Tainted Grail News

Hey, y'all! Unfortunately, we won't have a patch for you today :(

We've had a couple of things planned for this week, but - uh - we just run out of time and weren't able to wrap them up... and test them well enough to publish an official release just yet. Unfortunately, being a small team in which every person is crucial to the development process has a lot of ups, but it has some downs, too :)

But we hope you're going to forgive us because there are really cool things coming to the game... SOON! We promise that a patch is happening next week! :)

So what were we doing this week, and what can you expect in the future?



In gameplay-related news: we're rebalancing and spicing up our boss fights. They had some irritating issues and weren't as cool as we wanted them to be, and so we've made a lot of changes to what's going on here and there - some surprises are waiting for you in our next patch. We can't wait to hear what you think about these changes! Sorry for not sharing any more details but we don't want to spoil too much ;)

We're also testing and improving Quest Cards. Currently, in our test builds, you're getting them as additional rewards after boss fights, and - well - they feel really great. One of my current favorites requires you to use it as a finishing blow, killing a certain amount of enemies... And when you do that, it turns into a "Burning Sword," an enormous damage dealer. Here's what I managed to get out of it during the final boss fight playing as a Pathfinder :D



Well, we've fixed quite a lot of bugs related to the Village, and we've also - finally! - made it prettier. All of the buildings are now correctly rotated - you won't have to enter buildings through a fence or a forest anymore. We've also made sure that they're changing states when you find the proper NPCs (and you'll see the NPCs near their homes!). Here's our Blacksmith hammering on his anvil:



We're also making progress on the Necromancer. We're approaching the moment when he's going to be playable for someone outside of the development team ;) We're aiming to share our prototype on our beta branch (for the members of our Discord server) next week.

Here's a sneak peak of his (still WIP) clothes. We're improving our clothing system, texture quality, AND you can see that we're adding something entirely new - face masks ;)



We've also started working on the GAMEPAD SUPPORT this week! We're not done yet, obviously, and it's going to take a while - but, well, we've got some stuff working already (like walking, camera rotation, and basic UI control). Unfortunately, Steam doesn't allow to post big/long GIFs so here's a very small video - here's what we've got working on a gamepad so far! A small thing, but feels good! :D



And besides all of that, we're also introducing plenty of fixes, improvements, and upgrades of our backend/tools. But let's leave that for the next week - if all goes well, and we hope it will, we're going to have a new patch, a playable campaign teaser, and some real eye candy to show you. Yes, we're making progress on converting our graphics to HDRP... and let's just say that our entire team can't wait for the moment when it's merged into our project!

Hey everyone!

It’s that time of the year when – were it not for the global pandemic – kids would’ve been walking from house to house and trick or treating in order to hoard candy. It won’t happen this year, unfortunately, but we’ve got you covered: here comes our Halloween event – the Dullahan’s Curse!



This new event – available for the next two weeks – is… something we haven’t done before.

You’ll find yourself on a special labyrinthine map, in an entirely new spooky visual biome which is a randomized level full of deadly enemies - even one entirely new, the Wyrdclaimed! - and... CANDY.

You’ll start with some gold and levels – and then you’ll have only 10 minutes to prepare yourself, level up, and find as many sweets as you can.

After the timer runs out you’ll be attacked by Dullhan.



Yes, the headless rider. A new enemy – one of the coolest models we’ve created for the game – which, after the event ends, you’ll be able to find in Conquest. The trick is that every hit you deal and every round you survive against Dullahan will award you with candy, too.

And when you get 20,000 you’ll be awarded a special Halloween-themed set of armor!



Obviously, you will be able to compare the amount of candy you’ve got in a single run with other players! Let’s see who’s first on the leaderboard when the event ends!



First – we hope to have the game’s campaign teaser up and running next week. It won't be as polished as we’d like it to be because the game’s evolving and this means that things break – a lot of things that were running smoothly in our last release of the campaign teaser got destroyed when we, for example, allowed for greater camera zoom. So, well, we already know that the campaign’s teaser map will have to be rebuilt (so that it works smoothly with all the improvements we're making) but instead of doing it all right now, we'll just make it playable so that y'all can to check it out if you didn’t have a chance yet.

Secondly – we’re constantly improving the game and we’re really close to unlocking certain new features – like Quest Cards. We’re also starting the proper implementation of the Necromancer: a new class for Moonring. We also have a really great design ready for a new faction – Fallen Kamelot – and when the Necromancer is ready we’ll start teasing the things you can expect from it… But, well, it’s something really fresh and it’s shaping up to be a really different gameplay style from other factions!

But let’s leave it at that for now – and let’s have fun with the Halloween event!

Hey Everyone!

Today we have full strike! New Patch, new update and a teaser for next week!
This weeks patch will have a lot of bug fixes, balancing and quality of life upgrades (including first results of optimizations efforts). But before we will go into details we want to take a moment to thank you all for commenting on the last update ( separation of the campaign from the Conquest ). It means a lot, that you are taking part in the decision process and for the vast majority trust us with the decision! Thank you!


Time for a "small" tease. We were preparing something quite special for all of you for this Halloween! There will be a special event with a totally different mode of gameplay and an awesome, scary new final boss!
We don't want to spoil too much, but we can say that there will be some candies to be gathered and if you will get enough of them, there will be awesome new cosmetics to unlock!

[h2]New skin to unlock[/h2]


[h2] New tattoos to unlock! [/h2]


We hope you will have a lot of fun with it! ;)


Here is a list of all the changes from this weeks Patch.

[h2]Optimizations & Quality of Life:[/h2]
- Improved pathfinding & hero controls
- Improved general performance
- Lowered fight enter/exit time significantly

[h2]General changes
[/h2]
- Added new art to Advanced Promotion card
- Heavy Cyclone visible code in description fixed
- Added visual effect to Ogre's Frenzy legendary card
- Various fixes in descriptions of legendary cards
- Flesheating Grubs now have new textures and are more discernible
- Enemy Combat Templates in Corruption changed. Instead of adding more enemies in encounters at Corruption 2, 3, and 4, now they have more enemies in them at Corruption 2, 4, and 7.
- Enemies behaviours changing - Instead of updating them at Corruption 2, 3, 4 and 5, now they're changed at Corruption 3, 5, 6 and 8.
- Blood Wyrm overcharge Armor reduction now scales with Overcharge magnitude. Default value changed from 20 to 10.
- All Enemies are now available on Corruption 1.
- Berserker Ultimate now grants you a Status informing about the lifesteal.
- Removed the ability to gain WIP Mythical Runestones.
- Minion tier now correctly displays values above 99.
- Class progression has been diversified - different Runes now enjoy differences in their statistics increase

Lord of Serpents bossfight reworked and fixed:
- All statuses now works properly
- First 2 parts of fight are shorter
- Increased spawn rate of Wyrms in part 2
- Lord of Serpents won’t heal if you manage to kill all of it’s minions
- Reduced Acid Breath’s incoming damage debuff in part 3 to 30% and increased reflected damage on received hit to 3
- In part 3 Lord of Serpents can also spawn Wyrms
- Added possibility of launching a multi-hit attack in final part of the fight

[h2]Class changes [/h2]

Children of Morrigan cards changes:
- Create Opening - cost of drawn card is decreased from 1 to 0.
- Piercing Strike - Armor reduction is increased from 30 to 50, duration is increased from 2 to 5 turns.
- Random Attack - Now also reduces random enemy's Armor by 50 for 1 turn.
- Power Blow - Cost increased from 2 to 3 Energy. Damage increased from 450% BaseDamage to 750%. Removed debuff decreasing cards draw in next turn.
- Raw Power - Cost decreased from 1 to 0 Energy.
- Short Pause - Cost decreased from 3 to 2 Energy. Armor buff increased from 15 to 35.
- Trap - Armor debuff is replaced with 50 Armor buff.

Wyrdhunter passives changes:
- Looter - Now also doesn't affect vendors.
- Slow Thinker - Reworked to trippling damage of your next hit.
- That Was Warmpup - Cards threshold decreased from 15 to 10 cards.
- The Mountain - Max HP gain decreased from 100 to 75.
- Wind-up 20 level Reforge - Removed damage bonus from every Ultimate Charge. Damage bonus to Ultimate Ability increased from 50% to 250%.

Pathfinder passives changes:
- Looter - Now also doesn't affect vendors.
- Slow Thinker - Effect changed to trippling damage of your next hit.
- That Was Warmup - Cards threshold decreased from 12 to 10 cards.
- Pain Sharpens The Mind - Now also reduces drawn card cost to 0.
- Ambush 20 level Reforge - Reworked to reducing all enemie's Armor by 5 until end of combat whenever you draw an additional card.

Berserker passive changes:
- Corpse Shield - Added bonus giving 1 Energy on kill.
- Vitality - Max HP bonus reduced from 100 to 75.
- Sacrifice - Reduces drawn card Energy by 1 if you are below 50% HP when drawing.
- Remorseless Assault 20 level Reforge - Cards draw is increased from 1 to 5.

Moonring cards changes:
- Advanced Promotion - Cost decreased from 2 to 1 Energy.
- Druid's Bane - Armor reduction is increased from 50 to 100 Armor.
- Surge - Now also gives 15 Barrier.
- Sacrifice - Damage increased from 150% BaseDamage to 250%.

Summoner passives changes:
- Alchemist - Removed from Summoner passives pool and handed over to Blood Mage.
- Invigorate - Promotion multiplier decreased from 3 to 2.
- Moving Fortress - Instead of Armor increases Golem's reflect by 5% for every it's level during activation.
- Vision - Now also Energy cost of drawn card is reduced to 0.
Blood Mage passives changes:
- Blood Supply - Changed to increasing all Overcharge effects by 100% when you are at full HP.
- Greater Key of Punishment 20 lvl Reforge - Minions degrade level increased from 1 to 3.
- Bloodwort item healing amount changed from 60HP to 60% of max HP.
- All Grubs should have distinctive names now.

[h2]
Runestones changes:[/h2]
- Cracked Calc - Increased heal value from 1% to 5% of Max HP.
- Polished Calc - Increased heal value from 2% to 10% of Max HP.
- Flawless Calc - Increased heal value from 6% to 25% of Max HP.

- Cracked Stan - Decreased Max HP gain from 25 to 20.
- Polished Stan - Increased Max HP gain from 50 to 75.
- Flawless Stan - Increased Max HP gain from 150 to 200.

- Crakced Feoh - Wealth gain bonus increased from 10% to 25%.
- Polished Feoh - Wealth gain bonus increased from 20% to 100%.
- Flawless Feoh - Wealth gain bonus increased from 60% to 300%.

- Cracked Lor - Chance to get Lifesteal increased from 2% to 3%.
- Polished Lor - Chance to get Lifesteal increased from 4% to 6%.
- Flawless Lor - Chance to get Lifesteal increased from 12% to 15%.

- Cracked Sigel- Chance to Stun with hit increased from 2% to 5%. Retaliate percent increased from 5% to 10%.
- Polished Sigel- Chance to Stun with hit increased from 4% to 10%. Retaliate percent increased from 10% to 25%.
- Flawless Sigel- Chance to Stun with hit increased from 12% to 25%. Retaliate percent increased from 30% to 70%.
- Polished Ear - Conversion percentage of damage dealt into Wealth increased from 2% to 10%.
- Polished Ear - Conversion percentage of damage dealt into Wealth increased from 5% to 25%.

- Polished Ger - Rune Charges threshold decreased from 2 to 1 charge.
- Flawless Ger - Increased damage bonus for every rune charge from 2% to 3% . Increased Armor gain for every rune charge from 2% to 3%.

- Polished Haegl - Increased damage bonus from 12 to 15.
- Flawless Haegl - Increased damage bonus from 25 to 35. Inreased Armor bonus from 40 to 50.

- Polished Ing - Increased radius bonus of Wyrdness-repelling items from 12% to 50%. Increased Wealth gained from combat Bonus from 12% to 50%. Increased XP gain bonus from 5% to 25%.
- Flawless Ing- Increased radius bonus of Wyrdness-repelling items from 25% to 150%. Increased Wealth gained from combat Bonus from 25% to 100%. Increased XP gain bonus from 10% to 50%.

- Polished Yr - Increased Armor bonus for every enemy alive in combat from 5 to 7.
- Flawless Yr - Increased Armor bonus for every enemy alive in combat from 10 to 15.

[h2]Many enemies adjustments:[/h2]
- Most of their damage and HP buffed across tiers 2 and 3 at all Corruptions (with Blooddrunk receiving a slight nerf in contrast)
- All their distinctive effects are now displayed properly and should be more communicative
- Shaman and Runesmith buffed greatly - beware of their summons, they are much more impactful on the battlefield now!
- Most HP and damage scaled down across tier 1, especially at higher Corruptions

[h2]Bug fixes:[/h2]
- Two Feints will now properly apply it's bonus hit
- Enemy multi-attacks will now properly find new targets after killing previous ones
- Retreating from combat should now properly set you in safe position outside of enemy ranges
- Fixed issue that sometimes prevented players from progressing after completing Corruption 4
- Wyrdshards gain should now properly scale with Corruption
- AoE damage should now be properly redirected to Golem on Blood Mage/Summoner
- Slithering Manouvers and Overwhelming Magic should properly stun enemies now
- Wyrdness Blade will kill more effectively now
- Greater Key of Punishment should not break creature’s overcharge level anymore
- On The Defense will properly reduce card’s cost
- Necromancer (enemy) slightly buffed and altered - now summons more powerful Undead Spawns more consistently

Hey everyone! Today we don’t have an in-game update because things are a little slow on our end... for a really simple reason. We were really putting a lot of time and effort into our last patch, Seeds of Corruption, and now its time to finally get a little rest and plan things out properly – you know, gather feedback and regroup!

Don’t worry, though, we’re planning some epic things for y’all and you can read about some of them in the last week's update.

And one last piece of info before we get to today's update: we're going to be featured during the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest next week and you'll be able to get the game for a slightly reduced price AND also catch our CEO, Marcin, on a panel discussion in which you'll "find out about how many d20s you need when you port from physical to digital".

But this week we want to share some info about the campaign mode and our current plan of handling the "two games in one" thing in Tainted Grail. So this update will be all about the shift we’re planning!

As always, make sure to let us know what you think about it all!

[h3]Campaign and Conquest – two games instead of one[/h3]

For those of you who are new here and don’t know about the game’s campaign mode (and couldn’t play it yet because it’s currently broken), allow us to explain a little bit.

We've planned for Tainted Grail to have two game modes – the roguelike Conquest (what you can play currently in Early Access) and a story campaign (The Fall of Avalon) which will be a proper RPG with branching storylines and so on. Both will use the same basic gameplay mechanics (cards, passives, runes, consumables etc.) – that is why, whatever progress we will make in that area (and we hope there is a good chunk of it already!) while working on Conquest, it will also benefit the campaign.

But the more we are working on these two “modes”, the more we realize that they’re actually more like two games, not modes. Two different beasts for two different groups of players.

Conquest is a demanding experience, where you have to min-max everything, especially at the higher levels of corruption – the vast majority of it is pure gameplay and the fun that comes from deckbuilding and optimizing. On the other hand, we want the campaign to be mostly story-driven, with deep choices that will affect the world around you.

Now when we think about it, we realize that we should separate these two games – for various reasons.

Starting from clarity (people seeing exactly what they are getting – currently, even though it’s said in the first line of the game’s description on Steam, some don’t understand that Conquest is not the game’s RPG campaign), through technical stuff (less data, easier patches – over the past few months we couldn’t change anything in the campaign because, for example, it would’ve deleted save games), up to the affordability (there might be some people who want only the campaign or only the roguelike).

This is why we are thinking about separating these two games – as two different products on Steam.

[h3]Now – just to be clear – we know we’ve promised everyone who decided to support us during Early Access full access to the campaign once it's done. This promise will be kept in 100%, just in a slightly different way – instead of having one game in your library, you'll just get an extra product.[/h3]

We’ve been checking with Valve and we’ve been assured that it’s possible. This change would mean that the game you have right now will be the Early Access version of Conquest and the campaign mode will get a different Steam page – and we’ll be offering them as separate products with adjusted pricing. Conquest, as a standalone product, will have a reduced price, and Campaign will be priced accordingly with its final scope and so on.

We’ve thought about it a lot and it would make things way, way easier for us… But! Before we will do anything, we want to ask for your opinion.

Generally, we really believe in the strength of the community and always want to ask for your opinions and include them in the decision process. Let us know what you think!

Hey folks!

So, we’re a week from the launch of Seeds of Corruption and we have to thank you for your support and the overwhelming amount of feedback we've received from the bottom of our hearts.

There’s one amazing thing that you did: you trusted us, even though it’s our first digital game, and moreover – one released through early access. And we all know that early access – well – can be risky.

But from our part, we want to make it really interesting for all of you - we hope that you already feel like you have an impact on the game and additionally we want to share the way we think and work. In our previous crowdfunding experience, it worked great!

So there’s one thing that we need to share with you: a ROADMAP!

So when we launched in Early Access we were pretty happy about what we’ve achieved with Tainted Grail: Conquest: we knew that there’s “something” inside this game and we knew that we will be able to get it to shine a bit brighter. That’s why Seeds of Corruption were so important to us – we wanted to finally give the game something it really lacked: structure.

After launch, we’ve rushed certain things and weren’t really happy about them (like the first introduction of Corruption). We saw that this is not the way in which we should proceed further – it’s better to spend a little more time polishing things than throwing them into the game. That’s why it took us around a month between last updates to the main branch (except for the events we’ve launched in the meantime).

We want to draw from this experience – because it works better. So here’s a roadmap of what’s going to happen with Conquest.





We’re aiming to have Conquest 1.0 ready within the next four-five months.

Probably around February / March 2021.

[h2]Gameplay additions[/h2]

• 3rd class for Moonring: Necromancer.

We know it’s going to be another Summoner, but with a really, really cool twist ;) We hope you are going to love it! .

• 3 new playable classes

You can see them holding their place in the class selection, labeled as Fallen Kamelot. We can’t wait to start working on them - also - if you have some ideas - make sure to share theme with us!

• Quest-cards

It’s a unique idea we’ve had for a while now and we’re really excited about it. We want to introduce a new type of cards to the game, the “Quest-Cards”. The way they will work is that there will be certain events (like NPCs or Locations) in which you’ll be able to receive a Card which does something but after fulfilling certain requirements that card might transform into another card, doing something else entirely (much stronger too ;) ).

• Card crafting

Another idea we have is an introduction of a special place in the Village in which you’ll be able to craft your own cards. We don’t want to go into details just yet – we need to save something for our next updates, right? ;)

• New Events

We don’t want to abandon our weekly/bi-weekly events and we have ideas for new surprises that we’re going to introduce relatively soon. You can be certain that we’ll have something for Halloween, X-mas, and we’re going to try to keep things fresh and interesting in-between and after these dates.

When these things are done and working we’re going to say that we’re FEATURE COMPLETE. This means that we’re going to be happy with what’s in the game in terms of systems and mechanics and we’re pretty sure that they are going to make Tainted Grail an event more unique mash-up of RPG and Card Battler and Roguelike. Something that no other game in these genres can offer – even more so than in the game’s current state.

This doesn’t mean that we’d be CONTENT COMPLETE, though. (And it doesn't mean that we won't implement any quality of life features - we're currently rebuilding the way we handle the player's character's movement so that we can start working on controller support for example!).

[h2]Content additions[/h2]

We’re constantly working on content. Either on creating new things or polishing up the things that we already have. In terms of gameplay-related things: we’re already testing around 20 new cards and passives and we’re waiting for features that will allow us to implement 6 new Runestones. We’re coming up with ideas for more of everything. We already have plans for 1 new bossfight and around 3 new enemies – and that’s not all.

You can expect MORE of everything (locations/NPCs – we have around 5 near-ready interactions that aren’t implemented yet, waiting for a 3D model or something else), and ideas for at least 15 more. And that’s the state for today, a week after we’ve launched with Seeds of Corruption.

No worries, Conquest is going to get BIGGER.

[h2]Polishing [/h2]

We want the game to be as smooth and pretty as possible – within our budget and resources. There’s a lot of things in it that we aren’t happy about (this damned green fog at the game’s borders for example!), and there are things we know we could’ve done smarter.

These are the things that we’re currently fixing.

For example, our artists got really angry about the way we’re handling cosmetic items right now and decided to rework the system so that it’s easier for them to create new armors – and so that these armors can look better than they currently do. It should’ve been an easy thing, right? It wasn’t. Now, after we’re done with reworking our approach, it’s going to be and we’ll be able to create a lot of really cool stuff!

The same goes – just another very simple example – for the character’s hair. We were really unhappy with how they turned out and that’s why we weren’t adding more hair to the character creation screen. And so this week our 3D artist and 2D artist decided to just stop for a while and figure out a way in which we can actually make hair that doesn’t look like shit. The results are really promising!

Another thing we’re working on is the visual side of the game in general. We know that we’re not quite “there” yet. And that’s why we’re currently testing HDRP – a High Definition Render Pipeline – and the results seem, also, promising. It’s too early to show anything concrete but what we’ve seen internally is making us REALLY happy. We honestly hope we’ll be able to get this thing working because the difference between standard Unity rendering and HDRP is just mind-blowing. We’re doing this in order to simplify things, too – in order to achieve a lot of cool features we have in the game our Tech-Artist Magician had to come up with gigantic shader graphs/scripts because these things aren’t supported by Unity by default. They are in HDRP and this is a game-changer – for Conquest, and for all of our future endeavors, and we want to learn this as soon as possible.

[h2]Optimization[/h2]

This is one of the most important things we’re working on right now.

We want to make sure that the game will run well and still be pretty on PCs that aren’t high-end machines and, believe us, we do know that it’s a bit crazy for an indie game to demand more horsepower than some AAA titles.

We are a smaller indie team, so that is why sometimes it is demanding, but overall - we will give our very best and you can expect some first effects soon!

[h2]Campaign[/h2]

We've been a bit silent about the campaign for a while... and we'll be for a little while longer. We want to reassure you that the campaign is still a thing, it’s happening, and we do want to deliver it – but even though we’re doing some stuff behind the scenes we'd ask for a little more patience. We hope to have an update about the campaign around next week - there are just some things we need to check and discuss first :)

And so, that's our roadmap for the next few months!

• Some hiccups and bugs in Corruptions (mainly NPC spawn) and map refreshing have been (hopefully) eradicated.
  
• Corruptions have been slightly altered from the balance's side - the spike in difficulty increase is now much smoother, and the endgame Corruptions are a bit less frustrating and drawn-out in fights. This mainly affects Corruptions 3-7.
  
• Wyrdchild enemy has been nerfed, and shouldn't hit you 12 times in 1 turn.
  
• Last Resort passive skill now properly displays and triggers its' effect.
  
• All multi-Hit attacks are now tracked and registered with much greater precision (i.e. no more Combo Marks not counting towards Vulnerable under specific circumnstances, etc.)
  
• Quest exclamation markers fixed. Now should properly indicate where to go and disappear after interaction.
  
• Starting any interactions with a location and combat encounter at the same time is now queued properly.
  
• Moonrings no longers suffer from a short artificial delay after each fight.
  

So, have a great weekend & see you soon!