As We Descend News

Hey, Kev here. It's great to see all the reviews and discussion about the game so far, so keep 'em rolling! We've got our first slightly bigger patch here that makes some baseline difficulty adjustments to enemy encounters and shop quality. In addition, there is improved performance optimization for the later Depths.

This update will NOT clear your in-progress runs.

[v.415681]
✦ ⇒ Community-inspired change

[h3]✦Encounter Scaling[/h3]
Design notes: Enemies in As We Descend scale their stats based on how many battles you've taken before in a Depth. With this change, enemies now scale their stats slower in all three Depths, and at low Descension the early fights stay easy for longer. At Descension+3 (D+3), it will be closer to the values pre-patch although it may still generally be slightly less challenging.

• Depth 1 enemies scale slower with encounters fought and there's an extra easy encounter (until D+3; previously this was no longer the case at D+1)
  
• Depth 2 enemies scale slower with encounters fought, and there's an extra easy encounter (until D+3)
  
• Depth 3 enemies scale significantly slower with encounters fought, and there's an extra easy encounter (until D+3)
  
• Depth 3 elite enemies no longer scale with the number of battles you've taken in Depth 3 (their stats are now pinned as if you've done about 2 battles rather than fluctuating from 0-5)
  

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

• ✦Hermit has slightly less base health
  
• ✦Tank has slightly less base health, slightly lower base attack power, slightly lower attack scaling, and slightly lower stagger threshold scaling
  
• Tank slightly prefers healthier targets when initially selecting a lock-on target
  
• Warlock Queen slightly prefers healthier targets when selecting a lock-on target for Chest Burster
  

[h3]Units & Cards[/h3]

• Hyperbeam: Damage and Stagger both increased from 25 to 30
  
• Beam Strike: Stagger increased from 12 to 18
  
• Seeker Beam: Favor cost reduced from 1 to 0, and now has limited charges 2(3) instead
  
• ✦Fixed an issue where Pilebunker (with active bonus) did not receive bonus attack from attack power
  

[h3]City & Events[/h3]

• ✦Collector: Now restocks the Perk Draft between Depths (at a slightly higher cost).
  
• Librarian: Now sells Mythion rarity cards and Enhanced(+) cards. Higher chance for Enhanced cards in later Depths. Normal cards are slightly cheaper than they were before, and these new high rarity or pre-upgraded cards are more expensive.
  
• Apothecary: Upgrade and Perk items now remain in stock between Cycles, and restocks up to 2 between Depths.
  

[h3]Optimizations[/h3]

• ✦Improved a common issue with performance in later Depths
  

A quick patch for some more fixes and minor improvements. This patch also contains a few run-progression changes in the form of greater baseline Scavengers per expedition and tech drafts that are biased in the player's favor.

This will update NOT clear your in-progress runs, and should actually fix an issue where some runs may have been cleared.

[v.415663]
✦ ⇒ Community-inspired change

[h3]Tech[/h3]

• ✦During Boss tech drafts, you are guaranteed to get an option that draws you cards and an option that grants additional Command
  
• During tech drafts, you will not see repeat tech again (until you've seen all tech)
  
• Signal Booster has been moved from artifact tech to boss tech
  

[h3]Scavenging[/h3]

• Base Scavenger count on expeditions increased from 5 to 6
  
• Bonus Scavenger count on expeditions from empty deployment slots decreased from 2 to 1
  

[h3]Units[/h3]

• During perk drafts, you will not see a repeat perk again (until you've seen all perks)
  
• Added victory animations for the Bell Maiden, Navigator, Purifier, and Lancer
  
• Field Ingenuity: Fleeting Attack value increased from 1(2) to 2(3)
  
• Back to Back: Fleeting Armor value increased from 3 to 4
  

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

• ✦Various Depth 3 encounters show up slightly later and have less stat scaling
  

[h3]City & Events[/h3]

• Squad improvement cost for basic units increased from 25 to 30
  
• Squad improvement cost for rare units decreased from 100 to 90
  
• ✦Fungal Bloom Strength option increased so the base value is always a minimum of 1
  

[h3]UI/UX[/h3]

• Intent tooltip separated from the other tooltips so that they only appear if you hover the intent area
  
• ✦Max HP becomes visible when hovering a unit or enemy's combat HUD
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• ✦Fixed an issue where Sunder was applying Armorshred rather than Armor Break to fix an interaction with temporary armor
  
• ✦Fixed an issue where deploying to various regions in Depth 3 would take longer than expected for the units to arrive on the battlefield
  
• ✦Fixed an issue where the weakpoint on the Siege Murk could be obscured under the HUD
  
• ✦Fixed an issue where the upgrade preview would jitter (again)
  
• Fixed an issue where the {!} (New card icon) would stay on the screen if the card was hovered as it spawned
  
• Fixed an issue where the Commander's perk description on the metaprogression screen was incorrect
  

Rolling out another tiny hotfix. This will update NOT clear your in-progress runs, and should actually fix an issue where some runs may have been cleared.

[v.415600]
✦ ⇒ Community inspired change

✦Should fix a run-compatibility flag to make sure runs are not cleared
✦Fixed an issue with Farsighted Goggles giving fewer charges than written

Rolling out a tiny hotfix that ensures you can't get stuck on an old access screen.

[v.415598]
✦ ⇒ Community inspired change

✦Fixed a rare issue where a "Closed Beta Access" screen could sometimes appear and block access

Hey, thanks to all the players so far who are leaving feedback and reviews. We've got a quick hotfix for you all that addresses some concerns and issue that have cropped up. You should be able to continue your current in-progress runs with this hotfix.
-Kev

[v.415595]
✦ ⇒ Community inspired change

Optimizations

• ✦Minor optimizations in various places should yield smoother runs overall
  

UI/UX Flow

• ✦Added support to go back to the Main Menu from the Begin Descent Menu using ESC
  

Fixes

• ✦Fixed several rare crash bugs
  
• ✦Fixed unlocalized Russian text
  
• ✦Fixed issue where various weakpoints on the Plague Soldier and Molter King could be hard to see and target
  
• ✦Fixed issue where Target Fire couldn't be upgraded
  
• ✦Fixed issue where Impenetrable upgraded into the wrong card
  
• ✦Fixed issue where Vanguard didn't have a unit portrait in the forces inspection
  
• ✦Fixed issue that caused upgrade previews to jitter
  
• ✦Fixed issue with Depth 3 tooltip on the run summary screen
  
• ✦Fixed issue with "#NAME?" intent tooltip in various encounters
  
• ✦Fixed an issue where players could get stuck in a confirmation window loop in the settings menu when playing in Fullscreen Windowed mode on certain resolutions
  
• Fixed issue that caused some card text to be too small in certain languages