9 Kings News

Alright, this is the most important patch yet.

We're working hard to live up to the expectations you have on us. And we hope you and the 250k+ (!!!) people playing enjoyed the first week of 9 Kings. In this patch, we're fixing key issues you reported, starting to implement the first part of core performance tweaks, while also improving some core mechanics like the critical hits, late game damage processing, and the run saving system.

[h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3]We've been reading through all of your Steam reviews and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch.

List of changes (0.7.44):

Gameplay/QOL: Critical hits now are displayed in a cool orange color & exclamation marks (have fun, marksmen)
Fixed a Precision stacking glitch (sit back and watch things go POW POW POW POW)
Reinforce now shows consolidated stack damage increase numbers
Fixed some key data storage variables when loading runs
Fixed a glitch when quitting a game right before a battle starts (it no longer loads thinking you're in battle)
Perks and Decrees are now applied correctly after loading a game
Buffed initial Palace attack speed (it's now 0.37/s, and it gets wild with level ups)
Healing numbers are also hidden when "HIDE DAMAGE NUMBERS" option is toggled
Shrine now levels up a single plot per year and its effect costs less gold per level
Fixed an exploit that allowed you to re-use razed tiles (from Razing) with Earthworks or the Exploration decree (very nice catch, community)
End screen stat numbers are now properly displayed after loading a run
Fixed the apostrophe character in French

Performance: Improved combat performance during late game for high attack speed builds
Improved the way damage is computed per frame to mitigate overflow during battle
Improved damage computing on Endless Mode (making it more viable to get to year 99)
Improved level up processing mechanic (Rats should crash less now when you domino the hell out of them)
Optimized Orchard performance
Optimized Achievement detection performance
Fixed small backend errors

COMING NEXT: Animation system revamp (that will improve performance considerably)
Improved attack speed processing during late late game.
More balancing tweaks & fixes
New content

After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won’t have the updates stored and it may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. We previously posted this patch yesterday but rolled back due to a gamebreaking bug found with Trappers/Scapegoats. Sorry about that!

This update brings very big changes, and your feedback is very important. There are 250k computers running 9 Kings out there, and as much as we try to foresee as many issues as possible, some gaps will only become clear with your input. Optimizing 9 Kings is an ongoing task, and your help is vital to us. That’s why we chose to release the game in EA. We hope you understand and keep helping us build the best game we can.

You can also expect more performance patches and new content very soon!

Love,
Sad Socket team

Seven patches in a row. And this is the most important yet. Can we call it a patching spree?

We're working hard to live up to the expectations you have on us. And we hope you and the 200k+ (!!!) people playing are enjoying the first week of 9 Kings. In this patch, we're starting to implement the first core performance tweaks, while also improving some key mechanics like the critical hits.

[h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3]We've been reading through all of your Steam reviews and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch.

List of changes (0.7.38):

Gameplay/QOL: Critical hits now are displayed in a cool orange color & exclamation marks (have fun, marksmen)
Fixed a Precision stacking glitch (sit back and watch things go POW POW POW POW)
Buffed initial Palace attack speed (it's now 0.37/s, and it gets wild with level ups)
Healing numbers are also hidden when "HIDE DAMAGE NUMBERS" option is toggled
Reinforce now shows consolidated stack damage increase numbers
Shrine now levels up a single plot per year and its effect costs less gold per level
Fixed an exploit that allowed you to re-use razed tiles (from Razing) with Earthworks or the Exploration decree (very nice catch, community)
End screen stat numbers are now properly displayed after loading a run
Fixed the apostrophe character in French

Performance: Improved combat performance during late game for high attack speed builds
Improved the way damage is computed per frame to mitigate overflow during battle
Improved damage computing on Endless Mode (making it more viable to get to year 99)
Improved level up processing mechanic (Rats should crash less now)
Optimized Orchard performance
Optimized Achievement detection performance

After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won’t have the updates saved and may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected].

This patch brings big changes, and your feedback is very important. There are 200k computers running 9 Kings out there, and as much as we try to foresee as many issues as possible, some gaps will only become clear with your input. This is an ongoing task, and your help is vital to us. That’s why we chose to release the game in EA. We hope you understand and keep sharing your thoughts!

For the next updates: there is a known King of Nature crash trigger that we're currently fixing. You can also expect more performance patches soon, as we’ll improve high-entity count processing and buff computing during card placement.

Love,
Sad Socket team

The patch #06 is a very straightforward one. In the next few days, we want to focus heavily on improving Endless Mode's performance, but we wanted to address other core issues you've been reporting before that. We also tweaked the initial order of game events after hearing your feedback.

[h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3]We've been reading through all of your Steam reviews and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch.

Here's the full list of changes (0.7.30):

Hot-fixed a glitch that caused Converter to get INSANELY OP after the final boss.
Prophet now appears one year earlier
First Merchant now appears one year earlier
First Diplomat now appears one year earlier
Improved Splicing & Gentrify performance
Concabulator now only levels up one level of every unit, as originally intended. The megalomaniac Lab Rat domino effect still works normally in all usual situations.
Broken Cabulator is now a level 1 card (as originally intended)
Made sure upgrade pop ups don't keep spamming, visually, forever (specially on Reinforce builds)
Fixed a respawn issue that caused some Boars to not leave their plots.
You can no longer keep playing on Stats screen after ending a run during a battle
Added a safeguard for saved data after specific reported crashes.
If you've had a data issue before this patch, the game will now load a backup file.
Added a safeguard to mitigate an issue that sometimes made cards to appear before the expansion event was over.
Fixed a visual glitch that caused you to see through a few pixels in some cards.

After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won't have the updates saved and may cause conflicts. If you experienced data loss before this patch and for some reason our safeguard didn't fix it, please email us at [email protected] and we'll provide you with a new save file.

We'll be on the lookout for any possible bugs, and we'll now focus on the performance side of the late game. Expect updates soon!

Love,
Sad Socket team

Time for patch #05. In this one, we’re focusing on fixing the remaining core glitches, making major improvements to base card balancing, fixing some explosion mechanics, and giving our beautiful buff Golem King a little love. Performance patches are coming soon.

[h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3]We've been reading through all of your Steam reviews, crushing bugs, and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We've reached over 2,000 Steam reviews, and we'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch.

Here's the full list of changes (0.7.28):

Increased level-up buffs of all base cards (let's make those castle builds viable!)
Treant attacks now heal AND cause damage by default. Effect size decreased by 20%.
Treant healing numbers is now displayed in green.
Palace level ups now also increase its attack speed.
Cauldron now properly works with ALL bases, towers, and summon buildings
Increased Trapper damage
Trappers now stay in the backline
Increased Wall HP
Gunpowder decree now works properly with all AoE units (we're recklessly making everything go boom, keep us posted on any performance issues)
Improved explosion performance
Congratulations screen once you beat King difficulty (there are more to go, but hey, you deserve it)
New kings are now unlocked even if you don't finish your current run.
Added safeguards to a rare bug that causes troops to stand still before battle (this ain't the time for peace)

After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won't have the updates saved and may cause conflicts. Bear in mind, King unlock animations might be triggered again the first time you finish a run after the patch.

We'll be on the lookout for any possible bugs, and we'll now focus on the performance side of the late game. Expect updates soon!

Love,
Sad Socket team

Patch #04 brings a handful of quick but important updates.

Here's the full list of changes:

Increased Sporeling (Mycelium's summon) damage
Increased Lab Rat HP and damage
End screen now shows you your difficulty (no more bragging on Peasant difficulty you guys)
When using Earthworks on a level 3 Concabulator, you will now get two Concabulators and one Broken Cabulator.
Added a save file guardrail to prevent meta data issues after crashes
Fixed an occasional bug that caused cards to be displayed before the previous event was over (causing overlapping).
Fixed a save issue that caused a new game to not start properly after a crash
Localization improvements
Font processing improvements
Fixed a Chinese character glitch

After downloading the patch, please make sure to start a new run, as previous runs won't have the updates saved and it might cause conflicts. If you had a crash issue that messed with new runs, please reinstall the game, the issue should be fixed for good after this patch.

Keep in mind we're also actively working on the performance patch to improve endless mode and playthroughs with a high unit count. Once we address all the reports (we're close), we'll go all-in on making late late game smoother. More news soon!

Love,
Sad Socket team