Vault of the Void News

Hey everyone - just swooping in with a quick hotfix, which turned into a little more content as well! Also, were at 248 reviews and thats good enough for me! You’ve all been so supportive, I’m overwhelmed, lets release that cardback!

If you head to Unlocks in the Main Menu -> head to Card Backs, down the bottom right there is an “Enter Code” button. Click that and enter the following code:





Massive thank you again, it's so amazing to see! I’ll have to up the ante for 500 reviews for sure - I’ll have a good think about some awesome visual releases - I'll start planning now!

Okay onto the content changes in this tiny hotfix (actually went live yesterday, just getting time to type up notes now.

[h3]The Void [/h3]
Lots of data coming through on that fight - turns out he may have been a bit too stompy to start with! I’ve toned down HP just a little across all difficulties, and tweak AP/Frenzy values on Normal and Hard. The fight should still be a challenge, and stalling too long is really going to cause some hurt, but hopefully now it should give people a touch more of a chance! Let me know how you’re all finding it.

[h3]X Cost Cards [/h3]
There's no surprise that Vault has a bit of Keyword action going on. Whilst it’s probably its number 1 criticism, I do find once familiarity kicks in, the game becomes fluid on that front. However, I’m doing everything I can to try and remove keywords that don’t need to be there. Last patch I removed Probe, this patch, I’ve removed Siphon and Empowered (no one remembers the difference honestly, not even me haha).

Cards affected by this are : Bring the Thunder, One-Hit Wonder, Body and Mind and Cursed Blade. These are all now X cost cards, which people should be more familiar with!



[h3]Vault Blessings[/h3]
There were a few Blessings from the Vault that didn’t translate well to the new fight. I’m sorry for missing those! These have now been tweaked to be relevant again!

[h3]Monster Hover Zoom[/h3]
There was a comment last week about the text on enemies being too small ! I've added a little feature where the card will zoom when you mouseover an enemy. Just a small thing, but hopefully that helps!

Thanks again everyone - work has already begun on the Daughter card expansion, which may drop this weekend, depending on how things go! Then I want to start looking at the Dojo, Avatar Frame rewards and then dive into the fourth class !

Happy Void Hunting!

All for now,
- Josh

Finally - I get to come bearing some good news! Again, I apologize for the delay in the updates over the last 2-3 weeks as I try to sort things out here. I feel like I’m back on track here (both with work and mentally) and excited to bring these changes in!

Before I go any further though - wow! I previewed the 250 Community Cardback, and you all crushed it! This week we passed the 200 “public” reviews on Steam (I don’t think it counts reviews from versions I’ve given away). As of writing this, we're at 240 reviews - so I expect I'll be publishing a code very shortly!!



[h3]I can’t thank you enough for the support - 95% positive, unreal! I sound like a broken record, but for a fella who was aiming for 10 reviews, it's kind of mindblowing.[/h3]

Okay, enough gushing, onto the good bits.

[h3]New Void Fight[/h3]
I put a big post up about my design idea/goal behind the Void fight a few months back. I’ll try not to double back on that too much, but needless to say, my standpoint on things hasn’t changed. However, I do agree that a more “interesting” fight could occur, without the issues regarding hardcountering. So, here it is!



The fight now should be a lot more dynamic than just the standard DPS race it was before. I don’t want to give away too much, but I’ll let you know that the Void is now accompanied by some... familiar friends? The fight itself will mean you now need to deal with a variety of stuff, from trash cards, to debuffs, to large attacks. And in true Voidy fashion, if you take too long, the Void will eventually get bored and start laying some serious smack down.

I’d love to hear feedback on the fight! Feel free to reach out on the forums or the Discord. Whilst there's been a lot of internal testing here, reaching the wider player base will of course give a more varied stats and feelings on the fight in general. I’ll keep monitoring things over the weekend, and will hotfix any balance issues if anything arises!

[h3]The Wicked Worshipers[/h3]
I’ve also gone through and added a new encounter to Floor 2 - the Wicked Worshipers! These fanatical cultists will do their best to stop you on your push towards your goal. As with the Void fight, I’ll be monitoring numbers on this one over the weekend.



[h3]Swift Keyword Change[/h3]
Just a quick note to change to Swift/Combo. Combo will now trigger off Swift cards, not Swift Attack cards. This means that any card with the Swift keyword will react to combo, and cards with "Effected by Combo" have just changed to have Swift. This should keep things cleaned up a bit!

There's also a bunch of bug fixes, new card animations, new card artwork etc as well. A few more UI/particle effects - continuing to try and improve on the quality all around.

Thank you again for all the support and understanding over the last little while. I love to read all your comments and messages and it feels great to have such an awesome community behind Vault!

All for now!
- Josh



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General
- New Void fight! That's right, the long awaited end boss rework is finally here. I still believe this fight adheares to my design philosphy post a few months back surronding the Void fight, but makes the fight a lot more engaging. I'll be monitoring player progress, and adjusting the fight in the next few days as players start to encounter it.
- New encounter on Floor 2 - the Wicked Worshipers! Again, I'll be monitoring the stats over the next few days and tweaking as needed.
- Adjusted how the card back sits in the Battle UI to show off more of the card design.
- Added the new exclusive card back - the public code will be released soon!
- Changed how potions are given in the Daily Draft. It will no longer be 3 Health Potions - instead giving 3 random potions.
- Swift Keyword change! Combo now effects 'Swift cards', rather than Swift Attack cards. Cards that had 'Effected by Combo' are now just Swift cards. This system should be much simpler.
- Removed "Purge" as a keyword tooltip

Cards
- Meteor changed to 3 cost, and increased the main damage to 30.
- Harness Sin changed to: Block 6(9) Purge: Threshold 5(3): Rage 25%.
- Lascerations has had the 'and tickdown' portion of the card text removed.
- Removed 'Repeated Strike'
- Light it Up is now a Hidden Class card
- Removed 'Swift' from Void Kiss, Unleash Darkness, Knife in the Dark, A Little Darkness, My Father's Curse, Cursed Blade

Bugs
- Fixed a bug that would cause Sneak Artist to flash active every turn
- Fixed an issue with spells showing the card off screen.
- Fixed a bug where card discovery was rounding up
- Fixed a bug where Gloom wasn't taken into account for damage prediction on Cursed Blade
- Fixed an issue where the "Shift: Zoom and Ctrl: Upgrade" tooltip was disabled on default profiles. Also moved where this shows up.

Well - it's been a time! I wanted to stop in this week and give an update of what’s been going on, as I know things have been a touch more quiet than usual. Sadly, no patch this weekend, however this update will hopefully show what's coming up!

I’m still adjusting to the major shifts in my full-time work. If you missed the last post, I had a major shake-up in my contract work for my day job, which has sadly led me to quickly have to scramble around for new work. Whilst I’ve managed to secure some work, (which has been a huge relief), the shift in my schedule has taken some adjusting to, and I’m still trying to fix the balance. I’m confident that things will fall into place this week however.

Whilst I’ve still been working on Vault everyday, the duration of that work has dropped pretty heavily. There's probably a fair share of mental stuff going on as well - a side of me reverting to try and ensure my family is looked after and secure, and the stress of that making it hard to work on Vault for extended periods. However again, I think I’m mostly past the fear and uncertainty now - and really, really ready to get things rolling full steam again.

The circle is... interesting. Fear of uncertainty in the day job leading to full focus on that front, which then leads to fear of not updating the game. That then manifests into fear of it dying into obscurity, which drives me to work on it. Which then makes me worry about not spending enough time securing new work contracts haha. It’s some real Lion King, Circle of Life nonsense up in here!

But enough about me! Let's talk card games - and speaking of uncertainty, lets try to remove some of that!

[h3]Roadmap [/h3]
One of the things that is WOEFULLY out of date, is the Vault of the Void Roadmap. I’ve been trying to find an easy and clean solution to keeping things up to date, and showing everyone what's ahead. I’ve been using Trello for my task management for Vault for years now, and it only just occurred to me that a Public Trello board might just do the trick!

If you’re on the Discord, this might be familiar as I previewed this last week. Reception has been good - easy to read and fairly transparent! Hopefully you all don’t mind this format - its a solution that is easy for me to wire into my workflow and keep updated.

Vault of the Void - Trello Roadmap

[h3]The Void Fight Rework [/h3]
This is something that's been on the cards for a while - finally getting around to this. In fact, the artwork is done, and the fight is actually all loaded and in game! I’m doing a touch more clean up on the special effects, then it will be moving to internal testing with the Card Council, and then hopefully out to the Beta Branch mid next week. With any luck, this should be on the live server next weekend, hopefully coupled with the Daughter card expansion!



[h3]Exclusive Card Back [/h3]
One other thing I’ve been working on which I’m excited to share - the first globally exclusive cardback! I’m blown away with all the support and reviews you’ve all been leaving, so I figured it was time to give back! We’re approaching the 250 review mark now, and once we hit it, I’ll be releasing a code to unlock this special cardback. Not only does it look kinda cool (I’m bias I guess, as I painted it..), but it also does something I’ve been dying to try... it moves. Animated cardbacks confirmed??



Well, thats all for me! I’m so sorry there isn’t an update this weekend, but I can promise one next weekend for sure. I’m working hard, back on the horse, and will be back into the regular updates like previous.

Thank you all for the kind message last week also - really appreciate it! Know that all is well here, the adjustment is almost done, and there's plenty more Void to come!

All for now!
- Josh



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We’re here! Sorry about not having a patch last weekend - had a number of real life things come up recently which held me off things for a bit. However this week I was finally able to tie everything together. This is a 90% bug/QoL sweep, with a bunch of new art and animations thrown in as well. It was important to give things another sweep over, bug wise, before starting to dive into new features.

If you’re interested in what has been added, there's a full bug list at the bottom! As usual, I probably missed adding a few things to this list, but it should be pretty complete. Thanks to all who reached out and reported bugs - makes my job a lot easier!

Also, I was overwhelmed with positive responses to the last patch, the UI changes, the card animation, particles etc as well. I'm so glad you all liked them - I'll continue to keep pushing things forward!

[h3]Real Life Update[/h3]
I try to keep any real life/personal stuff out of the notes/public facing side of things - but when things start to affect Vault, I’d prefer to be a bit more open about things.

As of last week - a good portion of my full time work contract, which has been standing for around 3-4 years, was terminated. This is just due to projects moving away from active production mostly, so it wasn’t anything malicious. But it did leave me with a situation where I needed to start looking for work again. As a Freelance Concept Artist (with a family) - this can be a scary time. Needless to say, family and financial commitments took a priority, and Vault had to hang back for a bit.

This isn’t a cry for help! Infact, it seems I’ve mostly filled all my available time with new contracts and opportunities already, which is awesome! I have a very supportive crew of fellow art friends around me who all helped out instantly. I’m very, very fortunate. However, if you are in the need for a concept artist, feel free to reach out - I’m always open to discussing awesome new projects (shameless self promotion)!

So where does that leave Vault? I’ve been pretty intentional about not taking on as much work as I had previously. The goal is to give more time to Vault in the coming months. I’m so proud of the community and player base that has formed around Vault, and I’m very committed to continue pushing things forward. So hopefully you’ll see much more updates in the near future, however it may just take me a bit to settle into the new routine.

Thats it from me - sorry again for getting a little too personal maybe! But hopefully you all enjoy the changes in this patch, and look forward to adding more meaty content in the next few weeks!

All for now!
- Josh



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General
- Default battlefield has been repainted. 
- Void Stones now have symbols.
- Fixed issue with card Autozooming
- Added Delay Block icon near Threat. 
- Minion tag and tooltip added
- Reduced the cost of the Lost Forest Battlefield
- Particles added to Burning and Poison debuffs
- Hex and Stun symbols are no longer the same
- Fixed some typos in monster attack patterns
- Fixed Bleed trigger damage showing rage scaling
- Hex and Haunted will now both show their remaining value
- Buffs that have a timed element will now have a 'ready' animation (Ceaseless and Bulwalk)
- Enemy passive effects have some partciles to draw attention to them 
- Immune and Blessed Plating now have visual effect added over the enemy 
- Grim Glow tweak of effects
- Fixed an issue where card sizing would go weird in the merchant. 
- Fixed an issue with incoming threat now counting Slow correctly. 
- Fixed an issue with Tutorial prompts and stacking. 
- Fixed an issue in the compendium where searching for a Spell would cause some wild issues with the discovery percentage
- Challenge Coins will no longer display over Impossible Plus on the difficulty selector (they can't be used in that mode)
- You can now view the card upgrade on the Mastery screen
- Potion Pack from the Soul Merchant now correctly states that it gives you 2 Potions. 
- Fixed the button for Foot Wraps getting covered up. 
- Fixed an issue with the Map overlay not displaying correctly right after Floor 1 Guardian
- Added a Tooltip to the AP and Frenzy circles 
- Fixed an issue with % in the compendium in regards to Artifacts. 

Enemies: 
- More animations - almost all of Floor 1 is now animated. 

Items
- Fixed a wild bug with Tiny Gong and Silver Gaunlet which caused endless Draw effects. 
- Playing a Balanced card on the last trigger of Knave Katar will no longer cause it to proc
- Fixed a bug with Straw Hat and Blessed Cuffs

Cards
- Over 24 new card images
- Outpace will now count total stacks of fatigue. 
- Prophesized will project damage correctly now
- Cautious Blow will project damage correctly now 
- Exhale is no longer affected by Rage
- Once More With now has a tooltip for Trigger
- Have added to the Stealth Potion text that the card effect doesn't stack

Whew - it’s here! It’s been a long week filled with 4am wakeups to try and get everything finished around work and family - but I’m really excited to get this out! So excited in fact that I really don’t have a full “Patch Notes” list, as I kind of just went on a tear with things and forgot to document everything down (doh!). But the “Visual Upgrade” patch (as I’m now calling it) is finally live.

Before I go any further however - wow, what a response to my post last week! You are all so amazing and I truly appreciate the support and kind words you all left on last weeks dev post. I was bummed to not get things out last week but now seeing where things are at, I’m glad I waited just that extra 7 days! Thank you again - it really does mean a lot, and I hope you enjoy what's coming!!

So to start, I will mention that I’d call this a “Phase 1”. There is still a lot more I want to add, mostly to do with enemies and unique attack/sound effects across the board. I’m also monitoring performance, and ensuring that all the new particles don’t bottleneck things too much. Most of the improvements have been around the Battle screen. This is where you spend most of your time in Vault, and it really needed the most work. I’ve done as much as I can to try and make it more immersive, more digestible and overall, just give it more life.

Let’s checkout the highlights!

[h3]Enemy Animations[/h3]
I previewed these last week! Only a handful done so far - I’ll be adding new ones each week as the animator finishes them. I did have the option of holding them all back until they’re done - but they’re just too awesome! I really think this adds so much life to the combat, and is well worth the time and money investment moving forward. Let me know what you think!



[h3]New Background Particles and FX[/h3]
All backgrounds now have had custom lighting, particles and effects added which - to put it simply - are there to just look damn cool. The slight bits of movement and lighting help breathe life into things as well. I still have more I want to add - with the Cursed Swamp for example - I’d love to get some glowing eyes on the skull off to the side! More to be added to all as I keep pushing things along.

Please note: if your PC starts to struggle with the new Particles, you can turn them off in the options menu. Please reach out however as I'd love to see where things are falling down!

[h3]New Threat Stack[/h3]
So this was a bit out of left field - didn’t expect to jump onto this this week, but I’m glad it got done.

There's been some concern over Vault of the Void’s “streamablity”. Everything in this patch is aimed at helping that problem - make the game more fun to look at. One thing that a lot of people have had issues with in the past is the Threat/Block/HP related stuff. Where is the HP? What is Threat, and how does that translate to HP loss? Also, when watching on mobile, you literally have NO WAY to see the HP (it's so tiny!).

Enter Threat Stack 2.0



Not only does it have a super sweet animated portrait (more on that later!) - but it also has a much easier way to translate the Threat -> HP interaction, with an interactive HP bar (which is viewable on mobile!). Add in a splash of particle effects, a bundled in fight progress orb (moved from the top bar), and I really think this is a step in the right direction. Is it perfect? Probably not! There's been comments about a lot of circles in the UI now, and a lot of similar textures, but I think overall the presentation is much better for new and verteran players alike. I’ll continue to iterate on it in the coming weeks based on feedback!

Another thing this does is remove the Debuff orbs, which generally, was a pretty heavy confusion point for new players. As you all can probably guess, your Debuffs will now sit where your buffs are, but have a nice purple tint to their frame to show their nastiness.

[h3]New Deckbacks and Achievements [/h3]
So for the Achievement hunters out there, I’ve added 6 new achievements - Perfect Fights vs each of the Vault Guardians currently in the game. Of course, I would never ask you to do something without a reward - how's 6 new exclusive themed deckbacks sound?



[h3]Various FX and Sounds[/h3]
All characters have had various sound and animation effects added to their quiver. Bleed has cool new blood drops squirt out, all cards have a “hit” animation play. Corruption grows with little particles and unleashing will send motes of purple out towards the target. Zen and Chain have their own thing going on as well.

Not to mention just a rework across the board. Breaking fortitude has its own sound effect and animation. Enemies with Vulnerable, Weak or Slow also have custom particles that appear, as well as an overlay effect. Lots and lots in there - and as I mentioned, more to come in the following weeks!

[h3]Animated Character Portraits[/h3]
So, let me expand a bit on future plans now. I never started the design for the new Threat Stack with the intention of having a character portrait, it was really just a happy accident. However now it's there, there has already been talk in the Discord about unlockable portraits and frames. I really, really like this idea - and am going to put some things in motion!

One area I really did think it could expand however, is the Streamer/Content Creator Community content. Some of you may have seen the previous examples of Content Creator deckbacks that have been released for various streamers - hidden behind a code, a great way for their community to share something special. I really like the idea of expanding this to Content Creator animated portraits as well, almost like a bundled package. Just in case it isn’t clear as well - this isn’t paid content! It’s all free, hidden behind a “code unlock” in the Unlocks screen.

It's no secret that with Vault, its success is going to be tied pretty heavily to Streamers/Content Creators. I knew this from the start - I don’t have a marketing manager/publisher etc - its just me when it comes to that side of things! For that reason, I really, really wanted to show my appreciation to anyone who streamed the game to their community, or published YouTube content etc - which is why the deckback program exists!

I’d love to expand this more, so if you know of anyone currently creating content, feel free to reach out, I’d love to touch base and see if we can do something up! Also, if you have a favourite content creator you think would like Vault, feel free to pass it along in the hopes we can get something of this ilk going!

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Other than that - I think we're done here for now! I'll be monitoring things over the weekend of course and hotfixing anything that shows up as quickly as possible! I'm really happy with this patch, and I think it does a LOT for the game in terms of visibility and playability. I even knocked up a new trailer to celebrate - so I'll get that uploading on the main store page!

Also a few little bug fixes were addressed, however next week I'll really be focusing on all the reports made in the Discord, and also tracked through the crash logs.

Thank you all for making Vault what it is today. To celebrate, I wanted to show a quick little 1 min recap of Vault and its first 3 months.... The change from launch to today's patch. Enjoy!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

All for now!
- Josh