Greetings, adventurers!
Things have been quiet due to the focus on getting Dragon Ruins II: Aftermath finished and polishing the release candidate until it shines. There's still work to do, but the finish line is on the horizon.
In the meantime, here are some major updates.
Difficulty
The encounter system was reworked to use fixed difficulty during quest runs, instead of a dynamic encounter scaling system found in the base game. The difficulty of individual quests goes up after completing them, spawning new and/or stronger monsters, which allows you to replay your favorite quest(s) with higher difficulty and bigger rewards or use older areas as easy grinding grounds.
NG+ System
Due to changes to the difficulty system, the old NG+ system was reworked into a more freeform system, only raising the monster strength on quests with Adventure Rank 11 or higher.
Benched characters level up to match the average level of the active party after completing a quest, allowing you to experiment with the party composition without having to invest too much time into growing these characters again.
Legacy Quests
We've added a way to play Dragon Ruins II quests in DR2A, enjoying the familiar locations with the additions offered by the expansion. The expansion will automatically check ownership via Steam or the presence of a save file if you own a DRM-free version.
Please keep in mind that you will need a Steam version of DR2 to unlock these quests on Steam Deck, and the expansion is designed for players who have finished the base game before.
Blessings
Whenever you enter a dungeon, you can ask a local witch to bless the party for the current run in exchange for gold. Strength increases the party's Attack, Fortification increases the party's Defense, and Swiftness increases the party's Speed. These blessings can help you get further into a difficult dungeon, have better chances of survival against a tough boss, or keep the party alive until you can score enough gold to upgrade your gear.
Release When?
Dragon Ruins II: Aftermath will be released this year. It's currently in an internal playtesting phase, with balancing and other adjustments happening along the way. In short, it's being played and replayed over and over, getting better with each run, but since the expansion has more dungeons than the base game, beating it over and over takes time.
To our dedicated fans: thank you for your patience. We'll announce a concrete release date ASAP.