Tales And Tactics News

Full Patch Notes Here

Features & Polish

Removed the Grand Tournament Unit Store locking mechanic. You will still not receive rewards, and new DM warnings have been added to clarify "you have nothing left to save for, you should spend everything you have now", but ultimately, this was a restriction added that hurt some moments where exploiting the reward block was impossible. Despite seeming like a valid strategy in some cases - like spending Blokk's 1 SP for the clutch last purchase you needed in the Finals. Vaulting has thus also been re-enabled for the Tournament (but is still disabled for the Finals as you cannot gain its rewards). Tournament semifinals and finals no longer block XP gains.

Replacing the old ability preview system is a new Video Preview, found in the Unit information panel when right-clicking a Unit. A small blue "play" button will appear, which will trigger a demo video of the Unit's skills. Special thanks to sophia and Anti6eptik for help in recording and editing these videos! Some Units are still missing videos, but not many, and will be added in the next update.

There is now a gameplay option to enable a limited free-cam option while in combat! Press Z to activate, then use WASD/QE and mouse movement to reposition the camera as desired. The camera is limited to certain ranges and angles, so you can't go off the table or through the background walls, but otherwise is free to control. This is an experimental feature, so you may see things normally hidden by the fixed camera, like the ‘walls’ of the room being undecorated, or certain objects clipping into each other. Please let us know if any strange camera issues can be generated by using the freecam.

Added a difficulty selection option for 'Relaxed' mode, which was previously only accessible for a brand new player's first run. This mode reduces Heart loss from a defeat by 1. Relaxed is now also an option for Custom difficulty.

Barq now has 120 Max Mana (from 110).

Treefolk I is now a 3-unit Trait. Treefolk each now start combat with a Sprout stack, Sprout now takes 8 seconds per stack, but can stack up to 5 times (from 3). Treefolk isn’t a support trait in any way, and really wanted more power and scaling potential, but they had reached their limit as a 2-Unit Stage 1. This significant buff solidifies the common Treefolk as a powerful ‘hero’ Trait.

Mushroom II now grants +20 Cost Reduction (from +25).

The Reaper Hex now grants 30% Lifesteal (from 50%).

Demon stage I Demonlord Lifesteal amount reduced to 40% (from 50%).

The Elven Empowerment Hex now grants 15% Damage Amp and Lifesteal (from 20 Attack Speed and 10% Lifesteal). It also can now appear in any column.

Dwellers now take 3 seconds to Channel (from 2).

Mikki’s Max Mana changed to 120 (from 100), Starting Mana now 75 (from 40).

Magic Meteor costs 125 Mana (from 120).

Gourmand now increases Max HP post-other-effects, meaning the amount of Max HP gained will be exactly the amount listed, rather than being based on modification effects. Amount of Max HP gained increased to 250 (from 175) as compensation.

Beast now grants +40 Attack Speed, and +20 to non-Beasts. However, the Attack Speed buff no longer stacks. Fixed a variety of related bugs that caused Beasts to not receive as much Attack Speed as they were intended to (so this won’t be much of a nerf).

Sealed Scroll nerfed to 10% max Mana shared to the wearer and the ally. The item was actually granting 25% Max Mana, not the listed 20% - which was already above rate for an item and completely outclassed Mana Bracelet.

Monock Sr. has a new Skill that Stuns a devastating amount of units, deals damage, and applies random debuffs - watch out!

Reverted the increased Stats granted to Runes.

Otto's Ally reward swapped to a bonus Statue Conjuring perk rather than a random tier 2 Statue.

Added a new system that automatically backs up save files, and allows you to load up to the 5 most recent backups. This is intended to resolve extremely rare cases of players losing progress due to data corruption during the save process (usually closing while a save is happening)

When changing language, the game will now alert you that a restart is required and close the game when you leave the settings menu.

Difficulty selection UI will no longer auto-advance to the highest unlocked challenge climb when unlocking a new one, but will stay where the last run's difficulty was.

The end of run badges for "army was all one rarity" is now only applicable for runs that end in Ultimate Victory. This had created an exploit for easy Mastery gains by starting and ending runs with one unit.

Added a new fresh model for the Golden Desert table’s Sunstone. The Sunstone now also animates when it sends out twisters.

Added a new fresh model for the Bana’al Caverns’ Crystal Heart.

The Challenge Level tooltip now also properly specifies exactly what Challenge Level you are playing on.

Reduced the price of some Risk Card flips, particularly those relating to Star Points.

Event rewards now look much, much better!

Custom Lobby PVP has been temporarily disabled for 1.0.

PVP Rankings have been reset in preparation for the full game launch.

Added a minor visual flash and audio cue when a Unit dies.

Toned down over-indulgent visuals for Defiler kills.

Added a visual for Defiler Stage 2 explosive kills.

The Game of Chance event, which features dice in its art and theme, now actually lets you roll dice (6 Star Point choice replaced with 2d6 Star Points)

Added a keyword for Power Rolls.

It is now possible to see what Perks foes in PVP picked over the course of their run!

Removed many extraneous video settings options that didn’t actually do anything.

Run History now knows to distinguish between PVP and PVE runs, and displays only the information important to each.

There is now a Bug Report button in the pause menu. The “F1 to report” text on the HUD at all times has been removed, though F1 still acts as a shortcut.

Fae Magic Fairies now grant 3 Mana Regen (from 5).

Elder Reto Meteor damage reduced to 300 (from 325).

Skeleton has been buffed: Stage I grants Skeletons +2 Mana Regen, and Decay post-Revive reduced to 2% max HP (from 3%).

Jabbar now grants herself 30 Mana when catching the ball of magic (from 40).

Geogukk's thrown boulder now Stuns the target for 2 seconds (from 1.5 seconds), damage increased to 350% of AD (from 250%). Additionally, Geogukk's skill has been buffed: while retrieving and throwing the boulder, he gains 50% Damage Resistance.

Demon has been slightly buffed: Demonlord stats increased to 50% Attack Speed and Lifesteal (from 40%), 75 Spell Power (from 50), and 85% Max HP Shield (from 75%).

Engineer has been partially reworked! Engineers start with a 20% max health Shield and grant the Turret increasing damage based on their Tier. Additionally, at Stage II, every third Turret shot hits the target and adjacent foes!
Most players report not preferring Engineer comps - one reason for this is that the Turret didn't improve over the course of the game much, meaning the same 40 damage shots are firing on foes with Max Health in the thousands by Tournament's end. Now, the Turret will get stronger with your Engineers - you may even want to try focusing on Duplicators and Power Rolls to maximize its strength!

Trollgar has been slightly buffed: now has 35 Max Mana (from 40) and Shadow Clones disappear at 75% Max HP (from 80).

Director Glog has been buffed: now has 60/90 Mana (buffed from 50/125). Damage increased to 225 (from 175), disarm duration increased to 3 seconds (from 2).

Enemy Runes have been buffed: now provide 3 components worth of stat value, plus one Meat's worth of HP.

Fixed an issue where many items that used the displayed number to function stopped working, such as the Bounty Loadstones and Summoning Shard.

Fixed a longstanding issue where it was possible to receive Perks related to Traits where the Units had been Banished due to the Into the Void Challenge Climb Modifier.

Fixed a longstanding issue where the Cheer for the Underdog Act Modifier did not heal Units.

Fixed a longstanding issue where Ki O'Dini's Mythic units were Tier 4. They were intended to be Tier 5 and now are - look forwards to slightly more challenge battling his four max-power Mythics.

Fixed several cases where content still used the same icon in multiple places.

Fixed many issues with end of run Badges displaying incorrect information or being granted at the wrong time.

Fixed an issue where Shock Pendant instantly dealt 1500% max Mana damage to the first foes that casted, then stopped functioning.

Fixed an issue where Bishop's skill healed itself to full instantaneously each cast.

Temporary Special units such as the Aqua Bubble and Marksman Dummy can no longer be placed in Director Glog's Cloning Hex.

Fixed an issue where Units weren't received when selecting the Mythic Tale III perk from Ki O'Dini in PVP.

Fixed Bulworc's Max HP buff not having a label in buff stat breakouts.

Fixed Koda using both 'she' and 'it' pronouns in two different parts of her skill texts.

Fixed an issue where Run History screen would cut off Units beyond 6 or Traits beyond 5

Fixed an issue where Run History could show the Act 1 name for both Acts 1 and 2.

Features & Polish
A new unlock feature has been added - the Airship! Unlocking this feature will summon Pilot Dave and his airship to you at the end of the first region in each run. You will be given a choice of 3 Regions to play for Act 2, instead of it being random. You will also be able to review notable information such as the boss and event rewards. The Airship will only appear if you have all 6 Regions enabled.

Removed the ability preview system (shift hover to see a ghost play the ability). This system had a fair number of bugs, performance issues, and confusion as it didn’t work on more complicated abilities involving multiple steps or summons or conditions against the target. We will work towards making a better ability preview system in the future from the ground up. (Experimental users may see part of this new system in the works)

Removed the Trait icons that appear when loading a new Act. These icons loosely informed what kinds of enemy teams you might face, but is too large of a data set to act on in a real sense in the context of a run, and just ended up confusing players.

Optimized away a hitch at the end of combat, one that got worse the more units / longer the combat went on (as it was related to preparing the Combat Recap data - the more data, the worse the hitch).

Elder Reto once again grants 2 Mana Regen with the Reptile trait (from 3). The Prince Harming buff from Week 5 did not actually take place, and Reptiles are performing fine without the small buff.

Oakengard now no longer cleanses damage over time effects such as Ignite. Additionally, Crowd Control effects are now only blocked for 2 seconds (from 3).

The Force of Nature item now causes the wearer to not contribute to Traits.

Health Potion now provides Regeneration instead of 2% max hp per second.

Damage Amp, Damage Resist and Lifesteal are now viewable as Stats when right clicking on a Unit! Note that the stats will only appear if a unit has one of them, making them partially hidden until relevant.

Updated several Dungeon downside effects to be more in line with modern effects (Stifle instead of Manalock, etc), and increased the severity of several, such as slightly longer debuff durations, and increased the health of the Tentacle summon.

Reduced the Mastery gain of some of the easier to achieve mastery badges by a small amount.

Ragno no longer scales its stat bonus with Spell Power. Shield amount increased to 175 (from 150).

Shred-o-Match attack speed bonus increased to 50 (from 30) and is now immune to Crowd Control while enraging. Conduits now provide 15 Attack Damage per cast (up from 10).

Lightwing shield value reduced to 125 (from 150)

Mythic stats reduced to 10% Damage Amp and Resist (down from 12%).
Other Bug Fixes
Fixed some remnants of Controller Support (a work in progress feature) being activated in the live build, which could cause strange issues if a player had a gamepad plugged in and pressed buttons.

Fixed an issue that could cause Custom Lobbies to halt at floor 8 in some circumstances.

Fixed an issue regarding trying to play more than one Custom Lobby in the same game session.

Fixed an issue where you could fail to move the first unit you grabbed in a session.

Fixed incorrect icons for several Perks.

Fixed an issue where Nimbus would become permanently invulnerable if equipped with an Unstable Ward.

Fixed incorrect text on the Reptile trait.

Fixed an issue where Master Trollgar would have a third Health Bar even if not playing at the Challenge Level that added a second Boss Modifier.

Fixed an issue where your Traits wouldn’t be displayed properly in Run History entries.

Fixed an issue where Conjuring boons gained from Devil’s Deals wouldn’t grant Units.

Fixed the Fount of Potion event providing an old, outdated version of the Health Potion.

Fixed the windows taskbar icon showing the default unreal icon.

Fixed an issue where Shred-o-Matic’s Charge Totems had no effect.

Fixed an issue where the immunity to Embers and Hobbled granted by certain Combat Modifiers in PVP did not function.

Fixed the Recommended Items helper (the ? next to units’ items in the Unit Stat Summary) not functioning correctly. Additionally, added Recommended Items to all units that were previously missing them.

Fixed an issue where Marksman Dummies wouldn’t gain the global benefits of your other Traits, such as Armor from Reptiles or Health from Brawlers.

Fixed a longstanding issue with end of run Badges that would cause badges to be awarded when their requirements weren’t actually fulfilled.

Fixed an issue where the details of end of run Badges would display incorrect values.

Fixed an issue where it was possible not to receive a common Mythic unit at the start of the run.

Fixed an issue where units summoned by Calling Bells and Baalor’s skill would contribute to Traits in certain scenarios. (They are not intended to contribute to Traits.)

Fixed an issue where Director Glog’s Morphs would become copies two Tiers stronger than your placed unit when playing at high Challenge Level.

Fixed an issue where the Devil’s Deal reward of a Tier 2 Rare unit wouldn’t be granted.

Fixed an issue where the Spell Burst Wand (found in a certain Event Tale) didn’t function.

Fixed an issue where Gera’s Infusion hex in PVP wouldn’t Stun the unit placed inside.

Added safeguards to prevent an issue where Trollgar wouldn’t spawn the correct number of Shadow Clones.

Added safeguards to prevent an issue where all Units would stop acting in combat.

Fixed an issue that could cause PVP play to hang when loading a combat.

Fixed an exploit that allowed gaining Tier 2 copies of special units such as the Marksman Dummy or Dragon Cannon in certain cases.

The Golem Guardian combat modifier effect now wears off after 60 seconds to prevent a complete softlock in cases where both teams outhealed possible damage dealt.

Fixed full-art custom character art replacements (such as Rhapsody) still showing attachment layer pieces from their class and aspiration.

Fixed an issue where Cisco’s passive Skill effect didn’t function.

Fixed an issue where Ivy’s summoned Stumpy wasn’t benefitting from most Traits.

Fixed a longstanding issue where some Equipment wouldn’t function when donated to another ally via the Blood trait or Dweller improvement perk. All Equipment should function when granted to another ally now.

Added safeguards to prevent an issue where, after playing for an extended duration, Area Events would stop appearing.

Fixed an issue where some custom number stack limits on items could not be respected in certain cases, still increasing the value under the hood but not changing the number displayed after reaching the cap.

Fixed an issue where you sometimes couldn’t drag the first unit of a session until dropping and repicking it back up again (and then would never see this issue again until a restart)

Fixed Run History/Summary not being able to show more than 3 items for a given Unit.

Fixed an issue where using Duplicators on other rarities of Unit wasn’t possible when using the Specialization that allows consumables to ignore Unit rarity.

Added safeguards to prevent issues where the player could become stuck queueing in PVP forever.

Fixed an issue where Baalor’s skill didn’t Stun struck foes.

Fixed an issue where multiple stacks of the same status effect that applied Damage Reduction (notable case: Mythic’s Valor buff) would not apply the extra Damage Reduction, only the amount from the first stack.

Fixed the Membership Card’s “always Power Roll” effect not applying immediately on acquired (wouldn’t kick in until the next natural Power Roll was hit)

Fixed a visual issue where extra item slots would stay visible under the unit health bar, even if there was no item in those slots.

Fixed being able to summon the in-game pause menu in the first frames of game load by pressing escape.

Fixed an issue where after returning to the main menu, some elements of the Compendium would not load properly.
Other Polish Notes

Added visual effects to several parts of the game that were missing them.

Fixed issues with visual effects such as Wand of Missiles missiles disappearing if the graphics settings were below Ultra.

The small icons representing Equipment on Unit Health Bars can no longer be hovered with the mouse, as this frequently made attempts to pick up units ‘miss’ ever since the icons were moved above Unit health bars.

Updated the logic for the ‘you may want to spend Gold here’ DM warning so that it occurs far less frequently when not actually useful. Additionally, clarified the Options Menu option for DM Warnings to explain that turning it off disables all types of warnings, not just warnings before the start of combat.

Tournament encounters now properly make use of the Mythic trait’s sharing of Valor.

Updated Hoist the Colors specialization text to clarify that the Banners created from components are not considered Merged items (and thus don’t unmerge back into components when using the Portable Forge).

Full Patch Notes - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U9XYMBIo1E5GyqQrrrnwevb2N4uMsug-Bbw4D5Yysrs/edit

Level Up Perk Refresh

The Level Up perk pools have been WIDELY expanded, tweaked and reworked - ideally resulting in a much improved experience when Leveling Up!

Many of the new Perks listed below have been moved into Unlock bundles. There are now 6 Perk unlock bundles in total - be sure to check the Unlocks screen for new additions!

Level 2 Perk Adjustments:
Team Building now grants 2 Gold instead of 2 Star Points for having an entire team of the same Trait.
Dragon Cannon no longer feeds on Gold and deals more damage - 30% max health split across three shots.
The Gauntlet now grants Attack Damage (from Mana Regen).
The Spear of Fate is now the Witch's Broomstick and grants Mana Regen instead of Attack Speed to the wearer and adjacent allies.
All Perks that grant an item have a blurb describing their effect (in addition to the existing icon which completely displays the effect).

NEW Level 2 Perks:
Pivot Potential - Gain a random Rare unit and 2 Lucky Clovers.
Armed and Ready - Units with at least one equipped Item gain +15% Attack Damage.
Battle Promotion - The first Unit on your team to score a kill gains a 50% health Shield and 50 Spell Power.
Winterveil - Gain the Unique Equipment Winterveil, which can Shield allies and Hobble foes.
Cloning Capsule - Gain the Unique Equipment Cloning Capsule, which grants copies of the wearer when they survive combat.
Warp Gem - Gain the Unique Equipment Warp Gem, which can warp an ally into the enemy's backline.

Level 3 Perk Adjustments:
The Impervious hex now grants +15 Armor (from 10).
The Knifestorm hex now grants +25 Attack Speed (in addition to its current effect).

NEW Level 3 Perks:
Giganto - In combat rooms, gain the Hex Modifier Giganto, which Grows a unit and increases maximum Health.
Minimizer - In combat rooms, gain the Hex Modifier Minimizer, which Shrinks a unit and increases Attack Damage.

Level 5 Perk Adjustments:
The Rarely Seen perk is now known as Regal Rarity and grants more stats, a total of 20 Armor, 50 Starting Mana and 50 Attack Speed.
The Black Die, Common Secrets and Uncommon Luck perks have been removed.

NEW Level 5 Perks:
Triple Wielding - Units with at least three equipped items gain +10% Damage Amp and Damage Reduction.
Immediate Improvement - Obtain 3 Divination Dusts.
Mastermind - Obtain the Mastermind Helm, a powerful item that can only be equipped to Tier 4 units.
Strong Start - For the first 8 seconds of combat, your units are immune to Crowd Control and gain +15% Damage Reduction.
Rhapsodic Learner - When your units cast for the third time each combat, they gain a 30% health Shield.
Reaper - In combat rooms, gain the Hex Modifier 'Reaper' in a random hex. A Unit placed there gains Attack Speed and immense Lifesteal.
Titan - In combat rooms, gain the Hex Modifier 'Titan' in a frontline hex. A Unit placed there gains an immense amount of Maximum Health.
For The People! - +1 Army Size. Enemies gain +10% Damage Reduction and Damage Amp.

Challenge Climb & Game Difficulty

The very first combat in the Training Yard now rewards a random Component Item. (If skipping the Training Yard, the run begins with this random Component Item.)

For a long time now, we've disliked how the first Component obtained in a run isn't able to combine for some time. In addition, we've been looking for just one more way to add initial direction to a run. Together, giving a Component early will open up options in gameplay, and allow for more direction - maybe that starting Staff makes those Mages in the unit store a little more interesting.

Challenge Level 15 has been completely reworked, removing the second -Max Hearts and third stage of Shadow Strike hexes. Two new Challenge Modifiers will cap off the difficulty climb:
Market Crash: Receive one fewer free Unit Store Rolls each combat.
Weaponless: You no longer start the run with a Component Item.
Road Tale Updates

We’ve received a handful of reports about the events feeling a little too random since the BNG update. After lots of discussion with players, we believe the main cause of this to be the Risk Cards game found in Road Tales. There are times when one wrong click in these games can sail you into Curse during a time when you weren’t planning to do so, and can feel pretty bad as a result.

From this feedback, we’re adding more to Road Tales:

When visiting a Road Tale, you are now presented with two other options you can choose from besides drawing the Risk Cards.
The first option will be something roughly “5 points” of Risk value in the card game, with no other cost to it - a safe, small, guaranteed reward.
The second option will be one of the unique, high-point rewards in the card game, but come with a unique bespoke downside.

The Risk Cards remain as the best “value proposition” in most cases to keep it having a strong incentive, but this gives options for players who prefer a more consistent event choice.

Legends

There’s been a few comments, both from players and our own observations, that since the BNG update, Legends have fallen a little out of favor. Even though Legends were an overall part of the pass, one thing we didn’t adjust was the numbers of the Legend trait itself, and since the average overall power of Traits increased, the stat boost from Legend has started to feel not quite as worthwhile.

We could’ve just updated their stats a bit, but wanted to try to also address some players just plain not finding Legends fun due to their difficulty in synergizing. They often require a specific army build focused around the Legends, so you have to disregard Traits in favor of more Skill-oriented compositions. We still wanted to preserve that intent, but also open up Legends as more suitable for more Trait-based army comps by way of giving them the capacity to both play a support role, as well as steal the spotlight and become the stars of specific army compositions.

Legend trait has been renamed to Mythic.
There are genre connotations with Legend/Legendary that may confuse new players, so we’ve decided to do a quick rename here.
Mythic units no longer cost an extra Star Point
Mythic Trait has been reworked: Now grants ‘Valor’ to the Mythic Unit, which grants Damage Amp and Damage Reduction instead of flat stats. At the start of combat, Mythic Units also grant Valor to one random adjacent ally.
In addition, there is now a 2nd stage to the Mythic Trait! The 2nd stage reads “Mythic Units who receive Valor from another Mythic gain 5 Mana Regen. You cannot use more than 2 Legends.”
Ifreyes’ Privileged Position Specialization now grants increased Attack Damage and Spell Power to Mythics rather than reducing their Star Point cost.

Custom Lobby PVP (Alpha)

You can now play custom PVP lobbies with premade groups! In Custom Lobby, players will only be playing in a pool by themselves, and all players have to wait for everyone to advance to the next step (such as everyone confirming their army loadout before everyone is moved to the combat step).

This feature is still very much in an alpha state and we are running regular playtests in Discord. Expect to see some issues if you try it out.

A new UI has been added to support Custom Lobbies, which includes the ability to look at the perks, combatant choice, and Units of the other players in the lobby (as well as giving the host of the lobby the ability to remove players after the lobby has begun)

Once started, a Custom Lobby must be finished in a single session - it does not currently support saving/loading/rejoining a lobby.

The Custom Lobby joining UI fully supports any potential streamers or other hosted live events, with the ability to copy codes to clipboard without showing them on screen, and to hide codes being typed in as if it were a password.
Item Power Tuning
We have reduced the power of some of the Component Items’ stat boosts. In turn, this also means Completed Items, Enemy Leader Items and Runes will all grant slightly less stats.

Over time, the power of Items has moved more and more into the special effects of Completed or Special equipment, and for good reason - they’re the exciting abilities that units can actually build around. However, we never reduced the power of Components in turn, meaning that endgame units often had a little more pure statistical offensive power than we intend by the end of the game - particularly in the cases of carries. The changes are as follows (and other items granting the same stats have changed by the same general amount):

Staff 25 -> 20 Spell Power
Sword 20% -> 15% Attack Damage
Gloves 15 -> 12 Attack Speed