Reptilz Update—Dev Diaries #1

Hey, I’m Cortum and I’m one of the devs working on Arboria.

With the 4th big Update for Arboria just released, I wanted to talk a bit about the changes we’ve made and what else is coming in the next updates. If you haven’t seen the Reptilz Update yet, check out the whole list of changes here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/924070/announcements/detail/2907592728173314926

The Reptilz Update might be the biggest update yet, regarding gameplay changes. During development, ideas evolve, mechanics change, and feedback from all of you impact our decisions regarding this project. We are focused on making the best possible experience and we hope that with each change, we’ll get closer to that goal.

The Mutations Overhaul is one of the biggest changes. Before, Mutations differed from one another based only on Archetype and Element. Both Damage and Elemental Damage were static and in terms of loot, Mutations were quite lacking in comparison to Symbionts and Armor. So that’s why we added three additional Stats to differ Mutations - Power, Rarity, and Harmony.

Power increases Damage, Elemental Damage, and Mana Consumption of Mutations. The lower in Durnar you are, the more Power the Mutations found there will have.
Rarity comes in five tiers the same as for Symbionts - Poor, Common, Rare, Legendary, and Unique. Rarity changes more complex stats of Mutations like range, radius of effect, duration, and many others that cannot just get linear scaling like Damage.
Harmony is a set of modifiers for each Element that multiplies Damage and Elemental Damage of the Mutation based on its Element. The higher the Harmony rating for a specific Element is, the better a Mutation will perform while having said Element.

While on the topic of Elements, after some discussion in our team and gathering feedback from you, we decided to improve Bio and Shock Elements. They were the two least used by us and we just couldn’t leave them be.

For the Bio Element, we removed the Damage Reduction that was not impactful, and instead, we added Burst Damage that is dealt to the Enemy upon entering the Bio Elemental State. Of course, we also kept the Armor Reduction for the whole duration of the Bio Elemental State. Additionally, if an enemy enters the 2nd Stage of the Bio Elemental State, they start to emit a Bio Aura that will deal Elemental Damage to other enemies around, a “spreading” State.

As for the Shock Element, it got additional Damage over time with a low frequency that has a random Impact value. This means that an enemy affected by the Shock Elemental State can receive Hit Reactions that can potentially interrupt his attacks. With this change, the Shock Elemental State becomes much more useful and helps in managing danger.

Managing danger will come in handy, especially for dealing with the new system of Enemies’ Elemental Buffs. We are constantly working on making difficulty on par with player capabilities, and we felt that the Elemental differences between Enemies were quite poor. This change will make fights more diverse and challenging. New Buffs for enemies are as follows:

Fire - +25% Damage and 20% Armor Penetration
Ice - Enemies have a Shield that needs to be destroyed before damaging Health which is worth 30% of an enemy’s Max Health value and a flat Armor Bonus dependent on Setting that “melts” after destroying the Shield
Shock - +15% Attack and Movement speed, +15 Impact value for all attacks and periodic Spark Beams that shoot between Shock enemies that deal Damage and Elemental Damage
Bio - +50% Max Health value, +15 Stability, when an enemy dies, there is a chance it will leave a Bio Elemental Pool
Dark - The less Health the enemy has, the higher buffs he gains, up to +50% Damage, +50% Elemental Damage, +15 Impact for all attacks, and +15 Stability

The listed Buffs reflect the characteristics of their Element, so to make more sense out of the Elemental Relations we decided to change it a bit. In order to better pair Buffs and Debuffs we rearranged the placement of the Shock and Bio Element. The new relation looks like this:
Fire > Ice > Shock > Bio > Dark > Fire.

Thanks to this change using a Strong Element against a Weak Enemy has much more impact because it counteracts the Elemental Buffs.

Along with all of the above changes, we also improved how the Element of Equipment impacts its Damage and Elemental Damage. The difference should be much more visible especially if you compare Strong and Weak Elements. With the correct Equipment, it should be much easier to inflict the Elemental State on enemies and on top of that when an enemy is affected by the 2nd Stage of the Elemental State, half of the Elemental Damage they receive is converted to Damage. Thanks to this, even when your Equipment has a low Damage value but a high Elemental Damage value, it can still be used to kill enemies and not only inflict the Elemental State on them.

That's enough about Elements, let’s switch the topic to Mutations. As I mentioned earlier now there will be much more variety among Mutations and we also changed how they work a bit. We had tons of problems balancing the game with Mana Regeneration per second, so we decided to change it to Mana Regeneration per Hit. It is not a change we are fully proud of, but it will truly help us with managing resources during combat. At the same time, Mana Regeneration per Second is not forever gone - it will come back slightly changed.

It might be a bit more complex to find the best-suited Equipment for the job with all of these recent changes, but here comes yet another big feature to help you out. Scrapping of Equipment is a new feature that lets you turn all of the unused Symbionts, Mutations, and Armor into resources that can be used to order custom Equipment. We saw lots of feedback regarding loot. Players felt that they ended up leaving most of it behind, whilst running through Durnar. Now everything can be Scrapped. In order to be able to do so, you need to buy Upgrades from the corresponding NPCs. Scrap doesn’t take up Inventory space, has an unlimited cap, and is permanent between runs. The Equipment you can order from the NPCs is limited by their unlocked Upgrades e.g. Armstrong upgrade adds new Symbiont Tiers to custom order. We hope that you will have fun tinkering with the best possible Equipment.

There’s still a ton of feedback that you all have mentioned in your reviews, on Discord, in video comments, and other ways of communication. We try to use as much of your feedback as possible, but some of the changes are much more complex than others and need a sufficient amount of time to be made into a reality.

Soon we will be adding a completely new System that we feel is quite a game-changer. It is half-way done and looks promising, so if everything works well, Runs will become much more unique from a gameplay perspective. We’re also working on another new secret System that will come a bit later. This System will let you tinker with the game's difficulty. More details will come at a later date.

We want to thank you all for your feedback! We value all of your comments and try to use them during development. Don’t be afraid to write us, talk on Discord, or show us what else we can improve and what you already like.

Stay tuned and have a lot of fun with the Reptilz Update!
Cortum

[h3]Roadmap[/h3]
The Reptilz Update is the fourth of several major updates we are releasing on a monthly basis. The fifth one - the Temples of Tail Update - is now looming on the horizon with a brand new mechanic, NPC, new enemies, symbionts, and more!

Check the full development roadmap to find out what’s planned for the future: Arboria - Roadmap of Updates.

[h3]Feedback[/h3]
Have you played the new update yet? Head to the comments section, Steam Discussions, or Discord and let us know what you think!

To show us your support, please consider dropping us a review on Steam. They help us a lot!

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