Tales & Tactics “PVP Alpha: Bugs & Polish” Update Patch Notes
This update focuses on many bug fixes, polishing, performance optimizations, and direct responses to player feedback rather than adding new content. We’re still working on the next major content update in tandem and it is on track to be released soon, but we didn’t want to wait any longer to get this large suite of game improvements to the players. Enjoy! And as always, continue those F1 bug reports, and giving us your feedback in the Discord or Steam Discussions.
Core Game
Another full rework to the AI system has been installed. This rework is intended to solve the recent framerate drops in complex combats that could potentially lead to crashes in some extremely complex combats. The new system also should result in overall more consistent AI behavior. Be sure to report any odd behavior of unit AI.
Into the Void (Difficulty modifier) now banishes all Units of a Trait rather than random units. This will be a bit easier to digest and remember throughout the run. A banished Trait will also prevent their War Banners from appearing in shops and any Trait-specific level up perks from choosing perks that affect that Trait.
Rebalanced Berserker 'Favored Weapons' to provide more direct stats related to the Archetype in question. The Favored Weapon now doubles the base modifier that makes the Archetype what it is (Mana Regen for casters, base health for Tanks, Attack Speed for Fighters), and adds effectively one free 'Tier' of additional stats.
"No Specialization" now awards a Common Legend, 3 Star Points, 3 Rerolls, and 3 Gold. If playing without Bonus Legends, it awards 5 SP instead. This makes the No Specialization more clearly built out as "early game immediate power", a distinct choice over the other specializations that are all build path oriented that rarely (if ever) give immediate power.
Leechknife Sheathe is now built by Sword + Crystal, and generates leechknives based on mana spent.
Edan's Blade is now built by Sword + Staff, and has an overall simple damage amplification effect.
When tied for pathfinding, units will now prefer to avoid Mud & Embers and to go to Springs. When Units have absolutely no target remaining and are standing in a dangerous hex, they will try to move out of it instead of standing still.
The gargoyles in Monock Sr's. fight have been reworked. They now are active from the start of the fight, and start by slamming into your backline and being a general distraction to your ranged units. They can turn to stone, re-taunting and healing.
Horror nerfed - Madness now lasts for 4 seconds (from 5).
Energized Gauntlets crit chance reduced to 15%. Added a 1s Cooldown to the knockback (not the crit portion) to prevent infinite knockback on fast-attacking ranged wearer. This item, while not terribly popular, was (and may still be) the strongest item in the game due to 'double damage' being a multiplication factor to other damage increases.
Crystal Heart mana per pulse reduced to 25 (from 30). Reduced the visual effect size of secondary pulse waves.
PVP Changes
PVP now allows for Unit Repositioning. This means that when you press Fight, you search for an opposing army, but then are given a second stage to change positioning. You cannot change Unit loadout, open the inventory bag, sell Units, or do anything other than reposition. The 2nd press of the Fight button activates the fight in full.
The above change means that opposing armies mostly no longer care about the actual enemy positioning at the time the fight was sent in. This is because, if you counterposition against Stalkers or a similar situation, we don't want to send the "squishies in the front" into the pool. So, enemy armies will position themselves in the same manner PVE fights do. Notable exception to this is units in Hex Mods will stay where they were and not be moved.
The PVP store now has a Freeze button, which will prevent the item store from rerolling next floor. By default it will behave as PVE shops do when unfrozen.
Starting resources increased to 6 Star Points (from 4) and 2 Rerolls (up from 1).
Army Upgrade SP cost adjustments: Uncommon to 10 (from 12), Rare unchanged, Army Size 5 to 18 (from 16), Army Size 6 to 24 (from 20).
Removed the minimum decrease value for Army Upgrade perks. They can now decrease all the way to 0 Star Points.
Otto's Pale Heart perk is now a Stone Soul perk: -1 Max Army Size, but your units deal 20% more damage and take 20% less damage.
Ki O' Dini's Legendary Tale III perk now grants +6 Star Points in addition to the Tier 2 Rare Legend.
Implemented anti-cheat methods for PVP. These solely involve validating sending/receving fights into our server, we have not and will not include any sort of third-party anti-cheat softwares. There were definitely some bad actors who had cheated or exploited to create impossible armies in the PVP pool. This will prevent that going forward, and we will purge the pool when this patch is deployed.
Adjusted how PVP pool storage works such that instead of sending fights into the server on fight start, that happens on fight completion now, so in the case of save scumming, duplicates aren't being sent in. Upon completing a fight, that fight on the server is removed, so we will now properly be cycling fights as players experience them rather than creating an infinitely large pool.
Polish
Added more dangerous-sounding wording to the Purge button.
Updated Monty's skill text to state his relatively secret passive of unlimited range.
Improved visual effects of Healer 2's Smite.
Minor Polish: The last skeleton who dies before a revival will now properly materialize out before going back to the fight.
Additional AI optimizations & fixes - when a Unit cannot target another Unit for any reason, there will be a short cooldown period initiated where that Unit will not attempted to be targeted again. This prevents units from getting stuck in very specific circumstances, such as a Melee unit who wants to target an enemy that is completely surrounded on all sides.
Additional optimization surrounding how frequently we write the game log file. Unreal profiling indicates this was a larger expense than we thought. We are now accumulating the text in memory and writing only once per second.
Optimization: Fixed one extra AI brain activating that wasnt needed.
Renamed Devil's Cleaver to Foecleaver, so as not to be so similar to Devil's Dagger. It now applied Marks instead of Evil. And fixed Devil's Dagger actually being named Devi's Dagger.
Added additional game optimization involving status effects.
In cases where the entire Bench and Board are both full and you are awarded units, such as through the Pivot perks, those excess Units will now be auto-sold instead of just never granted.
The bug report menu is now properly localized.
The compendium should no longer have missing text.
The request page is now properly translated.
PVP perks are now properly translated.
The "Unit doesn't match your Traits" DM advice now won't play if you have the Forbidden Path specialization.
Misc / Bug Fixes
Fixed another case of an end of run badge (Bosses Slain) showing the wrong value in the tooltip
New AI system fixes issues where non-AI units would sometimes act, such as non-enhanced Barq clones.
Fixed the Big Fish Story specialization trinket being able to be used without the Traveller's Blessing, gaining it instantly. It is intended to require the blessing first before use.
Fixed Crosby not showing shield particles, combat text, or materialize in/out particles.
Fixed an issue where random units generated by Character Sheet perks would be granted before the Into the Void difficulty modifier had set up the initial banishments.
Fixed an issue where run saves were not being fully deleted at the end of a run, potentially leading to a specific situation where starting a new run and then returning to main menu and continuing (before going to floor 2 on the new run) could load you into your last run.
Fixed a bug where when a unit was sold, if another unit was placed there immediately (before the unit had been fully materialized out), the game would not detect the newly placed was occupying a hex.
Fixed an issue where particles and material overrides (such as Freeze) would lose their visuals when the first applied stack wore off rather than the last applied stack wore off.
Various fixes to missing text or outdated text in Chinese localization.
Fixed Snake Oil Salesman being able to reduce consumable costs to 0 instead of the minimum stated 1.
Fixed PVP hex modifier fights causing future fights to trigger a "You have an unused hex modifier" warning.
Fixed an issue where Lel'Thas' Decisive Win perk wouldn't function properly.
Fixed PVP fights not saving file name structure in a way that is correctly alphabetically sorted on the server, meaning the most recent uploaded fights were not always the ones being pulled from the server.
Fixed a super rare issue where a softlock occurred if Master Trollgar died on the exact frame in which his swapping skill took effect.
Fixed a situation where if a Unit went invisible, other Units who currently had that one as their target wouldn't try to find other targets.
Fixed the Homebrew achievement not being completable since the February update.
Fixed characters already banished due to being Tier 4 appearing in the Banish UI.
Fixed a bug where you could actually run out of perks if you had managed to roll/level at Level 5+. This would not change the level up UI at all and would still show the perk you had last on offer, but clicking it would do nothing.
Fixed items that use Custom Numbers (such as the Favorite Book) losing their name in the UI when unequipped.
Fixed a case where item Custom Numbers could appear on the tiny little icon for items under the health bar. It is not intended to show up there, only in the right-click Summary.
Fixed right-clicking on some square character icons only bringing up the stat summary for one frame, then closing it. This was a side effect of a fix to prevent the stat summary from getting stuck on.
Fixed Level 4 Perks being able to pick things from Bonus Traits that weren't active in the current run (or unlocked for that matter)
Fixed being able to see multiple of the same Perk when using the Trait Brand specialization. This applies to rerolls as well - if you reroll, you won't see the same perk on offer again.
Fixed the Trait Brand specialization not doing anything if you loaded the run before hitting the specializiation choice.
Fixed the Level Up reroll UI being clickable even if you don't have any rerolls left, and that action summoning up the Crop Rotation double perk UI.
Fixed an issue where some status effects that were intended to refresh durations (like crowd control effects) would not, leading to situations where when the first stack wore off, the entire status wore off.
Fixed an issue with some parts of a model (such as Uro's horns) not accepting material overrides like the Frozen or Petrified material.
Fixed the Catnip Black Market item not displaying the 25% Lifesteal it has always had, and fixed the Silence effect not functioning properly.
Fixed an issue where your game could save at the moment you earned a 3rd Unit, but before they had merged. Loading the game at that point would load the three units unmerged and not merge them.
Fixed an issue where Blook could get stuck returning from an attempted possession if the target was the only Unit left alive.
Fixed the Blood trait not transferring items from the sacrificed unit.
Fixed a rare issue where if Chester tried to eat a unit that then immediately invulnerable, like Gale casting her skill, then the target would go into bad state and softlock the fight.
Fixed skeletons not occupying hex spaces when revived (attempt 2)
Fixed a case where you could reroll into the same perk during Level Up
Fixed the Pivot perks delivering too many Units instantly, such that some may not merge or place properly. Pivots now deliver the units one after the other.
Fixed Pivot perks sometimes granting 9 or 10 SP worth of Units.
Fixed a Skeleton who died from the Skull of Hedra effect not being revived from Skeleton revival. (This fix fixes any similar issues where some proc effects would not trigger from start-of-combat death)
Fixed a UI issue with the Hat Selection panel that could appear on extra wide monitor formats.
Fixed Dweller start-of-combat channel being classified as Crowd Control, and being resisted by CC immunity effects.
Fixed the Abyssal Prison effect not scaling properly from number of Banished Units, and for the Stasis debuff having no visual effects.
Fixed the Crystal Heart act modifier stating a different value than the mana amount actually applied. Also fixed a missing visual effect when the secondary pulses go off.
Fixed the logic for Trait perks that try to match towards your traits or intentionally against your traits being inverted (most were going against your traits, and Pivots were going towards your traits)
Fixed the Gone Fishin' Specialization adding more rerolls on run load.
Fixed in PVP, Hex Modifiers sometimes not appearing in the same locations units (only affected later fights in the same session/run).
Fixed an issue where knockback speed was not properly factoring in framerate, leading to cases of 'spastic' movement back and forth on the destination hex when the framerate is low.
Fixed Mountain Dwarf tooltip and stats being out of sync. The amount is now, and listed as, 25% damage increase and resistance.
Fixed a combat damage calculation issue that was causing %-based Damage Reduction effects to be more effective than listed. This effects perks like Mountain Dwarf ancestral passive and Units like Fester.
Fixed Lelthas' Guard stat breakdown label being called "Triple Skirmisher Bonus".
Fixed Lelthas' Rival effect stating the skeletons revive at 66% and 33% health. They revive at full health both times.
Fixed stat breakdown values using Floor instead of Round, making most of the math displayed ending up adding to 1 lower than the actual value.
Fixed another issue where the DM warning for "unused hex modifier" could appear in pvp fights where you didn't have one unused.
Fixed being able to click on the Travel buttons during the Rival Intrusion moment, resulting in skipping the Rival entirely.
Fixed Oakengard's CC cleanse not functioning (though CC immunity still was)
Fixed Engineer Stage 2 not affecting the attack speed of the Turret
Core Game
Another full rework to the AI system has been installed. This rework is intended to solve the recent framerate drops in complex combats that could potentially lead to crashes in some extremely complex combats. The new system also should result in overall more consistent AI behavior. Be sure to report any odd behavior of unit AI.
Into the Void (Difficulty modifier) now banishes all Units of a Trait rather than random units. This will be a bit easier to digest and remember throughout the run. A banished Trait will also prevent their War Banners from appearing in shops and any Trait-specific level up perks from choosing perks that affect that Trait.
Rebalanced Berserker 'Favored Weapons' to provide more direct stats related to the Archetype in question. The Favored Weapon now doubles the base modifier that makes the Archetype what it is (Mana Regen for casters, base health for Tanks, Attack Speed for Fighters), and adds effectively one free 'Tier' of additional stats.
"No Specialization" now awards a Common Legend, 3 Star Points, 3 Rerolls, and 3 Gold. If playing without Bonus Legends, it awards 5 SP instead. This makes the No Specialization more clearly built out as "early game immediate power", a distinct choice over the other specializations that are all build path oriented that rarely (if ever) give immediate power.
Leechknife Sheathe is now built by Sword + Crystal, and generates leechknives based on mana spent.
Edan's Blade is now built by Sword + Staff, and has an overall simple damage amplification effect.
When tied for pathfinding, units will now prefer to avoid Mud & Embers and to go to Springs. When Units have absolutely no target remaining and are standing in a dangerous hex, they will try to move out of it instead of standing still.
The gargoyles in Monock Sr's. fight have been reworked. They now are active from the start of the fight, and start by slamming into your backline and being a general distraction to your ranged units. They can turn to stone, re-taunting and healing.
Horror nerfed - Madness now lasts for 4 seconds (from 5).
Energized Gauntlets crit chance reduced to 15%. Added a 1s Cooldown to the knockback (not the crit portion) to prevent infinite knockback on fast-attacking ranged wearer. This item, while not terribly popular, was (and may still be) the strongest item in the game due to 'double damage' being a multiplication factor to other damage increases.
Crystal Heart mana per pulse reduced to 25 (from 30). Reduced the visual effect size of secondary pulse waves.
PVP Changes
PVP now allows for Unit Repositioning. This means that when you press Fight, you search for an opposing army, but then are given a second stage to change positioning. You cannot change Unit loadout, open the inventory bag, sell Units, or do anything other than reposition. The 2nd press of the Fight button activates the fight in full.
The above change means that opposing armies mostly no longer care about the actual enemy positioning at the time the fight was sent in. This is because, if you counterposition against Stalkers or a similar situation, we don't want to send the "squishies in the front" into the pool. So, enemy armies will position themselves in the same manner PVE fights do. Notable exception to this is units in Hex Mods will stay where they were and not be moved.
The PVP store now has a Freeze button, which will prevent the item store from rerolling next floor. By default it will behave as PVE shops do when unfrozen.
Starting resources increased to 6 Star Points (from 4) and 2 Rerolls (up from 1).
Army Upgrade SP cost adjustments: Uncommon to 10 (from 12), Rare unchanged, Army Size 5 to 18 (from 16), Army Size 6 to 24 (from 20).
Removed the minimum decrease value for Army Upgrade perks. They can now decrease all the way to 0 Star Points.
Otto's Pale Heart perk is now a Stone Soul perk: -1 Max Army Size, but your units deal 20% more damage and take 20% less damage.
Ki O' Dini's Legendary Tale III perk now grants +6 Star Points in addition to the Tier 2 Rare Legend.
Implemented anti-cheat methods for PVP. These solely involve validating sending/receving fights into our server, we have not and will not include any sort of third-party anti-cheat softwares. There were definitely some bad actors who had cheated or exploited to create impossible armies in the PVP pool. This will prevent that going forward, and we will purge the pool when this patch is deployed.
Adjusted how PVP pool storage works such that instead of sending fights into the server on fight start, that happens on fight completion now, so in the case of save scumming, duplicates aren't being sent in. Upon completing a fight, that fight on the server is removed, so we will now properly be cycling fights as players experience them rather than creating an infinitely large pool.
Polish
Added more dangerous-sounding wording to the Purge button.
Updated Monty's skill text to state his relatively secret passive of unlimited range.
Improved visual effects of Healer 2's Smite.
Minor Polish: The last skeleton who dies before a revival will now properly materialize out before going back to the fight.
Additional AI optimizations & fixes - when a Unit cannot target another Unit for any reason, there will be a short cooldown period initiated where that Unit will not attempted to be targeted again. This prevents units from getting stuck in very specific circumstances, such as a Melee unit who wants to target an enemy that is completely surrounded on all sides.
Additional optimization surrounding how frequently we write the game log file. Unreal profiling indicates this was a larger expense than we thought. We are now accumulating the text in memory and writing only once per second.
Optimization: Fixed one extra AI brain activating that wasnt needed.
Renamed Devil's Cleaver to Foecleaver, so as not to be so similar to Devil's Dagger. It now applied Marks instead of Evil. And fixed Devil's Dagger actually being named Devi's Dagger.
Added additional game optimization involving status effects.
In cases where the entire Bench and Board are both full and you are awarded units, such as through the Pivot perks, those excess Units will now be auto-sold instead of just never granted.
The bug report menu is now properly localized.
The compendium should no longer have missing text.
The request page is now properly translated.
PVP perks are now properly translated.
The "Unit doesn't match your Traits" DM advice now won't play if you have the Forbidden Path specialization.
Misc / Bug Fixes
Fixed another case of an end of run badge (Bosses Slain) showing the wrong value in the tooltip
New AI system fixes issues where non-AI units would sometimes act, such as non-enhanced Barq clones.
Fixed the Big Fish Story specialization trinket being able to be used without the Traveller's Blessing, gaining it instantly. It is intended to require the blessing first before use.
Fixed Crosby not showing shield particles, combat text, or materialize in/out particles.
Fixed an issue where random units generated by Character Sheet perks would be granted before the Into the Void difficulty modifier had set up the initial banishments.
Fixed an issue where run saves were not being fully deleted at the end of a run, potentially leading to a specific situation where starting a new run and then returning to main menu and continuing (before going to floor 2 on the new run) could load you into your last run.
Fixed a bug where when a unit was sold, if another unit was placed there immediately (before the unit had been fully materialized out), the game would not detect the newly placed was occupying a hex.
Fixed an issue where particles and material overrides (such as Freeze) would lose their visuals when the first applied stack wore off rather than the last applied stack wore off.
Various fixes to missing text or outdated text in Chinese localization.
Fixed Snake Oil Salesman being able to reduce consumable costs to 0 instead of the minimum stated 1.
Fixed PVP hex modifier fights causing future fights to trigger a "You have an unused hex modifier" warning.
Fixed an issue where Lel'Thas' Decisive Win perk wouldn't function properly.
Fixed PVP fights not saving file name structure in a way that is correctly alphabetically sorted on the server, meaning the most recent uploaded fights were not always the ones being pulled from the server.
Fixed a super rare issue where a softlock occurred if Master Trollgar died on the exact frame in which his swapping skill took effect.
Fixed a situation where if a Unit went invisible, other Units who currently had that one as their target wouldn't try to find other targets.
Fixed the Homebrew achievement not being completable since the February update.
Fixed characters already banished due to being Tier 4 appearing in the Banish UI.
Fixed a bug where you could actually run out of perks if you had managed to roll/level at Level 5+. This would not change the level up UI at all and would still show the perk you had last on offer, but clicking it would do nothing.
Fixed items that use Custom Numbers (such as the Favorite Book) losing their name in the UI when unequipped.
Fixed a case where item Custom Numbers could appear on the tiny little icon for items under the health bar. It is not intended to show up there, only in the right-click Summary.
Fixed right-clicking on some square character icons only bringing up the stat summary for one frame, then closing it. This was a side effect of a fix to prevent the stat summary from getting stuck on.
Fixed Level 4 Perks being able to pick things from Bonus Traits that weren't active in the current run (or unlocked for that matter)
Fixed being able to see multiple of the same Perk when using the Trait Brand specialization. This applies to rerolls as well - if you reroll, you won't see the same perk on offer again.
Fixed the Trait Brand specialization not doing anything if you loaded the run before hitting the specializiation choice.
Fixed the Level Up reroll UI being clickable even if you don't have any rerolls left, and that action summoning up the Crop Rotation double perk UI.
Fixed an issue where some status effects that were intended to refresh durations (like crowd control effects) would not, leading to situations where when the first stack wore off, the entire status wore off.
Fixed an issue with some parts of a model (such as Uro's horns) not accepting material overrides like the Frozen or Petrified material.
Fixed the Catnip Black Market item not displaying the 25% Lifesteal it has always had, and fixed the Silence effect not functioning properly.
Fixed an issue where your game could save at the moment you earned a 3rd Unit, but before they had merged. Loading the game at that point would load the three units unmerged and not merge them.
Fixed an issue where Blook could get stuck returning from an attempted possession if the target was the only Unit left alive.
Fixed the Blood trait not transferring items from the sacrificed unit.
Fixed a rare issue where if Chester tried to eat a unit that then immediately invulnerable, like Gale casting her skill, then the target would go into bad state and softlock the fight.
Fixed skeletons not occupying hex spaces when revived (attempt 2)
Fixed a case where you could reroll into the same perk during Level Up
Fixed the Pivot perks delivering too many Units instantly, such that some may not merge or place properly. Pivots now deliver the units one after the other.
Fixed Pivot perks sometimes granting 9 or 10 SP worth of Units.
Fixed a Skeleton who died from the Skull of Hedra effect not being revived from Skeleton revival. (This fix fixes any similar issues where some proc effects would not trigger from start-of-combat death)
Fixed a UI issue with the Hat Selection panel that could appear on extra wide monitor formats.
Fixed Dweller start-of-combat channel being classified as Crowd Control, and being resisted by CC immunity effects.
Fixed the Abyssal Prison effect not scaling properly from number of Banished Units, and for the Stasis debuff having no visual effects.
Fixed the Crystal Heart act modifier stating a different value than the mana amount actually applied. Also fixed a missing visual effect when the secondary pulses go off.
Fixed the logic for Trait perks that try to match towards your traits or intentionally against your traits being inverted (most were going against your traits, and Pivots were going towards your traits)
Fixed the Gone Fishin' Specialization adding more rerolls on run load.
Fixed in PVP, Hex Modifiers sometimes not appearing in the same locations units (only affected later fights in the same session/run).
Fixed an issue where knockback speed was not properly factoring in framerate, leading to cases of 'spastic' movement back and forth on the destination hex when the framerate is low.
Fixed Mountain Dwarf tooltip and stats being out of sync. The amount is now, and listed as, 25% damage increase and resistance.
Fixed a combat damage calculation issue that was causing %-based Damage Reduction effects to be more effective than listed. This effects perks like Mountain Dwarf ancestral passive and Units like Fester.
Fixed Lelthas' Guard stat breakdown label being called "Triple Skirmisher Bonus".
Fixed Lelthas' Rival effect stating the skeletons revive at 66% and 33% health. They revive at full health both times.
Fixed stat breakdown values using Floor instead of Round, making most of the math displayed ending up adding to 1 lower than the actual value.
Fixed another issue where the DM warning for "unused hex modifier" could appear in pvp fights where you didn't have one unused.
Fixed being able to click on the Travel buttons during the Rival Intrusion moment, resulting in skipping the Rival entirely.
Fixed Oakengard's CC cleanse not functioning (though CC immunity still was)
Fixed Engineer Stage 2 not affecting the attack speed of the Turret