Into the Necrovale News

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever. - Thomas Aquinas

Today’s update is a massive rebalancing. Until now, the balance has been more art than science (art as in: childrens finger paintings). This update brings some more science to it. A handful of overwhelmingly powerful items have been brought in line. A huge amount of bad items have been improved. I’ve put some serious thought into what my goals for balance are, and then went and touched every single enemy and item to try and fit that goal. I’m sure I missed it in some areas, but I think overall we are getting a lot closer.

Thanks again for all your patience, feedback, ideas, and enthusiasm. Together I think we can make this game quite good. As always, please let me know what you think is working, or isn’t working. Overall, later areas should be significantly harder. But if you feel that this update really makes your build bad, please let me know what you’re using and I will look into it.

Bugs
- Hammer of Wotana now only multiplies attacks on power move, not regular move
- Fixed Shock Sticker’s power move
- Fixed Vance’s Peeler power move
- Fixed Pain on Kill from Heirloom
- Fixed Thunder Staff Power move
- Fixed the Hot Shot power move
- Fixed burning status effect sprite
- Fixed Steeleye Circlet to actually do damage
- Early Bosses can no longer be stunned (though their poise can still be broken)
- Fix stat soft cap

Balance
- Increased overall scaling. Later areas should be harder now
- All enemies have been rebalanced
- Nearly every single item has been rebalanced
- Enemy tracking now tapers off as they “wind up”, making it easier to avoid them
- Player and Enemy poise now resets to full after breaking
- Removed the Health Steal stat. Replaced it with Health per Kill
- Replaced Barrier Health Steal with Barrier Heal (any heal effect also goes to your Barrier)
- IMPROVEMENTS
- All projectiles pierce now, substantially buffing all bows and many staffs
- Increased the size of nearly every melee attack
- Forking no longer subdivides the forked projectiles damage
- REDUCTIONS
- Overlapping properties on melded items compute differently
- Reduced execution damage from 10x base DPS, to 10x attack damage
- Lowered the drop rate of Embers in the Embermine
- Power moves now do 200% more damage inherently, instead of 400%

Misc.
- Added Heroic Embers, allowing items to be upgraded to Refinement Level 10. These can not be crafted, only dropped beyond the Gates of Despair
- Savage Dictolydium is now Legendary
- Desiderata is now Rare
- The Warrior Poet is now Uncommon
- Reworked the Hock Chopper’s power move
- Reworked the Longbow’s power move
- An areas mini-boss must be defeated before attempting the Seal

Additions
- 1 new legendary spear

This weeks update finally opens the Gates of Despair… Beyond the gates are 50 more challenge levels. Each run pulls randomly from all 5 previous areas. The challenge starts building more and more, so as you advance, you’ll need to get increasingly broken in your build to survive.



And to that end, I’ve introduced a new rarity of item: Heroic, and designed 26 new items for this tier. These items are very rare, more rare than Legendary items, and they only start dropping beyond the Gates of Despair. These items are my take on “Set Items”. What I don’t like about Set Items from others games, is that they end up as the developers making your build for you. Where’s the fun in that? So while each of the 3 items in each set are very powerful, and are meant to synergize well, there is no explicit bonus for using them together. Some builds might use all 3, others might just want one of them. It’s all up to you.

This is my first stab at end-game content. Getting the balance right on all of this is hard, I’m sure you’ve had one of your builds nerfed at one point or another. That’s not exactly fun, for you or for me, but my long term goal with this game is to make it as deep and fun as possible, and that unfortunately does require some balancing.

If you feel the Gates of Despair is too hard, or too easy, or some item is overpowered or underpowered, please let me know.

Your feedback is my compass in this wilderness. I suspect that with this new level of challenge, a lot of items will prove to be too weak, and might need some buffs.

Anyway, there is more in store. Thanks for sticking with me and playing my game.
- CLYDE


Bugs
- Witch Trials map no longer shows at the end of runs in place of the regular map

Balance
- Each area no longer enforces a specific progression, you can tackle the levels in any order you wish
- The entrance fee for each area has been substantially increased
- Removed the gated doors from the Forge, Craftsman, and Alchemist in the Refuge
- The Intro section now leads to the Coffers or Cemetery, instead of the Sanguinary or Cemetery
- Lowered Coin scaling amounts in later areas
- Increased the Coins you get from the Coffers
- Improved the potential rewards for looting graves in the Cemetery

This week I’ve mostly been working on the Gates of Despair end-game area. Todays update is just a few other bugs, balance, etc… Items I wanted to get out. I hope to have the Gates of Despair ready next week. Thanks for playing everyone.

Bugs

• Using the Build Dummy will no longer swap your helmet and armor
  
• Blessing of Warmth will now always last the duration of a run
  
• Fruit from the Gardener now lasts 4 levels, like Curses and Blessings, instead of 1
  
• Repulsion Totem should no longer cause the game to crash
  
• Meteor effect fixed
  

Balance

• Bosses and mini-bosses are no longer at the end of a run. To compensate, the bosses themselves are harder
  
• I had accidentally nerfed Health Steal way more than intended. It’s fixed now. It is probably still OP, so I will look at it again soon
  
• Now that you can only equip 4 Runes, I have significantly buffed almost all of them
  

Misc.

• Health costs for doors and such can now be paid even if you don’t have enough Health. It will just kill you if you don’t have enough.
  
• New projectile and attack effect art
  

I've been getting feedback that the Palace area is too punishing. I've rebalanced it, so it's not so ridiculous now. Also, the Marquess mini-boss has the wrong weapon, and was dealing over 10x the damage he was meant to. Thanks for your patience, if you found the area too difficult, give it another shot and let me know what you think.

No pleasure is a bad thing in itself: but the means which produce some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures. - Epicurus



Today I have released the fifth area: The Palace of the Witch. There are new enemies, levels, two new bosses, and some new items. Now that the area is out, there are no more “Early Access” areas which are just the same level over and over again. But that’s not to say each area is done. I still plan to go through and add more levels and variety and secrets to each area.

But the next step now, is (finally) some actual end-game content. While you might be able to break all the Seals locking the Gates of Despair, the area is not accessible yet, so the doors won’t be opening. But soon they will part, and hopefully bring the game to the next level. There will be some serious challenges and rewards available beyond those doors.

Thanks for playing my game, everyone

CLYDE