UPDATE 1.7

Dear Queens and Kings,

This update brings tons of balancing changes, Eternal Trials Season 3, a progression system rework, a tutorial and onboarding rework, seamless UI scaling as well as many small fixes and improvements.

PROGRESSION SYSTEM

Weapons, mutators and building upgrades are now unlocked by completing campaign levels. For example in order to unlock the Spear you now have to beat Nordfels. With each level you beat (except for the last) you’ll unlock the next weapon. Perks continue to be unlocked through XP leveling the same way as before.

We also removed the level-cap. There is no more content to unlock after you’ve got all the perks, but for each additional level you earn a trophy (they don’t do anything special besides filling you with pride and joy).

With this change we try to strike a good compromise between making the game more approachable and less grindy for new players while also rewarding those who stick around to get deeper into the weeds. Thank you for all your feedback on this! We feel like we found a good middle ground with this now.

TAKING MORE PERKS WITH YOU

This has easily been one of the most requested and wished for things. We increased the number of perks you can pick from three to five. This allows for more complex and creative strategies as well as making the later stages of the game more accessible for casual players.

BALANCING CHANGES

Many player units, perks and building upgrades have been tweaked in an attempt to improve the overall balance of the game and to give every tool a well defined place in your tool box. For a full list of balance changes check out the balance patch notes at the bottom of this post.

ETERNAL TRIALS SEASON 3

While we won’t have regular recurring seasons in a traditional sense, we’re adopting the model to allow for bigger balance changes such as this one. Your eternal trials save file and highscore have been archived. Everybody can start with a clean slate. If you’d like to finish your existing season 2 run, you should be able to roll back to the previous version of the game using the rollback branch (Right click Thronefall in your Library / Properties / Betas / select previousversionrollback).

We used this opportunity to also implement another request from you: Adding more of the new buildings to the older maps in the Eternal Trials game mode. Every map in this mode has a Blacksmith and a few Shrines now as well as some other buildings where we managed to find some good spots for them. Happy exploring!

NEW TUTORIAL & TIP SYSTEM

The tutorial has been reworked to include some of the newer quality of life features. There is also a new tip system that essentially continues the tutorial after the tutorial by teaching you some more advanced features at a later point for example how to select only an individual unit type using the smart command hotkey.

This means even if you’ve already completed the tutorial you’ll receive a short series of tips to get you up to speed with all of the new features of the game. No worries, it’s just a few and they’ll be out of your face in no time.

SEAMLESS UI SCALING

We implemented seamless UI scaling to the game. You can now scale the UI between 50% and 150% of its original size in the gameplay settings, affecting all UI elements in the game. This *greatly* improves the experience on small screens and handheld devices such as the steam deck! :)

WHAT’S NEXT?

There is a very clear answer this time: Full Release!

We’re pretty happy with where the game is now. The biggest thing we’re lacking for a full release is some more content, so that is exactly what we’re gonna do next. We will leave Early Access later this year. There won't be any major updates until then, but we plan to celebrate with 2-3 extra maps on launch day.

It’s always our priority to be transparent with you, so we’d also like to share that we don’t plan to roll out any additional content after the official release of the game. We’re a very small team of two people. Thronefall is what is, is because we follow our passion and put all our heart into our projects. After two years of dedicating our lives to making Thronefall the best game it can be, the truth is we really need a break and are keen for new adventures.

Thanks for all the continued love and support. Developing Thronefall alongside you was and continues to be an absolute blast!

Cheers,
Paul & Jonas

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[EDIT July 10th, 2024]

Version 1.71 Hot Fix:

• Added WASD, Ctrl and Q back to the default keyboard map as hidden key bindings. We wanted to optimize the keyboard layout for new players. The changes that happened to existing players were unintentional. If you're playing with the default key bindings, it should all work the way you're used to again. We appologize for the inconvenience.

Some minor balancing changes while we were at it:
• Chaos God Mutator: Does no longer apply to exploding enemies at all (they just spawn in normally). Attack delay after spawning decreased to 3 (down from 5). Score bonus decreased to +45% down from +50% (as the attack delays etc in recent patches made this mutator a bit easier).
• Golem Hero: +20% health and +10% attack damage to make the hero a bit more competitive with the other hero options in Eternal Trials
• Support Mage Hero: +200% health to make the hero a bit more competitive with the other hero options in Eternal Trials (this is intentionally a rather safe / minor buff as the risk of healing becoming too overpowering is quite large)
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FULL PATCH NOTES 1.7

UNITS

• FIRE ARCHER: Health reduced to 20 (down from 30). Movement speed reduced to 3.5 (down from 5). Damage against fast enemies reduced by 50%. Fire archers should remain equally useful in most situations while giving them some more pronounced drawbacks.
• HUNTER: -15% Damage against non-monster units. Damage against monsters remains unchanged. A small but probably necessary nerf.
• CROSSBOW: Damage bonus against ranged units increased to +125% (up from +100%). Health increased to 45 (up from 35). Range increased to 21 (up from 13). Hopefully better fulfilling its role as your anti-ranged unit.
• LONGBOW: Health increased to 25 (up from 15). Damage against humanoid enemies increased by +60% (up from +0%).
• SPEARMAN: Movement speed increased to 9.5 (up from 8). Attack range increased to 5.5 (up from 4.5). Overall damage increased by +10%. Damage against fast enemies additionally increased to +100% (up form +75%). Health increased to 66 (up from 63). Already had a good niche, bu was too weak to shine compared to other options.
• BERSERK: Has 2 seconds of invulnerability after performing a jump (up from 0). Additional fire and explosion resistance: Now only takes 15% damage from explosions (previously 33%) and 25% damage from fire (previously 50%).

TOWERS

• ARMOR TOWER: Shield duration increased to 6.5 seconds (up from 5)
• BUNKER TOWER: Attack speed decline when enemies are out of range reduced by 60% (making it easier to maintain a high rate of fire)
• SNIPER TOWER: Targeting changed to focus on the unit with the highest max health instead of current health. This is to ensure it actually finishes enemies off instead of just leaving each of them wounded.
• FIRE SPIRE: Projectile splash damage increased by +50%.
• HEALING SPIRE: Strength bonus increased to +110% (up form +90%). Projectile speed increased by +50%.

WEAPONS

• SWORD: Active ability is no longer directional but deals splash damage in a large circular area around the player (this is a big buff as the area of effect is much larger and easier to aim). Passive health and health regeneration bonus increased to +30% (up from +20%). Active ability cooldown reduced to 8 (down from 9). Auto attack damage +5%.
• SHADOW CODEX: Passive damage per shot decreased by 50%. Auto attack cooldown reduced to 1.3 seconds (down form 1.5). Active ability damage increased by 50%. This should keep the power level of the weapon roughly the same while making the active ability more interesting and useful.
• FALCHION & TRAPS: Falchion now automatically prefers monster targets when in range.
• LIGHTNING STAFF: Active ability area of effect increased by +20% and damage increased by +10%.

CASTLE CENTER

• MAGIC ARMOR: Damage reflection against melee enemies reduced to 1 (down from 3.3). Damage reflection against ranged enemies increased to 7 (up from 3.3).
• BUILDERS GUILD: Immediately upgrades one of your houses in addition to the existing benefits.
• CASTLE-UP: Discounts ALL tower and wall upgrades for the entire match by -1 for level 2 upgrades and by -4 for level 3 upgrades.
• GODLY CURSE: Effect replaced. The first time your character attacks an enemy it loses 25% of its max health. This keeps the role of the upgrade unchanged, but makes it a bit more versatile and useful as well as easier to use. (Exact numbers here will likely need some more tweaking.)

BLACKSMITH

• MELEE DAMAGE: Melee damage bonus increased to +25% per upgrade (up from +20%)

MILL

• WIND SPIRITS: +50% attack speed

TEMPLE

• SACRIFICE: Level 1 unit respawn speed increased to +250% (up from +175%). Level 2 unit respawn speed increased to +275% (up from +225%).
• OVERLOAD: Tower health reduction speed reduced by 50% for temple level 2 and 3.
• ICE RAIN: Level 2 bold damage increased to 40 (up from 35). Level 3 bold damage increased to 60 (up from 50).
• PRAYERS: Level 1 shrine range bonus increased to +100% (up from +70%). Level 2 range bonus increased to +200% (up from +150%). Level 3 range bonus increased to +300% (up from +200%).
• WISDOM: Health reduction speed of all buildings decreased by 50% (so buildings survive twice as long).

MUTATORS

• Pray to the War Gods: Removed as it caused more confusion than it did good. The additional perks, the buffs and other difficulty decreases in this patch should make up for it.
• Turtle God: Enemies only have +60% more health (down from +75%)
• Challenge the Elite God: Only every fourth spawn is an elite spawn (down from every third) and score bonus is increased to +75% (up from +60%)
• No Towers Pact: Now allows you to build towers but they are very expensive.
• No Units Pact: Now allows you to build units but they are very expensive. (Makes it possible to play with no tower and no unit pact at the same time if you so desire.)
• Challenge the Chaos God: All spawned enemies have an additional delay of 5 seconds before they can perform their first attack to prevent them from instantly taking down your economy buildings when spawning next to them. Score bonus increased to +50% (up from +40%)
• Challenge the Phoenix God: Now limits the amount of healing per enemy to a maximum of 15 per second to avoid ridiculous regen speeds for very high health enemies.

CAMPAIGN

• Durststein: Enemy count in the first and second wave decreased so that you can more easily beat them without the "correct" counters.

ETERNAL TRIALS

• SEASON 3: Highscore reset due to the massive amount of balance changes.
• Spiky Giraffe: Difficulty budget increased by +10% (so less of them will spawn at the same time)
• Big Spider: Difficulty budget increased by +10% (so less of them will spawn at the same time)
• Nordfels: Added 6 shrines and a blacksmith to the map (for eternal trials only)
• Durststein: Added 5 shrines, a blacksmith, a temple and a royal forge (for eternal trials only)
• Frostsee: Added 5 shrines, 2 hero quarters and a temple (for eternal trials only)
• Uferwind: Added 5 shrines (for eternal trials only)

PERKS

• Treasure Hunter: grants 15, 25, 40 gold in the last 3 waves (up from 10, 20, 30).
• Loan: The first 10 (up from 9) gold dropped by enemies disappear.
• War Horse: Damage to enemies reduced to 2.4 (down from 2.7). Self-inflicted damage increased to 0.35 (up from 0.25). No worries, the perk is still very very strong.
• Daredevil: Maximum damage bonus increased to +115% (up from +100%)
• Lighter Materials: Reduces your auto-attack cooldown by -33% (previously -25%)
• Melee Damage: Increased to +35% (up from +30%).
• Interest: The amount of gold received is rounded up instead of down (e.g. if you have 4 coins in your chest you will receive 2 coins in interest instead of 1) but your interest is now capped at a maximum of +20 gold per night.
• Sustainable Mining: Effect replaced. Gold mines produce +1 gold and when a gold mine is destroyed its income is reset back to its initial value of 7 per night (but its income for the current night is still denied of course).
• Gladiator School The unit respawn bar can now fill up while all units are still alive (on top of existing benefits).
• Ice Magic: Riding over enemies applies a short slow effect to them (on top of existing benefits).
• Emergency Repairs: Health transfer speed between walls increased by +25%.
• Timber Scaffolding: Reduces the build cost of towers by 1 (on top of existing benefits).

SCALABLE UI

• You can seamlessly scale the size of all UI elements between 50% and 150% now

META PROGRESSION

• Allowed perk count increased from 3 to 5
• Weapons, mutators and building upgrades are now unlocked by completing campaign levels. This ensures new players get important upgrades and weapons when they need them. Perks continue to be unlocked by XP leveling.
• Removed level cap and added infinite XP leveling (mostly so you get to keep your current level)

ONBOARDING

• Tutorial has been reworked to include new quality of life features.
• New tip system that shows some quality of life features and tips after completing the tutorial. (This is both to help new players but also to ensure existing players are made aware of features they might not know about. They only show up once or till you try them and there is only a limited amount of them so in case you're an experienced player already they should stop bothering you rather quickly.)

MINOR FIXES

• tweaked the colors on wildbach to be easier on the eyes
• physical coins in your chest cap at 200, preventing crashes caused by an overflowing chest. We might find a more satisfying solution for this in the future
• fixed exploit that made it possible to change loadouts mid run by canceling out of the restart run screen
• tutorial, tips and control rebind menu now show glyphs for controller buttons instead of their names
• removed double negatives from the localization (e.g. “-60% slower” is now just “60% slower”)
• improved save-load system safety with automatic backups
• probably a bunch more