Draft of Darkness News

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]
- Fixed a bug with effect orders, causing issues such as Guard triggering even if the damage is dodged.
- Fixed blueprint creation taking the Dream Coin cost even after the process being cancelled.
- Fixed Alert Healer giving Dodge even if 3 Dodge stacks exist.
- Fixed preserved unique items not registering as "seen", causing them to be dropped again during the run.

In this second improvement patch, I've added two of the highly requested features to the game: Mouse movement and quick-playing cards.

You can now simply point and click at a tile you want to move to, and the hero will start moving towards that tile on a calculated path. This path is calculated taking into account obstacles and locked doors etc., so it's possible to click on a far away tile and you will start moving there if a path is found. Depending on the distance, finding a path may take a while. So, you might experience delays if you click on a hard to reach tile. I'm planning to polish this system by adding indicators for when a path is being calculated etc.



Also, be aware that the path calculation won't take into account enemy positions. This means there is a high chance you will run into enemies since you have less control compared to manual movement. Clicking the "Back" key (Right Mouse Button by default) will stop the character from moving on a path; so you can use this to stop when you notice an enemy. I might add enemy avoidance only for enemies that are visible, but I couldn't decide yet if that's a good idea. It also brings additional questions such as: Should the path adjust if an enemy becomes visible on the path? Let me know what you think about enemy avoidance: is it necessary or not?

With this patch, it's also possible to double click cards to quickly use them without the need to aim at a target. This is of course only possible if there is no need to aim with the card. In other words, double-clicking while selecting the card will immediately play it if the card:

• targets all enemies,
  
• targets all allies,
  
• has a single available target.
  

While the balance changes are still mostly in progress, there has been a few tweaks mainly on the Bleeding cards. After the last patch's changes, we saw especially Bleeding-only builds fall behind. To help with this, some of the bleeding cards are tweaked and the "Open Wound" card is changed again to prevent it from being outclassed by cards like "No Mercy", which was more powerful (even with low Physical Power) while having the same cost. As a side note: I'm also working on a change involving Cara's perk to prevent it from being a disadvantage because of the accelerated decay of Bleeding.

The next patch will be a small content update. I'm also planning to announce the roadmap real soon. For now, you can expect that we will move away from weekly updates to less frequent but bigger ones.

If you want to follow the project more closely, I highly recommend joining our Discord Server. On Discord, I'll be posting more frequently about the game and you can directly reach me for feedback, questions, help or anything else about the game.

[h2]Full Patch Notes for v0.5.3_p2[/h2]
[h3]Improvements[/h3]
- Added mouse movement to the exploration phase. Clicking on a tile on the map will construct a path and the character will start moving on this path until the targeted tile is reached. Selecting tiles with a long path will cause a delay, since calculating the path takes some time. Right clicking will stop the character from continuing on the path.
- Double clicking when selecting a card will quickly play the card, if there is no choice of target for the card. In other words, for cards that target all enemies/allies or when there is only one possible target.
- Changed the exploration tutorial to include mouse movement instructions.
- Pressing "Close Window" (ESC) key will close the map if open.
- Increased the size of tooltips that show when hovering over "?" icons.
[h3]Balance[/h3]
- Mend Power giving equipment now spawns. Dropped syringes will give Mend Power instead of Crit. Chance.
- (Item) "Charger": Now costs 3 Battery Charge to activate its effect in both exploration and encounter.
- (Card/Knife) "Bleeding Stab": Bleeding 3->4.
- (Card/Knife) "Open Wound": Changed to "Inflict Bleeding damage equal to 2xBleeding on the target and reset the decay of Bleeding."
- (Card/Knife) "Wounding Tantrum": Bleeding 4->6.
- (Card/Shotgun) "Hip Fire": Energy Cost 2->4.
[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]
- Fixed aspect ratios other than 16:9 causing unaligned UI in windowed mode.
- Fixed resolution dropdown not showing the correct resolution in windowed mode.
- Fixed a bug causing a crash before "Running Out of Resources" tutorial when certain cards are in hand.
- Added a workaround fix for the bug where interaction between Holy Charm / Orange Reflector and Dark Armor + Coward Status was causing a hang. This bug will not cause a hang anymore, but conditions with 0 stacks may show (visual bug). A proper fix is being worked on.
- Fixed equipment tooltips going out of screen.
- Fixed "Recovery" card's energy cost not updating after swapping to unarmed.
- Fixed card descriptions not updating after swapping weapons.
- Typo fixes and clarifications.

More than a week passed since the Early Access launch of Draft of Darkness. First of all, I'd like to thank you for all your support during the launch week! The positivity and all the feedback we received was invaluable!

I'll be preparing a roadmap for the content patches soon. For now, I'll be releasing improvement patches and balance updates with ideas gathered from your great feedback.

In this first patch, I made some improvements to eliminate some problems and streamline a few things to reduce confusion. The tooltip and card preview sizes are increased, for better readability of text. The stats screen is also simplified, letting you distribute your stats easily. Stats will show tooltips when you hover over them. You can see all improvements listed in the changelog below.



There were also some big balance related changes, mainly involving the "knife" weapon. Cara being very powerful due to her being able to stack high amount of Bleeding despite spending no resources was a common opinion. Using Stealth to hide after applying some Bleeding, then watching the boss melt away was feeling a bit exploity to say the least.

To fix this, I've made a big change to Bleeding condition itself: it decays by half when it triggers. This means the bleeding won't decrease by one after doing damage. Instead, it will lose half its layers, making it decay faster the more you stack it. If you stacked 50 Bleeding, after dealing 50 damage, it will be reduced to 25, then 12 and so on... This indirectly limits how much you can stack Bleeding, and requires a more active gameplay to effectively use it and benefit from its advantages.



Also, cards applying or manipulating Bleeding have been tweaked. One example is "Open Wound", which can now be used to have some control over Bleeding, by triggering it manually and delaying its decay.

(The Daemon now applies "Revealed" if it sees you hide in the shadows!)

Next week, I'm planning to add more exciting improvements, such as movement with mouse, faster ways to use cards, and more! I'll be releasing the next week's changes to the "experimental" branch on Friday, and it will be merged to the main branch on Monday! If you want to test things earlier, you can always switch to the "experimental" beta branch of the game on Steam.

Looking forward to hear more of your feedback. See you around!

Note: If you have a saved run, you might come across some anomalies when you load it in the new patch. For example, some attributes may decrease on leveling up. This will fix itself when you start a new run. On the other hand, if you come across any crashes or game-breaking bugs, please contact me in our Discord Server.

[h2]Full Patch Notes for v0.5.2_p2[/h2]
[h3]Improvements[/h3]
- Bleeding now loses half its layers when it decays.
- Encounter card drops will now include unarmed cards more often.
- The Daemon now applies Revealed with its "Menace" moves.
- Increased text size for tooltips and cards.
- Pressing corresponding keyboard shortcuts to open equipment/deck window will also close the window if open. The shortcuts will also function to switch between tabs while this window is open.
- Level up screen is more streamlined by adding "-1" buttons to remove points. Tooltips are added to stats.
- Equipment inventory screen now shows character stats.
- Equipment can be marked as junk inside the shop window.
[h3]Balance[/h3]
- Sell prices are reduced from 0.2x to 0.15x.
- Reduced the amount of Speed given by higher rarity equipment.
- Resource drops are now more uniform. The drops will be selected from all resource types 50% of the time, instead of being skewed towards characters currently in the party.
- Necessity drops are tweaked to only drop if player has less than 5 of a resource.
- "Strength": Phys. Power per level 1->1.5.
- "Intelligence": Light Power per level 1->1.5. Mend Power per level 1->1.5.
- "Dexterity": Crit. Chance per level 2%->1%. Speed per level 0.05->0.03.
- "Dodge" will now negate application of "Bleeding".
- (Item) "Broken Syringe": Reworked to "Whenever an ally draws a Viral Infection card, apply Bleeding 2 to all enemies."
- (Item) "Glass Cannon": Damage increase 40%->30%.
- (Card/Axe) "Carve": Won't apply Bleeding if its damage is dodged.
- (Card/Axe) "Pierce": Won't remove buffs or apply Bleeding if its damage is dodged.
- (Card/Axe) "Swiss Army Axe": Bleeding 5->3, 8->5. Won't apply Bleeding/Crippled if its damage is dodged.
- (Card/Flashlight) "Blunt Hit": Phys. Dmg. 5->7, Energy Cost 5->4.
- (Card/Knife) "Butter Finger": Phys. Damage 4->3, Crit. Multiplier 4->3.
- (Card/Knife) "Dash": Added Limited 2.
- (Card/Knife) "Sneaky Blow": Phys. Damage 2->3.
- (Card/Knife) "Stealth Blow": Crit. Multiplier 5->4. Added Limited 2.
- (Card/Knife) "Wounding Tantrum": Bleeding inflict count 5x->4x.
- (Card/Knife) "Vanish": Added Limited 1.
- (Card/Knife) "Twist the Knife": Applies 100% Bleeding instead of 50%.
- (Card/Knife) "Open Wound": Energy Cost 7->5. Now triggers only 1 layer of Bleeding, but also serves as a refresh for Bleeding, delaying its decay.
- (Card/Pistol) "Wounding Bullet": Won't apply Weak if its damage is dodged.
- (Card/Shotgun) "Head Blaster": Crit Multiplier 3->2.
- (Card/Unarmed) "Repel": PhysicalDmg 2.5->2. Stagger Chance 20%->10%.
- (Card/Unarmed) "Punch": PhysicalDmg 2.5->2.
- (Companion) "Nurse": Base Speed 3->3.5.
- (Companion) "Police": Base Speed 3->4.
- (Companion) "Scavenger": Base Speed 5->4.
- (Companion) "Thug": Base Speed 4->4.5.
- (Enemy) "Albino Rat": "Scramble" Bleeding 6->8.
- (Enemy) "Crawler Brute": "Head Slam" Bleeding 5->8.
- (Enemy) "Sentry": "Saw" Bleeding 3->4, Wounded 2->4. "Triple Chop" Bleeding 2->3.
- (Enemy) "Crooked Zombie": "Hack" Bleeding 6->8. Wounded 6->8.
[h3]Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed item tooltips obstructing the view when selling items in shops.
- Fixed Assassin perk not increasing Crit. Chance when weapons are switched using a card.
- Fixed card highlights not updating after a card is used.
- Fixed an issue with critical hit screen shake being delayed.

- Technical library update to fix the crash occurring on systems with certain CPUs. If you were getting a hard crash on starting a new run, please give it a go to see if it's fixed.
- Added a notice in case of save data corruption.
- Removed the check for Steam Client. If the game can't connect to Steam, achievements won't unlock on Steam.
- Fixed "Pay It Forward" card pump action mechanics not working correctly.
- Fixed encounter input getting stuck if the map is opened just before entering an encounter.
- Fixed encounter input getting stuck if the menu is opened after an encounter ends.