Hey everyone! We've been working hard to get this one out..
This major update directly addresses core early access feedback regarding meta-progression, session length, and the economy. On top of fixing fundamental issues with the core loop, we have added tons of new content.
We are committed to building this game right, and your continuous feedback ensures that.
Content & New Systems
The New Quest System: The Quest Board is now the central way to play, giving you agency over your session length and objective.
Quest Types: We've introduced two types of quests: Treasure Hunt and Gauntlet, each offering a different objective and challenge experience.
Flexible Play: The Quest Board features various quests with different lengths and difficulties, allowing you to choose between shorter focused runs and longer expeditions.
Crucially, completing these quests is a reliable new way to earn Golden Shards.
Found Quests: Players will find randomized quests during runs, which are added to the quest board once back in the overworld. Obtained quests have a set difficulty level.
The Accolades System (Meta-Progression): We’ve introduced Accolades to give your long-term efforts more meaning.
Long-Term Rewards: These progressive milestones give you a consistent source of Golden Shards, helping players expand their dice collection quicker.
Balancing & Economy
Challenges System Rework: We immediately tackled the issue of inaccessible rewards.
Improved Flow: We’ve greatly improved the flow and ease of completing existing Challenges, making the process of earning Golden Shards smoother and less frustrating.
Easier Targets: Initial challenge numbers were too harsh, so they have all been balanced accordingly—it should now be easier to grind for Golden Shards.
Difficulty Scaling (Quests): You can now tweak the difficulty of quests for greater or lesser rewards, putting you in control of the risk and reward for every run.
You can now escape the Arena on wave 5, instead of wave 10.
Enemy Health & Damage Decrease
Wand Damage Increase
Club Damage Decrease
Reduced cooldowns on class movement skills
Reduced the length of “Treasure Hunt” Quest
Improvements to AI
Smarter Enemy AI: We’ve fundamentally improved the enemy AI to make combat more dynamic and challenging.
Proactive Tactics: Enemies are now much more proactive in targeting and moving, constantly pushing players and forcing better positioning.
Effective Skill Use: Enemy AI will use skills more effectively on both offense and defence, making encounters feel less static and more strategic.
Synergy: We’ve also improved some higher-level enemies and allowed them to use team tactics and synergizing their skills together.
Better Friendly AI Mechanics:
Conjure Illusion now follows the player properly when outside of combat loops.
Bug Fixes and Improvements
Gameplay
Fixed an issue where dropped inventories from dead players were too small to contain all their items.
Resolved a bug where Critical Hit and Dodge % boosts were calculated incorrectly in some instances, leading to multiplayer de-syncs.
Legendary (Tier 4) items can now be sold at shops as intended.
Fixed a bug where the “Inventory Full” message was incorrectly displayed to all players in a session when one player used Poisonous Plunder.
Corrected a bug where health bars disappeared while ‘Mimicking’ was active after using the Scroll of Mutation.
Fixed a bug causing the Plague Doctor not to use its healing skill when not at max health.
Resolved an issue with Venomous Strike not applying bonus damage and incorrectly inflicting Poisoned.
Fixed an issue where combat loops could merge when enemies were outside locked rooms - this sometimes broke boss animations and caused other unintended behavior.
Fixed a bug where the Lesser Staff’s skill attack remained linked to the original owner after being picked up by another player.
Addressed an issue preventing access to the hidden cache that can spawn behind the dungeon shopkeeper.
Increased spawn rate of shops in Arena Mode.
Fixed a lock-up that could occur when the game waited for enemy animations from a previous floor.
Corrected an infinite loop bug caused by combining Bleed and Temporal Displacement.
Fixed a bug where using Potion of Shift on a player in a turn loop could cause lock-ups and prevent AP regeneration.
Removed poison damage from the Throwing Dagger.
Fixed an issue where challenge progress was not tracking kills of stunned, poisoned, or bleeding enemies.
Corrected an issue where Illusions were being counted as "Enemies Left" in Arena and Gauntlet modes.
Fixed a bug where the ‘Attack and Move in Single Click’ setting interfered with some skill attacks.
Changed behavior for players in downed states - they can no longer revive themselves using consumables, or cast skill attacks.
Resolved a bug where enemies stopped using Attacks of Opportunity on players who had been revived.
UI Fixes
Fixed multiple issues related to UI layering.
Corrected a scaling issue where the ‘Hide Helmet’ button appeared in the wrong location at certain resolutions.
Fixed screen coverage issues on the End Game, Escape Arena, and Browse Lobby screens for various resolutions.
Resolved a scaling issue on the Dice Screen that made the Exit button inaccessible.
Fixed a bug where the Weekly Challenges timer was counting up instead of down.
Corrected display logic for the Revive Teammate button - it now only appears when relevant in both single-player and multiplayer shops.
General Improvements
Redesigned the Arena Shop and Rewards UI with improved visuals and functionality.
Players can now equip armor during combat - this is particularly useful in Arena Mode after acquiring new gear.
Poisonous Plunder can now target enemies that have already been plundered.
Disabled skill selection when it’s not the player’s turn, to reduce confusion.
Arena players now start in the center of the floor; enemies spawn at least 1 tile away.
Enhanced the dark wood texture on previously un-lootable props, to differentiate them from regular props.
Players trapped in an Arcane Pillar are now immune to damage, status effects, and knockback.
Added a general animation for scroll casting.
Thank you all your feedback so far. With your continued support, we hope to make Beneath The Six into the best possible game it can be.
Happy questing!