Shadowstone Closed Playtest Patch Notes
0.3.0 Update
Interested in joining the Shadowstone limited closed playtest? You can join the playtest now through here!
What's New
Life and Death Iterations
Parties start with 2 Lives by default.
Upon a Hero Knockdown, all Heroes gain 1 Permanent Expose.
Completing the "Jailbreak" quest will no longer award the party an additional starting Life in future runs.
We've been tracking the community's conversation around losing a single life triggering a run's end feeling too abrupt and punishing. After internal discussion we've determined that the Death/Lives system as it stands currently is insufficient for creating the type of engagement we want players to experience when they get close to losing a run and as such, the system has been targeted for a larger rework. This rework is a bigger project so we've slated it for a future update. In the interim we are temporarily adjusting the Lives/Death system as per above to give folks some more recoverability during general play and to establish a rudimentary structure/promise that Death will be more involved in the future!
Revenant Rework
Instead of Ground Object neutralization, it now focuses on player stats and choice making, freeing up Pyro and Witch to take their turn
Health Increase (+20 HP)
Ultimate is now easier to proc and more Punishing
Coast Biome Hazards Iteration
At the end of Player Phase, High Tide cleanses all Debuffs on Monsters in Range
Spider Crab and Giant Clam Iteration
Instead of their passive being triggered by Ground Objects, it is now triggered by debuffs applied to them.
Camera Changes
The camera now frames the entire board at the start of the encounter and the start of each player turn to help make sure monsters aren't hidden due to the zoomed in camera.
More Health
Players are now rewarded with a Heal 4 immediately after defeating a Boss
Starting Gold Rework
Heroes will no longer start with Gold until after they complete "Stronghold Jailer" and unlock rerolls.
Once rerolls are unlocked, Heroes will start with 100 gold, down from the 300 gold that Heroes used to start with.
The "Deep Pockets" quest completion requirement has been lowered to 200 gold (down from 400 gold) to compensate for the lower starting gold amount.
Rebalanced spawn locations on select board layouts.
Sometimes players were starting too far from enemies to be effective on the first round of a room. This could be particularly pronounced in 2- and 3-hero games, and games with our melee hero, the Berserker. This rebalance tweaked the spawning positions of both heroes and monsters to ensure a hero in any starting position could reach some monster first round. Backline Berserker spawns should hopefully feel less painful after this update, but if you find any starting layouts in room that feel particularly "unlucky," please screenshot and pass our way!
2-3 hero party balancing introduced!
You want to play at 2- and 3-hero. We want you to play at 2- and 3-hero. We've made a few changes to kick off better balancing 2- and 3-hero runs. When starting a run in 2- or 3-hero parties, each hero will now gain the Rune "Resorption." That rune grants extra maximum health: +4 health to each hero in a 2-hero party, and +2 health to each hero in a 3-hero party. There will now also be fewer monsters in 2-hero rooms. Ultimately, we felt that heroes in smaller numbers most critically lacked the ability to absorb damage coming their way, since damage is more concentrated on fewer targets and the health pool available is overall lower, but they weren't lacking quite as much in damage output (ability to ultimately take down enemies, provided they survive). However, this is just an opening salvo at a stronger, more balanced 2- and 3-hero experience! Once we see how y'all feel about these current changes, the plan is to continue to refine hero scaling in a future patch.
Character Update
Berserker Passive: Removed damage bonus from Rage.
Rage grants -2 damage take, 2 healing on rage expire
Bug Fixes
Soft-lock after Witch's passive ability was activated mid-attack animation has been fixed
Soft-lock after bouncing twice in a row on Bounce Shrooms has been fixed
Epic Potion that applies Provoke on AoE no longer affects other players
Pyromancer's "Blazing Bank" Spell now gives correct amount of Permanent Strength
Witch's "Morous Sporous" Spell now creates Mushrooms on empty hexes around target
Description of Falling Snow, Magma Spouts and Crystal of Fortitude has been updated
Text in the Quest Log now wraps correctly on lower resolution screens
Thank you to our playtesters for all of your feedback and bug reports!
You can join our playtest here and leave feedback with your fellow Shadowtesters on our Discord!