Hello everyone!
I wanted to take the time to update you all on what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s been a bit of time since the big Hidden update, so lets recap what’s going on, how things went, and what’s next!
The Hidden Update
To cut a long story short, the Hidden Update (from pretty much all accounts) was a great success! A massive thank you to everyone who has reached out with feedback — it was great to see such a positive reaction around the changes.
The Numbers
We had some target numbers in mind when it comes to win rates etc that we really wanted the new Hidden to fall into. As of right now, everything has trended upwards, and numbers fall (for the most part), within 1% of our goal. This is so great to see, The Hidden and the Tempest are both now sitting very close (no really, like… REALLY close) to each other in power level, win rate etc. Excatly what the goal was.
The Response
But its not just about numbers for me! Always its important to know how the class feels to play — and on that front, its been almost exclusively positive as well. A lot of people commenting about the new changes to the artifact, the free combo, and being able to spend it now more willingly. The Hidden has been revitalised in a lot of peoples eyes, and people are enjoying the new power level.
Thank you again to everyone who has reached out, left comments, DM’ed me, chatted in the Discord etc. The only way to know how this stuff feels is to hear it from you all, and I appreciate anyone who takes the time to do so!
All in all, a great step forward for the Hidden and Vault of the Void overall. I’m excited to move onto the next class focus, the Enlightened.
The Enlightened
Work is already underway on the Enlightened changes. I will preface this by saying —don’t expect a major overhaul on anything with him. Right now he’s in a pretty decent spot, and the focus will be just bumping numbers up in a few places, adding a bunch of new cards, and addressing a few pain points (2 cost Openers, 2 costs in general etc). This process is already underway and you can expect to hear more about this next week as it moves into testing!
Resolution Changes — Ultra Wide Screen Support
Right now, when not spending time in the trenches discussing/changing the Enlightened, all my time is spent working on the new resolution changes for the game. The goal with this was primarily to extend support now to Ultra Wide screen monitors, and also address the “black bars” that appear on certain resolutions. It also means that when the game extends to handheld devices (Steam Deck, iPad, Switch etc), it will conform perfectly.
This is a pretty major overhaul to be honest. I’ve spent around 3 days on it full time so far, and only have 3 screens or “rooms” fully converted. When I first started working on Vault, I had zero knowledge when it came to programming, let alone game development. Ideally, this would have been something the game supported from the beginning — however now it's just something I have to cycle back and retrofit. I’ve learnt a lot in the last 3 years!
The downside to this, is just time. I need to continue working on this to ensure it's ready for the Enlightened update, and splitting an update its tough. I’m hoping the rest comes together pretty smoothly over the next week or so, but I apologise in advance if it delays the updates for a week or so as I get it all finalised. Once done, the game will have a proper resolution selector, it scales to the game window and scales all game assets in the same way.
Sorry again that this fall right in the middle of development — but once done we’ll be in a great place moving forward!
1000 Reviews
Over the last week or so we hit a very amazing milestone! 1000 total steam reviews — unreal! Thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a review over the past 18 months. I’ve mentioned it before, but Vault doesn’t have a big marketing team or publisher behind it at all. Steam Reviews are the main way Vault gets out and shared with others, and hence I’m extremely thankful.
I previewed an alternative Affliction card artwork pack a while back, featuring the Treasure Goblin himself! The next patch I’ll include instructions on how to claim this in game, as a big thank you to you all for helping Vault become what it is!
That’s all from me for now! Thanks again to everyone for playing and enjoying Vault of the Void. The journey so far has been incredible and I’m excited for the future.
Take care, all for now!
- Josh
