Black Reliquary News

We hope you're doing well! This update just has some final adjustments and bugfixes that we wanted to get out before shifting our focus towards the 1.0 release entirely. We may still ship a few hotfix-scale updates from time to time, especially if we find fixes for any major bugs.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed some typos in skill descriptions
  
• Fixed issue with "The Slayer" vendor paying out the incorrect number of Chthonic Scraps for higher-level trinket interactions
  
• Fixed issue with "The Slayer" vendor not returning higher-level trinkets upon interaction
  
• Fixed audio issue with Flayed Narration
  
• Fixed issue where Charmed Occultist's "Desert's Embrace" targeting bias didn't scale correctly (targeted Charmer significantly more in Veteran compared to Apprentice)
  
• Charmed Occultist's Dune Reconstruction now offsets its target slightly, should make it a bit easier to see heal numbers on Sand Charmer
  
• Fixed issue where Zarallis's Torso didn't extend to the bottom of the Town Event Panel
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]Hero Changes[/h3]

• Dredge's Calibrate Omnitool now only costs 2 Respite Points
  
• Judicator's Crit Effect is now: +15% PROT if not Pagan, +15% DMG if not Religious
  
• Veiled's Deathblow Chance debuffs on both Disfigure and Grave Grasp has been increased to a flat -14%
  
• Philomath's Malevolent Pact Stress Received Debuff is now a flat +10%, Stress Heal to Philo is now a flat -8
  

[h3]Monster Changes[/h3]

• Levantine Janissary's SPD has been reduced to 13
• Levantine Janissary's internal cooldown for Keep them Busy has been lowered to 10 turns (keeps it in line with the initiative reduction we made a while back)
• Levantine Janissary can no longer target the same hero back to back with To the Death
• The bleed caused by Wildlander Steelpath's Dissever is now guaranteed to land
• Kvarotz Mekhrub's Dodge has been lowered to 3/13/23 (was 8/18/28), Max HP increased by ~25% (25->30 on Apprentice)
  
• Kvarotz Nerazz Mekhrub's Dodge has been lowered to 0/10/20 (was 5/15/25), Max HP increased by ~17% (30->35 on Apprentice)
  
• Wildlander Corvid's base Debuff/Mark Resist has been lowered to 25/50/75%
  

[h3]Trinket Changes[/h3]

• The Dredge's First Design and Ostvengr Rationed Knapsack trinkets now apply their buffs/debuffs on Friendly Skill instead of through the trinket directly. This prevents instances where the player can take off the trinket in order to gain the buffs from these trinkets, but not the debuffs.
  
• Philomath's Edged Altercations Vol. II: +5 DODGE -> + 10 DODGE if in Pos 1 or 2
  
• Fleet Florin has been reworked, renamed, and had its artwork adjusted:
  Corroded Florin:
  +3 SPD
  +33% Blight Amount Applied
  +10% CRT
  +15% Damage Received if not Acting First on your team
  

[h3]Misc Changes[/h3]

• Updated Inventory in Provision screen so that item grid appears above the backpack
  
• Compressed a bunch of files from the Ship Events update and shaved about 300 MB off the mod's size
  

We hope you're doing well! This is a pretty small update that includes a small bit of new content that wasn't able to be included in the initial release of the Ship Events update.

Noticeable adjustments this update include:

• Squashing a couple more bugs
  
• New Thrall Skill icons
  
• Rework of Judicator's Contraband
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed issue where Grave Robber's Shovel Bash couldn't hit pos 3
  
• Fixed issue where Thrall's Menace (formerly Animosity) had a crit mod despite not being able to crit
  
• Fixed issue where when all Twilight Rarity trinkets were obtained, Memento trinkets would appear as quest rewards instead of Very Rare trinkets.
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]Hero Changes[/h3]

• Hexer's Putrified Flesh CRT Debuff has been increased to -4/5/6/7/8% (was -4/4/5/5/6%)
  
• Occultist's Abandon Hope Stress to other heroes has been decreased to a 66% chance to gain 6 Stress (was 50% chance to gain 10 Stress, and another 50% chance to gain 5 Stress)
  
• Thrall's skill icons have been updated. "Animosity" has been renamed to "Menace"
  

[h3]Monster Changes[/h3]
Certain values displayed in apprentice/veteran/champion/Darkest format

• Wildlander Hellion's Blight Resist has been lowered to 25/50/75%, Debuff/Mark Resist has been lowered to 20/45/70%, Move Resist has been lowered to 30/55/80%
  
• Wildlander Hellion's Bleed Them Dry now only targets heroes in positions 1 and 2, Bleed amount has been increased to 5/7/10/11
  
• Wildlander Hellion's Steel Falcon DMG has been reduced by about 20%
  

[h3]Trinket Changes[/h3]

• Judicator's Contraband has been completely reworked:
  Leech Breeding Apparatus
  On Monster Kill: After Combat: Gain 1 Soul Leech (10% Chance, Limit of 3 per Quest)
  On Friendly Skill: Buff Target: +4 SPD if Faithless, +8 ACC if Faithless
  
  Soul Leeches are a new oddity (item that can be held between quests) that changes a hero's affiliation to Faithless
  

[h3]Misc. Changes[/h3]

• Added new Room background for the Caverns
  

There aren't a whole lot of adjustments and fixes in this update, as we're winding down on balance adjustments and bugfixes from the Ship Events update. We'll likely have 1-2 more smaller scale updates such as this before directing our focus entirely to the 1.0 release.

Noticeable adjustments this update include:

• Squashing a couple more bugs
  
• A slew of trinket adjustments (mostly buffs, but there are some nerfs to the new Celestial trinkets)
  
• Small rework of Thrall's "Devastate" ability
  
• Some small bits of new content
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed issue where Otekhs disguised as Troglodyte Lurkers had outdated stats
  
• Fixed issue where Shovel Bash had a 0% dmg mod instead of its original -40% dmg mod
  
• Fixed issue where Flesh Eating Helm didn't convert Flagellant's Bleed on riposte to Blight
  
• Fixed issue where Bloodlust Periapt's Self Dmg didn't scale properly in the "Errant Daylight" quest
  
• Fixed issue where Dredge's "Gleaming Drill" didn't always get Bonus DMG vs Amberblighted
  
• Fixed issue where Berserker's Mask still gave its holder +10% Damage Received
  
• Fixed many more typos
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]Hero Changes[/h3]

• Musketeer's Shrapnel Ammo Smokescreen's Flat DMG dealt to targets has been increased to 6/7/9/10/12
  
• Philomath's "Absorbent Mind" Stressheal done now scales 3/3-4/4/4-5/5
  
• Philomath's "Absorbent Mind" Self Stress Received Debuff now is just a fixed 10% on all levels
  
• Philomath's Consumed Affliction's Stress Received buff has been increased to -40%
  
• Thrall's Devastate has been reworked to the following:
  Debuff Target: +10/12/15/17/20% Damage Received (100/110/120/130/140% base)
  Stun Target (100/110/120/130/140% base)
  This skill no longer ignores the Prep round ACC reduction
  

[h3]Trinket Changes[/h3]

• Twilight Trinkets as a whole have had their tooltips standardized. They no longer show buff/debuff duration multiple times, and list out all affected buffs before listing their conditions. This may get changed again down the line, but we're trying this approach out for now.
  
• The Inert Node > "Sirius" Celestial trinket line's Max HP Downside has been increased to -15%
  
• The Inert Node > "Sirius" Celestial trinket line's Blight Amount Applied has been halved, but it doubles if the Torch is below 1 (You get the original Blight value only if the Torch is 0 now)
  
• The Inert Node > "Sirius" Celestial trinket line now mentions that Blight Buffs/Debuffs applied to the holder don't affect its Blight on Kill effect.
  
• The Stubby Digits > "Voidtouch" Celestial trinket line's Gem Gain on combat start now only has a 50% chance to trigger, but the chance doubles to 100% if the Torch is below 1 (Same deal as the Blight Celestial line, you get original value if Torch is 0)
  
• Guide to Influence 4th Ed.: +40% Stress Healing Done to Pagan Heroes -> +30% Stresshealing Done
  
• Wrathful Bandana: -21% Deathblow Resist -> +10% Stress Received
  
• Twilight Enamel's Bleed and its buffs while Bleeding lowered slightly:
  On Combat Start: Bleed Party: 1 pt/4 tns (+1 pt/tn in Champ/Darkest)
  On Combat Start: Buff Party: -8% Crits Received, +10% PROT, -15% Stress Received if Bleeding (4 tns)
  
• Brawler's Gloves have been adjusted to:
  +20% DMG if in Position 1
  -4 SPD if in Position 1
  
• Heavy Boring Augment has been adjusted to:
  Melee Skills: +30% Armor Piercing
  On Melee Hit: Debuff Target: -20% Prot (100% Base, +20% Chance per Diff)
  
• Fanged Spear Tip has been adjusted to:
  +20% DMG vs Marked
  +5% CRT vs Marked
  -4 SPD
  

[h3]Misc. Changes[/h3]

• The Roaming Flayed Miniboss' "Truthbearer" droprate has been lowered. The player should be receiving roughly 50% less Truthbearers from the fight. (We feel that adjusting a hero's affiliation should hold a bit more weight, especially for the Pagan/Religious affiliations, so we're lowering the farmability of the Truthbearers.)
  
• The "Emergency Meeting" plot quest battle has been revised to provide the player a bit more time to spot visual discrepancies between normal crewmates and the Otekh disguised as crewmate.
  
• Added new Room backgrounds for both the Catacombs and the Treasury
  

We hope you've been enjoying the Ship Event update! Thanks to our wonderful community for helping us locate any bugs that weren't caught during internal testing, we've been hard at work to get them resolved as we tie up any loose ends from the update.

This Captain's Log entry contains a brief developer retrospective on the update and how it was handled, and it outlines all of the currently planned content for the grand 1.0 release.

As a friendly reminder, if you run into any bugs with the current version of BR, please report them to us on our Discord. We're not actively reviewing bug reports made on other platforms.

[h2]Ship Event Development Retrospective[/h2]
As a whole, we're pleased with the release and reception of the Ship Event update, and we managed to get quite a bit of content sorted out for this one. However, there were some issues that cropped up during development, and we wanted to talk about them here in slightly more depth.

There were several issues that hampered the development process for this update, with the primary problem being that development progressed much more slowly than we'd anticipated.
For context, this update took roughly 5 months to complete. For the amount of content included in the update, this is a comparatively long time. The easiest comparison would be the Crawling Chaos update, which had significantly more content than the Ship Event update and took ~7.5 months to complete. The big holdup for this update was an asset bottleneck where multiple artists had difficulties adhering to internal deadlines. Normally, missing deadlines isn't a huge issue, and with this being a community passion project, we expect it to happen from time to time. In the case of the Ship Event update, it was occurring on such a large and frequent scale that the update as a whole had to be pushed back several times. Moving forward, we'll be adjusting how we handle the allocation of resources to make it easier for us to meet those deadlines without simply delaying them. Just as importantly, we're taking stock of the well-being of our team members to promote a healthy team environment as we carry on to the finish line.

We also made some mistakes regarding how we handled the public deadline. In hindsight, the update release date should have been pushed back a bit, as several developers had to crunch pretty hard in order to meet the August 11th deadline. Additionally, releasing the update so late in the evening (around 9 PM Pacific Time) miscommunicated to our audience when the update was actually going live.
Moving onward to the 1.0 release, we'll likely not be giving out any public release dates until all of the content in the update is essentially done. This both ensures that we prevent crunch and ensures that we don't release something incomplete or break promises we make to our players.

[h2]The 1.0 Release[/h2]


So here we are... the final stretch to the 1.0 release.
This is the update we've been itching to get to. It contains the introduction cinematic to help explain the point of this campaign and what's essentially the entire endgame of Black Reliquary. That is to say, it's the last planned update that will add new content. Here is what we want to ensure is in the final update.

This is a current list of all of our planned content:

• The Black Reliquary Dungeon
  
• Six new Darkest-Level Bosses
  
• The Ascendant Hero
  
• Post-level 6 progression system for heroes
  
• Updated Skill Info (Specifically for heroes with alternate modes accessed via trinket such as Musketeer)
  
• New champion-exclusive enemies for all factions (likely excluding cactonids due to technical constraints)
  
• Activate/Gather quests for Caverns/Catacombs/Exposed Interior
  
• New Difficulties
  
• New Cinematics
  
• Multiple language localization
  
• Balance Adjustments
  
• A plethora of small additions and changes too numerous to list here!
  

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS LIST WILL LIKELY (IF NOT DEFINITELY) CHANGE OVER THE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT.

We're looking to release all of this content in one big batch, as much of the content above is interwoven together. (i.e., it'd be weird to include a post-level 6 progression system for heroes if there are no hard quests to use it in.)

We'll be going over some of the more significant features above in finer detail via Captain's Logs over time as we develop them. Expect to see one every 1-2 months or so.

[h2]Save Reset[/h2]
The last thing we want to mention is that players will need to start new saves for the 1.0 release. This was a difficult decision to make, and it was something we wanted to avoid, but there are UI adjustments we'll be making that are objective improvements (Updated Skill Info) and some tweaks to progression that'd be really useful to include, and those require a hard reset.

To be clear, we aren't able to hard wipe your saves ourselves, so you'll still have access to your old saves; However, there will be some visual bugs and a progressional softlock (you won't be able to access the Black Reliquary itself) for saves created before the 1.0 release. Depending on the circumstances, there may be a way to bypass the softlock by editing your base files, but this is not something that we can guarantee at the moment, nor is it something we want to ask of our players.

==================

It's humbling to get this far and have so many fans of our work, so we're going to give it all we've got to make sure that your patience, fascination, and loyalty are properly rewarded.

We hope you've been enjoying the Ship Events Update! It's been pretty fun to all the different reactions to the new events.
This update today makes some balance and gameplay adjustments based on the feedback we've received and observations made by the development team.

Noticeable adjustments this update include:
-Fixing Hero Surprise being impossible due to a bug
-Nerfing the base Dodge and increasing the Max HP of some dodge-heavy enemies
-Philomath Malevolent Pact nerfs

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed issue where it was impossible for the hero party to get surprised outside of some very specific cases (like Yngolian Spawn)
  
• Fixed issue where Stonework? Hellions could appear before beating the Emergency Meeting quest
  
• Fixed issue where Dredge's "Gleaming Drill" didn't always get bonus dmg vs Amberblighted targets
  
• Fixed a bunch of issues with Veiled's HP reactions, specifically Give to the Living should function much more consistently
  
• Fixed issue where Veiled's Riposte couldn't crit
  
• Fixed issue where Hexer gave a blue string upon using "Sanguis Metallica"
  
• Fixed issue where Hexer's "Putrefied Flesh" Debuff tooltip was incorrect
  
• Attempted to fix an issue where Hexer's Party heal on "Ichor Incantation" didn't always heal all party members (wasn't able to replicate this issue internally, so this is kind of a shot in the dark)
  
• Fixed issue where Philomath's Unhealthy Habits trinket buffed the whole party even when being used with Eldritch Safeguard
  
• Fixed a bunch of new Typos
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]Hero Changes[/h3]

• Philomath's "Malevolent Pact" no longer gives reduced Horror to Pagan allies, it also now gives a +15/13/13/10/10% Stress Received debuff to other heroes
  

[h3]Monster Changes[/h3]
Certain values displayed in apprentice/veteran/champion format

• Levantine Janissary's DODGE has been increased to 90
• Levantine Janissary's "To the Death" ACC vs Levantine Janissary buff has been increased to 80
• Levantine Terpsichorean's DODGE decreased to 15/25/35 (was 18/28/38), Max HP increased by about 10%
  
• Levantine Appraiser's "Invigorating Fumes" no longer targets the Appraiser herself
  
• Wildlander Harrier's DODGE decreased to 9/19/29 (was 12/22/32), Max HP increased by ~15%
  
• Wildlander Painwarden's DODGE decreased to 10/20/30 (was 13/23/33), Max HP increased by ~10%
  
• Wildlander Corvid's DODGE decreased to 7/17/27 (was 10/20/30), Max HP increased by ~12.5%
  
• Troglodyte Nestwatcher, Piker, and Breaker's DODGE decreased to 8/18/28 (was 8/22/36), Max HP increased by ~7.5%
  
• Troglodyte Saddleback's DODGE decreased to 6/16/26 (was 6/20/34), Max HP increased by ~7.5%
  
• Troglodyte Lurker's DODGE decreased to 10/20/30 (was 14/24/34), Max HP increased by ~15%
  
• Cactonid Savage Duplicant's DODGE decreased to 7/17/27 (was 12/22/32), Max HP increased by ~17.5%
  
• Scout Buzzer and Oblivion Buzzer's DODGE decreased to 7/17/27 (was 10/20/30), Max HP increased by ~10%
  
• Spider Spitter's DODGE buff from "Skitter" decreased to 7/9/12 (was 10/12/15)
  
• Maggot's DODGE buff from "Squirm" decreased to 12/14/17 (was 15/17/20)
  
• Lost Legion Friar's DODGE decreased to 12/22/32 (was 15/25/35), Max HP increased by ~17.5%
  
• Kvarotz Apihr's DODGE decreased to 20/30/40 (was 22/32/42), Max HP increased by ~10%
  

[h3]Trinket Changes[/h3]

• Vet/Champ/Darkest Yngolians now drop level 2/3/3 Celestial trinkets
  
• Flesh-Eating Helm now gives -25% Bleed Resist and +25% Blight Resist
  
• Caution Cloak is now an Uncommon trinket, and now has an additional "-8 SPD during Prep Round" downside
  
• Traveler's Boots: +6 -> +8 DODGE in hallways
  
• Preserving Vial: -20% -> -50% Bleed/Blight Duration Received
  
• Unhealthy Habits's Blight Resist Buff has been nerfed to +30%, CRT buff on Friendly Skill reduced to +6%
  
• Bailiff's Helm: +25% -> +35% DMG vs Guarded, +25% -> +35% DMG vs Stealthed
  
• Baneful Vessel: +15% Stress Received -> -10% Max HP
  
• Perfumer's Needle: -10% -> -15% DMG, -15% -> -20% Bleed/Blight Duration Applied
  

[h3]Misc. Changes[/h3]

• Memorial to Lost Souls Ship Deck cost reduced: 200 -> 150 Valor Marks, 80 -> 60 Lost Tek
  
• Memorial to Lost Souls Stresshealing reduced to 5
  
• The "Blackened Sun" town event's chance of reoccurring if the Errant Daylight quest is not completed has been roughly doubled.
  
• Updated artwork for Tavern "Locked" overlays