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v2.53.3 - More Fixes and QoL for Major Update 2.50



[h2]Greetings D20 Fans![/h2]
Wow, I am so grateful for all of your reviews, feedback, and commentary on our recent v2.50 major update! In case you missed it, be sure to check out all the awesome stuff that was recently added.

Our Discord is booming and I am so happy that you're happy, supportive and patient while I continue to add more fixes and improvements for you. Here's another round, keep your feedback and wishlists for the game coming, and I'll keep on updating ;)

v2.53.3 Release Notes
  1. Fixed bug where casting Wall of Ice with your summoner or guardians within the area of effect resulted in those units being removed at the end of battle along with the ice blocks. If the summoner was affected, this resulted in a getPlayerMapEdgePoint() error that could soft lock the game or break the adventure. (Thanks daved3015 and Guest_225277 and Kairin)
  2. Fixed bug where lore could drop multiple times on the same map if destroying multiple objects at the same time with an AOE on a map that has lore hidden. (Thanks mr.kitty)
  3. Fixed bug where lore could drop multiple times on the same map if destroying an object with Nova's upgraded chain lightning ability. (Thanks vinck04)
  4. Fixed bug where lore could drop multiple times at the same time, resulting in the lore collection complete triggering multiple times if the multiple lore completed the lore collection.
  5. Fixed bug where lore cache was assigned to tree instead of barrel on one of the harvest maps so it was possible the lore might be unrecoverable if a road caused the barrel to be removed. (Thanks Kairin)
  6. Fixed bug where lore/gold/other items hidden in a barrel failed to drop if the barrel was smashed outside the playable bounds of the map. (Thanks callmedingo_)
  7. Fixed bug where quitting a game mid-battle and resuming the battle in a later session would remove the lore in that level because the lore hidden attribute stored in the map states wasn't being repopulated during battle state loading (so the game thought you already found all of the lore). (Thanks Kairin, Rhubarb314)
  8. Fixed bug where autoLoot would fail to trigger if the item dropped outside the playable bounds of the map.
  9. Fixed bug where Yeti King's ability to gain a bonus action on the closest enemy unit was listed after his Wreck ability, implying that it was triggered by Wreck and not an extra ability in addition to it. I've changed the ability's listing order on the card to clarify this. (Thanks The Bossman40k)
  10. Balance: Recruiting a loyal unit will no longer trigger the Find Card effect that adds the card to your Tortoise/Guardian pool. This effect was never intended, and it became apparent it was creating balance issues when creatures like the Griffon from the Dinner-A-Fowl encounter was now spawning both a loyal unit and a free Guardian at camp, giving Celestial mages a considerable advantage over other classes. This also fixes bug where it was possible to attain more than 2 instances of certain cards when only a max of 2 copies can be played in the deck.
  11. Fixed bug with Russian translation of Orc Battlehorn where it didn't specify the effect only lasts until start of their turn. (Thanks Kairin)
  12. Smart Deployment: Added additional mechanism to the advanced deployment so that any spawn points adjacent to a trap or obstacle that cannot be attacked blocking your path to the opposing side of the board are deprioritized. This should considerably improve deployment and further reduce the need to retreat and re-enter the map for optimal battle positioning. (Thanks Heartwarden)
  13. Smart Deployment: Adjusted the positioning of obstacles on several maps to prevent LOS to the boss/elite which will generally spawn in the center tile of the opposing board side. I didn't revisit all maps (and some maps, like forests, are intentionally more obstacle dense than others) so please continue to report any further concerns about smart deployment via Menu -> Share Feedback at the point when battle starts so I can make any further adjustments needed.
  14. Smart Deployment: Unique units are now prioritized before combinedStats when choosing units from the player's army to deploy, fixing player request where the Hellhound puppy was not being deployed to battle in favor of units with stronger stats. (Thanks Jear)
  15. Fixed bug where Orb of Entanglement was able to affix the Immobilized status effect if the attack was a combo attack. Per Inflict rules, combo attacks should not trigger inflictions. (Thanks BenLagging)
  16. Balance: The Necromancer staff should only summon 1 skeleton per attack, not one for each attack target (ex: spin attacks, frost nova, etc.) (Thanks BenLagging)
  17. Fixed bug where units with a native Sprint Shot ability (such as a dragon) equipped with a Farshot weapon (such as a bow and arrow) could move and shoot with a Farshot weapon. (Thanks Guest_246440 and BenLagging)
  18. Fixed bug where Blue Dragon would lose life each time an ally was defeated. He should have been following the overall rules for buffs, where a lost life container that's empty does not result in health being lost. His remaining life will now only drop when an ally dies when he's at full health, thus a losing a filled life container.
  19. Fixed bug where Dwarf Warrior could be injured by traps in cases where the trap was placed before the Dwarf Warrior had entered the board.
  20. Balance Dwarf Warrior no longer disarms your own traps.
  21. Fixed bug where enemy Viking Warlords banded together with other Vikings and Dwarf Warriors were able to apply +2/+2 buff instead of +1/+1 to select units, and after defeating the Viking Warlord, the extra +1/+1 was not being removed. It turns out the Dwarf Warriors "Detect traps on Gain Control" was causing the issue, as was any combination of "Gain on Control" effect at start of battle that wasn't flagged to execute on trigger. (Thanks Rhubarb)
  22. Fixed bug where defeating a mind controlled bandit leader (or any other unit with an aura buff ability) heals whatever the aura buffed units were due to the original owner temporarily regaining then losing control of the unit with aura buff. (Thanks CyperAleksi)
  23. Fixed bug where defeating a polymorphed bandit leader (or any other unit with an aura buff ability) heals whatever the aura buffed units were due to the owner temporarily regaining then losing control of the unit with aura buff. (Thanks Sinzar)
  24. Fixed bug where the camera was "snapping" to characters at the end of encounters like Finding the Perfect Tree and Dinner A Fowl instead of panning to them.
  25. Fixed bug where loyal units recruited through fate encounters didn't assemble with the player's party immediately after acknowledging the prompt and instead might wait until their party started moving.
  26. Balance: Adjusted the Dinner A' Fowl encounter so that the Baby Griffon unit is now an NPC. Additionally, only 2 of the adjacent goblins will attack the Griffon on the first turn of combat if the player opts to defend the Griffon to help make it easier to rescue the Griffon if the dice roll isn't high enough to scare off the goblins.
  27. Balance: Cora's frost nova no longer destroys surrounding trees. (Thanks Kairin)
  28. Fixed bug where transformed units were having their small and mutant traits affected, resulting in situations where you could breed summoners transformed into sabertooth tigers and where polymorphed squirrels were not being treated as small animals. (Thanks Jear)
  29. Fixed bug where a Metamorph transforming back into his native form from a buffed Gruar would appear as a tiny little Metamorph - and while funny and kind of cute, was not intended. (Thanks BenLagging)
  30. Fixed bug where a Metamorph who transformed into a Blue Dragon would permanently keep the stat buff acquired while assuming the Blue Dragon's form. (Thanks BenLagging)
  31. Fixed bug where Back to the Future status was being reapplied to the Metamorph after time traveling, changing back into his original form, and then beginning another turn. (Thanks Jear and Heartwarden)
  32. Fixed bug where Sir Cheezle's upgrade abilities had some inconsistencies in the programming that were conflicting the debuff removal and mass time travel capability for allies at Summoner IV.
  33. Fixed bug where a Gate of Fate placed by the enemy is left on the board after retreating from ambush encounter and causes the game to freeze when attempting to re-enter that battle. The fix ensures Gate of Fates are removed on retreat for future runs. (Thanks Guest_240457)
  34. Fixed bug where looting a spell tome didn't produce a card because the Mercenary for Hire encounter wasn't flagged as exempt from no hide on shop. (Thanks Rhubarb314)
  35. QoL: Added a Max Wave and Waves Left counter to the Yellowjacket Nest fate encounter so it's clear the encounter has an end even if the player doesn't roll high enough to force the yellowjackets to withdraw. (Thanks ThoughtfulToffee)
  36. QoL: Improved the camera zoom for ambush encounters so the player can see more of the battlefield and the positioning of their units relative to ambushers. (Thanks mr.kitty)
  37. Fixed bug where the neutral unit spawn safe space could potentially be reused by other units in the same encounter, resulting in a key figure to the encounter (like a Bandit Leader) not spawning and breaking the prompt sequence. This could result in encounters where the units are placed on the board and can be freely attacked without a battle engaging. (Thanks Arianna)
  38. Fixed bug where Golden Dragon (and other select encounters) might not spawn with their dependent map, resulting in special properties of the encounter (like statues turning into Earth Drakes or Stone Giants) not occurring. (Thanks Wesley)



Showing Your Support

Many of our players have asked me for a way to help support the continued development of Abalon, so I setup a "Buy Me a Coffee" page where you can make one-time or recurring contributions.

[h2]Reviews[/h2]
Thanks so much for the additional reviews! We're now up to 450 out of 500 to hit my year-end goal. If you haven't left a review yet, I would greatly appreciate your support. Please share what you like about Abalon and where I can continue to improve and do better. And if I've addressed your feedback, please do update your review as well.

Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and consideration :)

~Ross

v2.52.0

v2.52.0 Release Notes


  1. Fixed bug where completing the lore collection was not rewarding the player with their choice of card if they completed the lore collection across multiple play sessions or after loading a save. (Thanks to many!)
  2. Fixed bug where lore scrolls weren't being re-hidden correctly (if needed due to bug) across different subWorlds (ex: overworld/dungeon).
  3. Fixed bug where a certain treasure room in the desert could only be accessed via fast travel. (Thanks Drok Bonechewer)
  4. Fixed bug where the Wizard Hat was still requiring the "Mage" attribute. (Thanks mr.kitty)
  5. Balance Pedestal statues can now be attacked and destroyed in explore mode just in case one blocks your path. (Thanks mr.kitty)
  6. Fixed Russian translation where Psychic Blast read as 1 damage instead of 2. (Thanks Kairin)
  7. Fixed Russian translation where Occuloid's beam read as damaging all units in path instead of all enemies in path. (Thanks Kairin)
  8. Fixed Russian translation of Demonic Strength, specifying that the buff is given to another ally (not just ally, which implies it could be used on caster). (Thanks Kairin)

v2.51.0 - Rapid Response Feedback

[h2]Greetings D20 Fans![/h2]
Thanks so much for all your feedback so far on our v2.50 update. I've addressed most of the issues you reported over the weekend and will continue reading feedback and making adjustments.

v2.51.0 Release Notes
  1. Fixed bug where Traditional Mode wasn't working for Novice, Advanced and Hardcore difficulties (only on Descent).
  2. Fixed bug where Traveling Salesman did not start with 1000 shop gold as he was supposed to.
  3. Fixed bug where entering map areas containing Alchemy Tables was throwing a continuous exception because the Alchemy Table necessary for the encounter was being bulldozed by the dirt road running through the map. These spaces are now flagged as protected so that the Alchemy Table is no longer removed.
  4. Fixed bug where the demo version of Abalon was still using the old procedural curation algorithm and thus populating the dungeon with encounters that are incompatible with the dungeon and resulted in exceptions being thrown.
  5. Fixed bug where Spider Capture encounter in the Steam Demo threw exception when attempting to enter. This encounter was not intended to spawn, but if has already, it will now work correctly.
  6. Fixed bug where the prompt header for shop was overlapping with the shopkeeper gold in desktop layout. Moved the shopkeeper gold UI to the bottom of screen to prevent overlap.
  7. Fixed bug where shop header was not displaying correctly for Turkish (again) - thanks Excolion!
  8. Fixed bug with translation on the Cursed Coin. This ability changed from previous versions: "The last enemy defeated drops 60 gold" to "Defeated Elites drop 180 gold. Excludes Nemesis".
  9. Fixed bug where players returning to Abalon from older saved world versions could trigger errors when attempting to spawn an encounter that included a guardian.
  10. Fixed bug where fast traveling to certain rooms resulted in exception being thrown.
  11. Fixed bug where lore scrolls could be lost when the early level encounter protection system swaps a fate encounter with a minion encounter that has lore because the lore wasn't be transferred to the new map. (Thanks SpoopyLog)
  12. Fixed bug where lore scrolls could be hidden on minion or elite encounters that are truncated due to other minion/elite encounters being available in other worlds and/or because the Sandpit Arena replaces one of the minion encounters. Additionally, any scrolls that were missing (due to a bug) will now be re-hidden at a new location inside a barrel or crate that is regenerated if necessary. (Thanks Sinzar)
  13. Balance Dreadnought armor no longer applies the "Dreadnought" and "Demon" unit types to the character wearing it.
  14. Balance Wizard Hat no longer has the "Mage" attribute required so that any character can use it.
  15. Fixed bug where AI sync error resulted from ambush encounters not being cleared and the AI therefore not having access to the ambush encounter traits.
  16. Balance Ambush status on ambush encounters will no longer be cleared from the map when retreating. Instead, enemies of ambush maps will convert back into neutral so that the map can be setup as an ambush once again when the player returns to it.
  17. Fixed bug where disposed unitViews could still attempt to updateStatusEffects throwing an exception.
  18. Fixed bug where a status bug could occur specifically for players with a numerical based username. (Thanks 552760268)
  19. Fixed bug where Yellowjackets in Yellowjacket Nest encounter could spawn outside of the playable map area.
  20. Fixed bug where attacking a barrel on the outskirts of a Yellowjacket Nest encounter, then entering the map, could result in the playable map area being reduced to a 5x5 grid around the player's hero, guardians running away, and numerous sync errors occurring. (Thanks KagitarShadowscale)
  21. Balance Adjusted the new Yellowjacket Nest encounter so that it now spawns a maximum number of waves (3-5) based on the current chapter (1-3). The number of waves defeated is preserved even if you retreat. (Thanks sugabuns and ink)
  22. Fixed bug where AI sync error could occur when attempting to free a captured unit during a guardian rescue event. (Thanks Sinzar)
  23. Balance Adjusted the "No equipment removal" during battle so that weapons are excluded. You can now unequip weapons without having to swap. (Thanks Rhubarb314)
  24. Fixed bug where Hellhound puppy was always fetching the same card instead of different cards. (Thanks ThoughtfulToffee and BenLagging)
  25. Fixed bug where chapter stat tracking error was preventing some players from being able to login to their accounts. (Thanks GladiusMortis)


Showing Your Support

Many of our players have asked me for a way to help support the continued development of Abalon, so I setup a "Buy Me a Coffee" page where you can make one-time or recurring contributions.

[h2]Reviews[/h2]
Thanks so much for the additional reviews! We're now up to 442 out of 500 to hit my year-end goal. If you haven't left a review yet, I would greatly appreciate your support. Please share what you like about Abalon and where I can continue to improve and do better. And if I've addressed your feedback, please do update your review as well.

Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and consideration :)

~Ross

Abalon 2.50 - Bigger, Better, Balanced Biomes!

[h2]Greetings D20 Fans![/h2]
Help romance a Flesh Golem and fall in love with Abalon all over again in our latest update, so mega packed with goodies it's nearly a 3.0 release! Available free for all of our existing players and on sale for Steam Deal of the Day!

Abalon v2.50 Release Notes

I've been busy since our last update carefully reading everyone's feedback and doing my best to improve on all the areas you've requested such as gameplay balance, quality of life, play styles and leaderboard system, plus provide a ton more content content I think you'll enjoy to further enhance your adventures.

TLDR: I started off trying to make a new leaderboard system but realized the game first needed better balanced biomes to create the best experience. So, I did that and also made you the better XP system you wanted plus added a whole bunch more fate encounters and loyal characters.

Balanced Biomes


When I started this update, my aspiration was to improve the basis of our scoring system so I could resolve the player feedback I received here and ultimately build a variety of different leaderboard tiers to support a wider audience. How can an RNG heavy roguelike with a wide variance of difficulty and scoring opportunities have meaningful competition? Like all things game design, this turned out to be a much greater challenge than I anticipated and ultimately revealed I needed to first balance the biomes.

Biomes previously varied widely in terms of difficulty, resources, and scoring opportunity. For example, the forest had a higher frequency of beneficial fate encounters, while the desert had a disproportionate number of hazardous encounters and fewer resources relative to other environments. Others, like the dungeon, had higher amounts of weapons and amor, while specific random combinations (such as a Demon Harvest world or a Yeti cave winter biome) had far more battles with harder enemies, resulting in wide variations of difficulty, scoring potential, and chances to recruit everyone's favorite loyal characters.

I wanted to create a way to incentivize each biome so they would have balanced difficulty, equal scoring potential, and still maintain a unique thematic feel so that you're incentivized to explore and enjoy everything. So here's how it breaks down in v2.50:

[h2]Difficulty Rating, No More! Welcome Biome Themes![/h2]
I read your direct feedback, ran statistical analysis on the win/loss data from each of the 200+ encounter types in the game, and balanced-tuned this baby to the nines! Hahah, right. Balance is never quite so easy, but I did discover a few interesting findings. For instance, the hardest boss in the game (by far) is Croakus, the frog demon of the harvest world swamps. Tityus Everlasting and Ninjitsu Master tied for top elites (more powerful than some bosses), and the Viking hordes of the snow biome took the cake over all the other minions. If you want to talk nerdy with me, I'd be more than happy to share my spreadsheets and discuss all the details with you on Discord. But the long story short is I made a substantial number of changes to the encounters, adjusting the difficulty and distribution for a better curve on novice and amped up the modifiers for more challenging bosses in advanced and hardcore modes. The end result is that biomes are no longer difficulty rated - they differ in theme only! Instead, difficulty will ramp up entirely based on the chapter you're playing.

[h2]Fate Encounters[/h2]
Each biome now has 6 scored fate encounters:
  1. 1x Biome-themed guardian rescue
  2. 1x Biome-themed hazard
  3. 2x Biome-themed beneficial (loyal units, chance for more resources or other special abilities)
  4. 1x Universal-themed beneficial
  5. 1x Scored Shop Encounter (Ex: Mercenary for Hire (single), Inkadoo, or Bleet)

Epic encounters, such as the Sand Pit Arena or the Demon Dance, now replace one of the biome's harder Minion battles so that each biome has an even scoring potential. Speaking of encounters, I've added 12 new encounters to the game to grow each biomes thematic feel of hazards helpful friends. My personal favorite is a chance to help a Flesh Golem find romance within the lonely depths of the dungeons...

[h3]New Encounters[/h3]
  1. Beetle's Burden
  2. Cursed Tomb
  3. Cursed to Crumble
  4. Frozen Viking
  5. Horse with No Name
  6. Noxious Gas
  7. Scavenger Hunt
  8. Skeletal Siphon
  9. Stitched With Love
  10. Viking Vanguard
  11. Yellowjacket Nest
  12. Goblin Army (Minion Encounter)


[h2]Biome Themed Shops[/h2]
  1. Each of the 20 distinct shopkeepers now spawn only in specific biomes to create different incentives to visit each world depending on your desired strategy or thematic mood.
  2. Each shopkeeper now has a limited amount of gold (500) to ensure balanced opportunity on earned gold. Buying items from a shopkeeper increases their gold pool so that you can trade and sell larger items.
  3. Traveling Salesman carries 1000 gold for the entire adventure rather than refreshing for each camp.


[h2]Balanced Resource Distribution[/h2]
  1. I've replaced my previous individual object based RNG drops in favor of a world resource pool. Each world now has a fixed set of resources created for it and the procedural algorithm will randomly hide those items based on the world seed. Items will be hidden appropriate to their context (i.e. weapons in weapon racks, gold in chests, dice in crates and barrels), and also distributed evenly amongst defeated enemies. This will guarantee a consistent drop rate and max resource score potential for all biomes and adventure runs.
  2. As an added bonus, the run summary will now indicate the total number of resources you have found per each category (gold/dice/cards/etc.) and the number that remains so that you can be certain you collected everything before you portal to the next world. Any map cells with resources left dropped or still hidden in crates/barrels will now show an icon (gold with a dice) so you know where to go to find the goodies. Note: You will need to explore the map first or use the Insatiable Coffer before this icon appears.
  3. Since the dungeon biome naturally has a higher frequency of weapon and armor racks and bookcases, this biome will generate extra weapons/armor/spells. Likewise, overworld biomes will each spawn extra gold, locked chests, potions and marshmallows to even things out. The total point value of all resources remains equal across all biomes, but will vary by chapter, with higher chapters producing more resources.
  4. After all sub worlds (such as caves, portals, dungeons) for a biome have been populated, the procedural generator will remove Minion and Elite encounters from the overworld that exceed the per-chapter maximum of 9 minion battles and 5 elite battles. This is to ensure a consistent adventure duration and scoring potential for all biomes and boss combinations (such as when the Demon Lord or Yeti King generates additional dungeons).
  5. Additional fate encounters added for thematics of the biome RNG will replace encounters of equal score value to ensure consistent adventure duration and score potential.
  6. Minion difficulty for non-fast adventures now use the difficulty distribution for the entire world rather than resetting the difficulty distribution each time a new subWorld is populated. This results in the hardest minion encounters being found in the deepest subWorlds.
  7. Elites, soul gems and boss keys can now be hidden in any of the sub worlds generated for a biome.
  8. Skeleton keys will now always spawn in the floor for which their locks chests and doors are located.
  9. Lore is now only hidden in the native sub worlds and not the additional sub worlds generated by encounters (such as demonic realm or yeti cave). This is intended to provide incentive to fully explore the overworld.
  10. Nonscored battles (such as minions on the Path of Pain in Demon world) can no longer be assigned keys, lore, or other kinds of drops as these encounters are meant purely as obstacles that can be fought through or avoided using alternative routes.
  11. Completed fate encounters are no longer repeated twice in the same adventure across different chapters.


Quality of Life
  1. Visible Icons: Resource icons on the world map (such as skeleton keys, lore, drops, and boss key) are now displayed above the folds in the map so it's clear which areas have items to collect.
  2. Resource Tracker: The world map will now display an icon consisting of a dice combined with gold coins on areas that contain resources such as gold, dice, soul gems, or card pickups that have been left on the map or are hidden within crates, barrels or other objects. Resources are detected once the map has been explored or if you have equipped the Insatiable Coffer artifact. You can also use your run summary to get a more specific breakdown of the total gold, dice, cards, and satchels you've found out of the total left to find.
  3. World Map: Buttons indicating the number of subWorlds will no longer show until you have visited a map on that subWorld. This is to prevent revealing information about the nature of the boss by simply looking at the number of floors a map contains. If you have equipped the world map artifact, compass, treasure coffer, or are playing on fast adventure, the subWorld floor buttons will display without having to explore first. The first time a player explores a new subworld, the total number of subwords is revealed on the world map.
  4. Achievement Unlocking: Players who have beaten an adventure on Hardcore now receive the achievement for completing an adventure on Advanced. Likewise, players who have beaten an adventure on Advanced or Hardcore now receive the achievement for completing an adventure on Novice.
  5. Final Run Summary: Added the UI HUD display on the Prismatic Realm so players can view their final score and run summary.


XP Earn Rate Improvements

While my initial XP system introduced in 2.0 was quite a hit, it also stirred a lot of discussion. I have received regular feedback since its release, including daily reminders from players to continue to improve the XP system. I love that player passion, and I'm very pleased to finally roll this one out.
  1. I've modified the XP Variance table by removing all negative modifiers (decay) on XP gain and continuing to reward bonuses for playing at higher descent levels. While the decay rate was intended to keep the challenge level up and avoid what I thought might feel like grinding, I neglected to consider that many casual players prefer the "power fantasy" of leveling up their characters this way and greatly exceeding the strength of their enemies while unlocking their characters ultimate abilities. If you want to grind to level up by crushing enemies on Novice level with your most powerful heroes, you now can. If you want to challenge yourself by playing harder difficulties, you'll get an XP bonus for doing so.
  2. Your XP difficulty bonus now always uses your summoner's max earned rank (not your selected rank) to remove the bad feeling of not using your upgrades to get XP faster. This means you're now always incentivized to use your highest rank. You still have the option to downgrade your rank if you want the extra challenge, but this will no longer affect your XP or score.
  3. You'll earn a 5% XP bonus for every difficulty level you play above your summoner's max achieved rank until reaching Rank 20. This is intended to support hardcore players who prefer overcoming brutal challenges over the power fantasy and to reward skillful play to reach the higher scoring tiers faster.
  4. Descent difficulty tiers can now be globally unlocked for all characters without having to beat early descent levels with each character via a series of new achievements:

    1. Descent Explorer: Beat Descent 5 with any character. Unlock Descent 1 for all characters.
    2. Descent Journeyman: Beat Descent 10 with at least two characters. Unlock Descent 6 for all characters.
    3. Descent Master: Beat Descent 15 with at least three characters. Unlock Descent 11 for all characters.
  5. I want to encourage faster XP gain by playing a variety of different summoners. So, you can now maximize your player XP gain by playing your lowest ranked summoners at the highest difficulties you can. This is because bonus XP contributes to both the summoner being played and your global player XP. This intended to incentivize and reward players who play with a range of different characters and you catch up to your highest rank summoners.
  6. My goal for Abalon has always been to encourage exploration of a diverse range of characters so players can discover and master an arsenal of creative strategies. To this end, I've added further incentive to playing with different characters with a new set of achievements that will unlock permanent XP bonuses once you've completed adventures with multiple characters:

    1. Master of Many I: Complete an adventure with 3 different summoners. Unlock a 5% XP bonus for all characters.
    2. Master of Many II: Complete an adventure with 5 different summoners. Upgrade your XP bonus to 10%.
    3. Master of Many III: Complete an adventure with 10 different summoners. Upgrade your XP bonus to 20%.
    4. Master of Many IV: Complete an adventure with 20 summoners. Upgrade your XP bonus to 50%.
    5. Master of Many V: Complete a hardcore adventure with 20 summoners. Upgrade your XP bonus to 100%.
  7. Your combined XP bonus (for playing harder difficulties, earning XP upgrades via achievements, and double XP events) is now shown as a bonus percentage of the base score in the battle summary. For example, if the battle shows you earned 100 XP and you have a 50% Bonus, you will earn a total of 150XP. Your XP bonuses for difficulty variance, achievement upgrades and events additively stack together, and bonuses beyond 100% will show as 2X, 3X, 4X multipliers instead (meaning your XP is multiplied by the bonus).


Smarter Battle Deployment

Raising a larger army of followers is a lot of fun, but many players have astutely called out that this can often lead to overcrowded maps and blocking in your summoner on the backlines. To address this, I've optimized the player's unit deployment algorithm as follows:
  1. The size of the map now determines the max number of units that can be deployed from your party. 5x8 maps deploy a max of 8, 6x9, a max of 9, and 7x13 a max of 13. Boss battles will always deploy a max of 8 units to maintain a consistent challenge across variable map sizes.
  2. The space directly in front of your summoner is reserved (no allies will deploy there) so that you're free to move about on your first turn. (Thanks EvilMustDie)
  3. Units to deploy are selected automatically based on their combined power/life/armor remaining, then whether or not they are ranged or have support abilities. Guardians are always deployed.
  4. Units are automatically deployed in optimal positions, with ranged units in the back and strongest melee fighters in the front. Injured units will even take a position in the backline behind units with more combined power and life.

So, you can still build a massive army reserve, no more map overcrowding, and your best and healthiest units will always be selected in optimal formation without having to tinker with a separate deploy step. To fine tune your army, you can use your gear to power up/down your preferred fighters to change how they are deployed.

Leaderboard Reset and Scoring Changes

Once again, I've reset the global leaderboard so we can start fresh with our new scoring system. While I didn't get a chance to finish the new category and tiered leaderboards this update (they'll be coming next), I did revamp the scoring mechanisms to move us closer towards the ideal end game:
  1. Below Par Bonus: I've recalculated all of the par values (average turns to win battles) based on the latest 2.0+ battle data and changed these from a flat score to a simple 10% bonus of the base score for each battle type. Difficulty level is no longer a factor in determining par. The par value for each type of encounter is now based purely on the statistical average for all players' performance from the previous game versions' statistics.
  2. No Retreat Bonus: I've added a new score differentiator that adds a 10% bonus to your battle's base score if you win the battle without ever having retreated. This aims to add a nice risk/reward factor and address the free scouting ability in Abalon that some of our min/max players called out for being a bit too tedious. (Thanks CyperAleksi)
  3. Run Completion Bonus: Increases from 10% to 20%. Additionally, the bonus is now calculated after adding challenge modifier scores and is multiplied with other multipliers so that completing a run now has a much higher impact on score than partially finishing a run at a higher difficulty level.
  4. Score Multipliers: All difficulties now share the same base scoring system so it's easy to track individual battle/fate/resource score performance relative to other difficulties and game modes. Scores for higher difficulties are now differentiated by an increasing score multiplier that doubles every four levels of difficulty. For instance, Novice is 1x, Advances is 1.25x, Hardcore is 1.75x and Descent 1 (or difficulty level 4) has a multiplier of 2x.
  5. Adventure Scores: Playing the standard Adventure in signature mode with Descent difficulties offers the highest scoring potential as this is the hardest standard mode. The multipliers range from 2x (starting at Descent 1) and go up to 20x at Descent 15. I'll be adding Descent 16-20 and Descent 20+ in the next update for further challenge.
  6. Traditional Mode: Traditional Mode now supports Descent difficulty. Since so many players prefer this style of play, I decided to remove the forced permadeath for summoner and guardians and instead allow you the option to increase the challenge by playing and unlocking the descent levels. Since Traditional Mode is much easier mode (due to the automatic recovery of cards and ability to see enemy hand), it earns points at half the multiplier rate of standard adventure.
  7. Custom Mode Scoring: Custom mode allows you to pick individual modifiers to customize difficulty to your liking in the signature play style, so the standard multiplier is only used for the base difficulty (Novice, Advanced, Hardcore) and each bonus now has a challenge rating (1, 2 or 3) each corresponding to a 5%, 10%, or 15% bonus. All challenge modifiers, regardless of their effect, now award bonus points as a percentage of your battle score rather than individual categories (such as summoner battle, minion battle, fate encounter, run completion, etc.). I felt this change makes score tracking a lot easier to understand and helps emphasize the challenge effect of encounters like Ill-Fated better. As such, the scoring percentage value for affected encounters has been adjusted accordingly.
  8. Nemesis Battles: Nemesis Battles no longer award points or XP since these are attached to challenges and/or fate encounters that already award their points.
  9. Nonscored Encounters: Likewise, encounters that attached to specific dungeons or events, such as the "Friend or Foe" or "Path of Pain" that offer differing routes through the demon dungeon are now flagged as non-scored as these are intended as unique obstacles and an alternative paths to navigation rather than bonus scoring opportunities for the biome.
  10. Buying out Shops: Buying out all cards within a shop no longer generates a fate encounter score, except in the case of a single mercenary for hire (not the mercenary den) and purchasing or freeing a hero from shops containing caged heroes that can be rescued (ex: Inkadoo and Bleet). I felt awarding points for this didn't make sense after the advent of shops containing loyal units increased the inventory of shops beyond most gold distributions. Each chapter includes exactly 1 scored shop encounter.


Balance Changes
  1. Encounter Difficulty: Fine tuned the games 200+ encounters for better difficulty distribution (normalized curve for novice, harder elite and boss challenges for advanced and hardcore players). Full disclosure: I took my best guesses, and I'll continue to improve upon this with future releases.
  2. Early Level Protection: Changed the mechanism that protects the player from early level encounters in the first chapter being too difficult. Previously, this would allow distributions of encounters rated difficulty 1-3 (after having spawned at least one elite for purposes of teaching retreat mechanic). Now, the curve advances in a linear fashion for the first 6 battles before letting the random map distribution take over. Additionally, the algorithm now protects early chapter characters from difficult fate encounters (not just battles), such as the Arena Ambush or Catch of the Day. The retreat prompt will now surface afterwards, if the player attempts to engage with a difficulty 8 or higher encounter before they have won 8 or more battles and have not recruited any allies yet.
  3. Drop RNG: Instead of using the action id as the RNG salt (which can vary between sessions), I now use coordinates (which are fixed). This should result in more normalized card drops and will eventually help with consistency as we move towards more seeded RNG systems in the future.
  4. Unequip: Made it so that player can no longer unequip items during battle. This is to prevent exploiting artifacts (such as Horn of Haste) where the benefit is applied at the start of the battle by removing them to circumvent the max item limits. This also fixes bug where it was possible to unequip allies who have been mind controlled by the enemy. Players can still swap equipment during battle (i.e. replace a weapon by equipping a different one).
  5. Traditional Mode no longer includes the permadeath challenges enabled by default. Many players (casual and hardcore) enjoy this style of play over Abalon's signature style, so now you can play on any difficulty (including Descent) with permadeath optional via the difficulty setting.
  6. Fast Adventure: Increased the number of shops in Fast Adventure Dungeon from 1 to 2 and increased the number of shops in Fast Adventure Overworld from 3 to 4 so that Fast Adventure now includes exactly 2x scored shops (1 in overworld and 1 in dungeon).
  7. Ranged Unit Encounter Spawns: I changed the algorithm for rangedUnitSpawn so that these spaces are now only and always reserved if the enemy has farshot units. This should greatly improve the challenge of the encounter by ensuring the AI's melee troops aren't blocked by ranged units being positioned in front of them.
  8. Elixir of Eternal Life: Instead of dealing 20 damage (and probably killing you if you fail the dice roll), choosing poorly and drinking from the wrong grail will now transform you into a long, white haired skeleton warrior. (Thanks Lex)
  9. Dinner-A-Fowl now spawns a miniature version of the Griffon guardian so that all character classes can receive it as a loyal unit.
  10. Increased the life of Goblin Birthday boy from 3 to 5.
  11. Removed some traps and furniture in some of the dungeon rooms so there is more room for guardians to enter.
  12. Updated the biome description prompt so that it no longer displays a difficulty rating to coincide with my balance update where all biomes should be of equal difficulty.
  13. Chronomancer Top Hat: Will now be uniquely found in the Snow biome via Play Nice with Ice encounter. Expanded the range of creatures that can be created by four (you're welcome Kaaz). The full list creatures that can be animated includes:

    1. Treant by placing on a Tree
    2. Earth Elemental by placing on a Rock
    3. Crystal Golem by placing on a Crystal (I wonder where you find those?)
    4. Ice Golem by placing on an Ice Block
    5. Fire Elemental by placing on Fire Pit
    6. 1/5 Bramble Elemental by placing on Brambles, Cactus, or Spiked Blocked
    7. 3/6 Carniflower by placing on a Bush
    8. Magma Golem by placing on Powder Keg
  14. Reduced Demon World size from 4x4 to 3x3.
  15. Cursed Coin changed from "The last enemy defeated drops 60 gold" to "Defeated Elites drop 180 gold. Excludes Nemesis".
  16. Create an alchemy fate map for each biome so they can each support the many different alchemy encounter types.
  17. Paying off bandits will now count as a successful encounter completion and award points.
  18. Bigger Bosses challenge now increases boss life by +20 rather than +10.
  19. Overcharged challenge now increases the starting mana of Bosses and Elites (not just bosses) to 5.
  20. Camp Shortage challenge modifier is now unlocked in Challenge Mod Set 4 on the progression tower
  21. Inflation challenge modifier is now unlocked in Challenge Mod Set 5 on the progression tower


Bug Fixes
  1. Fixed Bug where multiplayer co-op games involving AI controlled withereds could become desynced because both clients auto-processed mindless actions and the host also sent the mindless actions, resulting in an exception that didn't manifest until much later in the game. (Thanks Excolion and yokeee)
  2. Fixed Bug where it was possible to loot the Mercenary Den before recruiting all Mercenaries. Removed gold chests from Mercenary den. As a side note, Mercenary Den and other shop items no longer contain loot :P
  3. Fixed Bug where player can unequip items on units they no longer control.
  4. Fixed Bug where Demon Dance fate encounter was scoring twice (once as a Fate Encounter and again as a Boss Encounter). It now scores as a Battle encounter.
  5. Fixed Bug where switching to a new page and selecting a card to sell would not initially show the "Sell" button until the card was selected a second time.
  6. Fixed Bug where using the keyboard or controller to select two cards of the same type in a row while in the Deck Summary screen would not select the second duplicate card.
  7. Fixed Bug where casting exactly 3 spells while equipped with the Trinity Orb, you could then play any number of satchel cards to continuously trigger the Trinity Orb's effect. The Trinity Orb is not intended to trigger when playing artifacts. (Thanks Elwood)
  8. Fixed Bug where Goblin Backstab works with Ranged Attacks (ex: Warlock Staff). Backstab is not intended to work against multiple targets, so I've fixed this so that Backstab abilities only trigger when there are no secondary targets. (Thanks Excision)
  9. Fixed Bug where restocking a campfire with marshmallows to light the bonfire wasn't incrementing the marshmallows eaten statistic.
  10. Fixed Bug where AI wasn't attacking the hellhound puppy or cat of nine as it saw their constant resurrection as nonsensical.
  11. Fixed Bug where shop name was not appearing correctly and other bugs in the Turkish translations. (Thanks Excolion)
  12. Fixed Bug where Metamorph in Sandpit arena cannot transform into another unit without transforming back. (Thanks Wesley)
  13. Fixed Bug where leaving the Harvest world through the portal while transformed into an animal to enter a new biome would result in being transformed back into your summoner and having a copy of the animal you were transformed into temporarily in your party until completing a battle. Your animal transformation status will now carry over to the next adventure. (Thanks Excolion)
  14. Fixed Bug where some statuses affixed from fate events could become removed by retreating from battle instead of winning battle or resting at camp.


New Language Support

I am continuously impressed and thrilled by the support of our player community in helping to translate and add new language support to Abalon. Recently, we had volunteers for Indonesian and Polish, so these languages will be coming soon (hopefully in the next major update). I've also had several requests for Ukrainian and Arabic language support. If you're a native speaker and would like to help translate Ukrainian, Arabic or another language, I'd love your support! I've got a first-class custom localization tool that makes the process quite fun, and I also honor all of our volunteers by creating and naming a card in the game in your honor. Reach out to me on Discord (@RossD20Studios).

Coming Soon

I aimed to finish the leaderboard system this update: instead we got balancing, XP overhaul and new fate encounters - necessary steps on a long road. I do have the designs for the new leaderboards done (which is actually the harder part), so I'll make that the priority to finish for our next big update. After that, it's back to working on multiplayer and our Caves Expansion.

Showing Your Support

Many of our players have asked me for a way to help support the continued development of Abalon, so I setup a "Buy Me a Coffee" page where you can make one-time or recurring contributions.

[h2]Reviews[/h2]
My year-end goal for 2025 is for Abalon to achieve "Overwhelming Positive" rating which requires a total of 500 or more reviews an overall rating of 95% or more. As of today, we're at 432, 94%. That's 68 more to go, will you help me by writing a Steam review? I want to make the best experience I can for you - let me know in your review what you like about Abalon and also where I can continue to improve and do better.

Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and consideration :)

~Ross

v2.42.0

Fixed a bug where selecting through difficulties or cards using the controller or keyboard wasn't providing any kind of feedback to indicate which choice you had selected. Now, the cards will properly enlarge and expand, as well as show the keywords panel with additional information. (Thanks Fancy2209 and grandal)