Vault of the Void News

So it’s not a joke - there isn’t a patch this weekend :(

I’ve been super busy getting this one going and I want to give it another week to get things tested and fleshed out a bit more. It’s exciting - let me explain... (this will probably be wordy).

One of the things I’m quickly learning with this whole “game development” thing (still have to quotation mark that as I still feel like an imposter haha), is that there are two lists.

• List of “Things I Think I’m Going To Work On”
  
• List of “Things That I Actually Work On”
  

I’ve been pretty transparent with this. If you look at the roadmap - (which I really need to fixup this week!), you’ll notice that the 4th class should have been out by now. The only reason it isn’t is because I shifted focus. Whilst I thought the 4th class was the next thing to be added after launching back in Nov, I had a lot of feedback come my way about UI issues, small text, boring card design etc etc. It became apparent pretty quickly that I needed to fix this - so I jumped over and switched focus. A lot of the feedback was “There's plenty of content here for now! Just present it a touch better please!”

That was the first case of the two lists clashing. Player feedback won that battle - and always will. I try to pride myself on responding as quickly as possible to feedback, bugs etc where I can.

So when this week started, I was keen to get into a meeting with Card Council about new Daughter cards, look at some new card artwork and then implement the new Void fight... (uh - spoiler tag?). But one piece of feedback has been showing up often enough, and that is :

[h3]Vault is a super fun game to play! But it’s not great to stream.[/h3]

First time I heard this I thought, and rightfully so, it was because of the UI. I’ve reworked that a great deal back in December and the feedback has been super positive. But the truth is, Vault still lacks that little bit of “punch”, that zap that keeps things interesting when watching someone play. It’s different when you’re behind the cards, because planning your path, card play order and combo searching is pretty satisfying. And if you understand the game - watching someone do that is also satisfying. But if you’re new - Vault definitely lacks that sparkle that draws you in, and makes you want to learn the game.

This is due to a number of things. The enemies being cards probably doesn’t help. But it's also due to a lack of special effects, particles, sound effects and movement during battle. So this week, I rolled up the sleeves and got cracking on things.

At this point - I’m pretty much hand auditing every fight. I’ve added new sound effects and overlays for Vulnerable, Weak, Slow, Fortitude gain - even breaking an enemies Fortitude now plays a special sound and overlay effect!

There's also a bunch of new stuff for each class. The Daughter has nice little particles shoot out each time she gains corruption, and motes of energy that suck into her Corruption globe as it grows, and then fire out at the enemy when she Unleashes. Same treatment with the Enlightened and the Hidden - new sound effects when Blades are summoned. Bleeding an enemy will cause blood particles to fly out in every direction.

Oh, and the enemies now move? Neat.



(I’m totally underplaying that - I LOVE this new effect).

Going through each spell, each attack, each ability etc is just taking some time however. Which is why I’m going to leave it for another week to try and make sure I get everything. Not to mention, I’ll need to now profile this build on lower end machines to ensure all the new shiny stuff doesn’t bottleneck anything. The process of getting all the enemies moving is going to take a touch longer, however I’m happy to drip feed those in over the span of a few weeks. The animator is working hard (and doing an amazing job!)

So that leaves me here - empty handed. Sorry I wasn’t able to get something out but I’d rather save all this and drop it in one nice big patch next weekend.

So until next week - thank you all again for the positive reviews and excellent feedback and bug reporting. Closing in on 200 reviews which is so exciting! I’ll be sure to show more on the Discord and on Twitter as things progress! Look forward to releasing things soon!

All for now.
Josh

F's in chat.

Hey everyone - not a huge patch coming in here this week - mostly just Bug fixes and QoL stuff. There's a cool new Deck Back and Battlefield design for those who have managed to snag certain Instability Achievements! Other than that, more artwork, some more animations and general smoothing out of things. Oh, I also redesigned the Difficulty Selector to look a touch more “professional” - I hope you like it!

As always - full list of bugs etc are down below. Huge shoutout again to all for the positive comments towards Vault, and for all the Bug reports and text error reports over the last little while. I’ve been trying to fix things as quickly as possible!

I also noticed today that we've hit 150 reviews on the Steam page, in a little under 3 months! This is amazing support from everyone and I apprecaite everyone who's taken the time to leave a review - it helps so much with things!

Two things of note! Esty8Nine, who has been a huge supporter of Vault from the start, will be streaming some Vault of the Void on his Twitch channel tomorrow! Be sure to check him out if you’d love to watch some Vault gameplay, and to throw him some love and support!

Also, Zérodaim from the Discord server has been working hard at getting the Bot up and running inside of Discord. You can see this in action over at the #wiki channel right now, however it can be used anywhere. If you ever need to remember what a card does, you can fire off the [[Card Name]] command in Discord now and have the magic robots spit back an instant answer! Huge thank you to Zero for the work there. There are plans to expand this to Items and Tooltips as well!

Other than that - have a great weekend and happy gaming!

All for now!
- Josh



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[h3]General[/h3]
- New UI for Difficulty Selector
- The Card Back and Battlefield rewards for Instability 20 & Instability 50 achievements have been added to the game.
- More updates to card artwork!
- Have standardised when 'Volatile', 'Scrap' and such cards are discarded. This happens at the End of Turn, which is, after creatures attack. This is of note for those who use a lot of Volatile cards in fights such as the Taxidermist.


[h3]Card Changes[/h3]
- Unleash Darkness has had its Discard effect added to the base card, and upgrade tweaked.
- Backpedal and Nick have been removed from The Hidden Mastery. Replaced by Slick Strike and Main Gauche
- Zig Zag has lost the Discard tooltip
- Fixed a few cards that weren't showing their spawn cards on mouse over

[h3]Bugs[/h3]
- Potion Quickbar will now show the Potion card on mouseover
- Exit to Menu has been reworded to 'Save and Exit'
- Card Auto-Zoom will no longer effect tutorials in a negative way
- You can now drop Void Stones on cards that are "greyed out" in your backpack.
- Cards will no longer have the subtle movement when being zoomed.
- Mastery Card info text has been updated to be more clear.
- Flask of Purple juice now works in the Vault.
- Skeleton Mage will now show a tooltip for Confusion
- Sifting an Infection card will now correctly Destroy it.
- New Bleed artifacts removed from the global pool (doh!!)
- Fixed the Missing Translation error on the Mastery page
- Fixed the Void card showing when mousing over the Void's ability.
- Fixed Upgraded Stability damage prediction
- Fixed an issue with Potions and Daily Draft adding too many times.
- Potions will now show when clicking back to 'All' in the Compendium
- Fixed Underhand Tactics upgraded projecting more damage that it would do.
- Fixed Agility not giving Max Combo when played at Combo 3.
- Fixed Open Up not co-operating with Bleed effects/items/abilities. So yeah, it does now work with Regal Monocle...
- Opposing Force will only glow 'Opener' on base card now.
- The Discard effect when using Blue Void Stone, Fear etc has now got a limiter on how wide cards can expand out and better logic on the top most cards. This should stop energy/combo being covered.

Howdie all, hope everyone is keeping well!

This week's patch is here! Big shoutout to anyone who gave things a run on the Beta Branch to ensure a smooth transition. I’ll keep an eye on things for any immediate issues over the next few hours and hotfix anything that comes up. Let's dive into the details!

[h2]The Hidden Card & Artifact Expansion[/h2]
So the Enlightened got his mini-expansion last time, it’s the Hiddens turn. The main focus of this patch is to do a few things, including;

• A few more sources of Combo’able Bleed
  
• Introduction of Clot, and generally making Bleed a touch “faster”
  
• Add a few of those “fancy” cards.
  

In total, there were a couple of notable card changes (small nerf to For the Throat, mechanic changes to In Cold Blood and Gutted), but a total of 17 new cards, and 8 new Artifacts.

Clot is a new keyword mechanic. What it allows you to do is remove a little bit of Bleed for other powerful effects. Let's look at one of the new cards,

Bloodthirst: Deal 7 (9) damage. Clot 2: Gain 1 Energy.

With this card, you can play it for 1 Energy, and then remove 2 Bleed off the enemy to gain 1 Energy, essentially making the card free! Oh, and did I mention it’s a Swift Attack?

There's lots more to digest, feel free to dive into the compendium and check them all out. Not all the new cards have Clot, but here's a screenshot of the ones in game at the moment.



[h2]New Encounters[/h2]
In an effort to keep expanding the game, but also to reduce the amount of “double up” fights on a floor, Floor 1 has 2 new encounters! The Errant Scoutlight and Forged Soldier have both been dropped into the Vault, and ready to stand against you. As these are both new fights, I’ll be keeping a keen eye across all difficulties and adjusting balance as I need over the next few days.

There are lots of other things - small bug fixes, QoL changes, new artwork, new animation - lots to digest! I’ll keep this one a bit shorter and hopefully expand with a video later this week. I’ll list a larger list of full notes below as always.

Thanks to all again for playing Vault of the Void ! Appreciate you all spending your free time on this little project!

Also, in case you missed it, Vault is on sale right now for 10% off! Time to get

All for now,
- Josh




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[h3]General[/h3]
- New Cards and Artifacts for the Hidden.
- A bunch of cards have had their images updateded!
- Cleaned up the Mastery screen design a little.
- 2 new enemies have been added to Floor 1! The Errant Scoutlight and the Forged Soilder.
- Cards will now glow when they have Opener, Follow-Up and Sift effects, and the appropriate timing is active.
- New card frame design for Volatile cards to make them easier to stand out.
- New animations for many different areas of the game!
- Battle damage now flys off in a very satisfying way.

[h3]Monsters[/h3]
- Change to Ghostly Piranhas, they will now only gain their Frenzy the first time they suffer a debuff in the entire fight.
- Adding a visual phase to the Death Knights "Call to the Curse" ability, to avoid the sudden "WHAT THE F- JUST HAPPENED?"


[h3]Cards [/h3]
- Draw Blood is now; Deal 5 (7) damage, Bleed 1 (2)
- Sneak Attack changed to 9 (12) damage, and reduced to 2 cost
- Grapeshot has had the Swift tag removed.
- In Cold Blood no longer has Bleed transfer effect
- Gutted has had its Purge effect removed and now will transfer Bleed on slay.
- Veil now has the Block tag.

[h3]Bugs[/h3]
- Using your Mastery Re-Roll, you'll no longer get the same card.
- Fixed Stoneskin ability, will actually taunt now!
- Seeing Red will now give the corect amount of Rage.
- Opposing Force text changed to refect the card.
- Return Spell can now be cancelled.
- Playing an Expel card whilst Hexxed won't cause it to Expel.
- Scrap on Zig Zag now works.
- Lots of other small interaction/text changes.

Just a small update coming in this weekend - few tweaks and small bug fixes! Still preparing for the Hidden’s card and artifact expansion hopefully coming next weekend.

Thanks to all for the support as always - enjoy your weekend of Void Hunting!

All for now
- Josh




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[h3]Patch Notes: 1.3.40[/h3]

General
- Reworked the class overviews! They should be a bit easier to read and not so wordy now!
- Adding tooltips to the Deckbacks that require Achievements so you can see what the Achievement actually is!
- 2 cards have been swapped out in the Enlightened Mastery pool.

Balance/Reworks
- Bacon Bomb Spell now also grants Delay Rage 25% for each discarded card.
- Opposing Force is now 4x2 instead of 2x4
- Soul Spot costs 1 less across both base and upgrade
- Pickled Hand now triggers on every second card, not third.

Bugs
- Fixed some bugs regarding Sift.
- Added damage previews to Escalate.
- Fixed Future Strike's colouring and tooltip when using Calculated
- Fixed a bug on Calculated sometimes not applying Vulnerable to all.
- Fixed a bug that caused Blood Siphon to crash very rarely
- Added some additional tracking to help solve a random "Purge" crash that has appeared.
- More tooltip tweaks
- Fixed a rare bug on the Game Over screen.

I’m late - I know... sorry! I promised 48hrs after the Dev Blog video went live, however I’m just a touch over that - wanted to ensure everything was smooth when going live. So here we are!

Again, I have to start out by saying thank you to all the loyal players out there - all the messages and reviews - thank you so much! Looking forward to keeping this fun train rolling! Let's dive into the details...

In case you didn’t watch the video, here's what’s big in this patch.

[h3]The Enlightened Card and Artifact expansion![/h3]
Enlightened is the first class to get their Card/Artifact expansion, and this one sees over 20 new cards and 15+ Artifacts to digest! The major goals here was to help increase run variety with more commons, but also to make Echo Wall more of a thing you can lean into. Also, to give Shii a little boost at closing out fights. Some fun stuff in there for helping with those higher HP mobs, and enemies with stacked up Fatigue/Shii.



[h3]Impossible+ Guided Mode[/h3]
This was introduced to help with the overhead of getting started with Impossible+, and also to bring some familiarity to players who are coming from other games of this genre. Basically, the freeform method of Impossible+ has been very well received, however it does have an issue with overloading information at first entry.

Now however, I’ve set up a custom Guided mode, which will allow you to have all the modifiers filled out from Instability 1-30, creating a familiar “ladder” type climb. Of course, with one click of a button you can take your Guided mode over to Custom and tweak a few of the modifiers you either don’t like, or put some in that you prefer to play with.



Overall, the goal is to create an easier entry point for new players dabbling in the Impossible+ game mode. When you’re ready to crush out that 50+ Instability achievement however, you’ll need to dive in and get things setup in a custom mode!

Those are the big features, however there's a number of other things added, on top of a bunch of bugs and text corrections. Most are listed below, but as usual, a few things probably slipped through the cracks!

If you msised the Dev Blog video posted the other day, you can catch it here:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thanks again to everyone for your support on Vault of the Void! Next up, the Hidden gets a Card/Artifact expansion, on top of a clean up to the Class Overview and a few tweaks to card Mastery.

All for now!
- Josh

+ New Stuff;
- The Enlightened has been added to the Daily Draft!
- Impossible+ now has a guided system, rather than only being custom setup! 
- New cards for the Enlightened! Over 20 new cards added, expanding Echo Wall, and helping with Shii and closing out fights (plus other fun stuff).
- New Artifacts for the Enlightened! Over 15 new Artifacts added between Merchant and Elite varieties. 
- New Achievement for killing the Void in Daily Draft.  
- New card artwork for a selection of cards 
- New VFX for added in a number of areas. 

+ Bugs;
- Fixed an issue where Hex wasn't being reduced at the end of turn. 
- Fixed an issue where the sound for the Void Stone Bar filling up would go forever and ever and ever. 
- Fixed the floating battle damage text stacking oddly. 
- Banes from the Spell Cursed Ward will now trigger the Delay Block on Cultist Ward correctly. 
- Fixed a bug during Daily Draft that would cause the re-enter button to appear.
- Made icons appear for tooltips on Artifacts.
- The small amount of lag/hanging between screens whilst textures aren't loaded should be fixed! Will be monitoring to ensure this doesn't affect performance too much! 
- You can no longer double pray at shrines by Menu hopping! 
- Fixed the hitbox on Artifacts for tooltip display
- Fixed how Deliberate and Fatigue interact
- Potions should now correctly get "discovered" in the Compendium. 
- Delay Block won't be capped during trigger from Overwhelming Strength, however the gain of Delay Block will follow the rules for Overwhelming Strength. 
- Fixed score issue in Daily Draft 
- Many more tiny fixes as logged inside the Discord Channel.