UPDATE 29

We are finally releasing update 29 on Steam!
This is a large update that reworks several core mechanics, introduces tons of balance tweaks and fixes, and adds some new items and small areas.

Our goal was to make the game more friendly to new players and to improve the overall pacing of the game. We changed several maps to make them smaller and more focused and worked hard to bring you a faster and more engaging combat.
We also drastically increased the quantity and quality of loot available so that you can truly experiment with different character builds.

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

[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: Added four new rooms to increase variety;
Split damage: Some items now deal half physical and half elemental damage instead of 100% elemental damage. This should make the effectiveness of elemental weapons less situational against enemies with elemental resistances and immunities;
Ego Scaling: The damage of some items can now scale with the Ego stat instead of the Attack stat. This is displayed in the updated inventory UI and should allow more diverse player builds;
New visual effects for some weapons, enemies and throwable items;
The position of keys is now updated on your minimap in real-time. If you have discovered an area, you can see exactly where your available keys are.

[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 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: Potion 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.

[h3]Loot/Equipment Changes[/h3]

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 sort 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 spawn in the game anymore;
Shields: All shields now have the Block or Dash action and increase defensive stat;
Added a new type of expensive treasure chest that drops rare unique items needed to complete the Museum Collection.

[h3]Enemy Changes[/h3]

Smarter Enemies: Many aspects of enemy behavior has 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. Generally speaking, enemies deal less damage and have less HP;
Stun: Many enemy attacks deal less stun damage so it now takes more attacks before a player gets stunned;
Enemy Aggro: The range was drastically reduced to about half the screen horizontally (this was also necessary due to the camera now being closer to the player, see below);
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;
Optimized the resolution of several textures to improve performances;
Various bug fixes (this post is already too long XD).