As mentioned in the previous blog I wasn’t too happy with how similar each of the existing races felt offering mostly visual variation and a few minor stat bonuses. This minor update adds new Racial Passives for each of the four races making them more interesting and build-defining. These racials are still subject to change so give them a try and leave some feedback on what you think.
Also would you like to see similar passives added to each class giving them extra functionality and helping define their identity a bit more?
New Racial Passives
Human Ingenuity (Human) Your first reroll is always free and upgrading armor is one reroll token cheaper.
Cursed Blood (Death Touched) Your primary ability hits have a 10% chance to Curse enemies for 3 seconds. Enemies that hit you are always Cursed for the same duration.
Sun’s Grace (Auraborean) Your Dodge Charges can avoid all attacks.
Runemaster (Forlorn) The first non-Eldritch rune imbued in each ability gains +3 levels.
Balance Changes
Runewords:
3-Rune runewords max stat roll range reduced by 50%.
5- and 6-Rune runewords max stat roll range reduced by 75%.
Developer Notes: Over the past few weeks players have been exploring and figuring out the new Runeword system, its potential power and some of the usability issues that come with it. Many players have also been turning to AI and creating tools to reverse-engineer the system, changing its nature from discovery-based to something more deterministic, where you can easily search for the best runes using these tools.
This is fairly typical of how many ARPGs and RPGs work nowadays and there’s really no reason to try to fight against it. However this changes the nature of the system in a way that gives players too much immediate power, overshadowing many of the other sources of power. To address this I’ve reduced the maximum values that Runewords can roll.
I’m also considering moving the system away from being deterministic and making it fully random where Runewords would simply provide random bonuses that you might come across during a run, rather than being something you specifically plan your build around. Let me know your thoughts on this potential change.
Runeword Discovery stat base value increased from 2.5% to 12.5%.
Runeblade: Runeword Discovery stat increased from 25% to 50%, totaling to 100% from both weapons.
Runeword Stats no longer roll past their maximum caps.
Removed Health on Kill stat from the game. This stat might later return as an Eldritch stat.
Developer Notes: Health on kill was just too powerful stat and would overshadow too much Chance to Spawn Healing Soul stat.
Necrotic Might (Mastery): Health on Kill replaced with Chance to Spawn Healing Soul stat.
Dreadknight Armor Set: Replaced Health on Kill with Artifact Damage stat.
Nhalzûr, The Soul Eater
Changed Health on Kill to Chance to Spawn Healing Soul.
Reduced Soul Attract Range from 15 to 6.
Forlorn Racial Stat Bonuses:
Runeword Discovery increased from 25% to 50%.
Added +10% Chance to Spawn XP Soul stat.
Keeper of the First Graves no longer appears in Shattered Dark Rituals or in Arena of Ikar.
Akka can no longer be targeted by players or minions during the transition phase.
Reduced Akka transition phase duration from 60 to 30 seconds.
When enemies gain berserking their rotation speed is now also increased.
Durable large spiders are now less durable.
Added missing Ath rune to Ice Shards and Lesser Arcane Missiles.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where Chained Attack Amount was showing incorrect cap in Character Sheet.
Fixed visual issue on some enemies that had wrong colored particle effects.
Fixed a bug that was causing Damage per Active Ally stat to not take into account temporary allies.
Fixed a display issue where Max Greater Allies Cap would show 6 instead of intended 5.
Fixed a display issue where Max Companion Cap would show 3 instead of intended 2.
Fixed a bug with Wraithwalk that was causing it to do triple the intended damage.
Fixed a bug with Hulking Thrall where the triggered AoE ability was doing triple the intended damage.
Fixed a bug in Auto Build Mode that would sometimes pick unique items when it should not.