Hello everyone!
I figured it was a good time to do a progress update. I was planning to have the next update out before Christmas, but I've realized I just don't have enough time to do everything I want to before then.
I don't want to cut anything out either, so the plan now is to upload what I have as an optional update this weekend, so you can check out the work-in-progress new stuff over the holidays if you want to.
I'll resume work on it after the holidays and do a proper update as soon as it's done! I'll make an announcement when the optional update is available, and explain how to get it (don't worry, it's very simple!).
So what's in the next update?
The next update has...
- A full Mastery rework
- Endgame/Anomaly rework
- A new endgame crafting mechanic called Runes
- Many tweaks and fixes
A mastery rework? Is my build nerfed?
Most likely not. If your build relied on an OP or broken mechanic/skill/interaction then it's probably nerfed in the sense that it is not OP anymore, however I've tried to keep everything "viable".
With big changes like these, the meta will change, new builds will emerge, and it'll require a few iterations to figure out what's fun and what needs work. So be sure to let me know what you think when this goes live! (Or join the testing, more on this at the bottom)
There has been an overall damage number "squish", so depending on how far you're into the endgame you might see lower numbers pop, but don't panic as everything is being tuned accordingly!
When designing the new Masteries these were my goals:
- Allow a wider array of builds (including adding better support for requested things like better companion build options and thorns scaling)
- Make things more fun by making point investment matter more
- Make future class changes/additions/tweaks easier to manage and balance
And based on initial feedback on test builds, things are looking good!
Here's some screenshots of the new Masteries:
A fully decked out Warlock Mastery
Wait what? Caps everywhere but the three in the middle left?
Yup, because now you get bonus damage to all skills in the entire tree when putting any point in the related line, like so:
And the middle three lines doing this:
Lets you build pretty freely and still always get stronger.
A new addition are the rhombus skills.. these are called perks!
Here's the final perk of the Corruptor line:
And the Class Masteries being the middle 3 lines, the only ones with skills without caps.. you still get powerful scaling without having to dump all points into a single skill, like before.
Here's a few other Perk exampels:
Grand Summoner being one of the picks for the last perk for the Class Masteries...
What do I mean "one of the picks"?
Well...
Ever single mastery works like the active skill slots in the regular skill trees - you get to pick what goes in the slot! And yes, that means all of them, not just the perks. However there's currently a special synergy slot that only has 1 option.
These are just a few examples from the Warlock class - every class has their own perks and passive picks. And they have a lot of them!
And here is the currently (work in progress) new endgame interface:
And a little peek at the Rune system:
And some good news for custom translations: I have also prepared all enchants and legendary powers for translators, as well as adding support for Cyrillic.
I think this update is going to be great :)
If you want to help test this as I am developing it, you are more than welcome to pop in on the Community Discord and join the "tinka builds" - special test builds that I frequently publish to gather feedback. All of the things I showed above are actually playable and available for testing there right now!
There's a pinned message in the discord with instructions on how to opt-in for these test builds. Join the Community Discord here: https://discord.gg/nSKhPEA
I hope I'll see you there!
Oh, and on December 20th the in-game Christmas event starts - so be sure to check that out. Tinka's been up to no good again...