We've discussed this on the Discord server before. When you're trying to go for a defensive or tanky build, there aren't that many options. That's why we've introduced a new stat: Resistance!
Each point of Resistance will reduce your damage taken by 0.1%, multiplicatively. Get those new resistance runes, or use your prestige points to get real tanky!
New Afflictions
A new Affliction has been added, that will reduce the damage you deal as time goes on (only during the round, of course), so don't pick it if you don't pack the damage to finish things quickly!
On top of that, all Afflictions now have an extra tier, reaching up to Tier 4. You'll need some really strong late-game builds to handle these.
Cursed Runes
With the new Afflictions and extra tier, the maximum Affliction level has gone up from 27 to 40! Obviously, that means we needed an extra rune tier: Cursed Runes! Cursed Runes will be granted to players beating level 35+ Affliction.
Cursed runes will be the first type of rune to give 5 (five!) effects, rather than the current maximum of 4. You really want these.
Balance
Rewards
When you're just getting started, it's not easy to make gold, making it hard to buy any gadgets. Time to address that!
Gold earned in the Normal gamemode increased by 20%.
Gold earned in the Gauntlet gamemode increased by 20%.
Bonus Gold/Experience earned per Affliction level: 8% -> 7%.
Bosses
Some bosses had autoattack that dealt an unfair amount of damage. Bosses should be challenging because of their mechanics, not because they oneshot-whack you.
Vol'Kur Basic Attack Damage: -20%
Eugene Sterling Basic Attack Damage: -40%
Prestige
After the data from the Prestige system has come in, it's time for some balance changes. Picking damage shouldn't be the best choice 100% of the time!
Prestige base Armor (per point): 6 -> 8
Prestige base Gold Earned (per point): 4 -> 7
Prestige base Ability Strength (per point): 6 -> 5
Runes
The release gave us a good opportunity to spot unpopular runes, and runes that are a little too popular. Here's a list of balance changes to address that!
Buffs
Frostbite: +15% effectiveness on new runes
Movement Speed: +10% effectiveness on new runes
Crowd Level Generation: +15% effectiveness on new runes
Mercenary: +20% effectiveness on new runes
Shield Battery: +20% effectiveness on new runes
Basic Attack healing: +5% effectiveness on new runes
Health regeneration: +10% effectiveness on new runes
Nerfs
Basic Attack Speed: -10% effectiveness on new runes
Ability Strength: -5% effectiveness on new runes
Bugfixes
Sanguine Rod no longer applies a score penalty when it periodically deals damage to Victoria
Fixed a bug where getting the ZycoDrunk evolution in Streamer mode would keep you drunk ... forever. Sorry!
Valor 1.5.3: Kunai
New Evolutions
6 New Evolutions have been added to the Evolution gamemode, along with another 5 Streamer-only Evolutions. You'll see the new Kunai Evolutions pop up, and trust me, they're pretty strong!
New Afflictions
When trying to get Tormented Runes, Affliction really didn't give you much of a choice: you basically had to tick all boxes to get them. To solve that, 2 new Afflictions (each with 3 Tiers) have been added, allowing you to choose which ones you'll leave out and which ones you'll keep.
Balance
Rebecca
Tactical Mine Base Arm time: 3s -> 2.5s
Tactical Mine Base damage: 15 -> 20
Affliction
Normal/Timeworn/Ancient Ghost base health: 160/400/800 -> 120/300/600
Other stuff
Twitch vote time is now in configurable in the Twitch menu.
The Achievements menu now also shows a nice progress bar to show you how far you currently are.
Added 2 new achievements for reaching the top 1% in the leaderboards.
Past evolution wave 30, the amount of units spawned no longer increases, because it just becomes too crowded. Instead, the health of the enemies is increased further.
Bugfixes
Fixed a bug where Reanimation's skeletons would be modified by Raven's particle customization.
Enemies will no longer take damage while in between rounds
The Gift will no longer continue conting in between rounds
Krogar now properly benefits from runes that grant Attack Damage above a certain crowd level
Valor 1.5.2: Affliction
Affliction
A new gamemode for true endgame players ... Affliction!
Before you start the round, you'll be able to choose between various Afflictions. The more afflictions you choose, the higher the rewards, should you win the challenge.
The challenges themselves will be the hardest you've seen so far in the game, but the rewards will be well worth it. Depending on the amount of selected Afflictions, you'll be able to receive 2 new tiers of runes. Both the Afflicted and Tormented runes are stronger than Gladiator runes!
On top of that, some new achievements have been added that will increase the rate at which you can earn runes. You'll even be able to earn runes from non-bossfights!
Of course, the new gamemode also counts towards the leaderboards, so you'll have some new opportunities to improve your glory!
Balance
Ember
Flare cooldown: 5 -> 4.5
Dragon's Base damage: 30 -> 35
Dragon's Breath damage per level: 2.3 -> 2.5
Rebecca
Weapon - Photon blasters: also reduces attack damage by 20%.
Runes
Ability Strength runes: -10% strength (only for new runes)
Hits from the wisp rune no longer generate crowd level
Other stuff
Added some Tier 6 achievements!
Added a new particle customization effect for 1,000 glory.
Bugfixes
Fixed a bug where Rebecca would not properly benefit from autoattack healing
November Championship
As we look forward to the release, and look back at this year's Halloween, a new competition starts! The November Championship will focus on the spooky theme: Castle Sanguine and Victoria! The end score will be determined by the sum of the scores on the Castle Sanguine and Victoria leaderboards.
The Top 3 at the end of the championship will receive a place in the Valor Hall of Fame
Top Top 5 at the end of the championship will receive the Gladiator role in our Official Discord Server
The November Championship ends November 31st at 23:59.
Valor Full Release: Coming November 3rd!
The time has (almost) come. Valor will go out of Early Access on November 3rd 2022! To celebrate, a new gamemode will be added, sparking a new competition, the Valor November Championship!
Does that mean no updates will come after that? No! I still have lots of ideas to add to the game. The game will simply move to Full Release state.
Valor 1.5.1: Prestige
Prestige Levels
You've asked for this, and it's now here: Prestige Levels! Once you reach max level (20), your character will now keep on gaining experience. This experience will count towards Prestige Levels. Every time you gain a Prestige Level, you'll be able to spend a point in the Prestige menu:
Zone Gadgets
A new Gadget category has been added: Zone Gadgets! These gadgets will provide zone-specific bonuses that are only active when playing that zone. Tired of Neonwave City's lasers or Taikaan Jungle's plants? These gadgets are for you!
Hall of Fame
With the conclusion of the first Valor Championship, comes the Hall of Fame! You can access this list of significant players through the leaderboards menu.
Want to become a part of the Hall of Fame? Keep an eye out for future championships!
Balance
Runes
Wisp: +100% strength on new runes
Dark Energy: +100% strength on new runes
Other stuff
The tooltips for difficulties / gamemodes now display their respective reward multipliers.
The Tinker District now has a few more powerups!
Bugfixes
Soul Transfer can no longer to The Seeker. No more blocking other units, Seeker!
September Championship Results
Results
The results for the first Valor Championship are in!
Winners will be contacted personally by me in the next few days.
Valor 1.5.0: Rebecca
Rebecca
A new gladiator has joined the team. Rebecca features high speed shoot em up gameplay, bringing her skills from Sector 92 and Neonwave City to the game. *Pew pew!*
Rebecca was born and raised in Neonwave City. Her parents were part of The Revaton 7, an organization that ruled most of the city. Eventually, Jake Castillo took over and the family had to flee, seeking refuge in Spark. Spark's citizens aren't known for being very welcoming towards citizens from "lesser" origins, so their Order Keepers stormed Rebecca's safehouse. While her parents managed to escape, Rebecca was caught. She was transferred to Revaton's largest prison, Sector 92. Inside, she learned both combat and technical skills from her fellow prisoners, eventually escaping Sector 92, and starting a new life as a Gladiator.
Balance
Rewards
The Training Grounds are a great way of getting more experience. While that's not a bad thing, it removes some incentive from playing higher level zones (if you are a high enough level). To combat that, the experience and gold rewards have been adjusted as follows:
The Training Grounds: -20%
Taikaan Jungle: no change
Neonwave City: +20%
Castle Sanguine: +40%
The Tinker District: +60%
In addition, exp rewards on defeat have been slightly increased.
Krogar
Competence score reduction multiplier: 50% -> 35%
To clarify, this means Krogar will lose fewer points when getting hit in the Competence gamemode.
Affixes
Blizzard: effectiveness reduced by +- 15%
Blizzard: now also increases maximum movement speed by 15% per stack, which should improve the feeling of slowness
The Gift pickup time: 10 seconds, decreased by Affix Amount -> always 10 seconds
The Gift cooldown: 12 / Affix Amount -> 13 - Affix Amount, minimum 5
Evolution
Aperitive: damage against bosses reduced from 255% to 10%
Catherine Sanguine Possession damage per potion consumed on Novice Difficulty: 3 -> 2
Competence
Score reduction upon taking damage is now capped at a percentage of the total score:
Novice: 10%
Brawler: 15%
Warrior: 20%
Vanquisher: 25%
Gladiator: 35%
Other stuff
Killing bosses now always removes the Nerve Agent debuff
Reanimated skeletons from bosses now have reduced stats
Victory/defeat text
Ember's Dragon breath now casts light on the environment (only on high quality settings)
Slightly changed how glory is calculated. Glory is now the sum of all your records, instead of the sum of the highest level-value for any gladiator. After this change, you might have a little more glory if you play different gladiators at a high level, but never less glory than before.
Your glory per level is also displayed under the button for every level.
You can now disable ability tooltips ingame so you don't accidentally hover over them, under Settings > Gameplay > Ingame Ability Tooltips
Performance improvements on all aimed abilities
Rendering performance improvements
Performance improvements on enemy unit logic
Performance improvements in the menu
Two more orb evolutions
You can now choose to show your own healthbar above you character's head, under Settings > Gameplay > Player Healthbar
Weapon effects are now also listed along their respective gadgets
New achievement for 5 Gladiators at level X, achievements now have pages!
Ranks refresh much faster than before, so there will be less confusion about your current rank
In addition, you'll be able to see how your rank improved after each run!
Improved ingame UI scaling on high-resolution devices
Ability strength is now properly reflected in ability tooltips. Actual damage remains unchanged.
Reduced visibility of plants in the jungle to improve visibility of enemies
Bugfixes
Evolution "Hope" now gives the correct effect instead of the Stone Orb effect
The Competence score can no longer go below 0
Selecting a skin now plays a voiceline
Krogar's Tenacity ability now no longer prematurely removes the damage reduction when shields overlap due to high cooldown reduction
Fixed some connectivity issues with the Twitch connector
Fixed a bug where ability heal would heal based on damage before ability strength was taken into account. This effectively means ability heal will now heal more when you have more than 100% ability strength.
EVENT: September Championship
Hello everyone, and welcome to the September Championship!
For this championship, we'll be looking at the global leaderboard. At 23:59 CEST, on September 26th, we'll be taking a snapshot of the current global leaderboard to find out who won the September Championship.
So, what can you win? Let's take a look:
TOP 10: You will be personally contacted by me (Ne Vogel), and given the chance to name a new upgrade after you. You'll be a part of the game ...for eternity!
TOP 5: Additionally, you'll be granted the prestigious Gladiator role on our Discord server.
TOP 3: Additionally, you'll be added to Valor's Hall of Fame forever, mentioning your final position (1st, 2nd or 3rd). Your name will be forever written on the walls of this new and upcoming ingame menu.
This will be Valor's first championship, so we'll try out some new things, keep what's fun and throw away what isn't. If you have feedback, please let me know on our Discord!
Valor 1.4.2: (R)evolution
(R)evolution
Let's start with the main attraction. The fan favourite evolution gamemode has received some epic changes and updates! Let's go over them one by one.
Difficulty
The players who actually got far enough into the game to play Evolution, really enjoyed it. However, most players don't get to Gladiator difficulty. That's why the starting difficulty for Evolution has been lowered by quite a bit. You'll now be able to play Evolution once you've beaten the level on Novice.
On top of that, the difficulty in the earlier waves has also been reduced to account for lower-level players joining in:
