Summary
This update ended up being way bigger than expected, but I'm very excited about it! I had a few goals in mind throughout these changes:
Make enemy mechanics more interactive, make the actual wordplay on the board more impactful, and balance the power levels of enemies across biomes.
Make bonuses feel better overall - the extra slot and free Swap should make it easier to line up bonuses with relevant runes, while also nerfing the huge multipliers that could trivialize the game.
Of course the balance isn't perfect yet, but overall I think the enemies provide much more interesting challenges now.
TLDR:
Voidwalkers, Hieroglyphs, Souls, Hexes, and Hourglass mechanics/enemies have all been reworked or adjusted. You can find the main points in bold in the changelist below.
Enemies have been adjusted to have more consistent health/stagger values (generally lower than before).
Swap no longer costs or requires Power Gauge - instead, you get one free Swap per grid.
Nerfs to big multiplier bonuses, Void, and Storm.
Changelist
General
You can now abandon a run from the pause menu, instead of having to exit to the main menu and then deleting the save.
Abandoning/deleting a save now counts as a loss in the history.
Swap no longer costs or requires Power Gauge - instead, you get one free Swap per grid.
Starting bonus slots increased from 7 to 8.
True damage now also prevents damage reduction from effects like Weaken/Frailty.
All campaign starter decks now start with an additional Uncommon bonus.
Selecting a starter deck now also shows the starting bonuses for that deck.
Burn starter deck now starts with Eternal Candle instead of Charcoal.
Mana starter deck changed: -1 REPEL, -1 TRANSMUTE, +1 CHANNEL, +1 BARRAGE.
Enemies
Base health/stagger for all enemies have been adjusted to be more consistent - for the most part, enemies that had abnormally high values were reduced.
There are a lot of fundamental changes to enemy mechanics to try to make them more interesting and interactive. The main points are in bold.
Voidwalkers have been redesigned around a new mechanic called Contra: during even numbered rounds, words must be entered backwards.
Each Voidwalker has a different ability while Contra is active:
Saber - Can't be staggered during Contra.
Growth - When the Growth deals damage during Contra, they heal for double that amount.
Dweller - During Contra, the Dweller's block doesn't decay, and whenever you gain block, the Dweller gains the same amount of block.
Shroud - Evades attacks during Contra.
Medium - Letters drawn during Contra have their score reduced to 0.
Goliath - Gains Power when taking damage during Contra.
Spire - Starts with Void Armor equal to its health. Damage taken during Contra is dealt to the Void Armor instead. If the Spire's health is reduced to 0, it instead recovers health equal to its Void Armor.
Voidwalkers had higher health to compensate for Void damage, so they've been reduced significantly to be in line with other enemies.
Hieroglyph abilities reworked - Instead of enemies having different ways of applying Hieroglyph, it's now one mechanic - whenever you draw a tile, it has a 1/3 chance of gaining Hieroglyph.
Enemy mechanics now generally follow the same pattern: play Hieroglyphs -> negative thing happens. Enemy actions have also been adjusted to offer more chances to safely play Hieroglyphs.
Serkite - You gain 3 Poison for each Hieroglyph played.
Khunemos - Gains 1 Unstoppable whenever you play more than 1 Hieroglyph at a time.
Maaten - Drains your Power Gauge whenever you play more than 1 Hieroglyph at a time.
Seth - Attack damage is doubled for each Hieroglyph played this round.
Anubis - Gains 1 Doom for each Hieroglyph played.
This also means you can now attempt to exchange letters with Hieroglyphs as a way to get rid of them.
Souls now have an additional mechanic to let you "capture" them - If your word score exceeds the enemy's current health, they will lose 1 stack of each of their Soul buffs and you will gain 1 stack of the corresponding Captured Soul buffs.
Soul buffs have been normalized so that 1 stack of any Soul is roughly the same power as 1 stack of any other Soul. Enemies will now always start with 2 stacks of their respective Soul buff (increasing with enemy level).
The Soul artifacts gained from events are changed to give you 2 stacks of the corresponding Captured Soul. (The artifacts have effectively the same effects as before)
Hex dispel range has been expanded - you will dispel a Hex if your word score is within +2/-2 of the number of stacks.
Since they're now easier to dispel, Hexes will be applied with more stacks than before.
The basic Wychkin enemies have been redesigned to each play around a specific Hex:
Wychkin Warrior - Applies Hex of Shattering. Whenever they deal damage to you, they gain block.
Wychkin Archer - Applies Hex of Fumbling. Gains Power at the end of each round. Loses all Power when you reroll.
Wychkin Mage - Applies Hex of Tongues. Whenever you exchange, gains Might for each letter exchanged.
Empress Wych Morgana's attack changed to have a base value with bonus damage per Hex, instead of damage based on total Hex stacks.
Empress Wych Morgana now applies 2 Hexes at a time.
Hourglass changed to "Vertical: Increase Hourglass by the number of letters played. Horizontal: Decrease Hourglass by the number of letters played."
Hourglass now starts at 6 instead of 1.
Timekeeper Soldier's Chronocharge changed to "At the start of each round, the enemy gains Might equal to Hourglass."
Timekeeper Flock's Sandshifter changed to "Halves damage from runes while Hourglass is 6 or less."
Timekeeper Spine now heals when Hourglass crosses 12 instead of as an action.
Timekeeper Crawler's Time Bomb ability changed to "When Hourglass crosses 12, the enemy's next action will be to explode for X damage." and the damage now scales with enemy level.
Time Lord Decimus' ability changed to "Gains a random Timekeeper ability whenever Hourglass crosses 12."
In Campaign mode, the basic Feral Glade enemies (Lupine, Vulpine, Corvus) now gain Vitality with their attacks like in Danger Level 2 of the scenario.
Shellow reworked - instead of gaining Might, it now deals damage equal to its block and it retains block between rounds.
Titan Ariadne's Black Ivy reworked -
The Black Ivy rune now gives you Black Ivy equal to your active word length. Each stack of Black Ivy increases the damage you take by 50%. You lose 1 stack of Black Ivy at the start of each round.
Black Ivy makes Drain deal unstaggered damage to Ariadne instead of stealing your health.
Significantly less Black Ivy runes will be added to the grid.
Titan Svarog gains significantly more block from their block action.
Titan Nihlus - Now applies Infection upon dealing damage instead of draining Power Gauge.
Void
The Void buff no longer automatically converts Burn/Chill/Charge into additional Void.
CONVERGENCE γ now does the act of converting Burn, Chill, and Charge into Void instead of directly adding Void.
The Voidstone artifact now gives the enemy 5 Void instead of 1, and adds a CONVERGENCE γ rune to the grid.
Runes
ANTIDOTE now has Priority.
Fixed an issue where effects that increased/reduced block gained would have double the effect on FIREWALL.
Fixed an issue where UPCHARGE would try to upgrade wildcards.
Fixed some issues with MIRROR γ trying to upgrade runes that didn't have any upgrades.
OVERLOAD now gives 2 Charge instead of 3.
OVERLOAD α now gives 2 Charge instead of 3 and consumes 10 Mana instead of 20.
OVERLOAD β now gives 1 Static instead of 2.
OVERLOAD γ now gives 3 Charge instead of doubling Charge.
REFLEX changed to "Gain 1 Evasion. If you have any Charge, gain 2 instead."
REFLEX α changed to "Gain 1 Evasion. If you have any Charge, gain 3 instead."
REFLEX β changed to "Gain 2 Evasion."
REFLEX γ changed to "Gain 1 Evasion. Storm"
INNERVATE and INNERVATE β now give 5 Mana per round instead of 3.
INNERVATE α now gives 8 Mana per round instead of 5.
NUMB changed to "The enemy's damage is reduced by their Chill and your runes treat the enemy as staggered for 2 rounds. Priority"
NUMB α changed to "The enemy gains 5 Chill. Their damage is reduced by their Chill and your runes treat the enemy as staggered for 2 rounds. Priority"
NUMB β changed to "The enemy's damage is reduced by their Chill and your runes treat the enemy as staggered for 3 rounds. Priority"
NUMB γ changed to "The enemy's damage is reduced by their Chill, your runes treat the enemy as staggered, and you apply 50% more Chill for 3 rounds. Priority"
DISCORD β changed to "Gain Mana equal to your word score. Storm"
Bonuses
2X Damage is now 1.5X Damage.
3X Damage is now 2X Damage.
2X Burn is now 1.5X Burn.
3X Burn is now 2X Burn.
2X Letter is now 3X Letter.
3X Letter is now 4X Letter.
Minor Cheat now allows words up to length 4.
True Damage's rarity reduced to Uncommon.
+5 Damage is now +5 Combat, and also increases block gained by runes by 5.
New bonuses:
3X Block - Triples block gained by runes.
Alphafy - Non-upgraded runes are cast as their α variation.
Betafy - Non-upgraded runes are cast as their β variation.
Gammafy - Non-upgraded runes are cast as their γ variation.
Demerits
Removed from the pool: BLIND, STABILITY, RESILIENCE, WITHERING, ENCUMBRANCE
Fixed an issue where SWITCHEROO would sometimes duplicate runes/bonuses.
CAPTIVE - Changed to "Enemies enter battle with 2 stacks of a random Soul buff."
UNBREAKABLE - Enemies now also start with 20 block.
SINGULARITY - Changed to "Words with S are no longer valid."
BUDGETING - Allowed exchange tiles reduced from 2 to 1.
New demerits:
REVENGE - Whenever the enemy is staggered, they gain 1 Empowered.
PACT - At the start of your turn, take damage equal to your word score. At the end of the round, heal equal to your word score.
Artifacts
The JQXZ spellbooks have been changed to allow any 2-letter word with a vowel and their corresponding letter. For example, Tome of Xenofire now allows you to play any of the following: AX, EX, IX, OX, UX, XA, XE, XI, XO, or XU.
Portalstone changed to "You gain 1 additional Swap per grid."
Vase of Greed changed to "Whenever you skip your turn, increase the letter score of all tiles on the rack by 5."
Dragon Egg's Firebreathing damage/Burn per stack increased from 4 to 7.
Dragon Soul now adds Firebreathing instead of Firebreathing α, and now gives 3 Firebreathing stacks instead of a full Power Gauge.
Scenarios
Voidlands
The starting deck, events, and danger levels have been changed to compensate for the redesigned enemies.
Note: Due to the changes, existing Voidlands runs will no longer be valid.
Road to 1.0
Since all of these changes ended up going into one big update, the next update is planned to be the 1.0 update, mainly focusing on adding missing features/QOL and smaller balance changes. However, since I have some other responsibilities I need to prioritize, and I want to give the changes from this update some time to play out, I am planning to have it ready by late May/early June instead.