GemCraft: Frostborn Wrath
Iron mode difficulty fix
I'm sorry for the mess with the initial Iron update, it contained an error that made too many skill points available, and all the fields were adjusted for difficulty with this error in effect. After fixing the error, Iron mode became unplayable, so in the last 6 days all the 120 fields had to be playtested and adjusted again to set a "merely beatable" difficulty (for me at least, with my not great, not terrible GC skills). It's done now and included in v.1.2.1.
Difficulty is difficult to set just right for as many players as possible. Iron mode is meant to be hard, but it can be played to the end. You will need to go back and open those stashes, try different defense setups on trickier fields, redistribute your skills sometimes, consider calling the last few waves of giants early and then juggle with the walls, have some mana farm, exploit corrupted mana shards, use pylons, pause when picking where to drop strike spells and manage enhanced shots, and more.
Some of you might still find Iron mode too hard, or probably too easy, I hope you'll have some aha moments, and some moments of hard earned victory, and the feeling of being OP going back for a bronze stash to an earlier field.
Good luck, have fun!
Iron Update
After a long wait again, GemCraft Frostborn Wrath has finally got a new major update!
The Iron mode, known from the previous GemCraft too, is now added, giving veteran wizards a new flavor of playthrough with the rules tuned for challenge.
All previously missing trial fields have also arrived for Frostborn and Chilling game modes.
Iron Mode features:
- Beam skill is given at start
- More waves, tougher monsters await you on every field
- 3 skill points are given for the first win on each field
- You have to open iron, bronze and brass stashes to get more skill points and unlock skills
- No xp, leveling, talisman, traits, shadow core, endurance mode, trial mode
- Achievements don't give skill points
A great bunch of bug fixes and QoL updates are included too:
- Added fields A5 and A6
- Added all the missing trial fields
- Modified 20+ fields, mostly trials
- New option: hide monsters when time is frozen (hot key: comma)
- Fixed showing wrong orblet mana gain multiplier in trial mode
- Fixed giving the Z1 field token for any opened token-giving stash, when loading a saved game
- Fixed paths being unbuildable on field B4 with a flipping mod activated
- The Gatekeeper is shown destroyed at the beginning of A4E and A4T now
- Fixed pressing up/down keys while dragging a gem crashing the game
- Pylon range can be adjusted with the up/down keys now
- The 'Enough frozen time trickery' achi is checked now when the shadow reaches 0 hp instead of the end of the dying swirl anim
- Fixed falsely giving some traits-related achis for playing trial fields with hidden active trait settings
- Fixed the traits xp multiplier sometimes being more than 1 in trial mode
- Wasp stings dealt to wizhunters, swarm queens and wallbreakers are properly counted as stings to creatures now
- Fixed mana leech beam getting 3x less mana when on faster speed
- Yellow gem wasps can have crit hits now
- Fixed the orblets mana gain multiplier giving added twice to the constant mana replenish
- Fixed a range bug affecting amped and beam enhanced gems with reduced range ratio being placed in an other tower
- The 'reset achievements' button now properly lights up at 300 achievements reached
- Fixed how the orb banishment cost reductions from amps and bombs are shown
- Fixed combined gems not increasing the 'mana spent on gems' stat properly
- Fixed a bug involving bleeding monsters and lanterns with 'least affected by specials' priority
- Bleeding timer on non-monsters can be reset now with consecutive bleeding shots of the same strength
- Made the xp field wider to show more than 9 digits properly
- Fixed some typos as always
Keep staying safe and have a great time playing!
Chilling Update
After a long silence, a new major update for the game is finally here!
The initial difficulty of the game got a mixed reception, even after many smaller attempts to make the game's overall feeling less unforgiving. So now, in addition to the original "Frostborn" difficulty, a new "Chilling" Game mode has been added for those players who just want to smash through the monsters and feel the mana flowing through their veins.
Existing Frostborn saved games can be switched to Chilling mode, so you don't need to start over again for a monster-shredding freezing-edge experience. (Going back to Frostborn is not possible though.)
Chilling Mode features:
- Freeze spell is given at start
- +3 gem damage at first grade (causes a dramatic damage increase at higher grades)
- 3 free buildings (except walls) can be built in every battle
- +300 mana when a battle starts
- 3x shadow cores drop from monsters
- 2x xp on kills given by monsters in Journey battles
- Reduced first wave hit points on later game fields (where first wave would be above 70 hp)
Other changes and fixes have been added as well:
- Added many formerly missing trial fields
- Range can be decreased for lanterns and pylons
- Vital link trait power reduced from 10% to 3% per level
- Hp multiplier per wave is set to 1.1 for all endurance fields (it was varying between 1.1 and 1.11)
- Getting different slow rate gem hits works properly now
- New option shows larger info panels when at higher resolution than 1920x1080
- Disabling weather effects works now
- Hatred and Awakening battle traits have been severely nerfed
- Random special enemies have less hp, especially in later waves
- Decreased strike spells' skill level charge time decrement bonus by half
- Halved the hp percent loss taken by shrine strikes
- Gems reach hit milestones sooner above 1.000 hits
- Changed the redundant talfrag property to 'extra hp taken by ice shards'
- Added range circle to the pylon placement helper
- Fixed missing lines in the talisman summary list
- Added all formerly missing journey note illustrations
- Lots of other minor fixes
Stay safe and have a great time!
Working on difficulty changes
Thank you for your support with both your purchases and your constructive comments! We are listening, taking notes, and thinking of ways to make GemCraft Frostborn Wrath the game you would enjoy playing more. On top of releasing several updates with bug fixes in the coming days, we plan to make changes to the difficulty of the game and getting all the important loot out of the Trial mode wizard stashes.
We see that right now the challenge aspect of the game is overwhelming, pushing the game towards being a "Dark Souls of TD", the goal is to make the game enjoyable if you want to feel the power and have the edge over the monsters, and make challenges optional, just like how the battle traits, early waves, and enraging mechanics work.
Trial mode will stay but it will be your choice if you want to take on an unforgiving and puzzling challenge; you can get to the end of the game and reign over the waves of Endurance without ever touching Trial mode.
GC Chasing Shadows got a mixed reception back then before all the tweaking, and we didn't walk the long path bringing you Frostborn Wrath to just leave it as a bag of frustration. Working on the game is not over, we'll carry on to make the game have much less errors and a quite different feel to it in a matter of days.
Three bug fix updates have came out in the first 9 hours of the game's online life, and more will arrive tomorrow, thank you again for all the feedback!