The Last Spell is 30% off from December 13-15! We’ve got your back to keep you busy during the holidays.
Also, we wanted to shortly address an additional topic: the 1.0 release and the price of the game. The price of The Last Spell will be increased in Early 2023 before the 1.0 release to match the amount of content and work poured into the Early Access.
Well, that’s one additional reason to get the game now with today’s sale! One perfect occasion to get The Last Spell at this (very) attractive price.
Players, we could not thank you enough for your support, help and suggestions. And for the future players interested in The Last Spell, we’ll see you soon!
Nominate The Last Spell for the Labor of Love award!
Hello Heroes!
We hope you're doing well as the holiday season is upon us!
The Annual Steam Awards are here, and we hope you'll consider nominating us in the "Labor of Love" category.
The Last Spell was released on June 3rd 2021, and since then we've been working on the game to add loads of new content and improvements! Here's a little summary of what we've added since the start of early-access:
The main thing that we wanted to do with the Early-Access was to be able to not only continue to add new content to the game, but we also wanted to collaborate with the players to take their feedback into account and make it even better!
The Last Spell is also currently at -25% off for the Autumn Sales (November 22-29) for those who wish to fight hundreds of monsters during the Nights (good luck to you).
As we get close to the end of Early-Access, we also want to take this opportunity to thank all of our players for supporting us for more than 1,5 years now, on behalf of the whole Ishtar Games team!
We hope you'll vote for The Last Spell in the "Labor of Love" category!
We’ve seen your messages, your requests and your wishes and finally, finally it is here! After several months of work, you can now play The Last Spell with your controller!
You will also find at the end of this blogpost some changes on production building that enhanced the understanding of the mechanic.
CONTROLLER SUPPORT
You can now play The Last Spell with Xbox, PlayStation and Switch controllers. When you plug in your controller, the system will automatically detect which device it is and display the appropriate interface for the buttons.
Note : Hero customization is currently not available for controllers & skills in the Character sheet/Inn cannot be hovered, but we are working on it!
Designing a control scheme for The Last Spell was a big challenge for us to overcome since the game has a ton of intricate interfaces and allows the player to have a lot of information all over the interface.
For practical reasons, in this blogpost we will use the Xbox controllers buttons, but this also applies to PlayStation and Switch controllers.
HOW TO PLAY WITH A CONTROLLER?
There are two main navigation modes when using a controller :
World navigation
HUD navigation
You can press the “View Button” to switch between the two modes.
World navigation
In this mode your cursor is in the world, meaning you are navigating through tiles and you can select anything you want in the world by pressing the A button and you can press the B button to deselect something you have selected. It is also in this mode that you will fight monsters during the night (more info below).
HUD navigation
In this mode you navigate through the different buttons of the HUD (commander’s journal, the bottom panel with all the buttons to access the different interfaces).
To speed up the navigation in the interface we’ve designed a system that allows you to navigate through big sections of the interface using the R-stick. Those sections are displayed with a highlight like this one:
And this is what this system allows you to do for example in the character sheet:
Tooltips everywhere
In the game our main way to give information on something is by displaying tooltips (little boxes that appear when you hover your mouse over an image, a text or button).
When playing with a controller it was important for us to have a dedicated button to be able to display tooltips for something you want more information.
So when you see the X button displayed on your selector that mean that you can display a tooltip to have information about the thing you are currently on
Combat
Since you’ll spend most of the time fighting monsters we’ve put a lot of effort into designing this section.
When in the World navigation mode you can press the triggers LT/RT to navigate in your skills. After you’ve chosen your skill by navigating, you just have to press A on your target. If you want to stop casting skills you can press the B button and your hero will return into the “move mode”.
We wanted to have something that can be played fast, tell us what you think if you give it a try!
PRODUCTION BUILDING
Gauge Removal
Our balancing on the production building has changed a lot through the development of the game and after several iterations we are now happy with what we have. But the last iteration we’ve made to the balancing made their gauge completely useless (the gauges are always increasing at it maximum), and it made the overall understanding of the mechanic very confusing. So our decision to that is simple, we’ve decided to completely remove the gauges from the interface.
From now on, the building HUD is clearer on what the building is doing and the text of their upgrade and actions has been rewritten.
Night & Production Reward
Another QoL we’ve made is the removal of the collect of all gold and material in the production reward panel, every resource reward is instantaneously added to the total count.
We also removed the collect in the Night Report panel since it is directly written in the panic gauge what reward you will get from your rank.
BALANCING
Bone Shards (Omen of Bursting Flesh):
100 Phys DMG -> 200 Phys DMG
Cannot affect heroes and buildings anymore
BUG FIXES
Fixed Spiky Counter perk damage calculation (the tooltip was displaying the right value but it was not used in combat)
Fixed Ballista’s skill and Damage Trap’s skill being able to hit buildings when using Omen of the Engineer and Omen of the Trapper
Thanks for reading! If you encounter any issue (with the controller support or something else), please let us know in our Discord server or in the Steam discussions.
Master of Omens: Changelog 0.99.0.21
Hello Heroes!
You will find below the new changes we bring to The Last Spell:
BALANCING
Magic Scepter
Base DMG at Level 0: 80-106 to 72-98
Magic Bash (Skill 1):
Uses per turn: 4 to 3
Momentum: 25% to 15%
Wind Walk (Skill 2):
Range: 1-5 to 1-3
Shocking Touch (Skill 3):
Base DMG multiplier: 1.2 to 0.8
Hammer of Faith (Skill 4):
Base DMG multiplier: 0.7 to 1.1
Range: 1-2 to 1-3
Uses per turn: 2 to 1
Propagation bounces: 5 to 6
Perks
“Flexibility”, “Don’t Panic” and “Proximity Shot” descriptions have been modified to be more accurate: It now says “Total Damage” instead of “Damage”.
Note: “Damage” is the name given to the hero attribute that multiplies the base damage of an attack, while “Total Damage” is a separate multiplier value applied to the whole damage calculation.
Contamination
When applying Debuff to a unit, also apply Contagion (1 turn).
NOW: Unlocks the Contamination skill, allowing you to apply Contagion to the target.
Contamination:
Range: 1-9
Targets: 1
Limit per turn: 2
Effects: Contagion (2 turns).
Bully
When attacking a unit affected by 2 different types of negative alteration, the attack gets:
Guaranteed critical hit
-30% Damage
NOW: When attacking a unit, for each negative alteration of different type they are affected by, the attack gets:
-15% Critical Power
+25% Critical Chance
Big Game Hunter
When attacking an enemy with 600 or more max Health, the attack gets:
3% of the target’s max Health as bonus damage.
NOW: When attacking an enemy with at least 600 max Health, the attack gets:
+20% Total Damage, increased by 2% every additional 120 max Health, up to 50%
BUG FIXES
Fixed the bug when the Elderlicht boss was stuck in phase continuing to cast their spell even when all the Souls Vessels were turned off.
The description of the Gold mine upgrade is now displayed correctly
Also, there is an unresolved bug we are aware of when using Omen of the Engineer or Omen of the Trapper:
With Omen of the Engineer, Ballista upgraded skill can hit buildings with its secondary effect.
With Omen of the Trapper, Damage Trap upgraded skill can hit buildings with its secondary effect.
We've seen your messages: you were eagerly waiting for this Major Update and FINALLY it is here!
With this update comes the Meta Rework, the Omens but also the Wipe we announced and explained last month: we hope you will appreciate the new progression of the game! We are very interested in your feedback so feel free to share it here, on Discord or on your favourite platform.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1105670/announcements/detail/3282583269800175535 All of the content of this Major Update has been tested in Open Beta. This blogpost is mainly the same as the previous one for the Beta.
Killing a boss with a catapult will freeze/softlock your game. We are very sorry about this issue and we will fix it as soon as possible.
PROGRESSION WIPE
The progress of all the players have now been wiped. Your first new run will make you start on Swampfurt, the tutorial map which can be skipped if you open the Menu.
Beta players, your Save can carry through from Beta to Default: just change the branch on which you are playing and you will be good to go!
NEW MECHANIC: OMENS
Let’s introduce the Omens! Omens can be selected at the start of each run. Each Omen gives a specific bonus while selected, ranging from simple attribute bonuses to very unique effects. Omens are meant to replace some of the strong permanent upgrades that players used to get, coupled with brand new effects. This allow us to have better control over the intended power level and difficulty for each map, while also introducing strategic choices at the beginning of each run.
Here are some examples of Omens you will be able unlock:
To be entirely clear: Omens are not meant to erase all permanent upgrades. They still exist and we even added new ones, but Omens are a way for us to introduce more upgrades and more interesting effects, while keeping the balance of the game interesting.
Starting a run with omens
Before starting a run, you will be able to select Omens for this map. Obviously, you won’t be able to select all of your Omens for every run: each city has a set number of slots, and every Omen takes up one, two or three slots, depending on its strength. The harder the map is, the more Omens you will be able to use.
This means that the hardest maps also allow for the most interesting starting strategies and combos: will you focus your Omen choices on making your heroes stronger? On boosting your defenses? On setting up your economy? Or maybe a balance between all of these things?
Unlocking Omens
After completing the tutorial, players will only be able to choose between a few starting Omens with simple effects. However, additional Omens can be unlocked in the Oraculum. Currently, there are around 70 Omens to unlock.
A new Boundless Mode
We also took the opportunity to merge the old “Easy Mode” into the Omen system. Now renamed to Boundless Mode (because let’s be honest, the game never goes “Easy” on you), it can be activated in the Omen selection screen.
Activating Boundless Mode allows you to exceed the slot limit on Omens by however much you want, but also unlocks Boundless Mode-specific Omens which have the same effects as the old Easy Mode modifiers.
Use this new Boundless Mode to play the game at your own pace, or test some overpowered combos!
META PROGRESSION REWORK
Oraculum unlocks
All Oraculum unlocks have been redesigned: some have been removed, some have been added, and pretty much all existing ones have had their unlock conditions and prices changed. This is one of the main reasons why we had to wipe the saves, and the goal is to make the meta progression way smoother than before.
A lot of the important unlocks now come earlier than before, like the Inn building or some weapon unlocks. We also added new conditions in the Freude side of the Oraculum, in order to make the challenges a bit more varied.
Trophies
End of night trophies have been rebalanced and some new ones have been added. The most important addition is a “You won the night” trophy, that gives a hefty chunk of essence if you manage to beat a night.
Soul gains for lost nights
This feature has been requested for a long time now, but it is finally here: now you will also gain Tainted Essence for lost nights! However, even if the situation looks desperat, we encourage you to always try and win your Nights. Who knows, maybe you will get this juicy "Won the night" trophy after all...
Apocalypse Multipliers
Playing on Apocalypse mode will now grant you a boost on the number of Essence you get each night. The higher the Apocalypse, the higher the boost!
TEMPLE AND MANA WELL REWORK
While the Temple and the Mana Well had a use until now, we weren’t satisfied with their dynamic: building one often felt like a punishment more than an investment, compared to other buildings.
This is why we decided to rework both buildings a bit, in order to make these buildings relevant economy-wise. In addition to their health or mana restorating actions, the Temple and Mana Well are now able to grant permanent attribute increase to your heroes, which can be pretty strong!
Temple
Gold cost: 55 -> 70 Build limit: 1
New passive production effect: Permanently grants +8 Max Health to all current heroes.
Production rate: 1x per day
Changed all Actions. New list:
Action: Offering Base action Cost: 0 Workers Max uses: 1 Effect: Restore 40 Health to one hero.
Action: Heal Base action Cost: 1 Worker Max uses: 1 Effect: Restore 40 Health to all heroes.
Action: Blessing Available after upgrade Cost: 2 Workers Effect: Permanently grants +24 Max Health to one hero
All upgrades have also changed to match these new actions.
Mana well
Gold cost: 55 -> 35 Build limit: 2
New passive production effect: Permanently grants +1 Max Mana to all current heroes.
Production rate: 1x per day
Changed all actions. New list:
Action: Benediction Base action Cost: 0 Workers Max uses: 1 Effect: Restores 6 Mana to one hero.
Action: Restore Mana Base action Cost: 1 Worker Max uses: 1 Effect: Restore 10 Mana to all heroes.
Action: Blessing Available after upgrade Cost: 2 Workers Effect: Permanently grants +5 Max Mana to one hero
All upgrades have also changed to match these new actions.
NEW MECHANIC: CORPSES
We're introducing a new mechanic to spice up the combat and economy of the game: Corpses.
Corpses may appear at the end of each night, and can be scavenged during the day, just like ruins. Piles of Corpses can appear in multiple sizes: the bigger the pile, the greater the reward.
But how do you make them appear? Corpses and their bigger variants have higher chances of appearing when:
Enemies are killed close to the Haven
Many enemies are killed on the same tile
This means that some of the most dire situations may now lead to greater rewards...
Scavenging Corpses
Corpses can be scavenged with two different focuses: one gives you Gold, Materials and Tainted Essence, while the other gives you Items and even more Tainted Essence. These scavenge actions have a fixed cost of 1 Worker: this makes the bigger variants very interesting economy wise!
However, Corpses can also act as obstacles, so you may even decide to let them be and use them as defenses, although they will rot away with time. However, if they are a hindrance to your strategy, you can also choose to destroy them during the day.
SEER REWORK
Up until now, we only gave very limited information on incoming waves, which made it difficult for us to design interesting nights, especially early on, when players haven’t placed the Seer building yet. To let players make more strategic decisions and to make the overall enemy wave design more interesting, we decided to rework the Seer a bit.
Banners
Prior this change, you could use the “Guess Where” skill of the Seer to know the proportion of incoming waves. Now, this information will ALWAYS be given to you, even if you haven’t placed down the Seer yet. Additionally, banners now indicate a very vague quantity of enemies, instead of just a proportion: a single side with a 4-Skull banner will have more enemies than a single side with a 2-Skull banner.
Precise Arrows
Since its previous effect is now always given to the player, the “Guess Where” skill of the Seer is getting a new effect. When using the Guess Where skill, you will be able to see a very precise breakdown of where enemies will come from and in what proportions, thanks to arrows of varying sizes:
NIGHT SAVE
You asked for it and here it is! Now you can quit a night without the fear of restarting it from the beginning: your progress will be saved, and you will be able to resume from where you quit.
We’ve been wanting to implement this for quite some time, as we know that nights can become quite long. We hope that players with less time on their hands will enjoy this feature, allowing them to complete nights in multiple gaming sessions.
QOL UPDATE
We have developed a certain number of features which increase the global quality of life of the game!
Oraculum
The favors are now ordered in a more coherent manner, and this order should remain more consistent.
In addition to that, we’ve also added some tabs to allow for some filtering, which should help navigate the Oraculum and its countless favors.
Depending on its effect(s), a given favor can possibly be found in several tabs: we’d rather have duplicates but allow for a favor to be found easily when looking for it than the opposite. (e.g. a favor unlocking an Omen increasing Heroes’ attributes can be found in “Omens” as well as “Heroes”.)
Victory panel and Defeat panel
Now when you finish a night, the first thing to appear on the panel is the animation of your number of souls gained with all the trophies acquired during the night. You can also skip the animation to present your heroes on the panel and go to the profile page by clicking on your heroes.
Item categories
Some categories were implemented in game to classify protections so you can search and make some differentiation between heavy armors and light ones.
Enemies life gauge
We changed the way big enemy health bars are displayed: you should now be able to clearly see how much health remain on a boss or an Elite.
SOUND DESIGN REWORK
For this update, we introduce the first steps of our rework for the sound design, which will continue with the upcoming updates.
Introduction scene
All the sound design of the introduction has been reworked so go enjoy it! You can watch it directly when you are on the main menu.
BALANCING
Shared production building limit
Production buildings now share a building limit of 5, meaning you can build a maximum of 5 production buildings but whichever ones you want. For example, you can place down 3 Bowyers and 2 Trinket makers in your haven.
Elderlicht Soul Vessels
The Soul Vessels in Elderlicht will now become ignited after 2 turns: on the first turn of a night, they will warn the player that something is coming, and on the second turn of the night a Soulbound unit will spawn.
Traits
All traits have been reworked & rebalanced to be more focused: on average, they will affect less different attributes, but give stronger bonuses.
Wounds
Some time ago, we modified the wound system to make wounds unique for each enemy, because we wanted to allow for more tactical possibilities around this mechanic. However, they became too unique, making them bothersome to play around.
Wounds are now more harmonized: notably, enemies will all lose Move Points when wounded, but in proportion to their total Move Points.
A similar logic has also been applied to the Heroes.
Enemy attributes
The defensive attributes of all enemies have been rebalanced to make them more focused. As an example, compared to before, less enemies will gain Block or Dodge over the course of the run, but enemies that gain some will gain more noticeable amounts.
We also wanted to reinforce the difference in strength between the different Tiers of enemies: common enemies will globally stay as weak as before but stronger enemies will become even stronger, meaning they can be more impactful without the need of spawning them in quantities as high as before.
Enemy waves
Since the power level of the player has greatly changed with this update, enemy quantities in all cities have been rebalanced.
Other
Additional and precise balancing involving stats can be read in our older changelogs for the Beta, with the changelog 0.99.0.15 and the last update we did on the Beta branch:
New changelog for the Open Beta, you can see all the changes below. As always, thank you for your reports!
QOL OF THE ORACULUM
The favors are now ordered in a more coherent manner, and this order should remain more consistent.
In addition to that, we’ve also added some tabs to allow for some filtering, which should help navigate the Oraculum and its countless favors.
Depending on its effect(s), a given favor can possibly be found in several tabs: we’d rather have duplicates but allow for a favor to be found easily when looking for it than the opposite. (e.g. a favor unlocking an Omen increasing Heroes’ attributes can be found in “Omens” as well as “Heroes”.)
BUG FIX
Fixed a bug on the drop rates of level up attributes (too many rare attributes were picked)
Fixed a softlock when saving during the boss night
Fixed a softlock caused by the "Omen of Mercenary Training" and "Omen of Restraint”
Fixed Spiky Counter Perk not displayed in HUD
Fixed the meta upgrades More Rare Level Up 1,2 and 3 displayed at the same time instead of one after another.
Fixed the Adamantium Sword using the image of the Mythril Sword
Fixed Corpses not being jumpable
Fixed some Soul Vessel not being jumpable
Fixed some Soul Vessel blocking sight
Fixed the Archer enemy displaying the wrong skill in their HUD
Fixed Vestige Walls, Corpses and some Soul Vessels not activating Back Protection
Mist censers cannot spawn on Corpses anymore
Corpses can no longer spawn on Warp Gate
The experience is now correctly saved with the saving of the night
Fixed night report assets for elites enemies
Omen of lone scavenger can no longer be reset by reloading the game
Fixed the Apocalypse level 4 not changing the prices at all
Omen of scavenging is now correctly increasing gold and material when scavenging a ruin
Fixed the catapult reloads
Fixed the Omens interface for screens with 2k resolution
Fixed Adamantium Great Axe and Mystic Elven Boots attributes
Fixed unintended high amount of enemies on Lakeburg nights 9 & 10
Fixed unintended high amount of strong enemies on Elderlicht night 6
Fixed Corpses not displaying the good amount of item rewards
Fixed enemies tooltip displayed in the fog
BALANCING
Enemies
Enemy Waves & Difficulty
Changed Elite enemy spawning nights in Lakeburg
Adjusted number of strong enemies in Gildenberg nights 5 to 7 (smoother progression)
Reduced number of strong enemies in Glenwald and Elderlicht early nights
Reduced amount of “Bulky” enemies in Lakeburg
Adjusted Elderlicht night 11 enemy quantities (now more on par with other nights)
Corrupted Harpy (boss unit)
Health: 2160 -> 1680
Archer
Decreased overall Armor
Hunter
Removed Armor
Increased overall Health
Increased overall Dodge
Ripper
Removed Armor
Increased overall Health
Accursed
Removed Armor
Increased overall Health
Bulky
Decreased overall Block
Increased overall Health
Twisted
Removed Armor
Decreased overall Dodge
Increased overall Health
Elite enemies
Some Elites’ Health and Armor have been tweaked
Regeneration Affix: 30% -> 20% Max Health
Corpses
Global
Tweaked Spawn % chance values: corpses (any size) should appear slightly more often on average
Corpses (smallest pile)
Health: 25 -> 50
Scavenge (Resources focus) has been replaced by 2 new actions
NEW: Scavenge (Gold focus)
Cost: 1 worker
+18 Gold
+10 Tainted Essence
NEW: Scavenge (Materials focus)
Cost: 1 worker
+32 Materials
+10 Tainted Essence
Pile of Corpses (medium pile)
Health: 40 -> 125
Scavenge (Resources focus)
Materials gain: +38 -> +36
Scavenge (Item focus)
Tainted Essence gain: +50 -> +25
Mountain of Corpses (largest pile)
Health: 50 -> 250
Scavenge (Resource focus)
Gold gain: +48 -> +40
Materials gain: +91 -> +72
Scavenge (Item focus)
Tainted Essence gain: +100 -> +50
Elite Carrion (elite pile)
Health: 25 -> 125
“Scavenge (Resources focus)” and “Scavenge (Item focus)” have been merged and rebalanced into a single action
NEW: Scavenge
Cost: 1 worker
+1 EPIC Item
+20 Gold
+36 Materials
+100 Tainted Essence
Buildings
Temple
Health: 150 -> 270
Removed the "Blessing" upgrade: “Blessing” action is now unlocked from the start
“Blessing+” upgrade cost: 100 -> 80 Gold
Mana Well
Health: 100 -> 90
Restore Mana mana restoration: 10 -> 8
Restore+ upgrade restored mana increase: 10 to 15 -> 8 to 12
Removed the Gift upgrade: Gift action is now unlocked from the start
Gift worker cost: 2 -> 1
Gift max mana bonus: 5 -> 3
Gift+ upgrade cost: 100 -> 50 Gold
Gift+ upgrade max mana bonus increase: 5 to 8 -> 3 to 5
Ballista
Health: 40 -> 75
Damage: 70-100 -> 120-140
Mounted Ballista
Health: 50 -> 115
Damage: 90-120 -> 140-170
Catapult
Health: 50 -> 115
Damage: 50-130 -> 90-170
Traps
Stun Trap damage: 10-25 -> 20-30
Slow Trap damage: 25-50 -> 40-60
Damage Trap damage: 35-100 -> 80-130
Other Health tweaks
House: 100 ->165
Gold Mine: 100 ->165
Scavengers Camp: 100 ->165
Shop: 150 ->270
Armor Maker: 150 ->225
Blacksmith: 150 -> 225
Bowyer: 150 -> 225
Magic Shop: 150 -> 225
Jeweler: 150 -> 225
Alchemist: 150 -> 225
Inn: 150 -> 270
Seer: 150 -> 225
Watchtower: 60 -> 100
Meta progression
Global
Some light-side unlocks have been tweaked to become visible (before completion) at a slower rate (only applies if these unlocks are not already visible)
Early permanent upgrades’ Tainted Essence prices were increased slightly
Weapon unlocks
There will be more weapons to purchase more quickly on your first Gildenberg run when you manage to beat half of the nights on your first try
Perk balancing
Spiky Counter
Base value: 20 -> 30
Bully
Damage malus: -20% -> -30%
Critical Master
Base Critical Power bonus: +20% -> +25%
Bonus for each 5 crits: +10% -> +5%
Big Game Hunter
Minimum Health threshold: 300 -> 600
% of Health added as bonus damage: 6% -> 3%
Note: This perk will be subject to deeper balancing changes in a later patch
Here is the first changelog for this Open Beta. Again, thank you so much for your feedback and support, feel free to join us on Discord so we can react quicker to your reports!
First, important message for ongoing runs: if you have built a Seer with all the upgrades, your run will be unplayable with this update and you might have to start over. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
BUG FIXES
Fixed a Softlock happening when a ballista was destroyed by the player or an enemy
Fixed the catapult staying visually when destroyed
Fixed heroes stuck on corpses. When a corpse is spawning on a tile occupied by a hero, the later is moved to an adjacent tile
Fixed a world map cities selection issue
Fixed Mana Well skill Restore Mana+ affecting only one target
Fixed Offhand Wand and Offhand Hammer being wrongly locked behind variation unlocks. They are now available from the start
Fixed Omen of Death Denial being wrongly priced
BALANCING
Seer Repel skill now costs 2 workers when the fog is at its closest position, 4 workers when it is at its furthest position and 3 workers in other cases
Seer Guess Who action has been removed : buying the upgrade now grants enemy list and quantities passively
Seer Guess Who first upgrade cost : 25 -> 60 gold
Seer Guess Who second upgrade has been removed
Seer Guess Again worker cost : 2 -> 1
Seer Guess Again max uses per night : 1 -> 2
Added a "Very Big" version to the Seer Guess Where arrows
Level Up values for Phys+, Mag+ and Rang+ : 4/6/7 -> 5/7/8
Phys+, Mag+, Rang+, Isolation & Opportunism will appear more often in level ups
Increased the values of Phys+, Mag+ and Rang+ attributes in items and traits
Tweaked the generation parameters of traits : good/bad trait repartition should be a bit more balanced between starting heroes
Added icon variations for bad traits
Slight tweaks to enemy numbers in Gildenberg and Glenwald
Last month we made an announcement concerning a progression wipe happening alongside our next Major Update.
Since the Meta Rework is changing (almost) everything for the player's progression in the game, we decided to launch an Open Beta so we can gather your feedback and properly adjust the changes we made. Your comments, posts and strategies are all very helpful to us.
SUMMARY:
Progression Wipe
New Mechanic: Omens
Meta progression Rework
Temple and Mana Well Rework
New Mechanic: Corpses
Seer Rework
Night Save
QoL Update
Sound Design Rework
Balancing
PROGRESSION WIPE
As we explained in our previous post, this update will wipe the progress of Beta players. It will be effective to all players once the Major Update is officially out. You can read this article to have the answers for the most frequent questions:
Let’s introduce the Omens! Omens can be selected at the start of each run. Each Omen gives a specific bonus while selected, ranging from simple attribute bonuses to very unique effects. Omens are meant to replace some of the strong permanent upgrades that players used to get, coupled with brand new effects. This allow us to have better control over the intended power level and difficulty for each map, while also introducing strategic choices at the beginning of each run.
Here are some examples of Omens you will be able unlock:
To be entirely clear: Omens are not meant to erase all permanent upgrades. They still exist and we even added new ones, but Omens are a way for us to introduce more upgrades and more interesting effects, while keeping the balance of the game interesting.
Starting a run with omens
Before starting a run, you will be able to select Omens for this map. Obviously, you won’t be able to select all of your Omens for every run: each city has a set number of slots, and every Omen takes up one, two or three slots, depending on its strength. The harder the map is, the more Omens you will be able to use.
This means that the hardest maps also allow for the most interesting starting strategies and combos: will you focus your Omen choices on making your heroes stronger? On boosting your defenses? On setting up your economy? Or maybe a balance between all of these things?
Unlocking Omens
After completing the tutorial, players will only be able to choose between a few starting Omens with simple effects. However, additional Omens can be unlocked in the Oraculum. Currently, there are around 70 Omens to unlock.
A new Boundless Mode
We also took the opportunity to merge the old “Easy Mode” into the Omen system. Now renamed to Boundless Mode (because let’s be honest, the game never goes “Easy” on you), it can be activated in the Omen selection screen.
Activating Boundless Mode allows you to exceed the slot limit on Omens by however much you want, but also unlocks Boundless Mode-specific Omens which have the same effects as the old Easy Mode modifiers.
Use this new Boundless Mode to play the game at your own pace, or test some overpowered combos!
META PROGRESSION REWORK
Oraculum unlocks
All Oraculum unlocks have been redesigned: some have been removed, some have been added, and pretty much all existing ones have had their unlock conditions and prices changed. This is one of the main reasons why we had to wipe the saves, and the goal is to make the meta progression way smoother than before.
A lot of the important unlocks now come earlier than before, like the Inn building or some weapon unlocks. We also added new conditions in the Freude side of the Oraculum, in order to make the challenges a bit more varied.
Trophies
End of night trophies have been rebalanced and some new ones have been added. The most important addition is a “You won the night” trophy, that gives a hefty chunk of essence if you manage to beat a night.
Soul gains for lost nights
This feature has been requested for a long time now, but it is finally here: now you will also gain Tainted Essence for lost nights! However, even if the situation looks desperat, we encourage you to always try and win your Nights. Who knows, maybe you will get this juicy "Won the night" trophy after all...
Apocalypse Multipliers
Playing on Apocalypse mode will now grant you a boost on the number of Essence you get each night. The higher the Apocalypse, the higher the boost!
TEMPLE AND MANA WELL REWORK
While the Temple and the Mana Well had a use until now, we weren’t satisfied with their dynamic: building one often felt like a punishment more than an investment, compared to other buildings.
This is why we decided to rework both buildings a bit, in order to make these buildings relevant economy-wise. In addition to their health or mana restorating actions, the Temple and Mana Well are now able to grant permanent attribute increase to your heroes, which can be pretty strong!
Temple
Gold cost: 55 -> 70 Build limit: 1
New passive production effect: Permanently grants +8 Max Health to all current heroes.
Production rate: 1x per day
Changed all Actions. New list:
Action: Offering Base action Cost: 0 Workers Max uses: 1 Effect: Restore 40 Health to one hero.
Action: Heal Base action Cost: 1 Worker Max uses: 1 Effect: Restore 40 Health to all heroes.
Action: Blessing Available after upgrade Cost: 2 Workers Effect: Permanently grants +24 Max Health to one hero
All upgrades have also changed to match these new actions.
Mana well
Gold cost: 55 -> 35 Build limit: 2
New passive production effect: Permanently grants +1 Max Mana to all current heroes.
Production rate: 1x per day
Changed all actions. New list:
Action: Benediction Base action Cost: 0 Workers Max uses: 1 Effect: Restores 6Mana to one hero.
Action: Restore Mana Base action Cost: 1 Worker Max uses: 1 Effect: Restore 10 Mana to all heroes.
Action: Blessing Available after upgrade Cost: 2 Workers Effect: Permanently grants +5 Max Mana to one hero
All upgrades have also changed to match these new actions.
NEW MECHANIC: CORPSES
We're introducing a new mechanic to spice up the combat and economy of the game: Corpses.
Corpses may appear at the end of each night, and can be scavenged during the day, just like ruins. Piles of Corpses can appear in multiple sizes: the bigger the pile, the greater the reward.
But how do you make them appear? Corpses and their bigger variants have higher chances of appearing when:
Enemies are killed close to the Haven
Many enemies are killed on the same tile
This means that some of the most dire situations may now lead to greater rewards...
Scavenging Corpses
Corpses can be scavenged with two different focuses: one gives you Gold, Materials and Tainted Essence, while the other gives you Items and even more Tainted Essence. These scavenge actions have a fixed cost of 1 Worker: this makes the bigger variants very interesting economy wise!
However, Corpses can also act as obstacles, so you may even decide to let them be and use them as defenses, although they will rot away with time. However, if they are a hindrance to your strategy, you can also choose to destroy them during the day.
SEER REWORK
Up until now, we only gave very limited information on incoming waves, which made it difficult for us to design interesting nights, especially early on, when players haven’t placed the Seer building yet. To let players make more strategic decisions and to make the overall enemy wave design more interesting, we decided to rework the Seer a bit.
Banners
Prior this change, you could use the “Guess Where” skill of the Seer to know the proportion of incoming waves. Now, this information will ALWAYS be given to you, even if you haven’t placed down the Seer yet. Additionally, banners now indicate a very vague quantity of enemies, instead of just a proportion: a single side with a 4-Skull banner will have more enemies than a single side with a 2-Skull banner.
Precise Arrows
Since its previous effect is now always given to the player, the “Guess Where” skill of the Seer is getting a new effect. When using the Guess Where skill, you will be able to see a very precise breakdown of where enemies will come from and in what proportions, thanks to arrows of varying sizes:
NIGHT SAVE
You asked for it and here it is! Now you can quit a night without the fear of restarting it from the beginning: your progress will be saved, and you will be able to resume from where you quit.
We’ve been wanting to implement this for quite some time, as we know that nights can become quite long. We hope that players with less time on their hands will enjoy this feature, allowing them to complete nights in multiple gaming sessions.
QOL UPDATE
We have developed a certain number of features which increase the global quality of life of the game!
Victory panel and Defeat panel
Now when you finish a night, the first thing to appear on the panel is the animation of your number of souls gained with all the trophies acquired during the night. You can also skip the animation to present your heroes on the panel and go to the profile page by clicking on your heroes.
Item categories
Some categories were implemented in game to classify protections so you can search and make some differentiation between heavy armors and light ones.
Enemies life gauge
We changed the way big enemy health bars are displayed: you should now be able to clearly see how much health remain on a boss or an Elite.
SOUND DESIGN REWORK
For this update, we introduce the first steps of our rework for the sound design, which will continue with the upcoming updates.
Introduction scene
All the sound design of the introduction has been reworked so go enjoy it! You can watch it directly when you are on the main menu.
BALANCING
Shared production building limit
Production buildings now share a building limit of 5, meaning you can build a maximum of 5 production buildings but whichever ones you want. For example, you can place down 3 Bowyers and 2 Trinket makers in your haven.
Elderlicht Soul Vessels
The Soul Vessels in Elderlicht will now become ignited after 2 turns: on the first turn of a night, they will warn the player that something is coming, and on the second turn of the night a Soulbound unit will spawn.
Traits
All traits have been reworked & rebalanced to be more focused: on average, they will affect less different attributes, but give stronger bonuses.
Wounds
Some time ago, we modified the wound system to make wounds unique for each enemy, because we wanted to allow for more tactical possibilities around this mechanic. However, they became too unique, making them bothersome to play around.
Wounds are now more harmonized: notably, enemies will all lose Move Points when wounded, but in proportion to their total Move Points.
A similar logic has also been applied to the Heroes.
Enemy attributes
The defensive attributes of all enemies have been rebalanced to make them more focused. As an example, compared to before, less enemies will gain Block or Dodge over the course of the run, but enemies that gain some will gain more noticeable amounts.
We also wanted to reinforce the difference in strength between the different Tiers of enemies: common enemies will globally stay as weak as before but stronger enemies will become even stronger, meaning they can be more impactful without the need of spawning them in quantities as high as before.
Enemy waves
Since the power level of the player has greatly changed with this update, enemy quantities in all cities have been rebalanced.
Thank you for reading! We will look at your comments and feedback with extreme interest.
