2.0 Reception and Fixes
Patch 1
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for your feedback on Abalon 2.0 so far. I'm very happy that most of the new changes were very positively received. I'm also grateful to hear your concerns where I may have over-indexed the balance a bit. But that's the great thing about being a player-driven developer - nothing is set in stone, I'm eager to improve the quality of the game, and I want to hear your thoughts.
I also want to express that my intent for 2.0 was not to take away or remove anything from the game that you liked, but rather, create a path going forward that helps new players get best introduced to the many features and mechanics we've added to Abalon over the past few years. This is important for growing our community and so that I can continue developing Abalon longterm. I can't speak for other experiences you many have had on Steam, but I am sincere in my desire to create the best experience I can for you.
On that note, here's a few changes I've made in our latest patch:
- Custom Adventure Mode (which enables you to choose between Abalon's signature play mechanic of cards as resource and Traditional Deckbuilder playstyle where cards always reshuffle after battle) - has been changed from "Unlocks at Level 10" to "Play an adventure". I recognize that many players simply prefer this playstyle, so there's no reason to force you to play our signature mode if it's not your thing. I think this is a good solution that still provides the new player curation (i.e. the opportunity to at least try the signature mode once) - and if they then decide it's not for them, you can move right on to custom mode. This change will also automatically unlock Custom Mode for anyone who has already played an adventure.
- Fast Adventure Mode changes from "Unlocks at Level 15" to "Unlocks at Level 10".
- Max Equipment Count - The initial 2.0 update saw the max item count for all characters change from 8 to 3, with optional upgrades to bring the Summoner back up to 8. To clarify, the reason for this change was to correct an over-step I made to the balance in our previous release (Gear Up!) where the overabundance of items diminished the importance of skillful deck building synergy and key decision making (i.e. which items to take best compliment my team) because you could simply equip everything you found. At the same time, I'm willing to recognize the change may have been a bit too dramatic, so I've changed it as follows: Summoners start with max item count of 5 and can upgrade up to 8 (which is only intended really for playing descent level difficulties). Other characters will still have a max of 3. Certainly, I'm willing to revisit these values again, but do please try it out and let me know if the limitation helps the spirit of what I'm trying to do with the design and the gameplay.
- Upgrade order has been changed to provide earlier access to artifact selection (by shifting the max equipment upgrades down a bit since you can now start with 5). My aim is that you'll have the same effective experience you had before with choosing cards, but even better balanced since you can now choose 3 spells, plus items, plus artifacts. Also note that the Bronze upgrades are very easy to achieve for any summoner in that a single XP tome will fully unlock all of these upgrades.
- Fixed the Sprintshot targeting for Darakai (Thanks Plykiya)
- Anchored the Staircase so Cora can no longer stomp it away (Thanks Plykiya)
- Our fix is confirmed for SteamDeck: Native Linux is now working again!
I also want to thank everyone in our community who has responded with in-game feedback, Discord feedback, and contributed to the 2.0 comments on Steam in this post here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1681840/eventcomments/4692279782567165753/
Special shout out to folks with very detailed feedback and suggestions to improve: Lord Cameron, DramaLama, Himmelblauer Panther, Snoob, and 1075185437
And thanks again to the many SteamDeck players who reported the AIR SDK issue and helped verify the fix: DramaLama, Shadow Lord, Tequila007 to name a few :)
More fixes and changes to come, so be sure to tell me what you like/didn't like. Your Steam reviews are also very appreciated!
~Ross