Our biggest update ever is here! The bonus endgame dungeon The Choicemaker's Tomb is now open!
Level cap increased to 120
The level cap has been increased from 99 to 120. This will let you enjoy leveling up your party members in the new dungeon even if you were previously maxed.
One thing to note, if you had previously power-leveled and had more experience than the 99 cap allowed, your xp will be reset to 99 as soon as you go to the world map, the final dungeon, or into the Choicemaker's Tomb.
The Choicemaker's Tomb
As promised pre-launch, our first of two super hard endgame dungeons is now complete and open for you to explore. It is the biggest dungeon in the game (even bigger than the final dungeon). Expect to be pushed to your limits strategically in the battles and intellectually in the puzzles of the dungeon.
How to get there
The quest that leads you to the Choicemaker's Tomb starts in the Knowledge Repository in Moloke very close to the end of the game. Speak with the woman in the middle of the second floor and she'll guide you to her home and tell you about the dungeon. Once you get back to the world map, you will find the tomb in a ring of mountains on the Hess-erabian continent accessible only via airship.
Battles
Battles are handled differently in The Choicemaker's Tomb. With the severely increased challenge of this dungeon, we didn't want you simply being able to run from every battle, or save and reload each time you stumbled across a specific enemies you don't want to fight.
There are no random battles! (Yey?) Now you trigger battles by stepping on purple battle traps. The battles are also sequential meaning you have to face and overcome each specific group of enemies in order to progress. However, there is a rare item you can find that will let you skip a battle and face the next set of enemies. This system also lets you try different parties and equipment set-ups to overcome each specific battle--something that is impossible with random battles. This lets us make the challenge of the battles even greater.
1v1 battle
Previously in the game there was only one 1v1 battle. We always planned on doing more and there is a quite difficult one about halfway through this dungeon. Enjoy!
Three Team Dungeon
In all the JRPGs I've ever played, my favorite final dungeon is Kefka's Tower from Final Fantasy VI. I always loved that you had three teams of different characters that had to work together to get through the dungeon. I also loved that you had to spread your equipment out across all your characters to try to make balanced teams. There's just a ton of strategy in that gameplay design... so I replicated it in the second half of the Choicemaker's Tomb. It's full of puzzles and difficult battles with only 3 characters in each team. You thought the battles were hard with 4 characters! >:) Also it's nice to see Ralts finally getting his chance to lead a team. :-)
Ties to Einlanzer
The Choicemaker's Tomb update ties Divided Reigns' world to our previous game Einlanzer. It was hinted at by several things including the Choicemaker's churches. This update expands the lore drastically. There are also many homages to Einlanzer. In the tomb you will find tremendously powerful new gear that was once used by each of the 10 main characters from Einlanzer. If you've played both games, you'll certainly enjoy the tie-ins. If you didn't play Einlanzer, don't worry--you won't be confused or lost in any way.
Weapon Rebalance
in my recent Hard mode playthrough, I started to notice an issue as the game went on. The issue is that the power of the weapon you chose to equip didn't seem to matter enough. If you wanted to have a lot of attack power, it was all in your accessories and other gear. I found myself either building glass cannons (all offense and almost no defense) or not attacking at all.
To fix this, every weapon in the game has had its attack power increased by 20%! This should make which weapon you choose to equip a much more impactful decision. Also, every accessory or other piece of gear that increases attack now grants slightly less (except the Power Ring). Those Strength Belts were too good before and you know it! :-P
Enemy Defenses Rebalance
Compounding the issue above, I also found in my playthrough that if you don't build glass cannon (all offense), you can do very little attack damage especially to heavily armored enemies. What's the point of equipping a tank to do some counter-attacking if those counter-attacks barely scratch the enemy? What's the point of attacking with a character if their attack damage is 10% of your main attacker's?
To address this issue...
1. All attack skills now calculate the enemy's defense to a slightly lower degree.
2. Each enemy that used to have a massive amount of armor now has less armor, but lowers all physical damage by a %.
3. Counter-attacks are slightly weaker now but calculate in about HALF the enemy's armor that they used to. Now you should never get a big ugly lame 0 damage from a counter-attack.
Simplified example:
- Previous: Armored Man used to have 300 armor.
- Attack for 800 damage and 500 damage gets through (not too bad because you built this character strong)
- Attack for 350 damage and only 50 damage gets through (not fun)
- Now: Armored Man has 150 armor but reduces all physical damage by 25%
- Attack for 800 damage and you end up dealing 488 damage (almost the same as before)
- Attack for 350 damage and you end up dealing 150 damage (the target is still tanky, but at least you can damage it without building super offensive)
NPC Dialogues
We have received many glowing reviews recently. Thank you SO much! We read every single one. In a couple, reviewers said they'd wished NPC dialogue changed more as the game progressed to reflect what was happening in the world. Now they do!
I wrote new dialogue for most of the NPCs in the entire game. Many have multiple dialogue changes as the story progresses. There are so many now that I doubt you could ever read them all. There are also a couple who reward you for heroic deeds.... ;-)
New Sadak-Reel Challenge
While I was creating new NPC dialogues all across the game, I came across a building that was previously inaccessible in Sadak-Reel. Vooresh soldiers guarded it, but eventually they pull out. Previously they were just... still there. Now they're gone and the building is accessible! I wanted to do something fun and new with it. There is a very powerful and unique item hidden in there as well as a strange and powerful new enemy. Go check it out!
That's it for this update! We hope you enjoy The Choicemaker's Tomb! As always, please take a moment to review Divided Reigns. It helps us tremendously!
-Andrew Ryan Henke - Founder of Nostalgia Addict Games