The "Transcending Limits" update marks the second notable content update for Don't Die, Collect Loot! This update brings two new endgame features, a revamped Runemaster tree, an updated Nightmare progression system, and more!
New Content
Limit Breaker
Many players have lamented the lack of lategame options for spending extra skill points. The Limit Breaker exists to solve just that problem! Kill a few bosses on Nightmare after downloading 0.3.2 and you'll be able to access the Limit Break menu via the "???" NPC in the Nexus.
The Limit Break feature is surprisingly simple. Dump your skill points into one of 14 new skills and watch your character grow! Each of these skills is tailor-made to help push past character development humps in the lategame.
Note that the Limit Break feature is not designed to ever be completed. This is here to give you something to use your extra skill points on as you grind for better items and Nightmare levels. Now each point of experience you earn develops your character just a bit further!
The Wheel of Fate
The Wheel of Fate is a special one-point wonder skill available on the Limit Break menu. Players have often lamented needing to click level up options 100+ times on a run in the lategame. If you've found this annoying, the Wheel of Fate is for you!
Simply put, this skill causes your level ups to auto-select. It will prioritize Uber over Rare over Normal upgrades, and otherwise select randomly. The major Uber selection events via the Green Cape NPC do not auto-select, so no need to worry about this skill ruining the start of your run.
Item Coherence
Once you unlock Nightmare, you might find that a few of your items are dropping with a new stat: "Coherence". This stat multiplies the numeric values of all modifiers on an item. In the example above, you can see that many of the stat rolls have landed slightly higher than the normal range at their respective tiers!
At first, Coherence caps at 20%. However, adventuring deeper into Nightmare will result in this cap being extended. Additionally, Coherence items will become more and more common. Maybe you'll even find a coveted 30% Heart of Sacrifice, if you're really lucky!
As usual, you'll be able to see the exact effects of Nightmare Level on Coherence in the Nightmare Details screen in the Nexus.
Lastly, sort and filter functions have been added to help you hunt for items with Coherence!
Nightmare Boss Key Revamp
The Nightmare Boss Key system was downright confusing. It was a vestige of an older, more RNG-based system that was scrapped. In 0.3.2, the entire Key system has been removed.
The new system in its place is far simpler. If you're on your highest Nightmare level, you'll see a boss counter on the left side of the screen. Kill that many bosses and you'll unlock the next Nightmare level. If you do it deathless, you'll unlock the next two levels instead!
You can always check the Nightmare details screen to see instructions on how this works, as well.
Balance Changes
Adventurer - Hero
The Adventurer is by far the most popular, and most powerful, class in Don't Die, Collect Loot. While all three of its subclasses are strong and versatile, the Hero subclass contains a very overpowered interaction that needs some fixing.
Fortifying Cry
Fortifying Cry was beyond overpowered. By creating a feedback loop involving buff effect scaling Block Chance and Elemental Resistances, players were able to deal trillions of damage simply by picking a few key skills. While Don’t Die, Collect Loot is all about the power fantasy, this interaction actually robs players of the fun of building a character over time. I don’t like to nerf things if I can help it, but this was extremely bad for the game.
In 0.3.2, Fortifying Cry no longer grants Block Chance or Elemental Resistances. Instead, it grants Physical and Non-Physical Damage Reduction. This maintains the fantasy of buffing your defenses with the skill, but removes the absurd damage scaling loop.
As always, this is Early Access and your feedback matters a ton. If this change is problematic, let me know! Everything is in flux, and I’m happy to adjust things based on community feedback.
Arcanist - Runemaster
In 0.3.1 I reworked Conjuror, and now it’s time to adjust Runemaster. Next to the Beastmaster Hunter tree, this is the least used specialization in Don’t Die, Collect Loot, and for good reason!
Runic Blade
Runic Blade was, frankly, one of the worst skills in Don’t Die, Collect Loot and desperately needed some help. I’ve made the following changes:
Removed the Runic and Mana Infusion buffs entirely. These were too finicky to play with and also caused some performance issues, as they forced stats to recalculate constantly
Runic Blade now restores a % of your maximum mana instead of a flat value
Added the ability for Runic Blade to add flat lightning damage based on your maximum mana
Added the ability for Runic Blade to add Area of Effect scaling based on your maximum mana
The capstone ability now gives you the “Overcharge” effect. With Overcharge, you can recover mana via Runic Blade to twice your maximum mana. You can scale this value further as well. While you are Overcharged, effects that scale off your maximum mana will instead scale off of your Overcharged value. For example, if you have 1000 maximum mana and 1500 Overcharged mana, your maximum mana will be considered to be 1500. This also has synergy with the mana shield nodes
Rune Blast
Increased damage numbers, they were far too low
Mind Blast now scales with mana, adding additional damage based on your maximum mana
Mindstorm now causes Shocks to apply twice
World Ender now increases Ignite effect as well
Rune Blast damage scaling now applies to Skill Damage instead of Spell Damage. This is an absolutely massive buff to its damage output. It may be too high!
General Tree
Increased Mana, resists, and damage gained from passives
Many sources of Mana Regen have been replaced with Increased Maximum Mana, as Mana Regen was not super useful
Arcanist - Pyromancer
While strong, the Pyromancer tree is very weak early game and could use some love. Mana was painful to maintain without Runemaster, and the damage just didn't feel worth all the suffering. These changes both smooth this out and add some nice endgame potential.
Fireball
Reduced the base mana cost from 2 to 1. This makes the skill much more usable early on
Increased the base fire damage from 8 to 12
Increased the base Ignite effect by 100%
Increased the base Ignite chance by 20%
Fireball Mastery - Increased the flat fire added from 2 to 3, added a +5% skill damage boost
Backdraft - Increased the Ignite Effect bonus to 10%, increased the flat fire to 2
Heatseeking - Added an 8% skill damage boost
Pyromaniac - Upped the tick rate multiplier from 5% to 15%, increased the skill damage from 5% to 8%
Blazing Mind - Added a 5% increased maximum mana mod
Burning Haste - Removed the crappy "Fireball Travel Speed" mod and replaced it with "Adds 3 Fire damage to Fireball per 10 points of Maximum Mana"
Meteor
Base Skill Tree Skill - Buffed from 2 to 4 flat Fire Damage. Also adds 5% Meteor Skill Damage
Meteorologist - Now adds 4 fire damage per level
Planar Ignition - 10% -> 25% Meteor Ignite Effect
Planar Persistence - Removed the degen duration effect. Increased scale effect from 7% to 12%. Now also adds 5% Meteor Skill Damage
Forecast of Pain - 10% -> 20% Meteor Skill Damage
Multieor - Meteor now repeats 2 times, but does not scale with invested points to prevent extreme lag. Now adds 20 flat damage and 15% Meteor Skill Damage per level
General Tree
World Aflame - 1% -> 3% increased Maximum Life
Soul Aflame - 5% -> 7% increased Ignite Effect, 3% -> 6% Fire Resistance
Warm Heart - 2 -> 10 Maximum Life
Warm Mind - 1 -> 10 Maximum Mana
Expedient Ignition - 3 -> 5% Ignite Tick Rate Multiplier
Blaze Dominion - 7% -> 10% Ignite Effect
Performance
Big combat performance changes, speeding up some underlying calculations over 50x. This is a somewhat risky change to make, so please let me know if something feels off!
Improved targeting efficiency for minions and controller abilities. This should substantially reduce the CPU load for build with tons of minions or rapidly firing Arcanist elementals
Bug Fixes and Minor Changes
You can now bulk-deselect skills by holding shift
Fixed a bug where Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage did not display correctly on the stats window
Fixed an esoteric bug where certain boolean effects would not go away when removed
Fixed a bug where Arcing Salvo did not always fire the arcing fireballs
Fixed a few key rebinding bugs
Changed the Warden’s Gift item to use a different icon
Added descriptions for a variety of item-specific skills
Added "Godforged Steel" to the pool of possible mods on Hero's Memory
Removed some annoying, repetitive sound effects
Crippling Cry's effect has been capped at 90%
Optimized some Meteor effects
Removed the sound on the intro video
Fixed a bug where the Steam Deck would not default to the proper resolution