Over the past several months, we have been hard at work making Haste a deeper and more engaging experience. We've taken a step back to re-evaluate all of the original systems to maximize Haste's potential. We took a look at what works well, and took steps on bringing that out to the forefront. The flip side of course is we saw things that didn't work well and overhauled them. There are a lot of changes with this update so we will only be outlining the bigger and broader ones below.
Action Points
We've always aimed to make Haste a thoughtful and strategic game. Haste was designed so that finding strategies and playing cards optimally would lead to better results. To help push this idea, we've implemented the Action Point system.
Heroes will now have 6 Action Points (AP) that are spent when playing cards or moving heroes. These Action Points regenerate automatically and can be found right above the player's hand. Cards now show their AP cost, with more powerful cards using up more AP. If the player needs to AP right away, discarding a card will add 3 AP immediately to the hero out front.
Equipment Slots
Haste was intended to be a pick up and play game, but based on feedback our players wanted more options to customize their team. To help address this, we've added the new Equipment feature.
Players can now equip items onto their individual heroes that provide a passive benefit. These items are NOT designed to give a huge advantage, but are aimed at catering to certain playstyles. By adding these passive items, players can now build synergies within their team that they can play into.
New Cards
A lot of thought went into the move sets for each character and players have been asking for more! To make Haste a deeper experience, we've added more moves for each hero.
Similar to equipment, players can now unlock new cards to be added to their decks. We've again put a lot of thought into crafting these new moves to encourage new strategies and playstyles. The new cards are not made to be strictly more powerful the original set, but are instead aimed at being interesting new options. New cards mean new mechanics for players to explore.
Guard Points
Originally, Haste used a 'Provisional Health' system which was often overlooked. This system has been scrapped for the new mechanic of Guard Points (GP). This defense-based mechanic was added as a more simple and interesting alternative.
Each hero has a set amount of Guard Points. As long as a hero has GP, they take less damage from attacks. Heroes lose GP when they are hit, but will regenerate them automatically over time. When a hero loses all their GP it is signaled with a 'Guard Break' meaning that the hero will take more damage until they regenerate a GP again. With the removal of 'Provisional Health' system, the 'Light Attack' was no longer necessary and has been removed.
Ultimate Charge
Ultra cards have been an exciting part of Haste from early on. Unfortunately getting these special cards had seemed random and uninspired. Instead of a passive 'Charge' bar, players can now actively work towards getting an ultra card put into their hand.
There is now a series of numbers queued up at the top of the screen, with a focus on the lead number. Players move through this queue by using cards that have an AP cost that matches the lead number. As soon as a player matches the last number, an ultra card is drawn into their hand corresponding to the hero currently out front. Once the ultra card is drawn, a new queue numbers shows up for players to draw their next ultra card.
Bullet Time
For offline game modes, players can now hold the Spacebar down to slow down the game. This will let players take a breather and plan out their next move. This feature will slow things down for a long duration at lower difficulties, but scales down with the higher difficulty levels.
UI Updates
To accommodate all of these changes, the UI has been updated. New additions such as the AP, GP, Bullet Time and Ultimate Charge have been incorporated. Card descriptions have also been revamped to be more specific.
On top of this, there is a new 'Build Deck' option that allows players to create a set of heroes with their preferred equipment and cards. These 'Decks' will be available for the player on the character select screen before a match.