Vault of the Void News

Wow - what a patch this one is. There's a lot that's gone on over the last week, so much so that keeping notes of all the changes became a task in and of itself. I'll keep things brief here with a quick rundown :

[h3]Card Changes [/h3]
One of the biggest changes yet. When Vault first started, cards were all contained within a "Global Card Pool", and each class just had a Artifact which would change the way they interacted with stuff.

As time has progressed, despite my reluctance at first to move to a full "Class Card" pool, I've begun to embrace the idea. With some amazing help from some of the community members (Gradiusic, Jinsaku, Knockout and PROPH37 in particular!), the massive task of reworking the card list, upgrades etc has been completed for The Hidden. The Hidden now, most importantly, feels great to play.
- Two distinct "builds", Bleed or Blade. Choose to use Bleed to debilitate your enemies, or use fast, low cost Blade cycle with Hidden Blades and Switchblades to cycle cards and apply damage.
- Bleed has now been moved over to a Class specific skill, unique to The Hidden.
- The Global Card Pool has been cut down, and all cards left have been tweaked in someway or another to make the generalised, and appealing.
- Upgrading cards should feel hard now, as all upgrades have been tinkered to suit better.
- Strength play has been massively reduced.
- Hunted and Leech have been removed
- Card Unlocks has changed, it's an automatic process based on your Void Points. The rewards shown aren't super tailored right now, and will be getting a pass in the next update.

The best part is, the second class, Daughter of the Void, is already in testing and will be released to the Beta hopefully this coming week. Expect a completely different play style as you master the art of Corruption!


[h3]Difficulty[/h3]
There has been some concerns re: difficulty. Whilst we had some players playing on Impossible and asking to make it harder, we also have some players (me included sometimes!) playing on Normal and struggling. Finding that balance is hard, and that's the main goal of this Closed Beta. A few things have been addressed here:
- Continued monitoring of data from fights, and many adjustments have been made. The curve has been tightened, and I feel like it's pretty close to a good spot.
- The "inbetween" issue. Sometimes, Easy is too easy, and Normal is too hard. Or Hard is too easy, but Impossible is stomp mode. I want players to feel challenged, so I implemented a Modifier system (again, thanks Gradiusic from the Discord channel for the idea!). Now, on each difficulty you'll be able to set "Peaceful" or "Enraged" as optional modifiers, tweaking the difficulty just a touch each way.


[h3]New Event System [/h3]
The event system has been overhauled. No longer do we have "Good Events" and "Bad Events", but it's been rolled into 1 "Event Tile". Lots of choices, lots of side effects. Now that system is in place, I'll be expanding the Events in the days to come, adding lots more!


[h3]Optimisation[/h3]
There has been a few reports of some performance issues. I've made a bunch of optimsation changes, so looking for feedback to see if thats helped some players - let me know!


[h3]Stances [/h3]
In for a few patches now, but just a reminder of the Stance system. Feedback has been great, so we're going to keep going with this in place.


There is a lot more than what's above, including new Creatures and Guardians!

Thanks again to all the players, and if you would like to join the Closed Beta feel free to get in touch, or join the Discord!

Till next time!

- Josh

CLOSED BETA: PATCH NOTES 0.2.7.0


[h3]Movement Changes[/h3]
I've reverted the movement system back to a way we had it previously, in a very early build. Basically, it's added the option to move diagonally now, which is the simplest way to explain it. This original way of moving, players liked, however I made the change to "always forward" under the assumption that making hard choices (this node or that node?) gave more decision points to the player, and a better experience.

Since then, the feedback has been that players would like to explore the map more, which this old movement system does. I've reverted back for now to gather feedback, however initial tests have been positive. It does, however, shift the powercurve a little as players can now "collect more stuff"

The full breakdown on how the process works: You're given choices between which node to move to. When you choose, the others you didn't selected are destroyed. However, the exception to this is if destroying one of those choices will isolate the player, where upon it won't destroy.


[h3]Strength and Stances: [/h3]
The Problem: Strength was a 2 for 1, buffing both Damage and Block
The Solution: I've implemented a new mechanic called Stances. You have Aggressive Stance and Defensive Stance. At the start of your turn, you can switch your stance to whatever you like (you just press spacebar and it switches back and forward). Once you play a card, you're locked into that Stance for that turn.

When in Aggressive stance, Strength applies to Damage on cards
When in Defensive Stance, Strength applies to Block on cards

Choosing which Stance to play for that turn adds another layer of depth and tactics

Other options: The obvious other option would of been to split it out. Have Strength and Resilience or something along those lines. However again, this is done a lot, and I want to be different. I want to provide a more tactical, decision based feeling to the game. This also means you don't have to manage cards for both Strength and Resilience, which will a fixed deck size could cause issues.

The Fallout: There is going to be some different results for sure with combats. Combats that were hard, might become harder. Combats that were easier might shift as well. Will be monitoring the data closely.

[h3]Past Runs Viewer: [/h3]
After your run is finished, a .json file is saved storing the results and information of your run. You can view your last 8 runs by clicking on your profile in the bottom left of the Main Menu, and then viewing past runs. This layout/system is very much still in development, so please provide any feedback you have.


[h3]Enemy Changes [/h3]
New Encounter: The Jaws of Death
Bruce the Ancient Beast can now be found on the first floor, as an Elite.

New Encounter: The Disciples of Straw
A new guardian has been added to the the first floor, The Disciples of Straw.


[h3]UI[/h3]
- Added a Map Rewards button to the map. This enables you, at a glance, to view what card rewards are currently in play on the map!



[h3]Gameplay Changes[/h3]
- Removed the ability to Purge cards with space bar, as this is now used for Stance Switching
- The map has had some extra nodes added, resulting in around 5-7 new tiles on average per floor.
- Card rewards have been increased greatly. This will have two effects: you'll get stronger cards with more Uncommon/Rares dropping, plus the card pool will appear to be greater as there is more cards being circulated. Hopefully this will give a sense of more unique decks each run.
- Card Unlocks are now cheaper to purchase with Void Points!
- When you beat a Guardian at the end of the floor, you will no longer be automatically given a Booster pack. Instead, you'll be given a choice of what bonus you'd like to recieve

[h3]Spell Changes[/h3]
- Backstab has now had it's cooldown reduced. A change is coming to give this a further buff in the next patch also.

[h3]Monster Changes [/h3]
- The Sisterhood has been tweaked on harder difficulties.
- My Pain, You Suffering: Will no longer cast more than once.
- Ancient Beast has been changed to just be immune to Vulnerable, Weak and Slow.

[h3]Card / Item Changes[/h3]
- A couple of new items have now been added, plus items should now add to your Compendium once seen, rather than purchased.
- Wishbone has been fixed to stop clashing with handsize.
- Coin of Good Fortune now correctly ticks up.
- Frequent Fighter will now not half you Essence.
- Parry is now Block 5(8).
- Scattershot now costs 3 energy.
- Enough now correctly heals the player, as the card states.
- Backup now correctly states 5 Slashes, and gives that many.
- Many additional small tweaks in energy/damage that may have slipped through documentation
- Couple new cards added for "The Hidden", many provided by the community.

PATCH NOTES 0.2.6.6

Class Changes
- Void Touch now draws a card when a Void is drawn. They still count towards hand size.

UI/Gameplay
- Hand size limit has been re-activated. Currently set to 8. Keep in mind this is for drawing, and spells like Ghost Blade which add cards to your hand directly ignore such limits (Cards like Reinforcements etc as well).
- The Main Menu now has an options for you to choose your method for Purging. You can choose between Click or Click and Hold (default)
- The Deck viewer now has a scrollbar
- Scroll wheel can now be used on the Upgrades page.
- Closing the Menu will now have a short delay, avoiding accidentally adding cards to your deck.
- That map now has a number of floors indicator (1/2 for example)
Good/Bad events that effect a certain card will now display which card was effected.


Card Changes
- Rewind: Now is return 2(4). Both versions Expel.
- Quickness: should now stack, but still clears at the end of the turn.
- Quick Escape: This card now correctly reads: Block 6(8). If discarded, Block 18 (26).


Monster Changes
- New Encounter! The Sisterhood can now be found on the first floor. As with all new fights, balance is something which is being looked at, I will check over the data over the next few days. I do feel the encounter may be slightly on the tougher side of things right now.
- Firebugs. These have had a change in the number that are required to fill the Void Bar, for both the Pyre and the Pyremite.
- Corpse Beast: increased AP to (7,12,14,16)
- Skeleton King: AP buffed, HP buffed and minions slightly buffed. Enrage is now stronger also.
- Voidling: AP increased to (5,9,11,13)
- Dragon Whelpling: AP increased to (4,4,5,5)
- The Malformed: have changed these creatures values to allow one round of re spawn after first kill. Spawn order has been modified as well.


Back end
- New Error reporting system has been implemented. Any fatal or non-fatal errors will crash with a more "friendly" message, and a crash log will be logged my end here. This is still very trial, and may require more communication to start with.
- Localisation setup. Still not sold if this is the method we will proceed with, it's in its testing phase right now. More details to come


Bugs
- Fixed a bug which caused the Loot the Dead event to not trigger.
- Continued improvement with spelling errors.
- Fixed a bug which still caused tutorials to show when they were disabled.
- Green card text should be fixed for runed cards.

PATCH NOTES 0.2.6.5

UI/Gameplay
- All tooltips for enemies now show additional data if they're applying a Debuff (Stun, Vulnerable etc)

Card Changes
- Wording fixed on Redirect
- Energy on Frenzy dropped to 1

Monster Changes
- Dolus will now randomise card costs between 1 and 5. Also, this applies as cards are added to your hand, ensuring you can't bypass it.
- The Hag has had her HP and AP increased. She will also now inflict more Banes.

Bugs
- Fixed an issue with data posting in the backend
- Removed the ability to "drag to discard" as an option to Purge
- Room counter has been corrected, and now counts blank tiles, as well as merchants and other similar tiles.
- The "click and hold to close" has been sped up a little
- Tooltips in the Soul Merchant has been moved to not cover the card
- The Vulture no longer references "Woundstack"
- Text change on the Rune Alert
- Berzerk is no longer unlockable twice
- Various other spelling errors have been fixed
- Card Reward on Vault Guardians has been fixed

PATCH NOTES 0.2.6.4

New Tutorial!

• In an effort to improve the new player experience, the battle tutorial has been compeltley redone, and is more handheld. If you have your tutorial disabled, if you could please enable it to test it out that would be much appreacited! Hopefully it helps explain a few of the unqiue mechanics.
  

Deck Manager

• You can now go over 20 cards, but won't be able to exit the manager until you've trimmed that deck down.
  
• When socketing a card, a preivew of that card will now show up also.
  

Artifacts

• Poison Blade now will trigger the FIRST time you apply Bleed in a turn.
  

Gameplay/UI

• Spell Speaker will now show your data bar
  
• The colouring for Uncommon cards has been changed.
  
• On the Unlocks screen, you can now mouse over a card on the Unlocks screen to see it's upgraded version.
  
• Slight bump in HP on the second floor
  
• The Reward Card for rooms will now show next to the tooltip. This should help with readablity.
  

Enemy Changes
Black Coach

• Immune has now changed. Immune will now make the target immune to damage, but also immune to negative effects (bleed, vulnerable etc). However, if the target was already suffering these effects, they won't be removed. Only exception would be bleed, when it triggers, it won