Early Access Update #8 (v0.1.8)

Early Access Update #8 (v0.1.8) focuses on improving boss encounters and comes with randomizer updates, improved Mage spell access (Magic Bolt/Blast) in the randomizer, and various other fixes based on community feedback!

Many bosses have been made more powerful as they weren't quite living up to their "Great Foe"/Boss title. "Buddy System" amended to ensure increased enemy variety. Haeldritch is more relevant in randomized runs (and more rewarding in Chapter 1). A Mage Trainer NPC has been added to Havenroc Castle, which acts as a safety net to help Mage's in randomized runs that are having trouble learning their Magic Bolt/Blast at appropriate levels (but at a cost, and the feature is available to all builds regardless of proficiencies). There are also numerous fixes and improvements!

Fully detailed patch notes:

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Boss Improvements:
Many bosses have been made more powerful. Some of these are "general" changes, applying to all versions of the boss (Chapter1, Chapter2, and the Randomizer), while "Randomizer" changes only apply to the randomized versions (Chapter2 and the Randomizer).

Great Wyrm
• General Changes:
  • Now uses "Vicious Bite" (50% chance) instead of "Dragon Fire 1" (25% chance).
  • "Vicious Bite" is an ability that deals 25-30 physical damage (compared to Dragon Fire 1's 16-23 damage). When it deals damage, it also has a 50% chance of dealing a "Crushing Blow", which makes you vulnerable to all physical damage for the remainder of the battle. The "Crushing Blow" effect can only be applied to you once per battle.
  • Attack power has been increased slightly.

• Randomizer Changes:
  • The enemy has been informing the Great Wyrm of your chest plundering habits. As a result, looting 16 or more chests will cause the Great Wyrm to be "Enraged by your greed!" when it tracks you down. (The 'gold recovery' chest from death and "empty" chests don't count towards this number.)
  • Being "Enraged by your greed!" gives the Great Wyrm the "Enraged" buff, increasing the Great Wyrm's physical damage by 50%.

• Developer Note: The Great Wyrm often wasn't very threatening and was considered to be one of the weakest bosses. In Chapter 1, Vicious Bite gives it a stronger guaranteed source of damage and each turn it effectively has a 25% chance to "Crush" the player, making the fight even more threatening but still manageable for Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, players will want to consider fighting it earlier. If it's "Enraged" and you're "Crushed", it'll deal 2.25x more damage than normal, and players might have to consider running and avoiding encounters in the desert for awhile.
  

Necromancer

• General Changes:
  • Now has the "Smartcast" trait. This is a special trait typically reserved for bosses. Enemies with this trait won't waste a turn trying to cast when silenced (previously, Halifax was the only one with this trait). The Necromancer is designed to be very powerful if not properly weakened before hand; however, with such a high chance of casting spells, landing Silence would completely neutralize it. This is no longer the case.
  • Attack power has been greatly increased.
  • Note: While buffed, players in Chapter 1 can still handle this "nightmare" with ease by fully exploiting its weakness.

• Randomizer Changes:
  • In Chapter2/the randomizer, the Necromancer has grown wiser and can now only be "weakened" 10 times. Additionally, each instance will only deal 15 damage (compared to 20).
  • The Necromancer has seemingly understood its folly of storing all of its power in its minions. Its dialogue has been updated in Chapter2/the Randomizer to indicate this and shed a little light on the situation.

Balgus and Halifax

• General Changes:
  • The Uncle you choose to fight second will now be more powerful, as they will call upon the spirit of their fallen brother to fuel their last stand. This enhances their stats and influences their combat style. (The first encounter with the Uncles is unchanged.)
  • Balgus2 (When enhanced by the spirit of Halifax):
    • Balgus gains increased attack power, HP, magic resist, and the "Smartcast" trait.
    • When below half health, Balgus will use "Desperate Strike", an ability that deals more damage based on his missing HP.
    • EXP and Gold rewards have been slightly increased.

  • Halifax2 (When enhanced by the spirit of Balgus):
    • Halifax gains increased attack power, HP, and base defense.
    • Halifax will now use "Imbued Strike" ability (25% chance), which deals 50 damage and restores 20HP.
    • Halifax will also deliver his finishing blows with this newfound ability as well (should your HP be at or below 50 when he takes his turn).
    • EXP and Gold rewards have been slightly increased.

  
  
• Randomizer Changes:
  • Both Balgus and Halifax have received minor dialogue updates in Chapter2/the Randomizer.

Randomizer Changes:

• Enemy Location Randomization (Buddy System Adjustment):
  • Adjusted to make 4-1 configurations (getting 4 of one kind of enemy, and 1 of another) a MUCH more a rare occurrence.
  • Developer note: The buddy system (often resulting in an enemy zone configuration of 2-2-1) has been a welcome change. However, generating a zone with a 4-1 configuration was occurring a too often in zones with a limited enemy pool, such as the 'safe zone' area around Havenroc Castle or Dreskofel Dungeon/Altar.
  • For reference, in the worst case scenario (the 2nd area around Havenroc, containing only 7 enemies in the available pool) a zone would have a 28% chance to generate a 4-1 configuration. This has been reduced to ~2%.

• Added the Mage Trainer NPC to Havenroc Castle:
  • In Chapter 1, they provide nothing, refusing to teach you your secrets and state that you must go out, gain experience, and learn the spells on your own. (Though if you return after you've learned all of your spells, they might react differently.)
  • In Chapter 2 and the Randomizer, they notice your aptitude and will teach you Magic Bolt for 100g once you reach level 3. If you've learned Magic Bolt (through any means), they'll offer teach you Magic Blast for 1400g once you reach level 8.
  • Developer Note: The primary reason for this change is to help players that really want to play a Mage build fight against the randomness of not being able to obtain their core spells (Magic Bolt/Blast). However, it comes at a cost and you must be the appropriate level. Also, you're never quite sure when you'll learn the spell naturally, so there's a bit of a risk in seeds where gold is harder to come by, as the natural Bolt/Blast level might be just around the corner. This option is available to all players regardless of build/proficiency choice. This change is targeted to runs where the player learns all Spells by Level 14, as it's less useful when the player is already guaranteed to learn all spells by level 10 (such as in Chapter 2), though it's still available.
  • By default, this setting is turned "ON" in the Standard settings of the randomizer.

• New Randomizer Settings:
  • Mage Trainer: "ON" or "OFF"

General Game Changes:

• Haeldritch:
  • Defeating either uncle in Haeldritch results in them leaving behind two Haeldritch treasury chests (in addition to their held item).
    • In Chapter 1, this results in ~500G and a Portleaf
    • In Chapter 2/the Randomizer, these two chests can contain anything
    • Developer Note: This change is aimed at making Haeldritch a more relevant location in the randomizer. Due to how one Uncle flees after you defeat the other, their item pool is often limited, only occasionally having a 'progression' item and often meaning Haeldritch can be skipped. This change increases the likelihood that you'll need to defeat an Uncle in Haeldritch to unravel your seed.

  • Chapter 1 encounter table updated from [50% Heavy Knights | 50% Swift Knights] to [ 40% HKs | 40% SKs | 20% Dragons]. This fixes a visual issue with the Enchanted Map and further demonstrates the alliance between the Uncles and the Dragons.
    
  
  

Various Fixes and Improvements:

• A description box now appears when selecting your Proficiencies, it states:
  • "Proficiencies increase base stats by 10% and give a flat bonus at level 1."

• Fixed an issue where some players would experience a delay the first time they "Attack" in combat after starting up the game.
  • Dev Note (5/2/2025): Further testing has revealed this issue has improved, but isn't yet completely resolved. (And likely related to the issue below involving the UI reload.)

• Fixed an issue where the "gold recovery chest" wouldn't be interactable when re-loading the same level (typically after teleporting or running from an npc battle/enemy nest). (This one ended up being tricky to track down, a huge thanks to everyone that reported it and their findings in both the forums and on discord!)
  
• Fixed an issue where Aedma's Splinter and the Sunstone could be re-obtained after they've been used via their chests.
  
• Fixed an issue where Ludriel's dialogue would revert to his Chapter 1 dialogue partway through Chapter2/a randomized run.
  
• Fixed an issue where manually setting an invalid seed input wasn't properly displaying the "Invalid Seed" message when trying to start the run.
  
• Fixed an issue where your Sister would give you a Leather Cuirass in place of Ludriel's Sword (when she's set to give you exclusively a weapon).
  
• Fixed an issue when selling two pieces of equipment in a row, where the second piece would have to be selected twice.
  
• Fixed an issue where initializing a new UI layer (such as the "Enhanced Teleport" location list) would, under rare circumstances, cause the UI to reload. While mostly unnoticeable, this UI reload could then sometimes cause a memory flush, leading to a delay when loading the submenu.
  • Dev Note (5/2/2025): Further testing has revealed this issue has improved, but isn't yet completely resolved. (And likely related to the issue above involving the first "attack delay" upon starting up a game.)

• Various minor background improvements (relating to pixel perfect orientation of the UI).