Update #35: Balance Pass, Highest Difficulty and new Impossible+ Modifiers
I planned to have this patch out on Friday - but decided to give it a little more time on the Beta branch - both to smooth things out but also for me to get on top of a few bugs which seemed to have snuck in recently.
As soon as I finish typing this, I’m switching back to getting the next class setup and ready for play. That’s not to say that this is the final patch before the Tempest drops, but more so just an acknowledgement that there probably won’t be any major changes until I have things sorted. Of course, I’ll still be hotfixing any bugs or major issues that crop up - but my focus is going to be 100% on the Tempest, and getting it ready for public testing!
I sat down in a call earlier last week and started working through each and every one of the fights in the game at the moment. Two data points were used - player feedback and player metrics.
One goal I wanted was to shift Hard a little closer to Normal. The jump from Normal to Hard was pretty steep, but the jump from Hard to Impossible was no where near as daunting. I know I’ve copped some negative feedback in regards to Hard being a little too back-breaking of a jump, so hopefully that curve is much smoother now.
Numbers were changed, modifiers tweaked, and lots of little things were adjusted. I’ve put a full list at the bottom of this post.
[h3]Elites[/h3]
On top of the stuff above, Elites were a big focus. Right now, a lot of power comes from Elites (the Artifacts are really that good). But at the same time, some of them just felt like freebies. There should be some challenge when it comes to Elites, and fear of taking a few points of damage at least.
The major shakups were Dolus, Bruce and the Hag, the first two getting a pretty considerable redesign - so make sure you re-read those passives! The Hag just had the Thorns toned down a touch to make it less hard country vs certain decks, and a few more tweaks thrown in.
Corpse Beast on Imposible was a run ender. He’s been nerfed quite a bit .. maybe a touch too much, will keep an eye on him.
A few other fights also got decent reworks. Death Knight will have his AP gain happen passively so there won’t be a huge “gotcha” moment around turn 4 or 5. Also Swamp Misteress has had her Totem spawn conditions altered a little as well.
Now, on the character select screen, you should see another option next to Win Streak - Highest Difficulty. This was a suggestion made by the community to allow players to see what the Highest Difficulty they had won on either spec on was. Thanks for the great suggestion!
I’ve also taken the chance to throw a few new Impossible+ modifiers into the game! The big focus on these was to not just be more deprivation of resources, but more so the ability to actually change and shape the way you play. Some of these include Fog of War, which hides what type of tiles are in front of you, and Ambush, which gives all encounters a Turn 0. Still looking to gather feedback on the costs for these - some are particularly scary! Hopefully they’re enjoyable for those who look to those high difficulty modes !
[hr][/hr]
And with that - I shall return to the code bubble and make progress on the new class. Still no exact dates just yet - but all going well I should have something to show next month!
Thank you everyone for making Vault of the Void what it is! Without you all I’d just be an old grey hair man, making code for no one. All the positivity and great feedback is what keeps this rolling - so huge shout out to you all! I’d rate you all 5 stars if I could ...
...actually now we’re turning into a Black Mirror episode I think...
Oh no.
All for now
- Josh
[hr][/hr]
[h3]Full(ish) Patch Notes[/h3]
Balance Notes
- Bruce: Changed significantly. No longer Vuln immune, but he's now a summoner! Fish are friends!
- Dolus: Has a strong static AP value, and will cause you to gain and lose poison based on the costs of what you purge or play, occasionally siphoning that poison into her own AP.
- The Priest: Passive just deals damage when drawing non-afflictions now.
- Swamp Mistress: Will spawn with 1 offensive and 1 defensive totem, and not deal free damage when you draw a Bane
- Flame Ward: 1 less burn at all levels
- Big Bertha: Her passive is also triggered by a Piglet dying. Angry piggy.
- Birth Pit: Passive also triggers when an Ally dies. Feed also increases own AP by 1.
- Pinkie: Killing 7, instead of 10, fills the Battle Progress bar
- Voidling: 7% less HP
- Pirahna: 7% less HP
- Dragon Whelpling: 25% more HP, and +1 AP and adds 1 less Bane on Impossible
- Dragon Mother: "It could be more on fire." Also +2 AP at all levels.
- Veiled Watcher: No longer scales to all Afflictions, just Banes
- Beast of Malice: 33% more HP
- Hag: 2 less Thorns damage on all levels. Starts with higher frenzy and attacks more often. Her Hex move also burns, and her Bane move also haunts.
- Obsidian Golem: Right Arm has +1 AP on Hard and Impossible, and will use Red Void Stone more often. Significantly more AP on main body across all levels (+2 to +5)
- Death Knight: Instead of an active buff, he passively gets AP when you draw Banes. Starts with higher damage output but 1 Frenzy. No longer uses Shield of Bone, instead forcing reshuffles periodically. He also no longer perma-vulns, instead just applying it as part of the reshuffle move.
- Starcallers: 25% less HP, +3 AP at all levels
- Void Spiders: Only need to kill 3 to fill Battle Progress bar. Higher HP, lower AP, higher Frenzy and Frenzy gain (actual damage output only marginally lower)
- Queen of Ages: No longer cleanses when the player loses HP.
- Scoutlight: Applies 1 more Poison on Hard
- Unholy King: 1 less AP on Hard
- Exalted Warrior: 1 less AP on Hard
- Knight - 1 less AP on Hard
- Nightmare Steed: 2 less AP on Hard
- Skeleton King: 1 less AP on Hard
- Forged Soldier: 1 less AP on Hard and Impossible, and 9% less HP
- Infecti: Passive buffs their AP by 1 less on Hard and Impossible
- Skeleton Minion: 1 less AP on Hard and Impossible
- Forsaken Puppy: Adds 1 less Bane on Hard and Impossible
- Drowned" 1 more AP on Hard and Impossible
- Gloomshroom: 1 less Poison on Impossible
- Bloated: 1 more AP on Impossible
- Blightwort: 1 less AP and 1 more Frenzy on Impossible
- Corpse Mound: Changed from 8x2 to 16x1 attack on Impossible
Bugs/Other
- Highest Difficulty now tracked across all Specs
- New Impossible+ modifiers
- Fixed a small memory leak in the Deck Manager
- More typos
- Then Again will now have the Follow Up glow
- Fixed a bug on re-rolling a card, and it showing the wrong energy cost on upgrade
- Then Again will now only correclty give Delay Block inside of Zen
- Forbidden Pact will now correctly set your Threat based on Card Energy
- Circular Logic Purge is now working correctly
- Fixed a bug which caused cards to go LARGE when prompted with Discard.
As soon as I finish typing this, I’m switching back to getting the next class setup and ready for play. That’s not to say that this is the final patch before the Tempest drops, but more so just an acknowledgement that there probably won’t be any major changes until I have things sorted. Of course, I’ll still be hotfixing any bugs or major issues that crop up - but my focus is going to be 100% on the Tempest, and getting it ready for public testing!
Balance Pass - Making Hard... Easier?
I sat down in a call earlier last week and started working through each and every one of the fights in the game at the moment. Two data points were used - player feedback and player metrics.
One goal I wanted was to shift Hard a little closer to Normal. The jump from Normal to Hard was pretty steep, but the jump from Hard to Impossible was no where near as daunting. I know I’ve copped some negative feedback in regards to Hard being a little too back-breaking of a jump, so hopefully that curve is much smoother now.
Numbers were changed, modifiers tweaked, and lots of little things were adjusted. I’ve put a full list at the bottom of this post.
[h3]Elites[/h3]
On top of the stuff above, Elites were a big focus. Right now, a lot of power comes from Elites (the Artifacts are really that good). But at the same time, some of them just felt like freebies. There should be some challenge when it comes to Elites, and fear of taking a few points of damage at least.
The major shakups were Dolus, Bruce and the Hag, the first two getting a pretty considerable redesign - so make sure you re-read those passives! The Hag just had the Thorns toned down a touch to make it less hard country vs certain decks, and a few more tweaks thrown in.
Corpse Beast on Imposible was a run ender. He’s been nerfed quite a bit .. maybe a touch too much, will keep an eye on him.
A few other fights also got decent reworks. Death Knight will have his AP gain happen passively so there won’t be a huge “gotcha” moment around turn 4 or 5. Also Swamp Misteress has had her Totem spawn conditions altered a little as well.
Highest Difficulty
Now, on the character select screen, you should see another option next to Win Streak - Highest Difficulty. This was a suggestion made by the community to allow players to see what the Highest Difficulty they had won on either spec on was. Thanks for the great suggestion!
New Impossible+ Modifiers
I’ve also taken the chance to throw a few new Impossible+ modifiers into the game! The big focus on these was to not just be more deprivation of resources, but more so the ability to actually change and shape the way you play. Some of these include Fog of War, which hides what type of tiles are in front of you, and Ambush, which gives all encounters a Turn 0. Still looking to gather feedback on the costs for these - some are particularly scary! Hopefully they’re enjoyable for those who look to those high difficulty modes !
[hr][/hr]
And with that - I shall return to the code bubble and make progress on the new class. Still no exact dates just yet - but all going well I should have something to show next month!
Thank you everyone for making Vault of the Void what it is! Without you all I’d just be an old grey hair man, making code for no one. All the positivity and great feedback is what keeps this rolling - so huge shout out to you all! I’d rate you all 5 stars if I could ...
...actually now we’re turning into a Black Mirror episode I think...
Oh no.
All for now
- Josh
[hr][/hr]
[h3]Full(ish) Patch Notes[/h3]
Balance Notes
- Bruce: Changed significantly. No longer Vuln immune, but he's now a summoner! Fish are friends!
- Dolus: Has a strong static AP value, and will cause you to gain and lose poison based on the costs of what you purge or play, occasionally siphoning that poison into her own AP.
- The Priest: Passive just deals damage when drawing non-afflictions now.
- Swamp Mistress: Will spawn with 1 offensive and 1 defensive totem, and not deal free damage when you draw a Bane
- Flame Ward: 1 less burn at all levels
- Big Bertha: Her passive is also triggered by a Piglet dying. Angry piggy.
- Birth Pit: Passive also triggers when an Ally dies. Feed also increases own AP by 1.
- Pinkie: Killing 7, instead of 10, fills the Battle Progress bar
- Voidling: 7% less HP
- Pirahna: 7% less HP
- Dragon Whelpling: 25% more HP, and +1 AP and adds 1 less Bane on Impossible
- Dragon Mother: "It could be more on fire." Also +2 AP at all levels.
- Veiled Watcher: No longer scales to all Afflictions, just Banes
- Beast of Malice: 33% more HP
- Hag: 2 less Thorns damage on all levels. Starts with higher frenzy and attacks more often. Her Hex move also burns, and her Bane move also haunts.
- Obsidian Golem: Right Arm has +1 AP on Hard and Impossible, and will use Red Void Stone more often. Significantly more AP on main body across all levels (+2 to +5)
- Death Knight: Instead of an active buff, he passively gets AP when you draw Banes. Starts with higher damage output but 1 Frenzy. No longer uses Shield of Bone, instead forcing reshuffles periodically. He also no longer perma-vulns, instead just applying it as part of the reshuffle move.
- Starcallers: 25% less HP, +3 AP at all levels
- Void Spiders: Only need to kill 3 to fill Battle Progress bar. Higher HP, lower AP, higher Frenzy and Frenzy gain (actual damage output only marginally lower)
- Queen of Ages: No longer cleanses when the player loses HP.
- Scoutlight: Applies 1 more Poison on Hard
- Unholy King: 1 less AP on Hard
- Exalted Warrior: 1 less AP on Hard
- Knight - 1 less AP on Hard
- Nightmare Steed: 2 less AP on Hard
- Skeleton King: 1 less AP on Hard
- Forged Soldier: 1 less AP on Hard and Impossible, and 9% less HP
- Infecti: Passive buffs their AP by 1 less on Hard and Impossible
- Skeleton Minion: 1 less AP on Hard and Impossible
- Forsaken Puppy: Adds 1 less Bane on Hard and Impossible
- Drowned" 1 more AP on Hard and Impossible
- Gloomshroom: 1 less Poison on Impossible
- Bloated: 1 more AP on Impossible
- Blightwort: 1 less AP and 1 more Frenzy on Impossible
- Corpse Mound: Changed from 8x2 to 16x1 attack on Impossible
Bugs/Other
- Highest Difficulty now tracked across all Specs
- New Impossible+ modifiers
- Fixed a small memory leak in the Deck Manager
- More typos
- Then Again will now have the Follow Up glow
- Fixed a bug on re-rolling a card, and it showing the wrong energy cost on upgrade
- Then Again will now only correclty give Delay Block inside of Zen
- Forbidden Pact will now correctly set your Threat based on Card Energy
- Circular Logic Purge is now working correctly
- Fixed a bug which caused cards to go LARGE when prompted with Discard.