Shattered Pixel Dungeon v2.5.0!

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)

Hey Dungeoneers, Shattered Pixel Dungeon v2.5.0 has been released! You can get it right now on Steam, or on any of the other platforms Shattered is distributed on.

What’s new in v2.5.0

v2.5.0 includes a total overhaul to the journal, some new trinkets, and tonnes of smaller tweaks and balance changes. There are also new splash arts for each of the dungeons regions, viewable during loading screens! Be sure to check the changes screen for full details.

I talked about this update in two previous blog posts:

• Coming Soon to Shattered: New Trinkets and Splash Art!
• Coming Soon to Shattered: A Journal Overhaul!

Also, while not related to v2.5.0 in particular, Shattered celebrated its 10th anniversary last month, I wrote a blog post for that too, that includes an exciting teaser at the end:

• Ten Years of Shattered Pixel Dungeon!

Here's the full changelog for v2.5.0! Click or tap on each entry to read more. Note that this changelog will become slightly outdated as patches are released and dev commentary is added, so check the changes screen in-game for the most up to date version.

New Content:

• Developer Commentary
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  - Released September 11th, 2024 - 119 days after Shattered v2.4.0 Dev commentary will be added here in the future
• Journal Overhaul!
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  The game's Journal interface has been completely overhauled! The Notes section has an entirely new grid-based UI with new icons, and support for custom notes! Custom notes feature user-enterable text and can be tied to a floor, specific item, item type, or just be plain text. The Catalogs section has also been moved to a grid UI, and has been massively expanded with almost 500 entries! The catalogs now contain almost every item in the game, and a bestiary featuring almost every character, plant, and trap! There are also 9 new badges which can be unlocked by filling the catalogs out! You can also now view badges directly from the journal, both the ones for your current run and overall badges.
• New Trinkets!
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  Four new trinkets have been added! Bringing the total to 15 trinkets. The Salt Cube extends the duration that food keeps you full, but also reduces HP regeneration. The Vial of Blood increases the healing granted by major healing sources, but also slows that healing down. The Shard of Oblivion increases the amount of loot you'll find from enemies when you are wearing unidentified equipment. The Chaotic Censer randomly spreads gasses nearby, that are harmful to you and to enemies. There is also now a fourth 'random' option when selecting trinkets, if you don't want any of the first three.
• Region Splash Arts!
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  New splash arts have been added to the game's loading screens! There's one for each of the five regions, once again made by Aleksandar Komitov! Loading times have not been increased, but the first loading screen of each region now pauses to display that region's story text. This gives an opportunity to appreciate the art without making players wait longer on every loading screen. The game will even start panning the loading screen art during this pause for mobile portrait users!

Changes:

• Interface Improvements
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  In addition to the journal overhaul, there are several smaller UI changes and additions in this update too: Scrolls of Upgrade now have a preview window that appears when they are used, that summarizes how the stats of an item will change when upgraded. The main menu Badges Screen has been replaced with a new journal screen, containing the catalogs and guidebooks as well as unlocked badges. The Alchemy Screen has been adjusted, primarily for desktop users. The guidebook button is now more visible, and shows the guidebook to the side when used on desktop. The game now displays a little congratulations message after your first win, and clarity on what winning the game unlocks has been improved.
• Cursed Wands
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  Cursed wand effects have been massively expanded! There are now 16 new effects bringing the total number of effects up to 32. These include simple common effects like shooting bubbles and new super rare effects like a giant supernova explosion! A few existing cursed effects have also been changed: - Reduced healing from the uncommon health transfer effect by 50% - The uncommon 'shock and recharge' effect is now a lightning bolt, does more damage to a target and grants less wand recharge - The rare inter-floor teleport effect now caps at sending the player back 10 floors
• Inventory Management Improvements
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  I've made various smaller changes to make inventory management a bit easier: - The potion bandolier can now store the waterskin, and the scroll holder can now store arcane styli - Converting a potion or scroll into alchemical energy now also identifies it - Reduced the chance for multiple equipment drops from slimes, skeletons, guards, DM-200s, and golems - Increased the base drop rate of equipment from DM-200s and golems to compensate - Stones of Intuition now always get 2 uses each, even if the first guess is incorrect - Dark dungeon levels no longer contain a torch, but also reduce vision by 3/8, down from 4/8
• 30+ Misc. Changes
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  Highlights: - Enemies are now less willing to follow the hero's movement path when approaching from a distance - Improved the quality of loot from tormented spirits - Traps which choose targets now have a max range of 8 tiles (or 6 on dark floors) - Burn and Ooze now end the moment water is entered, but still always do at least 1 turn of damage - Improved visibility of the ambitious imp - Trinkets can now be energized to get 5 energy back - Rings transmuted from artifacts can now be +1 or +2 if the artifact was +5 or +10. - Blooming now produces furrowed grass if regen effects are disabled during boss fights Characters: - Tengu no longer avoids ground-based effects as if he were flying - Flying characters now visually fall into pits when they die - Flying characters now only wake sleeping enemies they are next to - Shadow clone now inherits silent steps from the Rogue - DM-300 no longer spews gas at inorganic allies - Necromancers now interrupt the hero if they start summoning within vision Effects: - Drowsy debuff now states its remaining duration in its buff description - Thorns glyph no longer rebounds damage to allies Items: - Rapier's lunge ability no longer triggers weapon ability use effects when it is aimed at empty space - Warrior's broken seal now includes glyph info in its description - Added a cancel confirmation window to scrolls of enchantment - Armor now always takes 1 turn to equip, instead of 2 turns multiplied by movement speed - Minor visual changes to hourglass stasis effect - Potion of Storm Clouds no longer triggers traps when thrown Misc: - The game now remembers which monitor it was set to fullscreen on in multi-monitor setups - The journal window and hero info window can now be closed via key binding - Single wraiths can now spawn adjacent to their spawning cell if it is blocked - Added a little game log text when shopkeepers flee - Reduced the maximum size of some trap-filled rooms - Updated internal code libraries - Made slight tweaks to tutorial functionality - Added a new buff icon for wand-based buffs - Updated translations - Added dev commentary for v1.4.0
• 35+ Bugfixes
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  Fixed the following bugs: Highlights: - Hall of Heroes pages 5-10 not syncing via Google Play Games on Google Play version - Incorrect behaviour when game is force-closed from trinket selection window - Scroll of remove curse not being consumed when freeing tormented spirits - Sleeping enemies not being alerted by allies in many cases Misc: - Various rare crash bugs - Various minor visual and textual errors - Surface victory badges not being added to the rankings screen - Very rare cases of players getting outside of boss arenas - Settings defaulting to audio tab and not languages tab when user is using a language with an incomplete translation Effects: - Warrior being able to gain extra upgrades on his armor via hero armor transfer effect - Earthroot and living rock armor not applying to bone explosion damage - Precise Assault not working with unarmed melee attacks - Deferred damage sometimes being delayed on save/load - Various situational errors when enemies are transmogrified over chasms - Challenge Arena effect briefly persisting between floors - Magically slept enemies waking up when terror expires on them - Duelist's Spike ability incorrectly triggering on-kill effects in specific circumstances Items: - Trinkets becoming unidentified when transmuted - Wondrous resin applying its effect to chaos elementals - Exotic crystals and Parchment Scrap trinkets affecting levelgen in some cases - Auto-aim not working correctly with cursed wands - Aqua brew always knocking hero up and left when thrown on self - Bomb fuses not being visually cleared when boss levels are reset by unblessed ankhs - Exotic crystals and Parchment Scrap trinkets affecting levelgen in some cases - Helpful darts dealing damage to allies in rare cases - Tipped dart cleaning window showing 'clean all' and 'clean one' even with just 1 dart - Death via a reclaimed trap not counting as dying to your own magic item Characters: - Final boss not immediately advancing to its final phase in some cases - Sad Ghost rarely spawning inside of walls - Ally position swapping working when allies are paralyzed - DM-300's exposed wire shielding mechanic and the vertigo debuff interacting incorrectly - Brutes not being affected by terror in specific cases - Enemies not properly prioritizing targets based on distance - Very specific cases where the hero would refuse to walk onto visible traps - Ripper Demons refusing to leap onto enemies above chasms

Buffs:

• Trinket Buffs
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  I'm handing out buffs to several trinkets that are underperforming: - 13 Leaf Clover upgrade cost up, but it now only affect the hero's damage rolls. It no longer applies to armor or enemy attacks. This should preserve the intended chaos of the effect without making enemies way more dangerous. - Dimensional Sundial upgrade cost up, but it now slightly reduces enemy spawn rates during daytime. 'nighttime' has also been adjusted to be 8pm-8am, from 9pm-7am. - Wondrous Resin's bonus cursed wand effects are now always neutral or positive. - Mimic Tooth now boosts loot from all mimics.
• Duelist Buffs
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  The Duelist is doing much better balance-wise since v2.4.0, but there are various specific abilities that are getting boosts this update: Weapon Abilities: - Lunge, Cleave, Spike, Retribution, and Brawler's Stance abilities all now deal more bonus damage - Crossbow's Charge Shot ability can now also cause a melee attack to knock back, or an untipped dart attack to deal bonus damage. Tipped dart benefits unchanged. Talents: - Liquid Evasion talent evasion at +1 reduced to 3x from 4x, but the talent now also grants bonus accuracy on the next attack. - Lethal Haste talent now grants instant movement, instead of haste. - Swift Equip talent's second use at +2 no longer has a 5 turn timer. - Deadly Followup talent damage per level up to +10% from +8%. - Precise Assault accuracy bonus increased to 2x/5x/inf., up from 2x/4x/8x. - Expose Weakness talent now applies weakness as well as vulnerable.
• Monk Buffs
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  v2.4.0's Duelist buffs were mainly focused on weapon abilities, which mainly benefit the Champion, so it makes sense that the Monk has fallen a little behind. I'm giving out several buffs and mechanics changes to boost the Monk back up, which should improve every ability she has, except meditate. - Removed ability cooldowns entirely, except for flurry which has a 1 turn cooldown - Flurry damage increased by 50% - Focus now works on magic attack and has infinite duration - Dash range increased by 33% - Dragon Kick damage doubled - Unencumbered Spirit energy gain changed to 50%/75%/100% from 40%/80%/120% - Combined Energy is now more permissive and reduces charge use by 1, instead of 50%

Nerfs:

• Bomb Identification
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  This is actually an exploit fix, but I'm listing the change here for clarity. Explosions will now avoid destroying any equipment, previously they would destroy un-upgraded equipment only. This led to some players purposefully blowing up un-identified items to see if they were upgraded. I've been hesitant to change this functionality as I know it lessened inventory congestion, but after taking in feedback during the beta it's become clear to me that some players were relying on it to effectively avoid ever equipping unidentified items. Apologies for letting this persist for so long, I would have removed this exploit much sooner had I known how dependant some players were on it. I am, however, considering some compensation changes to bombs (to make them more useful for their intended purpose), and to other items to lessen the risk of trying on unidentified gear a bit.
• Grassy Floors
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  The Mossy Clump is still far and away the strongest trinket, despite several nerfs since adding it. At this point it's clear the value of that trinket is more reflective of how powerful grassy floors are, rather than the trinket itself. So, I'm nerfing the drop-rate of dew from grassy floors by 50%, meaning that they will generate 2x as much dew as a regular floor on average, down from 4x. Seed drops from these floor are unaffected. This reduces the bonus dew granted by the mossy clump by 67%, which should hopefully bring it more in-line with other trinket. I've also reduced the upgrade cost of the mossy clump to compensate.
• Other Item Nerfs
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  - Whip's Lash Ability bonus damage reduced to 0%, from +20%. Ability still guarantees a hit on every target. - Ring of Haste bonus speed per level reduced to 17.5% from 20%. Elixir of Featherfall adjusted: - Output quantity reduced to 1 from 2 - Recipe energy cost reduced to 10 from 16 - Falling into a chasm now reduces effect duration by 10 turns instead of ending it. Total duration unchanged at 50 turns.

What's Coming Next?

• The next major update to Shattered will be v3.0.0, which will add the game's 6th hero: The Cleric!
• The Cleric is going to be a divine spellcaster who focuses on defense and utility magic that they access through a unique item! I expect them to contrast best with the mage, who's arcane magic abilities enhance the power of wands. I expect to share more details about the cleric in blog posts when v3.0.0 gets closer to releasing. Like all other heroes, the Cleric will have 2 subclasses, 3 armor abilities, and 26 talents!
• v3.0.0 is also likely to feature some visual improvements, potentially including some of what I've teased in the recent 'Ten Years of Shattered Pixel Dungeon' blogpost, plus a few others I've not shared yet. Unfortunately the new art is still in the early stages, and so it's very hard for me to say where things will be when v3.0.0 releases, and what things in particular might be ready.
• As always there will be some smaller changes in v3.0.0 as well, including bugfixes and minor balance/mechanics tweaks. Given that v3.0.0 will take a while to make, I'll likely give v2.5.0 some bigger patches that usual, including any needed balance or mechanics tweaks that I don't want to delay into v3.0.0.

v2.0.0, which added the duelist, took about 5 months. While obviously I would like the update to release faster than that, I can't make any promises. I do expect to make some posts as development progresses though, so you should hear something from me about progress and design on the Cleric before the end of the year, ideally before December.

Please keep in mind that while I always try to keep to the ETAs I provide, they are just estimates. If you don't hear from me by the ETA, it means I'm still busy with the update!

In the meantime you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter, or follow me on Mastodon if you'd like more frequent incremental updates.