Act II Official Release + Upcoming Gauntlet Mode

[h3]Hey Heroes,[/h3]

Act II is being officially released today!

Thanks to those of you who tried it out during beta stage and gave us your valuable feedback, we are excited to unveil a whole slew of new additions and improvements to the game. We will be touching on some of them later in the post. Along with the release of Act II, it is the perfect time to jump back into the game!

Also, in this update post, we will be talking a bit about an upcoming mode called the Gauntlet Mode we will be working on to make Gordian Quest even more replayable and enduring.

Finally, Gordian Quest will be 20% off this week, so please tell a friend about it if they haven't gotten the game already!

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CORE CHANGES

We've been listening to your feedback, so you'll notice many changes to various cards across the board.

Here are the more notable ones:

AP cost, damage, and utility have been rescaled for many cards. Many skills are much more viable now, and we are still actively making changes as deemed necessary.
Skill cards used to only scale damage and guard with stats. Now, stats also scale healing and statuses, keeping buffs and debuffs competitive as the game goes on. You can hold down Ctrl to inspect the various scaling mechanisms on a skill card.

Skills that don't scale at all now have a grey header. These are skills that remain useful at any stage of the game due to the nature of their mechanics.

New Talents

New Talents have been added, allowing you greater control over your deck and combat abilities.

Codex changes

You can now view all skills and items via the codex, even if you have not found the card yet. The card will only be visually dimmed if yet to be collected.

Item Changes

We continue to add items and rework old ones, some of which grew long in the tooth as the mechanics of the game evolved past launch. 60 new Legendary items have been added, giving even more variety to early and late game builds.

Quality of life changes
Many other quality of life changes have been added in, with notables including :

Ability to toggle battlefield view while choosing a card.
Manage hero skills and equipment from the guild hall/operations tent.
Selecting cards in battle by using the number key row.
Bulk purchasing items in stores.
Color blind mode for cards.

Accessing Act II

After completing Act I, you will be able to access Act II from the main menu. Each Act is a self-contained adventure, so you will start the adventure with a fresh party - however you can carry over the benefits of Hero Renown from Act I, so you will be able to start off with select advantages.

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WHAT'S IN ACT II

The Azul
The new map features new territories to explore and dangers to face. Sand storms that plague the land will cause some nodes to be shrouded, keeping the challenges within a mystery.

Some new paths spawn according to which nodes you choose to pass through, leading to endless possible ways to explore the secret caverns and tunnels coiled under the vast Azul Desert. What dangers or treasures lie ahead? Only the bravest of heroes will find out.

The Bard
Naran the Bard joins the roster of heroes! She yields a delicately precise form of magic through a series of harmonies. She can lead a turbid orchestra that feeds fear or a soothing aria that inspires courage where there was none. She wanders the realm in pursuit of adventures and companions that can inspire her music.

Naran's skill schools revolve around three main themes :

Effects that strengthen her party's offensive capabilities, or weaken and expose the enemy.
Effects that cause direct harm, whether through the magical nature of her music or her trusty slingshot.
Effects that can confuse and control her foes, turning them to her side, albeit temporarily.

An Expanded Bestiary
Here is a look at some of the new enemies you'll encounter in this new region. They'll possess new and deadly traits that you'll need to prepare a good response to, lest they rip your party to shreds! The desert is a dangerous place.

The mechanics are still a work in progress, but here is a sneak peak at the new mechanics you'll have to deal with:

Missions
A core complaint at launch was that players would mostly stick to three heroes over the course of an adventure, with the rest of them just parked in town. As part of the Act II arc, Missions is brand new mechanic that will give these heroes more purpose, and allow you to engage with them more often.

A new NPC in town will grant access to this system, where you can form parties with your other heroes and send them off on missions. This system runs alongside your own adventures - as you explore the wild, your other parties make progress as well. You can track their progress on your map with a counter on the side.

After a period of time, these away teams will complete the mission progression, gaining XP. In addition, several things may happen at this juncture. Depending on the type of mission :

You can benefit by collecting a small reward from their missions (essentially making these missions delayed rewards),
You can switch over to the away team, fighting a concurrent battle elsewhere on the map, earning specific rewards.
You can scout out areas on the map, adding Boons to the area.
You can convert a node into a Raid node - a new battle mode that lets your party join forces with the away party to fight a powerful set of foes.

This is a highly extensible system and we see the possibility of adding more mission types in the future, as well as reasons to send specific heroes.

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Our work is not over - we'll be spending the next few weeks monitoring the release of Act 2 and responding to any bugs or balance issues that may pop up.

Beyond this, we are excited to soon begin development of the Gauntlet Mode, an infinite dungeon mode where you will be able to compete with other players to travel as deep as you can, facing ever stronger dangers and foes.

It is meant to offer a quicker, more frenetic session as compared to the longer experiences of the Acts e,g half to 1 hour runs instead of multiple hours invested into single run. We wanted to prioritise the development of this mode over Act 3 and 4 as we have received feedback from a great number of players who want something like this. We also believe it will give the game extended longevity while you wait for the other Acts to be developed. There is already a good base we can work with to create this mode, by remixing the many battle locations, enemies, items, events, and more.

The replayability of this mode will put it on par with the many other traditional roguelike experiences you may be familiar with out there, all with our unique brand of deckbuilding and RPG elements. The competitive element will also encourage more experimentation with parties and builds, as we introduce even more enemy traits that counter or prove resistant to specific combos and skills.

While the final mechanics may change upon release, here's the overall gist of how it would work.

Gauntlet Mode starts off with you picking your team of heroes. You will activate an ancient gateway known as the Maelstrom Gate (the nature of this will be revealed in Act 3 and 4, but suffice to say it is a portal to infinite other realms).
You travel through a procedurally generated Realm, which start off small and is generally linear in nature with branching paths. You'll be forced to weigh the merits of the path ahead as the level converges onto an end boss at the end. It starts off at a manageable difficulty.
Defeating the boss gives you a chance at obtaining a legendary item, and unlocks the next realm, where enemies are of a higher level, and the challenge factor is increased.
Upon completing a set number of realms (killing the end bosses), you will be given the opportunity to exit the Maelstrom Gate and interact with NPCs, selling and obtaining new items. You can then return through the Gate to continue your delve.
Upon completing a set number of realms, you will be given the opportunity to add a new party member. These party members can be used for missions, and act as an "extra life" should one of your existing members fall.
Survive as many realms and bosses as you can! Your run ends when your current party is defeated. Your lowest depth will be recorded, and you'll be able to compare your run to other players on a global leaderboard.

We hope you enjoyed the outline of how Gauntlet Mode will work, and we can't wait to start working on it this coming month. Do share your thoughts on how you'd like it to work as well in the forums - we know some of you are just bursting with ideas!

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Thanks for reading. We will continue to work hard in bringing you more exciting features and improvements in the game. We thank you for your support and patience as we continue to build this game with you.

As always, we hope to hear your thoughts below on what we’ve put forth so far. Feel free to join us on Discord https://discordapp.com/invite/tce6YMW to chat with us.

And last but not least, if you haven't already, please consider giving us a positive review on Steam if you like how we are doing so far. It would really mean a lot to us. Thanks! :)

Crafted With Love,
The Mixed Realms Team