Hey everyone!

This update is a larger one - featuring a brand new Isolation mode (SSF) and many changes, improvements, and additions to Anomalies, among many other things!

I also took a look at improving controller support further so do please let me know if you experience any weirdness with PS4/5 controllers, and controls on the Steam Deck.

Speaking of Steam Deck, I recommend swithing to the Proton version of the game as we still haven't been able to maintain the native Linux build. (The Proton build is the exact same as Windows, so it also has better cross-save support and such)

Other than that there's a lot of QoL stuff, changes based on player feedback/suggestions, and of course bug fixes.

So what's next?
Next for Chronicon is an endgame DLC! That will pretty much be our entire focus for the game going forwards, so until that's done, there won't be any updates - other than the usual small bugfix and such that typically follow larger updates like this one. We're aiming to release the DLC around Q2 next year.

And if you are following our Survivors game, a massive revamp update is coming before the end of the year - so keep your eyes peeled for that! (Yes, I'm dead set on making the game worthy of the Chronicon universe)

As always, thanks for the reports and suggestions!

Here are the full notes:

1.54.0:

NEW FEATURE: ISOLATION

• Added Isolation mode. This completely isolates a character from global progression, shared currencies, stash, etc.
• To play Isolation mode, simply make a new character and tick the new "Isolation" box on the Hero Create screen.
• Note: You cannot play Isolation in multiplayer, nor can a character ever exit Isolation. Like Hardcore, it's permanent.
• Speaking of Hardcore, you can mix Isolation and Hardcore, if you want.

AREAS:

STORY:
CHANGED:
• Fortress of Hatred: Removed a lot of single walls and small pillars that you could get caught on easily.
• The Lost City: Widened corridors and doorways throughout the entire area for easier traversal.


ANOMALIES:
INFO:
• To make sense of the changes, here's a brief on how anomaly randomization works:
  • A Tileset is first rolled, which is the floor and wall visuals used, such as Cave, Temple, Desert - etc.
  • Then depending on Tileset, a Layout is rolled from a pool of good fits, and this Layout defines how the Anomaly is built - be it a big open area, a tiny cave, etc.
  • Tilesets and Layouts are mixed quite generously in Anomalies, so for example a Forest Tileset may be used with a Desert Layout, creating a very open forest clearing type area.
  • We had 60 possible Tileset/Layout combinations before and we now have 92 possible combinations!


CHANGED:
• Hellfort Layouts: Removed a lot of single walls and small pillars that you could get caught on easily.
• Increased the number of Layouts/Tileset mixes using previously existing sets.
• Improved most large Layouts to create areas requiring as little looping and backtracking as possible while still retaining some identity.
• Improved several older Tilesets with additional walls and paths to be used with a wider array of Layouts.

REMOVED:

• Bone Pits Layouts: Removed these entirely. The Bone Pits Tileset is still in use for better Layouts.

ADDED:

• Added "Wormgut" tileset (based on Act 4 final boss) for both new and old Layouts, as well as new unique detail objects/breakables for this tileset.
• Some of the new Wormgut details will also be scattered across other anomaly tilesets for further variation.
• Added a new long corridor Layout without dead-ends, available for most building tilesets (castle, temple, etc)
• Added a spiral Layout (Worm) for the new Wormgut tileset, and it'll also appear for some Cave and Forest tilesets.
• Added a large open Layout (Big Gut) for Wormgut and Forest tilesets.
• Added a smaller variant of the "Lost City" Layout from the story, fitting multiple Tilesets.

• Bramley has started remodeling his corner. We'll see what he comes up with.

BOOKS OF LORE:

• Interacting with a Book of Lore now opens the default dialogue box, showing the lore as if speaking to an NPC.
• The Books can now also be re-opened after being collected, in case you were interrupted. However they will stop spawning in future visists of the area once they've been collected.
• They are now revealed on the map when entering an area.

CODEX:

• Added Trove info on Area entries in the Codex.

COMBAT:

• Applying a DoT effect on an enemy now ticks a damage tick after a few frames, rather than waiting the full tick time (usually a second) before making the first damage tick.

SKILLS & ITEMS:

ALL:
• Greatly increased radius of Spike Orb satellites. Also removed LOS requirements.
• Jotunhelm now Augments to 50/100%, up from 30/60%. (and now Augments in 3% intervals, up from 1%).
• Meteorite Ring now Greater Augments to 100%, up from 75%. (and now Augments in 2% intervals, up from 1%).
• Ring of Horror has a new power: Deal increased damage to enemies who are fleeing.
• Hoarfrost has a new power: Deal increased damage to Chilled enemies.
• Ring of Thunder has a new power: Lightning skill may Stun foes on hit.

POTIONS:

• Added 4 new potions:
  • Transcendent Health Potion: Restores 15% of Max Health instantly.
  • Transcendent Mana Potion: Restores 15% of Max Mana instantly.
  • Transcendent Restoration Potion: Restores 10% of Max Health and Mana instantly.
  • Transcendent Temporal Potion: Removes 15% of Staggered Damage Held.
  • All these are affected by Potion Effectiveness.
  • These are dropped by enemies on Level 100 or bought from Sarek.

• Mechalord 2p bonus now makes the Killbot last forever.

WARDEN:

• Lesser Rune of Norla's Gale:
  Increased the damage boost to 30%, from 10%, due to fixing a bug that was making it stronger than intended.

• Spore Rain:
  • Should now interact with powers/runes/skills/masteries affecting the Spores passive, including Fungimancer's Loop.
  • Now plants Shrooms based on which passive skills area learned (explosive, gas, hallucination).
  • Now drops the spores one at a time rapidly rather than all at once.

• Robe of Corruption now Augments to 4/5%, down from 5/8%.

LOOT DROPS:

• Tuned the early game loot with the goal of making the initial looting experience less overwhelming and more interesting:
  • Rebalanced the amount of loot dropped throughout the leveling process, so that it slowly creeps up to the previous levels of loot, rather than being high from the get-go. Level 100 loot is unchanged.
  • Rebalanced rates of Enchanted and Rare drops, so that you'll see slightly less of these on lower levels and low difficulties, making them more interesting finds during the early leveling progress. Endgame/Level 100 remains unaffected here as well.
  • Bags now drop more frequently.

• Offering Coins at the Altar in Upper Temple Halls is now much more likely to yield usable items (for players in this part of the story).
• PS5/4 Gamepads now properly support the touchpad thingy.

UI:

• Added big healthbars for bosses.
• Added smooth menu transitions, and added new menu backgrounds depending on type of menu.
• Also added a checkbox to Settings -> Interface -> General Settings to disable the animations and transitions, if you prefer it instant and snappy.
• Added a new menu for creating new characters.
• Improved Keybinds menu, especially for gamepads (now uses button icons, imagine that).
• Added experimental support for gamepad type detection which should change the button images used to reflect the type of gamepad (such as PS, Steam Deck).
• Potion item cards now reflect your Potion Effect stat.
• Added a button Main Menu -> More -> See All Our Games! which takes you to our Steam Store Page for our games & DLC.
• The Radial Loot opacity setting now allows more fine tuning and goes down to near invisible.
• The difficulty select menu now keeps the text of the selected difficulty on-screen when moving away the cursor.

MUSIC:

• Added a low pass filter for music while the game is paused.

PERFORMANCE:

• Loading times have been sped up significantly.
• Improved texture & memory handling.
• Improved performance of most nova/radius passive procs.
• Improved performance of Zombie Puke especially (Warlock companion Use effect).
• Lowering Particle Intensity to 0 now gives slightly better performance than before.
• Improved performance of lights.

FIXES:

• Fixed pressing B (on keyboard) while in stash going to a pseudo beast/stash page that would crash the game.. oops.
• Fixed offsets of beast skins in the Wardrobe being wrong so they got placed slightly outside the box.
• Fixed a bug with loot drops where both Epic and Enchanted items had a 10x high drop rate than intended.. which in turn had removed all "Common" (white) quality items from the loot pool, which gave a weird initial experience.
• Fixed a bug where the Satchel (bag) couldn't drop, and it would instead automatically always drop the bag one tier up.
• Fixed a bug where Books of Lore would disappear when returning to a previously visited area (they weren't included in the save data - oops).
• Fixed The Lost City not spawning Shrines and Books of Lore properly.
• Fixed Lesser Rune of Norla's Gale adding too much damage and also getting the Tornado count wrong.
• Fixed several older Tilesets having some weird things going on in rare cases.
• Fixed several UI issues when hotswapping gamepad and keyboard.
• Fixed some buttons not being recognized on gamepads for hotswapping.
• Fixed Accept button on keybinds menu being off center.
• Fixed Codex Lore entries carrying over between Hardcore and regular characters if played in the same session.
• Fixed PS4 and PS5 touchpads not being recognized as buttons.
• Fixed problems with toggling auto cast for players 2-4 in local co-op.
• Fixed issue where all maps would put a portal icon in the top left (visible when using Fin'Ley's Magical Map).
• Fixed Echerberon The Matriarch (Dog Boss in Act 5) not being targetable by some skills, such as Rock Pound. Also fixed pathing issues for companions here.
• Fixed crash related to Internal Haemorrhage applications (Berserker).
• Fixed the Mythic Axe crafting recipe not being unlocked properly.
• Fixed the DLC menu button appearing on non-Steam platforms and directing to Steam when clicked.
• Fixed terrible performance when generating loads of explosions very quickly with certain builds.