This patch addresses some more bugs reported with the new 0.4 build.
Changelog for version 0.4.2b
Fixed downed characters not animating or showing skill point + effects after they are revived
Fixed Brand's Rosary not unlocking as infinite when completing his Banished to Hell quest. View his quest page again and it should unlock.
Fixed crash when viewing Frozen Fist relic details
Fixed crash related to Berserker's Rage distortion
Fixed crash related to Battle Ready distortion
Fixed crash when trying to view details on certain distortion effects in Battle Info menu
Fixed skill point counter when paging through Genius forms in town skills menu
Fixed quests option showing up in singularity battle menu
Fixed invisible interface bug when losing a mission
Fixed distortions sometimes appearing as temporary skills in character skill list
Fixed a crash that could happen if you taunted an enemy with Claire and then transformed her
Fixed town alerts not continuing to other pending alerts if you canceled the town level up animation
Fixed bug with Stealth Generator item where it wasn't cleaning up end of battle data properly after use, leading to various other possible issues in the next battle
Fixed Stealth Generator item not fully exiting the encounter if you used it in a rescue battle or other mid-encounter battle
Stealth Generator can no longer be used to exit the final mission of a special rescue mission
Reduced Medium Blob enemy's damage taken threshold to release its victim a bit
Build version 0.4.0b is finally here, available to download in the beta branch. This release adds a compete overhaul of the character leveling system, an endless mode rework, an overhaul of building upgrades, and many quality of life features asked for by a lot of players.
If you missed our previous developer update about this release, you can read the major details here:
Opting into a Beta branch is easy on Steam. Simply right click Time Break Chronicles in your Library, select Properties, and then click "Betas." From there you can select the Beta branch from the dropdown, and Steam will download the files for you. You do not need to enter a beta access code.
Will this affect my existing save?
This update is designed to work with existing saves. Any unlocks you've achieved so far won't be overwritten; the methods of getting new unlocks has simply changed. However, the level up related updates are probably best experienced on a fresh save.
You might receive some new tutorial popups when loading into the save. If you were mid-run in your save, it is possible the map might reset you back to the starting node. In this case, you should just abandon the run and start a new one.
If you would like to make a manual backup of your save anyway, you can find the files at %APP_DATA%/Warrior General Games/TimeBreak on Windows. We cannot guarantee saves from the beta version will transfer properly back to the current live version, so this should be considered a one-way upgrade.
Changelog for version 0.4.0b
There's a lot of new content to explore in this update. We'll separate it out below, into a few categories.
All Modes
Reworked the Distortion generation code to generate distortions mid-mission instead of at map-gen. This fixes the occasional problem of running out of them on very long maps
Boss icons on the map will not be revealed until you have fought the boss at least once
The action menu in battle can now be hidden by holding the cancel button (B on controller or right click on mouse)
Cleaned up some bugs with selecting targets via the mouse in battle
The party menu now allows you to directly highlight a hero with the mouse and click on them for a context menu
Removed Shift/Replace submenu when rearranging party with reserves. Rearranging now just allows you to swap between reserves and the party menu directly
Fixed mouse controls not allowing nodes to be highlighted and viewed on the map, like you can do with the controller
Fixed some minor issues with scroll boundaries on the map cutting off the final menu or being positioned weirdly
Effect icons now have mouseover tooltips in battle, and will stop marquee scrolling if you hover over them
Enemy HP is now visible directly in the enemy list when you have a "scan" type effect to view enemy attributes
Metabolism Time Break now has Sleep Resistance as an added effect
Added Auto battle option to battle menu. You can select one hero or all. Cancel auto battle by pressing the cancel button
Added Battle Log option to battle menu, to view a log of damage/healing dealt and skills activated in the current battle
Moved Defend from main battle menu to bottom of skills menu, to make it easier to find
Adjusted or reworked several enemies to better match the scaling provided by new level up systems, and give a few enemies some variance from similar others
Fixed mouse interaction not working in Distortion list when the list was longer than a page
New "victory" music after winning the battle that better meshes with the battle theme
Fixed bug where viewing the item menu with a reward selection screen could cause the reward selection choice to be lost
Added Scanner item available as an enemy drop, that functions like the Scan time break
Antidote item now grants poison immunity as an added effect
Cleansing Water item now adds Resists as an added effect
Celestial Call and Blood Contract items' granted skills now last entire mission, instead of one battle
Increased Medical Drone's healing output
Several item descriptions have been updated to list exact values
Various typo fixes and fixes for some strings that were too long
Chronicle Mode Specific
Added Skill Points system for leveling up characters, replacing books. Earn Skill Points via XP, by completing unique quests per hero, or beating bosses
Removed all book drops except Encyclopedia. Existing books are still accessible, but will no longer drop new ones
Books are no longer dropped by normal enemy encounters, and are less plentiful from elites and bosses
Geodes from Singularity mode will grant fewer books
Book drop rate in Town Vendor is decreased
There are now single-use Bundle items available in Town Vendor that grant the party various effects for one mission
Relic purchase costs in Town Vendor reduced
Added unlockable Infinite Relics, which can be bound as many times as you want. Earn them by completing Hero Quests
Existing copies of a relic will be broken down into soul gems automatically when you unlock the infinite relic
Relic break down now gives a set amount of soul gems instead of a random range
The town now levels up via a Progress bar that increases as you rescue heroes or train their skills, unlocking various things
Buildings beyond the starting 3 are now unlocked via Town Progress, and are not visible until unlocked. Existing saves that have already unlocked them will remain unlocked
New Time Breaks are now unlocked via Town Progress, instead of by simple rescue count
Reduced starting particles on new games to 200
You now start the game with one Reserve slot instead of 2, with more available as upgrades via Town Progress or building upgrades
Town upgrades completely overhauled to give more interesting effects and be priced better based on available rewards. Purchased upgrades in existing saves will stay unlocked, but will receive the new bonus
Wanderer Heroes are now rescued via Special Missions that unlock after beating an act, instead of being found in Endless mode
Act names are no longer visible before you unlock them, to preserve some surprise for new players
Recon mission names are listed as basic descriptions before you beat them, instead of giving away the boss name
Rebalanced opening mission difficulties to scale better with the new Skill Point system, and mesh into act 2's difficulty more smoothly
Endless mode has been completely reworked to now offer various challenges per level, like Singularity mode does
Rewards for endless mode later levels are higher than non-endless mode (including XP), but significantly reduced from the previous overkill on drops it could reach
Undead enemies no longer take extra fire damage by default, but there is a building upgrade to add that effect instead
You can now open up the All Heroes list directly in town with the menu button (X/Tab/Middle Mouse)
Selected Item bundles will now be saved and restored as the default loadout when you go on another mission
Singularity Mode Specific
Heroes in singularity will now receive XP and earn Skill Points just like Chronicle mode, but at an increased rate. Books are still dropped as usual.
Hero unlocks now happen whenever you win a run at any difficulty, as opposed to being tied to each specific level, so you can unlock heroes even if you don't want to play the harder levels
You can now choose "nobody" for your second hero if you want to, perhaps for a self-imposed challenge
Difficulty 13 changed from "more bad distortions" to "reduced XP"
Adjusted shop prices for singularity mode specifically, to fit better with the amount of particles you get
Hero/Relic/Skill Specific
Reworked Raider's skills to allow him to fit his theme better and remain useful further into the game
Fixed some description errors for Witch's reagent skills
Witch/Dryad's Charm skill is now a Spell instead of Attack
Fixed bug with Priestess' Pray skill where the free skill granted by level 3 would sometimes remain free during her next turn
Clown's Honk skill now uses MP when it triggers, and Prank skill also costs MP
Fixed Clown AI so he can use Balloon when CPU controlled
Physicist Genius AI will favor healing skills when CPU controlled
Fixed Claire playing the wrong sound when using Power Ballad skill
Fixed Cursed's Throw Skill being able to bounce at level 1
Monk's Zen Trance now increases healing as well as damage output
Monk's Chakra now heals whole team instead of just adjacent allies
Ranger's Cana now has some skills other than Bite. Reworked Cana trait to enable Cana more
Reworked Wraith's Stasis Net, Wraith Strike, and Mirror Image skills to help her perform a bit better
We've been hard at work for a while on the next big patch for Time Break Chronicles, which is aimed at improving some of the areas on which we've received the most feedback, criticism, and feature requests.
This update started out with a smaller scale in mind, but it's now gotten pretty big, with a lot of new features and quality of life updates as well. We're finally reaching a point where it's close to being ready for release, so we're going to show off some of the upcoming new features in this update post, with some screenshots using the various available UI styles.
Hero Quests, XP, and Skill Points
One of the most frequent things we've heard from players is that the game tends to involve too much "grinding" to find the appropriate skill books to level up, and to acquire the relics you most want to use. It would be much more fun to just play the game, using the various heroes available as best you can, and make progress as you go!
To address this, we've removed all the various skill book types except for Encyclopedia (which has a heavily reduced drop rate), and added a new system for leveling up skills. Heroes will instead earn skill points through 3 different methods:
Defeating bosses for the first time to earn a Boss Badge
Earning XP in battles like a traditional RPG
Completing specific Hero Quests
You can then spend the skill points to level up skills, even mid-mission. This system also serves to level out the difficulty curve from Act 1 to Act 2 much more smoothly, since you'll be steadily earning skill points instead of getting books in small dumps.
Every hero has 3 unique quests that, when completed, award them skill points and another new feature: an Infinite Relic. Claire also has several quests tailored for her various forms.
Infinite Relics
By completing the relevant quests, hero-specific relics can now become infinite. Infinite relics can be duplicated as many times as you want for free, allowing you more freedom to bind them to any hero you'd like.
Boss relics, shop relics, and relics found only via missions will still need to be either found or crafted, but this also serves to make them a bit more special, and will allow us to add a few more of them as well.
Town Progress Meter and Building Upgrade Overhaul
Another point of feedback has been that the building upgrades aren't as interesting as they could be, they cost too much, and there's too many options presented at once. Now that particles don't need to be spent primarily on acquiring skill books and relics, a larger focus will be on purchasing building upgrades.
We've reduced the cost of the building upgrades in general, and reworked many of them to provide more interesting effects that add more "flavor" to various damage types or situations. In addition, instead of purchasing the buildings, they will be unlocked via a town progress bar that increases as you rescue and level up new heroes. This also further serves to incentivize trying out new heroes and completing their quests.
The Town Progress bar also unlocks other things over time, such as Time Break techs, additional reserve and bundle slots, and Skill Points for Claire.
Endless Mode Overhaul
We don't have any screenshots to show of this at the moment, because the interface is still a bit in flux, but Endless mode has also received a facelift. It will now work similarly to Singularity mode, in that each level will present a set of specific challenges, instead of simply increasing the levels of the enemies. Defeat the final challenge, and you might even find something special!
Speaking of Singularity mode, heroes in that mode will also now earn XP like they do in Chronicle. This allows for a bit more creativity when choosing your rewards after the battle, since encyclopedias won't be quite as important to take.
Special Missions
With the overhaul to Endless mode, wanderer hero rescues have now been moved to a new Special Missions feature. At certain times, Quinn will present Special Missions aside the main story to earn special rewards. These are short custom-crafted missions with unique encounters, leading to a reward. Right now these are all rescues of a Wanderer hero, but we have some plans for other special missions in the future.
QoL Features
We've also added quite a few quality of life and other requested features, such as an Auto Battle option, a Battle Log, hover info on battle icons, party menu improvements, some improved interface features specifically for mouse users, and various other little things.
We're hoping to finish the last bits of this update and get it out the the beta branch soon™ so you can try it out. Thanks for your patience and feedback, everyone!
Version 0.3.8 has officially left the beta branch and is now in the stable branch! We'd like to thank everyone who downloaded the beta and provided feedback and bug reports. If you'd like to join in and talk about the game or provide feedback as well, come and join the community on our discord at https://discord.gg/m9MAfrP !
The next major update we have planned will involve a rework of endless mode to be a bit more interesting, with some structured challenges to overcome. We will also be working on the next hero pack, and of course moving on to Act 4 content.
You do not need to unsubscribe from the beta branch if you are currently using it, as both beta and stable branches have been updated. Now, on to the details.
Changelog for version 0.3.8
The following is a full list of changes from the previous 0.2.27 stable branch version.
New Content
A new act, with new enemy types, relics, items, encounters, and continuation of Claire's story
A new form for Claire to unlock after completing Act 2
A new Time Break tech to discover
15 new heroes to find and unlock, bringing the total available to 59
New heroes also added as unlocks for higher tiers in Singularity mode
Act 3 encounters will also show up in higher tiers of Singularity mode
Added a bunch of new hero/enemy dialogue interactions that can trigger during or before battles
Hero Balance Changes
Odrak (Barbarian) heavily reworked to enable him to deal more reckless damage, and be less about shouting constantly
Javed (Immortal) reworked a little to give him more opportunity to deal damage
Iana (Ranger)'s Hide skill replaced with a new "Sic 'Em" skill that lets her direct Cana to target a specific enemy
Added tag-based relic filtering option in town temple's relic lists, to help make finding things easier
Several heroes now have skill-specific icons that appear next to them on their turn to make it easier to track their unique skill's currency
Enemies who counter attack now have a status icon to make it more clear as to the counter trigger
Incanter enemy is now called Disciple to help avoid confusion with Invoker enemy name
Starter heroes now display a brief tutorial about their strategy when it is their first time getting a turn, to help guide new players
Female heroes will now play a female jump sound instead of a male sound
Improved handling of hiding and showing overlapping enemy sprites when they take damage or have effects applied, etc
Technique is now abbreviated as TEC instead of TCH, to avoid confusion with Toughness's TGH
Consecrate skill can no longer be used while active from other characters, in order to avoid a Lv 1 copied version from overriding existing version
Taunt now affects bosses as a debuff (so it affects resist stacks), but doesn't affect their targeting
Alcohol related skills (Whiskey, Rum) now last forever instead of 5 turns
Changed Unload, Annihilate, Scorched Earth, Grapeshot, and similar skills to be less sporadic and less likely to focus hits on one character
The Twins boss's threshold for using Backhand now increases every times he uses it
Dark Bargain skill can no longer target Claire, since she cannot have the death effect
500% attribute hard cap changed to a soft cap with scaling diminishing returns (outlined in glossary)
"Up to" diminishing returns on added damage made steeper
Critical hit damage reduced from a 1.5x bonus to 1.35x damage bonus
Bosses can no longer have their skills interrupted
Older bosses updated to have appropriate Resist stacks
Enemy Dark Shroud skill is now dispellable
Technician enemy's stats reduced slightly
Frozen Blob enemy's attack now deals significantly less stun damage
Yukiko's Dagger relic bonus reduced from 0.35x to 0.25x
Aromatic Mask relic updated to give 3 Resist at start of battle, as well as per turn
Bug Fixes
Fixed Speech bubble sometimes flashing at top left before being repositioned
Fixed rare crash related to Disarm skill
Fixed rare crash related to Split Arrow skill
Fixed Lydia's Ankh relic not working with added sources of healing such as Brand's Mace
Fixed Divine Inspiration distortion not properly increasing skill levels
Fixed Clown being able to honk while downed or otherwise incapacitated
Fixed rare crash related to Command skill
Fixed description of Leon's Sword relic to clarify when it applies
Fixed The Twins being able to do backhand counters even after his HP is reduced to 0
Fixed possible crash from a Death effect on transforming Claire
Fixed town portal menu text fields being too narrow to fit the whole name of certain recon missions
Fixed rare crash related to automated target selection that affected a few skills
Fixed rare crash related to Claire's transform
Fixed visual bug where the shadows of dead characters were not removed when their sprite was removed after returning from a battle to a parent encounter
Fixed visual bug with word wrapping in certain situations
Fixed rare crash related to Undeterred trait
Added some sanity check handlers to address a rare bug where particle values could go negative
Fixed bug where Lydia's (Priestess) Blessing skill applied too much increased healing
Fixed bug where Maximus' (Blacksmith) Whetstone skill's Lv 2 effect did not apply unless the skill was Lv 3
Fixed bug where the Shift portion of some skills could be interrupted by Clown's Honk or other interrupt abilities
Fixed bug where Will-O-Wisp enemy did not reposition its sprite properly when shifted
Fixed incorrect weapon sound effect for Jack (Pirate)
Fixed hit sound effects sometimes not playing when damage was redirected with Bulwark skill
Fixed bug with animation timing of certain skills using a fire column effect
Fixed bug where summoned drones, such as Claire's Snow Drone, would sometimes display the incorrect animation frame
Fixed incorrect description text for Ambroise's (Plague Doctor) Plague trait
This beta branch patch includes finishing touches to flavor and lore elements related to act 3, fixes a few bugs, and adds a highly-requested feature. This will likely be the first version 0.3 build that moves to stable, which we plan to do next week.
Changelog for version 0.3.7b
Added tag-based relic filtering option in town temple's relic lists, to help make finding things easier
Changed Unload, Annihilate, Scorched Earth, Grapeshot, and similar skills to be less sporadic and less likely to focus hits on one character
Added a bunch of new hero/enemy dialogue interactions that can trigger during or before battles
Act 3 hero lore entries finalized
Fixed Divine Inspiration distortion not properly increasing skill levels
Fixed Mirror Image skill applying MP cost reduction at level 2 instead of level 3
Fixed possible crash in Act 3 glowing plant encounter
Fixed missing Act 3 victories stat in Hall of Records
Fixed and updated a few entries for recently changed items in game glossary