Vault of the Void News

Wow - that concludes the first week of Vault of the Void being live in Early Access! A lot happened, including even being in Full Release for a few hours (doh)! Lessons learnt, changes made and 2 things really stand out to me:

1. I still can't believe how kind you all are, and the amazing comments you've left. I really, really appreciate it and love the fact you're enjoying the game!
   
2. Pirates really are a real thing eh!?
   

Lots of patches have gone out this week, including some awesome new stuff for the Blade Hidden. More artifacts to come next week, and some more love will be passed out to the Daughter as well, as the data is continuously monitored to make sure everyone is getting a fair go!

In terms of data, you all have been crushing it. Nearly 50 million damage dealt in the first week!



One thing of note, this coming week I’ll actually be away from the keyboard for most of it - a family holiday booked (in hindsight), at an inconvenient time (when we booked it at the start of the year, I didn’t expect to have Vault released!). However I’ll still be patching any bugs that show up whilst away, but it may be a little lighter on the patches for the next 5 days or so.

A few members of the Discord have been talking about the Steam awards as well, and I’ve got some lovely messages regarding nominations for Vault (mostly in the Innovative Gameplay category). Whilst I really do love the appreciation you all show for what I’m trying to do with Vault, I’m also terrible at asking for reviews, let alone award nominations! (imposter syndrome much?) I won’t do that here, but I do want to put out a public “thank you” to all who have done so. Really does mean a lot!

So beyond next week - where next? Early December, all you Impossible players can look forward to Impossible+, which is almost ready to go, a few rounds of internal testing yet to play out! Then, as we progress further into December, look forward to hearing a bit more about the next class which will be added hopefully before the end of the year!

Onwards to the contents of tonight's patch (it actually dropped a few hours ago but only just got a chance to type all this up!)

Happy Void hunting!
- Josh

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+UI
- HP Bars will now be Blue if the creature has Fort.

+ Cards;
- Unholy Cleansing now stacks.
- Hidden Blade no longer has the Draw keyword
- Upgraded Juggle will now work correctly


+ Bugs;
- Fixed an issue with Blade Belt trigger on non-attack cards.
- Fixed Skeleton Mage's fight tips to explain the AP increase is when losing HP, not suffering Threat.
- Killing Blow will correctly show a Daze card now.
- Dark Mime will now show the alternative cost to Souls (Void) in it's tooltip.
- Added to the tooltip for Voids to ensure players know it won't take up deck space.
- Steam Screenshots now work!
- There is now a Random Battlefiled option, meaning each fight it will pick from one of your unlocked Battlefields!
- Have upped the texture pages to 4k, monitoring performance issues, however should notice less lag when switching scenes.
- There is an option to turn off Custom Cursors now, incase you're experiencing mouse lag
- Music Levels have been adjusted
- Fixed a bug on the Map Generation

Before going any further, I wanted to take the time to give a massive thank you to all who have left a Positive Review on Steam. You can’t even believe how much it begins to help things - and I’m so humbled by all the support! Thank you so so much!

Tonight's patch comes with some pretty big changes! I wanted to take the time to give a bit more of an explanation as to why things have changed, rather than list them all off. I’ll do a full list at the bottom but at least for the main points, I’d like to dive into some details!

[h3]Run Length[/h3]
One thing that has been debated quite a bit over the last 6 months is Run Length. It’s true that Vault is on the longer side of things, and whilst Veterans have runs down to around 60-90 mins, it's not uncommon for new and intermediate players to be looking at a good 2-3 hr sit down.

To be clear, I always said I wouldn’t just change map length for the fun of it, but after talking to some other players, one thing is pretty clear. By about middle/two thirds through Floor 2, your deck is pretty much done and you’re ready to go. By that point, you’re either going to be fine in the Vault, or you’ve got some hurt coming. I always said if things were going to change, that would be around the spot I would tweak the map.

So I made the change! Floor 2 is now 2 columns shorter. That does mean there is : 2 less mob fights, 1 less Treasure Room, 1 less Shrine and 1 less Merchant. It’s been playtested over the last few days and it feels pretty good, but please feel free to fire any feedback to me! Depending how you path, it may shave a bit of time off your runs, but the big thing is it will make Floor 2 feel like it's ending at the right time now. Hopefully!

[h3]Blades, Blades and more Blades[/h3]
So this is a big change - and whilst I see you readying the pitchforks, please give me a chance to explain haha! I like data. A lot actually. I look over all the data on win rates and winning decks everyday to try and pickout trends. I also watch streams, I lurk in a lot of them, and I get to see what people enjoy about different builds. One thing that's been bugging myself and the card balance volunteers is that Blade has a few things showing up, namely:

1. Quite often, Combo will be used in conjunction with some of the big 2 Cost Neutral cards to hit hard. Seriously, Combo 3 and a Wound or a Planned Strike can carry a run. That doesn’t feel very bladey.
   
   
2. Hidden Blade upgraded is great. No, it’s fantastic. Actually, to be honest, it’s probably better than a lot of Rares in the game. A 0 cost multi-trigger that doesn’t eat combo is so fun to play, but it's also so very strong. Like, “should-not-be-a-common” strong. Especially a Mastery target. Also, any deck that contains one (or heck, 2!), has a very high win rate. Turns out Block 16 or Rage 100% for 0 cost is really good. But it’s fun.
   
   
3. People love tossing Blades. The giddy smile and maniacal laugh they give when a handful of blades show up makes that pretty clear. In contrast to point 1, that does feel bladey.
   
   
4. There was a heavy requirement to get 1-2 of the Buff cards going for the Blade Build to really take off.
   

So this patch, lets put the Blade, back into Blade.

• Firstly, Wound, Do Over and Planned Strike have lost the Swift tag.
  
• Secondly, Upgraded Hidden Blade has changed to read;
  Deal 3 damage. Balanced. Inert. Rebound.
  It no longer loses Inert but has gained Rebound.
  

But wait! As I mentioned, that card was fun to play. I love fun as well, which is why there is a new Rare card called Stiletto, which is basically the Hidden Blade you know and love. You can still get it, but you will no longer be able to get a free hand out at the Mastery screen.

But wait! We wanted more handfuls of Hidden Blades! There's no handsize limit for a reason! I know - thats why 5 new cards have been added to the Hiddens pool which do just that. Let me preview one of my favourites:

Blade Upon Blades - 2 Cost Swift Attack
Deal 8 (11) Damage. Gain 1 Volatile Hidden Blade.

These cards have a lot of flavour and add a bunch more Hidden Blade generation to the Blade spec. They’re also spread across Rarities, so check them out!

On top of that, I've also added a hanful more Artifacts for the Hidden specifically! Now the fun really begins. Lets take a look at one of the new ones:

Blade Belt: When you play your 4th Attack in one turn, gain 2 Volatile Hidden Blades.

At the end of the day, this is just a long winded way of saying that Blade should now feel more fun, and much, much more Bladey.

[h3]New Playmats[/h3]
It's not all doom and gloom! There are 2 awesome new Battlefields available to unlock under the Unlocks menu! (Although, if I was to give them a theme, it would probably be Doom and Gloomy).

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And now, for the full details. As usual, theres probably a few bugs I didn't document fixing, as sometimes when I'm in the trenches I forget to record all the details!

1.3.10
+ UI/General
- More colour tweaks to card text
- Floor 2 Map has been shrunk by a small margin. 
- 2 New Battlefields have been added!

+ Artifacts;
- 11 new Elite Artifacts added (Global and Hidden) 

+ Cards; 
- Do Over, Wound and Planned Strike have lost the Swift tag. 
- 5 new cards added to the Hidden's Card Pool. Main Gauche, Juggle, Trigger Phrase, Leading Edge and Blades Upon Blades


+ Bugs;
- Blessing of Efficiency will no longer affect cards outside of battle
- Added a buff icon for Potion of Energy
- Taste of Blood vs Bruce now shows the correction damage
- Popup when reslotting a Stone as the Daughter will no longer say it will be destroyed
- Fixed the tooltip card showing at the top of the screen, rather than above the card. 
- Spell Child will now actually take your Essence, instead of dishing out his wares for FREE! 
- Side Step will now show block cap when vs'ing the Dragon Mother
- Blessing of Stealth will now give full energy. 
- Fixed an issue where one card in hand would cover Buffs
- Spells from the Guardians will now unlock in the Compendium 
- Music will no longer double up if sitting on the Main Menus too long

Another day, another patch!

Before diving into this however, a HUGE thank you to all who have left a review on the game so far! Your support continues to blow me away and I'm so thankful!

Also, this weekend I'm looking to have around 30 new Elite artifacts added to the game! That patch should drop around Friday/Saturday. Also - for those asking for direct mouse input, I have a solution for this and will be deploying that hopefully in the coming patch also!

Now, onto the good bits!

+ UI/General
- Minor text/spelling corrections
- Tweaked colours for Keywords and Upgrade text.
- Fixed the Tooltips showing underneath the opening choice window sometimes.
- You can now Pet the Dog.
- The Void Stones currently in your backpack will appear along the top bar at all times now!
- Class Trainer: price has been reduced, and multiple re-rolls will increase the chance of higher rarity cards!
- Increased the delay for tooltips on cards in hand.
- Fixed an issue when you have 1 card in hand, and it being cut off.
- Save Deck will now default to the Deck Name previously saved.

+ Cards;
- Hidden Blade buffed to 3 (4) damage
- Grasp has had its Threshold pushed up by 1, but will now check mid card processor that the condition is met.
- Opportunity has changed. Quite a bit - might be easier to look it up in the Compendium!
- Fixed Self-Inflicted Agony increasing Threshold on Double Play

+ Spells;
- Blade Hidden starting Spell has changed to 'Combo 1 and add 2 Volatile Hidden Blade to your hand'. 4 Turn Cooldown.


+ Bugs;
- Voids can no longer be removed from your deck using Right Mouse
- Have changed it so you can get Potions in Introduction mode now. I see you Keg of Lucky Rum Intro runners!
- I'm still chasing down the bug where the game crashes very rarely when drawing cards. I've adding more debugging to help track down the issue.
- Fixed Flurry of Blows going a bit silly with triggers.
- Fixed a bug with Dragon Mother's ability capping Bleed text on cards.
- Lots of other small tweaks and bug fixes based on crash reports.

Hey everyone, finally got around to pushing this one live over the last few hours. Lots of little bug fixes, a few new features. I've been monitoring the Crash Logs and trying to tend to anything I find as quickly as possible!

Thankfully, this patch will fix the Texture/Memory issue that some were getting. As mentioned in the notes, it does mean there may be a short 1-2 second black screen now as I have to reorganize/optimise the texture pages. Hoping to get that done this week as well.

Also just a note - thank you to everyone who has left a positive review! I appreciate that so much, it's really, really helpful!

Diving back into the content patch for this weekend, which may or may not contain a good 30 or so new Artifacts! (it does).

+ UI/General;
- Auto Zoom function added which will automatically zoom all cards when you mouseover, rather than requiring the SHIFT key.
- Major change to the Texture Pages. This has fixed the "Hardware/Memory" issue that people on Laptops and lower end machines were suffering, however it does mean I have a bit of reorganising to do. For now, you may get a 1-2 second pausing when starting the game and entering different pages the first time.
- Disabled tooltips when the Menu is open.
- Increased the dealy of card tooltips showing up when viewing cards on the Map.
- The Battle Progress bar will now remain on screen when filled, with the message about having the room completed.
- The Difficulty slider will now remember your last runs selection.
- Cards will now show up on the left hand side when mousing over a hex, if it would cutoff the tooltip

+ Cards;
- Bleed keyword is now showing up as it should
- Zig Zag will now correctly show the number
- Fixed a projection error on Side Step
- Wave of Focus upgrade fixed
- Fixed a crash with Meteor
- Fixed a crash with Memento Mori

+ Bugs;
- Removed old particle scripting that was causing odd crashes.
- Removed the Dull Blades Achievement temporarily
- Fixed a bug which would let you buy Artifacts twice
- Sneak Attack damage prediction changed when fighting the Taxidermists
- Fixed some issues with Particle systems causing crashes
- Fixed a bug on decktile images causing a random crash.
- Fixed a bug which caused a crash on the Class Trainer if you had no options to trade in.
- Can no longer End Turn when picking Elite Artifacts
- Lots of other small bug fixes and typos

Here we are! Nearly 24 hours since launch and it's been a busy time! There was a number of little hiccups along the way, but none quite as big as :

[h3]Releasing the game into "Full Release" instead of "Early Access". [/h3]

I'm not even sure what went wrong there. All I can do is apologize to anyone who thought the game was a "Full Release", I'm so sorry - it wasn't intentional. Thankfully Steam had it fixed within an hour or so, so things are back on track.

I wanted to quickly update everyone here on a few things:

Discord Link! Click me
This is probably the best way to log bugs and reach out at all. There's a collection of over 1200 like minded Vault delvers around, sharing decks and talking strategy. There's also a bug reporting bot, and also an opportunity to log feedback.

Bugs!
This brings me to my next point - game crashing bugs! The big one that's out there right now may have an error message like this:



This is a hardware/performance issue, and a strange one. To recap the tale, we had a Beta tester who has been playing the game for around 12 months, close to 350hrs logged on one machine. As of yesterday, he started getting this error as well.

It’s usually on laptops or slightly older machines. The fact that it has only just happened makes me think it's solvable. However reverting back to older versions doesn’t seem to be fixing the problem for these people. I’m going to keep debugging this one and try to find a solution.

Roadmap
This is a big one and I need to spend some time putting it together. I’ll need the next week to just handle the small bugs showing up, but I’ve got some great stuff planned heading into December. Once I get a handle on all the bugs/minor issues, I’ll lay that out in a more public sense.


Thank you again to everyone who picked up the game, and especially to those who left positive reviews. I’m so glad to finally get to share Vault with the world, and I hope you all enjoy playing it as much as I did making it!