Hello everyone!
Chapter 4 expands today with the first phase of the Mokdu King encounter - a new large-scale ritual boss battle built around four altars, enemy reinforcements and dedicated ritual mechanics.
The update also brings gameplay improvements, redesigned environments, new effects, balance changes and fixes across the game.
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New Content: Final Boss, King Mokdu
After defeating Puppet-Saja, you can venture beyond to the Crimson Sanctuary. There, King Mokdu, leader of the Crimson Order, is performing a blood ritual.
This encounter is unlike any boss fight you have faced so far. Rather than crossing blades with you himself, King Mokdu commands waves of cultists, gathering the blood of his fallen followers into the sanctuary's Sacred Altars to strengthen his sorcery. Defeat the cultists to advance the ritual. When King Mokdu begins absorbing an altar's power, attack that altar to stop the absorption.
Changes: Groggy and Boss Counter
We have refined Boss Counter and Groggy to make them more satisfying.
The increased damage taken by Groggy targets has been raised from 20% to 50%.
Attacking a Groggy target now makes damage numbers slam downward instead of floating upward, shakes its Health bar, and sends its soul flying out of its body.
Damage dealt while a target is Groggy is now totaled and displayed as a single number above its head. (Tainted-Sunjang, Dark Mudang Jisil, Puppet-Saja, and regular Fiends)
Fixed an issue where Stun or Freeze could overwrite Groggy on regular Fiends, removing the increased damage taken.
Changes: Invitation of the Warden
The Invitation of the Warden scenario now offers a choice. Interacting with the Warden's weapon opens a selection window.
Accept the weapon: Fight with it for this combat encounter. Once combat ends, one of your existing Weapon Chimes is upgraded by one level.
Refuse: Enter combat with your current weapon. Once combat ends, receive 1 Anvil Stone.
Changes: Scenario Objectives
Combat scenarios now display your current objective on screen. Objectives such as destroying stakes, charging a ritual circle, interacting with an altar, and defeating all Fiends are shown alongside their progress and checked off when completed.
Applies to: Fiend Encounter, Blood Harvest, Unclean Stakes, Thirsting Souls, False Grave, Blood Offering, Bait, Invitation of the Warden, and Maw of the Effigy.
Combat and Presentation
Invulnerability after taking a hit has been increased from 0.1 to 0.5 seconds.
Invulnerability now applies while using an Ultimate, and its duration has been extended.
Targeting priorities for player skills and artifacts have been standardized.
Added a new breakable prop, Wailing Ginseng, which restores Stamina when destroyed.
Fiends can now be pushed back even when they are immune to knockback during an attack. (Their attack animation is not interrupted.)
Cult Spearmen now sidestep to adjust their distance, and ranged Fiends move away from the player while waiting to attack.
Cult Martyrs now take longer to explode, and their warning indicators have been synchronized with the explosion timing.
Changed the Cult Priestess's projectiles.
Reduced the amount by which background music is lowered when sound effects play.
Quality of Life
Improved the combat results screen.
Added names and descriptions for each weapon's Ultimate.
Stats for the Agate Ring, Jade Ring, and Coral Ring now accumulate throughout a run regardless of whether you own them. Their current values are also visible in the shop and artifact selection screen.
Damage dealt by Exhumed Skull and Broken Divine Blade is now included in the results screen.
Improved how some artifact values and descriptions are presented.
Balance
This round of artifact balancing prioritizes bringing weaker artifacts up to par. Based on play data from the previous version, we have buffed artifacts with clearly lower win rates in the final boss encounter as much as possible, limiting nerfs to just three artifacts that clearly needed them.
Nerfs
Chain of Cutting Wind (Revelation): The activation interval outside Awaken has been increased from 2 times to 3 times the normal interval. (Base damage is unchanged.)
Exhumed Skull: Damage per second per stack of Expose reduced from 8 to 6.
Fixed an issue where it dealt damage every 0.5 seconds despite its description. It now deals damage once per second, as described.
Broken Divine Blade: Damage per stack for every 1 m the target moves reduced from 8 to 6.
Buffs
Tortoise Emberbox: Base damage 120 → 180 / Frost Engrave: damage increase each second after deployment 10% → 15%.
Blade of Hwanung: Base damage 10 → 20 / Damage increase from Earth Engrave 20% → 30%.
Scripture of the Mad King: Base damage 25 → 40 / Revelation now also increases Whirlwind size by 50%.
Bloodflame Beads: Base damage 20 → 28 / Revelation explosion damage 50 → 100.
Hands of Buddha: Base damage 36 → 50.
Talisman of Essence: Divine Power gained when casting a Spell 8 → 12.
Dokkaebi Cap: Base damage 36 → 45.
Mirror of Hwanung: Base damage 36 → 48.
Bronze Heart: Base damage 30 → 45.
Turmoil Pipe: Base damage 24 → 32.
Thunder Axe: Base damage 30 → 40.
Wolf Pauldron: Tactical Attack critical chance and critical damage 12% → 18%.
Other
The damage increase granted by weapon levels has been raised from 5% to 10%.
Bug Fixes
Combat
Fixed an issue where activating Awaken at the exact moment a room was cleared with Thunder Axe or similar effects could cause Awaken to remain active indefinitely, even in the next room. This also fixes artifacts such as Chain of Cutting Wind and Requiem Jijeon continuing to activate as though Awaken were still active.
Fixed an issue where Soju Peddlers failed to revive, blocking progression.
Fixed progression being blocked by lingering Cult Spearman corpses and corrected enemy summoning errors in Maw of the Effigy.
Fixed an error that occurred when Puppet-Saja retrieved its hat.
Fixed skill warning indicators remaining after death.
Fixed the screen briefly turning black during the Chapter 1 boss entrance sequence.
Fixed enhanced nameplates not being applied when enemies already present in the room were enhanced.
Artifacts
Fixed an issue where Ignite applied by Exhumed Skull continued to deal damage after all copies of the artifact were lost.
Fixed Hungry Brazier's effect not activating correctly. It now activates only during combat.
Fixed Satba of the Champion's effect not being applied.
Fixed an error when dashing with Silver Dagger of Nakrang.
Fixed an error during Bloodflame Beads' Revelation explosion.
Fixed artifact values not displaying correctly on the starting artifact selection screen.
Scenarios
Fixed the damage increase from weapons received in Invitation of the Warden not applying to Ultimates.
Fixed incorrect damage being applied after switching to the Horn Bow in Invitation of the Warden.
Fixed weapon-switching errors during Invitation of the Warden.
UI and Text
Fixed the popup closing when a cancel input was made immediately after the Weapon Chime completion sequence.
Fixed weapon notification indicators in the Temple of the Forbidden Seal not updating after unlocking weapons or Attunements.
Fixed the results screen appearing when returning to the Temple of the Forbidden Seal from The Gate of Aksun.
Fixed the HUD appearing when entering the node map from The Gate of Aksun.
Fixed incorrect Elixir and Shield values and animation errors in the status window.
Other
Improved performance in some combat situations.
Fixed numerous other exceptions and causes of crashes.
The Mokdu King ritual has begun.
Jump into the update, experiment with your builds and tell us what you think!
And if you’d like to chat with us and other players, join our Discord!
Wayway Inc.