UPDATES
- The dungeon entrance and astral shrine have been merged. Players must now interact with the Astral Shrine to start / end dungeons AND attune. No more back and forth travel to end a dungeon then attune. This makes it a lot easier and more intuitive when finishing up a dungeon run.
- Attuning Energy now auto-clears the database for the player.
- The Astral Shrine Entity Dropdown now displays only the Sub-Types for the entity the player is Attuning for instead of a list of all entities in the game.
- All Research Sites have been completely updated visually to appear as if built into the dungeons themselves for a more immersive look as part of the Open World Update on its way.
- The Player Guide has been updated to reflect the new Dungeon Design and now provides video clips for every step of deduction, providing players with a full understanding of how to perform their tasks.
- Astral Form:
- "Meow" emote can now be used while lying down.
- Small cat footstep sound effects have been added in.
- Sprint now degenerates stamina much more slowly.
- Crouch is now a mechanic used to move undetected around Spirit Charm entities.
- Dungeon Design: revisited to have a more riveting and intuitive flow that removes the “waiting game” feeling from features like level 3 energy and makes Hunts feel more end-game:
- Evidence in the game has been cut from 8 to 4 (black mold, fingerprints, vocalization, and writing removed).
- Energy Levels have been changed to Level 1, 2, 3, and 4 with newly adjusted mechanics for obtaining them.
- Level 1 Energy: using Astral Form, the player must search for Dark Matter the same they would have in the 0.0.7 and previous builds. No change here.
- Level 2 Energy UPDATE: what used to be the “second” Level 1 is now Level 2. Dark Matter Level 2 will only spawn if players use a spirit charm. Spirit charms don’t spawn until a player absorbs Level 1 Energy at least once per dungeon run. Transmuting Dark Matter Level 2 will immediately end the Spirit Charm and spawn evidence as it did in 0.0.7 and previous builds.
- Level 3 Energy UPDATE: surviving a hunt no longer grants a level 2 dark matter. Instead, players must use a Summoning Circle. Successfully completing the Summoning Circle Ritual by finding the correct Book of Rituals and speaking to it, instantly spawns a level 3 Energy that can be absorbed.
- Level 4 Energy NEW: reaching level 100 activity no longer grants level 3 dark matter. Instead, surviving a hunt AFTER at least one person has absorbed a Level 3 Energy, will instantly spawn a Level 4 energy at the location the entity was last seen. This simulates “Loot” from an RPG boss fight.
- Dark Matter:
- now displays its Level in the name text so that players can more easily distinguish between them.
- deals sanity and stamina damage to all players when transmuted. Scaled based on difficulty.
- Observed Energy:
- now displays its Level in the name text so that players can more easily distinguish between them.
- deals sanity and stamina damage only to the player that absorbed it. Scaled based on difficulty.
- Hallucination:
- can now be killed without the use of an Adrenaline Pen!
- now spawns based on how high the Activity level is rather than how low the player's sanity is.
- Flash Hunt: chance to spawn won't incur until the player has absorbed a level 2,3, or 4 energy.
- Adrenaline:
- now lasts 10 seconds down from 20 seconds.
- No longer prevents hallucinations from spawning.
- The Spirit Charm and The Summoning Circle now lock the Dungeon Entrance for their duration or until all players die just like The Offering does for Hunt.
- Spirit Charm:
- Will now spawn only after at least one player has absorbed a level 1 energy.
- Now has a 2.5 second cast time down from 3.5 seconds and only a 1-minute cooldown down from 3 minutes.
- Is now required to spawn Dark Matter Level 2 that can be transmuted. If players do not find and transmute the Dark Matter before the Spirit Charm deactivates, the Dark Matter will despawn and players will need to reactivate it.
- Entities from the spirit charm can now see players in Astral Form and will kill them if reached! However, crouching while in Astral Form makes the player invisible to Spirit Charm Entities and immediately stops them from pursuing their target upon entry. Speed of spirit entities is increased per difficulty.
- A new cast bar at the top of the screen has been added to indicate visually to the player how long they have before the Spirit charm ends. The time the player has is now scaled based on the number of players in the group at the activation of the Spirit Charm.
- The Summoning Circle:
- Will now spawn only after the trait has been disturbed.
- Mimics in the Dark Realm no longer kill players on contact, but instead deal damage to Sanity on contact by an amount that scales with Difficulty.
- Now has a 2.5 second cast time down from 3.5 seconds and only a 1-minute cooldown down from 3 minutes.
- Is now required to obtain Level 3 energy.
- Spirit Box is no longer required to speak with the “Book of Rituals”. Holding V is all that’s required to get a reaction.
- A new cast bar at the top of the screen has been added to indicate visually to the player how long they have before the Summoning Circle ends. The time the player has is now scaled based on the number of players in the group at the activation of the Summoning Circle.
- The Offering:
- The Offering will now spawn only after at least one player has absorbed a level 3 energy.
- Now deals 10 Sanity and Stamina damage on all Difficulties rather than increased damage on Harder Difficulties.
- Activity:
- Reaching 100 activity level no longer increases the difficulty of hunts. Instead, 100 Activity level causes the entity to permanently awaken. On Normal and Hard Mode difficulties, the entity will kill the player if it reaches them rather than possessing.
- Activity level is now the only factor that increases the difficulty in resisting possession.
- Sanity:
- Sanity no longer passively reduces while inside a Dungeon as it is a mechanic that doesn’t fit well with RPG principles. Sanity will be reduced directly from various game mechanics such as entity abilities, possessions, and more.
- Reaching Zero sanity will now kill the player.
- Possession:
- Now lasts 2.5 seconds down from 4 seconds but will last longer scaled by activity level up to a maximum of 1.5 additional seconds.
- Getting possessed by the entity or hallucinations reduces sanity every second scaled based on difficulty.
- Random hunts are no longer a mechanic for any difficulty. Hunts must always be invoked using “The Offering”.
- Disturbing the trait no longer invokes a hunt on any difficulty.
- Corruption:
- The value that activity level decreases by has been increased for all difficulties to accommodate the new corruption burning mechanic.
- Each time corruption is burned, a stacking effect that lasts the duration of the dungeon will apply to the entity, enhancing its initial hunt speed. The amount of movement speed increased per burn is scaled by difficulty. Training Mode=1%, Easy Mode=2.5%, Normal Mode=5%, Hard Mode=10%.
- Burning corruption deals 25 sanity and stamina to everyone in the group and scales based on difficulty.
- The Spirit Box has been removed as it no longer serves any purpose in the game with the removal of vocalization and writing evidence.
- All Hunts on Normal and Hard Mode Difficulty have had the passive movement speed increase based on number of players in the group reduced by 25%.
- Progression: this update brings a more RPG leveling approach to the game design, giving players more to look to forward as they progress into higher levels.
- Reaching Level 15 now increases XP required to level up from 1000 to 1500. Reaching Level 40 now increases XP required to level up from 1500 to 2000 (Max Level cap coming soon). This gives more incentive to do normal mode rather than Easy Mode to level up and unlock rewards. Players can still level 1-50 on easy mode, but it will take longer compared to doing Normal.
- Normal Mode is now locked behind Character Level 15 in addition to the existing Research level requirement.
- Hard Mode is now locked behind Character Level 40 in addition to the existing Research level requirement.
- Players will only earn the bonus XP gained from Normal / Hard Modes if they have that mode unlocked themselves. Players are still able to enter modes they don’t have unlocked via another player’s level, but they will not reap the bonus rewards from it.
- Performance and Optimization: A new graphics option to Enable / Disable Nanite has been added to help with platforms that do not support it and/or low-end PCs that are not recommended to run Nanite. Unreal specifies that players enable nanite if they have:
- NVIDIA: Maxwell-generation cards or newer (RTX)
- AMD: GCN-generation cards or newer
- All newer version of Windows 10 / Windows 11 with support for DirectX 12
- Latest Graphics Drivers
FIXES
- Fixed an issue where dropping inventory items was only granting 1 item instead of the intended amount.
- Fixed an issue with shadows that was occurring when players were joining sessions where the host’s in-game time was Nighttime.
- Fixed an issue where resurrecting from the dead was causing the player’s camera to inconsistently face the intended direction, which was to be in the direction of the Dungeon Entrance.
- Fixed an issue where exiting Astral form was not re-equipping the recent item the player had out before entering Astral Form.
- Fixed an issue with ectoplasm where if 2 were overlapping, it was extremely difficult to get the correct one.
- Fixed an issue where the reward icons for level 36 and 45 were flipped.
- Fixed some spawn point issues for dark matter and hunts.
- Fixed some environmental imperfections.
- Fixed some grammatical issues.
What’s Next? 0.0.9!
0.0.9 is planned to revisit all Entity Abilities. This update will bring a new look and feel to gameplay when it comes to crossing paths with entities both during hunts and not during them. Balancing will also be revisited for all entities during this time. There will also be some changes to the “Hunt” UI as well as the new Astral Shrine UI to incorporate Difficulty differences so that players can easily see what to expect as they choose between difficulties.
0.0.9 will also target to further enhance player progression and give players more incentive to do different dungeons meaning that there be significant reasons to do one dungeon over another.