This week’s update focusses on adding some more variable high-level strategies as well as making the game less frustrating for players focusing on Summoner builds or Power play.
There are a couple of very important mechanical updates (see below) as well as a number of card balance updates so please read carefully.
As always, please post any thoughts or comments on our Discord. We always love to hear your feedback!
Big Changes
Powers Update
Playing a Power card will now give the character 2 Defence as well as any other benefit. This is shown on the card as a reminder.
This change is to make mid-late battle powers more appealing to play as well as give the player (and enemies) a bit more durability on their powers and give non-Warrior characters some more defensive options.
Combat difficulty has been slightly re-balanced to compensate for this – most notably, all Bosses have had a health buff.
Summons Update
Removed the increasing cost of additional Summons to make summon builds more viable across the board.
Updated the opponent AI to deal with multiple player Summons more effectively.
To compensate, and to make the Warlord less essential in a summon build, a couple of cheap Warlord cards (‘March’ and ‘Show the Way’ now only affect Heroes).
Necromancer Boss summoning discount is reduced to -1 WP (from -2).
Card Changes
‘Run’ – Increased movement to 5.
‘Force Field’ – Reduced cost to 1.
‘Iron Skin’ – Reduced Resilience to 3 (from 4).
‘Seethe’ – Updated effect to ‘Whenever you take 1 or more damage and your hand is not full, draw a card.’ This is primarily to stop this card slowing down some turns unnecessarily.
‘Acidic Coating’ – Reduced cost to 1 (from 3).
‘Resilience’ (Warrior) – Changed effect to ‘Defend 2 at the beginning of your turn.’, increased Resilience to 6 (from 4).
‘Dire Bat’ (Hunter) – Reduced health to 3 (from 4).
‘Show the Way’ (Warlord) – Update effect to ‘Move 3 then activate all other friendly Heroes.’
‘Attack!’ (Warlord) – Updated effect to ‘All friendly Heroes draw a Melee Attack card from their deck and then Activate all friendly characters.’ To make it more clear that this effect still works on Summons etc.
‘Back to Back’ (Warlord) – Reduced cost to 0 (from 1).
‘Opening Strike’ (Warlord) – Reduced cost to 1 (from 2) and damage to 2 (from 3).
‘Calculations’ (Alchemist) – Reduced cost to 1 (from 2).
‘Smart Infection’ (Alchemist) – Increased Damage and Defence to 2-5 (from 2-4).
‘Hex’ (Witch) – Increased cost to 1 (from 0) and updated effect to ‘Inflict 2 random negative named effects on target character.’ This change was made to stop this effect back-firing more and more as we add additional positive effects (coming v soon!). But without the chance of this, this effect felt a bit too powerful for a zero-cost card.
Balance Changes
As mentioned above, all Bosses have had a health increase to compensate for increased player durability.
Slightly upped the difficulty of non-boss encounters (on Normal and above).
Significant Bugs
Fixed Summoned unit attacks not displaying damage or Combo Strike previews.
Trials of Fire Weekly Update (v0.27) now Live
Early Access v0.27 Patch Notes
Hi everyone,
This week’s update features a number of quality of life UI changes as well as some balance changes to existing effects.
As usual, please let us know your feedback on the game or on any of the changes on our Discord server!
Effect Changes
Shocked
Updated Shocked effect to, ‘Whenever hit by a Melee or Ranged attack, deal 1 Magic Damage to all friendlies within 2 spaces.’ Note: this also effects the target itself.
This is to make the effect more reliable and make it not useless against bosses or single enemies.
Card Changes
‘Dire Bat’ (Hunter) – Decreased cost to 1 (from 2) and increased health to 4 (from 3).
‘Wing Smash’ – Increased Push amount to 4 (from 2) to give a bit more utility for repelling melee attackers.
Balance Changes
Reduced HP on the ‘Spikeback’ boss.
Removed ‘Fireball’ from ‘Fury Liche’.
Combat Run: You will not always get the option to rest and visit town during the combat run, forcing you into combat in some situations.
UI Updates
Summon cards now show the health of the summoned unit.
Hovering over a side-quest arrow on the map will give you the approximate travel time (in days) to reach the objective.
Updated New Adventure pages to make it more obvious when you are continuing a game in progress or starting a new adventure.
Added section bookmarks to the Card Catalogue to easily jump to different card types (Action, Power, Weakness etc…).
Significant Bugs
Fixed issue with ‘Driving Cold’ not pushing both enemies if 2 are lined up within the AOE.
Fixed another issue with UNDO sometimes leaving invisible cards in hand.
Fixed a bug allowing you to get the same Legendary multiple times.
Fixed Combat Run not reporting completion properly.
Localisation
All tutorials now localised to Chinese (Simplified).
Trials of Fire Weekly Update (v0.26) now Live
Early Access v0.26 Patch Notes
This week’s update includes an update to the Combat Run game mode to make this more interesting by giving the player choices at every step.
As usual, please let us know your thoughts and comments on our Discord server.
Big Changes
Combat Run
The Combat Run game mode has been re-worked to the player choice over how they get to each boss.
You can see the upcoming boss so can prepare your party accordingly.
You can now heal injuries by visiting town, provided you have the healing herbs.
Card Changes
‘Protect’ (Warrior) – Updated cost to 0. Changed the effect to, ‘Choose a friendly character. All damage to that character is transfered to you until the start of the next turn. Defend 2.’
‘Rush’ (Warrior) – Changed effect to, ‘Gain +2 Movement this turn then draw a card and activate this character.’
‘Resourceful’ (Alchemist) – Updated resilience to 5. Changed effect to ‘Whenever you draw 1 or more cards during your turn, draw an additional card. Then this Power loses 1 Resilience.’
Content Updates
New enemy type
New Heroics + items
Significant Bugs
Fixed an issue where price discounts (Merchant follower) don’t apply properly.
Trials of Fire Weekly Update (v0.25) now Live
Early Access v0.25 Patch Notes
Hi again,
This week’s update contains some exciting new features to help build out your deck and more information to help navigate the overworld without running out of food.
The biggest change to a run will be in the ability to pick from a choice of 2 Legendary Items at each objective instead of being stuck with just the one you’ve got. Also added a new indicator on the map page to show you if you are moving fast enough towards your objective to avoid starvation.
As usual, please let us know your thoughts and comments on our Discord server.
Big Changes
Legendary Choice
When you earn a random Legendary item from completing an objective or defeating a boss, you will now get a choice from 2 items so you can pick the one that best suits your party’s build.
Card Changes
‘Crush’ – Damage is now increased by 4 per occupied space (up from 3).
‘Sun Fire’ – Reduced cost to 4 (from 5).
‘Focus Beam’ – Updated to ‘Magic Attack 1. Deal +2 damage for each Willpower point spent.’
‘Last Stand’ – Reduced cost to 1 (from 2).
‘Heightened Senses’ – Updated effect so you can draw a damage card from your deck or discard pile.
‘Critical Strike’ – Reduced cost to 2 (from 3).
‘Acid Flask’ – Reduced Ranged Damage to 1 (from 3) and increased Acid stacks to 2.
Legendary Changes
‘Elven Stalker's Chain’ – Removed the global disadvantage from this item, so it just gives +2 Movement. Added a ‘Fatigue’ card.
‘Iona’s Blade’ – Increased Melee Damage bonus to +2.
UI
The colour of the ‘Day: ‘ text on the overworld map now indicates your progress to your next objective.
Green means you have plenty of food/time to explore a bit.
Yellow means that if you head towards your objective whilst stopping regularly to restock then you will be able to find enough food.
Red means that you likely will not find enough food to reach your destination without suffering from starvation.
Physics on skill card ‘Banners’.
Localisation
Chinese (Simplified): Translations for main menu, options screens, card hints and story spoilers as well as many more cards and game effects.
Content
6 new cards to discover.
AI
Fixed an issue with the AI playing WP generating cards (like ‘Rally’) with nothing to spend the WP on.
Trials of Fire Heroic Update (v0.24) now Live
Early Access Heroic Update Patch Notes
Hi again,
This week’s build sees the introduction of a new class of Skill Card and lots of new powerful deck combinations. Heroic cards are powerful one-use actions that, if used correctly, can swing a battle in your favour.
Heroics have been as a further measure to make finding new items exciting and to help out larger deck builds without nerfing any leaner deck strategies that players have been mastering.
This update also sees some buffs to Warrior and Alchemist class cards.
As always, please let us know what you think of these changes on our Discord server!
Big Changes
Heroic Cards are introduced in this build and can be found on many Epic and Legendary items.
Heroic cards are designed to reward larger, item-based decks at the highest level and provide additional value some of the bigger cards in the game.
Heroic cards are potentially more powerful than standard actions, but benefit from set up and particular decks built around them.
These cards are single-use so can’t be used repeatedly, but are designed to have a potential huge single turn effect.
Mechanically, Heroics work just like Action cards but with the following exceptions:
When a Heroic card is played it is removed from the battle, so each can only be played once per battle.
Whenever a Heroic card would be discarded, Recycled or Redrawn, it is shuffled into your deck instead. Heroic cards will always either be in hand or in your draw deck.
Heroic cards cannot be duplicated by any game effect.
We’ve added new Heroic cards and updated several powerful, but under-used cards into heroics too. See below for changes to existing cards.
Heroic Card Changes
‘Channelling’ – Updated effect to ‘Gain 7 Willpower’.
‘Execute’ – Reduced cost to 4.
‘Multi Shot’ – Increased damage to 5.
‘Blizzard’ – Now inflicts an extra stack of ‘Chilled’ to enemies.
‘Sanctuary’ – Decreased cost to 1.
‘Immolate’ – Increased cost to 3, updated effect to, ‘Inflict Burning 3 on any enemy the deal 2 Magic Damage per Burning on the target.’
‘Sun Fire’ – Decreased cost to 5. Updated effect to ‘Magic Attack 8. If this defeats the target, deal 4 Magic Damage to all adjacent Characters. If any target is Burning remove all Defence before dealing damage.’
‘Surging Strike’ – Increased cost to 2, increased base damage to 3 and damage increase to +2 per card played.
‘Life Siphon’ – Reduced cost to 2, updated effect to, ‘Deal 3 unblockable Magic Damage to all enemy targets in the indicated area, draw a card for each target hit.’
Card Changes
‘Metamorphosis’ – Updated effect to, ‘Replace each other card in your hand with a choice from 3 random cards costing 1 more Willpower, then reduce its cost by 2.’
‘Explosive Arrow’ – Increased base ranged damage to 3 (from 2).
‘Smart Infection’ – Increased damage and defence to 2-4 (from 1-4).
‘Measured Blow’ – Increased damage to 3 (from 2).
‘Single Out’ – Updated effect to, ‘Ranged Attack 2. The next card that is played on the target that would be discarded is returned to its owner's hand after use.’ This is to fix interactions with Heroic cards and cards like ‘Burrowing Barb’.
‘Eldritch Grasp’ – Reduced base damage to 2 (from 3).
UI
Hovering over a character portrait on the end game summary and in the History page in the Statistics menu will show you the final composition of that hero’s combat deck.
Significant Bugs
Fixed a crash when completing the 1st God Hunter objective.
Effects that target randomly are now undoable if there is only 1 (or 0) available target.
Trials of Fire Patch v0.23 now Live
Early Access Build v0.23 Patch Notes
Hi again,
Not too many big updates this week. I’ve been working most of the week on localisation support and a few nasty Witch bugs. There are some balance updates to the Elementalist again to bring some more balance to the force to try to dig out some more consistent winning builds not based around Overload. There are some big buffs coming for everyone very soon so watch this space.
Big Changes
Nothing major for this week.
Card Changes
‘Overload’ – Updated effect to, ‘After you play a card that deals Magic Damage all future attacks deal +1 Damage. Lose +1 from the damage bonus each round.’
This change is to slow down the infinite stacking of Overload, while allowing you to stack up just as quickly within a single turn.
‘Evocation’ – Updated effect to, ‘All cards deal +1 Damage for every character they hit (up to a maximum of +3).’
Again, this is to try to prevent this card from getting too out of control in large groups. While I generally dislike capping effects, I feel it works better here than slowing down the damage ramp up so you still get a nice benefit from hitting 2 or 3 targets.
• ‘Aura of Pain’ – Updated effect to, ‘All enemies within 3 spaces receive +1 damage from all attacks for each different named effect. Whenever damaged by a card from this character, they also get a random named effect.’
This change is to primarily prevent the ridiculous stacking damage in conjunction with ‘Soul Blast’.
• ‘Static Discharge’ – Increased damage to 3.
Localisation
We now have the 1st set of Chinese (Simplified) translations for cards in the game. This is very much WIP, but you update your language through Steam to see the changes.
Any feedback that we can pass on to the localisation team from players who know card games and Chinese is greatly appreciated.
Please post any comments in the localisation section on our Discord server.
Trials of Fire Early Access - Witch Update
Early Access Build - Witch Update
Hi again,
This week’s build sees the introduction of our 6th playable hero, the Elven Witch and if you log in in the next 7 days you will have him unlocked automatically. The elves have been shunned by civilisation, but many continue to develop their considerable powers in isolation. The Witch uses his innate Mystical ability along with powerful Totems to terrify and defeat all foes.
Also in this week’s update is an overhaul of item-slots on all existing heroes to give each of them a more unique feel outside the core class cards. Don’t forget to check your loadouts when continuing an existing game!
As usual, please let us know what you think of all these changes on our Discord server.
Big Changes
Item slot revamp
To ensure more diversity in builds with different parties, we’ve revamped the types and number of items equipable across all 6 classes.
The Arcane category has been split into Tomes and Totems.
The Equipment category has been split into Equipment and Potions.
The Light Weapon category has been split into Blades and Blunt Weapons.
New playable hero, Elven Witch
New playable hero to add to your party.
A master hexer, the Witch specialises in punishing your enemies’ weaknesses and turning their greatest strengths against them.
14 new class-specific cards to master.
Brings the total party combinations up to 120!
Card Changes
‘Earth Grab’ – increased damage to 3 (from 2).
‘Ruthless’ – updated effect to ‘Gain Inspired, draw a card.’
‘Attack!’ – updated effect to ‘All friendly Characters draw a Melee Attack card from their deck or discard pile and then Activate.’
Life Siphon – updated effect to ‘Deal 3 unblockable Magic Damage to all enemy targets in the indicated area, then gain +1 Willpower at the start of your next turn for each target hit.’
Balance Updates
Tweaks to Cataclysm levels.
Increased challenge rating of ‘Bandit Lord’.
Significant Bugs
Fixed an issue with the ‘Chop’ card always displaying 1 extra damage.
Fixed an issue with some Story Spoiler probabilities not being calculated correctly.
Trials of Fire Patch v0.21 now Live
Early Access Build v0.21 Patch Notes Hi again, A few important balance updates before next week’s character update. Main changes this week sees a change to a few Elementalist cards and basic class deck to balance some of the Elementalist higher-damage strategies. This is to reduce the reliance on BASIC cards in some of Elementalist builds to keep levelling up exciting for this class. Also re-worked the Cataclysm difficulty levels to give more of a fair fighting chance at higher levels. Please let us know what you think on our Discord server. Big Changes
Updated Elementalist starting deck
These changes are designed to reduce the reliability of Elementalist builds built around ‘Overload’ and ‘Evocation’. These builds are great fun, but a bit too reliable and easy to get online quickly as they combo so well with ‘Chaos Missiles’, a BASIC card.
Replaced ‘Chaos Missiles’ with a new BASIC. ‘Chaos Missiles’ can still be found (in its new form) on items.
‘Force Missile’ – ‘Magic Attack 2 to a target within 3 spaces and to 1 adjacent enemy.’
Updated ‘Overload’ to not trigger from BASIC cards (see below).
Cataclysm updates
Updated Cataclysm difficulty modes to provide more of a ‘gentle’ ramp up in difficulty.
See how high you can climb!
Card Changes
‘Chaos Missiles’ – Increased damage to 2, updated class to ACTION.
‘Summoner’ – Increased cost to 2.
‘Aggression’ – Increased cost to 1.
‘Overload’ – Updated effect to, ‘After you play a non-BASIC Card that deals Magic Damage all future attacks deal 1 Damage.’
AI Updates
The AI will more aggressively target Heroes with Powers providing a large damage bonus to try to remove the Power.
Cataclysm 1: Standard and Elite enemies gain 20% health.
Cataclysm 2: -1 Healing Herb for every objective.
Cataclysm 3: Bosses deal 1 damage with all attacks.
Cataclysm 4: Enemy team gets 1 WP every turn.
Cataclysm 5: Bosses gain 25% health.
Cataclysm 6: Standard and Elite enemies deal 1 damage with all attacks.
Cataclysm 7: -1 Healing Herb for every objective.
Cataclysm 8: Bosses draw 1 additional card every turn.
Cataclysm 9: All enemies gain 20% health.
Cataclysm 10: Bosses and Elite enemies deal 1 damage with all attacks.
If you have completed any Cataclysm levels before this update, higher levels will now be available to you to try out.
Trials of Fire Patch 0.205 now Live
Early Access Build v0.205 Patch Notes
Hi everyone, Only a very small update this week, as we only just got back from PAX West.
Hope you enjoy the update – and as usual let us know your thoughts on our Discord server.
Big Changes
No big changes for this week.
Gameplay Changes
Attack actions are now undoable (unless they have a random damage component).
All actions other than card draw + random effects should now be undoable so please let us know if you find any issues.
For Tier 5+ random bosses (Endless Odyssey and Custom Quest), these will now be picked randomly from the top 2 Tiers of bosses (3+4) rather than only Tier 4 (Planar).
Bug Fixes
Fix to a bug causing items to be duplicatable.
‘Regroup!’ and ‘Intensify’ are no longer playable if they won’t have any effect.
The game is much more generous when dragging/dropping items to equip them on your character.
Content Updates
1 new Legendary item.
Trials of Fire God Hunter update now Live
Early Access Build God Hunter Update
V0.20 Patch Notes
Hello everyone,
This week we’re excited to introduce an Epic new story quest, God Hunter to the game. This quest comes with its own storyline, Bosses (including the 1st Tier 4 Boss) and unique random events.
Also debuting in this update is our Custom Quest mode where you can play how you want to play. Set the number of objectives, random seed and any modifiers before diving in.
The new Bosses will also slot into the random play modes, Combat Run, Endless Odyssey and Custom Quest for added variation.
Big Changes
New Epic Quest: God Hunter
Epic Quest – longer and more challenging than the Water Gem quest.
3 new Bosses to master.
Custom Quest
Define the length of your experience.
Add any modifiers.
Swap map seeds with friends for a shared experience.
Card Changes
‘Phosphor Arrow’ – Updated effect to, ‘"Ranged Attack 3. If the target is Burning, inflict Burning on all enemy characters within 2 spaces.’
Content Updates
3 New Boss enemies
2 new standard enemy types
3 new Legendary items
14 new standard items
Balance Changes
Increased the amount of stamina regained from camping in all non-sheltered locations by 5%.
