As some of you may know, we decided to push the release of the Moon Temple DLC until next year, it was not possible for us to release it now sadly. But instead we end this year with a big patch, taking care of more bugs, adjusting the balance, adding some more features, like the much wanted Fountain Preset-system.
New Features
When gambling in the Tavern you now have a chance to win bonus prizes in the form of Drinks, Blueprints and Dyes. Raise the stakes to increase your chances of winning higher quality prizes.
Three new Fountain effects: Expeditious Expedition, It's Your Lucky Day and It's Not Your Lucky Day.
You can now save your favorite Fountain setups with the help of presets.
New item "Golden Lamp" added for Pyramid of Prophecy owners.
Gameplay Adjustments and Balance
NG+ Progression Changes
Available NG+ is now unlocked across all campaigns. Including Arena.
The highest completed NG+ across all campaigns and heroes is now tracked by the Town.
Completing a campaign at a NG+ level that is lower or equal to your highest available NG+ level will count as the hero completing the campaign at that level and you will receive the corresponding rewards and effects.
In practice, this means your heroes can skip NG+ levels up to your highest completed across all characters and campaigns.
In multiplayer, when completing a campaign above your highest tracked NG+, it counts as you completed that campaign at your highest tracked NG+.
General
Blood Rite bonuses are now scaled up based on the current NG+ you are playing.
Retired Gladiator now tracks what upgrades you have bought on each hero, and respeccing upgrades is now free in gold up until the maximum-ever upgraded value.
Tweaked Magic Furnace costs. Available items to craft are now also limited by act.
Added an option for selling 100 ore at the Ore Trader.
Character list now displays if a hero is currently in a dungeon or not.
Improved the "mismatched mods" dialog.
Archives act is now a bit smaller and with fewer enemies.
Removed teleports in Archives that doesn't lead you to a hidden room.
Removed wind between Great Threats in the Battlements act.
Reworked Great Threat in the Chambers act. You no longer face the Vampire when picking up crosses, he now appears instead of bats as the Great Threat.
The Thief is now more likely to spawn in Prison after reaching the Archives act.
The secret room with the duke is now more likely to spawn in Armory after reaching the Chambers act.
Nimbus now adds +25 HP and Mana per level to your potion.
Classes
Paladin - Charge: The Paladin will now only go through enemies if the damage instance kills them. Charge now also stuns enemies for 0.5 seconds in a small area on impact.
Paladin - Shield: Block arc reduced from 90/120/150/180/210 degrees to 80/100/120/140/160 degrees.
Wizard - Flame Shield: Cooldown reduced from 8/7/6/5 seconds to 7.5/6/4.5/3 seconds.
Gladiator - Trident: Movement speed penalty during usage was lowered slightly.
Priest - Smite: Smite no longer blocks the use of other skills when attacking.
Witch Hunter - Repeater Crossbow: Lowered the spread slightly.
Items and Drinks
Added two new item sets: "Rings of Recovery" and "The Shining Knight", consisting of pre-existing items.
Markham's set now gives +0.25 Armor/Resistance per item at step 3 & 4.
Reworked Wrath of the Thundergod: Now shoots 5 lightning bolts at nearby enemies when hit, dealing 10 Magical damage each.
Reworked Blood Dagger: Changed to 10% chance to regain 2.5% of your current Health on primary attack.
Ring of Arcane Powers: Now also has a 10% chance to restore all your mana when casting a Skill with a 2 second cooldown.
Mask of Bewilderment: Now also increases your damage dealt to confused enemies by 25%.
Spiked Boots: Increased damage from 25 to 50.
Cranky Clergyman: Changed the positive effect so it gives +25% Resistance instead of a flat +25 to Resistance.
Various Changes and Fixes
Added colored health bars to the Three Councillors.
Added missing stat for killing Thundersnow.
Fixed some Drink cost inconsistencies.
Fix for companions always facing right when idling.
Fixed floating texts not showing the correct amount healed by Remedy.
Fixed multiple healing floating texts when drinking potion.
Some character screen tooltip fixes.
Fixed Nimbus’ X-ray color.
Monstrous Eyes (Archives mini-boss) shouldn't get stuck as easily in the Archives.
Various fixes and tweaks to different enemy skills.
Fixed a crash caused by the Defender’s Halberd.
Crash fixes.
Performance improvements.
Patch notes for version 99
Fixed an invulnerability exploit
Reworked luck to be a bit more consistent
Made it easier to hit with the Thiefs Grappling Hook and Warlocks Soul Dagger
Fix for accidental character duplication that could happen after character creation
Fixed menu lock when getting disconnected while typing in multiplayer chat
Fixed walking pets being stuck indefinitely
Gladiator class is now retroactively unlocked if gladiator rank is greater than 0
You can no longer die in town
Let's continue into the Lunar Halls!
Annoucement:
Players, we are now revealing the third DLC for Heroes of Hammerwatch and the second one to feature a new campaign, this time our heroes will take on the Moon Temple. This DLC is a bit smaller than the Prophecy and will not feature a new class, but it will have the usual additions of items, drinks, colors and some new pets. The biggest feature of this DLC except for the campaign is the added "Hardcore" mode and a new in-game currency.
Expect more news to come and a more complete feature list, we aim to have this released before the end of the year. Being a bit smaller than the Prophecy it will be somewhere between that and the Witch Hunter in price, most likely 5 USD, there will ofc be some free features for everyone with the corresponding DLC release-patch.
Short lore:
A long time ago, conflicts lead to a split in the priesthood at the Sun Temple. Some priests left the temple to form their own congregation up in Shaftlocke, in a small lush area called Brightmoor, heated by volcano activity from the north west.
One day, a delegation of elves from The Silver City knocked on the door. They came with gifts, a hefty load of gold and riches, they only asked for a small favour in return, that the priests would safe guard the Orb of Night. And so they did, deep down in the Lunar Halls of the temple.
With time, this "favour" started to change and corrupt the land and the priests. The warm sink turned cold and the priests would eventually turn into horrible, not so friendly figures attacking everyone in the areas around the temple.
The Duke of Shaftlocke with help from priests of the Sun Temple built a magical Sun Gate that stopped the lost souls from getting out from the Moon Temple, the gates stood stable until attrition destroyed them when Thundersnow laid siege on Shaftlocke Tower.
With the walls down, anyone could freely enter or exit the temple and it's belived that right now, agents sent out by the arch-necromancer Blight the Horrible are trying to steal the Orb to use for his own sinful purposes. A camp has been established just outside the broken down Sun Gate and a mission to stop these agents have begun.
Screenshots:
The Moon Temple, cold and barren. Night.
Disaster has befallen them (always).
These lost souls probably won't eat the dog.
No release date yet, but hopefully this year, expect more news and specific feature reveals about this going forward. Fastest way to get updates would be through twitter:
https://twitter.com/RealCrackshell
Otherz:
Also, we made some tshirts, for people that like that over at Teepublic:
https://www.teepublic.com/user/crackshell
User:Kellys cat eats the pink hw2-tshirt(?)
I Hope we can present some HW2 news this year too, good news for those that likes pirates at least.
Patch notes for version 98
Fixed load screen freezing for some users running in fullscreen.
Added missing blueprint for Defender's Halberd.
Cape of Withdrawal can no longer be attuned. (Attuning it had no effect).
Pendant of Penance was accidentally tagged as a PoP-only item. Now available in the base game.
Fixed names and materials for Gladiator.
Fix for the Witch Hunter DLC store page button in the main menu.
Witch Hunter DLC released.
We released the Witch Hunter DLC this morning, with a complete new class and several new features to the game. Feel free to check that out.
Magic Furnace - New dungeon mechanic that lets you craft items during your run.
Item Gambler - New dungeon mechanic that lets you stake items for a random new one.
Companions - Acquire a companion that helps you collect gold and ore.
New drinks - Caustic Touch, Markhams Moonshine, Primal Fury and The Hairy Magus.
New statue - "Daran" the red priest, (requires Pyramid of Prophecy).
Gameplay Adjustments and Balance
General
Reworked Watcher boss fight.
Tweaked player NG+ scaling of Armor/Resistance.
Increased boss health scaling in NG+.
Retired Gladiator - Upgrades to Armor and Resistance only gives you +0.5 instead of +1.
Path of the Magician - Changed from 20% to 25%.
Path of the Warrior - Changed from 20% to 25%.
Path of the Defender - Changed from 20% to 15%.
Classes
Paladin - Health per level lowered from 10 to 8. Armor per level lowered from 0.7 to 0.6.
Charge - Increased width of the charge so its easier to hit enemies. Increased mana cost from 10/12/14/16/18/20 to 10/13/16/19/22/25.
Powershot - Now fires 2 additional projectiles.
Smoke Bomb - Now obscures vision for most ranged enemies. Increased mana cost from 30/35/40 to 30/40/50. Increased cooldown from 5s to 7s.
Soul Dagger - Increased width and range of the attack. Lowered movement speed penalty while attacking.
Soul Cleaver - Enemies killed while under the effect of Soul Consumption have a chance to apply Soul Consumption to nearby enemies. Increased range slightly.
Holy Light - Increased healing.
Items
Medusa’s Charm - Enemies affected by the gaze now also have their armor reduced by 50%. Lowered the slow from 66% to 50%.
Duke's Signet Ring - Increased healing from 3% to 7.5%.
Greaves of the Barbarian - Now always triggers movement speed buff when killing an enemy.
Mail of Thorns - Now also gives +2 Armor.
Great Helm - Increased Armor from +5 to +7.
Boots of Freedom - Changed to Epic.
Greater Sphere of Regen - Changed to +50% Health Regen and +75% Mana Regen.
Markham's Mastery - Moved first set bonus from 3 to 4 items.
Kings Regalia - Set bonus changed from 33%/66% to 25%/50%.
Various Changes and Fixes
Added more chest room variations.
Added Monoliths used stat and accomplishment.
Fixed an issue where you could get stuck outside the bridges in Upper Pyramid.
Fixed pasting not being supported in chat (and all other text input widgets).
Enemies can now be killed by poison.
Ghosts now drain a percentage of your mana instead of a flat amount.
You can now change the menu theme in options.
Fixed music not starting when loading a save.
Fixed a problem with fountain effects saving in town rather than in run.
Fixed dungeon settings not using the host's highest NG+ level.
Added an effect for Medusas Charm.
Added effect and sound for gaining a potion charge with the Apothecary Set.
New art for Apothecary's Sphere.
Performance improvements.
Crash fixes.
Be prepared for the Witch Hunter DLC (and big patch)!
Witch Hunter DLC and Patch 97 is coming late next week, this was delayed a bit cause of e3. The DLC will land on 3 USD with regional changes. This is a rough featurelist:
DLC Specific:
Witch Hunter class that levels up Skill Crit Damage for the guild.
Skills:
Repeater Crossbow
Flaming Hounds
Branding Ward
Witch Pyre
A Murder of Crows
Fanatic Zeal
Searing Torch
Other:
New items.
DLC specific companion, a raven.
A new dungeon mechanic called Blood Rite.
Patch 97:
Overall balance changes and bug fixes.
Balance changes and improvements for several other classes.
Companion/pet support (3 companions for those that owns all DLCs (1 free)).
Item gambler in dungeons, lets you roll items for new ones.
Dungeon crafting, the Magic Anvil can now be used in dugeons (if you find it).
More colors.
More drinks.
New statue for the POP-DLC*
Craft all items that coulden't be crafted before, even if they can't be attuned (not pink and red items).
Reworked Eye-Boss (Archives boss), should be simpler and faster now.
And more...
*Requires the Pyramid of Prohpecy DLC, so not really free, but patched in.
A More specific list of changes will come when the DLC is released, stay tuned and here's some screens:
Using the Pyre skill to block of the path for the trolls.
Skills.
Improved color panel
Item gambler
Blood Rites, the stat you get is random and stays until you die, even if you complete any campaign it stays, so good players can carry this with them for a long time.
Patch notes for version 96
More variation and a lot of tweaks done to the Arena
Added switches to the arena
Fixed Warden's destructible corpse
You can now destroy the Crustworm's corpse to avoid getting stuck behind it
Fixed some mini map inconsistency
Fixed an empty room bug in Upper Pyramid
Fixed duplicate drink icon (Last Stand and The Last Sin had the same icon)
Added new sounds
The game can now handle much higher character levels
New design for character color picking
Fixed some crashes
Patch notes for version 95
Fixed random crash in Arena
Fixed multiplayer timeout during loading causing a crash
Gladiator summons now properly scale with skillpower for clients
Fixed Book of Monsters achievement not unlocking sometimes
Fix for enemies losing aggro in arena after loading
Patch notes for version 94
Fixed issue with double gamepads & joysticks.
Added controller name tooltip to controls menu so controllers can be identified easier.
Fixed being able to accidentally change graphics slider options by scrolling down the graphics menu.
Fixed the game editor for Linux versions of the game.
The Arena is now always played during daytime.
The night time in the desert is now a bit brighter.
