Vault of the Void News

Hey everyone - just a small little patch this week! In fact, you've probably noticed a few little hotfix patches going out over the last few days. It's just some little bug fixes, more card artwork updates and a few QoL features brought up over at the Discord.

I've done my best to keep a catalogue of the changes here, I'll list them all below.

[h3]So what's next?[/h3]
Next week should see the large Artifact expansion hit the Live branch - aiming for around 20-30 new Artifacts, spread across all 3 classes. I'll put a post up in the Discord when that hits the Beta Branch - but looking forward to expanding the pool. Whilst I think the game is close to 200 Artifacts right now, some more added to the Elite pool is going to be a great thing for run variety (especially in a game where many rewards are public knowledge!).

After that, I've got a decision to make re: where to shift my focus - will update more once I settle where I want to head to next!

And of course, before I wrap this up - thank you as always for the amazing support so far. I read all the reviews & comments everyday and they're so heartwarming - you're all the best! It truely means a lot to me, seeing you all enjoy VotV so much!

Happy Void Hunting!

All for now.
- Josh




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UI/General
- When dragging a Void Stone, socket icons will appear on cards in the deck to imply the ability to drop them there.
- New cards will flash green in the Deck Manager now (stuff you've picked up at Merchants, Booster Packs and room rewards).
- Fixed the display of tooltips for Vault Guardian Blessings showing over the bottom text
- Reworked searching in the Compendium, you can now search for things like "Block 5" and get a list of results.
- Reactive HP bars now work for AoE damage!


Artifacts
- Barbed Gauntlets: Moved to Uncommon
- Book of Arcane Secrets: Added +1 Max Energy
- Ballet Shoes has moved to Rare.
- Cleaned up Rarity display and colour usage across the entire game.
- Compost will trigger once per turn

Cards
- Power Draw has been reduced to 5 (8) damage.
- Purging Upgraded Distraction will now add a Void Coin correctly
- The keyword "Affliction" has been removed from cards.
- Changed the ordering on the Gem processor, so things like All Alone with a Blue stone, can multi-trigger into Discard/Draw effects for boosted Rage, which effect future triggers.
- Soul Roulette fixed, will resolve as even when at 0.
- Added Void Coins upgraded text.
- Fixed Turn the Tide's damage projection
- Fixed tooltip for Limit+
- Fixed issue with Banes not scrapping.
- Fixed Curse Scythe not giving the Rage it said it would.
- Unshackled has its Rage portion fixed.


Bugs
- Fixed a bug where playing Timeless into Multitask which killed an enemy would crash.

It’s here.

A long time coming, this card expansion really challenges the others in terms of sheer content. It ended up being at least 30 new cards, with around an additional 20+ cards either tweaked or changed in some way! There was so much balance and tweaking, that rather than list EVERY card that was tweaked, I added a feature to the Compendium where, if you search this version number (1.3.52), any card that was updated/added in this patch will be shown as a result.



Okay let's dive into some details.

[h3]Daughter Expansion [/h3]
So the goal here was to give the Daughter the same treatment as the Hidden and the Enlightened, expand her pool, rebalance where needed and inject some fun. The Corruption starter decks feels pretty smooth right now, but Soultithe needed some tweaks in a few areas. Namely, how it was conceived as being played.

Often, it would be something where people assumed it was required to be kept under control, increasing a little, and then decreasing a little. A number of cards had token amounts of “Soultithe Reduction”, which I think sent the wrong message. You’ll see a focus here on shifting to a more “Manage ST with Block, rather than trying to reduce it”. Generally, this patch has lowered a lot of the ST gain anyway (unless you lean HARD into it).

The high risk, high reward nature has been emphasised, with more Deathstrike, Rage and Vulnerable entering the toolkit. Stacking these buffs/debuffs together is what makes a Soultithe build really sing. You’ll also notice Grasp took a bit of a direction change as well, adding a little Corruption scaling to the ST deck for some nice synergy options. Plus, Death Striking a Grasp with a little Rage can now pop into some... pretty high numbers. Feels good.



Void Coins are now a thing, as we tried to double down on her Sift/Discard/Recur mechanics. Lots more Discard synergy flooding her kit, doubling down on her playstyle and interaction there.

A couple of new Elite artifacts for her managed to make their way in as well. However next week I’ll be shifting a huge focus to expanding the Artifact pool across all classes!

All in all, the Card Council team has done a phenomenal job with this expansion - I've been working with this team in calls all week to ensure this expansion is smooth and fun to play, each volunteering their time. There was numerous times where watching test runs had me getting carried away with the result. Overall, I’m very happy with things, and I hope you get some enjoyment out of it as well!

[h3]Fortitude Bars[/h3]
Ever dragged a card onto a creature with 10 HP and seen the damage prediction show 11 - a certain kill! Only to be thwarted by Fortitude not being taken into account? We all have.



But no longer! With the new Fortitude Bar Expansion Pack (aka. Me not being silly and dedicating the time required here), Fortitude will now not only appear as its own bar, but will be considered with the reactive HP bars. No more tears - only dreams!

[h3]Void HP[/h3]
Took another look at the stats from the Void fight - and in response I’ve toned down the HP of the Void just a touch, again. From here I’ll keep an eye on things, but I expect it should sit somewhere pretty final now, with any tweaks now coming to the scaling of its AP/Frenzy. The numbers are pretty good right now, but a small tweak here and there may be needed!

[h3]ONE HUNDRED PERCENT[/h3]



Wow ! Thank you all so much for the amazing feedback - over 100% positive reviews over the last 30 days (even longer now actually!). I’m so humbled by the amazing support - I don't deserve it, I can’t thank you all enough! Make sure you’re using the special community unlock code on the Card Back screen:

[h3]Steam250Love[/h3]

To get your special community card back reward, as my thanks to you all!!

That's all from me - it's been a HUGE week here, and I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. Looking forward to hearing all the feedback on the new Daughter tools, and I hope you all enjoy it!!

All for now.
- Josh




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General
- HUGE Daughter of the Void expansion. 30(ish) new cards, with another 20 or so updated! Search "1.3.52" in the compendium to see all changes.
- All Affliction cards now have unique partcile effects when in your hand, and unique card frames.
- The Void has had their HP reduced by another pass.
- New Fortitude bars added, and reactive HP bars will now account for Fortitude.

Items;
- Bleak Contract has been reduced to a Common, from Elite
- 6 New Elite artifacts for the Daughter; Midnight Clock, Compost, Abandoned Pet, Ballet Shoe, Rotten Egg, Abacus.
- Dark Feather is now a Hidden Artifact
- Enchanted Water Bottle is now a Enlightened Artifact
- Poisoning Kit upped from 6 to 8 Bleed
- Cultist Ward is now "When you play a Buff card, Delay Block 10"
- Leftovers is now "Turn 1, Delay Block 15".


Bugs
- Fixed some issues with Unholy Cleansing hitting Fort.
- The CTRL shortcut will now work on cards in your hand (for viewing upgrades).
- Fixed It's here somewhere interacting with X Cost cards.
- Fixed an issue with Shii not displaying on the health bar correctly.
- Fixed an issue with the Voids Phase 2 attacks not counting for Response & Backstab.
- Updated the Void Stone tooltips in the Deck Manager to match the style throughout the game
- Fixed some interactions with Garnet Band, Lascerations and Sanguine Stopwatch
- Removed "Temporary" as a keyword from card text.
- Fixed the Legend showing weird code in text.
- Void's named attacks now count as "Attacks"
- Shadow Utility does its effects in the correct order now
- Unholy Cleansing will now obey Fortitude, as well as serve its damage as one hit.
- Mastery display fixed
- Shield Wall count bug fixed
- Side Step calc issue fixed.

Note: There was a bug in this that would, very rarely, cause Treasure Rooms to throw up a crash! I have now hotfixed this - if you're having this issue, just make sure you're on version 1.3.51! Thank you, and so sorry about that!!

Swooping in this weekend with just a small update. Still working on the Daughter expansion! Her card pool expansion is turning out to be larger than originally anticipated! The Card Council has been hard at work designing cool ideas and ways to push existing play styles even further. The ideas for the new cards are seriously awesome, and I can’t wait to share them with you. For now, let's dive into some UI Goodness!

[h3]Dynamic HP Bars[/h3]
That's right - finally! The long awaited feature is now in. Now, when you mouse a card over a target, not only will you see the total damage projection, but you’ll also get a cool interactive HP bar which displays the effects the card will have. This works with damage, Bleed, Future Strike and Shii, and they all display in their own way.



I still have to work a bit to get it setup for AoE cards, but I wanted to push this out and get some feedback first to ensure that the effect is displayed in a clean, clear way! If so, I’ll push towards AoE cards and also some more particle effects!

[h3]Floor 1 Size Change[/h3]
One of the things I’m always keeping an eye on, is run times. No surprises that VotV is a touch on the longer side of things - and it's something I’m very mindful of. Especially when it comes to Streamers/Content Creators - run duration does matter, a lot. In response to this, I’ve shaved a few tiles off floor 1, adjusted the number of fights and even adjusted the way Events are dished out. The new system is more robust, and will help as we move into the future, and new events are added!

Other than that, this week has just been lots of bug sweeps, Card Council meetings and some behind the scenes work of some cool stuff to come! As always, please keep the feedback flowing, I’m trying to react to as much as I can - loving all the ideas coming through!

All for now!
- Josh

PS. Anyone having the bug with X Cost cards and Multi-Strike - yeah, definitely fixed in this patch! So sorry about that !





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- The Queen of Ages fight has had some AP reductions to help with her balance.
- Wicked Worshiper fight will now award 50% Battle Progress for killing a Cultist.
- Floor 1 map generation has been tweaked to be smaller by a touch, and events/mobs fights adjusted to suit.
- Fixed a few bugs with X cost cards
- New Artifact effect when you pick up a new Artifact.
- The Mastery page at the end of the run has been updated to show more details and information.
- Dynamic HP Bars have been added to all enemies.

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.