Patch v0.9 Now Live on Steam!

04 Jun 2024Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Patch v0.9 brings about major changes to classes, enemies, combat, favors, gear and more. Those with existing games, be ready for a big change!

User Interface

Changed the names of some of our Primary Stats to be more in line with the other stats.
-Ferocity is now Attack Power.
-Ability Power is now Spell Power.
-Haste is now Attack Speed.

The Esc menu no longer has to disable and reenable the UI in the game, which makes for much more seamless pausing and unpausing when pressing Esc.

Updated existing ability icons.

Functionality

We have added a new class to the game, the Arbiter. The Arbiter comes with two specializations. The Tempest Arbiter, a magic damage AoE class with multiple crowd control abilities, and the Storm Arbiter, which is a high single target and critical strike based magic damage dealer.

Developer Note: We noticed that when it came time to select a magic damage dealer, Elemental being the only choice was a bit lacking. The Arbiter is meant to fill the open void that was magic damage in Merchant’s Guide. Since the new Elemental is more focused on cleaving magic damage, which is about 2-3 targets, we wanted to include the Storm as a high single target magic and the Tempest as another AoE magic damage dealer with a little less overall damage that is made up for with utility. These should bring more flavor to your groups and put a little less pressure on the Elemental to carry all the weight of magic damage needed in group content.

We have added 6 unique items to the game. These can be obtained through favors, various dungeons or some rare spawns.

-Wealth of Spirit - Shield
Restore [1-5%] of your damage in mana per basic attack.

-Jester’s Folly - Ring
All stats roll between negative of the max amount it could have, and double the max amount.

-Silver Rim - Helmet
Experience gained increased by [10-20%], magic find increased by [80-100%].

-Exemplar - Chest
You take [10-40%] reduced magic damage and [10-40%] reduced physical damage.

-The Oath Maker - Gloves
All buffs you cast yourself are amplified in power by [10-30%].

-The Harvester - 2H Sword
The Harvester gains 1 minimum and maximum damage for each kill made near you or by you while wielding this weapon. Chance to gain damage reduces as it gains power, but is never 0.

Developer Note: This is the first batch of uniques we have planned for the game, and we will continue adding them over time to create a much more diverse array of builds you can create based on different combinations of items.

The hero logic has been changed with boss targeting. Heroes will no longer target a boss while any other enemies are alive.

Balance Changes

Most hero abilities have been greatly adjusted.

All class specializations have received 1-2 extra abilities, with each specialization now having 4 abilities total.

Many hero specializations have had complete overhauls to their abilities. If you’d like to read the details of these abilities, they are available in our previous post here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2051640/view/4222762959839848452

Enemy monsters and bosses have also gained access to many of these abilities and as a result, have grown in power.

Most bosses who had access to many abilities have had their ability count reduced.

Developer Note: One thing to keep in mind as you are playing through the new balance of the game is that while it may seem like a nerf to monsters with them receiving less abilities, this actually isn’t the case. Most of the new abilities are more powerful than previous abilities and now bosses and some monsters having less abilities means they will be casting these more powerful abilities more often. In short, the game is indeed more difficult and requires a little more attention to enemy abilities and reacting appropriately with your team composition in order to successfully beat group content. Hard and Very Hard players, beware.

The required objective amount for favors has been generally reduced across the board.

Favors may now roll as Common, Superior, Magic, Rare, Powerful, Mythic or Unique.

Higher Favor rarity will increase the possible stack size, as well as the reward scaling so it now requires more to complete the favors, but they are vastly more rewarding.

Powerful and Mythic favors allow you to select two of the three possible Favor rewards.

Unique favors allow you to select all three of the possible Favor rewards.

Favor rewards have been more specifically catered to the person asking the favor. For example, the Blacksmith will now offer Gold, XP Tokens or Blacksmith related materials or scrolls as reward options.

Higher tier favor rewards will have different options for rewards available. One reward option will always be gold, however, the other two possible rewards can potentially change with the higher rarity.

The Juggernaut enemy affix now also prevents the enemy from being silenced, which is a newly introduced mechanic with this patch.

Most bosses will now have the Juggernaut affix, outside of solo dungeon bosses.

Developer Note: There are many new abilities which have stuns and silences, which was making group content almost able to be trivialized if you stacked stuns and silences and prevented bosses or difficult mobs from casting abilities entirely. This Juggernaut buff makes sure the difficult content stays difficult and also allows players to not feel like stuns and silences are a necessity for clearing dungeons, but an available strategy for helping clear other difficult mobs leading to the bosses.

We have performed a “stat squish” across the game, which lowers the stat amounts able to roll on gear by roughly 25%. As a result, the general difficulty of mobs across the board has also been reduced by roughly 20%.

Developer Note: We didn’t find the current offensive/defensive numbers to be too out of control, however, with upcoming additions to the game, we wanted to avoid numbers getting far too outrageous as players progress their games. In existing games, your heroes will have lower numbers, but the modifications to enemy difficulty should balance out to feel roughly the same in overall power.

Enemies and bosses have had significant buffs to their Armor, Health and Ward in group scenarios, totaling about 25% more of each for each party member and the quantity of enemies in dungeons has been reduced by roughly 20%.

Developer Note: The main reason for this change is because we noticed enemies dying too quickly and it severely limited the potential of heroes whose main dps thrives from Damage over Time. It also has the benefit of allowing players to see more clearly what enemy is being impacted by what since they are no longer disappearing like flies. As always, we will continue to monitor this change and all other mentioned changes to make sure the game lands in a great spot in terms of balance by the time we reach v1.0.

The Movement Speed stat has been reduced in effectiveness by roughly 50%, and the maximum movement speed for heroes (on foot) has been set to just over double their base movement speed, which means heroes will no longer benefit from extra movement speed above around 650.

Developer Note: While we agree it is fun to have super speed on some heroes, we wanted to bring this down to a more realistic level to allow us room to grow in the future as we add more things that will make movement/travel more interesting.

We will be monitoring this patch closely for balance needs as we have done extensive testing, but surely may have missed something since so much has changed all at once. Please feel free to report any issues you may come across and we will address them ASAP!

The very next thing we are working on is our UI update! It’s finally coming, and it will include massive improvements to visuals and function within the game. Can’t wait to show you!