Travelers!
Early Access Patch 1.4(-months-later) is finally here and with it comes balance changes, including a rune rework, difficulty adjustments, bugfixes and... vending machines?
Runes
Runes have been reworked!
You can now only choose one rune between Offense and Defense, but they've all been substantially buffed to compensate.
You can still pick a Utility rune to go in pair with your chosen Offense/Defense rune.
This should make it easier to express your own playstyle, no matter if you prefer to be a glass cannon or a tank!
Upgrades have not been changed. For now..
Vending Machines
Now for every level-up you get a Dimensional Chip, aka a Skill Point.
For now, those are only obtainable by leveling up, but there might be alternate ways of getting them in future updates.
The chips can be used in the brand new Vending Machines!
Those are randomly found in all areas, just like all other interactables, and come with four different types, each giving different stat boosts.
Using the same vending machine continously is also more expensive than using different machines, even of the same type.
This is aiming to make level-ups a bit more important than just a full heal, and adding some more choices into the game loop.
Difficulty Adjustment
Game too hard. We've heard you. So, we're making it a bit easier!
These changes are aimed to make Easy, well, actually easy and more accessible, and Normal mode also a bit easier than is currently is.
Hard and Deadly should not change too much in terms of difficulty, but will drop 15-25% more Galactic Coins than before.
Reduced all stats (Attack Speed, Health, Damage) of enemies by 5-30% depending on difficulty.
Increased base HP of all classes - melee by 100, ninja by 75, ranged by 50.
Increased DEF/level gain of all classes by 1 and HP/level gain of all classes by 15-25.
Buffed range of all Melee characters except Guardian by ~25-30%.
Buffed base projectile speed of all classes.
TL;DR: Game easier. Maybe too easy. Will probably revert it next patch. Make it even harder than it ever was. Instant death on taking any damage. Yeaaah.
Balance Changes
Changed Ninja's Shuriken Throw - it can now sometimes throw 7 shurikens at a time, but has lower base damage.
Changed numbers around on different difficulty multipliers, including Galactic Coin gains.
Enemy projectile patterns no longer drastically change between Medium and Hard difficulties.
Changed patterns of multiple enemies, including some bosses and minibosses, making them more readable, but changing with game difficulty.
Buffed some item pickups.
Reduced the movement penalty of lava.
MASSIVELY increased chance for elemental weapons to apply elemental effects.
Improved patterns and AIs for some enemies.
Made poison stay on enemies for twice as long on average.
Nerfed Movement Speed upgrades on Rings.
Made Cursed Forge slightly less common and some of its power from bonuses to base item stats.
Drastically increased Heal Orb pickup range.
Made Heal Orbs drop less often, but heal more.
Increased Heal Orbs lifetime by 50%, and doubled Fire Orbs lifetime.
Probably more that we forgot to note down.
Other
Adjusted Leaderboard position in the starting HQ.
Improved mouse snapping to the window.
Fixed Keybinds sometimes not saving properly.
Fixed some errors on Summary screen and added new information there.
Made elemental immunities consistent - now all mobs in Obsidian and Magma should have 100% immunity to burn, but take greatly increased damage from frostburn.
Portals in HQs no longer have a 5-second cooldown before entering.
Optimized late-game performance on low-end machines.
Fixed a minor memory leak that slowed the game down after it's been running for over ~12 hours. (Not like anyone would play for that long anyways... right?)
489 other small quality changes and bugfixes...