Be My Horde News

[p][/p][h2]Hi, Horde!
[/h2][p]Two weeks... It's only been two weeks since the launch of the “Welcome to Hell” update, but for us, it feels like at least two months. More happened in the last fortnight than in the previous few, and we couldn’t be more thrilled! That said, we’re not stopping here. It’s time to introduce a new update to Be My Horde, and if you’ve read our previous announcements, you might already have an idea of what’s coming. So let’s dive into…[/p][p] [/p][h2]THE “BACK TO NORMAL” UPDATE[/h2][p][/p][p]One of the biggest pieces of feedback we received was about the massive difficulty spike between Kingdom and Hell, and you were absolutely right. We’ve listened, learned, and realized what didn’t work. While the balance will still need fine-tuning in the future, we’re now introducing a new difficulty curve to smooth things out.[/p][p][/p][h3]The former Kingdom becomes Kingdom Normal, and Hell becomes Hell Hard. Bridging the gap are two brand-new difficulty levels: Kingdom Hard and Hell Normal.[/h3][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]KINGDOM NORMAL[/h3][p]No changes here — this remains the same level you know and (hopefully) love. It’s still a great entry point for new players to learn how to play Be My Horde, and many of you continue to enjoy it. If you’ve already taken down King Richard, this is familiar territory.[/p][p][/p][h3]HELL NORMAL[/h3][p]We’ve completely rebalanced and reworked the Hell level into one that now resembles Kingdom Normal in progression. The difficulty curve is gentler, making it easier for new players to adjust. You’ll face fewer high-tier units early on, requiring you to build your horde carefully with weaker ones before taking on more formidable foes. Environmental hazards have been toned down (both regular and those triggered by events) to match the new experience.[/p][p][/p][h3]KINGDOM HARD[/h3][p]For those of you who found crushing Richard over and over again lost its charm as it’s too easy, here’s a fresh challenge. This version of Kingdom borrows some elements from Hell — tougher enemies appear early, which can either help you develop your horde quicker or be a huge challenge, depending on your skill. The Kingdom has a new face, and it’s not smiling.[/p][p][/p][h3]HELL HARD[/h3][p]The one that stirred up so much chaos… is now even harder. Yes, we’ve restored the original, brutal “Welcome to Hell” launch experience. It’s a nightmare. A synonym for suffering. A walking abomination that will swallow you whole, chew you up, and spit you out in a blink. Yeah, we’re sick bastards... That said, with the introduction of Hell Normal and Kingdom Hard, you now have more ways to prepare. Practice, experiment, and sharpen your skills before facing this merciless challenge.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]But remember, necromancy adepts: how you play is entirely up to you. Beating the “Hard” levels isn’t required to finish the game. If you’re a new player, both Kingdom Normal and Kingdom Hard are available from the start. Defeat King Richard III Ovine, and you’ll unlock both Hell levels. No achievements or incentives push you to play on harder difficulties — you’re free to experience Be My Horde at your own pace.[/p][p][/p][p]Want a chill time gathering undead buddies and spreading chaos without stress? Stick with Normal. Want to test your limits and maybe suffer a little? Hard is waiting.[/p][p][/p][p]We’d love your thoughts on this new four-tier structure. As mentioned, balance is still a work in progress, but we believe we’re heading in the right direction. All of today’s changes were possible thanks to your fantastic feedback, whether through Steam discussions, reviews, or our Discord server. Keep it coming! You’re helping us shape the best version of Be My Horde.[/p][p][/p][h2]NOT THE END[/h2][p][/p][p]This patch doesn’t just bring two new levels. We’ve also included fixes and minor changes — check out the full patch notes below for all the details![/p][p][/p][h3]Patch notes:[/h3][p][/p][p]Changes:[/p][p]💀 Added two new levels - Hell Normal and Kingdom Hard;[/p][p]💀 Added stairs to the dance floor in the Hell level.[/p][p][/p][p]Fixes:[/p][p]💀 Fixed King Dick jittering after the jump;[/p][p]💀 Fixed the dialogue trigger after defeating King Richard;[/p][p]💀 Improved the Devil Flight attack collision so it doesn't push Moriana or her minions.[/p][p]💀 Fixed out-of-border achievements icons; [/p][p]💀 Fixed weird visual behaviour of the Kingdom starting location;[/p][p]💀 The Undead Brigade perk that summons Imps now displays the correct number of summoned Imps.[/p][p][/p][h2]WHAT’S NEXT?[/h2][p][/p][p]We still plan to push some hotfixes in the next few days if necessary. But we also want to start thinking about the more distant future. We’ve learned a lot from the “Welcome to Hell” launch — even if it was a massive success, we know we made plenty of mistakes while releasing it, and we want to reflect, analyze, and grow from the experience. We see a huge potential in our game, and we don't want to waste it by rushing it - we want to give you a polished (pun very much intended) game! Thanks to your support and feedback, we know we will achieve that.[/p][p][/p][p]After some analysis and internal discussions, we’ll be back with more info about our next steps. One thing we can promise right now: we’re committed to making Be My Horde the best game it can be. We love working on it together with you! It’s such a great adventure, so we want to make it right. [/p][p][/p][p]PRAISE BE MORIANA![/p][p]The Polished Games Team[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[h2]Changes:[/h2]
💀 Leveling up in Hell is now faster. The number of levels gained during a single crusade should now be more similar to what's typical in Kingdom;
💀 The final King's enrage phase — during which he becomes nearly unkillable — has been delayed by 1 minute;
💀 Increased the starting radius of Ice Nova and Aura of Decay.
💀 During the Dance with the Devil attack, the safe area on the dance floor now appears closer to Moriana's current position;
💀 New puppy Yuki added to the credits.

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]
💀 Fixed an issue where two Devil voice lines could play at the same time;
💀 Fixed a bug where enemy buffs in Hard mode might not have been applied correctly.

[h3]Level Selector Fixes:[/h3]
💀 The "Back" button now correctly closes the level selector window;
💀 Navigating the level selector no longer resets the previously selected difficulty;
💀 The selector now correctly remembers the last chosen difficulty for each level after completing a crusade;
💀 The game no longer resets the selected difficulty immediately after a level is chosen;
💀 Fixed a bug that allowed selecting Hell difficulty before it was unlocked.

PRAISE BE MORIANA!
The Polished Games Team

store.steampowered.com/app/2499520/Be_My_Horde

[h2]HELLO, HORDE![/h2]

The update launch week is nearly over, but that doesn’t mean we’re kicking back on the beach just yet. As much as we’d love to, Moriana wouldn’t allow it… and we are obedient little minions.

We’re still carefully reviewing your feedback and preparing the next round of patches. Once again, a huge thank-you for all your reviews, messages, and notes. You’ve done an excellent job pointing out the flaws in the new update, and thanks to your input, Be My Horde will soon be a more enjoyable and better-balanced experience.

So… what does that actually mean? Let’s dive into what’s coming next!


[h2]DIFFICULT AS HELL[/h2]

Currently, the jump in difficulty between Kingdom and Hell is massive, resulting in many players not having a fun experience. When we were designing and balancing the new level, we underestimated how much better players get over time. Despite its simplicity, Be My Horde has a surprising amount of depth and a very high skill ceiling. The level of challenge the game needs to offer a player to stay engaging is very different for someone who has just started playing, played for a few hours, or for dozens of hours, or even hundreds of hours.

In our previous announcement, we already mentioned the reason behind our mistake - we’ve simply balanced the Hell around ourselves, and we have played the game for hundreds of hours. We not only learned all the tricks and strategies that allow us to snowball very effectively, but they have also become a second nature, allowing us to perform well on high difficulties.

To be clear, we aren't trying to be smug or condescending about our skill level. We are certain that if you've played the game as much as we have, you would be on an equal skill level and probably even better! And we are not saying that the current balance is okay. Clearly, it's not.




[h2]NEW DIFFICULTY LEVELS[/h2]

So, how do we solve this problem? We don't want to completely remove the challenge the current Hell level offers. For us personally, playing the current Hell, even before the nerfs, was honestly one of the most fun times we've had playing Be My Horde! And we have feedback from some players, especially the ones who have played previous versions for dozens of hours, that they've enjoyed a significantly harder take on the game.

But the majority of players didn't enjoy it. To ensure everyone is having fun, we are going to introduce two difficulties for each level, Normal and Hard. The current Kingdom will become Kingdom Normal, and the current Hell will become Hell Hard. Between them, we will introduce new levels to bridge the gap in difficulty: Hell Normal and Kingdom Hard.

Why not make the baseline Hell level easier and use the current Hard Mode system for players who want a challenge? Well, the Hard Mode is a simple system that allows infinite scaling difficulty by just increasing enemy damage and health. But by changing simple numbers like this, we won't achieve the experience we want to. Instead, we will be rebalancing many things like the density of enemies, how soon high-tier units start appearing, difficulty and number of events, number of environmental hazards, etc. We want to make sure that playing two difficulties of the same level will be a unique and fresh experience.



We will make both Normal and Hard difficulties completely optional, so everyone gets the desired experience. We won't be forcing Normal players to play Hard and Hard players to play Normal. You can freely change the difficulty before each run, and you don't need to beat the game on Normal to play it on Hard.

We understand that many players love Be My Horde because they can relax, zone out, and just grow their army, get cool perks, and watch their enemies get absolutely slaughtered by their massive horde. And we want to provide that experience.

This is why we are planning to let you experience all of the content and complete all the achievements in Normal difficulty. However, we expect that most players who beat the game on Normal will enjoy dipping their toes into Hard, if the difficulty curve is gradual and fair.

We are working hard to prepare these new difficulties as quickly as possible. We already have very promising internal prototypes, but it's not something that can be done in one day. But it's coming sooner rather than later.


[h2]WE LOVE YOUR FEEDBACK[/h2]

We have read every single review on Steam, every comment on Steam discussions, and each message on Discord. We are extremely thankful for taking your time to share it with us. Thanks to your feedback, we will be able to create a far superior game than we would be able to on our own.

This is why we decided to participate in Early Access. To not only make the game you want us to make, but to make it with you. So please keep the feedback coming

There are a lot of common issues that arise from your feedback, so now would be a good time and place to address some of them.

Perks are not impactful enough, and Spells don't deal enough damage
We want to have more impactful perks, but it's challenging to do so while keeping the game balanced. Due to the main game mechanic allowing you to get the power of each enemy you defeat, our game snowballs much faster and harder than other similar games. Even small numbers like 5% result in a significant power gain, while 5% can be unnoticeable in different games. But we are getting a lot better at balancing the game, and we are confident we will be able to make each Perk and Spell feel more impactful in the future.

There aren't enough Perk synergies
Yup. There aren't. Both in terms of Tier 5 synergy Perks, like the Aura of Rot, and synergies between regular Perks. We will introduce many new Tier 5 synergy Perks in future updates. Also, when we are designing new Perks now, the main question we ask ourselves is how well will it synergize with existing Perks.

Leveling is too slow, I don't get enough Perks
We've discovered in the early testing that Be My Horde works best when you don't get interrupted as often by the game pausing on the Perk selection screen, as in other Roguelite Survivors games. However, the current rate of getting perks is too slow in the mid and end-game, and especially on bosses. Right now, we are experimenting with bosses giving a significant boost to experience when you are damaging them, and with other tweaks to the leveling curve, so stay tuned!

There aren't enough Perks that improve minions
Completely agree. While we will still be introducing new Spells, the majority of the new Perks will be focused on minions.

Mages and Kettles are annoying to kill
Yes, they are. We don't have a great solution at the moment, we can't just make them easily swarmable, as that results in a very boring experience. But we are experimenting with various solutions for this problem, and we should have it soon.

Various issues related to minion and enemy movement
Minion and enemy unit movement can be, at times, clunky, janky, and simply annoying. It can be especially frustrating when your minions do not behave in a way you want them to. The unit movement system in this game is quite complex, way more than it may appear at first glance, and is quite delicate to any changes and has a profound effect on the game's balance. Usually, when we try to fix one thing here, we break ten others. Improving the movement system will take time and many iterations, but we have enough time scheduled for it to be able to fix most of these issues.

There is too much Area of Effect damage constantly destroying my horde
We agree that the horde is too often quickly destroyed, be that by Mages, high-tier Hell units, or Hell environmental hazards. We will improve upon this.

Boss fights could be improved
We have received tons of valuable feedback from you about both bosses, and we will be iterating and improving on them in the near future.

There is a bug!
Then it will be fixed. We have zero tolerance for bugs here at Polished Games. We plan to exterminate them all. No mercy for the bugs!

Improving on all of these issues will require some time and iteration, so we kindly ask for your patience and feedback. But we will get these done. We have a name to live up to, after all. ;)


[h2]FINAL WORDS[/h2]

That was quite the wall of text—but we believe in being an open book when it comes to communication.

As you can see, we’ll be busy in the coming days working to shape Hell into the experience we truly want it to be. Once we've tackled the current issues, we’ll begin active development of the final Be My Horde level, alongside a plethora of improvements and new features that will be available at full launch.

We know. We've been in literal hell together in those last few days. Thankfully, this time, what comes next may be a walk in the park. Or maybe… a peaceful flight through the clouds. Wink, wink.

PRAISE BE MORIANA!
The Polished Games Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2499520/Be_My_Horde/

[h2]Changes:[/h2]
💀 Imps now deal significantly more damage;
💀 Reduced the number of enemies in the first 5 minutes of Hell;
💀 The Magnum Opus achievement now unlocks the Toxic Lover skin;
💀 Added the 'Back' button to the level selector.

[h2]Crashes:[/h2]
💀 Fixed a crash related to the Screen Dash event;
💀 Fixed a crash related to the Skin Selector.

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]
💀 The last tier of Ice Nova should now display correctly (purple color);
💀 Frost Bolt should now always be visible above units;
💀 The Devil should now always land in the center of the arena;
💀 Fixed issue with mouse click not working to change level in Level Selector;
💀 Fixed an issue in Hellish Experiment that prevented players from refunding spent points or allowed undoing a selection that should have been locked.

PRAISE BE MORIANA!
The Polished Games Team

store.steampowered.com/app/2499520/Be_My_Horde

[h2]Changes[/h2]
💀 Expanded functionality of Necromancy toggle in settings to also work with starting necromancy and changed its name to reflect its purpose better;
💀 Added grace period of 0.3s on selection of free perk at the start of the crusade to mitigate accidental misclicks;
💀 Added a dialogue after defeating the Devil Boss.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
💀 Fixed screen dash attacks not leaving trails during the Devil boss fight;
💀 Fixed issue with the Devil boss not spawning in the correct spot;
💀 Fixed issue with the Devil boss's dance floor attack damaging minions while the player is self-resurrecting;
💀 The Devil's dancefloor attack no longer flips to the other side of the boss;
💀 Fixed issue with the Devil boss sometimes forgetting how to walk;
💀 Fixed issue with Hell Boss music stopping after 30th minute;
💀 Fixed the bug allowing players to bypass skin unlock restrictions; (sorry, guys)
💀 Buildings in the Dominion now correctly display the next level text when not having enough souls to buy them;
💀 Free perk selection at the start of the crusade now correctly interacts with mouse hover if the player didn’t click the game since launching;
💀 Fixed UI scaling issue showing misaligned self-resurrection icons for unusual aspect ratios;
💀 Character portraits no longer obstruct parts of the text;
💀 Minor changes for Polish localization of hub buildings.

PRAISE BE MORIANA!
The Polished Games Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2499520/Be_My_Horde/