TUTORIAL ADDED,
NEW UI ART,
NEW MATCHMAKING,
PERFORMANCE FIX THAT WAS CAUSING 4X RENDERING!!! vastly reducing performance,
Gameplay & Combat Logic,
Fixed:
Could not interact with menus while a tutorial was active.,
Units sometimes became unmergeable until the shop was rolled; merging now works consistently.,
Swapping positions of identical units on a full team failed; swapping now works regardless of empty slots.,
Summoned units could overlap or fail to move when multiple deaths and summons occurred in the same frame; spawn placement and movement now resolve correctly.,
Summoned units were missing health and attack UI; stats now display on summon.,
Rolling the shop incorrectly increased unit health; units now spawn with correct base health.,
Gunner Thomas did not remain in looping attack pose while suppressing from backline; behavior restored.,
Steel Helmet and Doomshell did not consume themselves or exploded at incorrect positions; both now detonate and clean up at the correct location and triggers.,
Steel Helmet was triggered by Burn; Burn no longer triggers it.,
Leechback Gorun’s health adjustment math was incorrect; health siphon now calculates accurately.,
Commando Carno attacks failed to trigger Echo Caller Vi when placed behind on-hit units; trigger path fixed.,
“Mergeable” hint showed with no mergeable units present; indicator now appears only when valid merges exist.,
Dragging a unit showed target/arrow hints even when not dragging; hints now show only during drag.,
Changed:
Early run difficulty smoothing: for a player’s first three completed runs, enemy team stats are reduced Rounds 1–4: −40 percent, 5–8: −30 percent, 9–12: −20 percent, 13+: none.,
Matchmaking prioritizes opponents with the same health (and turn), with fallback to health −1 when needed.,
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UI & UX,
Fixed:
Settings and other menus now block world hovers and clicks behind them.,
Fullscreen toggle now functions reliably.,
Various overlays could not be clicked or had double checkmarks; interaction and layering corrected.,
Bestiary and several description frames were being stretched or mis-sized; all affected frames now use the correct non-stretched variants and widths.,
Dropdowns used mismatched backdrops and ill-fitting buttons; standardized to in-game frames.,
Description box sizing was inconsistent across screens; a default description text size is enforced, shrinking only when text exceeds bounds.,
Nameplates could scale excessively with short names; added a sensible max size.,
Combat tooltips could block menus or overlap tooltips; size and placement adjusted to avoid interference.,
Tutorial confirmation dialog “Yes” was not clickable and “Disable tutorial” persisted incorrectly; flow and buttons fixed.,
Roll button visibility was inconsistent; it remains hidden until the roll tutorial step and then appears as intended.,
Tutorial re-appeared repeatedly after buying a fifth unit; de-duped triggers so each tutorial fires once and auto-closes when its action is completed.,
Changed:
Standardized main shop button sizes (End Turn, Roll, Lock, Sell) and alignment; Sell aligned with others.,
Target outline and selection states unified with outline shader and white highlight for selected and drag-target states.,
Dice effect spawns centered on the Roll button and renders above UI; Lock/Unlock impacts aligned from the same origin.,
Gold amount text increased for readability.,
Equipment description copy standardized to “Equip Ally:” and equipment panels show base description only.,
Shift-hold hotkey replaces a unit’s description with the next level’s description for fast preview.,
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VFX, Rendering & Post-Process,
Fixed:
Multiple rendering-order issues where VFX appeared behind sprites or above UI incorrectly (buff trails, rifle/gun shots, backline effects over frontline UI, mergeable VFX after drag, etc.); all affected systems now draw in the correct order.,
Money Impact duration was unintentionally shortened in-game; duration honors asset timing again.,
Win/Draw/Lose VFX were stretched or mispositioned; NS_WIN/NS_LOSE/Draw now spawn centered with correct aspect and thin outline variant.,
Victory/Game Over screens blocked equipment bars and used inconsistent frames; frames swapped to standard, placement adjusted.,
Burn ailment’s color grading mismatched in combat; enabling the shared post-process volume and Chameleon in combat restores visual parity with shop.,
Summoned units in backline failed to spawn with smoke like the shop; smoke now plays in both lines consistently.,
Characters that die and are thrown back could render behind backline units; death throws now render in front.,
Changed:
Roll impact uses /Game/Art/VFX/All_Used_VFXs/Triggers/NS_Dice_Impact; Sell impact uses NS_Money_Impact.,
Combat damage impact updated to NS_ShatteredBlast for clearer feedback.,
Turn timer now triggers an Oil Impact at each tick for timing feedback.,
Added drag trails: characters use ns_Character trail, supplies and equipment use dedicated trails; mouse uses ns_mouse trail.,
Weapon motion trails added using NS_Slash_Trail on blade tips or gun barrels during idle-to-attack transitions.,
Pterodactyl carry-in added for summoned units, with NS_Summon trails on wing tips and random misc variant selection on each summon.,
Gulletback: added swallow smoke trail and corrected VFX anchor positions in both shop and combat.,
Equipment application now plays the oil lock-style VFX on the target.,
Lock impact VFX scaled up and positioned inside the lock aperture.,
Machine gun and LMG hits can spawn multiple randomized impact VFX to match multi-bullet volleys.,
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Tutorials,
Fixed:
Tutorial tooltips no longer appear under a darkened “Second Chance!” screen; they show after that screen closes.,
Tutorial arrows and highlight states corrected, including dotted vs solid hover behavior and arrow pointing to mergeable units and chainlink UI.,
“Sell units” tutorial only triggers once at the appropriate unit count and closes after the action.,
Changed:
New tutorial: selling units by dragging them to the Sell button.,
New tutorial: spending 1 gold to roll before the End Turn step; Roll button is hidden until this step.,
New tutorial: autoplay vs manual combat flow after the pause tutorial, instructing to press Autoplay then left-click to advance.,
Combined and tightened “Supplies give stats / Equipment give abilities” with a single prompt and purchase pointer.,
Tutorial economy during onboarding keeps player at 10 gold until lock is taught, then forces a 1-gold roll to demonstrate spending.,
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Characters, Units & Content,
Fixed:
Quartermaster Drell: on sale, stat grant icons showed but numbers did not; numbers now display and apply.,
Gulletback: “suck in breath” VFX no longer goes behind his head; enemy-team testing path fixed.,
Echo Caller Vi now triggers correctly when Carno attacks through on-hit intermediaries.,
Changed:
Token setup for Watson: added Holmes and holmes_attack for Watson’s summon; “Wyatt” references updated to Watson.,
Re-imported and updated VFX anchors for Banner-Knight Virelle and Medic Thorne (with subsequent pose update).,
Re-imported Gulletback attack sprite to match anchors.,
Battle Tactician Mira re-imported with new design and VFX anchor locations.,
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Matchmaking & Progression,
Fixed:
Could hover/select names in selection lists with nothing chosen; hover gating corrected.,
Changed:
Simplified matchmaking prioritizes opponents on the same turn with the same health, with fallback to health −1 to reduce stomps.,
One-time auto-delete of an existing, stale run on first launch after the patch prevents corrupted or incompatible progress from blocking play.,
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Audio,
Fixed:
Post-combat screens now loop their music tracks.,
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General Polish & Optimization,
Changed:
Global darkening is consistent across all menus and screens.,
Thin outline shader standardized for Win, Victory, Lose, and Game Over headings.,
General optimization pass across UI and VFX systems.