Fellow Necromancers,
Welcome to the latest balance update! See the end for the results of our recent 'Should Necromancers Get Weekends Off?' poll, and a basic roadmap for the future of NFAW.
General Balance Changes:
The chances of receiving a Monster with extra Moves in the Night 5 Tombstones has changed (decreased).
For reference it is now:
25% chance to have 0 extra Moves
40% chance to have 1 extra Move
25% chance to have 2 extra Moves
10% chance to have 3 extra Moves
Still a good chance to get a Monster that knows at least 1 extra Move, but we wanted it to feel special when you manage to find a Monster with lots of extras.
500+ Poison and 500+ Bleed Achievement
This achievement requires a Monster that's applied 500+ Poison AND Bleed. We've added some extra text to the achievement to make this clearer, as we've had a few comments about it.
No single Monster in the game is capable of doing this based on its movepool alone, but it can be done (we promise!).
Most of NFAW's achievements are relatively straight-forward to complete once you're familiar with the game, so we wanted one that takes a bit more finesse to complete. We've tested multiple ways to make sure it can be done in 1-2 runs max though, once you figure out how you want to accomplish it (and ideally have an optimal Starter to choose).
Generally speaking, it's likely best to leave this achievement until one of your last to complete, as by then you should have a clear choice of which Monster is best to use.
Monster Changes:
Ausaroo:
Raw Knuckle now causes an Enemy to lose 8 HP (was 10)
Encouragement now costs 1 (was 0) and starts at 1 Power (was 2)
Despite the recent change to Encouragement, it's still been a little too easy to assemble disgusting builds with Ausaroo. Broken builds are what we want in NFAW, but we want you to have to work for it! Before simply duplicating Encouragement was enough to 'go off', whereas now with it at 1 at least duplicating it will mean taking some time off before you can start one-shotting everything.
Raw Knuckle is arguably the best base Offensive Move in the game, so we hope that taking that down a smidge will also help keep Ausaroo in check.
We have picked on Ausaroo a fair bit recently, but with it being a starting Monster we feel it's important we get this one right. We want Ausaroo to be a fun first choice before players branch out, rather than feeling like they should use it as their starter every run.
Gargon:
Sage Aggression now deals 9 Damage (was 10)
Archaic Blessing now gains 9 Block (was 10)
Tiny nerf here just to keep things in line after the recent changes to Gargon.
Geckalik:
Measured Force now costs 1 (was 2)
Coiled Defense now costs 1 (was 2)
Players have noted that Geckalik's play pattern of needing to take most (if not all) of every second turn off isn't much fun.
We understand that, and our aim with a Monster like this (or Workull, who works similarly) is to have each turn feel like a mini-puzzle where what you do now will impact future turns.
When Geckalik's base Moves each cost 2, this just wasn't working out. Hopefully at 1 it's more interesting (and fun!).
Gruthlin:
Inheritance now gains 5 AP (was 6)
Another small adjustment where we were a little too ambitious with our original estimates!
Hexiboar:
Now starts with '(1) Revival DEF - Only useable after a 'Blind Charge'. Hexiboar restores 6 HP. Forget.'
Close Your Eyes now costs 1 (was 2)
Survey the Enemy now reads 'Gain 1 AP for each 'Blind Charge' used this Battle. Forget.'
Hexiboar has long been a fan-favourite of players who love to smash face! But we felt it could use a little improvement.
Blind Charge is powerful, but takes some time to get going. To help with that, we added Revival to help you restore some HP lost along the way, and reduced the cost of Close Your Eyes to help you set up quicker.
Survey the Enemy used to just give Exposed, which felt a little underwhelming on Hexiboar. Exposed is extremely powerful, but feels a little redundant as by the time it's good with Blind Charge, the Move is likely already dealing a ton of damage.
We hope that by changing it to an AP gain, it'll be fun to figure out the best time to use it based on what you've paired your Hexiboar with.
Puggum:
Now starts with 50HP (was 40)
Puggum has a very unique play pattern in that you want it taking Damage early on in a Night/Battle, and then either healing it just before the end (or keeping it damaged if you have Reconstitute/Splatter).
We want Puggum to be something players are really excited to try out, rather than skeptical whether it's worth trying. Some extra HP should help with that!
Vastihart:
Thrash now deals 30 Damage (was 25)
Similar to Puggum, Vastihart has some cool interactions and play patterns that are unique to it (eg did you know Self-Destruct counts as a negative affliction?).
It's a particularly tough one to balance, as it's worth picking early just to mow-down early Battles before shifting to a different team later. We'd love it if it could be more than just an early-game dominator though!
Vastihart does have an extra base-Move slot available, so if you have any ideas on how to improve it let us know!
Watch List:
Dolphedic:
Dolphedic in general has been a little neglected due to Healing being overpowered in the demo, and hasn't really been looked at since.
With harder difficulties coming out soon, we expect that Healing will again play a very important role. If that turns out to be false, Dolphedic will get a buff of some sort.
Nosgum:
Takes a while to get going and is still rather reliant on what you pair it with to be successful.
Pengilla:
While Pengilla's base moveset is very strong, it does feel like it's maybe lacking a little something compared to other Monsters, and can be a little clunky. Training Day is strong in certain situations, but likely worse overall than other cost-reduction methods.
Vastihart:
Another Monster that feels like it could use a little boost (beyond what it received today). It's a really cool design that we'd love to see getting a bit more use.
Results of the recent 'Should Necromancers get weekends off?' Poll + Roadmap
Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote in our recent poll! Almost 80% of voters said they'd prefer the main game mode to be 7 Nights, and/or that development time be spent on other things instead.
So with that in mind, here is the current roadmap for the future:
Additional difficulties
We're aiming to get this out as next week's bigger update. It should provide dedicated players with the most bang-for-buck in terms of extra things to do for now.
Additional enemies
We'd love all Battles to have at least 2 options, and the difficult/final Battles to have 3. We'd like to get these out over 2 more weekly updates (after the difficulties).
A draft mode
This will take longer, as there are a bunch of different ways it could be implemented. We'd love to get this out around the end of October ideally, with some beta-testing or soft-launches happening a bit earlier if possible.
In addition to the above, there are a couple quality-of-life adjustments we'd like to add such as being able to re-arrange your Moves during Battle. We'll do our best to add these when and where we can, plus any balancing and bug fixes.
If you have any ideas, please let us know!