Patch 0.3.84
[h3]Balance and Changes[/h3]
[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
[h3]Enemy Rank & More[/h3]
Enemy ranks are now half as strong as before which allows for a much simpler level* creator system. I don't want to get into too much details, cause it could get confusing, instead please have a look at the table which shows how the level system used to work BEFORE compared to NOW.
*A level is an encounter level which includes what enemies are in the level, how are the enemies positioned, what is the enemy power level (stars).
What does it change?
Since enemy ranks are now gained "linearly" across all parts of the game, this means that level creation based on ACTS and not based on PARTS since the game can now make entire levels dynamically scale depending on what part (floor) the player is on. For instance, before, if level XYZ was an ACT 2 PART 1 level, this level was only available in ACT 2 part 1 and you would never see it in ACT 2 part 2 or 3. Now all levels are based per ACT.
Overall, this change makes it easier to create levels since enemy ranks don't have to be changed manually depending on the act and the part. Now it's all done automatically in-game through code. It also increases the diversity of levels that you will see, since now a level can be seen in all parts of an act while before it was restricted per part. EG. before you could only see the level : Abomination 5 stars in ACT 2 part 1, now you can encounter this level anywhere in ACT 2, and his strength (rank) will scale accordingly depending on where you are in the act.
Same Balance/Strength
Some levels might have a slightly different balance, but overall this should not affect balance. Basically heroes gain ranks twice as fast as they did previously, but the strength of a rank has been reduced by half. This does not affect, elites, bosses and event encounter which have specific ranks & stats.
(old) Rank 1 = (new) Rank 1
(old) Rank 2 = (new )Rank 3
(old) Rank 3 = (new) Rank 5
(old) Rank 4 = (new) Rank 7
Level Maker Tool
I made myself a tool which allows me to make levels at a much quicker speed, this in combination with the last section (changes to enemies rank), will heavily increase how much levels I can make for the game.
Level Variations
With the level maker tool, I am now able to create level variations which includes 2 different positioning for the same level + its 2 mirror positioning (4 times the amount of variation). This gives every single level in the game a more unique flair!
Balancing the amount of enemies in the encounter
Previously, the game would only draw a random level from the pool of levels, and never check how many enemies are in the level, which means that it was possible to only encounter a low count of enemies (1-3) during one run, and then the next run, only encounter a high count of enemies (5+). Although, this was unlikely with the current amount of levels, it would have become a much bigger issue as the amount of levels increase in the future. Therefore, I made a system that allows me to adjust and guide the draw towards a desired percentage of 1 enemy encounter, 2-3 enemies encounter, 4-5 enemies encounter and 6+ enemies encounter. Currently this is set to 20%,20%,50%,10% respectively but it will most likely change in the future.
All these systems are going to be very beneficial to the upcoming Endless Mode (only available in the full game & closed beta)
- (Hero) Kara no longer taunts her target with her active. She now also stuns her current target in addition to the enemies targeting her with her active.
- (Hero)Layla now shares 125% of her Defense with her Bear. Layla's active no longer give 10 Defense to her Bear on cast.
- (Hero)Savos' Buffbots now change color depending on what they are giving as a buff. Yellow = Attack Speed, Blue = Spell Power, Red = Attack Damage. Their buff tooltip also changes color accordingly.
- (Enemy) Dark Shadow: Spell damage and Max HP nerfed
- (Enemy) Hellguard attack speed and Max HP slight nerfed
- (Enemy) Giant Bug Max HP and Attack Damage buffed
- (Enemy) Changed Chainer Demon's chains spell to: Stuns and chains the highest damage dealer of the party. The chains have 20% of the Chainer Demon's Max HP, and all damage dealt to the boss is also dealt to the chains. If the chains are not destroyed within 6.5 seconds, the chained hero takes 99% of their Max HP as damage, this damage does not get mitigated by the hero's Defense.
- (Enemy) Chainer Demon's Max HP heavily increased (due to the change of how his chain spell works)
- 3 and 4 star level enemies have been slightly nerfed.
- Enemy ranks now grant them a additional exponential Attack and Spell Damage
- Buddy's Tooth relic's effect revamped to:
Whenever a hero dies for the first time, you gain X trophies depending on the hero's rank.
Rank 1: 2 trophies
Rank 2: 6 trophies
Rank 3: 12 trophies
Rank 4+: 20 trophies - Cup of blood relic now has an additional effect (in bold)
Your flame cannot be reduced below 1 during combat. Losing a fight makes you lose 5 flame . (You can't lose the run unless you lose a fight) Additionally, after each fight, if you have 1 flame , heal for 7 flame. - Some items and effects that scaled with amount of Summons or amount of debuff on the enemy have been changed to consider the highest amount of stacks during the fight instead of the current amount of stacks during the fight. For instance, the drake passives now considers the highest amount of Summons during the fight instead of the current amount of summons. This is also the case with items that scales with highest debuff amount. By doing this, it makes some effect a bit more predictable, and it also solves an issue that when the fight ends, some buffs would show no longer available values. For instance, when winning a fight, the highest amount of X debuff will be 0, since there are no enemies alive, and the buff tooltip of an item that scales with X debuff will show as giving 0 stacks. This is no longer the case!
Note: when the game will be closer to early access release, these balance patches will be fully detailed.
[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
- You can now open the map while in the starting phase (pick 2 heroes an 1 relic).
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to open the map after a boss, and pick a position without proceeding from the fight rewards, which caused a soft lock.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to duplicate items in the hero panel.
- Fixed a bug where heroes in the shop wouldn't update their "you already have the same hero, pick to gain 25 XP" when they would be dismissed.
- Fixed a bug that would soft lock the game if a hero reached rank 10.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to drag items in the Offer Item Window (events)
- Fixed a bug where stunned heroes wouldn't have navigation colliders, and enemies could go through them.
- Fixed a bug that allows winning and losing a fight to trigger for the same fight.
- Opening the hero panel now closes the hero/enemy card if one is opened. This solves an issue where 2 videos would be played on the same component which would result in a flashing mess.
- Fixed some issue with dropping a hero on a hex when also hovering over a large enemy which resulted in being unable to place.
- 100+ typos fixed, and improved and more consistent descriptions.
[h3]Enemy Rank & More[/h3]
Enemy ranks are now half as strong as before which allows for a much simpler level* creator system. I don't want to get into too much details, cause it could get confusing, instead please have a look at the table which shows how the level system used to work BEFORE compared to NOW.
*A level is an encounter level which includes what enemies are in the level, how are the enemies positioned, what is the enemy power level (stars).
What does it change?
Since enemy ranks are now gained "linearly" across all parts of the game, this means that level creation based on ACTS and not based on PARTS since the game can now make entire levels dynamically scale depending on what part (floor) the player is on. For instance, before, if level XYZ was an ACT 2 PART 1 level, this level was only available in ACT 2 part 1 and you would never see it in ACT 2 part 2 or 3. Now all levels are based per ACT.
Overall, this change makes it easier to create levels since enemy ranks don't have to be changed manually depending on the act and the part. Now it's all done automatically in-game through code. It also increases the diversity of levels that you will see, since now a level can be seen in all parts of an act while before it was restricted per part. EG. before you could only see the level : Abomination 5 stars in ACT 2 part 1, now you can encounter this level anywhere in ACT 2, and his strength (rank) will scale accordingly depending on where you are in the act.
Same Balance/Strength
Some levels might have a slightly different balance, but overall this should not affect balance. Basically heroes gain ranks twice as fast as they did previously, but the strength of a rank has been reduced by half. This does not affect, elites, bosses and event encounter which have specific ranks & stats.
(old) Rank 1 = (new) Rank 1
(old) Rank 2 = (new )Rank 3
(old) Rank 3 = (new) Rank 5
(old) Rank 4 = (new) Rank 7
Level Maker Tool
I made myself a tool which allows me to make levels at a much quicker speed, this in combination with the last section (changes to enemies rank), will heavily increase how much levels I can make for the game.
Level Variations
With the level maker tool, I am now able to create level variations which includes 2 different positioning for the same level + its 2 mirror positioning (4 times the amount of variation). This gives every single level in the game a more unique flair!
Balancing the amount of enemies in the encounter
Previously, the game would only draw a random level from the pool of levels, and never check how many enemies are in the level, which means that it was possible to only encounter a low count of enemies (1-3) during one run, and then the next run, only encounter a high count of enemies (5+). Although, this was unlikely with the current amount of levels, it would have become a much bigger issue as the amount of levels increase in the future. Therefore, I made a system that allows me to adjust and guide the draw towards a desired percentage of 1 enemy encounter, 2-3 enemies encounter, 4-5 enemies encounter and 6+ enemies encounter. Currently this is set to 20%,20%,50%,10% respectively but it will most likely change in the future.
All these systems are going to be very beneficial to the upcoming Endless Mode (only available in the full game & closed beta)