Hey, Warlocks!
Welcome to the Chapter 1 Rework update! It is a long one, so we hope you prepared some snacks!
We've been cooking this one up for a while, and after hours upon hours of meticulous playtesting we're finally ready to release the Chapter 1 Rework for Project Warlock II.
We'd like to take a moment to thank all of our Playtesters who provided feedback during this extensive playtesting session. Whether it was here on Steam, in the Survey, or in the Discord channel, massive thank you to everyone who contributed to this update. Your help is immeasurable.
Ever since the idea of reworking Chapter 1 came up, our goal was to expand and emphasize on what makes the game a proper sequel to Project Warlock. We've taken a couple of pages from the original game, upgraded them to modern standards, and incorporated them into Palmer's Campaign. In the Reworked Chapter 1 you will now gain experience and level up to improve your statistics, purchase perks, and upgrade your arsenal of weapons and abilities.
Chapter 2 Info
Also, as per our previous announcement, Urd's Chapter 2 with Wargression has been moved to a separate branch, as it does not represent the game we want Project Warlock II to be. The reworked Chapter 2 with systems cohesive with Chapter 1 is currently in the final stages of development, and will move into playtesting phase really soon. Our goal is to retain the progression systems present in the Reworked Chapter 1 and rework Urd's arsenal, while keeping the distinction between each chapter present within the game. Below please find a sneak peek of one of Urd's new tools...
Accessing the previous version of Chapter 2:
If you would like to check out the retired Chapter 2 (with Wargression system) this can be accessed by following these instructions. Please be aware we will not be developing Wargression build further, and we're leaving it for preservation purposes:
- Right Click Project Warlock II in your Steam Library
- Select "Properties"
- Navigate to the "Betas" tab
- Left click drop-down list on the top of the window (in the Beta Participation section)
- Select "chapter2_wargression" from the list
- Update Project Warlock II
To switch back to the current version of Project Warlock II, select "none" from the dropdown list and update Project Warlock II.
Disclamer regarding save file after this update:
Due to the extensive scope of the changes introduced to Weapons, Progression, Level Design, and Level Geometry in this update, the pre-rework save files are not compatible with the reworked Chapter 1, hence you will need to start your adventure from the beginning. Your current saves will be moved to the "OLD" folder in the "Steam Saves" directory.
Accessing the previous version of Chapter 2 using existing savegames:
If you have a save file from Chapter 2, and would like to continue your playthrough on the dedicated branch, follow these steps:
- Switch to "chapter2_wargression" branch, using the instructions above
- Launch the game
- Close the game
- Navigate to the C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Project Warlock 2\Steam Saves\OLD directory
- Manually move the save files from the "OLD" folder in the "Steam Saves" directory to the "Steam Saves (Legacy)" folder in the "Project Warlock II" directory in "My Documents"
- Launch the game
- Load up the desired save file from the game menu
When it comes to the upcoming Chapter 3, the groundwork for Kirsten's campaign has already been made, and the development process is going well. We will be able to share more news regarding Chapter 3 after the release of Reworked Chapter 2 this Summer.
Here are the full patch notes for the Chapter 1 Rework Update:
Experience System
Experience Sources
- Treasure items
- Killing monsters
- EXP amount is multiplied by combo multiplier
Stat System
- Points are gained with each player level earned
- Players can find extra Stat Tokens throughout levels
Available Stats:
STRENGTH
- Improves melee damage
- Increases stamina recovery time
VITALITY
- Increases max health
SPIRIT
- Increases max mana
CAPACITY
- Increases max ammo carried
FIRE
- Increases fire damage
FROST
- Increases frost damage
Perk System
- Each 5 player levels grant 1 additional perk point
- Directly connected to Stat system with logical requirements
- Players can find extra Perk Tokens throughout levels
Available Perks:
- Supply Magnet
- Attracts items from small distance
- Ghost
- Allows moving through enemies
- Combo Retainer
- Doubles the base combo timer
- Headshot Expert
- Headshots can cause an explosion
- Fast Switchup
- Reduces weapon switch time
- Sprinter
- Increases maximum run speed
- Deadly Frost
- Freezing enemies also hurts them, dealing 30 damage
- Cold Mist
- Destroyed frozen enemy has a 35% chance to leave a freezing mist that will linger for 5 seconds and freeze enemies in a 5 meter radius.
- Fire Trap
- You gain 10% chance to trigger Flame waves around you whenever you receive damage.
- Fire Boost
- Your weapons gain 10% chance to set monsters on fire
- Tough Shell
- Reduces explosive damage taken by 70%
Palmer's Arsenal
Weapons are upgradeable in the HUB, using upgrade tokens which are found in the levels
- Added Altfire upgrades as separate upgrades to all weapons, base cost of each altfire upgrade is 2 tokens.
Claymore
- Titanium Core
- Lighter Sword, less stamina usage
- Altfire - Executes enemies below 50% health
- Magic Sword
- Deals magic damage
- Altfire - Casts a magic wave in a 90 degree angle
Rifle
- Heavy Rifle
- Lower firerate, progressive recoil, higher damage, bigger magazine
- Altfire - Short explosive burst which consumes more ammo
- Semi-Auto Rifle
- Slow, semi-automatic firearate, more precision, high damage
- Altfire - Scope with a railgun
Super Shotgun
- Auto Shotgun
- Fires automatically
- Altfire - Double shot: consumes more ammo but fires twice
- Harvester
- Has 6 barrels instead of 2
- Altfire - fires all barrels
Cannon
- Super Cannon
- Has Additional Penetration
- Altfire - projectile strength charging
- Cartier
- Fires multiple smaller cannon Projectiles
- Altfire - projectile spread charging
Rocket Launcher
- Grenade Launcher
- Fires parabolic grenades
- Altfire - fires a Cluster Bomb which consumes more ammo
- Mortar Launcher
- Big, slow parabolic projectiles
- Explodes on impact
- Altfire - Multiple projectiles with less accuracy
Staff
- Beam Staff
- Fires Beam of energy, requires precision
- Altfire - Releases a charged Lightning Ball
- Atomizer Staff
- Fires short-ranged spread of magical spray
- Altfire - Releases 40 small projectiles in a 90 degree cone
Rune System
Runes allow you to enchant your weapon with an element, for Palmer it's either fire or frost.
Enchanted weapon has a chance to deal fire/frost damage respectively, with chance increased by improving Fire/Frost statistics.
- Added Rune Quests
- Each weapon has two runes which require certain objectives to unlock
Palmer's Abilities
Palmer's Abilities are now upgradeable through Upgrade Tokens which can be found in the levels.
Akimbo
Allows you to dual wield currently equipped weapon
- Project Rambo Increased maximum akimbo time
- No-Reload Removes reloading while in Akimbo mode
Phantom Palmer
Taunts Monsters, taking their aggro
- Explosive Phantom Taunts monsters and explodes on timer
- AOE Phantom Taunts monsters and deals AOE damage over time
Ammo Refill
Ammo Refill boosts the damage of your current weapon for the size of single magazine. It also generates an additional sound effect and visual effects when shooting.
- Added new Ammo Refill sound effect when firing
- Weapon will glow red when firing and ammo refill is active
- UI will show remaining boosted bullets
- Boosted shots will leave faint red trails.
Upgrades
- Large Ammo Refill - For currently equipped weapon
- Small Ammo Refill - For all weapons
Passive Upgrades
Passive upgrades unlock after defeating the miniboss in E1M7, and can be purchased with passive upgrade tokens.
Attack
- Aggressor Max HP is reduced by 10% but you deal 10% more damage
- Anger Management Every time you get hit your damage is increased by 5% for 5 seconds. Damage and duration stacks up to 20 times
- Super Combo Combo meter drains twice as fast but each level grants stackable +10% damage buff
- Sadist All bleed effects have 100% longer duration. All weapons have 5% bleeding chance.
- Berserk Deal +90% damage when below 30% max HP. Deal additional +10% damage when below 10% max HP. Deal -10% damage if above 70% max HP
Defense
- Defense Boost +10max HP, +20 max armor
- Fortification Maxing out armor points grants 100% damage absorption for the next +25 damage points per armor tier
- Stabiliser Your HP will be slowly deducted from your health after taking damage.
- Limit Break
When your HP drops below 10% refill all stamina and mana and grant invulnerability for 5 seconds.
- Activation resets your combo meter.
- Maxing out combo meter will grant another limit break.
- Can occur once per 120 seconds
- Spiked Armor
Melee attacks will hurt monsters back dealing 15% damage and also +30% chance to inflict bleed.
- Reflective Armor
+25% chance to receive 20% less damage from ranged attack and bounce it back where it came from.
- Fast Metabolism
All healing is increased by + 15%. Max HP is reduced by 10%
Magic
- Magic Boost +20% mana
- Mana Leech Convert +10% of all healing items and lifesteal into mana.
- Soul Collector Monsters drop small mana refills
- Life Leech 10% chance to steal 5hp from monster on damage
- Fast Charge Instantly recover cooldown on all Utilities after reaching 60x combo.
- Eco Round 5% chance to not drain mana on usage.
- Cooldown Reducer Shortens cooldown by 2s on all cooldown altfires.
Passive Upgrade Tokens
- Available from HUB 7 after E1M7
- Removed Passive token drops from minibosses
- Added Passive Tokens to E1M7
- Adjusted Passive token pricing mostly to 2 per passive upgrade.
- Added notification after killing Necromant that upgrades will now be available in HUB.
Level Design
- 1st HUB will only allow to improve perks and stats
- 2nd HUB will additionally allow to improve weapons and utilities
- 7th HUB will unlock passive skills
- Staff is now found at level E1M2, before Miniboss fight
- Rocket Launcher is now found at level E1M6, before Pillar which drops down, after the bridge.
- Replaced Staff secret in E1M5 with Rocket Launcher
Level Rework
E1M1
- Fixed Navmesh issue on e1m1 in the corridor leading to the Armor room staircase.
- Adjusted fences near the yellow door on E1M1
- Player should not block on them anymore (reported by ii7av3)
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked visuals
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M2
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M3
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M4
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M5
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M6
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M7
- Added Health and Ammo Items to the level
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M8
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Moved assassin in E1M8 after Red Key to the corridor instead of the Altar
- Moved Succub and Bugdemon inside wall near Holopalmer ability
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M9
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M10
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M11
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
- Added Passive token points
- Added Treasure items
E1M12
- Reworked visuals
- Removed multiple wave monster spawners which would wait until a spawned monster is dead.
- Reworked lightning
- Reworked flow in certain areas
- Reworked encounters
HUB
- Reworked Weapon Shop Interface
- Reworked Stat Shop Interface
- Added Spell Shop Interface
- Added Passive Upgrade Shop Interface
- Added Character Status UI under "I"
UX
- Added notification for quest start, cancel and finish
- Added outline to interactable objects such as doors, buttons, stations and tutorials.
- Added interaction prompt to disabled upgrade stations, with respective descriptions.
- Added current Rune Task progress to the main upgrade weapon screen. If the task is active, it will display task as x/x instead of x.
- Added Magazine Ammo counter which also represents if Ammo Boost is active.
- Added Discord Button in Main Menu
UI
- Added visual background for ammo display
- Added player statistics screen You can check your stats, perks and skills under a designated screen for player character information.
Weapon Balance
Semi-auto Rifle
- Reduced damage from 40 to 20 per shot (60 per burst instead of 120)
- Increased burst firerate from 80rpm to 100rpm
Assault Rifle
- Changed base rifle ammo from 300 to 150
Super Shotgun
- Changed base shotgun ammo from 60 to 30
Claymore
- Adjusted Titanium Core Execution projectile speed from 100% to 200%.
- Increased base stamina by 100%
Cannon
- Buffed basic Cannon damage from 120 to 160
- Changed base cannon ammo from 30 to 20
- Reduced Heavy Rifle Akimbo bullet spread increase over time
- Reworked Cannon Penetration logic.
- Base cannon will now penetrate small monsters, and the cannonball will crush on impact with walls.
- Cannonball looses 30% damage on each penetrated monster.
- Increased Cannon firerate from 30rpm to 60rpm
- Adjusted Cannon and Rocket Launcher timer before first shot on enabling akimbo to avoid situations where weapon feels like its broken
Atomizer
- Nerfed Atomizer staff damage per projectile from 15 to 5
Mortar
- Reworked Mortar Projectile Trajectory. It will now initially be very fast and loose it's speed over distance.
- Increased mortar projectile falling speed
Monster Adjustments
Pigdemon
- Increased Pigdemon walking speed from 5m/s to 8m/s
Cacobot
- Increased Cacobot health from 70HP to 140HP
Bugdemon
- Increased Bugdemon health from 120HP to 180HP
Turboknight
- Decreased Turboknight's base rocket damage from 15 to 10
Assassin
- Increased Assassin's Melee range from 2m to 3m
- Increased Assassin's Damage from 15 to 25
- Increased Assassin's movement speed by 2m/s
Boney
- Reduced Boney max attack distance
- Synchronized Boney's hitscan shot with animation a bit better
Weaver
- Decreased Weaver Spider projectile speed from 70m/s to 30m/s
Knight & Turboknight
- Reduced Knight's and Turboknight's Rocket Blast damage by 50%
Human
- Removed Human Scream
Ghoul
- Increased ghoul check timer to be every 3s not every 1s
Skelly
- Fixed Skelly stuttering when moving
Pigdaddy
- Increased frost resistance from -350% to 0%
Human Rework
- All humans will be identical over all Chapters.
- Humans now have one model per gender.
- Both genders present identical functionality.
Stats
- 100HP
- No resistances to damage types
- Can be set on fire, same as all monsters
- Can be frozen, same as all monsters
Human-specific behaviour:
Alive Stances
- Scared Stance
- Run
- Idle
- Normal Stance
- Run
- Idle
- Attack
- Humans don't attack, instead they move around.
On Death
After 2 seconds corpse transforms into:
- Ghoul if Male
- Vampy if Female
Interactions:
- Scared stance will enable for couple of seconds when attacked.
- They will run around in scared/normal stance depending if it was attacked.
- Monsters will attack humans only if they can see player but have no path towards the player.
- Check for human will only happen every couple of seconds to avoid ping
- pong effect between player and human.
- Monsters spawned from humans do not count towards total monster count in intermission screen and player stats screen.
- Monsters spawned from humans count towards combo like normal monsters.
- Monsters spawned from humans count towards rune quests like normal monsters.
- In general monsters spawned from humans should act like normal monsters spawned by monster spawners.
Bestiary
- Added Important Notification to Bestiary Pickup
Fixes over the course of the Playtest
- Fixed runes not saving properly
- Mana souls now will disappear 5s after dropping
- Stat description will now show percentage of next level instead of current
- Adjusted Headshot sound volumes
- Adjusted Burst Rifle sniper shot volumes
- Fixed max stamina calculation in Character Status
- Fixed game starting with 2 weapon upgrade tokens
- Fixed rune task duplicating on save load
- Fixed ceiling in HUBs
- Fixed passive upgrade notification color from yellow to red
- Fixed an FPS issue with spider path calculation, visible for example in E1M7 at beginning.
- Fixed an issue where spiders would constantly land and would not attack
- Fixed spirit mana values increase display in Stat Shop
- Fixed strength stamina regen rate values increase display in Stat Shop
- Fixed Capacity values display in Stat shop
- Fixed ammo display in Character Status
- Fixed an issue with SensesAI generating too much garbage and influencing performance
- Fixed an issue where akimbo would reload with no
- reload upgrade
- Fixed secret gate in e1m4 trigger too early
- Fixed active quest transfers to the new save
- Fixed an issue where any ammo could go below 0
- Fixed an issue where shop currency would not update in Skill Shop
- Fixed nullreference error on game load, connected to old Wargression Magic upgrades
- Fixed Phantom Palmer AOE daggers playing when he's dead
- E1M1 - removed 3 monsters which influenced monster count, but were not in level.
- E1M4 - fixed boney and skully spawning inside wall near Holopalmer ability
- E1M9 - fixed moving platform applying damage to player for no reason
- Improved performance issues related to Localization
- Improved performance of shops when opening them
- Fixed Holo
- Palmer lagging the game in some cases
- Fixed Titanium Core execution altfire upgrade. It will now play proper animations, and execute enemies that are at or below 50% health.
- Fixed an issue where Passive and Weapon upgrade points would not save correctly.
- Fixed an issue where after buying Combo Retainer Perk, the combo timer would double with each save reload.
- Fixed an issue where Necrogirls would not resurrect nearby monsters.
- Fixed an issue with vitality stat and health overcharge.
- Fixed Burst Rifle having one burst too much per magazine.
- Fixed E1M1 shotgun even trigger sticking out into the room thus triggering an event too early in some cases
- Fixed an issue where Character Status would not load properly and display incorrect stats and lack of perks/passive upgrades.
- Applied a lot of performance fixes to monsters and their CPU usage
- Added replacement of old path by new path in path request calculation for monsters to improve their calculation speed.
- Reworked monster pathing a bit, to offload the CPU. This could result in more interesting behaviour for monsters.
- Improved monster pathing performance
- Fixed an issue where monsters would spawn dead
- Fixed an issue where cannon manual reload would not work (reported by Dwailing)
- Fixed an issue where cannon would not do a background reload (reported by Dwailing)
- Improved Utility Shop UI readability
- Fixed an issue where player would get stuck on geometry in certain moments, especially near walls
- Fixed an issue where invisible wall on E1M1 would not disappear after yellow key unlock
- Fixed an issue where stat and perk points would be displayed incorrectly on 21:9 displays (reported by 3dioot)
- Fixed an issue where game would drop FPS on saveload in some cases
- Fixed placeholder description on Magic Blade
- Fixed a crash issue
- Fixed rune selection disappearing in some cases
- Fixed an issue where monsters would not look for path after save reload
- Fixed button placement in 21:9 resolutions on new upgrade screens
- Fixed an issue where weapon would disappear from screen
- Adjusted boney aim frame to better depict aiming
- Buffed Jolopalmer health from 60 to 300
- Added 1 upgrade token to e1m2 before falling through floor
- Fixed spider jump reset bug
- Removed damage from headshot expert
- Moved various stuck monsters in geometry in E1M8 near Holopalmer ability
- Moved stuck monsters in geometry in E1M6
- Fixed monsters animations after save/load
- Player cannot damage Phantom Palmer now directly with weapons.
- Fixed Secret Dead Characters showing Interaction prompt
- Fixed Keys UI animation
Oooooooof... that was something else. If you're still here - thank you for supporting Project Warlock II. and your feedback so far. We want to make Project Warlock II the best it can be, and this will only happen if you continue to let us know your thoughts on our game, and how we can improve it.
Once again, thank you to everyone who contributed to this update, you're all awesome!
See you in the next one!