Vault of the Void News

Hey folks! Sorry about the radio silence the last week and a half or so. Still trying to find that balance between my day job, Vault of the Void work and also family. It's getting harder and harder right now as I have to fit in more work commitments. But still - I’ve managed to finally push out the Artifact patch - this has a massive 30+ new Artifacts across all classes, mostly focused around Elite tier Artifacts (Cursed Items, Elite Fight drops etc).

Whilst these have been on the Beta Branch for the last 48 hours, please let me know any bugs that show up! I’ll be on board to fix and patch as quickly as possible over the next 24 hours.

With that, there are some really, really fun ones here... let's look at a couple of my favourites real quickly!

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[h3]The Hidden[/h3]
Forgotten Fuse
At the end of every 4th turn, deal damage to all enemies equal to the number of cards in your Expel pile.

Combo Platter
Each turn, the first time you spend Combo, Draw 1.


[h3]The Enlightened[/h3]
Topaz Tiger
When you enter Zen, Block 4. If you have no Threat, Rage 25%.

Bell of Clarity
If you have less than 3 attacks at the start of your turn, add a Volatile Stability to hand. If you have less than 3 abilities at the start of your turn, add a Volatile Clarity to hand.


[h3]Daughter of the Void[/h3]
Cracked Sundial
At the start of each turn, if you have less than 40 Corruption, apply Weak 1 to all enemies.

Everlasting Sapphire
At the start of each turn, Draw & Discard 1.

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Massive thank you again to the Card Council with their hard work during the design process of all these.

There's also a number of bug fixes and improvements. Again, I’ve definitely missed a few in the note taking process, but hopefully I logged all the major ones below!

Thank you as always for all the great feedback and reviews - I really, really appreciate it. I read every single one and can’t help but smile at the amazing things you all write - thank you!! I need to start planning another community reward at 500 reviews! Battlefield maybe?



No Patch next weekend as I take a little time away with the family. After that, think it might be time to start getting the 4th Class implemented, yeah?

All for now!
- Josh




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Updates
- 34 Artifacts added!
- More card animations
- Changed Bottle of Whiskey to read: At the start of your turn, draw 1 extra card.
- Changed Draw Potion to: At the start of your turn, draw an extra X cards.
- Accumulation changed to: Draw a card. Draw an extra card at the start of your next turn.
- Sifting multiple cards won't reload the Sift viewer!
- Added a counter to the Starcaller fight for their cards played/immune ability.

Cards;
- Added the Heavy tag to: Wound, Flesh and Blood, Blade of Darkness, Combination Strike, Leading Edge, Flaying Flesh, Exploit, Death Blade, Union, Turn The Tide, Strike With Blood, Prophesized

Bugs;
- Dazes and Infections are now all Volatile, and have had the Destroy tag removed.
- Fixed a bug with the Congregations Peck ability, drawing X cost cards, and them turning into Hulk smash birds.

Hey everyone! Sliding in with a midweek patch here. There’s been a bit going on, and the Artifact patch is still in the works (they’re all designed, just in the middle of implementation). However there's been a lot of discussion over at the Discord, and I’ve decided to do a bunch of reworking of a few elements to help in a few areas.

I won’t drown on too much - I’ll list as much as I remember documenting down below! As always, thank you everyone for the bug reports!

All for now.
- Josh




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General
- Screen Flash accessibility! Firstly, my apologies for not including this from the start! Those who prefer to have Screen Flash disabled, it's now possible from the Options menu!
- Cards which are Swift and will benefit from Combo will now glow orange in your hand.
- You can now use Right Mouse to cancel a card play whilst holding it.
- Random Class button! Let the game make the decision for you :)
- Combat Log update! Now with colours, and it's scrollable! (Only with the mousewheel right now)
- Tweaks to the card glow effect on cards that require it.
- Changed the way counters on Artifacts work - so they will now include the last card played.
- Made Fatigue more visible with sound effects, particles and the likes.
- Added a ‘Key Mechanics’ feature to the Class Overview
- Massive overhaul to tooltips and presentation on the Enlightened.
- Change to wording to a number of other tooltips.
- Removed the ‘Add’ Keyword
- Added some new pop-ups

Cards
- First Blood got the Bleed tag

Bugs
- Void Coins now Expel.
- Fixed the wording on Limit's tooltip
- Fixed a typo on the Void descriptions
- Fixed damage prediction issue on Body and Mind
- Fixed a bug with multi-trigger Blue Stones and Grim Glow.
- Fixed keywords not updating when re-rolling boosters with the Mastery Re-Roll

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.