Featured Creator of the Month - Rhapsody
This month we feature the creator who first showed our work to the world, long before Tales & Tactics ever existed, and one we decided to partner up with! Rhapsody is not only our narrator voice actor (who we’re working with once more to double or triple our current available lines), but is also a wonderful content creator himself! Go give his channel some love.
Fully Revamped Player Characters
A long time ago in the development of T&T, there was only ever the "Draft" character option. There were no preset player characters to pick from. When we added them, we wanted to have them be a bit of a hodgepodge of perks and effects, nothing too highly synergistic, in order for Draft mode to feel extra special when it rolls into a big synergy.
But, with the last player release of Thet, we didn’t follow that philosophy, and made a character who had a complete total package of synergistic perks... and it went over extremely well. So well in fact, that we’ve completely overhauled the player characters to ALL have that level of theme and synergy built-in! Draft mode still feels special as being the only access to the Code system, and will probably ultimately still be the most min/max’y way to play, but we’re happy with having our players have more defined roles. Those new roles are:
- Singrim - The master of ‘vertical stack’ Trait armies. Singrim will like picking one trait and going straight to Stage 2 with it as fast as possible.
- Alidanna - The All-Rounder, the only one of the player characters. Alidanna likes hex modifiers, potions, and XP, and thus is a great all-around package who prefers consistency over a niche build path.
- Zamfir - The Banisher. Zamfir leans harder into "play without an archetype" now, with support from Banishing (such as now being the character that starts with a Void Portal.)
- Brax - The Economy character. We’ve redesigned Brax to focus more on the Monk effect, and have added more mechanics involving economy and building up a late game strategy.
- Ifreyes - Legends is the name of the game with Ifreyes now, including an immediate Ancestral perk that removes the Legend limit.
- Thokor - The Banner Bearer. Thokor is now all about War Banners, while still having a dash of chaos from the Rainbowslime Vial start.
- Cedric - The Cursed Chaplain. Cedric’s theme is Curse and Chains, foregoing the Blessed Incense start to instead simply have less effect from curse. Instead of lowering the Curse number, lean into it more, but without as detrimental of a side effect.
- Thet - Remains the same, all about fewer, more powerful, perfectly itemized units.
One major feature of Player Characters that has been fully and completed renovated is the effect of the character’s Profession, which used to grant a unique Legend Unit. It no longer does so, but instead, adds a Specialization.
Specializations are a one-time choice that happens immediately after the Eager Newbie fight, effectively a ‘free level’, with a set of perks exclusive to that Profession. These perks often are more run-impactful than other perks, and you can pass on them when offered in exchange for a small bonus and play the character ‘the standard way’.
The Legends formerly found as part of the Profession feature have been moved to new Bonus Legend Packs, one of which is exclusive to Ifreyes as part of his Aspiration.
- Legend Pack 3 - Inpu, Proton (now Uncommon), Hydra (now Rare)
- Legend Pack 4 - Blobert, Bogdar (now Uncommon), Blorgi (now Rare)
Ifreyes’ Become Famous aspiration Legend Pack - NEW Legend , Charlie (now Uncommon), Roscoe (now Rare, and has been turned evil, now with red runes instead of green)
Ancestral, Class, and Profession perks have all been giving a naming/theming pass. The Slay a God aspiration and the Get Revenge aspiration have new names/themes of Reclaim Legacy and Sow Chaos, respectively. The World Domination gauntlet has been recolored to purple, to reflect the changes to Cedric’s new affinity for curses.
Full Main Menu UI Overhaul
The Main Menu has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. The new version is more optimized, has better animations, is less prone to bugs, and is fully ready to work with controller support when we add it to the rest of the game later this year. We took this opportunity to renovate and rework a lot of the main menu panels that players had given feedback on as hard to navigate, hard to understand, or in need of serious polish.
New Home Screen - Community Tab has been replaced with the Home screen, which has buttons for Patch Notes, Featured Streamer, Credits, and more. The first time you launch the game on a new patch, you’ll visit the Home Screen. Any future launches on the same update will start you on the Play screen instead.
New Unlocks Progression and UI - Fully rebuilt from the ground up. The new Unlocks system ditches the complicated grid in favor of a more linear path with a few branching choices, and condensed and displays the Unlocks as larger bundles with more detailed explanations on what you are unlocking. Features that used to be hidden or attached, such as Difficulty Settings that unlocked with certain Run Modifiers are now crystal clear. Unlocking a new Area now shows that the Area’s champion can start appearing in other Areas. The Unlocks screen will also notify when something new is available to grab with a ‘!’ icon.
New Difficulty Selection Screen - Revamped for simplicity and integration of the Challenge Climb mode which was not a part of the original UI. Gone are the ugly pips and overwhelming screen of choices, replaced by big, clear description cards set in a direct linear path from one Challenge Climb stage to the next. Custom Difficulty mode also has a more simplified UI for assigning which modifiers are active.
The Run Modifier for "Easy Mode" has been migrated to the Difficulty Selection screen, and is now known as Relaxed difficulty. Relaxed is now a difficulty preset rather than a modifier but otherwise behaves the same and can be toggled on and off at will when playing in Custom Difficulty.
The Run Modifier for disabling Traits has been removed for now. This wasn’t being used by many players, had the risk of confusing new players, and was originally invented as an introduction point for new players before the addition of Relaxed Mode. First time players are now instructed to try out Relaxed Mode instead of Traitless mode. We will definitely still bring Traitless back in some form or another.
Streamlined Start of Run Process - Run Modifiers, Difficulty, and Character Select are now compressed into smaller panels with a clear overview showing where you are in the process, and you can jump back to a previous step at will. The Run Modifiers page will be skipped most of the time, unless you just unlocked a new Run Modifier. You can always go back to it if you wish to change things, but it’ll be an optional page most of the time.
New Draft Experience - Draft Mode UI has been completely redone. You now complete the Draft without going directly into a game - after completing it, you return to Character Selection, and your newly Drafted character takes the place of the Draft Character button in the roster. You can Delete the Drafted character at any time to re-draft. Additionally you can now reroll during any step, effectively allowing Draft mode to pick from any perks you want. The Drafted character also persists through runs, so if you have a setup you really like, it’ll be there still next time you play.
New Custom Code UI - Custom Codes are now one-time activated and stored in a list forever, able to be recalled and loaded with a single button click. You can also store up to 5 Drafted characters into these Custom Code slots, effectively preserving your favorite loadouts to use whenever you want. We have mentioned in previous feedback being able to toggle on and off Code-perk unlocks from Draft mode, but the new ability to reroll indefinitely in the Draft makes that not really that useful now, so we decided against it.
The Patch Notes now notify and alert when there are new patch notes to view with a ‘!’ icon.
The Main Menu now displays an up-to-date version number in the bottom left corner.
The Abandon Run button in the Main Menu no longer triggers an automatic jump to the Unlocks menu, and has a double confirmation popup to confirm the abandon.
PVP (Alpha)
We’re very excited to debut Tales & Tactics’ asynchronous PVP system with this update! PVP is structured completely differently to the main game mode. While the structure is different, our PVP offering still has no turn timer or any similar pressure. You take the game at your own pace, as you always have. When your army is ready to go, clicking the Fight button begins a search for an opponent and starts a fight when that opponent has been found. You must win 10 fights to win the round, and you can lose up to 4 individual fights before the round is lost.
For this release, we are only including Unranked as the mode of play, but we are still tracking and displaying a Ranking for purposes of testing. The Rank does not actually factor into matchmaking at this time and will be wiped when we actually release a Ranked mode.
Instead of playing one of the player characters in PVP, you play as one of the enemy combatants you usually face! These combatants have all-new abilities specific to the PVP mode and offer different playstyles and replayability. Over 20 are currently available, and we’ll be adding more over time. When you first start a PVP run, you’ll be presented with four possible ‘bundles’, which include the combatant to play as, starting items, and starting units.
In PVP, you do not automatically earn Army Size and Store Rarity increases. Instead, you spend Star Points on these in the Shop. The Shop is available all of the time, after every single fight, so you are in full control over when you want to make those important upgrades. Every round, the costs of each one will decrease, so if you decide to focus on other things early, you’ll still be able to grab the upgrades later.
The Item Shop in PVP has a different set of available purchases, including consumables that are not available in the main game mode, such as Duplicators.
After a few fights, you will be presented with a Level Up choice, but rather than use the PVE setup for these perks, instead you choose from two “groups'' of perks, such as “component power-up perks” vs “trait pip up perks”. You first choose a group, then choose one of three options presented from that group. Right now, most of these perks are direct ports of their main game counterpart, but we implemented them as completely separate entities so that we can tune them independently and develop perks exclusive to one mode or the other.
We’re excited to develop this mode further in all future updates!
Additional Notes
Many consumables have been rethemed, as their old references or themes have become invalid. The new themes are now more consistently described as things that feel more like a consumable.
- Lucky Charm = Lucky Clover
- Rallying Horn = Starcaller Shard
- Completed Contract = Divination Dust
- Void Portal = Book of Banishment
- Transmogrifyer = Fusion Gem
Divination Dust is now sold in Shop rooms.
Subtitles have been added to the Audio Options menu.
The Tournament events which required an objective (like have 8 or more Curse) have been had those options reworked to no longer be restricted. These objectives have always been hidden information until you reach them, and had too interesting and impactful of perks to keep hidden away from most runs.
As part of the new Unlock system, there are now four sets of Perk Packs, each with 3 Perks. These include some new Perks, as well as some former event perks that were still mechanically interesting enough to move to the standard pool.
Dweller cast time to summon Geogukk reduced to 2 seconds (from 4). Dweller has been underperforming a little bit lately.
Stage 1 of the Vault of Assistance reduced to 2 Lucky Clovers (from 3)
Tournament Food Cart event XP option reduced from 6 to 4, matching other free events of Act 3. This used to have a gold cost which was removed, but the event did not get further tuning.
Shred-O-Matic now gets a stacking Shield for each buff stack its Conduits provide.
Bosses now have innate Crowd Control duration reduction as part of the Boss Heart item. Units such as Glitter and Corvid have always been standouts that could keep Bosses stuck for a much longer period than any other team, so we’re letting Bosses shrug off stuns more.
Titan’s Vest (Factory event unique item) buffed, time delay to activation reduced and damage increased.
Plush of Vo’Do Curse threshold increased to 1 mana regen per 3 curse (up from 2 curse).
Dungeon Tale room 1 worst-case penalty reduced to 3 Curse (from 4)
Black Market Giving and Receiving Rings reduced to "one component’s stat value" for core stats.
Polish
This is a much bigger patch note than it will seem, but we rebuilt the entirety of how Units decide to act in a given moment. The new AI logisystem is significantly more optimized, and has far better debugging tools, such that we can pause a fight in any moment and step through every single decision and action being made rather than needing to review the combat logs.
This should greatly reduce CPU usage particularly when lots of units or pit tokens are in play, and will help us debug issues in the future much easier. A change like this comes with a lot of inherent risk, so let us know if you see any odd behaviors with regards to how units are acting.
The Difficulty tooltip for the top panel icon now states the preset or challenge climb level currently active, in additions to the modifiers.
Added tooltips to the end of combat Badges to explain in more detail why you earned them. Each badge now also includes the stage number, like "Perfect Fights 3".
Bug Fixes
Fixed some Player portrait images being incorrectly scaled, resulting in them being slightly off when added to the portrait layers (most notably, Singrim’s staff wasn’t connected to his hands before. Several others were suffering the same but only noticeable in Draft mode)
Fixed the Community Challenge 3 winners not having been added to the Credits last update.
Fixed Travel Panel text size issues when lots of text was present, such as the Rest Site or the Slime Farmer combatant.
Fixed end-of-combat being very slow when not clicking to activate fast mode.
Fixed end-of-combat badges sometimes not having the correct color when there were 5 or more levels to the badge.
Fixed Monock Sr.‘s bonus difficulty effect not causing its skill to ignore CC immunity, but rather him becoming CC immune himself.
Fixed some shadow issues in the Graveyard table
Fixed units losing their targets after moving when they were Taunted or Feared. In these cases, completing a movement will no longer clear targets.
Localization Fixes
Fixed the Difficulty tooltip in the top panel being partially translated.