Vault of the Void News

First off, I want to start by wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Although a little late, I hope you all had a great time, relaxing, spending time with your family or just enjoying some quality game time!

This patch is a little later than I had hoped - work got the better of me leading up to Christmas, then time with the family over the holiday period resulted in my “code time” being a little less (okay - a lot less) than usual. But it's here finally, thank you for all your patience and I’ll be back into the swing of things now!

Today's patch is more little bug fixes and balance tweaks, with a few more “nice to have features” included. Next week, I have some actual new content dropping hopefully, as I work to expand the NPC pool! More on that to come.

[h3]New Card Frames[/h3]
This is something I’ve really wanted to tackle for a while. I’ve mentioned in the past how I’ve abstained from playing other games in this genre as to try not be influenced by ideas (for the record, I don’t think this is the correct way to handle game development, but rather, one way). One thing I missed because of this, was the fact that often different card types will have different frames shapes/designs so they could be easily picked out when in your hand.

I've had a number of players commenting that they'd like to see something like this in place. I agree! So here we go:



As you can see above, I’ve created 3 unique frame designs - one for Attack, Ability and Buff cards. Affliction cards (used to be named Weakness cards) share the same frame as Buffs, as do Items at this time.

So far the response has been positive from the testing on Discord, I hope the new style works for everyone else moving forward also! I’ll continue to iterate on the design as I go (still trying to find nice “placement” for the class card icon).

Just a note; some of the card artwork is cropped a little tight still. I’ve tended to the really bad ones, but I’m currently in the process of replacing all the card artwork with new, custom artwork, rather than the royalty free pack. Because of this, I haven’t given it as much attention as I would otherwise, as it's going to be replaced very soon!

[h3]Discord Integration[/h3]
One other cool thing I’ve seen other games do, is to have some super sweet Discord integration, where you’re able to view the details of your friends current run. As of today's patch, that should all be integrated now for Vault! It will show your Class, your current run time, if you’re in battle, the difficulty etc. I’ll continue to expand on this further in the coming weeks as I gather feedback!



Other than that, let me leave you with the big Patch Notes below for all the juicy details!

As always, thank you so much for the positive comments and all the positive reviews! It means so much and every review is a massive help in getting Vault out there to more people.

Apologies again for the delay in the patch - lets get this train rolling again !

All for now,
Josh

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1.3.30

+ UI/General;
- Discord integration! Now when you're playing Vault, your friends can peep the details of your run!
- Lots of typo/tooltip corrections and optimisations.
- Removed Peaceful/Enraged creature modifiers. Has been added to the Impossible+ modifiers (Void Blessed).
- I've added a 'Re-enter' button to the Merchant and the Shrine. I plan to add these to most other NPC's in the coming week - if all is working correctly!
- Enemy Attack Patterns are now seeded!
- The player debuff 'Weakened' (can't gain Rage) has been removed.

+ Cards;
- New card frames!
- Weakness cards are now called Afflictions.
- Upgraded Planned Strike now correctly deals 15 damage.
- Changed wording on Opportunist.
- Mind Shatter's damage predictor is fixed

+ Enemies;
- Weavers AP reduced on Hard/Impossible to 2.
- The Caught Passive on the Weavers now inflicts Poison, rather than Weakened.
- The Caught Passive on the Weavers also will reduce your Poison when you kill them.

+ Artifacts;
- Aegis of Ifraem moved to 10 with a max of 15.

+ Spells;
- Scavenger has joined the Mimic and Arkaos in 'Timeout' (removed from the game).

+ Bugs;
- Fixed the Bloody Ledger bug!
- Tea Leaves won't leave fractions of HP anymore.
- Treasure Goblin's Loose Backpack now triggers on Shii kills
- Issue with Sweltering Heat fixed.

Wow - that was a week!

Between getting horribly ill on Sunday/Monday and being restricted to bed, to trying to fight through the recovery process so I could actually get stuff one ... here we are! I want to start by apologizing that this week's patch isn’t more “substantial”. I had all these grand plans for new content and great things, but it just didn’t go!

However I think it was a good time to step back and really crunch through a few “interaction” bugs, and little quality of life things. The new UI feedback has been so well received that I’m starting to now double down on things and revisit other areas that need work, as well as continued clean up and condensing of tooltips.

I won’t spoil the surprise and let you all know that there are new card designs hopefully being released next week - unique shapes for each type of card! It’s going to be great, but I’ll keep it secret for no- oh wait...

Amongst all the bug squashing and text wrangling however, I did manage to add a semi-frequently requested feature... let's dive into that now.

[h3]Seeding[/h3]
Having not dabled in this genre of game before in my spare time (intentionally, trying to keep my ideas fresh and unbiased where possible!), when people first started asking for “Run Seeds!!” I figured it was an obscure Plants vs. Zombies reference. I added the Gloomshroom encounter to hopefully stem the tide of “Run Seed!” requests... but alas - it didn’t help.


After googling, I realised what you were all after! So whilst it's still somewhat experimental, I’ve set up the ability to edit/input your seed before starting a run! This is done in the bottom left of the Class Select screen. Seeds are always 8 digits, and can only be digits! Once entered, I’m hoping I’ve managed to ensure that all elements are controlled correctly. I’ve done a number of test runs and also had things sitting on the Beta Branch for a time - but please let me know if anything feels “off”.



Also, as someone who isn’t as well versed with this feature, especially compared to you all out there - if you would like it extended to other areas, or adjusted in some way, please let me know! Happy to make this work in the best possible way!

[h3]Mimics[/h3]
I figured I should at least give a quick paragraph explaining my rationale behind the removal of our beloved toothy companions. Firstly, let me start by saying, Mimics aren’t gone for good! They’ll be back! There was a lot of feedback in regards to Mimics and how, generally, they weren’t a positive experience. It did mean, if you wanted to play optimally, that you would remove all Void Stoned cards from your deck before ever hitting a Treasure Room. What was a fun element of RNG (I had hoped!) turned out to be more of a frustration. The first time people encountered a Mimic was generally “Oh hey, Mimics! Thats awesome!”. Subsequent visits were generally greeted with more flavourful cursing.

They’ll be back! But for now, they’ve joined Arkaos in the “Encounter Naughty Corner”. More on their return later!

Other than that folks, below is a big long list of all the stuff I managed to record fixing this week. As usual, a few things may have slipped through the cracks. I’ll also keep an eye on things over the next few hours and push any hotfixes required to plug any random breakages!

That's all from me - as usual, a massive thank you to all the support and reviews and lovely comments you all send me every day. It's so humbling and I hope I can continue to provide a fun experience for you all! Expect another blog post this week talking about Void Stones, in something I’ve titled “When Less, is More...”. Other than that, I’ll leave you with this beautiful piece of artwork of Mr. Mimic and Arkaos, by Mr. Balance-and-numbers himself, Dabor!



All for now!
Josh

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1.3.27

+ Cards;
- Scattershot's Bleed segment will no longer increase with Rage.
- Sleight of Hand now works on Destroyed cards (Oh hi there Volatile Hidden Blades). Upgrade has increased to 3 cost though... (no, don't look here, look back at the awesome buff!)
- Dance of Darkness now has Gain 2 Corruption on Upgrade, like its base card.
- A Little Darkness has lost Inert.
- Lacerations text updated to hopefully be more clear.

+ Artifacts;
- Blessing of Weakness has been buffed to Weak 4/Vulnerable 4.

+ Spells;
- Ghost Blade now gives 1 Hidden Blade.

+ UI/General;
- Seeding! Still definitely something I want to keep an eye on, so please report any oddities!
- The Seed for your run will now show up in the Run History. Runs done prior to todays patch will just show a '-'.
- Fixed the wording on the Swift tooltip.
- Have fixed the tooltips on Artifacts so that they won't go off the screen anymore.
- Have reworked the way tooltips/card rewards show on the map so they shouldn't block path viewing. I still think a good solution maybe to have the "card reward" in a fixed location on that screen, but will chase up more feedback on this.
- Viewing the upgraded card on a map reward will update its tooltips to show Upgraded Tooltips dynamically.
- Redesigned the Elite Artifact choice dialogue and presentation.
- New art for the Void Stone bar.
- Worked on cutting down more tooltip length.
- Have sent some Inspectors down into the Vault to check all Treasure Chests. It's been confirmed that all Treasure Chests are 100% not Mimics, until I can rework the Mimic encounter/interaction to be more pleasant.

+ Bugs;
- Fixed an issue where hitting F12 would toggle Fast Mode.
- Fixed an issue where you could use a Mastered Card on Cooldown.
- Fixed Ornate fork being off count by 1.
- Fixed a bug on the Class Trainer where he was eating cards.
- Amythyst Spyglass will now work each turn.
- Option to disable the Zoom/Upgrade overlay on cards now works correctly
- Splattered Sawblade now works for Cards only, as it should.
- From Dust and Bloody Ledger now interact correctly.
- Disabling the Blessing during Vault Guardian fights will now save, so if you edit your deck, you won't need to disable it again.
- Fixed the alignment of the Essence icon on buttons in the Merchant
- Ice Wall will no longer be affected by Sweltering Heat
- Sleight of Hand will no longer Destroy instead of Expel.
- Sleight of Hands damage will no longer bypass Fort.
- Sleight of Hands tooltip now matches it's card effects.
- Fixed a few issues with Festering Scars and Lingering Injuries.
- Opting into Impossbile+, adding some modifiers, then backing out and choosing another difficulty will no longer cause you to have those modifiers active (Normal+ anyone?)
- If you've fully mastered a class, you won't have to skip through the Card Mastery screen anymore.
- Max Instabilty will no longer go up by 2 extra than it should.

It’s here! As promised, Impossible+ has just been added and is available for those who have won an Impossible game, and hence unlocked the mode. I’ll give the lowdown on how Impossbile+ works below, but I’ll also just do a general re-cap of what has changed this week.

Starting off with a big thank you to all who have left a positive review! It helps so much for just a single bloke trying to make something interesting! To see the number on Steam almost at 100 is wild and so humbling - massive thank you!!

As usual, its been a super busy (read: sleepless) week, coupled with me heading off in a direction I didn’t expect. As many of you know by now, I like to lurk around in Streams and watch any videos that get posted to YouTube etc. One thing I’m constantly hearing is re: text size, and accessibility. Enough was enough - I needed to spent more time on this, that was super clear. My apologies to anyone who has had a bad time viewing/playing Vault, I’m hoping tonights patch is a good push in the right direction in terms of UI changes.

[h3]So what’s changed?[/h3]

• Firstly, fonts are larger, pretty much across the board. Some of the intro/blurb text needs addressing still but card fonts, tooltip fonts, and top bar fonts have been updated. The font is thinner, and cleaner to read.
  
• Card backing colour has been lightened to help with contrasting text
  
• The top UI bar has increased in size a lot, with new icons and layout to help keep things clear
  
• The Runic Power bar has moved to permanently sit at the top UI bar, rather than being on the board during battle.
  
• The Threat Stack now contains your HP and Round number. A note on this, this is the most questioned change so far through Beta Branch testing this week. I’m hoping next week to set up an options menu where players can customise what’s shown in that bar.
  
• Card Keywords are now sitting at the bottom of the card, in a dedicated name plate.
  
• There's a few other small things like using colour to help separate stuff, and placing common elements that other games use and players are used to in more common positions. Vault already changes a lot when it comes to gameplay, having some familiarity in some places is going to be a good thing I think.
  

[h3]Impossible+, or, choosing how you’d like to die...[/h3]
So this system has been designed for a while now and I’m so happy to finally have it in. I wanted to provide something different to the usual linear progression based + systems, and the Instability system is the byproduct of that.



You’ll start with an Instability of 5, and the more your win, the more your max Instability will increase. You have full control over what modifiers affect your run. Costs are still being evaluated and even more options are planned - feel free to throw feedback at me! How far can you get? Excited to see some Instability 25+ challenge runs happening.

Coupled with the system is the Instability Setup sharing system. This allows you to set up a configuration, copy the code to your clipboard and send it to a friend (or enemy!) so they can take a shot as well! One note about this, the code is very long. I’ve got a new system which is being tested right now and should replace this long code with a much more manageable one next week!

Other than that, it’s game on. As always, I’m very keen to hear your feedback on the system and can’t wait to see who can take some of those high level Instability Achievements.

And yes, there are some exclusive backgrounds and deck backs on their way for those who are able to take down those higher level Instabilities! Coming next week...

As always, feel free to head over to the Discordand fire up a conversation. And thank you again to all who have left such awesome reviews!

Next on the Roadmap - a new class!

All for now,
Josh


Edit: Forgot to add the actual Patch Notes! Sorry!

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1.3.25

+ Gameplay/UI;
- Impossible+! As promised, Impossible+ is here. Read all about the details in the Steam post!
- Many, many UI tweaks - more changes to icons, fonts, layouts etc as I continue to try and polish the UI.
- Lots of Tooltip changes to help cut down on the 'bulk' of things.
- You can now right click on the map popover to mark hexes.
- New Potion quick bar on the pre-fight screen.
- Void Stone effects on cards will now show in Orange.
- Card text scaling on longer cards.
- Lots of little minor QoL changes (many which I forgot to document! Doh!)


+ Card Changes;
- Juggle is now a 1 cost
- Mithril Blades is now an Uncommon


+ Bugs;
- Discord button now links correctly!
- Lots of minor card interaction bugs.
- Battleplan will no longer reset after each fight.
- Death Blade has had its damage prediction corrected.
- Eroding Sanity on Impossible+ shows correct projection now.
- Spell corrections.
- Metor's Purge ability is no longer effected by Rage .
- Haunted tooltip updated.
- Many Block cards have had the Block keyword added.
- Shield Wall will show the correct numbers now.

I'm back! The ill timed family vacation is over! I appreciate everyone who reached out - it was a lovely break, but I’m ready to dive back into regular updates - and that starts now!

Whilst away, I was able to squash a number of bugs that showed up. There is still more on the list, and I’ll start moving through those tomorrow. Trying to keep abreast of Discord, Reddit and the Steam Forums, whilst also lurking in streams/videos where I can. Anything that I miss, feel free to poke me about!

Two big things to discuss here, lets start with:


So I figured it was time to start acting like a real developer and put together some sort of plan! After googling “video game development plan for sale”, and not getting anything worthwhile - I decided I guess I better write my own (I joke of course. The one I posted was 100% just a purchased template).

In all seriousness, there are still a few things to add, however this gives a good base for the things I’m looking to move on in the coming months. I’ll continue to modify and add to the list as things come up, feedback rolls in. There's already 3-4 things I know I need to add - so hopefully will cycle back shortly and get those in.

For those who are interested, you can read the sticky post right here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1135810/discussions/0/2968398851793589786/


One of the goals with Vault was to limit randomness, or have it exist in a more controlled state - hopefully that much is apparent! One system of randomness that still existed was the Potion system, how sometimes after a fight, a Potion would appear. Sometimes it wouldn’t. Sometimes you’d roll into the Void fight with 10 Potions banked up, sometimes you’d only have 3. I liked the interaction of how Potions worked, but I wasn’t 100% sold on the delivery.

I’ll admit - this idea is one of my famous “give it a punt, see how people like it!” ideas. I think it fits better to the core tenants that Vault is trying to adhere to - and also hopefully adds another decision point for players to engage with.

From now on, on certain mob tiles, you’ll see a small “potion” icon. This icon lets you know, upfront, that a Potion reward will be handed out after finishing the fight. Each floor will have 4 of these tiles. The “type” of potion is still hidden, however you’ll know that a potion is guaranteed upfront.

I’ll continue to gather feedback on this change over the next few days. The number of potion tiles, the transparency of which potions are inside etc is all subject to change - however hopefully the idea behind why it's done is something that I’ve conveyed well enough!

Oh - and they all have new artwork!



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Asides from that, below is the big list of changes! As usual, a few things may have slipped through this list, but hopefully it contains all the major points!

I’ll be honest, there will probably be another patch tomorrow as I have a fair chunk of time during the day to knock out a bunch of bug fixes and changes.

So until then - happy Void hunting!
- Josh

+ Gameplay/UI;
- The Rare Artifact for losing all cards in Backpack event has changed to give an Elite artifact instead.
- Future Strike will now also show a progress bar above Enemy HP (works alongside Shii for double stack).
- Enemy HP bar will now go yellow if they're immune
- New Potion reward system and artwork.
- New mouseover for zoom/upgrade hint overlay to declutter the tooltip sections.
- Keg of Lucky Rum has changed
- Aftifacts have changed to be larger
- When selective Discard is active (Fear, Blue Gem etc), cards are now lower so they won't block your Buffs.
- If a hex is highlighted due to being selected in Map Rewards, you can now right click the hex to remove it from Map Reward tracking.
- Have move the "Take Souls and Essence instead" button down a touch on the Artifact choice screen.
- Whilst holding a card, you can now Right Click it to drop the card.

+ Bugs;
- Fixed a typo on the Challenge Coin tooltips
- Fixed an issue where exiting on Map Rewards after a Guardian fight would cause your map to be bricked.
- Fixed an issue where Rusty Scythe was causing all manor of random targeting issues.
- Fixed the icon for Hide being WAY off.
- Reworked the text on Barbed Gauntlet.
- Fixed a projection error on In Cold Blood
- Fixed Jade Mantis not doubling AoE Shii effects
- Class Trainer has been fixed to allow for re-rolls
- Fixed a bug which caused cards to be duplicated if you click SUPER FAST in the deck manager.

Whilst I’m away this week, I wanted to take some time to put together a few articles covering different aspects of design for Vault of the Void. The first thing I wanted to tackle was the Void fight itself, as it’s something that has come up a few times already, both on the forums and in the Discord. So let’s dive in!

I want to start by clearing something up. The following explanation isn’t me trying to prove I’m right. Heck, I’m just some bloke from Australia who’s learning on the fly - I’m no more qualified than anyone else! What I want to do is provide my thought process behind why things are the way they are, and use that as a platform to encourage and invite discussion on the subject.

When I originally designed the Void fight, it was very different. All versions were, and there were... several. There was an age when “Void Shackles” existed, a mechanic that eventually got ported to what we know as the Black Coach fight. There was a time when the Void would gain AP for every point of energy you spent. Blade Hidden loved it. There was also a time when it scaled based on cards played, and de-scaled (like a coffee machine?) based on Purging. I could go on, but I won’t.

It came to a point where I had to decide what the Void fight should be. There's several factors I wanted to consider:

[h3]Runs in Vault take a long time[/h3]
Not a LONG time, but a fairly decent time. Whilst veterans clock in around 60min, it's not uncommon for runs to hit the 90-120min mark. I wanted to keep this as part of the consideration when it came to the Void fight. Which leads into the next point

[h3]No one likes to hit a hard counter[/h3]
This is core to pretty much everything in Vault. Whilst you have the ability to sideboard in cards, no one likes to hit that one fight which just hard counters everything you do. Don’t get me wrong, there was a point in time when that happened. In fact, I lent into it, hard. Taking a Bleed deck into the Ghostly Piranhas fight was almost certain death. Originally I thought this wasn’t a problem - I telegraphed the upcoming fight to the user, they just need to adapt their deck more! It turns out that wasn’t fun for users. No one likes to invest into a build only to have the game say “Ah, sorry no.” (doesn’t matter how politely you do it!) Also, there's a fine line between “good sideboarding” and “oh my - this is a chore”. Swapping in a timely AoE card or bringing Slow instead of Weak to a high Frenzy fight is the good end of Sideboarding. Doing a full deck rebuild mid run, it turns out, isn’t.

In Vault, encounters will propose challenges to your deck, but not counters. The Berzerker will punish your Hidden Blade build, but with smart play, an elegant deck or a bit of luck, you’ll still be able to get past it.

The Hag is going to punish a Future Strike build more than others. Bleed may have a harder time against the Ghostly Piranhas. The Black Coach might cause a slower Corruption deck a bit of pain. But at the end of the day, these should be challenges, not brick walls.

[h3]The End Game should lean into the Player Agency that Vault is built around[/h3]
This is where the Vault Guardian system comes from, and will lead into my point. I wanted there to be some heavy challenges when it comes to the end game, but one that allows a player's prior knowledge to inform their choices and make their job easier. Queue Vault Guardians.

Each of these present the aforementioned “challenges” in a strong way - but knowledge is key. Whilst fighting the Spidernest with a full Ability deck is possible, it can be tough. The Queen of Ages may be defeatable with a Bleed deck, but it won’t be easy! The Vault Guardians act as counters and challenges to your deck, but presents players with a choice on how to approach them.

[h3]Cue the Void Fight[/h3]
So when it comes to the Void fight, given the above points, I wanted to ensure that it was the opposite of the Guardians. It shouldn’t be a counter to certain deck types. Players should be able to fight the Void the way they want, with the deck they’ve lovingly created over the past 90min+.

If you spend your time perfecting the most awesome Bleed deck, and it’s instantly countered the moment you walk into the Void fight - that would suck.

So what if there were different types of Void fights, and the player was informed which one they had to fight at the start of the run? Whilst that is technically possible - what happens when you’re in the mood to play The Enlightened, and you roll into a run where the Void retaliates with damage every time you attack it? Delay Block would suddenly feel pretty worthless. Do you re-roll? Do you invest 90+ min on the hope you’ll be strong enough?

The Vault guardians are presented at the start of the run so the player can plan around it. Choose the Blessing they want, or picking the Guardians they feel they have a chance against. The key here is that there is a choice. You only need to fight 2 out of the 4.

So with all this in mind, I designed the Void fight as a Victory Lap. You’ve fought everything there is to fight. You’ve beaten two Vault Guardians. You’re 90 min in and you’re invested in your deck. You have the combos, the play style, the methods all down pat. Vault gives you the tools to make this happen. I often say that Vault is a combo builder - I want to give you the tools to make the filthiest deck you can. Here's all the cards available on the floor. Cherry pick what you need to get the job done!

Once you get into the Void fight, in my mind, you’ve already won.

I believe in this so much so, that in the analytics system, I actually count getting to the Vault as a Victory. The Void fight is there to give you, the player, a chance to show how strong your deck is - in a near perfect scenario. They aren’t going to counter it, they aren’t going to make your life hard with funky mix ups and change up mechanics. They’re going to do two things:

1. They’re going to have a lot of HP
   
2. They’re going to scale. Fast.
   

It’s a race. And make no mistake - it's a tough fight! But if you’ve set things up right, and the cards have fallen your way, you should be set up to take it on. How quickly can you bring down 2000 HP of hurt that Attacks every 2 out of 3 turns?

So that's why the fight is designed the way it is. Is it right for everyone? Probably not. There's several angles one could take when designing that last fight. It also doesn’t help that on Normal difficulty, he can feel like a pushover a little. However when it comes to Hard and Impossible, you really do need to have things trimmed down and running well to overcome the challenge.

I hope this helps shed a little light on what went on inside the old coconut when it came to this encounter. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below - I’ll be sure to read them as I always do and respond where I can!

That's all for me - until next time!