9 Kings News

[p]You've given us time. And now, we're giving you the King of Time. The 9th king that will finally make 9 Kings to live up to its name, and that will unlock dozens of new combos for your strategies and unprecedented ways to break the game. Seriously, it's our most ambitious (dare I say reckless) update yet. [/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][h3]
Who is the King of Time?[/h3][p]A multidimensional gentleman who travels through the ages in search of more kingdoms to conquer, the King of Time joins our roster to break time continuum and the game like never before. His kingdom lies in the fringes of time, somewhere between magic, sci-fi, and steampunk technology. Which one is it? Only time will tell.

[/p][p][/p][h3]A deck where timing is key[/h3][p]Time is one of the unfathomable variables of 9 Kings. And with this deck, we want to explore how far we can take it. Some cards reward you for being fast, some cards reward you for being slow, but most importantly: some cards will allow you to bend time and travel across the years.[/p][p][/p][h3]Time traveling[/h3][p]That's right: you can now time travel. Thanks to the Portal card, you can go to a previous year while keeping your kingdom's progress, allowing you to relive key events in broken ways. Portals are not easy to use, but when you get it right... you'll be able to stack more building buffs, trigger dozens of diplomacy events in a row, get extra royal decrees, maybe travel to a negative year (???). Tomes like Rewind will also allow you to regain some cards you've played in the past. Regression will allow you to bend time in a different way. Not to mention the decrees that will take things to the next level as always. The possibilities are endless and, as usual... quite scary for us devs to balance the game. But we think it's gonna be super fun and we can't wait to see what you're gonna do with that big new layer of freedom.
[/p][h3]Timing in battle[/h3][p]Troops and enchantment of the King of Time play with the timing during battle. Cards like Adrenaline will make a unit faster the longer it stays in battle. Hourglass is a tower that rewards long battles with massive effects while also giving you wiggle room to mess with it with attack speed buffs. Bastion is a base card that will make enemies travel back to the beginning of the battlefield, giving you the time you need to survive another year. Warper will bend space to summon troops during battle (can you believe we're about to hit 100+ cards and didn't have a proper summoner yet?).

[/p][h3]Amplification of effects[/h3][p]One of the most fun things of 9 Kings is finding new synergies between plots. And this deck brings a couple of cards to help you go crazier with those synergies. Amplifier is a building that will replicate every buff it gets to adjacent plots, while Orbiter is a troop that benefits from adjacency like no other. As if we didn't have enough ways to snowball things already.
[/p][h3]Perks and decrees[/h3][p]The King of Time introduces, initially, 5 new decrees, 9 unique perks, and 9 broken decrees. Broken decrees are a new mechanic that comes with time traveling. The decrees and perks will introduce a new range of mechanics exploring the boundaries of the new deck design and some other gaps we've noticed in the game. More will follow.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Bane enemy kings[/h3][p]With 9 kings in the game, we believe it is time to give you some agency when picking your enemies. So we're introducing Banisher, a new rainbow perk. When equipped, it will trigger a new screen before the game starts that will allow you to banish a king from the next run. This means they won't appear as enemies nor in diplomacy events. Banisher perk is unlocked when you beat king difficulty.[/p][p][/p][h3]Balancing & RNG[/h3][p]There are two main types of feedback when it comes to game progression: for some players, the base difficulties are too easy; for others, the harder ones feel too unfair and RNG-reliant. With the addition of new cards and perks, base difficulties were, indeed, easier than intended. On the other hand, the steep curve on higher difficulties also made the game more RNG than we want it to be.

In this patch, we’re implementing meaningful tweaks to address both issues:
[/p][p]1) Game difficulties are now slightly more challenging. We increased the enemy cap and made King of Nothing a bit stronger as an enemy, which should make things more fun to watch and raise the bar a little. Since we know some players just like to chill, Peasant difficulty remains unchanged. [/p][p]
2) The first years of a run are now easier on all difficulties. This means more openers will be viable even on higher difficulties, allowing you to explore new builds. You’ll be able to survive the first few years even with an unlucky hand (or with a card that’s strong later on but weak early in the run). These changes, along with the Banish perk, will hopefully help address your feedback on the RNG side of things. Randomness is part of the fun, but now we wanted to give high-end strategy fans a bit more control as well. Please let us know how the balancing feels. We'll keep improving!

Bonus: some ugly ducks have been buffed and will hopefully make new builds viable (see the list below)[/p][p][/p][h3]A lot of new achievements (19)[/h3][p]Again, having 9 kings in the game means that a bunch of achievements we always planned are now viable. We have a total of 50 now! The final number of achievements will be decided based on your reception, but we already have plenty of fun new ideas to bring to you when timing is right.[/p][p][/p][h3]Patch summary:[/h3][p]
New content:[/p]

• [p]NEW KING: King of Time[/p]
• [p]NEW CARDS (10): Bastion, Orbiter, Warper, Portal, Hourglass, Amplifier, Rewind, Regression, Adrenaline, Temp Null[/p]
• [p]NEW PERKS (9): Physicist, Destructive, Wise, Manipulative, Agile, Exiler, Invoker, Horologist, Brutal[/p]
• [p]NEW RAINBOW PERK (1): Banisher[/p]
• [p]NEW DECREES (5): Oddity, Megaminion, Devolve, Flux, Big Bang, Wormhole[/p]
• [p]NEW BROKEN DECREES (9): Enrage, Recovery, Provisions, Nullify, Punctuality, Fastforward, Interest, Loot, Redo[/p]
• [p]NEW ACHIEVEMENTS (19): Timerelapse, Mega Mega Minions, Nobel Prize, The Enemy of My Enemy is my Enemy, King of Kings, Your Grindness, Agnostic, Wall Street, Suburban King, For Scraps, Meh, Whatever, Babylon, Self-Sufficient, Spoiled, Cold Cold Heart, Flash Mob, Stardew Kingdom, The Spire Slays, Global Warming.[/p]
• [p]New battlefield, visuals, and FXs
  [/p]

[p]Updates & Fixes:[/p]

• [p]You can now see how many free re-rolls you have left.[/p]
• [p]Nature's Fertility decree has been buffed (from 3 to 5 Procreate cards).[/p]
• [p]Enemy base count and enemy cap have been increased.[/p]
• [p]All difficulties (but Peasant) are now more challenging.[/p]
• [p]Enemies are weaker in the first years of battle (making more openings viable).[/p]
• [p]XP gain increased for all difficulties.[/p]

• [p]Trapper base stats have been buffed.[/p]
• [p]Bomber base stats have been buffed.[/p]
• [p]Static stacks now deals twice as much damage.[/p]
• [p]Supplies decree has been rebalanced and the 9 cards you get will now replace your current hand.[/p]
• [p]Enemy King of Nothing has been buffed.[/p]
• [p]Treant's attacks are stronger, base damage area is smaller.[/p]
• [p]Mitigated the "Ghost Raptor" bug (monitoring for a final fix).[/p]
• [p]Gamble decree bug where you'd only get two cards in year 34 has been fixed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that caused issues when loading a game in year 33. [/p]
• [p]Palace now deals 999 damage instead of Infinite (this is part of the bigger ongoing attack speed design rework).[/p]
• [p]Attack speed system cap is now visible. Disclaimer: this was already a system limitation taking place in the backend, as many of you have noticed. Since the battles happen in real time, there are thousands of calculations being made per second in the game, and there’s no sustainable way for attacks to go beyond a computer’s FPS. We have decided to properly structure this and be transparent with players, incorporating it into the game design. When you hit the attack speed cap, all attack speed buffs the plot gets will now be visually converted into damage so you can properly strategize with more clarity. Worth noting, this change also is crucial to make our upcoming game mode work properly and fairly. Please share your thoughts as we improve this together.[/p]
• [p]Updated game engine's (Unity) version.
  [/p]

[p]Hotfixes (as of 10.9, 12pm EST)[/p]

• [p]Traveling to year -1 should now work properly in all scenarios.[/p]
• [p]Critical damage buffs are now properly calculated.[/p]
• [p]Agnostic achievement is now being triggered properly.[/p]
• [p]Boared to Death achievement is now being triggered properly.[/p]
• [p]You can now properly make peace and wage war with all kings with Banisher decree equipped.[/p]
• [p]Regression + Portal now work properly.[/p]
• [p]Illuminism lettering won't linger on screen when you double-concabulate a portal to a blessing year (yes, if you didn't understand a single word of this fix, you're not alone)[/p]
• [p]Punctuality broken decree won't give you Bastion cards if you're playing with another king.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a soft lock interactions between Portals and Shrines.[/p]
• [p]-1 boss now is now called emiT fo noipmahC as the time gods intended.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that caused -1 boss to die instantly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed all ghost Raptor occurrences.[/p]
• [p]Amplifier no longer wrongly displays "move speed"[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that caused Warper’s minions to receive double the intended stats from Warper (this should make enemy Warpers easier to beat as well)[/p]
• [p]You now need to finish a battle before saving and quitting.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an Embalming decree bug that caused enemy Warpers to go whack.
  [/p]

[h3]What's next?[/h3][p]The King of Time is the 9th king. But we're only getting started. With a solid foundation, we'll finally be able to really expand the game beyond it's core. A lot more content will come soon and you can expect a patch with new decrees & cards in the coming weeks. But our main goal right now is introducing you to the new game modes. As we keep balancing out the current kings, we'll finally be able to bring you new experiences to you that are bigger than any deck. Challenge and Ranked modes will hopefully take 9 Kings to a new level.

Stay tuned. For now, we hope you have fun bending time and breaking the game like never before.[/p][p][/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. It's really important to us! Please continue sharing your thoughts, so we can know to focus on for each upcoming patch and make 9 Kings the best game it can be. [/p][p][/p][p]After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. [/p][p] [/p][p]Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team

Love,
Sad Socket team[/p]

[p]9 Kings is on sale at 50% off during the Hooded Horse Autumn Publisher Sale. 9 Kings is a fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder. Grow your empire and fight massive battles against powerful rival kings. Break the game with thousands of insane builds to become the King of Kings. [/p][p] Hooded Horse Autumn Publisher Sale[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
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[p]9 Kings is on sale at 50% off during the Hooded Horse August Publisher Sale. 9 Kings is a fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder. Grow your empire and fight massive battles against powerful rival kings. Break the game with thousands of insane builds to become the King of Kings. [/p][p][/p][p] Hooded Horse August Sale[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[p]This is a very cool patch that will help us strengthen the foundations of 9 Kings. Our three main topics: Decrees, the King Of Nothing, and performance. We heard your feedback, took notes on what's been fun, and with your help we believe our first patch after the biggest patch ever will also be a big deal.
[/p][p]The headline: we're bringing 15 new decrees (!!!) to the game and a new decree tier altogether. King of Nothing is getting very needed improvements and new mechanics. And the game's performance should be tighter than ever.
[/p][h2]List of changes (0.8.11):[/h2][p][/p][h3]Nothing Makeover![/h3][p]It was also time to give King of Nothing some well-deserved love. 9 Kings is growing fast, and the least we could do is give him his own pool of decrees. Soldiers and Paladins now have special effects. And Archers and Castles got crazy unique decrees. Spoilers: you can shoot double (or quintuple?) arrows. You can now throw flaming boulders. And much more. We hope you'll stop ranking one of our fav kings in the lowest tiers now >:(. Every king shall be S-Tier one day![/p]

• [p]Soldier now gets +1% damage for every unit added to the troop.[/p]
• [p]Paladin now gets an HP boost for every DMG boost it gets. [/p]
• [p]Decree: Fireball[/p]
• [p]Decree: Twinshot[/p]
• [p]Decree: Freshmen[/p]
• [p]Decree: Armory[/p]
• [p]Decree: Development
  [/p]

[h3]Rainbow decrees! [/h3][p]Enter a new kind of decree that will add a new gameplay layer to your runs. We're talking about game changing effects with diverse trade-offs, like Gambling (which now also belongs to this new category). Rainbow decrees can appear at any Royal Council event. We're starting with a total of 5 unique ones. More to come soon![/p]

• [p]Decree: Longtermism[/p]
• [p]Decree: Wishing Well[/p]
• [p]Decree: Refraction[/p]
• [p]Decree: Payroll[/p][p][/p]

[h3]Universal decrees[/h3][p]Following the pattern of the new perk system, classic decrees you're already familiar with are now called Universal decrees. And we're also adding more of those! [/p]

• [p]Decree: Rebirth[/p]
• [p]Decree: Catharsis[/p]
• [p]Decree: Weakspot[/p]
• [p]Decree: Supplies[/p][p][/p]

[h3]Performance[/h3][p]This is also a VERY meaningful part of this patch. We had a bunch of performance improvements lined up but rolling them out in the same patch as the King of Nomads could've been a bit too risky. So now it's time! The game should be more optimized than ever and hopefully we'll hear less and less about crashes. Please keep us posted. This is still a work in progress.[/p]

• [p]Improved spell attacks performance during battle (i.e Static, Combustion). [/p]
• [p]Improved high unit count processing performance.[/p]
• [p]Improved stat application cycle performance (you should feel the difference specially when playing late game buff-heavy builds, like Lab Rat/Reinforce builds).[/p]
• [p]UP NEXT: a solution for the attack speed cap on crazy high speed builds. We'll talk more about this soon.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]QoL/Balancing/Fixes[/h3][p]Thanks to your reports, we were also able to spot new bugs and address balancing/QoL issues.[/p]

• [p]Move Speed is now shown on plot tooltips.[/p]
• [p]Tooltip visuals/colors improved for readability.[/p]
• [p]Stat buffs are now visually displayed when you get a decree.[/p]
• [p]Subtly nerfed enemy Defender.[/p]
• [p]Spores now properly attack in the first year after loading a game.[/p]
• [p]Spores now work properly after Migrating a Mycelium plot.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an exploit that doubled your Mob count every time you loaded the game with Populate decree.[/p]
• [p]Pagoda's Imps now properly target the closest enemy again. [/p]

[p]
As always, after downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected].[/p][p][/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. [/p][p][/p][p]Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! [/p]

Love,
Sad Socket Team

[p]This is a moment we're all waiting for. It's our biggest patch yet, our shift to 0.8, and most importantly: it's time to introduce you to the King of Nomads.
[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h3]Who is the King of Nomads?[/h3][p]Taking over the barren snowy fields of the north, the reptilian nomad army belongs to nobody and no land. Their fierce warriors will pillage the other kingdoms while their steed tramples their armies. TL;DR: Get ready for a ruthless winter, lizards, dragons, and a bit of good old Khan destructive energy. [/p][p] [/p][h3]A deck of movement[/h3][p]With the King of Nomads, we're adding an important layer of movement to the game. It's a deck that enables you to reshuffle your board, rewards placement & displacement of plots, and encourages you to experiment more with the dynamic nature of the game. We've been tracking everything that's missing from the current core gameplay so that we can address them at every new card added, The King of Nomads is coming in to fill some of these core spaces.[/p][p][/p][h3]The nomadic spells[/h3][p]You've asked for it: Migration is a powerful card that will finally allow you to move your plots. This mechanic adds dozens of new possibilities to the game - including moving your base around! Of course, in a challenging way. Swords and Shields are simple yet key cards we've been missing for a very long time, and that will encourage new strategies both in early and late game plays. Plus you can also freeze your opponents now with the Frost enchantment.[/p][p][/p][h3]The troops[/h3][p]We're introducing a solid mix of new troops to synergize with everything else that's already on the table. Raptor is the first card that actually changes other troop's combat behavior, while Mob introduces a very ambitions playstyle. Last but not least: yes, the Nomads base card, Warlord, is also a troop. We hope you have some fun with it.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]No buildings?[/h3][p]King of Nomads has a troop-focused deck. However, the deck does have two building cards that create synergies with the movement-focused mechanics. Camp card is an incredibly powerful building that encourages you to place new cards in your kingdom. Dragon's Den is an epic summoning building that thrives on destruction. Occupy new plots, let go of old ones: this is the king of ephemeral.
[/p][h3]Perks and decrees[/h3][p]The King of Nomads introduces, initially, 5 new decrees and 9 unique perks. They bring new mechanics to the table, which will result in new ways to break the game... which will result in some more healthy headaches for us devs.
[/p][p] [/p][h3]The design behind the king[/h3][p]The King of Nomads, much like the King of Time, is coming to the game to fill a few spaces we've always planned to fill. Allowing you to move your plots around changes the game completely. You can alternate buffs across a single run, change your strategy in the middle of the game, and make powerful new combos. Even Blessings become more relevant and viable with that card on the table.

Design wise, we want you to feel like you can create a massive domino effect by synergizing all your right choices in a run. In that sense, a card that rewards destroying plots was also long due. Dragon's Den helps us start making sure that destroying plots unfolds in multiple new strats beyond the effect of a destruction card itself.

Simple cards like Swords and Shields were also very necessary additions to the mix: the intentional simplicity behind them is key to open new fun strategies and complex ones alike.

Last but not least... a base that's a troop is something we wanted in the game from day 1. And depending on how this goes, it might open new routes of experimentation for our current base cards as well. We're stoked that Warlord is finally here!

Anyway, we're already giving a lot of spoilers here. We can't wait for you to try the king out yourself and see everything else you can do with his deck, decrees, and perks. [/p][p][/p][h3]Patch summary:[/h3]

• [p]NEW KING: King of Nomads[/p]
• [p]NEW CARDS (9): Warlord, Mob, Raptor, Dragon's Den, Camp, Frost, Swords, Shields, Migration[/p]
• [p]NEW PERKS (9): Immigrant, Reptilian, Jurassic, Leader, Aggressive, Defensive, Khan, Cold, Rebellious[/p]
• [p]NEW DECREES (5): Pillage, Smithy, Frostbite, Cryoflame, Settlement[/p]
• [p]NEW ACHIEVEMENTS (3): Double Double Double Dragon, Mass Migration, Mountception[/p]
• [p]New battlefield[/p]
• [p]Custom king background visuals[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Several other improvements: [/h3][p]Our core focus in July was the King of Nomads. But, as always, we're also addressing your feedback in this patch. Here are the other 0.8.0 updates:
[/p]

• [p]Overhauled audio system to prevent volume bursts and SFX distortion.[/p]
• [p]All kings got custom background visuals![/p]
• [p]Base cards can now be moved.[/p]
• [p]King Selection will now always start on your latest played king.[/p]
• [p]Crownmaxxing achievement is now triggered when you breeze through level 9 straight to level 10.[/p]
• [p]Midas Touch now works with Bomber and all other explosive attacks.[/p]
• [p]Compendium screen now has UI animations and can be navigated with controller/keyboard.[/p]
• [p]Converter plot damage now also displays the damage caused by its insta-kills.[/p]
• [p]Mycelium created from Pollinator perk can now start on level 4.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that caused loaded games to restart on year 1 with a random card. Shout out to our Discord community for figuring this one out (the culprit was Cloned cards)[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that randomly caused "ghost Boars" to get stuck on their plots.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where Summoner perk and Warhorns decree were giving 100% critical chance to target troops.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that caused Warden perk to give your Stronghold +1 level every time you loaded a game.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an exploit that allowed players to gain XP multiple times in year 99.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a lingering blurred screen when quitting the game in year 99.[/p]
• [p]Fixed cursor attack preview area size. It's now properly synced with the actual effect area.[/p]
• [p]New audio effects implemented.[/p]
• [p]Battle pop-ups now fade faster to improve combat visibility.[/p]
• [p]VSync preferences are now stored in between game sessions.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the scrolling of the language selection dropdown in the options screen[/p]
• [p]Fixed soundtrack issues after "Chaos Up" screens in Endless Mode[/p]
• [p]Animation-related performance improvements.[/p]
• [p]Localization fixes[/p]

[p]
You can expect a follow-up patch addressing your feedback very soon. Not to mention the new content that's already in the oven.[/p][p][/p][h3]Hotfixes (0.8.04):[/h3]

• [p]Demon's Altar no longer has its stats erased when Migrated.[/p]
• [p]Swords no longer cause Defenders damage to go NaN.[/p]
• [p]Overwork now properly works with Camp.[/p]
• [p]Camp now works with Migration, Echoform, and Slime.[/p]
• [p]Pop-ups now properly display Smithy stat bonus.[/p]
• [p]Warlord is no longer destroyed by Unify.[/p]
• [p]Fixed immortal frozen Raptors.[/p]
• [p]Mothership now properly moves with Migration (shoutout to anyone who saw our infamous vending machine placeholder asset)[/p]
• [p]Critical buff is now properly applied by Camp.[/p]
• [p]Dragons now properly apply poison.[/p]
• [p]Eyeglass now properly applies critical effect.[/p]
• [p]Dragons with Cryoflame will only fly around during battle.[/p]
• [p]Quarry now works with Warlord.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a glitch with Pagoda's Imps targeting behavior.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that caused units to stand still when you only have a Demon's Altar on the field.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. It's really important to us! Please continue sharing your thoughts, so we can know to focus on for each upcoming patch and make 9 Kings the best game it can be. [/p][p][/p][p]After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. [/p][p] [/p][p]Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team

Love,
Sad Socket team[/p]