"One player, two player, red player, blue player!"
Yes, that's right JoePlayer!. You called for it, and now is your chance to try it out on the Experimental XBRANCH: two character mode is playable! Both in single player, and co-op.
Experimental means Experimental
Making this change to a game that's been designed around three characters since it's inception has been a major challenge for balancing, and bugs. You may notice balance problems, and some functional issues. Continue to report the bugs from the in game bug reporting tool. For balance issues: take to the discussion forums to summarize.
"Ok, enough disclaimer... How has the game changed?"
You might think that simply letting only two characters into the game was the only change we had to make... This cannot be farther from the truth.
You have to consider that each round is now 2 turns instead 3. This means time passes faster, and you have to traverse the same distances in fewer rounds. Chaos encroaches sooner as a result. We've also had to address issues around combat - especially in dungeons - where we limit the battles to two enemies instead of three.
All in all, we've worked hard to make sure it's working, so we look forward to seeing your feedback in the Discussion Forums on your attempts at playing. Be sure to share with us all about your successes and failures.
"Ok got it... Sharing is caring... what else?"
Of course there's more
We’ve added DISCORD GAME INVITE support. You can now use Discord’s Game Invite Party Up system!
After you’ve created your game, open discord and use the invite to game option. You can even do this right in the Looking for Party channel on discord to invite the public!
In additional to enabling two character mode: we have a large number of bug fixes, and other features. I won't go in to total detail on everything until we push the XBRANCH to main, but I'll list some key points.
Key changes/fixes
General game changes
- 20 new overworld encounters
- More time between chaos on Journeyman in story mode. This should help get more people in to Journeyman!
- Side quest limit of 3 has been LIFTED. You can now take as many as you can handle
- Side quests are no longer purged in story mode after you complete a realm dungeon. Instead: each side quest simply expires after a generous 20 rounds
- New low level enemies
- Re-balance of higher level enemies
- Total refactoring of loot distribution
- Acid attacks: Destroys equipped items over time instead of instantly
- Entangle: Halts player on timeline, cannot be block with stun immunity
- Dispel: Removes all buffs on target
- Protect: Completely absorbs next attack
Dungeon Crawl
- Lore! You can now get Lore in Dungeon Crawl mode!
- Difficulties are selectable
- There are now 5 dungeons spread over the 7 realms. Still only a maximum of one main dungeon per realm
- Town quests, and markets now refresh as the players level up, rather than each night.
- Chaos reduction quests now exist in half the towns on the map
- Similar to Story Mode: 1 sidequest per town can be taken
Get the XBRANCH
To get the XBRANCH: use the Betas tab in the Game Properties window
Happy Weekend!