Hello Sinners! First of all, I want to thank you for the support in 2024, and I intend to carry this momentum into a strong 2025 release year. This started out as a minor update, but then I realized in order to do it right, it needed a lot more work. I’ve done a complete overhaul on all the classes in the game, giving them unique movesets and a stronger overall identity. Here is a breakdown of some of the major changes, starting with class combos:
I found that people tended to stick to one or two reliable combos, such as Whirling Dervish, and ignore the others. I initially added combo shuffle and combo rewards to help encourage people to mix it up, but then I realized it’s probably best to go with how people play instead of fighting against it.
Less is more! Each class now has a smaller set of unique combos that more impactful than before. For example, the monk is all about battering your foes with quick blows, setting them up with an uppercut, then doing an exploding whirlwind finisher. The hunter is all about thrusting attacks, and weaving the vanish ability between each attack for some peekaboo style gameplay. Classes tend to lean more heavily into one type of attack such as basic attacks, heavy attacks, thrusts, whirlwinds, etc.
Some ability combos are difficult to execute, but can lead to an ability cooldown reset. This allows you to chain the combo repeatedly as long as you can execute it consistently. If you drop it though, you’ll be stuck waiting for the cooldown and have to resort to your basic combos. Take this reaper combo for example, which allows you to chain bonesaws when performed correctly.
Speaking of basic combos, you don’t really have to worry about memorizing them at all, because the game takes care of that for you. With the auto combo setting on by default, you will automatically perform some short bread and butter combos simply by clicking. The system is smart enough to detect your distance, angle, and movement direction. This means you will bash, kick, or attack depending on these factors as well as the random combo selected. You can tell if a combo is an auto combo, by looking for the small gear icon on the right.
The goal is to minimize the overhead of learning each class, make gameplay flow smoother, and also allow newer players to immediately understand the benefits of combos and how fast paced the game actually is. Now you memorize 1-3 class defining combos, and leave the rest to the left mouse button. It may sound simple on paper, but each class has their own ins and outs that must be mastered to succeed.
Manual combos are still prioritized even when auto combo is toggled on, so it should never interfere with you trying to pull off that six button, mega death explosion combo. If you are still not convinced though, you can always toggle it off in the settings.
Here are more detailed patch notes below:
Content
- Added 78 new combos to try out! Each class has around 6 unique combos on average.
- Each class was entirely overhauled to have a stronger identity so enjoy the variety and satisfaction of mastering each one!
- Added an auto combo system that can be toggled at any time in the settings. Auto combos are there to help make general offensive gameplay smoother, and help reduce the overhead of trying to memorize many combos. Only basic combos can be auto combos, and the more advanced combos with high payoff must be performed manually.
- Added 12 unique combo attributes for different finishers. These include explosions, four different kinds of whirlwinds, invincibility, shock blasts and more!
- Since many combos are now a core part of their respective class kits, I replaced some of the unlockables from the level progression system.
- Added a +1 health potion at start unlockable.
- Added a +1 wizard oil at start unlockable.
- Added three +1 sin levels at start unlockables.
- Added three +1 quest reward retained between runs unlockables.
Balance
- Thrusting weapons and whirlwind weapons now alternate regular attacks with their thrust / whirlwind attack respectively. This is done to make them feel better to use so they don’t just spam the same animation over and over. Whirlwind weapons perform a fast whirlwind by default.
- The stages of attack charging are now slow power strike, one slow whirlwind power strike, half duration slow whirlwind power strike, full duration slow whirlwind power strike. Shortened the time it takes to get to the next stage a lot to compensate and better fit the fast paced nature of the game. Try holding some combo power strikes to take it to the next stage. Utilizing combos can also help you perform the fast variants of these finishers.
- Performing any power strike attack will slow your character down during its active frames. This is done to make heavier attacks feel stronger, and also to help balance ranged characters firing projectiles so enemies have a chance to close the gap.
- You move slower during a whirlwind startup. The active whirlwind part is normal speed, down from 1.5x speed.
- Numerous adjustments to class stats, ability cooldowns, weapon tables to help fine tune gameplay.
- Paladin Holy Spirit ability also fires magic shields on bash, in addition to block.
- Nerfed Blood Ritual cast speed a lot.
- Hold thrust is now a default mechanic and no longer needs to be unlocked. I think it’s a little underutilized in this current version of the game, so I’ll probably find another use for it in the future.
- Changes in player speed happen with a little bit of acceleration / deceleration to make movement feel smoother. Dashing starts at max acceleration still, but will gradually decelerate to normal speed at the end.
- Berserker rage skill now only applies to power strike whirlwinds, and only grants 1 second of invulnerability at the beginning of a whirlwind’s active frames (instead of the whole animation)
- Reduced drop rate of off brand weapons for classes with weapon restrictions by a factor of 10. I may remove or rework this in the future, because it seems cool on paper, but in practice it’s rarely exciting when it happens and takes away from the class identity.
- The no damage quest objective now only fails if you take a direct hit that stuns you. This means poison damage and bloody palm damage is ignored.
Polish
- Battle music will fade out sooner after all nearby enemies are dead.
- Redid the kick collider to contour more to the thigh as well as the leg. Gave it a longer hitbox.
- Redid the bash collider to be a sphere around the player instead of using the fist hitboxes. It should hit enemies more consistently than before. Increased the radius also.
- Redid the player fist colliders to contour to upper arm as well as forearm. Gave them a longer hitbox.
- Redid the Caestus and Claw hitboxes. Claws are long and narrow, and Caestus is short and wide.
- Dashing near enemies will cause you to stop dashing and decelerate so you don’t shoot past them at mach speed as often.
- Polished the player combo UI to look nicer and have more helpful text descriptions.
- Added some simple tutorial texts for auto combo.
- Heavy attacks and whirlwinds will clear the input buffer when they first activate so it’s not so easy to accidentally interrupt them.
- Reduced freeze effect size a little so it’s easier to see enemies close up
Bug Fixes
- Fixed Scythe not glowing during power strikes.
- Disabled enemy hitboxes when they are stunned so they don’t hit you while going from an attack animation to a stun animation.
- Fixed a bug where enemy mortal coil projectiles didn’t stun the player.
I wanted to share that Mortal Sin has hit a bit of a slump in terms of growth, so I’d really appreciate any support that will give me time to get the game over the finish line. I’ve tried to pick up the marketing lately, reaching out to influencers, revamping the steam page, making a new trailer, and running ads, but none of them have seemed to have a major impact so far. If you could help by letting your friends know about the game or perhaps gifting them a copy, I’d greatly appreciate it. There’s still a lot of content I want to do, such as a gunslinger class, new enemies, new traps, new area, and more polish that I believe will make the game truly shine. Stay tuned for more updates, and happy new year!
