Blightbound News

For those who are Blightbound...

We have a little update for you! Bots have been getting stuck on things, so this update aims to fix some of those problems.

You can read the update notes by clicking here!

We're working on a lot behind the scenes, for which there'll be an announcement soon. We hope you're enjoying your time in Blightbound!

Stay Healthy,
-SlowWolf

Behold, patch 0.4.1!

With the Helping Hands update, we added Bots to Blightbound: this allowed a lot of folks to play when they might not be able to otherwise. They did, however, have a couple of hiccups!



They might not be perfect, but the bots are doing their best; we also promise to keep working on them! So, this little hotfix addresses some of their immediate issues. You can find the detailed patch notes here!

If you bump into any issues, come and tell us what you found in our discord, or in the comments below.

As we continue to develop Blightbound, we're constantly looking to adapting the game to the feedback we're being given. Thank you all so much for your continued interest! If you're brand new to the game, then welcome, and we hope you enjoy your time here.

Hang tight, stay healthy!
-SlowWolf

For those who are Blightbound...

The future is now. The Helping Hands update is here, and boy howdy does this change things!

For starters, we have bots. You might ask, what does this change? For starters, you can now queue up anytime, anywhere. Not a lot of people playing at 3 in the morning*? Don't worry, because the bots will help you out!

If you cannot find anyone after queuing for a bit, you'll have the option to play with bots. These helpful friends will fill in any gaps in your party, whether you're by yourself or with a friend. In these blightstricken times, a little help like this goes a long way. They'll even hop in if a non-host player disconnects!

There's more too! Parlez vous Anglais? Now you don't have to. Blightbound now functionally supports 9 new languages, with more on the way! The full list can be found here in the update notes. Now you can play Blightbound, your way.

If we didn't get your language, don't worry: there's more coming. And although the game has functional** localizations, we're working on getting the fluffy text translated too.

Finally, we made a big change to the way you gather the most important crafting material: Aetheri Crystals. You need these little gems to forge the best items in the game. Previously, you could only find them by killing elite enemies.

No more!

Once your refuge unlocks the Bounty Board, all the new bounties will award you with these Crystals! This means you have more control over how many crystals you get, and can therefore build your favourite items more quickly*** and regularly. Happy Hunting!

And this is just the short-notes! We still haven't talked about the new hero (and she's one to steal your heart, but more likely your wallet), nor the new items you can craft! If you want to read all the details, you can do so by clicking here and reading the update changes on the Blightbound website.

Stay healthy,
-SlowWolf
[hr][/hr]
*For the record, we advocate a healthy amount of sleep every night. A rested adventurer is an alive adventurer! **Functional here meaning all the gameplay-important stats, numbers, and names. All the story stuff will need to wait just a bit longer. ***Or at least, with a great deal more regularity and at a consistent pace.

In case you missed it, we have a new big patch: Wolfpack!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

It did have a small host of things we could make better though, so we have another speedy update for the game. You can find the full notes below!

10 September 2020
[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where blocking with your shield as Warrior did not reduce damage taken as a client.
  
• Fixed an issue where the teleport ability of Sightless Hags and Blood Magi was reduced by difficulty, causing them to continuously teleport on higher difficulties.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Blood Magus did not use his beam attack as often on higher difficulties.
  
• Fixed an issue where the silence effect applied on enemies with the Rogue’s Interrupt was reduced based on difficulty. Interrupting should feel a lot more responsive and rewarding as a result.
  
• Fixed a minor visual issue where Khuliath’s healthbar would become red for a short while when he has reached the next area.
  

[h3]Items[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where players were able to sell the Sunwalker Sword, an item required to complete Kromn's life goal. Players that had sold their Sunwalker Sword before this patch, should have one in their Quartermaster inventory.
  
• Changed the Blacksmith recipe for Sun's Restoration: reduced the amount of Aetheri Crystals required, and the item now requires Siurd's Embers rather than Zerrish's Scales (it is a sword, after all).
  
• Legendary items which cannot be crafted in the Blacksmith cannot be sold anymore. Additionally, fixed a couple of issues where players were able to sell Legendary items that could only be acquired once, such as story-related items.
  

[h3]Refuge[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where Karrogh's introductory animation would be played in the Refuge after finishing a run with Wodania, when Karrogh had already been unlocked by the player.
  
• Fixed an issue where Nilbous' introductory animation would be played in the Refuge after finishing a run with Ezzouhn, when Nilbous had already been unlocked by the player.
  
• Fixed an issue where two heroes would sometimes overlap when the player has selected a hero in the Refuge.
  

[h3]Levels[/h3]

• Fixed a possible softlock in the fight against Khuliath, where players were able to walk to the next area before Khuliath had reached the area himself.
  
• Fixed an issue where the newest level (The Creeping Blight) was available to be selected by first-time players as their first dungeon run.
  
• Fixed a possible softlock in the Inner Sanctum in For Whom the Bell Tolls, where the switches of the switch puzzle would sometimes get stuck in an active/inactive state, when players hit a switch at the exact same moment as when the correct combination has been input.
  

Hopefully this improves your adventuring experience. May the sun guide your blade!

Stay healthy,
SlowWolf

For those who are Blightbound...

We got there! Update 0.3: Wolfpack is up and running, and we couldn't be happier. There's a lot to unpack and read here, so let's get started!


[h3]New Features[/h3]
- A new area is ready to be explored by your heroes in the Underhold: The Creeping Blight. This area features a new boss, and new music.
- Sunwalker Kromn's personal story can now be completed.
- Desert Mouse's personal story can now be completed.
- Karrogh, the Fearless Wolf can now be found and rescued to join your band of heroes. (Note that his story can’t be completed yet: only his first three story beats are included.)
- Matriarch Wodania can now be found and rescued to join your band of heroes.
- 8 new items have been added to the game.
- The elite enemy “Supplier Lurvid" can now be encountered when adventuring.
- The elite enemy “Shellrot" can now be encountered when adventuring.
[h3]General[/h3]
- Fixed an issue where some Wretches didn't fade out correctly after dying.
- The amount of completion rewards on the result screen now matches what's promised on map select.
- When finishing a level and entering the Aetheri transport beam, the victory screen should now always trigger for all players.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to stop their guided movement at the start of rooms by pressing and holding the interact button.
- Dismembered limbs should now have blood trails following them.
- Added a subtle visual effect for when the player is under the effect of the speed buff shrine.
- Capes on characters should now no longer appear glitchy.
- Turned off compression on all files to reduce loading times on faster hard disks.
- Changed file format for voice files. The game is now about 1GB smaller on disk.
[h3]Gameplay[/h3]
Currently the notoriety system has too much of an impact on the game, being the only way for players to reach satisfying difficulties and rewards. This both makes gaining notoriety feel essential, and losing it unnecessarily punishing. Additionally, players who were able to focus on notoriety could gain too many top-tier items faster than intended. The following changes are meant to address these issues.
- The difficulties selectable on the map are now randomly distributed instead of just random. This guarantees a variety of difficulties being available even without notoriety.
- Fixed an issue where enemy scaling was weaker than intended. Enemies should now keep better pace with the heroes and differences in difficulty should be more impactful.
- The rewards on the dungeon select screen will no longer display their quality. Instead the quality will be randomly decided at the end of a run, where higher difficulties will give players a higher chance at better items.
- The amount of highest-tier items that can result from this is limited. Playing at higher difficulties will increase this limit.
- Swapped around Tek'ka's and Kujuk's Ultimate skills: Tek'ka now has Summon Spirit, and Kujuk now has Frost Skull.
- Mini-reworked the Frost Skull skill. The player now becomes invincible for its entire duration (default 8 seconds). However, when getting hit by enemy attacks, the duration is reduced by 1 second for each sustained hit (the duration is the health bar of the Frost Skull, in a way). When returning back to normal form, gain 1 second of invincibility.
- Unleash spirits will now properly damage all enemies in the damage area previsualisation. The skill now also executes Wretches below 50% health (with the exception of elite Wretches).
- Triss can no longer revive herself when a Damage over Time effect was active on an enemy, causing her passive to heal her back up from 0.
- The Phalanxes spawned are now able to hit large enemies.
- Khuliath will now no longer land on obstacles during the fight.
- Khuliath will now no longer play a heavy camera shake before landing when transitioning to a new area.
- Khuliath's Mist Shout now instantly kills the player instead of simply damaging them, and pierces through invincibility and damage-reducing effects.
- NPCs now no longer get stuck inside the mist wall during Khuliath's third phase.
[h3]Items[/h3]
- Updated Venom's Vault passive description.
- Nerfed the amount of damage over time Venom's Vault passive deals.
- Players can no longer go over the stat cap by abusing stat potions.
- Dokalt's Ring now shows the proper amount of health you have to drop below before the effect becomes active (40%).
[h3]Refuge[/h3]
- Increased the chance of getting better quality item options at the merchant.
- Kromn's lifegoal should now show the correct amount of light shards collected, and will reinstate any shards that have gone missing in the past.
- Controller users are now no longer able to operate the Early Access popup when it is minimized.
- The artisan buttons' highlight state in the refuge is now a little more clear.
- Updated the Amalgamation visuals in the bestiary to no longer have visually inconsistent borders from the other entries.
- Tweaked the hover-over animation for items in your inventory.
- Crafting requirements will now show when hovering over recipe items and over the forge button instead of just the item.
[h3]Interface[/h3]
- Map select will now show what map is selected by the player, including the random option
- Tweaked the filling door icon to not fall behind it's black background and improved the contrast of the icon a bit when it hovers in the middle of a door's glow.
[h3]Levels[/h3]
- The raids that get spawned during the second part of Darkness' Embrace now spawn a little bit away from players, giving them some more time to react to the surrounding threats.
- When players fail to get back to the beginning within time at the end of Darkness' Embrace, they no longer get instantly killed. Instead, a difficult encounter spawns.
- Players can no longer jump or blink behind a door in the Inner Graves section of For Whom the Bell Tolls and get stuck there.
- After defeating the Blood Magus on Peak's end in the Hemomancer level, the game should no longer softlock by not allowing all party members to pass through to the Blightmist.
- Reduced the collision size of rocks in Khuliath the Mountain Giant level.
[h3]Networking[/h3]
- Optimised netcode to use less bandwidth, especially reducing bandwidth peaks when entering a new room.
- Improved position syncing, making enemies and other players move more smoothly and with less lag.
- The door vote progress visual should now always fill smoothly, even when not the host.
- Clients will no longer see the death animation of an enemy several times.
- Clients will no longer see a special effect repeated several times.

It's a hefty update, so make sure to read it all. Remember: reading is power!

Thanks for sticking around and being patient folks, we can't wait to show you what's next in update 0.4: Helping Hands.

Stay healthy,
SlowWolf