Hello everyone!
We've been working hard on the second and final part of "The Prison Update" lately. And even though we already have a fair amount of content ready, we actually want our next update to be the final update for the first part of our Road Map.
Before you ask, we do not have a date to communicate yet. But considering how things are going, we should be ready by the end of October / early November. Our goal is to get it out before Halloween and we're doing our best to meet that deadline.
The game hasn't been updated in a while, so this means we have lots of exciting new things to share today.
Act II
Act II will consist of 12 new Missions and 2 new Bosses (we were aiming for one, but bosses are fun to design and hopefully, to fight, so here we are).
You will be going through The Prison, looking for a thief called Grotagrom, fighting mysterious organizations such as The Hood Syndicate or The Old Bones gang and freeing Villagers along the way.
We tried to work on the repetitive and bland aspect of Act 1 and tried to introduce funnier mechanics, shorter and more action-packed missions and we tried as much as possible to handcraft a different experience than what can be found in regular Prison Expeditions.
We're also introducing the ability to scale enemy level to your current level during Story mode.
So if you actually reached Level 40 during Early Access, you will probably roll over the new content anyway, but at least at a slower pace, and with loot that's relevant to you.
It will also provide an incentive to replay Act I missions if you feel like it and fight stronger versions of available bosses.
The Slorm Temple
We've also been working on a new version of The Slorm Temple.
Our goal it to create a much different experience from what regular Expeditions are.
As for progression, we want to offer a real endless challenge with an ever increasing difficulty but also a "soft ending" and meaningful things to unlock along the way for players who are simply not compeled by the "Endless grind" structure.
Minor differences:
- The Slorm Temple no longer works with a "Prestige" mechanic, meaning you don't have to close The Slorm Temple to spend Pure Slorm. You actually can't close The Slorm Temple anymore.
- Instead, The Slorm Temple has a permanent progression. Once you've completed a Floor, you get to the next one and that's it.
- You can go back to a previously completed floor. Completing it again will now grant you Pure Slorm aswell.
- Being defeated in the Temple also does not reset your progression.
- Olorin will always be available in town (or inside the Temple) to sell his goods.
- These changes made some upgrades sold by Olorin irrelevant and were removed and replaced by new upgrades. Flat Pure Slorm Reward and % Pure Slorm Reward were removed and replaced by "Temple Defenses Damage" and "Temple Keeper Awakening" (more on that later).
- Elder Blade Vision, Vision of Purity and Vision of Olorin have been completely removed.
You will be refunded of any Pure Slorm spent on Upgrades that are no longer in the game as well as Upgrades made on Visions.
Your progress inside the Slorm Temple will also not reset but you will be soft-locked to floors where things are to be done (Boss to fight or Item to find) until you do said thing.
- Elder Slorm is now a physical globe-thingy that you have to pick up when you defeat an Elite.
- Pure Slorm can randomly spawn when engaging a fight inside The Slorm Temple.
- Additionally, salvaging Items with Pure Stat will now grant you a bit of Pure Slorm.
- Getting Pure Slorm should be smoother overall and can actually be done without even going inside The Slorm Temple, although not recommended.
Major Differences / New Additions:
A New Challenge
The Slorm Temple is under the watch or someone we call "The Temple Keeper".
He is a major threat inside The Temple and will change the dynamic of the floor you're in.
Once you start a floor inside The Slorm Temple, and after a small delay, The Temple Keeper will awaken and will activate the Temple Defenses.
Once these are active, various kind of obstacles will continuously appear during the rest of the floor, transforming the Temple in a dangerous area.
On top of that, a timer will start. It represents the time you have left before The Temple Keeper gets to you. Once he finds you, obstacles, traps and enemies will become even more dangerous.
Your goal is to get to the end of the floor before the Keeper gets to you.
With this mechanic, we tried to spice up each floor of the Temple and we tried to balance it so that each floor is actually a challenge and that you actually need to breathe before getting to the next floor.
We probably won't get the balance we want until later during Early Access but we do think it makes the Slorm Temple much more fun in its current state.
One of the new Upgrades sold by Olorin reduces damage dealt by traps/obstacles while the other delays the apparition of the Temple Keeper. Both should become mandatory at some point.
The Temple Keeper
We're also introducing The Temple Keeper as a boss in The Slorm Temple so you will actually get to fight him at some point.
You will have to defeat him 3 times during your progression. The third time being the "soft ending" of The Slorm Temple.
Every time you fight him, The Temple Keeper will add a new mechanic to his arsenal, so he will get increasingly stronger.
Ultimatums
Ultimatums are a new type of item that you can find inside specific floors of The Slorm Temple. They are unique but quite easy to find if you just keep making progress inside the Slorm Temple. There are a total of 15 Ultimatums to find.
Ultimatums are a new (yet pretty small) layer of customization for the player.
Ultimatums all have the same behavior: You get a good boost of a given stat, but this stat can no longer be modified by any other effect or item.
And you only get to equip one.
Example: Ultimatum of Impeccable Technique sets your Critical Strike Damage to 210%. However, you will no longer be able to increase that number with Passives, Auras, Reapers or Equipment. It is locked at 210%.
On top of that, you will be able to upgrade Ultimatums with Olorin, using Pure Slorm.
Each Ultimatum can be upgraded up to Level 15.
The Prison Update: Final checklist
Increased Level Cap
The Level Cap will be increased to 50 with our upcoming Update. New Attribute Traits should be within your reach.
New Ancestral Skill Tree Tier Available
A new Ancestral Stone can be found during Act II. This should lead to roughly 20 new Upgrades/Skills available to you once you The Prison Update is live.
I have 7 Ancestral Stones in the screenshot above for... reasons.
Extras
Finally, these are things we've mentioned in previous Slormite Chronicles and that will be available in the upcoming Prison Update.
Treasure Chests
You can now find chests of various sorts during Battlefield Expeditions.
They can contain loot of different sort: Goldus, Equipment, Slormites, Slormelines or Slormandrites.
Loot Filter
We're introducing a basic Loot Filter in The Slormancer that should help you quite a bit with the amount of equipment you have to manage and can even salvage equipment for you. How convenient.
Inventory
We're also adding a bunch of filters to the inventory so you can quickly get a better idea of what can be of use to you.
You will have the ability to easily throw an item and to easily split Slormites and Fragments into stacks of various sizes.
Auras
We've seen this request quite a bit so we had to do something about it: Auras will no longer disappear when you get back in town.
Balance
We have minor changes coming to the duration of Exaltations and the duration of some Cataclysms but that's about it. No worries. ;)
I'm pretty sure I forgot a few things but that's roughly what the next update will be about.
Hopefully, we will get it live before the next Slormite Chronicle!
Cheers!