Vault of the Void News

Two exciting things to announce. I guess I'll lead off with this...

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I’m not sure there's much more for me to say there :)

Stay tuned for a Beta weekend coming up - most probably over the weekend of the 1-3 of October. Exciting stuff!

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The other big news is, Vault of the Void was officially selected for the PAX-Aus Indie Showcase ! This is a huge honor, a massive thankyou to all the players who have helped craft Vault into what it is today. I’m not 100% sure what the full details entail right now, but expect more information as we move closer to the date!



Thats all for now - again super sorry about no updates the past few weekends - but everything is being poured into getting Tempest ready to go!

See you all soon

All for now!
- Josh

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 !

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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



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[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.

Okay - so it's been nearly 2 weeks since the Sins and QP crossover event went live. In that time there's been a lot of great feedback and positive responses! There's also been a lot of little hotfixes, including one I just pushed last night. I figured it would be a good chance to recap them all, and let everyone know about what is being worked on next.


Thank you everyone for the great feedback on these few things. So it looks like the change to Max Instability is a positive one, so I’ll be keeping that as is for now. Same with the new Discovery stuff in the compendium, and the air of mystery.

However there are a few who would like to tweak options like this. And so I’ve added a new “options.json” file:

%LOCALAPPDATA%/VaultOfTheVoid/

Here you can tweak your Max Instability to be higher if you like, alongside turning off Card Discovery in the Compendium. This won’t affect you actually discovering cards, it will just disable the “???” released in the last version.

To be clear, the games goal and intention is I+Custom capped at 50. That's where decisions will be made around. However, for the people who want to remove the breaks, there is now a way.

Keep in mind, you'll still need to work your way up to your set Max Instability. Setting it to 100 doesn't mean that 100 will be unlocked automatically - you'll still have to work your way up there! It just moves the upper cap.


So as we edge closer to the 500 Steam Review mark, I can reveal a little more about what I plan to release in celebration. It won’t be a Deckback this time, instead, it will be the first code unlocked Battlefield.

But, it won’t just be any Battlefield. I’m currently sorting out the technicals, and once I have things locked down I’ll start showing previews. But expect something fun and interactive.


So next week I’ll drop a small patch which will have a few things. Firstly, a couple of new Instability Modifiers, generally aimed at changing the way the game is played, rather than deprivation of resources. These won’t be for everyone, and for some people they’ll be a great addition. The beauty of the I+ system is being able to pick and choose what you’d like to play with, so trying to lean into that a bit more.

Also want to get some stat tracking across specs on the Character screen, a full balance pass on all encounters, smoothing out that difficulty curve a bit. A few other small things, and then...
Work officially begins on the Tempest, the next class.

And when I say begin, it’s more just implementation. The design has been there for a good 12 months now, I just decided to prioritise UI, readability and fleshing out the content already in game first. I can truely say I'm happy (proud?) of this stuff now... so let's get rolling!

What's the timeline? It won’t be a 1 week turn around, but it also shouldn’t take as long as you may think ... stay tuned!

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Other than that, thank you everyone for the kind words and excitement over the two new events - it seems they are very well received. I’ve included a full patch notes below re: all the bugs I’ve managed to fix over the last 10 days. A few new ones were reported this morning, I’ll try get those fixed up later tonight as well!

All for now!
- Josh



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[h3]Full(ish) Patch Notes[/h3]

Overview
- Fixed some issue around Shii, Rage and the damage preview showing odd things. In a twist of events, the damage preview was actually correct, but th e application was wrong. It was, for some reason, doing (Shii * Rage) + Fatigue. I've now changed that to (Shii + Fatigue) * Rage. Not sure how I screwed that up and missed it - sorry about that!
- Fixed a crash that seemed to be from returning players and the old void stone system.
- Sin cards can now correctly be duped at the Dark Mime, and they'll go to your Deck as intended!
- Dragon Mother's Sweltering Heat will no longer effect Shield Ward
- Dragon Mother's Sweltering Heat should no longer effect Artifacts
- Dragon Mother's Sweltering Heat should no longer effect Ice Wall's Purge
- Passing Pawn wasn't working correctly on cards with Expel. That's now been fixed (it's a Purge ability, so Expel shouldn't have been blocking that).
- Fixed damage preview not accounting for Band of Resilience.
- Fixed Recycling Bin erroring on Expel cards (same bug as above)
- Forged Soldiers Blessed Plating will now correctly be popped by Artifacts like Cracked Sundial etc.
- Fixed a lot of incorrect interactions with Expel, Haunted and the new Void Stones.
- Fixed Haunted not ticking down correctly for additional triggers. At Haunted 2, a Swift card with a Red stone with 2 Combo will now correctly tick down 2 instances of Haunted, and give you 25% Rage for the last trigger.
- Fixed Inert not working on spawned/upgraded cards in some instances.
- Fixed Loop not being completley random (was seed locked)
- That'll Sting had a few problems with previews. All resovled.
- Abandon Run popover has had the buttons switched to be in the correct order
- Flaying Flesh now shows upgrade number in green
- Fixed a bug that allowed you to hold CTRL and play a card as upgraded. (yikes)
- Upgraded Gluttony will give delay draw for Volatile Cards/Afflictions
- Fixed an interaction issue with Celerity, Theifs Tools and Discarded Keys
- Compost correctly returns on purge, rather than create a copy.
- Fixed Afflictions gaining the Rebound arrow
- Fixed the Rebond Stone not working with Inert cards
- Adjusted the text on Kings Stone
- All card artwork is now in! There's probably a few I'd like to still look at, but for the most part - it's all done!
- More typo corrections

Finally - the patch I spoke about 2 weeks back is ready for play time! Thanks everyone for being so patient, and doing your best to ignore that bug (I see you Well of Stars, offering people the same Artifact!!).

Let’s dive in...


So I’ve been chatting with the developer of QP for a little while now. We spoke a few months back of potentially doing a crossover - and it's finally here! First, go play QP now - it’s a great game and super unique (and challenging!).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1328530?utm_source=collab&utm_campaign=vault

Now let’s talk about Queen's event in Vault of the Void. You’ll now have a chance of finding Queen on Floor 2. She’ll have a collection of chess pieces floating around - look closely and you’ll see something you’ve all been asking for.



New. Unique. Void Stones.

Yup, 16 in total, some class specific, some random to the run. I’m not going to spoil them all in here.... okay maybe just one:

[h3]Queen’s very own Void Stone is pretty simple. Trigger +1. Yeah... have fun :) [/h3]

Also - for fans of QP, you can claim your very own QP deckback in game - use the code "checkmate" (no quotes)!

Anyway - I really hope you enjoy the event! As always, a close eye will be kept on balance with the new stuff, and any changes I’ll let you know in next week's post!


So Floor 2 got an event - how about Floor 1? You know it.

The Reflections of Sin event is one I’ve been planning to get in since I started working on Vault. I’ve always been in love with the idea of a 7 Deadly Sins themed event, and after tossing around some ideas in a call with the Card Council - it’s finally a reality. And I couldn’t be happier.



On Floor 1, there's a chance you might run into a little Apple icon on the map. Once inside, you’ll have a chance to reflect upon things, and a chance to embrace 1 of the 7 Deadly Sins (personified in Vaulty fashion of course!). For doing so, you’ll suffer a Void (or 2), but each Sin has its own unique playable Affliction card. And they’re all pretty good.

Each one also comes with its own Achivement, and each Achievement comes with it’s own Deckback. Yup, you guessed it. Which one are you going to be hunting for?



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[h2]Daily Impossible+, and a little discussion about Imp+ moving forward[/h2]
So, first the good news! Daily Impossible+ is in the game now! A daily random selection of modifiers set to Imp+30, so you can just jump in and have a rip. It will also set a Seed for you based on the Dailly, but you’re free to change that if you wish. Why Imp+30? That might become more clear next.

Forgive me, this is going to be long.

So first, I’ll start by saying - I don’t claim to have all the answers - I’m learning a lot of this as I go! I do ask for a bit of leash where possible based on this - I’m more than happy to take feedback and make adjustments, especially where I get things wrong. Which I think I have here.

There’s been a bit of talk in the Discord recently about Imp+, the level of difficulty, and the intent. Previously in the game, if you set ALL the modifiers on, you’d reach Imp+66. Based on what I hear from those players, this is definitely in the realm of “not every seed is winnable”. This could also be translated into “not super fair”. Most high challenge players I spoke to in the early days, ran the modifiers up to Imp+50, grabbed the Achievement, and then settled in around Imp+30 for their “casual play”. Imp+30 is around the zone where it feels like, with perfect play, most seeds are winnable. I won’t say all, but this seems to be the zone where the challenge is there, and players seem happy.

That was how I figured the system would be used, so I never put a cap on the Imp+. However, it's become more and more clear that, if a scale goes higher, then many players do feel they’re not beating the game at it’s highest difficulty. And once they push on beyond 30+, hitting high 30’s, early 40’s, it’s becoming more and more frustrating. I totally get this - playing on Imp+30 when Imp+66 is available feels wrong to those who want to play at max difficulty. I totally agree - I can honestly say I think I screwed up a bit here.

So here’s what I’ve currently actioned, and where I’m looking to move to.

[h3]What I've done:[/h3]
As of this patch, I’ve capped custom mode Imp+ at 50. You can’t go beyond that. Guided still stops at 30 and Daily is set to 30. Custom you can push it up to 50, and get that last Achievement.

[h3]What I’m thinking about doing:[/h3]
Based on feedback, I’m thinking about lowering that cap to 30 for Custom as well. This means a few things - it means that the “max difficulty” of the game will be Imp+30. This is a pretty sweet spot, it provides a challenge, but also isn’t unfair to the player. There will also be 3 ways to experience it then, through Guided set, through Daily set or through custom, where you can share setups with your friends.

Achievements will move and change accordingly.

The thing about this change is that the modifiers still work the way they’re intended. They work as a way to provide players with challenges that they get to custom set, turning off things they do or don’t like. Allows for the option of challenging friends with different setups. Most of all, it allows me to add many, many more modifiers, and by doing that, not also randomly increase the max difficulty of the game.

Thanks if you made it this far - I’d love to hear your thoughts! Any high Imp+ runners feel their experience would be lessened by this change?


10 new cards, a couple for each class, are now in as well! You can find them in the Compendium, if you search for 1.3.78! Again, because they’re new, back to holding artwork sadly but I’ll have those replaced by next week hopefully!


Small change to the Compendium I wanted to try out. Now, cards that you haven’t discovered will have their details changed to read “???”. However, “discovering” cards now just require you to pick it up on the run, rather than “play” the card - then it will become unlocked to view the details!



All in all, there's a bunch more changes! You’ll see a new logo, new way of presenting updates on the Main Menu, more particles, lots of bug fixes and more! I’ll post a full list down below.


Before I go - I mean, wow. This week Vault of the Void hit 97% overall on Steam reviews. That's... mind blowing. I have no words to express how thankful I am, and that you all enjoy Vault as much as I enjoy making it! We’re getting closer to 500 overall reviews as well - I’ll have to start getting my act into gear and get a Community Reward ready to go!

Thanks everyone - I hope you really enjoy this update :) It’s been easily the most exhausting to cram in for me, but I’ve had a blast. Now, time to catch up on sleep!

All for now.
- Josh



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[h3]Full(ish) Patch Notes[/h3]

Overview
- New Floor 1 Event - Reflections of Sin
- New Floor 2 Event - Queen
- New Achivements for the Sins event
- New Card Backs for the Sins Event
- New Log artwork!
- Compendium ordering has changed, and so has the discovery method and display.
- Particles add to reshuffling cards
- When you enter Zen, an orb will appear letting you know in a more noticable way, the amount of card plays remaining
- Removed Volatile from all Hidden Blade generation - it's just a part of the card now that its a token card.
- Have switch button orders around on Popovers (Accept is now on the left). Please be careful, sorry for having these around the wrong way.
- Daily Instablity is now in!
- Max Instability set to 50. Likely to change again, please read above!
- Can now see your Instability details when mousing over the item.

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Cards
- Blood Siphon reduced to 0 cost.
- Timely Maneuver block has dropped a touch.
- State of Mind is now a 2 cost.
- Cohesion Block upped by 1
- Spirit Essence's Energy clause changed.
- 10 New Cards added!

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Bugs
- Fixed Punching Bag with new enemy spawns
- Soul Collector shouldn't sell you stuff you already own anymore!
- Fixed Flask of Blue Juice not giving the 20%
- Fixed Escalate to stop being silly during Dragon Mother fight.
- Fixed an issue which allowed you to get multiple spells from the Swamp Witch
- Fixed typo on Forgotten Fuse.
- Fixed an issue where viewing the Map would make it a bit scrambly
- Fixed an issue with Swift Hand.
- Fixed a bug with Red Glasses and Crystalized Ichor when interacting with 0 Bleed (with Garnet Band)
- Ornate Fork now counts Fatigue
- Jade Mantis now counts Rage
- Fixed the re-roll issue (no really this time)
- Fixed Lascerations triggering on 0 Bleed
- Can new view upgards in Lost and Found
- Buttons in Lost and Found shouldn't be clickable underneath stuff now
- Seive vs Sieve spelling war has been won
- Quick Smith will now upgrade Void Coins
- Put a fix in place for the Class Trainer re-rolling the same card
- Unholy Cleansing damage should show its name in the Combat Log
- Re-Roll on Boosters shouldn't roll the same card anymore. "Shouldn't"

I know, I know. I said I wasn't going to patch until Aug 16th....

Sorry for lying! In truth, there were just a few lingering issues I wanted to fix up. The good news is - everything is still on track for the Aug 16th patch. Still not too much info to give out... yet. Hopefully more this week!

I won’t go into too much detail today, this is mostly a bug fixing thing. However, a few things of note:

• Have added a nice little symbol around card energy for when a card is going to Rebound.
  
• Have fixed up seeding issues on a number of rooms, including Class Trainer, Soul Merchant and blank tiles. No more save scumming for those sweet Black Stone rolls
  
• Fixed Muted. Yeah... sorry about that one.
  
• Treasure Goblin will now always Flee on turn 4 - which means all you Monk players won’t have the rage inducing turn 3 flee, as you watch your Future Strike just... run away.
  

There's a number of other interesting bits and bobs - most of this came last weekend where I had a few hours to just hang out in Discord and rapid fire a few community issues.

And now, I shall disappear into the shadows until Aug 16th!

I’ll leave you with this;




All for now!
- Josh



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[h3]Full(ish) Patch Notes[/h3]

Changes
- Seeded several areas of the game that were broken, including the Class Trainer, Soul Merchant, and blank tiles
- Lots of Typos
- Fixed the tooltips on the Soul Merchant Random items
- Added an icon for Rebound to cards, with a tooltip.
- Fixed an issue which would mean you'd get the same cards in the Draft
- Fixed Muted
- Added a card tooltip to Baby Dragon
- Added Fatigue source from Prayer Beads to the combat log
- Fixed Unholy Cleansing not stacking right
- Added more effects to Artifacts when they're ready to go
- Chalice will now correctly glow blue on 7 not 6
- Fixed Leverage doing silly things
- Treasure Goblin will now always flee on turn 4, instead of random 3-5