Hello Pretenders!
Welcome to the first update of the Serpent's Catacombs 🐍
In today’s patch you’ll be able to loot Champions’ special weapons. The rate is unchanged since the Jaguar Temple (20%), so good luck to all! We can’t wait to read your theories about how to drop them. Eventually, we’ll reveal the unlocking conditions, so stay tuned!
This update also adds a lot of bug fixes and balancing, plus a big rework of the fire and poison effects. You’ll probably be a bit surprised by some of the changes that we made, hopefully in a good way! We’ll be waiting for your feedback to see your first impressions!
:: PATCH NOTE ::
Version 0.19.1 - July 15th, 2020
🍉 = Community additions
New features
- New Champion’s weapon - "K'etyaam yaan", Witch's Crook
- New Champion’s weapon - "Disembowler", Dread Claw Design note: Two new weapons are now to be dropped when defeating the Serpent Champions (one for each)! As for the Jaguar Champions' weapons, they only can be dropped if you achieve a special hidden condition during the fight.
- Pistols Reskins + New Icons: All the pistols now have their own icons and 3D models
- Fire & Poison Synergy: The damage over time from Fire is doubled if a character is also Poisoned. Design note: Elemental synergy! Be careful, this also applies for the player character!
- Fire/Burning: Enemies on fire now take a small amount of damage over time. This amount is always the same for all enemies. Some Champions, like the Cursed Twins, remain immune to burning. The Dark Avatar of the Jaguar does not take damage over time while burning Design note: Taking damage over time while on Fire feels more natural and encourages the player to set enemies on fire. It is also more consistent with the fact that the player character takes damage over time from fire.
Balancing
- Difficulty levels: Players' resistance in Medium explorations is now the same as Short ones. Long ones now also give a (lower) boost of resistance. Hard Explorations remain the same as before Design note: We chose to slightly lower the difficulty of Medium and Long explorations to smooth the progression and let players discover more content. Hard mode remains in place for greater challenges.
- Dark Avatar of the Serpent (Final Serpent Boss): The Serpent Boss fight has been reviewed to create a more unique and challenging fight Design note: We are still monitoring this fight, you can expect further changes according to feedback.
- The Abomination (2nd Serpent Champion): Abomination now triggers a poisonous explosion when going into frenzy mode and is more pro-active during non-frenzy phases Design note: The Abomination fight had a tendency to be a little too predictable. This should help make the fight more dynamic.
- 🍉 Prophetesses: Prophetesses can no longer be healed by other healers Design note: Same as for Blood Priests, healers should not heal each other to avoid long and tedious fights.
- Blessing - Eagle’s Fascination: Completely changed the behavior of this blessing. Its new effect is now “Killing a Weakened enemy spreads Weaken effect to a close enemy" Design note: Previous design was problematic as it was too weak by itself unless paired with the Endless Greed Blessing, then becoming powerful. It was too weak for new players and mandatory/broken for advanced players (thus limiting the choice of Blessings to equip). This new Blessing should bring new possibilities, encouraging tactical and aggressive behavior. Text will be translated in all languages in a next update.
- Blessing - Endless Greed: Merged this blessing with the effect of the previous Eagle's Fascination. Endless Greed now freezes the Greed Kill timer when not in combat and increase all damage dealt by 1% for each Greed Kill count (up to 100%) Design Note: Endless Greed was too powerful when combined with the previous Eagle's Fascination, making this last blessing very weak on its own. Merging the two blessings allows a more balanced effect and leaves more Blessing choices for players.
- 🍉 Two-Handed Spears: Charged Attacks' move damage multiplier back to 50% x2 (from 75% x2) Design note: Spears are naturally powerful when properly used, the previous Charged attack buff made them too strong and less interesting to play with.
- 🍉 Two-Handed Heavy Weapons: Significantly reduced the time during which you cannot dodge/roll after 1st and 2nd combo hits Design note: Lowering recovery from heavy weapons should make them more practical by allowing quicker dodges/parry in the middle of a combo.
- Incandescent Claws: Raw Damage set to 13 (from 15) Design note: Setting enemies on fire with a Primary Weapon is strong. This change is related to new fire's damage over time property.
Fixed bugs
- 🍉 Bestiary: Fixed unlocking conditions for the Serpent Cultists portrait
- 🍉 Hard Explorations: Fixed Improved Attack Speed for Elite Serpent enemies during Hard Explorations
- The Abomination (2nd Serpent Champion): Fixed Abomination Projectile attack. It now can be properly reflected by “Fulmination”, Death’s Rampart
- Crystal skulls drop: Fixed the Crystal Skulls count dropped by the Abomination and the Dark Avatar of the Serpent
Notes & Known bugs
We are still currently working on the Final Boss of the Serpent Catacombs (the Dark Avatar of the Serpent), despite having made some changes already. We’re looking for some feedback about your fight experience with him. We hope to enhance the combat by adding some moves, balancing, and other interactions. If you have some ideas, drop them in the comment below or on our Discord Server, channel #suggestion-box.
- Crash when a controller disconnects
- Character can go OOB when being so fast that the game can’t cope with him
- Poison and fire shouldn’t kill you, but it does. Sorry?
What’s cooking in the Temple
We are slowing down the tempo. The new rhythm of updates will be 1/month! This will let us focus on more significant changes in the game (as well as a new Temple!). Check out the road map below:
