Keeper's Toll News

It's been a busy few weeks since the game launched in Early Access. We've been listening to everyone's feedback, so thank you to everyone who reported a bug, requested a change, or provided us with any feedback. The game has improved because of you!



With that said, we're also working on new content, and we are excited to show our first preview of the next class to be added to Soul Survivors: The Ranger. She's had an updated design since what has originally been shown of her:



She is the fastest character in the game, with a high fire rate and a unique playstyle. Below is a video we put together to show off some of what you can expect.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Though she's not a summoner, like the Necromancer, she does have a couple companions. Here's a preview (WIP):



We're still a couple weeks out from adding her to the game. We are wrapping up her final abilities and talents and then we need to spend a lot of time optimizing and balancing the class. As she plays nothing like the other 2 existing characters, balancing take some time. We've spent a lot of time developing this class and we are trying to step up our game in regards to skills, talents,, synergies, build types etc.



We're also planning to upload a few more builds pertaining to existing content. Stay posted for news on this.



As for what to expect following the addition of the Ranger: we are also designing a merchant/item system, which will make all that gold you're stacking become very valuable and important, especially if you try out our new Hard Mode, which we are planning to implement in a later update too. More on this later.

Once again, I would like to thank everyone for their feedback and support. It truly does mean a lot, and we look forward to adding the Ranger to the game in the coming weeks.

Stingbot

Hi Everyone,

We have a fun update today! We added a couple of new Curses to the game and added dozens of improvements/fixes. We have a big announcement coming soon, so stay posted on that too!

Here's what's new in the latest build:

- New Curse Added to Linden Forest: Grainloch's Minions

- New Curse Added to Usvit Depths: Bilee's Revenge

- Removed the Traitors Curse. Will likely revamp and return at some point

- Removed Bogatyr's passive ability: Hardy. Replaced it with a new ability called Guardian's Fury.
Increases DMG of shield attacks by 15% per rank + adds 10HP to base health

- Modified the save system to avoid potential simultaneous async calls

- Usvit Depths: Shield masters' shield colliders will no longer remain active when enemy dies. Caused unwanted invisible collisions

- When cycling between characters on the Talents menu, the correct talents will now display for each character in their Trees

- Necromancer's Auto Flail has been modified to have a slightly longer rotation before it deactivates

- A few minor performance optimizations for the Necromancer's Auto Flail

- Increased Gold Drop rate in Usvit Depths

- Scaled gold amounts to drop with player level, so the higher the player level the higher chance of larger quantities of gold will now drop

- Bug Fix: Damage bonus is now working correct for Passives: By the Sword, Earthen Might, Defiled Bones, Vital Force

- Fixed a collision bug with Bilee's blood circles

- Fixed a bug related to speed overrides w/ powerups and curses

- Fixed a crash in curse mode related to the curse count not matching the available count

- Reduced collider size of boulders for Catapult Curse

- Fixed the enemy worm sorting layer

- Bug Fix: rare issue where the level up panel would not load into place on level up

- Fixed an issue with collecting Boss Souls resulting in 2 collisions and 2 level ups

- Balancing

- Code refactoring

As always, feel free to share any feedback or suggestions. We welcome everything and will strive to constantly improve the game. Thank you for your support!

Stingbot

We are updating our save system to the game, and if you want to preserve your save file then please make sure you have the latest version of the save file stored on your computer.
If you play on multiple devices, just make sure you pull in the latest save from the Cloud onto whatever device you will be updating the game to. The game will automatically copy and merge your data into a new file with whatever it detects.
If no file exists, then the new system will automatically create a save file for you in the new format and there is nothing to worry about in this case.

If, for whatever reason you can't retrieve your existing data or the game simply makes a new file and you want to go back and get your old data, we can discuss ways to do this. Save data files are located in the Local Low directory in Windows under Stingbot Games/Soul Survivors. The old files are called "Data" and "Achievements."
We can always grab those files from you and modify them for the new format. The new files will be called "Data.Save" and "Achievement.Save" These will play much nicer with Steam Auto cloud in the future. and will allow us to easily work with multiple platforms going forward.

If your data is lost, for any reason whatsoever, do not worry. We can easily make a save file, send it to you and, within 30 seconds you can drop it into the directory and start up the game and all will work as you expected. We can go so far as to define the exact amount of gold per character you want in your file. Simply get in touch with us in your preferred way of contact, however Discord or email: [email protected] will be the fastest way to get a hold of us.

In most cases, the save files will migrate without issue and you will be up and running again without a hitch. However, in the case you are not, do not worry. Just reach out to us and we'll get you sorted.

Now, onto the other big ticket item in this build:
- We added a secondary control scheme for the Necromancer's Flail attack. You can choose between Classic (physics based movement) or Auto (simplified auto attack on a timer) when you select the Necro. We had a lot of requests for something more simple/automated, so here it is. We are an open book, so if you think it can be improved and you envision something different for the Auto Flail just reach out to us with your thoughts and ideas. This is Early Access after all, and we implemented this because of requests, so our idea for the auto version may not be the best it can be, but we do believe it's a good start.

Some other things in this build:
- Fixed the order of events after Autlaic is killed in the depths if you collected an amulet piece for Bilee
- Bloodsap will no longer take damage from an Effigy
- Fixed some collision issues when collecting boss souls
- Modified souls and flesh pile colliders/animators to boost performance
- Slight collision performance improvements
- Code refactoring
- Various Bug Fixes


As always, please reach out with any ideas, bugs discovered, feedback etc. We read everything and will do our best to respond to everyone. Thank you for your support.

Stingbot

Hi Everyone,

Quick update on a new patch build that just went live. Lots of QoL improvements, some balancing, performance stuff and tons of requests from the community have been added in. Let's start with what's new and then dive in to what's to come in the next couple of builds. Here's what's new:

- Modified the Burn effect from the chili firebreath powerup. It will now create a burn type of effect with low dmg but fast ticks while the flames damage the enemy. Adjusted hitbox as well

- Modified poison powerup and Necromancer Spell: Miasma - Reduced dmg output but the effect now ticks faster and more often

- Necromancer Skeleton Pets will not disappear when loading into a boss fight. They will now load in with you

- Modified Bogatyr's Passive Ability: By the Sword. Damage boost has been increased from 5 to 15% and the passive also affects Tempest and Retaliation now as well

- Modified Bogatyr's Passive Ability: Earthen Might. Damage boost has been increased from 5 to 15%

- Necromancer's Effigy Skill now also inflicts minor damage to enemies that attack it

- Fixed both Bogatyr and Necromancer max talent achievements. They should properly update now

- Bogatyr's Tempest blades will now be able to strike the same enemy more than once before they fade away

- Modified stunning blow hitbox and performance optimzations

- Boss Souls from Autlaic and Velya will no longer spawn directly on top of the player

- Chests and Mimics should no longer spawn during Bloodsap, Autlaic and Velya boss fights

- Stone Guardians should no longer launch from across the screen to the player's position in Usvit Depths

- Fixed/Improved enemy knockback logic

- Nibbler (Giant Rat) will no longer spawn during boss fights in Usvit Depths

- When enemies are feared off screen in Autlaic's fight, they will now immediately die

- Bloodsap's Roots will now only affect you within the boundaries of his arena

- Stunned enemies in swarms/clusters will now properly be stunned

- Improved the AI and enemy targeting for the Summoned Ally in Linden Forest

- Optimized several hitboxes for player attacks

- Improved enemy spawning code with slight performance boost

- Adjusted UI to scale text better for longer descriptions on level up menu

- Fixed collisions occuring more than once

- Code refactoring


We still have a huge list of feedback and requests, so more is coming.

In the next build we will be adding a new Flail mechanic for the Necromancer. This will be an alternative to the existing mechanic for those players that prefer something auto. When selecting the Necro you will be presented with an option for Classic or Auto control scheme. We've taken a lot of feedback into account and we have a plan that still adds a small element of skill (more timing based than anything) w/ the use of the Auto Flail. Expect this build sometime around the end of this week/weekend. There will be additional features/improvements added to the next build as well.

Next week we're planning to give a small preview of the Ranger Class. As with the other 2 classes, she plays entirely different than them, with her own suite of abilities and mechanics to set her apart. There's some really fun stuff coming with her and we're super excited to show her off.

If anyone has feedback bugs or suggestions with this build or anything in general, you can always reach out to us. We listen to everything and do our best to integrate what we can.

Thanks for your support.

Stingbot

Just a small patch to address an immediate issue which was created from last night's patch.

- Fixed an issue related to deserialization and references resulting in the Tile Spawning system to not shift tiles properly. Our game worlds are randomly generated and then the tiles shift around at runtime. In the last patch we introduced an error due to the game's save system which resulted in a rare bug that could break the system from working properly. Should be working properly now.

Also spent a little time to address these things:

- Lowered physics time step for smoother movement
- Code refactoring