Hey Heroes,
The Digital Tabletop Festival has arrived, and to celebrate this, Gordian Quest will be available at a 15% discount!
To our fans who have joined us upon our Early Access journey, you may have heard whispers of an upcoming Gauntlet Mode update at the end of the year. We're still working hard on making it happen, and while we are not ready to open up a test run of it just yet, we're eager to tell you more about the key features of this next major update.
Gauntlet Mode
Gauntlet Mode is a separate game mode that will offer fast-paced and frantic adventures packed with more content. Each run in Gauntlet Mode will be shorter than completing a full Act, but it will be much more intense. It sits alongside the Acts and is meant to be an end-game experience, featuring randomized realms with all the enemies, events, items, and other features from the Acts. When we complete Act III and IV later next year, the contents of those Acts will also be updated into Gauntlet Mode.
The mode is intended to challenge you and to test your strategies, as the Realms that you fight in are volatile and riddled with ever changing effects. You will have to adapt your tactics and prepare for the unforeseen as you travel through a device known as the Maelstrom Gate, visiting the realms. Here is an overview of how it works, as well as several follow up features that are still being discussed at the moment :
- You create a fresh party, and begin your foray into the first Realm (Realm 1).
- Each Realm is around 10 nodes long and ends with a Realm Boss. Defeating the Realm Boss lets you advance into the next Realm (pick from 1 of 3).
- Realms get progressively more difficult (Realm 2, Realm 3, and so on).
- Between the start and end point of a Realm, there are various branching paths.
- The paths consists of various nodes that provide a different level of risk and reward, and can meaningfully change how the Realm feels.
- (Tentative) Each Realm you complete grants you a Reliquary Key. Boosting a Realm's difficulty or picking a dangerous Realm grants more Keys. You will learn more about these keys in Act IV, but suffice to say, you will be able to use them for their intended purpose now...
- (Tentative) Reliquary Keys can be used to unlock and level up Artifacts, which are items that provide global bonuses on future runs. You don't lose Artifacts, and you can select and equip up to 3 at a time.
- (Tentative) Every 3 Realms, you hit a save point. You can choose to safely bank your Reliquary Keys, or to double down on them. If doubling down, you will forfeit these bonus keys and a portion of your haul if your party is defeated at any point before the next save point - but you will be richly rewarded for your gamble if you succeed!
- (Tentative) We plan to have seasonal leaderboards to celebrate the most clever and persistent players.
- The Realms grow ever more challenging, but with the right team, strategy, and astute Artifact use, you will venture far deeper into the realms than anyone else!
Balance Changes
This patch contains our biggest balance changes yet. Apart from changes needed for a better sense of progression in Gauntlet Mode, we've been looking through your feedback and suggestions, and we've gone back to rework a great many things. Let's take a look at some of them.
Skill Ranks
- Skill cards can now be ranked up multiple times. Common cards have a max rank of 2. Rare cards have a max rank of 3. Epic cards have a max rank of 4.
- Each rank increases the base power of the card.
- Items can now drop at different tiers, with higher level items having higher ranked cards.
Mastery
When at max rank, a card be mastered. This resets the card's rank to 1, but lets you pick from 1 of 3 upgrade paths for it. Each card can only be mastered once.
We will be expanding the list of possible Mastery upgrades to feel impactful and unique. Here is a handpicked list of 5 possible effects to give you an idea of what these upgrades will be like :
- A basic spell could gain the "Channelled Spell" modifier, but its AP cost would increase by 1.
- A melee attack could gain a "Leech" modifier, reducing its damage but allowing it to steal HP.
- A defense skill could gain a "Purge" modifier, removing one random debuff on the user.
- A debuff skill could gain a "Potent" modifier, letting it apply its effects through Guard.
- A high cost skill could gain a "Quickened" modifier, reducing its AP cost and base values.
The new Mastery system will no doubt allow for much more theorycrafting and build variety, and we're excited to see what you'll come up with.
Talents
The Talent System has been through several iterations, but we're still not happy with how it feels.
Here are the issues we have identified with it, mirrored by many of your comments as well :
- In the very first version, talents were rolled at random from Talent Nodes, but they felt far too random for a proper build to be designed around them. Gaining a talent should be helpful and meaningful to the build progression, not frustrating.
- In the current version, the system was changed to a very deterministic way to build what you want, but the rate at which talent points are given out are too generous.
- Several talents were frequently picked more so than others, being the "best choices".
- The new talent system feels somewhat "separate" from the skill grid.
Processing the above, we'll be designing the third iteration of the talent system with all the considerations of the above.
- Talent Nodes are now unlocked on the Skill Grid as you progress.
- Talents and Talent Nodes are now split into 3 tiers (Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3), with each tier being more powerful and impactful than the previous.
- You can choose the Talent you want to insert into the node, from the same Tier or lower. This can be swapped out at any time while in town, or in camp.
- Talents now require a minimum stat requirement. This value will be higher for Tier 2 and Tier 3 nodes.
- Higher tier talents are now much more impactful. For example, a high Strength will give you a chance to shrug off status effects, a high Dexterity will give you a free move on your turn, and a high Intelligence will let you redraw your starting hand in battle.
- This will also encourage various hybrid stat builds, instead of enforcing min-max stat builds (which still do have a place, but is no longer the only way to build a hero).
Enemies
One of the things we hope to accomplish in the next build is to make enemies more of a strategic puzzle to fight. One of the key things we intend to change is how their intent indicator works.
- Intents will now always reflect what they intend to do, rather than reflect what they are doing based on the current position and layout.
- This means that moving out of an enemy's range will no longer cause them to change their action to something you could not foresee. If there are no targets for them, that attack will miss and hit empty air.
- This enforces the idea that positioning can be used as a defensive tool to avoid attacks. This is also a buff to Movement cards. To balance this, we will be increasing the enemies' range in certain cases, and tweaking certain enemy behaviors.
Secondly, to minimize confusion and improve readability, we will be making a change to their decks :
- Currently, enemies also draw a hand similiar to players, and act based on priority of cards in hand from left to right. This will no longer be the case with the new intent system.
- When inspecting an enemy, you will only see the action that they intend to play.
Statuses
As a result of the above, Statuses will be getting a much needed change as well.
- Statuses that heroes can apply and are "card-based" like Burn and Chill have been reworked. This is because enemies no longer have a hand or deck for this to apply to. Specific statuses that enemies can apply and are "card-based" will remain as they are as they can still affect the heroes' hand.
- We are now giving a better definition and purpose to damage over time statuses. Statuses can now have a duration counter together with their effect value.
- Applying multiple stacks no longer causes a status to stack indefinitely, but refreshes the stack and duration. To balance this, these statuses will have higher values, and can be further boosted through talents and items.
New Heroes
We have two new heroes coming in the next patch. Today we'll be giving a sneak peek at one of them - the Warlock. Hailing from the outer reaches of the Azul Desert, the Warlock is a Noyakin mystic with a checkered past.
His kind call them Blood Mages or Wild Mages. They are tribes that splinter off from the main settlements. In a land where water is scarce and death is one unforeseen disaster away, one must learn to wield one's very lifeblood as a weapon and for nourishment. A man of few words, he seems to have unfinished business with the Cult you've been tracking down.
His abilities revolve around sacrificing his own blood or of others as a material component for his spells, as well as summoning totems for various effects.
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Thanks for reading. We will continue to work hard in bringing you more exciting features and improvements in the game. We thank you for your support and patience as we continue to build this game with you.
As always, we hope to hear your thoughts below on what we’ve put forth so far. Feel free to join us on Discord https://discordapp.com/invite/tce6YMW to chat with us.
And last but not least, if you haven't already, please consider giving us a positive review on Steam if you like how we are doing so far. It would really mean a lot to us. Thanks! :)
Crafted With Love,
The Mixed Realms Team