations upon application and only self-dispel debuffs on the caster (it could previously also dispel poison).

Alerion

Health: 270 => 210.

CETUSIA

General changes

Overall pacing of the night has been improved.

Invincibility phases have been removed from the fight.

Each phase now features one of the three versions of Cetusia, making the fight less repetitive.

Boss wave is now tougher.

Cetusia

Health: 3600 => 6000

Armor: 400 => 300

Block: 50 => 30

Dodge: 0 => 10

Resistance: 40 => 30

While not armored, Cetusia can use Putrid Water (poison attack) once again (it was changed in the previous boss balancing patch) after gaining a Charged status.

Cetusia’s tail

Health: 1800 => 2000

Armor: 400 => 300

Block: 50 => 30

Resistance: 40 => 30

Cetusia’s tail can no longer use Charged attacks.

Cetusia’s tail’s base attack no longer requires a Charged status.

Cetusia (armored)

Health: Invincible => 6000

Armor: 0 => 1200

Cetusia dives back into the water when you defeat her armored version.

Cetusia’s tail (armored)

Note: During a previous balancing patch, this version of Cetusia’s tail had been removed from the fight, but has now been brought back.

Health: Invincible => 2000

Armor: 0 => 1200

Cetusia (enraged)

Health: 3600 => 6000

The enraged version of Cetusia can now use an enhanced version of Putrid Water.

Wyrmling Egg

Armor: 0 => 600

Resistance: 80 => 60

Wyrmling

Health: 400 => 600

Armor: 0 => 300

Dodge: 40 => 30

Resistance: 20 => 30

Move Points: 8 => 7

DRYADS

General changes

Overall pacing of the night has been improved.

Total number of Dryads: 15 => 12

Putrefied Dryad

Health: 1300 => 1800

[h3]Attributes[/h3]

Decreased top end of Res. Reduction:
Level-up: 7/12/15 => 7/10/12
Affix: 5/9/12 => 5/8/10
Also decreased top end of Res. Reduction on items granting it natively.

Decreased top end of Accuracy:
Level-up: 7/12/15 => 7/10/12
Affix: 5/9/12 => 5/8/10

Increased Opportunistic:
Level-up: 5/8/10 => 8/12/15
Affix: 4/7/9 => 6/10/13

Decreased Exp. Gain:
Level-up: 15/27/35 => 12/17/20 (reverted to the values preceding the Open Beta).
Affix: 10/22/30 => 8/13/16 (updated to scale).

Decreased top end of Reliability:
Level-up: 10/20/25 => 10/16/20
Affix: 8/15/20 => 7/13/16

[h3]Skills[/h3]

Decreased 2H Axe's Berserker Rage: 25%..50% Dmg buff => 25%..35% Dmg buff (we’d been a bit crazy when rescaling following the Damage Rework!).

Potion of Strength: 6%..20% Dmg buff => 10%..22% Dmg buff.

[h3]Perks[/h3]

Flexibility: 35% Damage => 25% Damage.

Bodybuilder: Every 15 max Health after 115: +1% Physical Damage. => Every 10 max Health 100: +1% Physical Damage.

Harvester: Every 3 enemies killed => Every 4 enemies killed.

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed the “Berserker Rage” skill that could not be cast on heroes.
  
• Fixed softlocks happening in the Oraculum with screen resolution ratio different than 16:9.
  
• Fixed the “Potion Throw” perk that was not increasing the range of potions (how unfortunate…).
  
• Changed the text for the “ Magic Damage” Favor to be accurate.
  
• Fixed the “Legendary assassin” perk that was not displaying the right amount of enemies to kill to trigger the perk.
  
• The oraculum can now be opened in the world map with the keyboard shortcut.
  
• Fixed a softlock happening when only one crawler was left on the map without any possible path to the Magic Circle for him to choose.
  
• The “Fatality” skill cannot be used on invincible units anymore.
  

Thank you for reading! You can join us on Discord, Twitter and Instagram.

Hello everyone!

It's finally summer here, and although some days are a little hot, we're happy to say we're moving forward with the next Major Update!

And today: time for a new OPEN BETA!

Despite the huge evolution that has already been performed since the EA release, we still felt like some parts of the combat were not fulfilling their role quite as intended, subsequently hindering the achievement of our vision for The Last Spell - be it in its current state or when planning some new content/features.

This beta has a strong focus towards shifting/tweaking some underlying elements of the combat system, trying to improve it without distorting its primitive essence (because there’s already a lot that works well!).


But since we like you a lot, and in an attempt to demonstrate that a successful rework can actually help us add content, we’re also happy to throw in 2 new production buildings made possible by the recent “Items production rework”!


[h2]Damage Rework[/h2]

Since early stages of the development, we wanted The Last Spell to be a “classless” game, where players could build very diverse characters, combining any type of weapon. However, until now, and with a few exceptions, combining weapons of different damage types has always been pretty inefficient.

With the following changes, we are trying to make hybrid weapon combinations more viable for characters, without nerfing the character’s overall power level throughout runs. Feel free to try out those kinds of builds, and tell us if they feel viable or not.

[h3]Primary vs Secondary Attributes[/h3]

The gist of it is that the Physical, Magic and Ranged Damage attributes have been shifted to secondary attributes, while Damage, Resistance Reduction and Accuracy have become primary attributes.
The formatting of their value has been tweaked a bit too - Damage is now displayed as a modifier (default +0%) and Phys/Mag/Rang+ as multipliers (default 100%), and their min/max boundaries have been updated accordingly - but this is purely cosmetics/UX, their behavior remains unchanged: they still affect affect each other and the base damage multiplicatively.



From a systemic point of view, this almost exclusively affects where you can get them during level ups, and thus changes the character build dynamic since the various options in competition for your attention have changed.



These stats have also been rebalanced wherever they may appear: probability of appearing and values have been tweaked for level ups, equipment, traits and some perks. The entire list of changes is a bit too long, but as a rule of thumb, Damage appears more frequently and has higher values, while Physical/Magic/Ranged Damage appears less frequently and with lower values than before.

What this means is that, whilst still theoretically as strong as before to focus on a single damage type, it’s much less frequent to be able to specifically target one and rely on it as the main source of a hero’s potency ; meanwhile, it’s much easier to increase your overall damage, reducing a lot of the friction when switching damage type mid run - or even better, constantly during the battle! This hopefully will enable more variety in combat builds.

[h2]Gear Affixes Balancing[/h2]

Additionally, we’ve rebalanced many aspects of the affixes (the additional bonuses you get on uncommon+ equipment), which we hadn’t done globally for a loooooong time - most likely the EA release - and weren’t fitting the current balance and design intentions.

• Values, in relation to each other but also level ups (which are meant to be more important).
  
• Drop rates, according to the current state of the game and the current damage rework.
  
• Drop incompatibilities: some affixes can’t drop on some pieces of gear. This is still true, but since the game has changed a lot, some updated intentions have been reasserted (e.g. it was not possible to get +Propagation Bounces on a melee/ranged weapon, which was a bit sad for the 2H Hammer or Hand Crossbow builds… don’t ask!).

[h2]Weapons Base Damage[/h2]

The maximum base damage of all weapons has been increased a bit. This has been done to:

• Better fit the new Damage & Phys/Mag/Rang Damage scale.
  
• Reduce the reliance on those attributes upon generation, regarding the early stages of the run (before one has a chance to build their Hero).
  
• Increase the impact of the Reliability attribute.

[h2]Enemies Damage Scaling[/h2]
We also fixed something that had been bugging us for some time: behind the scenes, enemies were using the Damage attribute to become stronger as the run went on. Since attributes are additive in The Last Spell, this effectively made Damage buffs or debuffs way weaker than they seemed to be: with a -33% Damage debuff, you were reducing enemy damage from 100% => 67% at Night 1 (expected result), but then it could be something like 250% => 222% at night 12, which is very underwhelming to say the least.
This will not be the case anymore, and Damage buffs/debuffs on enemies should always reduce damage by the expected value - unless they have some buffs, but this is intended (and visible to the player)!

[h2]Enemies’ Accuracy[/h2]
The impact of Accuracy on enemies - mostly, using Accuracy Debuffs - has always been pretty underwhelming. Also, with Accuracy now being labeled a Primary Attribute, we wanted to improve upon that.

The first thing we did is really a detail, but at the same time is altering the perception of the whole Dodge mechanic in a subtle way that enables us to perform the rest: we re-labeled the little “Dodged!” pop-up over the units’ heads to “Missed!”.
Same thing, right?

Wrong! It allowed us to justify a brand new addition: attacks can now miss buildings!



This way, lowering the enemies’ Accuracy becomes much more interesting, as a defensive mechanism. All buildings have 0 Dodge, but when an enemy has This effectively increases the attractiveness of Accuracy Debuffs.

In addition to that, enemies also have an Accuracy value, which scales over the duration of the run.
Most enemies start with negative Accuracy, which effectively gives more leeway to players in the beginning of the run: Heroes need less Dodge to have a chance at evading attacks, as well as buildings having a small chance of being missed as well.

It also allows us to increase the disparity between enemies: basic Tier1 enemies will never rise over 0% Accuracy so it’s only beneficial to the player, but on the other hand a few, stronger, enemies will have a positive Accuracy meaning that it will actually be harder to Dodge their attacks.




[h2]Skill Progression[/h2]

While some skill effects are naturally effective at all stages of the game, others tend to be either too strong early on or too feeble in the late game, and the correct balance is nearly impossible to find for some buffs or debuffs.

Up until now, only skills inflicting poison and skills granted by Body Armor had higher values with higher level gear, but we decided to extend this to a few select weapon and enemy skills as well, mainly for buffs and debuffs on attributes like Block or Armor.



[h2]New Buildings[/h2]

We have added two new productions building :

• The Alchemist : Produces potions and scrolls, costs 100 gold.
  
• The Jeweler : Produces trinkets, costs 100 gold. As you can guess, other production buildings won’t produce trinkets anymore.

The Alchemist was something very popular in your feedback and it was in our backlog for a long time. But we've waited for our rework of building upgrades to add new buildings, since the economy of the game was a bit too tight a few patches ago.



[h2]Other[/h2]
[h3]Hero Portrait + Infopanel QoLs[/h3]

The little infopanel displayed when hovering over a hero had to be updated to match the attribute switch. We took this opportunity to give it a small makeover and add a neat little feature: the currently selected weapons of the Hero are now displayed as well!


Additionally, we’ve added the mana gauge under the portrait of your Heroes in the top right corner, as well as displaying the actual corresponding values when hovering a given portrait.


[h3]Enemies Crit[/h3]
Enemies now have 0% chance of inflicting a Critical hit. We heard your feedback that it wasn’t that fun, and since it wasn’t a prevalent mechanic on enemies anyways, we scrapped it.

[h3]Oraculum[/h3]
You can now access the oraculum from the worldmap so that you don’t need to start a new run to buy or reclaim some favors.

[h3]Production Buildings[/h3]
With the recent changes to production buildings, players that invest a lot in mines and production buildings often have too much gold in the last nights of a run. We still want the economy to be fairly permissive, but it seemed a bit easy to place down all production buildings, so they now cost a bit more.

Armor Maker: price from 60 to 80 gold
Blacksmith: price from 60 to 90 gold
Bowyer: price from 60 to 90 gold
Magic Shop: price from 60 to 90 gold

[h3]Perks[/h3]
Tier 4 Perk “Versatility” has been removed.
Tier 2 Perk “Flexibility” has been moved to Tier 4 and rebalanced according to its new position and the damage rework.
Added a new Tier 2 Perk, “Crippling Punch”.

Bodybuilder and Head On have been slightly tweaked to better fit the new values of damage attributes.

[h3]Optimization[/h3]
Again with this open beta we’ve done a lot of optimization. The game should run more smoothly on idle. Don’t hesitate to tell us if you notice a change in your fps count or not.


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a softlock when Spiky Counter killed enemies with caster effect skills (for examples : Hunter, Harpy).
  
• Fixed the health number display that was remaining for no reason on enemies sometimes.
  
• Fixed some enemies having the poison/panic feedback displayed right after leaving the fog.
  
• Fixed the isolation bonus in damage calculation not being displayed (but still applied).
  
• Undoing a move while hovering the “Jump Over” skill lead to some UI problems.
  
• Fixed some weird camera movements when using the perk Human Ballista to kill the Harpy
  

Please let us know if you manage to make some hybrid builds work (and what they are), and if it feels more viable than before to go for a specific mechanic-oriented build.
As usual, we'll be very happy to hear about what how you feel after experiencing those changes.

So, don't hesitate to try all of this in the Beta Branch of the game and join our Discord server to give us all your feedback!