Vault of the Void News

Hey folks! Today’s patch is something of a mixed bag, lots of little tweaks and changes -- the last patch probably before the Tempest gets her new cards + balance changes! For the first time, I’ve managed to actually document pretty much all the changes I made as well (woo, I’m learning!). I’ll highlight a few of the major ones below and then dump the full list as well.

[h3]Spell Changes[/h3]
One of the major changes to this patch is really something that has been on the cards for a few months now. Spells will no longer have their cooldown persist between combats. You’ll no longer need to draw out a fight for an extra turn of two to reduce the cooldown on your favorite spell.

As a result, the cooldown of a number of starting spells has been bumped up by 1 (few exceptions to this). Coupled with the price reduction at the Spell Child, this will make inroads on having other spells compete with the starting spell. However there is still a big balance pass coming to all Spells soon to level the playing field where possible!

[h3]New Cards[/h3]
4 new cards have been added to the Daughter of the Voids card pool! Girl’s Best Friend, Spite, Final Repose and Alms are a couple new Corruption Attack cards to help flesh out that need!



[h3]Card Scaler + Card Stacking[/h3]
This is partly in preparation for the big overhaul to the Deck Manager UI (which has this same functionality), but all Deck Viewer screens now have the ability to scale the cards to suit your preference. This of course will save, so you’ll be able to find the perfect setting for you!



Another thing which has been extended this patch is the card stacking feature! Previously, this had just been for token cards (Hidden Blades and Silent Shivs). This has now been setup to work for all cards! You can still disable this in the Options menu if you like, and I’ve also added a “Threshold” setting, so you can customise when and how the cards stack (default setting is 5).



[h3]New Alternative Art Pack[/h3]
A new Sins pack has just been released, done by the very talented Wilfred Dajotoy. I know at this stage things are starting to skew heavy on the "Sins" side of things for Alternative Artwork, I'm going to be focusing the new artwork on Afflictions moving forward now! Then hopefully start branching out into more cards as well!




[h3]Preloader[/h3]
For some people on older machines, there have been reports of some issues when it comes to booting up the game, and having the preloader preload all the textures. This speeds up things by a huge margin for most systems, however some older graphics cards may have issues managing the load. If you’re having long boot times on the preloader, or even having the game crash out right on boot, I’ve set up a way to disable the game from pre-loading.

The byproduct of disabling this is that the game will now have those small hangs during game play as it quickly loads what it needs when needed. This will only be on first texture call and usually is perfectly smooth after the first combat.

To disable this option:

1. Head to your local Vault of the Void folder :

   %localappdata%\Vaultofthevoid

2. Open up the file called options.json
   
3. Look for an option called “preload” and set this to “false”.
   
4. Boot up the game!
   

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Thanks everyone for your continued support. Next up will be the Tempest balance pass and a somewhat large injection of cards for her! Then, we’re on the road to 1.0, which is just around the corner!

Also, if you're not on the Discord yet, a new "Daily Card Discussion" has just kicked off and the community is working through each card one by one, sharing thoughts and strategies on each as they go. Please feel free to join and jump in on the fun! You can see which cards have been spoken about so far here.


Take care -- and happy Vault slaying!

All for now
- Josh



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General Bugs and New Features
- Added a Rarity icon on cards for easier readability.
- The Card Bobbing option will now also disabled Enemy cards from bobbing up and down.
- Pricing chart added to the Lost and Found.
- 4 new Daughter cards added.
- You can no longer view decks from the current day's Daily Draft, however you’ll be able to view them the following day as normal.
- Eroditing Sanity now adds a debuff to your buff bar.
- Under the hood changes made to Dolus's randomisation to remove extremes at either end.
- You can now click a card and then click again to play it (right click to drop it)
- For those who have issues with the preloader loading all textures to memory, there is now an ability to stop it.
- Added a visual effect for Planar Shift
- Random option added for Purge Effects
- When doing a custom I+ setup, there is now a "Random" button which will give you a Random I+ setup at your current Max Instability.
- Spells no longer carry their cooldown between fights!
- Most starters Spells have had their cooldown increased by 1.
- There is now a Corruption Stats tooltip when you mouseover the Corruption orb, letting you know the sources and stats of your Corruption gain during a fight.
- Any "Deck Viewer" screen now has an option bottom left to scale the cards to your liking.
- Fixed some issues with Threat Projection and Steath with debuffs.
- Card stacking is now enabled on all cards. You can set your "Threshold" in the options menu.
- Fixed a bug which caused stacks of cards to disappear on Purge/Discard
- Fixed a layout issue on the Spell Book page when you started to get too many spells.
- Fixed a display issue with Hidden Blades on the Fishhook challenge coin interacting with Shock.
- Fixed a bug where Tea Leaves choice at the Matron would heal you if you were below Max HP.
- Fixed the Puppet Masters "For my Next" act move, to do the Draw before he attacks.
- Fixed Square Peg so it can trigger off itself.
- Fixed a bug where re-entering the Matron could cause a re-roll.
- Fixed a pre-fight display error when vs'ing the Void on Tempest.
- Cards with Alternative Artwork inside the Deck Builder will now show their full text.
- Fixed a bug on Japanese locale which caused a linebreak on a half space fullstop.
- Fixed a bug which would cause the Purge Effects preview screen to go over the frame.
- Ablative Pauldron will now round down in the players favour.
- Random battlefield will now actually randomise!

Encounter Tweaks
- Forgotten Goat: -2 AP on hard and Impossible
- Forgotten Vulture and Game lost about 10% of their HP
- Obsidian Golem has -2 AP on normal
- Hag has a tiny bit less HP and doesn't hit as hard later in the floor
- The Void has about 8% less HP across all difficulties
- Dolus has about 8% less HP across all difficulties
- Congregation Crows have -1 AP on Hard and Impossible
- Piglet Explosions deal -2 damage on Impossible
- Sisterhood Sisters have 15% more HP across all difficulties
- Firebugs and Pyre have about 15% more HP on Impossible

Hi there everyone -- just a small update post today, letting you know about a few bug fixes and updates that have gone through over the last week or so.

[h3]Route Planner[/h3]
As many of you would have seen by now, there is a new feature I’ve just added named “Route Planner”, which enters a simulation time mode where you can traverse the Map, without risks. This is super helpful when learning Vaults slightly obscure map movement method. It’s also a great way to mark out a path for Veterans of the game!



[h3]Daily Draft Reset and Anti-Cheat[/h3]
I’ve gone ahead and reset the Overall Top 100 Leaderboard as promised, some great new high scores already coming through! I’ve also gone ahead and updated the anti-cheat system a bit, and will continue to keep an eye on decks and ensure they are being played and submitted legally.

[h3]Swift Changes[/h3]
A small presentation change of note. The Swift tag at the bottom of cards has been switched out to now be a keyword on cards. This should help new players onboarding when it comes to Combo and what cards get multi-triggered. Being a tag meant it often got missed, so moving into the body text of the card will help alleviate that problem.



[h3]Humble Bundle![/h3]
As many of you may have seen already, it was a huge honor to be asked to be involved with the Humble Bundle Deck Builder Bundle (try saying that 10 times fast!) that was released a few days ago. If you haven’t checked it out already, this is a great opportunity to score some awesome games, and support charity at the same time! A huge welcome to all the new players who have come across Vault from the Bundle as well!



[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
I’ve been tinkering away at lots of little bug fixes over the past little while as well! From cards doing wrong damage (Grapeshot!) to other display issues, lots of things have been crossed off in the Discord. Thank you to everyone who’s been reporting things as wel go!

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Thank you everyone for making Vault what it is, its awesome to see so many new players and active discussion happening around the game. There's a small card infusion coming for the Daughter of the Void, then we’ll move over to the Tempest for one last balance pass -- then, some exciting news regarding 1.0!

Thanks everyone! If you're enjoying Vault of the Void, please do leave a Review if you don't mind, it really does help a lot for small Devs like myself!

Thanks everyone - all for now!
- Josh

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well -- and a big welcome to all the new Vault of the Void players who have come by in the last little while! I’m very excited as usual to dive into this patch now -- lots of fun stuff, including the new VFX and Purge Effects -- so lets dive in!

[h2]Daughter Balance + New Cards[/h2]
The main focus for this patch was obviously the Daughter of the Void, and her getting a nice balance pass and some new cards to play with! Overall, the Daughter wasn’t in too much of a bad spot, but as usual we passed over every card, gathered input from players and also analytics and made a bunch of little tweaks here and there.

One of the biggest changes, may also appear to be the smallest! Her class Artifact has gained a new line, and now reads:



This means Purging for Corruption, even when at full energy, has an extra bonus! This little boost should help kick start her Corruption gain even more, and speed things a lot.

As with all balance passes, there has also been some nerfs to certain cards and archetypes. Grasp, Masochist and Harness Sin all come to mind. Whilst they all did a thing well, they just tended to do it a little too well, and the community has helped shape some small changes in their direction, to hopefully help promote more deckbuilding.

For the first time, I’ll probably note that this balance pass isn’t 100% done. We’re happy with where it's at, but still think there is a bit more to tweak here -- maybe. Daughter is pretty complicated, and whilst all the testing has been generally really positive, there's still a few things we’d like to smooth out. Expect a few small changes and even a quick injection of new cards in the next week or so on top of what is here!

[h3]As with all balance patches, we don’t close the book here. We’ll be monitoring the numbers over the next week and making changes where needed. This goes for the Hidden and Enlightened as well, who will be getting another look over the new data and will have stuff bundled in as needed![/h3]

I’ll include a full list of all the changes at the bottom of this update!

[h2]New VFX Changes + Purge Effects[/h2]
Okay -- so one thing which you may have noticed is small amounts of lag when first starting fights, when certain FX load etc. Also, due to Vault’s “2D sprite sheet” FX, I feel the game did tend to lack a bit of charm. When I first started working on Vault, I couldn’t figure out particle systems at all. I couldn’t make anything look good -- and pretty much gave up thinking it was a flawed system haha!

Fast forward to now, a few years more experience under my belt, I decided to dive back into the particle system and see what I could work at. Thats been a huge focus of my time, and I’m really happy to announce that almost all the 2D sprite sheet effects have been replaced with nice particles effects! This should be overall better for performance, I’ve cut texture pages down by over a third!

The byproduct of this little experiment means I got to have some fun with something that I’m really hyped about! A new Cosmetic Unlock is available under the Unlocks screen! Purge Effects give you a way to add some visual flair to your Purges. I have heaps of fun making these -- if you have any suggestions or ideas, please let me know! I hope you enjoy them !



If you have issues with the new effects on your PC or Laptop, there is a new slider under Options which allows you to scale down the amount of particles you see!

[h2]Daily Draft Changes + Leaderboard Reset[/h2]
The Daily Draft has seen some changes reach its shores. It’s been on the cards for awhile, but the biggest and simplest of these is that each hex now includes a new card reward, so you’ll be able to deckbuild more as you go! Also, two hexes include artifacts, and there's been some visual tweaks to scoring to show where you’re at mid fight.

Once the dust settles and feedback is good on these changes, I’ll go ahead and put the Tempest (finally) into rotation!

Also a note, as is the way with Early Access, there will be an Overall Leaderboard reset coming in the next week or so. A lot of the top scores are from cards that no longer act the way they did, or relics from a scoring system that has been changed over time. Individual scoreboards won’t reset though, so you’ll still have all your medals!

[h2]New Alternative Artwork Pack[/h2]
A new Alternative Artwork pack, done by the talented Adrian Bueno, has been added to the Unlocks! I love this set!

[h2]Large Fonts and Steam Deck[/h2]
I've added a Large Fonts option in the Options menu now. This definitely helps out a lot on smaller screen displays. I'll continue to make improvements on this as I get a chance to play around with it more.

In conjunction with this, I actually just recieved a Steam Deck from Valve (thanks Valve!) to test and setup Vault on! I've had a quick play around already -- whilst a lot of the changes that will come with Controller Support will help in this case, it already works pretty well! I can definitely see a few imporvements that I can slot in quickly though, and will look to this over the next little while.

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Of course -- bundled into all this is a load of bug fixes and performance tweaks. Thanks to everyone who has reported stuff, I'm always sweeping through and making changes where needed!

Again, big thank you for all the support and reviews! If you're enjoying Vault, please do remember to leave a review, it helps so much when it comes to spreading the word -- which is a massive thing for small solo dev projects like Vault!

Thanks everyone -- take care!
- Josh



[h3]Full Change List (Subject to small changes)[/h3]
Starter Artifact Void Manipulator: Added "Energy gained past the max turns into Corruption."

Unleash Darkness: Made the upgrade also increase Discard Corruption to 2.
Cursed Shield: "Block 6(8). If Corruption is over 20, Block 3(4)."
Void Kiss: 1 cost, Deal 9(10), Draw & Discard 1(2)
Wreath, replacing Spirit Shield as 2 cost common daughter starter (in Corruption): Block 14(19). Opener: Expel and add 2(3) Void Coins to Deck.
Grasp: Now deals 2 more base damage but only 25% Corruption damage normally - the upgrade increases the Corruption damage to 50% instead of increasing base damage.
Harness Sin: Instead of giving the rage if you purge it while having 5+ soultithe, it's simply "gain 25% Rage if you have no rage", with the upgrade removing the "no rage" condition.
Soul Kiss: The upgrade also increases the Rage to 50%.
Dirty Soul: -1 Threshold, +1 Corruption, pre and post upgrade
Dark Pulse: +1 Corruption on slay, has 75% Corruption base damage and upgrade is Solo: 50% Corruption damage, instead.
Maddening: +1 corruption pre and post upgrade
Debt Repaid: +2 its damage numbers, pre/post upgrade and both play and purge
Strike with Blood: Upgraded to 35 damage.
Allomancy: Changed to "add 2 Void Coins" (per damage)
Proliferate: Changed damage to 7(9), Threshold to 4(3) and Block to 5(6).
Flesh and Blood: Deals 125(150)% and Purge on base, the upgrade increases the Purge: Gain 1 Corruption to 2.
Knife in the Dark: Deal 5(7) damage. Apply Vulnerable 2(3). (Apply Weak 1.) - Upgrade stays 1 cost.
Wither Shield: Changed block from 10(14) to 12(15)
Separated Soul: Added the Discard: Gain 1 Corruption to the base card, and then made it go to 2 on upgrade.
Exploit: Increased the Rage in the opener from 50% to 75% and the damage from 8(12) to 9(13)
Cycle of Agony: Changed it to "Soultithe 2. Deal 50(75)% Corruption damage. Loop."
Ghost Walk: Changed to "Deal 50% Corruption damage. Gain 1(2) Corruption. Ghost. Inert."
What Was Owed: +1 damage pre and post upgrade
Limit: -1 cost
Acquired Resistance: Changed to "At the start of each turn, Threshold 6(4): Block 8(9). Expel."
Collect: Changed to "Gain 2 Corruption for each Affliction in hand. Deal 75(100)% Corruption damage." and make it an Attack.
Discount Death: Made it an attack. Lower cost to 3. Lower damage to 150(200). Added "Draw & Discard 1." after the Corruption damage and before the cost modification.
Unholy Cleansing: The upgrade is now the base functionality. The new upgrade is to lose Expel.
Reap and Sow: Made the damage always be 75% - the upgrade instead increases Sift from 1 to 2.
Null and Void: Extra 25% Corruption damage pre and post upgrade
Deliver from Evil: +2 Block pre and post upgrade
Blade of Darkness: +1 damage pre and post upgrade
Shed No longer cost reduces on upgrade
My House My Rules costs 2 more and will probably continue to explode the universe.

[h3]Neutral Changes[/h3]
Blood for Blood: Change the damage to 12(16)
Do Over: +2 to damage pre and post upgrade
Supernova: Make this do +8 damage pre- and post- upgrade. It's a neutral brute force AoE *rare*!
Riposte: Add +1 to both damage and block, pre and post upgrade

Hello everyone!

Today's update sees something I’m really excited to finally share with you all -- the new Alternative Artwork system!

Amongst a handful of bug fixes as well, from today you’ll be able to find a new kind of Unlock under the Unlocks screen -- Alternative Artwork packs!



The artist in me is really excited for this update :) I have a number of very talented artists working right now on new packs in a variety of different styles, so this really is just the beginning! However, there is some great stuff already in there.

This system also continues my precedent to have no meta progression in Vault of the Void. Everything in Vault will always be cosmetic unlocks, including card backs, battlefields, alternative artwork and perhaps even alternative monster artwork in the future! It was a decision I had to make at the very start when it came to Vault and its unlock/progression -- and this is the way I decided to take things. So hopefully I can deliver some great content in this regard -- let me know if you have any ideas for more cosmetic unlocks!

A huge shout out to Joi Rudin, who is a long time Vault player who reached out right from the start to get involved with an Alt Artwork pack! Their pack is now available to buy with your hard earned Void Points -- check out Twisted Reality now in game!



Also, as promised, our friendly Treasure Goblin pack is now in game! As many of you know, the Treasure Goblin pack started as a thank you to the Community for reaching 1000 reviews! Since then however, the counter had to be taken down from the game. I still wanted to show my appreciation however, and so for the next 2 weeks, I’ll have the Treasure Goblin Affliction Pack in game for 0 Void Points. After that time, it will remain unlockable, however will be back up to its regular costing of 200,000 Void Points.



[h3]For those who don’t own Vault of the Void yet - - just a very quick disclaimer to let you know that Void Points aren’t a paid microtransaction currency! It’s just a progression currency earned in game by playing runs! Don’t fear -- still no microtransactions here!![/h3]

The other thing to note is that the Community Reward for 750 Reviews, which was the alternative Hidden Blade artwork, has been moved outside of being a Code unlock to being available all the time, at the cost of 0 Void Points. I also painted up a Silent Shiv to add to that pack!

A huge thank you to all the artists involved, and of course my amazing animator Sanjeev for his incredible skill bringing the Treasure Goblin to life! Much, much more to come with this system -- I hope you all enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed getting it put together!

[h3]If you're an artist and are interested in working together to make an Alternative Artwork pack of your own, please reach out to me and lets chat![/h3] [email protected]

Next on the list will be the Daughter of the Void balance pass, and a special announcement regarding 1.0!

Thanks everyone -- take care!
- Josh

Hello everyone! Thank you all for the support over the last few days, really appreciate it -- and a big welcome to all the new players!

This is just a quick hotfix to address a few issues that have shown up in the latest patch. Thank you to everyone who has reported issues. I would have loved to have posted this earlier but I fell sick over the weekend sadly, only just getting back into things now!

[h3]Fixes: [/h3]

• The hitbox on the Vault Guardians once inside the Vault has been adjusted to scale with resolutions.
  
• Fixed a bug which could cause the window to squish and lock up when switching between Fullscreen.
  
• Limited the amount of times the Treasure Chest can "creak".
  
• Added a UI Scale option for different resolutions. This enables sizing up or down (or both), but is dependent on the resolution you're running. (Some physically can't go any higher in scale, and some become too small otherwise). This is very experimental, so please send any feedback my way! There's a few images I know that don't quite fill out the screen on some of the weirder combinations, I'll work through those this week!
  
• Fixed a bug with Squid Stance and X cost cards.
  
• Fixed a bug where players were unable to purchase Challenge Coins nor switch their Deck Back.
  
• Changed the Focus spell so you can now cast, even if you don't have cards to Vision.
  
• Fixed an issue with cards being interactable outside of the window bounds on the Deck Manager.
  
• Investigating a bug where a tile that is vertical from your current spot and shout be accessable, becomes locked out. This currently can be sloved by returning to the Menu and loading up again, however I'm working on a fix.
  
• Garnet Band is taken into account now for next turn Threat calculation.
  
• Living Blood Artifact taken into account when you have Threat, and its interaction with Bad Trip.
  
• Future Strike numbers will turn green on turns they're going to trigger via Time Warp.
  
• Fixed a bug the broke card text alignment on Streamer Mode, when playing in smaller resolutions.
  

This patch is currently on the Beta Branch, you can access this by right clicking the game in your Steam Library, heading to the Beta tab and opting in. All data is cross compatible between Branches! I will sync this to the Live Branch in the next 24-48 hours :)

Thanks everyone for all the great feedback and lovely reviews! I’ll be back soon with more updates and more content!

All for now!
- Josh