Hello Adventurers! JayNic here-
"Update! Tell us about the update!"
Ok... JoePlayer, I know it's been a while since our last major update, but with good reason!
We've got huge changes including a total re-work of Chaos, the removal of quest time limits, Localization (still ongoing) in 8 languages, and a tonne of fixes.
As you may, or may not know: we had an experimental branch (XBRANCH) where these changes have been largely available. This required some deep level alterations in both design mechanics, and structural architecture that necessitated more time to create, test, refine, and deploy. All with the help of our great impassioned community here, and in discord.
"Foolish JayNic. You have forgotten that many have not BEEN on the xbranch! How will you accommodate BOTH types of readers?!"
If you want to know the skinny on these core changes: I won't repeat the explanation here. There is an article from a few days ago about the XBRANCH. The specifics will be in point form down below with the rest of the fixes/features/changes.
"Enough banter. Give us a high level overview of this update"
This update is focused on giving players control. As with many features in our updates, we've been working on quality of life improvements. This one at it's core takes away the feeling of being yanked along the questline, and instead throws you in the world you're dying (sometimes literally lol) to explore and tells you to deal with problems as you see fit. From a development perspective, it gives us a great foundation from which to expand and add gameplay features in the future. Things like Free Adventure Mode couldn't have really existed with the previous system because the quest line was baked in with the push mechanic. In addition, we can now support future potential features like say - variable main quest lines so you're not always guaranteed the same story, or new random encounters that could raise or lower Chaos in unexpected ways.
"It's list time, JayNic... Fire away."
I have been dreading having to compose this list... *sigh* here goes...
Changes/Features/Balancing
Character Selection
- In multiplayer: anyone can take any slot in any order! Giving you complete control over who gets how many characters in a game of uneven number of players/characters
- Works for resuming a game too :)
Localization (ongoing)
- The system now fully supports localization! While not everything has been translated by our external service: it's just a matter of them completing it, and us flicking a switch
Chaos
- Quest time limits no longer apply, and thus do not raise Chaos
- Chaos trickles in over time. The higher the difficulty, the less time between Chaos events
- Chaos in the Chaos meter increments enemy health by 10% (on Journeyman) each time (it's less on Apprentice)
- Chaos in the Chaos meter increments the number of spawning Chaos Hexes in the world adding navigation challenges
- Dying no longer increases Chaos
Chaos Reduction
- Chaos can be removed via story quests, sidequests, and hidden Chaos Generators in each realm
- There is one Chaos Generator in each realm (this includes the first act where the Generator is already made visible)
Chaos Generators
- Each realm has one hidden Generator (except in the first act, where the generator is made visible in the story quest)
- These can be consumed and used once to choose between: Knocking back Chaos, getting another life, cancelling an incoming Scourge
Dying/Sanctums/Life Pool
- Dying no longer increases Chaos
- The life pool decreases when a character is revived
- If a character has a Sanctum, the Sanctum crumbles instead of taking a life
- The life pool can currently only be refilled by finding a hidden Chaos Generator
- A Sanctum will keep you from death in combat, and provide you some immediate healing
- You can keep collecting lives beyond the number you start with
Scourges
- Scourges are not connected to Chaos, they appear on the timeline and activate over time
- Scourges can be knocked off the timeline by finding a hidden Chaos Generator
- Scourges no longer knock back Chaos
Enemies
- Mummy bosses now have elemental powers
- Curse puke fx polished
- Tier 2 cultist models added
- Cultist weapons and attacks tuned
- Cultist leader now has Chaos attack
- Backup band now single slow instead of group slow
- Jelly Cube’s AOE attack now only poisons (no hp damage) and does correct amount of poison
- Lowered evasion for skelly mages
Economy
- 50% increase in rewards for act 2 and 3 mini encounters
- Increase in XP and gold rewards for side quests
- Added +1 weapons and special armor as possible side quest rewards
- Gold and XP enemy drops reduced by 25% (to account for increased time/exploration)
Visuals
- Improved elemental weapon visuals
- Fixed duplicate reflection fx
- Small visual upgrades across all characters
- Dead adventurer visual variants and drop refinement
- Depth of field values tuned to proper amount resulting in a shallower depth of field on the dioramas
Weapons
- Scourge hats slightly nerfed across the board (to encourage more equipment variation in later game)
- Added +7 speed to Baelyn’s Embrace
- All ethereal weapons +1 damage
- Lutes do slightly less damage across the board
- Lightning weapons do slightly less damage
- Tier 2 and 3 glass weapons now have small accuracy penalties
Other changes
- Belt items are paginated. If you have more than 10 items in your belt: you can scroll through them with a next arrow
- Character Immunities are now displayed beside each character hud
- Main HUD update and new Timeline
- Main quests and side quests that give XP now distribute the XP to all party members
- Majority of spells and special attacks now guaranteed to afflict target on perfect roll. This results in more buffs and debuffs for players and enemies
- Expanded player portrait area to accommodate for crazy hats
- General ui visual upgrade
- Damage numbers in combat are colour coded to match the damage type
- Various handles that used to force end your turn even if Auto End Turn was off have been re-worked to respect the Auto-End-Turn setting
- Some balance adjustments to the prices of End Game artifacts
- Graphical adjustments to enemy portraits
- Find Herbs can no longer happen more than once per round (prevents exploiting via trading hats)
- Non-combat events in dungeons can be skipped
Bug Fixes
- Players who do not own a character can no longer use the belt items of that character
- Fixed a sound issue where a 2handed staff was not playing a sound effect
- On MinSpec: the target hex underlay now displays correctly
- Fixed an issue where multiple effects on a character were not being displayed correctly
- "Lightning Storm" attack now correctly respects resistance
- Synchronization issues resolved between bleeding/burning/fire effects across the network
- Button Outlines for Elite Ambush were not visible
- Various Grammatical updates
- Fixed a bug where the Option menu used in combat could result in a hang
- The Sanctum tooltip on the Character Inventory menu now displays correctly
- Some buttons in a dungeon were not pressable with a controller
- Pickup Party no longer takes characters out of balloons
- Fixed an incorrect tooltip on the Boat port screen
- Fixed an issue where an enemy who flees could still take damage in an AOE attack
- The Mage Hat now respects confuse immunity
- Character portraits above buttons when attacking a scourge did not take in to consideration Combat Support Range
- The pipesmith mini encounter was not correctly rendering despite having the needed gold
- Party Heal worked in a dungeon even if the party healer was dead
- Fixed an issue where an incorrect character HUD would be selected when completing an encounter without loot
- Game would lock if a remote client engaged in an encounter while the host was in the option menu
- Fixed an exploit where you could buy a pipesmith upgrade for 0 gold
- Fixed an exploit that allowed characters to use a teleport scroll multiple times by passing it off
- Statues claiming to grant "+3 party health" would only grant +2 to non-tributing members
- Poison graphical effect would disappear between dungeon rooms
- Syncing damage from a Chaos Generator across the network
- You can no longer Randomize a character that has been "readied"
- Fixed an issue where in a rare occurrence: a party wipe at the end of a dungeon could result in a hang
- Dying in a sea cave with a sanctum could cause a hang after revival
- Fixed various instances where the "click to continue" text would show "waiting for remote player"
- Glass weapons that break in MP now propagate the effects across the network
- Various minor animation tweaks
- Fixed timing issue on most bard attacks
- Fixed fx on ethereal weapons
Known Issues
Well, we can't get to everything, and sometimes creating new things introduces new problems... So here are some issue we know we need to get to:
- Localization in non-english languages. Some things haven't been supplied to us yet from our third party contractor, it just takes time. So you may see missing string here and here
- There is a bug we're trying to nail down where in some dungeons: the geometry will disappear. If you encounter this, we'd love to hear from you and get the output_log.txt to help us
- Overall Chaos balance. We have a solid foundation now to expand upon. We'll be working to add new gameplay involving the new Chaos system to keep things fresh, and keep the adventure agile.
Final Thoughts
If you're used to playing on Apprentice, consider upgrading to Journeyman. The game is still difficult, but less punishing. We think you'll be ready for it, and still feel rewarded.
We're really proud of this update, and we hope you enjoy it. We thank all of your for your continued support, and feedback. This helps drive us forward.
Look out for XBRANCH updates in the future if you want to be on the bleeding edge of FTK development.
Thank you and enjoy.