Into the Necrovale News

For today's update, I mainly focused on building out the Off-hand category of items. Big thanks to user Samson for some great designs there, quite a few of his ideas made their way into the game. The slot has always been a bit of an odd duck. It's meant to be an active slot, but nothing there feels too essential. Hopefully some of these new designs fit into your builds better, and provide some actual value. Also, as I figure out the difficulty, some of the defensive Offhands might start to be more relevant.



Bugs

• Stat breakpoint logic was being run multiple times, leading to weird stat behavior (slyvanessy)
  
• Negative Health per Kill now functions properly
  
• Demonic Goatmen no longer do such insane damage when hitting you into the wall
  
• Fixed Per Level effects to actually work
  

Balance

• Fixed attack split calculations. Multiple projectiles will now split their damage and their effects will be diluted (generously)
  
• Reworked Vlad’s Grimoire and Baltair’s Memento. Should still be usable without being broken.
  

Misc.

• Updated Sunlit colors
  
• Levels within an area must once again be completed in order
  

Additions

• 27 new items
  

Bugs
- Extracting embers now extracts the correct type
- Fixed Laughing Shield, Chains of Ire, Moonchild Rites, and other emission effects
- Fruit from the Garden now picks up Potion Quality Bonus
- Items are kicked out of the forge extraction slot when closing the menu
- The Innocents health should scale properly now

Balance
- Reworked forking. Now a fork is always a split into 2, and damage is divided
- Projectile bounce damage lowered
- Lowered Sunlit Burn, Instant Kill Threshold, and Enemy Start Health properties
- Added health on kill to the Harpoon Gun unique
- Reworked Messenger Shoes
- Reworked Thralls Plate and Crude Plate
- Increased Run Speed scaling
- Test of Might damage thresholds now scale
- Reduced highest possible Refinement Level from Test of Arrogance, increased spawn

Misc.
- When sacrificing an item, it now checks your inventory first, and then your equipped items

Bugs
- Fixed Burning Rate modifier
- Controller now works properly on the Prisoners Log
- Negative despair per kill items work properly now
- Malingerer can no longer be shattered
- Malingerer won’t die anymore
- + Despair on Kill items wont flash “You are Hopeless” over and over
- Max Health can no longer go below 1
- Fix exploding attacks interaction with forking
- Fixed Knockback Collision damage
- Crown of Storms no longer has a weirdly short range

Balance
- Reduced Burning Rate scaling
- Increase Coin Drop scaling (you get more coins now later on)
- Reduced size and increased enemy density in the Confluence
- Lowered gate trigger on Kennels level
- Added soft and hard cap to many stats
- Increased size from Firewalkers trail
- Significantly increased health cost from Vlad’s Grimoire
- Witchichor now has a soft and hard cap, and is applied in the correct order

Misc.
- There are now 10 total ember types, and they combine into each other all the way to the top
- Heroic items can now only drop from Chests (not the merchant), and their drop rate is increased
- There is now a DPS counter when you hit the Malingerer in the Refuge
- Toned down the red screen border when youre at low health
- Made the Jack-Pot wheel more accurate

Additions
- 2 Uncommon staffs

Today’s update reworks the Hope and Despair system again. As many people rightly pointed out, it wasn’t working very well. Despair was trivial to get rid of, and maxing out Hope was trivial to accomplish. With this rework, I hope its a little more interesting, and easier to understand.

First off, there is no longer Hope and also Hope Crystals. Now, it’s just Hope. The blue nuggets you get at the end of a run are just Hope. Also, instead of cashing your Hope into Hope Crystals, you now just get an amount of Hope equal to the difficulty. Easy peasy. Second, the “meter” is just Despair. It starts at 0 and goes up to 100. When you die, you gain 30 Despair, but you can also gain and lose it through many different items and levels. If you die, and you have 100 Despair already, you will succumb to the Despair, and the Witch will have her way with you.



Thanks for playing my game, people
CLYDE

Bugs
- Mini bosses should no longer lead to a full run
- Obsidian Staff power move no longer does absurd broken no-good damage
- Fixed crash with empty meld slot
- Hero’s Courage blessing works correctly now
- Effects that reduce your healing will no longer prevent a full heal from completing a run

Balance
- Increased difficulty scaling
- Melded stats that overlap are no longer doubled
- Lowered overall Ember drop rate, now that they drop at higher levels
- Added soft and hard cap for crit chance
- Reduced damage from Singularities
- Elixirs and Fruit now scale with level. Potion level bonuses are now applied to both
- Coffers reward room is a little farther out, making it harder to steal the goods

Misc.
- Reworked Heart of Greed unique amulet, so its not just a gimmick item
- Void Embers and Embers of Heroism can now be combined
- Melded items can now have Embers of Heroism applied, if the main item is fully upgraded
- Capped the time it takes for the Statue of the Mother to dispense Hope

Today's update focuses a lot on how Ember drops work. Basically, it is a lot easier to get high level Embers later in the game. No more seeing 20 Dull Embers sitting on the ground beyond the gates of despair. This update will shorten play time, but I'd rather have the game be shorter and more fun. Hopefully it also lets you experiment more, as its not so difficult to upgrade random pieces of equipment.

Bugs

• I had accidentally introduced a bunch of lag, should be better now
  
• CRT filter wont automatically toggle back on when loading the game
  
• Blessings/Curses can now be picked up, even with full inventory
  
• Fixed Guillame’s Shot power move
  
• Capped movement lock when attacking with slower weps
  
• Attack Dash (from Roarke’s Kilt) no longer locks you into a super long dash
  
• Foraging Guide potion quality bonus should apply more uniformly to all potions
  
• Fixed interaction between Bomba Bow/Hand Cannon and Grenadier Gloves
  
• All Fishing rewards are now guaranteed to be picked up
  
• Fixed Repulsion Totem
  
• Convergence level now shows proper enemy count
  
• Fixed Guillame’s Soultrap
  
• Killing the first guy in the Bombardment doesnt end the level
  

Balance

• Rebuilt Ember spawning. They are far more likely to be of the appropriate tier now
  
• Rebuilt a lot of the damage calculations
  
• Reworked Devilish Spirit
  
• Silken Blade barrier is smaller, and regenerates less frequently
  
• Crystal Staff shards now do proper damage
  
• Increased Health on Leo’s Greaves
  
• Reduced damage from Burning, when its on the player
  
• Increased Health from items
  
• Improved scaling on Jazerant
  

Misc.

• Reduced the overall darkness of the game
  
• Stygiana level is now about finding the exit, not clearing all the monsters
  
• Reduced the room size in the Carnarium
  
• Using an Ember of Heroism will now reduce the level, instead of consuming it
  
• Extracting a level 7-10 item will now give an Ember of Heroism with the correct level
  
• Reduced lag from Hollow Pulex
  
• You can now use the shortcut to equip runes into slots other than the first
  
• Remaining Enemies display is now more accurate
  

Additions

• 3 new Heroic items