Dev Notes
We’ve received feedback that you’d like to continue receiving full change notes with the Steam updates, so those are below! We also wanted to say a little about our intent with some of these changes.
Our goal is to make MoM the best game it can be and to use Early Access to its fullest. That means change, and sometimes aggressive change. With the Ultimates update, we are aiming to deliver interesting combat systems with a variety of strategic options and some subtlety that takes time to master. That has meant shaking up the combat meta. Based on feedback so far, we’re much closer to having every Magic Skill be powerful in the right moment, but we will keep monitoring all the posts on Steam, Discord, and Reddit and make adjustments as necessary.
The Difficulty changes we’ve made streamline the way you start a new game. Instead of making multiple choices about difficulty, you now just choose between three levels. Based on feedback, we realized that players were sometimes choosing a middle level that was harder or easier than they thought they would get, so we simplified the process while keeping the ability to completely customize the experience.
Standard difficulty should now represent what we expect from MOM. It has interesting choices with consequences, both positive and negative. It may be harder than some players expect based on their past experience with the game. Relaxed difficulty is intended to be the mode where you can always recover from problems and you can play at your own pace. We’ve gotten a lot of useful feedback on difficulty already and are making some adjustments, especially for Relaxed and Standard modes.
If the game is too hard, keep in mind that you can change your difficulty level at any time during the game and even customize exactly which aspects are harder and easier from the settings menu.
Looking forward, this is likely the last time we’ll really shake up core game play so deeply. On our path to a 1.0 release, we’ll be adding to and enriching the Underschool, extending the lore of the game, adding new quests, and endgame goals. As always, we’ll continually mix in QoL and other improvements. Thanks for all the play, feedback, and help as we strive to make MOM into the game we’d all like to play.
Combat
[h2]Level 8 Spells[/h2]
- Mages at Skill 8 now get access to Ultimate spells. These are ultra powerful, expensive spells to turn the tide of even the hardest battles.
- Ultimates can only be cast a limited number of times per day. Each Mage intrinsically has one Ultimate Cast every 24 hours; even if they have two Ultimates, they will only be able to cast one each day.
- Mages with high Conviction will have +1 Ultimate Cast per day.
- Mages that Apprentice in the same Skill as their Wand (aka Mancers) will gain +1 Ultimate Cast per day. (See Apprentice Specializations section below.)
- All Ultimates cost 150 mana to cast. Mages who have a D grade or better in Mana will be able to afford to cast at least one Ultimate by level 18.
[h2]The Ultimates[/h2]
- Tornado Trap (Air): Attacks an enemy five times. Adds Shield 3 to the caster.
- Lance (Fire): Deals heavy damage to a front row enemy. Has a 50% chance to crit, and pierces all shields, armor, and resistance effects. Any overkill damage is dealt to the enemy behind the target.
- Tsunami (Water): Damages all enemies. Each ally is healed for 25% of the total damage dealt.
- Polarize (Lightning): Summons a Thundercloud over a targeted enemy. The Thundercloud strikes the target, then a random enemy, then repeats that pattern for up to 8 total hits. Each time an enemy dies, an ally regains 75 mana. 50% Power and 50% Speed contributes to damage.
- Stoneskin (Earth): Adds Taunt 4 to the caster, and the caster is Damage Immune until the end of the next round.
- Waves of Death (Dark): Attacks the front-most row of enemies 3 times. Any enemies killed leave behind a Pustulant Carcass after the Waves finish. The carcass explodes for 40 damage at the end of the round, or immediately after being hit.
- Wither (Nature): Inflicts the Wither debuff on all enemies. Wither deals 30 damage at the end of the round, then the damage increases by 30. Whenever an enemy afflicted by Wither dies, the most hurt ally is healed for the Wither amount.
[h2]Potion Changes[/h2]
- Mages can no longer access a communal pool of Potions. Instead, Potions function more like Relics; they are equipped from the Mage Sheet, and each individual Mage will only be able to use their own equipped Potions.
- Mages will automatically refill their Potion slot with available Potions.
- Currently all Mages have one Potion slot.
[h2]Combat Terrain[/h2]
Terrain has been added to combat. Different combat slots on either side of the battle can potentially have Terrain that affect combat in various ways. Different biomes will have different Terrain showing up.
[h3]Terrain Types[/h3]
Generic terrain (Can occur anywhere, including in The Spine)
- Cover: Occupants dodge AOE attacks and debuffs
- only attacks and debuffs that specifically target the Cover Terrain affect occupants. Occupants take 100% extra damage from Earth attacks (except AOE Earth attacks), and then Cover goes away.
- Mana Vein: Spells cast from Mana Vein terrain cost 50% less Mana. Only occurs on the Mages’ side of the battle.
Stone Ruins terrain
- Shadow Cloak: Permanently Shadow Cloaked, granting 3a3% dodge chance.
- Cleansing: Occupants can’t gain any status effects, positive or negative. Occupants take 100% extra damage from Dark attacks, but then Sanctified goes away.
- Conductive: Occupants' Lightning attacks do 2x damage. Occupants take 100% extra damage from Lightning attacks, but then Conductive goes away.
Fungal Cavern terrain
- Thorns: Permanent Thorns. Occupants take 10% of their Max HP as damage upon moving into or ending their turn in Thorns.
- Entangling: Occupants cannot move or be moved out of Entangling Terrain, including by forced movement spells. Occupants also cannot be Hasted. Occupants take 100% extra damage from Fire attacks, but then Entangling goes away.
- Sustaining: Occupants at >1HP survive any fatal attacks at 1HP. Occupants take 100% extra damage from Nature attacks, but then Sustaining goes away (occupant will survive the Nature attack at 1HP).
Lava Mine terrain
- Lava: Occupants take 20% of their Max HP as damage upon moving into or ending their turn in Lava. (a stronger version of Thorns). Occupants take 100% extra damage from Water attacks, but then the Lava goes away.
- Gravel: Occupants are Slowed (act at the end of each round regardless of speed
- multiple Slowed characters act in Speed order). Occupants cannot be Hasted. Occupants take 100% extra damage from Air attacks, but then the Gravel goes away.
[h2]Weakness/Resistances[/h2]
- Enemies now have weaknesses and resistances. Weakness to a Skill will result in attack spells of that Skill dealing 2x damage, while resistance will result in 0.5x damage.
- Early game enemies have many weaknesses and few resistances, while later game enemies have the inverse.
[h2]Combat Scouting & Abjuration[/h2]
- You can now change the battlefield before fighting battles.
- Before each battle, you can select from two options for modifying terrain and enemies.
[h3]Scouting[/h3]
- Scouting requires spending Crystallized Visions, and allows you to modify combat terrain to your advantage.
- Crystallized Visions are new reagents that can be crafted at a new Crystal Ball crafting station via Augury, a new Lightning errand.
Scouting Options
Recon
- Costs 2 Crystal Portent
- The player will be able to swap the Terrain of two combat slots on the same side of the battlefield.
Advantaged Position
- Costs 6 Crystal Portent
- The player will be able to swap the Terrain of two combat slots on opposite sides of the battlefield (that is, swap one friendly slot with one enemy slot).
Upwelling
- Costs 12 Crystal Portent
- The player can select one friendly combat slot to become a Mana Vein terrain slot instead of whatever Terrain it was previously.
Hazardous Terrain
- Costs 4 Crystal Prophecy and 4 Crystal Portent
- All enemy terrain will be replaced with Thorns.
Greater Upwelling
- Costs 8 Crystal Prophecy and 4 Crystal Portent
- All allied terrain will be replaced with Mana Vein terrain.
[h3]Abjuration[/h3]
- Abjuration requires spending reagents including Alchemical Salts, and allows you to modify enemy Weaknesses and Resistances to your advantage.
- Alchemical Salts are new reagents that can be crafted at the Alchemist’s Station via Alchemy.
Abjuration Options
Expose Weakness
- Costs 2 Sal Alembroth
- Choose an enemy and a neutral Skill on that enemy. That neutral Skill becomes a Weakness.
Invert Resistance
- Costs 6 Sal Alembroth
- Choose an enemy. All their Weaknesses become Resistances and all their Resistances become Weaknesses.
Wash Out
- Costs 12 Sal Alembroth
- All resistances on all enemies are removed, and are neutral instead.
Greater Expose Weakness
- Costs 4 Sal Oblivium and 4 Sal Alembroth
- Choose a Skill for all enemies to become Weak to. This can overwrite Resistances.
Nowhere To Hide
- Costs 8 Sal Oblivium and 4 Sal Alembroth
- All enemies gain Weakness to every Skill they are not Resistant to.
[h2]Apprentice Specializations[/h2]
Depending on which Skill on the Apprentice Wheel a Mage becomes an Apprentice in, they will gain specific powers.
[h3]Mancers[/h3]
Mages who Apprentice in the same Skill as their Wand will become a Mancer (Pyromancer, Necromancer, etc.). They will get +1 daily use of their Ultimate Spell.
[h3]Conjurers[/h3]
Mages who Apprentice in an adjacent Skill to their Wand will become a Conjurer. They will gain more Skill Cap than usual, and not have any lowered Skill caps. (This is unchanged from release, but now has a name.)
[h3]Arcanists[/h3]
Mages who Apprentice in a Skill two away from their Wand will become an Arcanist. They will gain a Relic Slot of their Apprentice Skill. If they already have a Relic Slot of that Skill, they will gain a rare Relic Slot instead. This can result in a mage with up to 5 Relic Slots if the Mage is also Gifted.
[h3]Sorcerers[/h3]
Mages who Apprentice in a Skill three away from their Wand will become a Sorcerer. They will gain a special combat passive ability. Each combination has a different combat passive, intended to help create new and exciting combat builds.
- Earth / Water: Whenever the Mage casts an Attack spell, they gain Armor equal to the Mana spent.
- Earth / Air: When below 50% HP, the character deals 33% more damage.
- Nature / Lightning: When the Mage receives a Buff from a spell or potion, a random Mage that does not have the Buff also receives it.
- Nature / Air: All duration-based effects this Mage creates last for an additional combat round.
- Fire / Dark: Has +25% Dodge. Regains HP equal to 10% of their maximum whenever they kill an enemy.
- Fire / Water: Torrent and Flow gain 50% Critical Hit chance, and Critical Hits deal triple damage.
- Dark / Lightning: Whenever this Mage casts a non-Attack spell, a random enemy becomes Doomed, causing them to take 1.5x damage from the next Attack spell that hits them.
[h2]Enemy Scaling[/h2]
- The default Enemy HP and Power Scalers on Relentless reduced from 1.5 to 1.25.
- However, Difficulty Options still allow players to scale Enemy HP and Power up further to 1.5 or 2.
- All enemy base hp and healing effects increased by 50%.
- All enemies up to level 8 had their base damage and damage related effects reduced by 50%.
- All enemies above level 8 had their base damage and damage related effects reduced by 25%.
[h2]Combat Balance Changes[/h2]
- Furry Mites hit all enemies for 4 damage rather than hitting the front row for 8.
- Fernlings hit in a line rather than the front row.
- Strigoi, Drowned One, Wraith: Their stacking debuffs no longer need to deal damage to apply, just score a hit. This means armored / shielded characters will still be afflicted with the debuff. All three debuff types now need to get up to 5 stacks (from 3) in order to inflict the permanent (but treatable) major debuff.
- Messy Meddler: Corrosion now applies on hit rather on dealing damage.
- Batkin: Grant themselves a Power buff every 3 turns. The buff lasts for 3 turns.
[h2]Advanced Enemy Abilities (Relentless Difficulty)[/h2]
- Belcher: Deals Critical damage to Mages with Armor.
- Lantern Keeper: Power buff and debuff go from +/- 5 to +/- 20.
- Hallowed One: Mana Drain effect added to their attack.
- Furry Mite: Base spell damage increases to 8.
- Strigoi, Drowned One, Wraith: Stacking debuffs persist outside of combat, inflicting a conviction penalty. Over time the penalties decay into lesser forms before finally going away when the last one times out.
- Boulderjaw: Replaces Terrain with Gravel at the target’s position rather than inflicting a Speed debuff.
- Batkin: Power buff duration increased to 4 rounds from 3. Multiple stacked Power buffs will upgrade.
- Ember Golem: On death, replaces the terrain at their killer’s location with Lava.
- Fernling: Their line attack swaps the positions of the two Mages it hits.
- Hellmaw: Has a 50% chance to chain to the Mage behind the front row target.
- Chest Smasher: Deals Critical damage to Mages below 50% hp.
- Burrower Larva: Now summons an Ember Golem and a Belcher into the front row when it Dives into the lava (new enemies coming soon).
- Corrupted Mana Lantern: Starts with 1 shield per tier of the event (1/2/3).
- Messy Meddler: Corrosion debuff does triple damage to Mages with Armor.
- Scythe: Their attacks pierce Armor and Shields.
- Torch Snuffer: Mages hit by the torch snuffer can only cast damaging spells for 2 rounds.
[h2]Skill Changes[/h2]
[h3]Earth[/h3]
- Smash (L1) Remove FullHP bonus damage condition. Damage from 5 to 15.
- Smash 2 (L3) Mana Cost from 10 to 20. Remove full hp condition. Damage from 10 to 30.
- Smash 3 (L6) Mana Cost from 10 to 30. Remove full hp condition. Damage from 20 to 45.
- Armor 1 (L2) Mana Cost from 20 to 40. Now grants Armor equal to 20% of MaxHP
- Armor 2 (L4) Mana Cost from 20 to 60. Now grants Armor equal to 30% of MaxHP. Moved to L5.
- Quake 1 (L5) Mana Cost from 30 to 45. Removed full hp condition. Damage from 15 to 40. Swaps positions of enemies in the row. Moved to L4.
- Quake 2 (L7) Mana Cost from 30 to 90. Removed full hp condition. Damage from 30 to 80. Swaps positions of enemies in the row.
[h3]Air[/h3]
- Multistrike 1 (L1) Mana cost from 10 to 15.
- Multistrike 2 (L3) Mana cost from 10 to 30. Move to L5
- Shield 1 (L2) Shields 2 hits instead of 1. Mana cost from 30 to 60. Can only self-cast.
- Shield 2 (L5) Mana cost from 30 to 60. No longer replaces Shield 1; this is now Mass Shield 1. Move to L4.
- Shield 3 (L7) Mana cost from 30 to 120. This is now Mass Shield 2.
- Haste 1 (L4) Move to L3.
- Haste 2 (L6) Mana from 60 to 120.
[h3]Fire[/h3]
- Fireball 1 (L1) Mana cost from 20 to 14.
- Fireball 2 (L3) Mana cost from 20 to 23.
- Fireball 3 (L6) Move to L6. Damage from 30 to 50. Mana cost from 20 to 30.
- Vengeance 1 (L2) Counterattack now replaces Retaliate. Now only targets one Mage. When attacked, Mages with Counterattack will attempt to cast their most basic combat spell.
- Vengeance 2 (L6) Move to L5. Applies Counterattack to an allied row. Mana cost from 40 to 60.
- Flame Lash 1 (L4) Used to convert 50% of the Mage’s current mana into damage at 2 damage per mana spent. Now converts 75% of the Mage’s current mana at 1 damage per mana spent.
- Flame Lash 2 (L7) Removed and replaced with Vengeance 3. Same Mana cost and targeting as Vengeance 2, but Counterattack lasts 3 rounds instead of two.
[h3]Nature[/h3]
- Growth 1 (L1) Change Thorns ground effect to deal 10% of max HP as damage to targets.
- Growth 2 (L3) Mana cost from 14 to 33. Move to L7. Increase base damage. Applies Thorns to the slot behind the target.
- Strength 1 (L2) Mana cost from 40 to 30.
- Strength 2 (L4) Mana cost from 40 to 60.
- Strength 3 (L6) Mana cost from 40 to 90.
- Lash 1 (L5) Move to L3. (Keep 30 mana cost, 25 base damage)
- Lash 2 (L7) Move to L5. Mana cost from 30 to 60. Keep 50 base damage.
[h3]Dark[/h3]
- Lash 1 (L1) No longer deals +20 damage when cast from Cloak. Mana cost to 0, 25% damages the caster, cost is reduced by 10% when the caster has a Cloak anywhere on the allied side. 80 base damage.
- Lash 2 (L3) No longer deals +40 damage when cast from Cloak. Mana cost to 0, 25% damages the caster, cost is reduced by 10% when the caster has a Cloak anywhere on the allied side. 120 base damage. Move to L4.
- Lash 3 (L7) No longer deals +60 damage when cast from Cloak. Mana cost to 0, 25% damages the caster, cost is reduced by 10% when the caster has a Cloak anywhere on the allied side. 200 base damage.
- Cloak 1 (L2) Dodge chance to 33%.
- Cloak 2 (L5) Mana Cost from 20 to 30. Dodge chance to 33%.
- Miasma 1 (L4) Mana cost from 25 to 0. Base damage from 10 to 20. Spell receives half contribution from power. 33% damages the caster. Move to L3
- Miasma 2 (L6) Mana cost from 25 to 0. Base damage from 20 to 60. Spell receives half contribution from power. 33% damages the caster.
[h3]Water[/h3]
- Torrent 1 (L1) Hits the two spots in front of it. Allies gain 15 flat Armor, enemies take damage.
- Torrent 2 (L3) Hits two spots in front of it. Allies gain 35 flat armor, enemies take damage. Mana cost from 10 to 25. Move to L5.
- Soak 1 (L2) Rename to Flow. Mana cost from 40 to 30. Caster gains a temporary buff granting 7 Power / Speed (same amt the enemy is debuffed) for 3 rounds.
- Soak 2 (L5) Now Flow 2. Mana cost from 40 to 60. Move to L4. Caster gains 15 Power / Speed.
- Soak 3 (L7) Now Flow 3. Mana cost from 40 to 105. Move to L6. Caster gains 30 Power / Speed.
- Consecrating Drops 1 (L4) Armor granted from a flat value to a 15% of caster’s Current HP. 15% damages the caster. Move to L3. Still targets row.
- Consecrating Drops 2 (L6) Mana cost from 60 to 90. Armor granted from a flat value to 15% of caster’s Current HP. 15% damages the caster. Move to L7. Targets all allies.
[h3]Lightning[/h3]
- Bolt 1 (L1) Base damage to 5. Damage contribution is 50% Power / 50% speed.
- Bolt 2 (L3) Base damage to 25. Damage contribution is 50% Power / 50% speed. Move to L4.
- Bolt 3 (L5) Base damage to 45. Damage contribution is 50% Power / 50% speed. Move to L6
- Recharge 1 (L2) Changes from a flat cost / restore to a 15% Max Mana based cost/restore. Remove speed bonus.
- Recharge 2 (L6) Changes from a flat cost / restore to a 25% Max Mana based cost/restore. Remove speed bonus. Move to L5.
- Stunstrike 1 (L4) Renamed to Inspiration. Move to L3. Changes to grant an ally +30 Speed and a guaranteed 2x Crit on next attack. Mana cost to 80.
- Stunstrike 2 (L7) Changes to grant an ally +30 Speed and a guaranteed 2x Crit on next attack. Mana cost to 40.
[h2]Other Combat[/h2]
- Shattered now get 100% max hp as armor on battle start, rather than a flat 40 Armor.
- All Relics that boost Power now grant half as much Power.
Non-Combat Gameplay
[h2]Research Tiers and Research Room Changes[/h2]
- Research now has Tiers. As you get higher on the tech tree, you must perform research in more powerful Crafting Rooms and with Mages that have higher and higher Lightning Skill.
- Tier I Research may be performed at any Arcane Secretarry with Mages of Lightning Skill 1 or greater.
- Tier II Research must be performed in at least a Mage’s Study with Mages of Lightning Skill 3 or greater.
- Tier III Research must be performed in at least a Mage’s Tower with Mages of Lightning Skill 4 or greater.
- Tier IV Research must be performed in a Mage’s Hermitage with Mages of Lightning Skill 6 or greater.
- Mage’s Hermitages have changed from requiring Isolated to requiring Private + no Doors or Hallways (i.e., you may only use a Broom Station to access them).
- Mage’s Hermitages that were already Private now require being Towered.
- Trapdoor Vine Planter moved from This Stuff is Scary to A Natural Throne.
- Large Arched Window moved to a new I Can See It All Tier II tech, between The Cronebug! and Getting Posh.
- Moved Easel and Easel recipes to Lighten Things Up and removed from Patron of the Arts.
- Patron of the Arts renamed to Under Lock and Key.
- Lighten Things Up moved to having The Bird Is the Word as its precursor tech.
- Potion of Recharging recipe moved to Boil and Bubble.
- Carve it Up to 4000 work and moved to Tier III, after Solid As a Rock.
- A Majestic Creature changed to 6000 work.
- A Whole Lotta Support changed to 10000 work.
- Under Cover Sleeping changed to 11000 work.
- Exotic Reagents moved to between I Can See It All and Getting Posh. Cost increased to 6000, moved to Tier III.
- A Whole Lotta Support moved to after Exotic Reagents.
- A Majestic Creature moved to after Carve It Up, renamed to Green with Envy.
- Emerald Statue crafting recipe moved to Green with Envy.
- If you had any changed Research already completed, you will still have access to those items in save games.
[h2]Event Changes and Multi Events[/h2]
- Pushed existing Breathstealer events up to Mage Score of >16800.
- At Mage scores of >21600, Multi events will start occurring. They only start to occur at an Intensity >.49, but curve up to be twice as frequent as their normal room battle event counterparts at an intensity of 1.
- All Invasion/Bramblespawn events at >14400 Mage Score, including the new Multi Invasions/Multi Bramblespawns, are now smarter about what rooms they will try to attack. They'll pick criteria and go after rooms with the most of important furniture items/types, rather than empty rooms.
- Multi events are events that cause more than one threat to the school to appear at once.
[h2]Multi Events[/h2]
- Hour of the Invaders: Two invasion creatures spawn and take over rooms.
- Hour of the Bramblespawn: Two Bramblespawn Spore spawn and take over rooms. Only happens if Bramblespawn events are unlocked via the Jade Dragon project.
- Hour of the Breathstealers: Two Breathstealers show up targeting different Mages.
- Hour of the Smashers / Hour of the Snuffers / Hour of the Meddlers / Hour of the Poltergeists: Varied combinations of Chest Smasher, Torch Snuffer, and Messy Meddler Rifts will spawn in the school.
[h2]Difficulty Selection Changes[/h2]
- There are no longer separate Pressure and Challenge choices. Instead, you just choose a single difficulty level. All customization options remain the same as before.
- Standard difficulty will see the most difficult events and the easiest events depending on how well you are playing, unlike before where the Balanced Pressure level excluded the very easiest and the very hardest.
[h2]Quirk Changes and Wand Needs[/h2]
- Mages no longer gain Negative Quirks when upgrading wands. These are now “Scar Effects” that are added when Mages gain a Scar.
- Mages no longer gain Positive Quirks when upgrading wands, either. They will receive new Needs instead.
- Depending on the Skill of the wand they have equipped, Mages will receive a new Need when equipping a Tier II Wand. At Tier III, the Mage’s Need will intensify, causing it to drain faster and require more upkeep.
[h3]New Needs[/h3]
- Dark--Moonlight Need: Dark mages want to be in Moonlight frequently.
- Nature--Sunlight Need: Nature mages want to be in Sunlight frequently.
- Air--Kinetophile Need: Air mages want to go up and down lots of stairs and ladders, and fly on brooms.
- Earth--Terra Firma Need: Earth mages want to be on the ground or fully supported blocks.
- Lightning--Introversion Need: Lightning mages want to be alone.
- Water--Extroversion Need: Water mages want to be around other mages.
- Fire--Victory Need: Fire mages wants to hunt or kill enemies in battle.
[h2]Mage Hunger & Starvation Damage Updates[/h2]
Mages that have a Hunger status that causes them to take damage (Famished, Ravenous, Near Starving, or Starving) cannot be Revived if they are At Death’s Door. They will need to be fed a meal first.
- Mages who are Aiding a Mage who is At Death’s Door will bring them a meal first, before bringing them to a Hospital Bed.
- Nearly Starving and Starving prevent HP recovery.
- New difficulty option for enabling/disabling HP loss from hunger. Defaults to enabled for Standard and Relentless and disabled for Relaxed.
- Fixed a bug causing Third Degree Burns (and other 'block healing' statuses) to make Revive ritual Revive a mage at 0 HP, causing them to immediately go back to At Death’s Door.
- Fixed a bug causing First, Second, and Third Degree Burns (and other 'block healing' statuses) to block above-ground HP
- loss.* They now correctly only block healing.
- In Pain status now activates at 80% HP rather than 100% HP.
- Backcompat: Mages loading into Combat release will have extreme low Hunger values raised to at the beginning of Famished, to give players time to react to the above changes.
[h2]Lightning Changes[/h2]
- Lightning Storms no longer destroy Roof tiles. Instead, Roofs and all other Construction Blocks and furnishings can be struck. They take durability damage when struck and anything nearby may take AoE damage.
- When Construction Blocks are Broken, they can no longer form rooms, resulting in rooms going away. They can be Repaired to restore the Room.
- Lightning Rods now protect a larger area, but take Durability damage when hit by lightning strikes.
- Other rooftop decorations now protect roofs as well, though they protect a smaller area relative to Lightning Rods. They will take Durability damage when hit as well.
[h2]High Conviction Bonuses[/h2]
- Mages get a boost to their combat stat growth when at high Conviction, e.g. B → B+. This bonus is retroactive as the growth value changes.
- Mages get +1 Ultimate Cast when at high Conviction.
[h2]General Gameplay[/h2]
- No longer allow difficulty changes during combat.
- Certain Rituals now require Mages to expend all of their Mana as part of the Ritual.
- Discordance penalty for too many Staff is gone.
- Doubts now affect Conviction in schools based on MAGE score, but to a much lesser degree than Discordance. Higher difficulties will result in larger Conviction penalties by default, but can be managed in the Difficulty Settings.
- New difficulty option for controlling Doubts.
- Time and resource costs for Staff Hiring ramp forever now, instead of being static after a certain point.
- Dragon Quests no longer grant Quirks as rewards.
- When you change the priority on Storage, Mages will shift the contents between Storages to reflect that priority.
- Added Basic Architectural Style, a new style that removes some of the more advanced keywords.
- L25 relics have been reimplemented more robustly.
- Vivified now cannot feel pain. They are immune to the In Pain status normally added when below 80% HP; both its Conviction malus and the Misfire chance will not apply.
- Croa Corpses can now be stored in chests, but will still spawn Spectral Croa from within the chest. Spectral Croa spawned from Chests or inside a room will have their Hunt errand enabled automatically.
- Dungeon rooms no longer 'lock' on the way to boss battles.
- Removed starting research from Relaxed.
- A Chest Smasher Rift or a Torch Snuffer Rift are now the first combat event, rather than Invasions, to alleviate the pain of early Invasions. In addition, Invasion Events in the early game will no longer invade Grounded rooms.
- Relics that grant combat stat boosts will no longer drop with Skill Affinities (Fire, Water, etc.), to alleviate how much combat stat stacking you can do. Some additional related rebalance as to which Legacies drop with which Affinities.
- Balanced MAGE contribution better across Research (which was contributing relatively too much to MAGE) and Mage Skill/Construction/Assemble progress (which was contributing relatively too little).
- Slowed down initial MAGE event unlocks slightly to compensate for Mage Skill contribution to MAGE being higher.
- Save Scum Protection: Many places in game now have their own RNG, so that it is more difficult to get different outcomes by saving and reloading, even if you let the game run in between attempts.
- Dragon Statue is now craftable at the Statue Carvery, rather than being directly assembled.
[h2]Fixes and Improvements[/h2]
- Fix for Standard difficulty using Relaxed-level battles for Invasions and Bramblespawn events.
- Some significant perf improvements, most evident in larger schools.
- Fix conflicting Combat Spell Hotkeys.
- Fix battle button mouseover that wasn't showing correct 'waiting for' text.
- Combat speed control allows x6 speed now.
- Combat idles now always play at 1x speed, even when adjusting combat speed.
- Add Mana Bursts to combat log.
- Fix bug where the turn UI on combat start would sometimes incorrectly look as if the first combatant gets two turns.
- Hide the turn indicator during turn animations.
- Fix some Trial XP values having rounding errors due to display bonuses.
- Show excluded statuses on ritual setup so that Not Gifted is more clear.
[h2]Twitch Integration[/h2]
- Added the ability in the Twitch App to randomly shuffle the naming queue.
