Hello! It's been a really long and very weird week for us! We've been hard at work, and we've been improving the game in plenty of different places - and there's this paradox that even though we've made A LOT of fixes, you're going to see mostly relatively small (but essential) improvements this week.
We're constantly enhancing our back-end and working on things that are going to be ready-for-release within a couple of weeks, but since it's easy to say that and you don't really have a reason to trust us, we decided to share some of the information about what can you expect in the future ;)
So here's a couple of things we'd like to tell you about our upcoming patches and plans!
So –
Every run should reward you with something new, and we need a lot of new systems to make that happen - and also to track your achievements. We've already started coming up with ideas for a special journal that will contain information about the things you learned and unlocked in the game (serving both as a bestiary, lore-based journal, and comprehensive collection of statistics). But that’s not all - we’re going to add a lot of new cards, passive skills, and so on, so that there’s a proper reward system waiting for you in the future.
We're going to track your quests from run to run, too, so that it's clearer what's happening - because we're working on an over-arching storyline of Conquest. This will take some time, but, as we've said before, we're treating Conquest as a narrative-driven rogue-lite RPG, and we feel that this is something unique about this game, and we want to make this right.
When we're at this: we want to implement a general "structure" of the game. Right now, it feels like disjointed bits and pieces of various things, and we know that we need to make a proper overhaul of everything related to the overall user experience. From the way our menus work, through general UI, up to how you interact with most of our systems.
This will be a significant change - at some point. First, we want to make sure that the game will work properly on gamepads because this will drive some UI changes, and we're sure it will allow us to change the UI for the better (to streamline overcomplicated stuff). But don't worry, most of our devs are from the PC Master Race - we won't make any changes that will make the PC version of Tainted Grail worse.
Moreover, over time, we'll be changing the way the village works. We're not satisfied, like, at all with what we have right now. From the visual side of it (it's not as pretty as we'd like it to be) to general usability - all of this will be improved.
And while we're at it, we will be gradually changing some of our artworks and locations so that they're more Tainted Grail, less fantasy. We've stolen one of the artists from the board game department to help us out with that, and he's already making a lot of changes and suggestions :)
What else?
We have a massive list of additions and improvements you can expect in the coming months. I won't spoil much (but you can expect, for example, mercenaries for hire), but a couple of topics that CAN be spoiled are:
- We will redesign the way armor works in the game. Like, entirely. It's going to be a different system.
- We will change a couple of OP mechanics.
- We will add more stories and questlines after completing the first run, and a lot of village improvements.
- We will add a version of a crafting system and change the way weapons and armors currently behave. Without going into too much detail, one of the changes you can expect is that runes will have dedicated weapons (no more Druids with swords), and these weapons will have some variations in attributes. Still, their major source of power will lie in special gems/imbuements/tbd you'll be able to enhance them with. More details - soon!
- We're almost ready for constant data-driven balancing. Removing non-playable cards / passsives and adding new ones. Adding more non-game-breaking-combo-potential :)
- More content overall: - More variety of passives - More cards for each class - More enemies - More items
We have plenty of other things in store but, well, we'll get back to that in the future :)
So what's happening this week?
MAJOR FIXES:
Some of you’ll be very happy to hear that Derenheim Winterbane shouldn’t be immortal anymore!
Also, we’ve improved the visual feedback of passive rune upgrades you can see in combat.
In terms of visuals, we've finally added screen space ambient occlusion to the game, and this means that it should be visibly prettier and everything should just feel... heavier. And in place. And softer. See for yourselves:
And a feature you've been asking for:
Yes, you can see your passive skills in your character panel :)
Fixes, changes:
- Legendary Cards shouldn't duplicate information about being Legendary
- Blood Druid Staff now correctly sacrifices your health.
- Robes are robes. 4 new Armor skins implemented.
- Fixed character pose in character creation
- Clothes are changing in class select window when you are changing your runes
- Fixed a bug that caused your character to heal every time you performed a summon
- Now Legendary cards are truly one-time-use-only
- Glyph of Enhancing Reforge is properly working now
- Weaved in Spells and Deep Reserves cannot be used if no Summon is alive
- Brawler Axe won't taunt enemies at the start of combat.
- Flutes targeting specific creatures won't target your summons
- Fixed a bug that turned off Staggering Strength Brawler Reforge when you picked Stone-breaker Reforge. (Explosive Force, however, is still broken)
- Fixed a bug that caused Steel-eater to show that it dealt 0 Damage
- Spawners can spawn more enemies, because now they can spawn enemies in place where they were standing.
- Battlelog shows correct information after Bounty Hunter actions (inserting Disturbance card into your deck)
Village and Map changes and balancing
- Manasse can only spawn once and only per run.
Lost Soul Rebalance:
- Discard works only 2 times and costs 500 G (rising after every use)
- Healing Mixture added to level 3 of Lost Soul's shop.
Seamstress Rebalance:
- Healing is 100 G (rising after every use)
- Discard is 500 G (rising after every use)
Also: Seamstress can change your character’s appearance now
Master-At-Arms Rebalance:
- Drawing Cards costs 350 G (rising after every use)
- Duplication costs 500 G (rising after every use)
- Setting Cards As Starting Hand costs 750 G
- Changes to Unyielding Steel armor:
- Gives +100 Max HP instead of 50
- Now reduces your Armor by 20
- Special Ability chaged to: "At the start of every 2 turns gain 1 Block"
- Price increased to 350 from 200
Summoner
FIRST BALANCE BASS. STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS!
Druid’s Summoner Rune
- Maximum charge count changed to 18 from 12.
- Charge thresholds for Ultimate ability changed from 4 , 8, 12 to 6, 12, 18.
- Passive skill now grants +15% Damage per Summoned Creature instead of +25%.
- Reforge Glyphs of Sustenance have had their Barrier generation buff increased from +50% to +100%.
- Reforge Glyphs of Shielding changed - now grants +2 Rune Charges per Turn.
Druid’s Summoner Deck & Passives:
- One Sacrifice Card has been cut from the initial deck in favor of +1 Ritual Card.
- Sacrifice now costs 1 Energy, and all effects except for Damage are removed.
- Invoke has had its Cost increased from 2 to 3.
- Reverse Seal has had its Cost increased from 1 to 2.
- Surge has had its Cost increased from 1 to 2.
- Power Up has had its Damage buff decreased from +100% to +30%.
- Coordinated Assault has had its Damage buff decreased from +50% to +25%.
- Swarm ‘Em! has had its Damage buff decreased from +50% to +25%.
- Cleansing has had its Cost reduced from 4 to 2 and its HP cost from 25% to 20%.
Summoned Creatures:
- All Summon-type Cards now cost 5% of Max HP.
- Golem now has no Armor and increased HP pool per each level. Healing capability increased from level 3 and beyond, but can now only heal self.
- Wyrm’s Damage has been nerfed slightly per each level, now attacks with less hits for the sake of better readability.
- Abomination no longer grows in its Damage exponentially. Armor removed and HP lowered.
- Blood Totem Energy buffs no longer allow for infinite combo. Damage buff was decreased at high levels, but now grants Damage buff at level 2+.
- Now Blood Totem also heals the player on Activation.
That's all for this week!
Let us know what you think, report bugs, and come chat with us at our Discord server! I have to tell you, though, that I'll be off next week (holiday, yay, finally!) so, unfortunately, I won't be able to answer your questions! I'll get back to regularly answering when I get back to work around the 20th of June :)