Patch v0.5.0

Minibosses
Previously, we had only two minibosses: the Anemone Tree and the Extremely Dense Beast. They were balanced for Map 1, but they also appeared on Maps 2 and 3 as free-win placeholders. Well, no more!

We’ve added four new miniboss encounters to the game. Now, you can expect an appropriately balanced challenge on each map. The Minibosses are:

• Map 1 - Extremely Dense Beast - Use units with crowd control to interrupt the deadly Earthquake.
  
• Map 1 - Imilitrivex - This executioner will cut through a weak frontline like cheesecake, cleaving with his spell and gaining 80% of his MP back on kill.
  
• Map 2 - Anemone Tree - It splinters off into Minemones, who can summon even more Minemones! Bring AoE or get swarmed.
  
• Map 2 - Prince Heshinger and Princess Lilylittle - If these lovebirds get within 2 tiles of each other, things get ugly. Divide and conquer!
  
• Map 3 - Hellcore Armorguard - Bring Magic Def or get cooked.
  
• Map 3 - Debaser - It’s just a lady on a couch; there’s probably nothing to worry about.
  

Big Economy Rework:
The economy (how Water is accrued and spent) has been broken for a while. Players could easily end runs with huge amounts of surplus Water and no good opportunity to spend it.

The “Harvest” system at Shelters was too harsh, affording no immediate benefit for “Sowing”; it was often correct to not engage with this system at all. Part of our intent with the harvest mechanic was to provide a safety net for bad RNG; if you weren’t getting the units you needed, you could hopefully hobble into a Shelter and catch up. However, this was very hard to do if you cared about units above Tier I. Harvesting was too often just useless.

To solve all of this, Shelters have been reworked. Players now have a choice between Resting and Trading (upgrading) one item; trading almost always provides an immediate power-level increase. Harvesting can be done in addition to either of these options.

Shelters are now upgraded via a new sub-option of Harvest called Cultivate (the “Sow” option is gone). Cultivating costs Water, but can be selected any number of times at a Shelter without forcing you to advance. This means you can Cultivate to unlock new Crops and immediately harvest them. Additionally, item rewards are now available at each tier of Harvest to provide even more opportunities to spend Water. Try prioritizing Water on the map and seeing what happens!

We also spruced up the UI for all of this.

Finally, we changed the system of Water accrual to solve a separate issue: the lack of an incentive for fighting harder enemies. Enemies now give additional Water if they are more difficult (the amount is equal to the number of stars on their map tile).

Sometimes, the weak enemy has the loot you want, and vice versa—that’s an intended part of the game. However, adding a small incentive for players to pick the hardest enemy available makes tile-choice feel better and more sane in cases where the player has no preference about the loot.

Combat timer
A 30-second combat timer has been added, after which all damage increases and shielding / healing decreases. This is to prevent fights from stalling out.

More updates:

• (Balance) Loot tables tweaked to reduce frequency of Traitblooms, Fragments, Tier IV and V Crops; increased frequency of Lesser Equipment
  
• (Balance) Water is no longer generated passively on each Round; instead, Water is now primarily earned as a reward from enemy tiles
  
• (Balance) Crop prices at Shelters updated
  
• (Balance) The first boss now drops 4 Water on kill; the second boss now drops 8
  
• (Traits) Assassins are no longer targetable at the very beginning of combat. (Now, you can use a lone assassin on your team without them getting focused and dying instantly!)
  
• (Units) Forbidden starting MP buff: 40 -> 90
  
• (Units) Fyiernan spell damage buffed
  
• (Items) Traitbloom nerf - Traitbloom no longer rerolls empty nodes in Crops
  
• (Items) Silver Sickle buff - no longer increases Crop price (it’s basically a free, no-downside Cultivate)
  
• (Polish) Health bars tween on health loss
  
• (Polish) Time briefly slows down at the end of combat
  
• (Polish) The game now loads assets when you first start a run for smoother performance.
  
• (Polish) Loading screen added; randomly shows a fullscreen unit portrait and a tip. (Note that we’re only showing our final art here, no placeholder AI stuff.)
  

Model updates:
More characters brought to life! Almost all of the Tier IV units are now in.

• Abomination
  
• Alruna
  
• Astrid
  
• Cosmia
  
• Flame Sword (Summon)
  
• Fyiernan
  
• Kalbarri
  

Portrait updates:
More art updates! Check these guys out in glorious detail on the new loading screen.

• Pestilence
  
• Ixis
  
• Claira
  
• Selene
  
• Baal
  
• Vessian
  
• Uma
  
• Plutarch
  
• Pallencor
  
• Wooroonook
  

• Fixed some crashes caused by the tutorial
  
• (Enemies) Infested Mound now properly blocks all debuffs
  
• (Enemies) Anemone Tree’s idle animation now plays properly
  
• (Units) Vessian’s initiative no longer causes a soft-lock when doubled via Old-World Jar
  

Greater Equipment nerfs. Currently, this group of items accounts for too high a percentage of your team’s overall power-level; we expect the game to feel smoother and more balanced after we tone these down.

After that, we want to refine the UI and make the game look more polished, more approachable, more readable, and more beautiful. The bottom right quadrant of the screen will be the first area of focus, including the UI for item and Crop inventories. We hope you stick around for that, because it’s going to rule.