Update 29 Beta

Hello everybody! The BETA version of a BIG new release of SCMZ is available. It’s a large update spanning the whole game balance and campaign, and we would really like to know what you think about it.
What you can play if you op-in for the beta is stable, complete, and has been tested internally, but it might hide some troublesome bugs. So, back up your save data if you choose to join!

[h2]How To Back-up Your Save Data[/h2]

Go to your “LIBRARY” page, right-click on “Super Cane Magic ZERO” and select “Manage”, Browse local files”;
Copy the “SavesDir” folder somewhere and keep it safe;
If needed, restore your old save data by copying the backed-up folder back to its original location.

[h2]How To Join The Open Beta[/h2]

Go to your “LIBRARY” page, right-click on “Super Cane Magic ZERO” and select “Properties”;
Type or copy-paste the access code “passwordbeta29” in the corresponding field and click “CheckCode”.
In the “BETAS” tab use the dropdown menu and choose “beta29”.
The game will then automatically download the patch content and update.

[h2]How To Give Us Feedback[/h2]
It has been a while since the last patch. During this whole time we’ve listened closely to your feedback and this update is the result. We value your opinion and your feedback would be invaluable once again!

You can get in contact with us through Steam’s SCMZ Forum or Studio Evil Discord.

[h2]Beta 29 Patch notes:[/h2]

[h3]Main goals:[/h3]

Making the game more friendly to new players, by rethinking everything that happens in the first few hours of gameplay and how you learn the game;
Improving the overall pace of the game, with more compact and richer overworld areas, and quicker and more engaging combat (and slightly fewer enemies);
Providing the player with more and better loot and equipment so they can truly experiment with different character builds.

[h3]Additions[/h3]

New Off-hand “Weapons”: Boxing Gloves, Lid, Blaster, Parrying Dagger, Flintlock Gun, Gnomish Shield, Shield Generator (some with attacks similar to main weapons for real dual-wielding action!);
Candied Cavern: New mini-level connecting Minestronya to the Volcanic Wasteland area of WOTF;
Random Forest: Four new rooms for added variety;
Split damage: Some new and old weapons deal half physical and half elemental damage as displayed in the updated inventory UI;
Ego Scaling: The damage of some new and old weapons can now scale with the Ego stat instead of the Attack stat. This is displayed in the updated inventory UI, allowing for more diverse player builds;
New visual effects for some weapons, enemies, and throwable items.

[h3]Food System Changes[/h3]

Health Gain: Eating food recovers a lot more health than before;
Food Perks: The effect of some of the perks gained by eating have changed, and the effects of food are generally more powerful and consistent, so that you can plan combat tactics around them, but you can have only one major food perk active at a time;
Throwing Food: Throwing normally edible food against enemies of obstacles now destroys it, so choose carefully not to waste your resources;
Potions: Potions effects now last until you die or load another area, chests and containers spawn potions less frequently, but there are more potion vending machines lying around.
Loot/Equipment Changes
Shops: Every shop has an additional item on sale, and rare colored items, including unique ones, are more commonly available;
Loot Rarity: Green, blue, purple, and yellow loot is more common, so instead of finding a lot of white boring stuff you’ll find tons of interesting equipment with all sorts of additional perks and abilities;
Loot Regional Availability: All equipment has been better thematically organized in the different regions of WOTF, and a bigger percentage of loot is available anywhere;
Stat Bonuses: We re-evaluated stat bonuses of all equipment and tweaked their distribution;
Affixes: Additional prefixes and suffixes of green, blue, and purple equipment grant slightly higher bonuses;
Negative Affixes: The few negative affixes we had before don’t exist in the game anymore!
Shields: All shields now have the Block or Dash action and increase defensive stats.
Enemy Changes
Smarter Enemies: Many aspects of enemy behavior have been enhanced in order to have enemies spend less time idling still and instead actively chasing or attacking the player(s);
Rebalanced Enemies: Many enemies, including many bosses, had their damage, stats and life tweaked to improve the combat experience;
Stun: Many enemy attacks deal less stun damage so it now takes more attacks before a player gets stunned;
Enemy Aggro Range: The range was drastically reduced to about half the screen horizontally;
Enemy Groups: The content of some enemy groups has been altered;
Enemy Spawners: They now spawn more often, but have a limited number of simultaneous enemies, providing a more interesting and fair challenge (this change also affects bosses that spawn minions).

[h3]Level Changes[/h3]

Ease of Navigation: The layout of all the overworld areas and MANY other levels has been tweaked by removing some empty areas and making the main path more clear;
Rewards: More chest and piggy banks were added to many levels.
Pace: Many enemy spawn groups were removed or moved to a different location.
WOTF Jail: Overhaul of the entire level and its boss.
Poptarts Underground Archive: The final puzzle is functionally the same, but more clear, and there’s enough light in the level to see your surroundings (it was too much to ask to explore in pitch-black darkness so early in the game).
Nevola Park: Overhaul of the entire level, now quite shorter, and its boss.
Poptarts: The layout of the courtyard has been tweaked to make the main path toward Minestronya more clear, and to make it easier to find the shops (and there’s also a new shop inside the academy!);
WSS Orinoco: Overhaul of the entire level and its boss.
Ray Skeletron’s Crypt: Some quality of life changes and a new shortcut within the dungeon;
A lot of other small tweaks to levels here and there.

[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

Starting Health/Mana/Lives: Player characters start the game with less health and mana, but with more lives (respectively 8 / 6 / 4 at Challenging / Hard / Party Hard difficulty);
Elite Adventurers Guild: The requirement for joining the guild is now level 20 and level 30 respectively;
Gameplay UI: The main gameplay UI can now show many more active-perk icons;
Arena Mode: Various changes according to the other changes of the update, with the goal of keeping or improving the original balance of this game mode;
MANY other smaller changes.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

Fixed some typos;
Various bug fixes (this post is already too long XD).