Seedborne Soldiers News

While most of our effort this patch was focused on improving balance, we also added some new Greater Trinkets (the ones you get from bosses). Each one is generically good on any team; their addition significantly reduces the chance of beating a boss and seeing no desirable rewards.
[h2]New Greater Trinkets[/h2]

• Infernal Clock - Your units deal 1% more damage each second.
  
• Slushbrewed Coffee - Your units' MP costs are reduced by 10.
  
• Thunderous Plate - Your units gain Attack equal to 40% of their Defense and Magic equal to 40% of their Magic Def.
  

[h2]Greater Equipment[/h2]
The big push this patch was to rebalance Greater Equipment, which simply accounted for too much of the player’s overall power level. I can say with confidence that the game feels better with these numbers toned down. Equipment still feels strong and meaningful despite the nerfs; their numbers were just insane before.

I won’t list every change here, but I’ll cover the broad strokes and provide details on items that changed the most.

• Lesser Equipment: Stats reduced by approximately 33%
  
• Greater Equipment: Stats reduced by approximately 25-50%
  
• All items: HP, Defense, Magic Def, and MP-cost-reduction stat amounts on items have gone up relative to other stats. (As all stat totals have gone down across the board, this means items with these stats have been hit less hard.)
  
• Faithful Memory: 100% of holder’s shield value as damage on-hit -> 40%
  
• Mirrorplate: now has a cooldown of 2.5 sec per attacker
  
• Demon-Killing Blade: Now has a 20-stack limit
  
• Double-Helix Rootstaff: No longer grants Attack Spd on-cast and Magic on-hit; now only grants Magic on-cast
  
• Crown of Etha: now has 7% Lifelink
  

[h2]Clerics[/h2]
Clerics are complicated because each one brings a different bonus to the team. These bonuses were individually powerful and useful, but if the player tried to build their team with all the Clerics, the bonuses (and a few of the units themselves) did not work well together. We’ve updated the Cleric Trait payoffs, a few of the individual bonuses, as well as Vleeli’s effect so that Clerics can play better together.

• Cleric Trait bonus amplification at 2 / 4 / 6 / 8: 20% / 40 % / 70% / 120% -> 20% / 50% / 90% / 150%
  
• Old-World Jar Cleric bonus: 10 Starting MP -> 10 Attack
  
• Faceless Cleric bonus: 20 Magic Def -> 20 Crit
  
• Vleeli
  
  • Cleric bonus: 5 MP cost reduction -> 20 Magic Def
    
  • Effect: Magic damage amplification to self and adjacent allies -> MP cost reduction to self and adjacent allies
    
• Moranbah
  
• Max MP: 70 -> 90
  
• Cleric bonus (healing amplification): 20% -> 10%
  
• Alruna cleric bonus: 25 Magic -> 20 Magic
  
• Hyacinth: 2.5% Attack Spd On-hit -> 2% Attack Spd On-hit
  

They’re still great to splash into any non-Cleric-focused team as well. Especially Hyacinth. He’s OP.
[h2]More updates:[/h2]

• (Items) Dreamblade nerfs (They’re still very good)
  
  • Quartz Dreamblade: 18% Strength / 50% Movespeed / Reap: Heal 300 -> 12% Strength / 30% Movespeed/ Real: Heal 150
    
  • Jade Dreamblade: 15% Strength / 50% Movespeed / Reap: Heal 300 -> 10% Strength / 30% Movespeed / Reap: Heal 150
    
  • Azure Dreamblade: 12% Strength / 50% Movespeed / Reap: Heal 300 -> 8% Strength / 30% Movespeed / Reap: Heal 150
    
  • Removed quirky interaction where Reap heal amounts were larger than expected due to the heal getting multiplied by the Strength value
    
• (Items) Necklace buffs
  
  • Surrelior Necklace of Ritual: Magic damage and MP generation reduction: 20% -> 15%
    
  • Vicilicar Necklace of Cunning: Physical damage and Attack Spd reduction: 15% -> 10%
    
  • Liberator’s Necklace of Utopia: Defense and Magic Def reduction, enemy Attack Spd increase: 15% -> 10%
    
  • (Also, renamed the above “...of Idealism” -> “...of Utopia”)
    
• (Items) Igneous Rock reworked to not be completely useless:
  
• The first, second, or third row on the enemy's board becomes Lava. When an enemy first steps on a Lava tile, they take 300 damage. They lose 50% Movespeed and take an additional 50 damage each second for 3 seconds.
  
• (Items) Hardened Ghost nerf: 100% chance to double an on-hit effect -> 33% chance. Pour one out for your boy.
  
• (Items) Bark of Elyggdrien buff (due to stat values being reassessed): 100 HP, 10 Defense -> 150 HP, 15 Defense
  
• (Items) Root of Elyggdrien Magic Def buff (due to stat values being reassessed): 10 -> 15
  
• (Units) Uma buffed; spell now grants paired ally more MP and shield
  
• (Enemies) Gallenthygg (final boss) damage slightly buffed
  

[h2]Model updates:[/h2]

• Faceless
  
• Vulkathuna
  
• Kagakusha
  
• Flaxen Maiden
  
• (summon) Ideal of Perfection
  
• Jorintht Blaird
  

[h2]Portrait updates:[/h2]

• Amalia
  
• Gregor
  
• Mildred Moon
  
• Moranbah
  
• Vleeli
  
• Wallace
  
• War
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where tooltips were not showing up for Water rewards at Ruins
  

A series of UX / UI updates is on the horizon. The bottom-right portion of the screen (ie, inventory, "Next" button, "Engage" button) will likely be our first area of focus. Additionally, we suspect that the enemies on map 3 are too strong and probably need to be toned down.

Slowly but surely. It’s getting there.

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.

New consumable - Traitbloom
Drag and drop a Traitbloom onto a unit to reroll your current Crop to a new Crop that matches one of the unit’s Traits.

Traitblooms give you more agency to select rewards that enable the teamcomp you’re building toward. Higher-tier units are now more accessible, and “vertical” (lots of one Trait) teamcomps are more attainable.

New run start options
A selection of 4 of 12 possible run start options are now presented at the beginning of each run. Several options include new Trinkets which are not otherwise attainable in the game.

• Harvest the saplings - Get Tier I Crop x3
  
• Harvest the tall trees - Get Tier II and Tier III Crop
  
• Search the cellar - Get 2 random Lesser Equipment
  
• Scour the tower - Get a random non-Trait Lesser Trinket
  
• Pick some flowers - Get Traitbloom x2
  
• Peer from the hill - Get a lv2 [Lorelei, Vizreaper, or Wallerant] and a Phaisy’s Favor
  
• Grab the grab bag - Get a Tier I Crop, each Elyggdrien consumable, a random bomb, and 5 Water
  
• Fill your flask - Get 20 water
  
• Follow Phaisy’s footsteps - Get Sprouts of Spring (**new trinket** - Each time you beat a boss or miniboss, get a Phaisy’s Favor)
  
• Resign yourself to suffering - Get Tactician’s Gambit (**new trinket** - When you lose vs a non-boss enemy, get 5 Health and 2 Water)
  
• Partner up - Get a Tier IV unit and a Traitbloom, but also the Frail Cultivar (**new trinket** - Whenever you lose a fight, your team counts as having 1 extra Dark unit)
  
• Plan your path - Get a +1 Trait Trinket and 2 matching units (Note: This option has a 2x chance of appearing)
  

New enemies:

• Hill-like Growth
  
• Curse Jar
  
• Poison Jar
  
• Blitz Jar
  
• Deadwater
  
• Mother Statue
  
• Cerberus
  
• Vicilicar Painseeker
  
• Surrelior Soothsayer
  
• Infested Mound
  
• Echo Panic
  

These enemies have their final models and their full spells / effects (though note that their spell visuals are still placeholder, as is the case for all spell visuals). When you come across these new foes, right-click them to view their abilities and adjust your strategy accordingly—or, just mash the Engage button and hope for the best like yours truly.

Engage “Guardrails”
Before hitting “Engage,” we’ll warn you if any of the following conditions are met:

• You can fit more units on the board
  
• You have 2 or more Equipment in your inventory (you can move Equipment in this game, so it’s always good to use it if you have it)
  
• You have 5 or more Crops waiting to be parsed
  
• You have no active Traits and your team size is 4 or greater
  

If you wish, you can ignore the warning and engage anyway by clicking the button again.

Enemy group rework
Previously, there were a total of 33 enemy groups, organized by increasing difficulty and represented numerically on the map. The groups above 10 (or thereabouts) were very homogenous and were always intended to be placeholder; every “difficulty level 12” enemy group was the same as every other “level 12” group, and additionally, that group wasn’t very different from the “level 11” and “level 13” enemy groups.

Now, there are 5 levels of enemy difficulty per map, represented by stars. The vast majority of these difficulties can yield 1 of 3 unique enemy groups for that difficulty level; no longer do you face (basically) the same groups Round after Round!

Note that with this change, it’s more frequently possible to opt into winnable fights each Round; in other words, you can pick on weaklings if you don’t care what rewards you get. The overall difficulty of the game has decreased.

Tutorial revamp
We heard the feedback that our placeholder tutorial was more confusing than helpful, so we built a new integrated tutorial experience to introduce new players to our game and our UI. (The previous tutorial has been renamed “the Manual”; you can still view it from Settings.)

Please let us know if you encounter any bugs, including crashes, while you’re going through the new tutorial flow.

More updates:

• (UX) Tooltips are now visible from buttons (e.g. at run start and at Ruins)
  
• (UX) New map tile sprites added
  
• (Traits) Tower Trait buffed from 10% -> 15%
  
• (Traits) The Dark Trait has been reworked to be purely detrimental. There is no benefit to activating this Trait; it should be avoided when composing your team.
  
• (Units) Everett and Mildred’s spells have been swapped (with some slight tweaks) to better suit their respective Traits
  
• (Units) Absalom heal buffed
  
• (Units) Kincaid starting MP buffed
  
• (Units) Alruna spell speed buff
  
• (Enemies) Needle Archer nerfed (no longer infinitely scales)
  
• (Enemies) Many enemies now have starting MP values > 0
  
• (Enemies) Brutalist shield slightly buffed
  
• (Misc.) Loot tables have been tweaked
  
• (Misc.) Target selection in combat improved
  
• And more!
  

Model updates:
Placeholder models have been replaced with final visuals for the following:

• Hazenloth
  
• Dancing Lancer
  
• Skeleton (summon)
  
• Alyosha (summon)
  
• Soulspawn (summon)
  
• Soldier (summon)
  
• Extremely Dense Beast (Miniboss)
  
• Anemone Tree and Minemone (Miniboss)
  

Portrait updates:
Piece by piece, we’re replacing AI-generated art with the human kind! Here’s what’s we have so far:

• Terra
  
• Metal Soldier
  
• Amalladean
  
• Phaisy
  
• Anatye
  
• Old-World Jar
  
• Toadstaff
  
• Ennio
  
• Walking Factory
  
• Zilch
  
• Faceless
  
• Plus, ALL Tier IV and V units (another 23!)
  

• Phaisy’s Initiative can no longer shield enemies if they’ve been swapped onto the player’s side of the board via False God
  
• Fixed some crashes related to Effect range indicators
  
• Trait Grafts are now properly tradeable again
  
• Severer’s spell now properly “executes” rather than doing the inverse
  
• Alruna’s Reap now properly triggers if an enemy dies while Initiatives are resolving
  
• And more!
  

Looking forward, we’ll be refining the balance of the game by focusing on some of our biggest remaining outliers: economy (how Water is attained, how Shelters work, etc), equipment (expect a nerf to Greater Equipment across the board), and Minibosses / Bosses (the minibosses on maps 2 and 3 are currently still placeholder). We are also planning to introduce a 30 second combat timer for fights, after which damage will greatly increase. In the meantime, hit us up with feedback, and please share the game with anyone who might be interested.

A lot of what’s in the game is incomplete / has placeholder art, so this list should help players to differentiate stuff that's intended to be final vs stuff that's still under construction. This is what pre-Early Access looks like. We welcome questions and feedback.

I hope you guys like bulleted lists as much as I do.



[h2]Run Mechanics[/h2]
Run Start Options

• Current state: 4 options which always appear.
  
• Planned: 12 options total, 4 of which appear each Run.

Trinket Chest updates

• Trinket chests will include additional Water for balancing purposes; also, at least 1 Run Start option will affect the behavior of Trinket Chests.
  
• (other potential updates to make chests more balanced with Ruins)
  

Enemy encounters rework

• Current state: 11 gradients of enemy difficulty per World (confusingly called “levels”); 3 different potential encounters per gradient on World 1, 1 potential encounter per gradient on Worlds 2 and 3.
  
• Planned: 5 gradients of difficulty per World; ~5 different potential encounters per gradient on all 3 Worlds (with the exception of the first few fights).
  
• New map tile sprites to match.
  
• All tiles in any group will likely continue to share the same loot table; this helps avoid snowballing. However, some small added benefit for fighting harder enemies is also likely.
  
• The goals of this change are to A) make the map easier to parse by getting rid of numbers, and B) increase the diversity of the types of fights encountered throughout the game. For example, one fight might contain all assassin-like enemies, while another might contain mostly spellcasters.
  

A new consumable (or other reward) to allow players to better force “vertical” teamcomps

• Current state: It is very hard to get a lot of one Trait on your team, and while we don’t want every run to be about doing that, we want it to be easier to do than it is now. Stay tuned for details.
  

Item Trader rework (nerf)

• Current state: Lesser Equipment trades for a related upgrade of player’s choice.
  
• Planned: Lesser Equipment trades for a random related upgrade; Greater Equipment trades for a different Greater Equipment in the same upgrade pool.
  

Ruins

• Current state: Ruins can appear multiple times in a run; Any Ruin can appear on any World. Few Ruins are available.
  
• Planned: A Ruin can’t be encountered twice in a run; Each World has its own set of Ruins (sets will still have some overlap). Many Ruins are available.
  

Economy revisions / balancing

• Revisions to passive Water generation, Shelter harvesting, unit selling systems - TBD
  

[h2]UI[/h2]
The following UI features need anywhere from small tweaks to complete reworks:

Map tile selection (round-to-round)

• Postcombat screen update
  
• Map update - groups are separated
  
• Animations for tile state changes
  
• (?) Enter combat animation
  

Trait Display

• Replace placeholder Trait icons (no more “Ass” ;))
  
• This may require changing the shop to make icons visible as well (currently, we know icon visibility is poor)
  
• Move from numbers to a “pip” system
  
• Traits active with only 1 unit (Assassin, Ascetic, Cleric, Rider, Slayer, Sniper) need to correctly display as being active
  
• Hovering over a Trait highlights units with that Trait
  
• (?) “Tank Trait” BGs to indicate Traits which make your team tankier

Rework top bar; move bomb UI Trinket UI - Move to top bar and separate from Trait Display Bottom right buttons

• Replace text buttons with icon buttons
  
• Inventory Button - different states for full / empty

Tooltips

• Improve visual hierarchy (need headers at the very least; they need to be easier to read overall)

Enemy and boss info Team display

• Larger cards; less cards onscreen at once
  
• Hover over card = highlight unit
  
• Cards have units’ Traits

Combat text / damage numbers

• Replace placeholder formatting with readable text

Shops o’ Crops

• Different frames for different tiers of units. Getting a Tier IV unit early should feel special.
  
• Ensure traits are visible in shop
  
• (?) “Pea pod” UI

Player health loss animation

• Replace placeholder

Unit Health / Mana bars

• Tween on health loss
  
• Improved MP visibility
  
• Nicer UI element indicating unit level
  
• (?) Icons for unit class

[h2]Art[/h2]

• All unit and enemy spell visual effects
  
• Replace placeholder unit models (Progress: 47/77, excluding Summons)
  
• Replace placeholder enemy / miniboss models (Progress: 7/26, excluding Summons)
  
• Replace placeholder unit portraits (Progress: 0/77)
  
• The current art is AI-generated. We have an awesome character artist who is working on new portraits now!
  
• Replace placeholder Ruins, Shelter, Item Trader, Run Start, Title Screen art
  
• Item Art - ? (May or may not replace)
  
• UI Art - ? (Planned UI updates are listed above; more artful contributions to the UI may or may not be in the cards.)
  

[h2]Flavor[/h2]
Tutorial -> Terra’s Tutorial

• Current state: A few static screens explaining the game
  
• Planned: Terra explains the game mechanics over the course of a run
  

Flavor text for everything on inspect
[h2]Content balance[/h2]
As needed. We know it’s very rough right now; so far, our priority has been on putting stuff into the game, stopping only to correct game-breaking balance issues. In the future, we plan to collect metrics to help us balance more intelligently. Until then, we’d appreciate you letting us know about any power outliers you encounter.
[h2]Content mechanics[/h2]

• The Dark Trait will be reworked to more heavily punish the player for using it. Certain items will make this beneficial.
  
• Divine Trait rework -> “healing matters” theme
  
• The Reap mechanic will likely be modified to have more utility against bosses.

[h2]Features[/h2]
Sound FX Combat timer / Overtime

• After 30 seconds, combat overtime will kick in, quickly bringing about the end of combat.
  
• (Currently, it’s theoretically possible to extend certain fights indefinitely with low-damage, high-healing teams. Have fun!)

Post-run progression system

• Upon completing your first run, you gain access to a system of incremental difficulty progression.
  
• Separately, some content may be “locked” when you start the game, and should quickly become unlocked.

Programmatic Unit : Trait variations

• The Traits of certain units will vary run-to-run.

Introductory story text

• Before the title screen, some text will scroll which explains the story.

(?) Unit dialogue

• Speech bubbles either from unit models or Team Display cards triggered by various criteria

Wiki

• Website; separate from game itself
  
• Contains data on Units, Traits, Items, etc

[h2]Content[/h2]
These “buckets” of content exist, but are incomplete. This content is critical for creating a greater variety of play experiences and adding replay value to the game.

• Ruins (Progress: 5/15+)
  
• Trinkets (Progress: 19/62)
  
• Enemies and minibosses (Progress: 10/26)
  
• Bosses (Progress: 3/9)
  

[h2]UI[/h2]

• Animations for transitions between screens (eg, quickly fade out and fade in)
  
• Animation for Water received
  
• Tooltips for Ruins buttons (ie, see what stuff does before you choose it)
  
• Misc juice

NOTE: Even though this stuff is implemented, it will still be iterated upon and updated as we see fit.

[h2]Content[/h2]

• Units (75/75; as mentioned above, many portraits and models are still placeholder, but the mechanics are in place)
  
• Traits (22/22)
  
• Equipment (35/35)
  
• Other Items (28/28+; more will likely be added)
  
• Worlds (3/3)