Rogue Legacy 2 - Patch v0.4.0 - The Drifting Worlds Update

If you'd like to view the patch notes in an easy-to-read format on our website, you can check it out at the link below:

roguelegacy2.com/patchnotes/v040

We are now over the hump with our third major content patch, and are well on our way to including most of what we wanted with Rogue Legacy 2. We still have a few surprises in-store for future updates, but the Drifting Worlds marks a milestone in our development roadmap! From new features that extend replayability, to massive optimization work, we’ve got a ton of things in-store for this update. Chief among them is the opening of the Drift House, a curious dwelling that holds the mysteries of both space and time. There’s also a host of new content including classes, traits, skills, and a brand new biome to explore, the Sun Tower.

**IMPORTANT**
You know the drill. Folks with current save files will discover that all of their skills have been reset, and all Runes and Gear have been unequipped. No Blueprints or Runes have been lost, and the majority of your money spent on skills have been REFUNDED. These steps are a consequence of economy balancing that we perform with every content patch. Don’t forget to SPEND YOUR GOLD before entering the castle! Charon will take every nickel and dime if you let him!

GAME UPDATES

Slay the Spire – The Drifting Worlds Update introduces the Sun Tower, a deadly region that will test the dexterity of even the most seasoned players. You must hone all your skills to scale its perilous heights and discover what fuels the sinister world of Rogue Legacy 2. One false step could send a hapless hero plummeting to the depths below. The Sun Tower is far and away our most challenging biome yet, so be sure you are well-equipped before tackling this spire.

Like Oil And Water – For this update we are experimenting with two radically different classes, the Lancer and the Boxer. The Lancer is an unorthodox champion that attacks slowly whilst retaining hyper-mobility. Charge up your Dragon Lance and take to the skies. The thrust is powerful, but you can’t be too reckless, as a mis-aimed launch may send you bouncing into a bed of spikes. On the other hand, the Boxer prefers to get up-close and personal. Pull off a rapid flurry of jabs to make enemies see stars, then launch them into each other with the explosive Knockout punch.

Relationships – Just as important as the ever-changing Kingdom is the oasis you build on the Docks throughout your adventure. We wanted to make the world a little more alive, so now many of your companions have a story to tell. Life goes on while you’re away, so make sure to take a moment to relax and catch up with the going-ons of these colourful character.

Fabled Weapons – We are moving the Curio Shoppe out of experimental and expanding it with Fabled Weapons, extremely powerful items with dangerous drawbacks. Wield the Fury’s Hammer, and drive through your foes as a spinning tornado. Or harness the power of the Enkindled Gauntlets to launch fireballs with reckless abandon, and set the world (including yourself) aflame. Keep your eyes peeled, as these weapons are only available for lucky players that come across them during their adventures.

Mastery Rehaul – Our original implementation of the Mastery system compared the player’s Manor level to the enemy’s level to determine how much XP you were awarded when defeating them. This meant it was better to NEVER purchase skills in your Manor if your goal was to gain Class experience points. We’ve done away with this and adopted a more familiar approach where the deeper you go, the more XP you gain. In general, XP grinding is going down as long as you keep venturing deeper into the Kingdom.

Economy Tweaks – Gold accumulation is good, but everything else was sort of broken. We’ve redone Ore and Aether to scale better with NG+ and beyond. Rune drops have also been adjusted to follow a more linear pattern, with each Rune collected slowly raising the level requirement of all other Runes. This new formula will allow duplicates to appear sooner, and create a more diverse spread of Rune drops for the player. It’s also future proof, which is a plus!

Another Soul Saved – We are approaching the actual purpose for those mysterious Souls that are awarded after defeating each Estuary. In preparation for this we are fixing some longstanding issues with the resource, namely folks sometimes not receiving them. Because it is such a valuable commodity (or at least will be), we’ve added a system that constantly checks your profile to ensure you are awarded with the Souls you’ve earned, no matter what happens.

Commanders – For this patch we are spicing up enemy combat by introducing Commanders. Commanders are special villains that are given a random buff which drastically affects the encounter. This adds more diversity to the battle and encourages players to stay alert, even against foes they’ve beaten dozens of times before. These bad boys have been in the design doc since Day 1, so we’re excited to finally bring them out.

The One With Byaarrith – We’ve received a number of reports from players claiming that a portrait on the Golden Door was not revealed after defeating the boss in the Axis Mundi. While this was an intentional part of the lore, we fully understand the confusion, so we have decided to officially add him to the gang. What role he plays in the story though is still up to players to discover...

THE DRIFTHOUSE

Sitting derelict at the Docks since the Early Access launch of Rogue Legacy 2, the Drift House is finally opening its boarded doors. It is currently the home of Charon’s Chthonic siblings, who each bring their own twist to the Rogue Legacy universe.

Scars of Erebus – Tended by Geras the Caretaker, Erebus is a region full of festering nightmares that the player must subdue. Engage in specially curated challenges to truly test your skills, and earn unique trophies when triumphant. These encounters are difficult, but scouring the kingdom may reward you with handicaps that give you an edge.

The Threads of Fate – One of our major goals for Rogue Legacy 2 was to ensure the post-game content was as diverse as the initial playthrough. To fulfill that vision we’re introducing Elpis, the Bearer of Hope, an enigmatic figure that can transport you back and forth between Threads. Each Thread represents a New Game Plus level, and traversing them comes at a cost. Not only do enemies get harder, but players must change the rules of the world through a new system called ‘Burdens’.

Burdens allow you to customize your NG+ experience by letting you choose how the challenge is raised. From increasing enemy damage, to altered room mechanics, to encountering new and empowered bosses, it’s up to you to decide how the game gets harder. But greater risk also brings greater rewards. Increased level caps, better loot drops, and additional lore awaits you with each higher Thread.

The Threads of Fate and the Scars of Erebus represent only the beginning of what to expect in the Drift House. There’s a lot of space within those rustic walls, and we have plans to bring a ton more with each new content release.

OPTIMIZATION TAKE TWO

Even though a lot of time was spent on optimization during our last content patch, we found that performance didn’t really improve for some people. This was a sign that we had to make some deep-level changes. And dig deep we did. We’ve spent more time optimizing the Drifting Worlds than every previous patch combined, and revamped much of the back-end. The camera system has been completely redone, and our post-process stack was replaced with a much friendlier version. Our profiling has shown an improvement on GPU usage by several times, and while much was achieved, the job is still not finished. Our next task is to do the same on the CPU-side, but that will have to wait for our next content patch. Our quest for better performance is never-ending, and we hope players will appreciate the steps taken so far.

ADDITIONAL GAMEPLAY CHANGES

• Ranger Update: Base Strength increased. This should make them more competitive with the Gunslinger.
• Assassin Update: Third strike generates more mana, and only the third strike reduces cooldowns. This let us make the cooldown for the Assassin occur on 6 hits rather than 21, and allows their talent to work better across classes.
• Freeze Spell (Community): 75% larger, deals more damage, but now has a cooldown.
• Wind Wall Spell (Community): Deals more damage, higher knockback, travels further, and now has a cooldown.
• Community: Spin kick attack lasts a bit longer.
• Made changes to the following enemies:
  • Sword Knight Enemies (Community): More aggressive, deal less damage.
  • Flying Hammers: Smaller, and weaker, but no change to their AI yet. That will be a future patch.
  • Flying Shields (Community): Now have an aim indicator. Increased the turn speed when it is performing a spin attack.
  • Skeleton Mages: New move given to the variants.
  • Gong Heads: Now immune to knockback and freeze. Goodbye cheese!
  • Ice Mages: Added a new spread attack and fixed a broken AI loop.
  • Wisps: Fixed bug where they would dash in place.
  • Blob fish: Can now jump onto ledges.
  • Lamech: A delay was added to when the sword flame gout projectile can deal damage.
  • Enemy AI: Expert Enemy Variants Aggression Increased
  • Enemy AI: Enemies now look further for the player (less static enemies when the camera pulls out).

• Added or changed the following traits:
  • Pacifist (Community): HP raised from 30% to 40%. Gold bonus lowered from 175% to 150%. Can now swing their sign, and an additional change has been added.
  • Panic Attack (Community): Darkness now fades in rather than pops.
  • New Trait: Spelunker.
  • New Trait: Pacifier.
  • New Trait: Hypercoagulation.
  • New Trait: Compulsive Hoarder.

• Added or changed the following relics:
  • Redesigned Relic: Coeus Shell now rewards a free hit after defeating X enemies.
  • Redesigned Relic (Community): Diogenes Bargain now converts gold bonus into XP bonus.
  • Fixed Relic: Heavy Stone Bargain now reduces gunslinger’s range as well.
  • Fixed Relic: Vanguard’s Banner now gives you the appropriate damage increase.
  • New Relic: Incandescent Telescope.
  • New Relic: Zealot’s Ring.
  • New Relic: Hector’s Helm.
  • New Relic: Achilles Shield.
  • New Relic: Grave Bell.
  • New Relic: Boxing Bell.
  • New Relic: Weird Mushroom.
  • New Relic: Empty Vessel.
  • Community: Changed logic so that if a player collects a relic and reaches max stacks, if another relic room spawned that relic, it changes it to a special replacement relic instead.

• Community: Odds of getting Traits (vs Antiques) increased.
  
• Echo’s Heirloom includes a new tutorial sequence that explains resonant enemies.
  
• Hidden journal in tutorial is now a memory.
  
• Cleaned starting player numbers. Everything now starts at 15.
  
• We’ve added in custom weight distribution to special rooms. Now Healing and Arena rooms will be rarer, and Curio and Relic rooms will be more common.
  
• Can now jump cancel a void dash (only the extended part).
  
• 200 Relationship events have been added.
  
• 8 new Skill slots have been added.
  
• 3 new Gear sets have been added.
  
• 5 Challenges of Geras have been added.
  
• 11 Burdens have been added.
  
• 6 Commander buffs have been added.
  
• 4 Fabled Weapons have been added.
  
• New Status Effect: Combo.
  
• New Armor Equation: No more armor shred from basic enemies, minimum block lowered. *Certain Commanders and Burdens can still apply armor shred.
  
• Quenching Runes now raises minimum damage blocked AND restores shredded armor.
  
• Stygian Study Entrance revamped to better guide the players towards the bridge.
  
• You can now stand on the canopy to Curio Shoppes.
  
• Added game setting to disable reload when pressing the USE button.
  
• Reworded a bunch of game and graphics settings.
  
• Community: Doors on the map that connect to other biomes are now tinted red.
  
• Community: The skill that gives the player HP and MP when entering a Boss room now only triggers once for each Boss per run.
  
• Changed the colours of the shield block effect so it is clearer when a perfect shield block occurs.
  
• Replaced post-processing stack with an optimized, custom implementation.
  
• Added a wide variety of new and missing sound effects.
  
• Optimized enemy physics.
  

BUG FIXES

• Community: Fixed collision bug where player could slip through slopes if they were moving in the same direction as the slope at a low enough FPS (a VERY special thanks to StacKTGaming on our Discord server for extensive testing and isolating the cause).
• Community: Fixed a lore entry which referenced things before they should have been known.
• Ground-to-air collision checking has been improved. Spear knights no longer dash off ledges (unless they're knocked into the air before dashing).
• Community: All rooms with legacy items fixed.
• Community: So many text fixes, so many typos!
• Community: Namaah is now Naamah. Bloodstone is now Red Aether.
• Community: Fixed “Adoption Center” randomly appearing in place of “Career Center” in Skill Tree.
• Community: Fixed bug where changing equipment would lose the Distattuned effect.
• Fixed bug where PS4 touchpad glyph was not displaying correctly.
• Fixed bug where aiming at 0, 90. 180, and 270 degrees would sometimes have effects rotated in the wrong direction due to float precision point errors.
• Community: Fixed crash bug when exiting a Fairy room by returning to Main Menu or by dying, and then entering another Fairy room afterward.
• Community: Fixed bug where if an ability switched to a different state on the same frame it entered the first state, the player would get stuck in that state (most noticeable with Gunslinger getting stuck).
• Fixed bug where deco locations were being mispositioned.
• Fixed numerous scenarios where disabled hitboxes would cause problems when attempting to re-enable them.
• Fixed bug where Nightmares would appear behind some terrain.
• Community: Fixed bug where players could fall through Magic platforms if they performed a platform drop maneuver fast enough.
• Fixed bug where enemies would sometimes fall through one-ways when spawning in Fairy rooms.
• Community: Reverted a change to how damage negated by armor is displayed.
• Fixed bug where decos on a prop were not correctly matching their owner prop's rotation.
• Fixed minor bug where speech bubble arrow was appearing behind speech bubble.
• Fixed bug where player would hover while on the ground when firing an aimable ability.
• Teleporters are now properly sorted in the Teleporter menu.
• Fixed bug where Axis Mundi Boss Entrance was being recognized as a bonus room instead of a boss entrance on map.
• Fixed bug where flight knockback acceleration was glitching out if you hit certain enemies during certain attacks.
• Added Resolve cost to Gear card.
• Community: Fixed bug where you could jump off crumbling platforms or fall through them before they detected player collision.
• Community: Pausing the game now auto-disables mouse confining to the screen.
• Fixed bug where player would end up on wrong side of Pizza Girl when talking to her at the Docks.
• Refactored how damage is calculated for both player and enemies so that damage mods are added together then applied, rather than multiplicatively applying to the damage one-by-one.
• Dummies no longer trigger vampirism.
• Fixed bug where player aim indicator was not the correct length when aiming completely up or down.
• Fixed bug where Lamech's beam ability changed colour whenever the player dashed.
• Player can no longer drop through platforms while aiming an ability.
• Community: Fixed bug where IBS would continually replace a swapped talent from the Curio Shoppe.
• Fixed bug where hours played in the profile window was not being displayed correctly.
• Community: Teleporter menu can now properly fit all current teleporters.
• Fixed bug where switching to Mage from the Skill Tree could give you the same spell and talent.
• Tweaked Status Bar to better handle display of status effects on large characters.
• Community: When unable to afford something at the Blacksmith or Enchantress, the buy button is now faded out.
• Fixed bug where Flying portraits would sometimes suddenly stop moving.
• Fixed bug where "Now Entering" would appear during the Golden Door Portrait cutscene.
• Fixed bug where jumping within leeway but not actually touching the ground would not reset air dashes.
• Fixed bug where entering a room where enemies are within hidden walls would run a darken animation as opposed to starting them darkened.
• Community: Fixed bug where player could soft-lock the game if they picked up a relic or curio shoppe ability the moment they left its trigger bounds.
• Community: Fixed bug where culling an enemy that was in mid-attack would not reset their animation when they re-appeared, resulting in them being stuck in weird animations.
• Fixed bug where you could purchase a skill in the Skill Tree with the right mouse button.
• Fixed bug where after closing the Skill Tree popup in the Skill Tree, the selection indicator would highlight a skill the mouse cursor was over (if it was over one) instead of the last skill the player had selected.
• Community: Fixed bug where dying on the same frame you entered a new room would result in a soft crash.
• Fixed bug where Pacifist was not using the correct walking animation.
• Community: Fixed death window resource display spacing issues.
• Objective Complete HUD now disappears when the game is paused to avoid visual conflicts with the pause menu.
• Community: Fixed bug where reloading a save file as a Chef made collecting health drops not reduce cooldown as expected.
• Fixed bug where disabled prop lights on the lowest quality setting were being turned back on whenever the prop was unculled.
• Attempted bug fix where Mimics would slide across the ground while dying.
• Fixed Sage Totem not animating correctly when being spoken to.
• Fixed bug where you could reset controller defaults with keyboard, and reset keyboard defaults with controller.
• Added attack flip check logic to hittable projectiles.
• Fixed crash bug in one of the rooms in the Axis Mundi.
• Community: Fixed bug where if game does not have focus while teleporting to the Forest Boss entrance and the door opening cutscene kicks in, the game will pause, resulting in allowing the player to move afterward after unpausing.
• Fixed bug where you could get twin relics even if you could only obtain one more of that relic before it reached max stacks.
• Fixed bug where damage mods on enemies were only triggering when you ran into them, and was not being applied to their projectiles.
• Fixed bug where Flying Shield would do a glitchy turn animation after exiting spin attack.
• Community: Fixed bug where system would not consider all items picked up if health was on the ground even if you were vegan.
• Community: Fixed bug where max health apple in healing room was not displaying any additional damage mods that would apply (like Vampire).
• Community: Special platforms are no longer considered respawnable ground, so you will no longer teleport back to them when hitting water or clouds.
• Community: Fixed bug where player could use global teleporters in mid-air.
• Community: Fixed bug where Flame Barrier spell size would fluctuate depending on the size of the player the last time it was cast.
• Fixed bug where rotated effects would not take scale into account when rotating the position offset.
• Bosses no longer drop items when defeated. All awards are given from the chest.
• Community: Fixed bug where any non-direct attacks that killed an enemy would not trigger Pandora's Bargain.
• Fixed bug where player would sometimes do a brief run animation after opening a chest with a special item inside.
• Fixed bug where Flying Axes would stop moving if they got close enough to your character's midpoint.
• Community: Player card now displays more accurate stats.
• Fixed graphical bug on right side of screen while approaching the Murmur boss.
• Community: Fixed bug where relic cost was calculated incorrectly for multiples of the same relic.
• Fixed bug where changing biomes would cause tabletop decorations to reappear even if their owner prop was destroyed.
• Fixed bug where destroying a prop would not destroy the decorations on top of it.
• Fixed bug where Gongheads headshake audio could loop even after their animation stopped.
• Community: Fixed bug where items would sometimes spawn inside walls (for real this time!).
• Fixed bug where heirs could sometimes have traits that conflicted with each other.
• Fixed bug where the ambient audio in the character selection screen would stop playing if you re-rolled heirs.
• Fixed bug where Lamech's jump attack could cancel the player's animation.
• Fixed bug where Lamech would sometimes slide along the ground after landing from his jump attack.
• Fixed bug where Skeleton Archers would sometimes shoot their arrows backwards.
• Fixed bug where several enemy projectiles would turn blue when the player dashed.
• Community: Fixed bug where exiting a room immediately after leaving a teleporter orb would cause the player to become invincible and prevent them from entering any more teleporters.
• Fixed bug where True Enoch would not play the boss death impact slowdown/strike effect.
• Fixed bug where Gongheads, Murmur, and True Enoch did not have freeze immunity.
• Fixed bug where True Enoch potion projectiles could not be reflected.
• Community: Fixed bug where void spike balls could be dashed through even if you did not have Void Dash unlocked.
• Fixed bug where Murmur's status effect icon was displayed off-screen.
• Fixed bug where Mimic Chest coin projectiles would have their particle effects appear in incorrect places.
• Fixed bug where the player could gain mana from enemy status effect damage ticks.
• Fixed bug where farting on the death screen would not play any sound effects.
• Fixed bug where boss doors weren't playing destruction sound effects.
• Fixed bug where the skeleton bosses weren't playing explosion sound effects on death.
• Fixed bug where Naamah's intro cutscene would play the same sound three times.
• Removed dash attack buffs from the airborne Axe attack.
• Community: The Enchantress/Blacksmith UI now displays "MAX" instead of "Buy" if the rune/gear is full.
• Fixed bug where dash attacking an object that ricochets the player back resulted in glitchy physics.
• Fixed bug where unlocking a plaque at the Docks via the skill tree would result in a crash if you tried reading that plaque immediately afterward.
• Fixed animation bugs with Blob Fish.
• Fixed bug where player and enemies would crash if they were killed by two separate sources on the same update.
• Fixed bug where auto-pausing when losing focus could kick in during the cutscene where the gate opens in Axis Mundi, allowing the player to move when the game was unpaused.
• Fixed bug where Pizza Girl could no longer be interacted with after speaking to her the first time you meet her.
• Ivy Canopy no longer shows a countdown timer while the platform is active. The cooldown display only shows the timer when the ability CD is actually counting down.
• Antiques displayed in the player card now show resolve costs.
• Fixed bug where dying would not update the Relic HUD and it would appear in the Lineage Selection scene.
• Fixed bug where triggering certain effects (like beating a boss) would disable mouse input in the pause menu.
• Fixed bug where unpausing the game would result in all characters hovering for a single frame, which would cause unexpected physics depending on the platform the character was standing on.
• Fixed bug where the scribble SFX would sometimes take a while to kick in when reading multiple dialogues in succession.
• Health mods now apply to player starting grace HP. Should fix a number of weird math scenarios where HP mods didn't seem to add up right.