If you checked out our preview post here roughly 2 weeks ago, then you know what time it is! Huge updates have launched this week and we've updated the core Quinterra gameplay, updated and rebalanced every encounter, and even polished up the UI. 1-2-3 Go!
Gameplay Changes
Draft Mana, Not Units. Quinterra’s resource system has been completely reworked! In addition to gaining 2 colorless mana per turn, players now get extra mana by drafting tiles in play. Elites now start on your player bar rather than needing to be drafted before being deployed. Command Points are no longer a thing; Minions cost 1 colorless to play.
Why this change? Our goal is to decrease friction in the gameplay and let players deploy their units in a way that feels more intuitive. By implementing a more intuitive resource system and removing a resource entirely, we open up more room to make interesting encounter designs without overloading the player.
Crystals. You now attach Crystals to units already in play by paying the Crystal’s mana cost. Some Crystals now have more than 1 use per combat and some units can hold more Crystals than others. Many units in the game have been reworked to care explicitly about attaching Crystals.
Why this change? In our previous system, many players would forget that the Crystal system even existed because it was hidden within the draft menu. This would make many encounters unwinnable for newer players as they couldn’t buff their units enough to contest the AI’s powerful Elites. Crystals are now more integrated into Quinterra’s core gameplay.
Updated Content
While this update is mainly focused on the sweeping gameplay changes, there is still a sizeable amount of new and updated content to explore. With the mana changes, came the need for balance adjustments and unit reworks. Every unit and Crystal in the game has been adjusted along with a full Tech Tree rework. Furthermore, every encounter in the game has been rebalanced while some were reworked entirely. Many encounters that previously only scaled to two-star difficulty now scale all the way to 5 stars. Runs should be more diverse than ever throughout the harder difficulties.
Game Saves
With this being early access and in light of the massive changes incoming, we’re sadly having to reset game saves. We hope returning players will explore what this new version of Quinterra has to offer.
With this post, the first hotfix for the build has been implemented and many more will be released in the coming weeks so please continue posting your feedback in our discord server.
Patch Notes (abridged)
Drafting and combat overhaul. (Listed above)
Crystal changes. (Listed above)
UI elements have been improved across the board.
Tooltips have been improved across the board.
Most combat abilities have been simplified.
Stats now change color based on whether they are damaged or not.
Buff/debuff, damaged, and death animations improved.
Players now start with fewer units.
New Camp location added that grants the player choice of a unit from their species.
Sound improvements across the board.
Talent trees have been revised.
Ability animations have been improved across the board.
Updated tutorial to reflect game changes.
Tile generation has changed. Undraftable tiles have been implemented.
Ambient sounds added.
Ability to see the next tile that will spawn.
Many bugs have been fixed and will be fixed over the coming weeks.
Various units have been updated to care about attaching Crystals.
Every beast encounter has been scaled to 5 stars.
Heart of Fire has been redesigned.
Raptors are now a Champion fight.
All encounters have been adjusted to work with the new combat/resource system.
Various balance changes across the board.
Many units have brand new designs and abilities.
And more!
Clockworks Unleashed Update
You’ve defeated the Ancient Evil within the Deep Mines, slayed the fearsome Sand Dragon in the Crystal Desert, and even pierced through the Heart of Fire deep within the Ancient Jungle. But what horrible adversaries might lurk beneath the frozen surface of the Restless Glacier?
Needless to say, the Restless Glacier is in very capable tentacles, and defeating the Icy Kraken will be no easy feat. Luckily on your conquest of the fifth and final domain, the Restless Glacier, you’ll be equipped with a reworked talent tree, a new playable species, unlockable units, alternate starting loadouts for the current species, and much more to discover!
You’ll earn many of these new tools by leveling up in each species with our new long-term progression features. With these progression changes comes an even greater challenge to unlock for our more experienced players with the new Corruption mode. Each combat node in Corruption mode has a randomized modifier that increases the difficulty in challenging and surprising ways.
The Icy Kraken isn’t the only thing beneath the Restless Glacier’s surface. We mentioned a new playable species and the Clockworks will not disappoint. These industrious automatons are obsessed with upgrading themselves and flooding the battlefield with scrap materials to fuel their powerful abilities.
We’re super excited to bring you the Clockworks Unleashed update, so we've put Quinterra on sale for 2 weeks for 34%. This is our biggest content update to date and we hope you enjoy the challenges found within the Restless Glacier. We’ll be listening intently for your feedback throughout Early Access!
1.0.2.4 Patch Notes:
Content:
Long-term Species experience system added. Added level progression to all species, allowing players to unlock new units, new talents, and an alternate starting loadout! Experience is totaled and gained at the end of an expedition. Current progression can be viewed on your species selection screen.
The Restless Glacier domain has been added with playable encounters. This region features 14 separate tusks, clockworks, and beast encounters that all scale up to 5 star difficulty. The main boss for this domain features a kraken.
The clockworks has been added as a fifth playable species with all new units.
Added Corrupted Mode, where players can elect to make their expeditions more challenging by adding randomized difficulty to every combat encounter. Corrupted mode is unlocked once you complete a successful expedition for each species.
Most units from an unlockable species will no longer appear in an expedition until the species is unlocked.
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Amalgamation
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Brawler
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Disintegrator
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Haywire Golem
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Rocketeer
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Rustmancer
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Purifier
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Sentinel
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Timekeeper
Added a new elite clockwork unit: Gallant
Updated the elite clockwork unit design for Centurion
Updated the elite clockwork unit design for Goliath
Updated the elite clockwork unit design for Reprocessor
Updated the elite clockwork unit design for Tinkerer
Added a new minion clockwork unit: Maintenance Bot
Added a new minion clockwork unit: Gizmo
Added a new minion clockwork unit: Heroic Minibot
Added a new unlockable elite Lycan unit: Challenger
Added a new unlockable elite Lycan unit: Minstrel
Added a new unlockable elite Lycan unit: Spirit Keeper
Added a new unlockable elite Lycan unit: Berserker
Added a new unlockable elite Lycan unit: Bruiser
Added a new unlockable minion Lycan unit: Primal
Added a new unlockable elite Imp unit: Bloodborn
Added a new unlockable elite Imp unit: Sadist
Added a new unlockable elite Imp unit: Warlock
Added a new unlockable elite Imp unit: Dacoit
Added a new unlockable elite Imp unit: Undertaker
Added a new unlockable minion Imp unit: Miscreant
Added a new unlockable elite Crystalian unit: Satyr
Added a new unlockable elite Crystalian unit: Dragoon
Added a new unlockable elite Crystalian unit: Mistweaver
Added a new unlockable elite Crystalian unit: Cluster Golem
Added a new unlockable elite Crystalian unit: Nightmare
Added a new unlockable minion Crystalian unit: Warden
Added a new unlockable elite Ethereal unit: Banshee
Added a new unlockable elite Ethereal unit: Legionnaire
Added a new unlockable elite Ethereal unit: Signifer
Added a new unlockable elite Ethereal unit: Zealot
Added a new unlockable elite Ethereal unit: Paragon
Added a new unlockable minion Ethereal unit: Wraith
Added some sound effects to the Expedition end screen to tie in with a new species progression bar.
Updated the species selection menu on the main screen with new options and layout. Also updated the description of all playable species.
Added a contrasting color around the text options on the main menu screen.
Removed the lore and story elements from the game, pending an entirely new cinematic implementation.
Removed the beginning ship cinematic in the main menu until a further polished cinematic is in place.
Player ability talents no longer use mana but instead have "charges," which limit the number of times they can be used per battle.
Demoted the admiral frog encounter, replaced him as the first champion with the raptors encounter.
Shortened the Sharpen Claws tooltip.
Warden has been renamed to Gatekeeper and its ability design has been updated.
Revised the Desert Tortoise encounter and fixed some visual issues.
Updated the Tiny Mushroom's Reinvigorate wording and fixed a visual issue.
Reworked the Titan's design.
Removed the Juiced equipment from the game until it can be revised.
Revised the balance on the Minotaur encounter.
Revised total gold gain in the Expedition. Players will no longer gain gold from Ruins / Shrine nodes at higher difficulties.
Updated the tooltip on the Sorcerer's ability.
Revised a few neutral minion designs to make them more appealing when compared to default minion designs and expanded the pool of available neutral minions.
The starting Lycans loadout has been revised again with various buffs to increase the new player experience.
Updated the Go Fish ability to be less complicated.
All talent trees have been revised.
Buildings now start out as talent unlocks on the talent tree.
Bugfixes:
Fixed a bug with Soul Construct.
Fixed a bug where players could sometimes activate abilities on units that were dying.
Fixed a visual issue with the Marsh Hag's Mistwalk ability.
Fixed an issue where Crystallize could be used on targets that have already been affected, causing it to be wasted.
Fixed an issue where units could not use their action if they simultaneously took damage that would kill them and healed at the start of their turn.
Fixed an issue where the AI could get stuck in a loop with certain summoning abilities.
Fixed an issue where units that had their owning player changed would sometimes not have their abilities work correctly.
Fixed some crashes associated with push/pull abilities.
Update 1.0.2.3 is now live!
As we continue to improve upon our new player experience with a better tutorial, a hints system, and better overall input systems, we've decided to also take some steps to rework the starting race-the Lycans. While our original approach for the Lycans was to try to keep things relatively simple for new players, this led down a path that ended up feeling very underwhelming and not very fun to play. This update features our first run of changes for the Lycans to ramp up synergistic and fun combos with their kit. Along with Lycans changes for this week, Ethereals have received a visual/particle system overhaul and we also implemented the potential of push/pull movement abilities that are undergoing internal testing and will be added in the near future!
1.0.2.3 Patch Notes:
Content/Balancing:
Gave Lycans a rework with various buffs to their action economy and staying power across the board.
Added the ability to have push/pull style movement abilities.
Changed Tribesman's passive to a new one to better support the Lycan playstyle. It was also buffed to a base 2/4.
Witch Doctor's Hex Reversal no longer costs an action.
Gave Chieftain a small health buff to make sure he survives long enough to use his big ability.
Gave Champion an extra health and a single use extra action on summon to bring him more in line with other colorless units.
Gave Elder an extra health to make his mana cost of 5 more worth it.
Fellmonger's mana cost has been lowered to 4 to make him a more desirable pick.
Tactician's Focused Command no longer costs an action.
Warrior has an extra health to have more time to stack In the Fray.
Added new Bard's Horn rare Elite equipment.
Added a new Cloak of Agility rare Elite equipment.
Added 5 star scaling to Laughing Hyenas encounter and gave it a small rework.
Made adjustments to Jungle Insects beast encounter and scaled it to 5 stars.
Made adjustments to Desert Tortoise encounter so it could use Sand Quake more often.
Scaled the Flambearge encounter to 5 stars.
Scaled Laughing Hyenas to 5 stars and gave them a new mechanic.
Reworked Tribesman to be more aggressive and to play in to Lycan strategies better.
Bugfixes:
Fixed a major issue that was causing vanquish encounters to not end appropriately.
Fixed an issue where the AI would use Blind Burrower's ability when it is not missing any health.
Fixed an issue with the Blind Fighting's visuals.
Fixed a text issue with units that have a CP cost while drafting a tile.
Fixed an issue where Spell Shield and Stalwart's visual effects would not properly rotate with the unit.
Fixed a visual issue where the number of actions the unit has used could exceed the number of actions the unit can use per turn, resulting in the number of actions remaining rolling over to be out of range.
Fixed an issue where the highlight and portrait on a unit's model would be scaled incorrectly during some animations.
Fixed an issue where some tooltips would not display correctly when a unit had negative spell power.
Fixed an issue with Hulking Mole's Hulk Out ability.
Fixed an issue with Echidna's Roll Out ability.
Fixed an issue with Gilded Ring causing it to give additional stats.
Fixed a tooltip error with Toxician.
Fixed the Sand Quake ability to work properly.
Fixed Regain Footing to work properly.
Updated the wording on the Quick Study ability.
Clarified the wording on the Silence buff.
Fixed the Surge ability to work properly.
Visual Changes:
Updated visual and sound effects for many Ethereal units (Neophyte, Artificer, Cutthroat, Preserver, Shade, Lost Soul).
Added an animation to the Alchemist's Transmute ability.
Added an animation and visual effects to the Hunter's Training ability.
Added an animation to the Chieftain's Strength ability.
Soul Charge now shows a consistent visual effect when it is applied to a unit.
Updated the visual and sound effects for the Druid's Moonlight ability.
Updated the visual effects for the Heal and Regeneration abilities.
Added a visual effect to the Desert Tortoise's Sand Quake ability.
Update 1.0.2.2 is now live!
A new Quinterra update has arrived! For this update we've been prioritizing changes to the tutorial system to improve the new player experience. It was very clear to us that our original approach for the tutorial contained massive amounts of information overload, so we're taking steps to break down events and focus on including more player interactivity along with explanations. While this update includes the first steps we've taken to improve the new player experience, we have many more changes in the works to help players out in the early learning stages including a new hints system! Along with the initial tutorial changes we have also created new mana building art, added more encounters, and fixed various bugs. Keep the feedback rolling as it helps us tremendously with our encounter balancing! If there's particular encounters you love or hate, drop us a line on the steam discussion board or on our official discord at https://discord.gg/SWhu5SYz3y.
Stay tuned as next week we'll be posting in-depth information on our steam discussion boards concerning our current plans for a large content update in July!
1.0.2.2 Patch Notes:
Content/Balancing:
The combat tutorial has been overhauled. Each message is now greatly simplified for ease of readability, and most of the actions have an accompanying visual indicator of what the player must do to progress in the tutorial. In addition, the tutorial steps have been reorganized to be easier to follow.
A window showing drafting progression in a clearer visual way has been added to the combat tutorial.
The combat tutorial now ends in a victory for the player automatically when it is completed.
Mini tutorial 'hints' for specific game mechanics (such as spell power and armor) will now appear once when those specific mechanics first appear for the player. This system will be expanded in future patches.
Added a reset tutorials button to the options menu.
Added a 2 star version of Flamebearge.
Added a 1 and 2 star version of Submerged Crocodiles encounter.
Added new Hulking Mole encounter.
Added full 5 star scaling to new Sand Crocodile beast encounter.
Added 5 star scaling to the Metal Golem beast encounter and tweaked it's early iterations some.
Raptor broodling has been added to the raptor pack fight.
Added full 5 star scaling to the Raptor Pack fight. It now has a new minion and an enrage mechanic at max rank.
Bugfixes:
Fixed a major issue that was causing the Vanquish encounter type to not end at 0 turns remaining.
Fixed some issues that caused various VR kits to engage. (SteamVR, Oculus Rift, Magic Leap)
Added a missing visual system for the storm gust ability.
Fixed an issue with a texture in the Deep Mines being set incorrectly.
Fixed an issue that caused the enemy deeproot sanctum highlight to look like it was your own building.
Fixed an issue where players could get stuck in the combat tutorial.
Fixed an issue where the combat tutorial would incorrectly utilize the player's expedition data instead of the tutorial's data, causing a mismatch with the intended tutorial race.
Fixed an issue where some persistent visual effects would not destroy themselves properly when their target was destroyed.
Fixed an issue where expedition tutorial objects weren't highlighting.
Visual Changes:
The mana vault building has now been replaced with a new art asset with all new animations.
Updated volcano smoke to be less computationally complex in the Deep mines.
Added a heat distortion effect to the Crystal Desert domain.
Added rotational systems to expedition backgrounds.
Made some adjustments to the main menu background.
The lighting in Deep Mines has been adjusted.
Updated orbs to have a working transition when they appear again in drafting, with updated glimmer effect to have color.
Lowered maximum brightness when draftable to make the icon slightly easier to see.
