Replacing AI-generated art
As you may know and as our Steam page notes, the current version of the game has AI-generated art in it. We jumped on the hype train right when it was taking off and it seemed like AI was inevitable. To put it bluntly, this was a mistake.
I'm happy to say that we've spent a ton of time replacing these assets with good old-fashioned human-generated art. The overwhelming majority of the assets in the game are now hand-drawn, and we're working with a studio to finish up what's remaining. The assets that are still AI-generated are:
- Map tile sprites (the hexes the player clicks on to go to different locations on the map)
- Illustrations in Run Start, Ruins, Rest Sites, and Item Traders
- 7 UI textures, including the big wavy crop vine and some other smaller UI accents
As a reminder, at the time we launched in Early Access, a lot of art was already handcrafted, including all 3D assets, character portraits, and battle backgrounds. Probably the most visible changes you'll notice are the item and trinket graphics.
As a result of the new art, a couple of items and trinkets in the game have changed names:
- Heavy Pauldrons has been renamed to Trusty Spear.
- Godblade Shoulderpads has been renamed to Godblade Glaive.
- Balcony has been renamed to Participation Trophy.
- Animal Farm has been renamed to Animal Spirit.
Balance updates and bug fixes
Huge shoutout to all the folks on the Steam Discussion Boards calling out balance issues, bugs, and other things that aren't quite working the way you might expect. I've hopefully addressed most of them with this patch.
Spellcaster buffs
We've gotten feedback from players that spellcasters are weak relative to physical damage dealers. We've balanced this by focusing mostly on the Wizard trait and its units. The patch buffs its raw damage output and speeds up some spell animations. It does not change MP totals because there are a ton of ways in the game already to lower MP.
Generally, it still takes a little more effort to put together a team with a caster carry than with a physical damage carry, as players will need to find ways to lower MP. However, Wizards can now hold their own better in the early stages of the game, and the Wizard vertical is now about on par with the Sage vertical in terms of strength. When properly assembled, these can be some of the strongest teams in the game.
- Wizard trait magic damage increase buffed from 20/40/70/120 to 25/55/90/130
- Kincaid's Meteor base damage increased from 220/396/713 to 264/475/855
- Zilch's Fireball rising animation shorted from 1s to 0.6s
- Unceasing Rain's (Lv2 Fog of Rejuvenation) Hydrobubble projectile lob shortened from 2s to 1.2s
- Baal's Flame Shield duration increased from 3/4/5s to 7/8/10s (While Baal is not a spellcaster, he is a tank unit that is commonly paired with Wizards.)
- Vleeli's Deep Experience charge up animation shortened from 3s to 2s
- Old-World Jar's Spill Over charge up animation shortened from 3s to 2s
- Vicilicar Necklace of Cunning now reduces Crit by 15% instead of Attack Spd by 10%. (Attack Spd is also a pretty important stat for casters, and this trinket is supposed to reduce your physical damage effectiveness. Crit is still sometimes useful for spellcasters but less frequently than it is for physical damage dealers.)
Challenge Level nerfs
It seems like folks have generally been enjoying the new Challenge Levels. There are a couple of changes, though, needed to make them feel a little more fair.
- Challenge Level 2's boss spell effectiveness increase reduced from 25% to 20%
- Challenge Level 11's boss spell effectiveness increase reduced from 50% to 40%
- Deadwater bonus Magic scaling reduced from 2 to 0.5 (This enemy only gets bonus Magic on higher Challenge Levels, and with the previous value it was just wiping out backlines in one cast. It typically casts ~2 times in a combat.)
Enemy nerfs
There's one enemy in the game that seems to have evoked the ire of the player base more than any other: the Bubblefly, the one healer enemy. We've nerfed this enemy by making its healing projectile move more slowly. This will hopefully make it more common to kill an enemy before it gets healed.
- Bubblefly's Nectar Bubble bounce lengthened from 0.8s to 1.5s
Boss buffs
A couple of the bosses on Map 2 had some issues with their design whose resolutions ultimately buffed them. These are expected to be slight tweaks and not huge buffs.
- Ilm was moved up to the front row to get Red Phaisy's initiative shield.
- Florya's Whirlwind of Gaffa now decreases the Defense of those it damages each second. (Florya was basically a tank check, and if you passed, she dealt zero damage. Now she can do damage, but the fight is still ultimately a tank check.)
Bug fixes
A couple of players helpfully pointed out some bugs, and we found a few more during testing. We've fixed up the following for this patch.
- Having multiple Participation Trophy (previously Balcony) trinkets now gives the player additional Participation bench tiles from which units can contribute traits.
- Changed Amalia's spell text to no longer improperly mention that it spawns summons near the target.
- Removed the markup in Vessian's crop tooltip.
- Right-clicking while dragging a bomb no longer leaves that bombs area of effect indicators on the arena.
- Loading a run while in a challenge level now shows the challenge level info at the top.
- After abandoning a run, "Continue" option no longer shows up on the Title Screen until a new run is started.
What's next in store?
The next update planned is all new content, specifically new trinkets. This will hopefully make Trinket Chests more appealing and add more variety to runs and viable builds.
If you're interested in seeing what's coming up in future updates, I made a broader post about Path to 1.0 on the Steam Discussion Boards: https://steamcommunity.com/app/3039930/discussions/0/685240346634957543/
That's all for now! Please continue to let us know your thoughts on the game either in the Steam Discussion Boards or on Discord, and a huge thanks to everyone who's done so already. This is how we can continue to make this game better for everyone.
Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday break!