Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

Potion system rework, with a new quest and lots of new potions!


Potions: Old vs New System

Before, you would stack up on the potion of your choice, equip it on a quickslot, and then just spam it for what amounted to a permanent buff with close to zero effort from the player. It just wasn't a very interesting system!

With the new system, you can gain up to three magical flasks, and you can assign a potion type to each of them. When you drink one of the potions, the flask will begin to recharge, with a much increased rate as long as you're dealing damage. Only one of the flasks can recharge at the same time, so you'll have to consider that when drinking multiple potions in a row!

Which brings us to another big change: unlike before, you can now combo multiple potion buffs to create great spikes in power, but since only one potion can refill at the same time, such combos can not be used frequently!

We feel this new system gives the player a wider variety of interesting choices and trade-offs. Do you drink the always useful but fairly weak Health Potion, which takes a long time to regenerate, or do you favor aggressive potions, which refill quickly and can help you get rid of dangerous enemies?

Since these potions haven't been tested yet (except by us), we fully expect to need to fine tune some stats and durations, but even as they are we hope they will provide some interesting gameplay!

Old Potions become Pet Food

Most players didn't bother much with drinking the old potions (despite them actually being quite useful). A more popular use case was to just pour them all into your pets! Since this seems to have been an appreciated use case for the more grind-minded players, we've decided to let Oak (the guy who owns the farm in Evergrind Fields: West) follow his dream of opening up a Pet Food Shop!

So, all the existing potions in your inventories will turn into pet food, and if you've caught both the Slime and the Rabby, you'll be able to buy more pet food from Oak on his farm!


Additions

• The Potion system has been reworked - visit Remedi in Evergrind City to try it out!
  
• A new NPC has come to town, and he has a potion related quest to give
  
• Oak, the farmer, now has a pet food store where he sells pet food

Changes

• Talent: Fine Taste now increases potion effect rather than potion duration
  
• Quest: The story and reward surrounding Remedi's first quest has been altered - redo the quest for the new reward
  
• Arcade: Upon entering a new room, players do not have collision against each other for one second
  
• Pet Food: The feeding value of fish has been increased, and changed to better reflect fish rarity
  
• Pet Food: A lot more of enemy drops can now be used as pet food

Bug Fixes

• Gameplay: Dying in Arcade challenge rooms and waiting for the time to run out no longer fake-resurrects players
  
• Quest: You can now turn in the Cooking Witch Candy-quest even if you found the last ingredient in the same zone as her
  
• Housing: Adding and deleting new rooms should now work as intended for visitors in multiplayer

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


We'll fix any issues that come up on Frontline, and if it seems stable enough we'll finally patch Stable, which will get months worth of game improvements at once! After that, we're onto our final stop before going back to working on the story full time: updating Arcade Mode.

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• Support Skills Done!
  
• Skill Balancing Done!
  
• Potion Changes Done!
  
• Arcade Mode Updates <-- Finally time for this one!

...and when that list is completed, it's back to focusing on the story!

Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

Potion system rework, with a new quest and lots of new potions!


Potions: Old vs New System

Before, you would stack up on the potion of your choice, equip it on a quickslot, and then just spam it for what amounted to a permanent buff with close to zero effort from the player. It just wasn't a very interesting system!

With the new system, you can gain up to three magical flasks, and you can assign a potion type to each of them. When you drink one of the potions, the flask will begin to recharge, with a much increased rate as long as you're dealing damage. Only one of the flasks can recharge at the same time, so you'll have to consider that when drinking multiple potions in a row!

Which brings us to another big change: unlike before, you can now combo multiple potion buffs to create great spikes in power, but since only one potion can refill at the same time, such combos can not be used frequently!

We feel this new system gives the player a wider variety of interesting choices and trade-offs. Do you drink the always useful but fairly weak Health Potion, which takes a long time to regenerate, or do you favor aggressive potions, which refill quickly and can help you get rid of dangerous enemies?

Since these potions haven't been tested yet (except by us), we fully expect to need to fine tune some stats and durations, but even as they are we hope they will provide some interesting gameplay!

Old Potions become Pet Food

Most players didn't bother much with drinking the old potions (despite them actually being quite useful). A more popular use case was to just pour them all into your pets! Since this seems to have been an appreciated use case for the more grind-minded players, we've decided to let Oak (the guy who owns the farm in Evergrind Fields: West) follow his dream of opening up a Pet Food Shop!

So, all the existing potions in your inventories will turn into pet food, and if you've caught both the Slime and the Rabby, you'll be able to buy more pet food from Oak on his farm!


Additions

• The Potion system has been reworked - visit Remedi in Evergrind City to try it out!
  
• A new NPC has come to town, and he has a potion related quest to give
  
• Oak, the farmer, now has a pet food store where he sells pet food

Changes

• Talent: Fine Taste now increases potion effect rather than potion duration
  
• Quest: The story and reward surrounding Remedi's first quest has been altered - redo the quest for the new reward
  
• Arcade: Upon entering a new room, players do not have collision against each other for one second
  
• Pet Food: The feeding value of fish has been increased, and changed to better reflect fish rarity
  
• Pet Food: A lot more of enemy drops can now be used as pet food

Bug Fixes

• Gameplay: Dying in Arcade challenge rooms and waiting for the time to run out no longer fake-resurrects players
  
• Quest: You can now turn in the Cooking Witch Candy-quest even if you found the last ingredient in the same zone as her
  
• Housing: Adding and deleting new rooms should now work as intended for visitors in multiplayer

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


We'll fix any issues that come up on Frontline, and if it seems stable enough we'll finally patch Stable, which will get months worth of game improvements at once! After that, we're onto our final stop before going back to working on the story full time: updating Arcade Mode.

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• Support Skills Done!
  
• Skill Balancing Done!
  
• Potion Changes Done!
  
• Arcade Mode Updates <-- Finally time for this one!

...and when that list is completed, it's back to focusing on the story!

Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

21 new talents (11 general, 5 magic, 5 melee)

Also, the bow has been changed up quite a bit! Still a secondary weapon, but now with a bit more potential.


Talents

The General category has received 11 new talents (one of which is disabled until next patch), and the Magic and Melee categories have received 5 new talents each! Hopefully this will provide some more interesting combinations, as well as help with certain existing play styles.

The Bow

The Bow, the black sheep of the game, is now more like the grey sheep it was intended to be! Still a definite secondary weapon, but unlike before it can now actually complement various builds quite well (if upgraded).

Before, the bow was actually pretty decent right where you got it, but quickly became nearly useless despite scaling (poorly) with player level.

Now it can be upgraded up to three times. The first upgrade is unlocked straight away, but is most likely acquired after Flying Fortress for cost reasons. The second unlocks post Temple of Seasons, and the last one unlocks after Tai Ming!

The bow can also be charged up to deal more damage. With the standard bow, the uncharged damage is a little bit less now than it was before, while a charged shot deals more. At Upgrade 3, the bow can be charged even further, piercing through multiple enemies.


Additions

• 21 new talents have been added (11 general, 5 magic, 5 melee)
  
• The Utility skills have recieved their real sound effects
  
• You can now upgrade the bow once per cleared temple (up to 3 times currently)

Changes

• Skill: Buffs can now be cast on multiple allies while holding down the spell button
  
• Skill: Taunt can now be canceled quicker after being cast
  
• Skill: Taunt can now be canceled quicker after being cast
  
• Skill: Barrier's duration has been increased
  
• Bow: The bow can now be charged to deal a bit more damage
  
• Bow: The default quiver size has been reduce slightly
  
• Bow: The chance of finding arrows has been increased
  
• Bow: Leveling up now grants full arrows (outside of Arcade Mode)
  
• Bow: You can now turn around while charging the bow
  
• Enemy: Boars and Scarecrows have received a slight increase in HP
  
• Enemy: Elite Echoes of Madness must now do at least one normal attack between its special attack

Bug Fixes

• Gameplay: Speed buffs no longer stack on clients if cast just before a cutscene
  
• Gameplay: EP Regen no longer increases the rate at which EP is drained in Berserker Style
  
• Housing: Shrinking a wall from the right no longer erases reshaped lower walls
  
• Visual: The Spirit Potion icon is now back

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


When writing the previous "what's next" I totally forgot about the potion rework! We're going to replace it with a potion belt, where you can equip a few unique potions, and have them recharge by fighting instead of just buying a bazillion pots and have a basically infinite duration after that!

We'll turn any current pots you might own into something you can feed your pets with (and maybe make that item purchasable somewhere else).

Compared to the other changes we've made, this one should be pretty straightforward! After that, Stable will get the support spells, new talents, rebalance, bow and potion reworks all at once. Then it's really time for the last stop before the story continues: Arcade Mode updates.

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• Support Skills Done!
  
• Skill Balancing Done!
  
• Potion Changes <-- Oh, right, that one
  
• Arcade Mode Updates

Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

21 new talents (11 general, 5 magic, 5 melee)

Also, the bow has been changed up quite a bit! Still a secondary weapon, but now with a bit more potential.


Talents

The General category has received 11 new talents (one of which is disabled until next patch), and the Magic and Melee categories have received 5 new talents each! Hopefully this will provide some more interesting combinations, as well as help with certain existing play styles.

The Bow

The Bow, the black sheep of the game, is now more like the grey sheep it was intended to be! Still a definite secondary weapon, but unlike before it can now actually complement various builds quite well (if upgraded).

Before, the bow was actually pretty decent right where you got it, but quickly became nearly useless despite scaling (poorly) with player level.

Now it can be upgraded up to three times. The first upgrade is unlocked straight away, but is most likely acquired after Flying Fortress for cost reasons. The second unlocks post Temple of Seasons, and the last one unlocks after Tai Ming!

The bow can also be charged up to deal more damage. With the standard bow, the uncharged damage is a little bit less now than it was before, while a charged shot deals more. At Upgrade 3, the bow can be charged even further, piercing through multiple enemies.


Additions

• 21 new talents have been added (11 general, 5 magic, 5 melee)
  
• The Utility skills have recieved their real sound effects
  
• You can now upgrade the bow once per cleared temple (up to 3 times currently)

Changes

• Skill: Buffs can now be cast on multiple allies while holding down the spell button
  
• Skill: Taunt can now be canceled quicker after being cast
  
• Skill: Taunt can now be canceled quicker after being cast
  
• Skill: Barrier's duration has been increased
  
• Bow: The bow can now be charged to deal a bit more damage
  
• Bow: The default quiver size has been reduce slightly
  
• Bow: The chance of finding arrows has been increased
  
• Bow: Leveling up now grants full arrows (outside of Arcade Mode)
  
• Bow: You can now turn around while charging the bow
  
• Enemy: Boars and Scarecrows have received a slight increase in HP
  
• Enemy: Elite Echoes of Madness must now do at least one normal attack between its special attack

Bug Fixes

• Gameplay: Speed buffs no longer stack on clients if cast just before a cutscene
  
• Gameplay: EP Regen no longer increases the rate at which EP is drained in Berserker Style
  
• Housing: Shrinking a wall from the right no longer erases reshaped lower walls
  
• Visual: The Spirit Potion icon is now back

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


When writing the previous "what's next" I totally forgot about the potion rework! We're going to replace it with a potion belt, where you can equip a few unique potions, and have them recharge by fighting instead of just buying a bazillion pots and have a basically infinite duration after that!

We'll turn any current pots you might own into something you can feed your pets with (and maybe make that item purchasable somewhere else).

Compared to the other changes we've made, this one should be pretty straightforward! After that, Stable will get the support spells, new talents, rebalance, bow and potion reworks all at once. Then it's really time for the last stop before the story continues: Arcade Mode updates.

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• Support Skills Done!
  
• Skill Balancing Done!
  
• Potion Changes <-- Oh, right, that one
  
• Arcade Mode Updates

Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

A complete rebalance of all melee and magic skills in the game, along with various other balancing changes!

This is one of those real Frontline updates! All the sounds are either placeholder or missing, and some effects aren't final etc, but the functionality should be enough for testing!


Intro

So, as many of you know, the skills in the game have been very unbalanced. Most magic has been outright bad and normal attacks has been way too good (which in turn made Shadow Clone extremely good). Players maining, say, Chain Lightning would find a much tougher experience than someone who chose Heroic Slam or Flamethrower.

Needless to say, that's not ideal, and for a long while we've wanted to rebalance everything completely, but only recently did we reach a point where we had the two things we needed before a proper rebalance could happen: a place to test the gold charges (Tai Ming), and the support skills replaced (the Utility skill page).

So with this update, the game has changed significantly for almost every build. For the most part we've decided to juice up all the bad skills instead of nerfing the good ones, with the exception of Shadow Clone, which was just silly!

This means that for most builds the game just got noticeably easier, but lovers of difficulty probably don't need to worry: Hydras & Friends will still eat newbies like salmon sushi - it's just that all builds now have a fighting chance (if used wisely).

Anyways, let's get into the details of what's been happening this past month:

Wand Projectiles

Both 1H and 2H magic weapons now creates a projectile when swung! 1H Weapons will create a small, fast projectile that explodes on impact. 2H Weapons will create a wider projectile that goes through enemies.

This change was added to let magic users do something with their lives while waiting for EP (apart from using Focus). It also lets magic users finish off low health targets without breaking their long range play style by having to go Rocky Balboa on their enemies all of a sudden.

Attack/Cast Speed now affect skill animations

Probably the most radical change. All skills and spells now have a component that scales with ASPD or CSPD. For the melee skills, it's usually pretty straightforward by having the attack animation sped up. All sub-parts of the spell also gets sped up, like the Spirit Slash shadows coming out faster. For magic spells, the cast animations are faster, meteors have a reduced delay, fireballs travel faster, etc.

Some things, like summons, do not scale 1:1 with CSPD, but it will still affect them.

Of course, just like before ASPD and CSPD will decrease the time it takes to charge the spell as well!

One Handed Basic Attack Nerf

The one handed basic attacks have had their damage reduced by a whopping 30 % - before they used to be so strong that using skills actually decreased your DPS in some cases, which was not a great place to be. Shadow Clone builds could easily get to a point where only mashing the attack button while tanking damage could beat almost all bosses, even with moderate farm levels.

As it is now, basic attacks are still strong for when you're out of EP, but using skills are always a good idea. Shadow Clone builds are still viable, but now you need to put in the work to use it smartly!

EP Regen

Before, EP Regen didn't kick in until a full second after casting a spell. This was silly, and now it will kick in almost immediately, which makes it more straightforward to predict.

QoL Changes

A couple of often requested quality of life changes have been made.

Firstly, getting to a boss will now refill your HP and EP, so you're always ready for a fair battle. This might be extended to some of the regular enemy gauntlets as well, but right now those work like before!

Second, if you have a persistent spell (summon, shadow clone, etc) active when you die, the spell will now be recast automatically when you get revived.

Significant Reworks

While every single spell has been changed in some way, two spells have been changed in a more extravagant fashion! Oh, and Freeze.

Smash!: When charging up the smash, you will now be able to summon one or more smash balls. The smash balls persists for three hits, powering up with each one. The final hit will explode and deal AoE damage upon hitting a wall or a large enemy!

Throw: You can now call back your weapon on all charge levels, although it's only Gold Charge that deals damage on its way back. Importantly, you can still pick your weapon up, and doing so will refund a portion of the EP cost and also deal additional AoE damage!

Freeze/Chill: You can now Freeze and Chill bosses! Bosses are frozen for a shorter duration than regular enemies. Frozen enemies will break after up to three hits, and those three hits have a bonus crit chance of 50 %.


I thought about just adding these in the patch notes, but this is probably easier to read. So let's get on with it!

One Handed

Piercing Dash: Damage up on all charges, gold charge now moves slower to allow for a mortal human to cancel it into attacks or other skills.

Blade Flurry: Damage up on all charges, and the animations on the higher levels have been tightened to dish the damage out much faster. Also slightly increased range.

Spirit Slash: EP cost down for silver and gold, damage up on silver and gold, extra damage up for the gold charge non-finisher shadows

Dodging Strike: On a perfect dodge the dash will automatically extend if it can't reach its target, damage has been increased on all levels, stun duration has been increased, and the gold charge debuff is now a proper Reaper's Blade instead of a flat damage increase

Shadow Clone: Shadow Clone itself has not been nerfed, but due to the changes to basic attacks its damage output is much lower.

Two Handed

Heroic Slam: Damage slightly down on gold charge

Whirlslash: Damage up on all levels, EP cost up, level 1 slash has a slightly longer delay before it can be canceled

Throw: Can now be called back on all levels, can be picked up for an additional attack and partial EP refund, damage up on all levels, damage between throw and explosion can no longer be combined, faster charge time

Smash!: Smash balls can now be summoned to be used for ammo instead of enemies (always useful, but on bosses especially), damage up, charge time down

Berserker Style: Since skills now scale with ASPD, it plays very differently to begin with. Damage bonus increased on all levels, damage received increased on all levels, maximum attack speed gained has been lowered on all levels, EP decay is slower, EP decay is slowed down for a while after landing an attack or skill, EP decay is slowed down while charging a skill, EP recovery per hit has been lowered on higher levels

Fire Magic

Fireball: Damage up on all levels, and most importantly... new graphics!

Meteor: Damage up on all levels, EP cost down on gold charge

Flamethrower: Movement during silver charge slower, ep cost up on high levels, duration down, dps up, knockback removed, startup is faster, can withstand one weak hit without breaking (yes, looked like we buffed it, we thrive in chaos)

Ice Magic

Ice Spikes: Can now freeze! Damage up on all levels, ep cost down

Ice Nova: EP cost up, greater chance to freeze, damage up

Frosty Friend: Damage up on all levels, HP down on all levels, now has a maximum amount of targets that will be drawn towards it (1 on the tiny version, 2 on the medium and large version)

Earth Magic

Earth Spike: Reduced charge time, damage up, easier to land knockups, EP cost down for silver and gold

Summon Plant: Melee plants have increased range and damage, ranged plants have reduced range, plants will have a longer duration if not hitting stuff, but shorter if hitting stuff, the boss plant's two permanent minions are now weaker, moving the boss plant now costs a little bit of EP

Insect Swarm: Damage is dealt faster, damage slightly increased

Wind Magic

Chain Lightning: Damage increased on all levels, EP cost up, if nothing is in range no EP is lost, will now primarily damage whatever enemy the player is facing, damage is now more focused to one target, range up on higher levels

Cloud: Damage up on all levels - especially gold, damage per hit down but responsiveness and attack speed is increased

Static Touch: Damage up on all levels, no longer stuns, EP cost up, casting it now summons max cubes, cubes now disappear when zoning or entering a cutscene, you no longer lose cubes from getting hit, cubes trigger quicker on silver charge

Utility

Focus: Now scales with EP Regen - basically if you have no ep regen in your kit, it will be less effective, and if you have some EP Regen it will be more effective. The 'Focused' buff now reduces the cost of the next spell by 50 % instead of making it free.

Barrier: Barrier hits now grant a short hit immunity, if a barrier breaks the stun and knockback of the attack will now affect the player regularly, damage numbers are purple now to differentiate it from shield blocked attacks, in Arcade Mode a broken barrier means no more barrier that room, and it will also count against your score



Hotfix 2017-09-12

• Balance: The EP cost of Empower and Fortify has been lowered to 30
  
• Balance: Most spells have had their bronze charge made stronger to better reflect the added cost and charge time
  
• Bugfix: Getting hit while trying to retrieve a thrown weapon no longer makes the weapon unretrievable
  
• Bugfix: The Mimic's hourglass slow no longer condemns clients to an eternity in slowland
  
• Bugfix: Dying during a boss battle and then getting revived by a cutscene no longer gives a permanent MaxEP boost
  
• Bugfix: Certain miss timings in Robin's arrow game should no longer give negative combo values in multiplayer
  
• Bugfix: Freezing an enemy by perfect guarding with the Winter's Guard shield now uses the correct Freeze code
  
• Bugfix: You can once again turn off shadow clone, berserk and the cloud as a client!
  
• Bugfix: Freezing the Mimic before it wakes up no longer turns him into Briar Rose
  
• Bugfix: Fortify now actually works
  
• Bugfix: Piercing Dashing into a new zone as client no longer gives a supersonic speed boost
  
• Bugfix: (Housing) Placing a candle on a table, moving said table, then canceling a move of only the candle no longer crashes the game
  
• Bugfix: Dying in with a summon active no longer blocks resummoing it the next run
  
• Bugfix: Clients no longer seem to lose HP from a broken barrier
  
• Bugfix: Hovering over Angel's Thirst when it's equipped now shows the correct ATK within the parentheses
  
• Bugfix: Holding up pet taming items should now display properly on clients

Additions

• Command: You can now type /repet in the chat to reset the stats of your current pet

Changes

• Network: A lot of skills and spells should now feel more responsive as a client with high ping
  
• Gameplay: Giga Slime now has a minimum cooldown on the saw attack
  
• Gameplay: Monkeys no longer become invincible and run away during long combos
  
• Gameplay: All spells should now be able to crit (if they can't it's a bug)
  
• Housing: You can now buy more candles from Carpenter
  
• Misc: The Apprentice's Rod has been replaced by the 2H magic weapon Apprentice's Staff, and the Rod will become Magician's Rod, replacing Ruby Rod
  
• Misc: The cost for refunding has been significantly reduced, and is now based on main story progress, not character level
  
• Misc: Dying against Marino now spawns you right outside the gate
  
• Misc: Stasis now freezes the countdown on Reaper's Blade
  
• Misc: When a buff expires due to zoning, the player will now be notified of this
  
• Misc: Damage done to a Barrier now has a different color, to distinguish it from shield blocking

Bug Fixes

• Network: Fixed an issue where the game compensated for lag a bit too much if the connection was good
  
• Fixed a bug where you could blink past Teddy and Freddy without fighting them
  
• Fixed a bug where you could blink past the cutscene outside Flying Fortress
  
• Fixed a bug causing Berserker Mode to continue stacking permanent ASPD for clients
  
• The pet taming minigame now respects rebinds on controllers for the Attack and Shield presses
  
• Fixed some issues with Blink going through supposedly-path-blocking NPCs
  
• Barrier damage now counts against your Arcade Mode score, and damaging it fails 'Don't Get Hit'-challenges
  
• Perfect blocking with Barrier no longer applies the equipped shield's special effect
  
• A Barrier perfect block only negates the first hit - following hits can break the barrier
  
• Gold Charge Piercing Dash no longer goes through the Inner Shrine Gate of Tai Ming
  
• Made some changes on how server and client communicate skill charges that will hopefully fix som desync issues
  
• Phase Shifting while charging skills no longer leave the charge effects around
  
• The mirror puzzle in the Flying Fortress no longer needs all players to reset it, preventing locking out friends
  
• Monkeys now break out of their ice prison if panicked while frozen
  
• Fixed a crash that happened if a Barrier was broken twice the same frame
  
• Fixed a bug where the server would sometimes ignore basic attacks if the client spammed the button with great fervor and intensity
  
• Reaper's Blade no longer automatically fills up when battling against The Cursed Priestess
  
• Fixed a bug where blink would cause the camera to 'snap' to the target location after doing the Mt Bloom Phase Shift segment
  
• Perfect dodging poison clouds no longer crashes the game (nor does it trigger a perfect dodge)
  
• Fixed a bug where playing with Frosty Friend for a long time would cause ever increasing performance slowdown

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


Apart from further balancing (this will be a continuous process), we're going to add 5-10 talents to each of the talent categories (so 15-30 total). When those are in the game, the utility skills, rebalancing and the new talents will be uploaded to Stable and we can get on with the next task!

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Support Skills Done!
  
• Skill Balancing <- Nearly done
  
• Arcade Mode Updates
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• ...and other stuff!

Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

A complete rebalance of all melee and magic skills in the game, along with various other balancing changes!

This is one of those real Frontline updates! All the sounds are either placeholder or missing, and some effects aren't final etc, but the functionality should be enough for testing!


Intro

So, as many of you know, the skills in the game have been very unbalanced. Most magic has been outright bad and normal attacks has been way too good (which in turn made Shadow Clone extremely good). Players maining, say, Chain Lightning would find a much tougher experience than someone who chose Heroic Slam or Flamethrower.

Needless to say, that's not ideal, and for a long while we've wanted to rebalance everything completely, but only recently did we reach a point where we had the two things we needed before a proper rebalance could happen: a place to test the gold charges (Tai Ming), and the support skills replaced (the Utility skill page).

So with this update, the game has changed significantly for almost every build. For the most part we've decided to juice up all the bad skills instead of nerfing the good ones, with the exception of Shadow Clone, which was just silly!

This means that for most builds the game just got noticeably easier, but lovers of difficulty probably don't need to worry: Hydras & Friends will still eat newbies like salmon sushi - it's just that all builds now have a fighting chance (if used wisely).

Anyways, let's get into the details of what's been happening this past month:

Wand Projectiles

Both 1H and 2H magic weapons now creates a projectile when swung! 1H Weapons will create a small, fast projectile that explodes on impact. 2H Weapons will create a wider projectile that goes through enemies.

This change was added to let magic users do something with their lives while waiting for EP (apart from using Focus). It also lets magic users finish off low health targets without breaking their long range play style by having to go Rocky Balboa on their enemies all of a sudden.

Attack/Cast Speed now affect skill animations

Probably the most radical change. All skills and spells now have a component that scales with ASPD or CSPD. For the melee skills, it's usually pretty straightforward by having the attack animation sped up. All sub-parts of the spell also gets sped up, like the Spirit Slash shadows coming out faster. For magic spells, the cast animations are faster, meteors have a reduced delay, fireballs travel faster, etc.

Some things, like summons, do not scale 1:1 with CSPD, but it will still affect them.

Of course, just like before ASPD and CSPD will decrease the time it takes to charge the spell as well!

One Handed Basic Attack Nerf

The one handed basic attacks have had their damage reduced by a whopping 30 % - before they used to be so strong that using skills actually decreased your DPS in some cases, which was not a great place to be. Shadow Clone builds could easily get to a point where only mashing the attack button while tanking damage could beat almost all bosses, even with moderate farm levels.

As it is now, basic attacks are still strong for when you're out of EP, but using skills are always a good idea. Shadow Clone builds are still viable, but now you need to put in the work to use it smartly!

EP Regen

Before, EP Regen didn't kick in until a full second after casting a spell. This was silly, and now it will kick in almost immediately, which makes it more straightforward to predict.

QoL Changes

A couple of often requested quality of life changes have been made.

Firstly, getting to a boss will now refill your HP and EP, so you're always ready for a fair battle. This might be extended to some of the regular enemy gauntlets as well, but right now those work like before!

Second, if you have a persistent spell (summon, shadow clone, etc) active when you die, the spell will now be recast automatically when you get revived.

Significant Reworks

While every single spell has been changed in some way, two spells have been changed in a more extravagant fashion! Oh, and Freeze.

Smash!: When charging up the smash, you will now be able to summon one or more smash balls. The smash balls persists for three hits, powering up with each one. The final hit will explode and deal AoE damage upon hitting a wall or a large enemy!

Throw: You can now call back your weapon on all charge levels, although it's only Gold Charge that deals damage on its way back. Importantly, you can still pick your weapon up, and doing so will refund a portion of the EP cost and also deal additional AoE damage!

Freeze/Chill: You can now Freeze and Chill bosses! Bosses are frozen for a shorter duration than regular enemies. Frozen enemies will break after up to three hits, and those three hits have a bonus crit chance of 50 %.


I thought about just adding these in the patch notes, but this is probably easier to read. So let's get on with it!

One Handed

Piercing Dash: Damage up on all charges, gold charge now moves slower to allow for a mortal human to cancel it into attacks or other skills.

Blade Flurry: Damage up on all charges, and the animations on the higher levels have been tightened to dish the damage out much faster. Also slightly increased range.

Spirit Slash: EP cost down for silver and gold, damage up on silver and gold, extra damage up for the gold charge non-finisher shadows

Dodging Strike: On a perfect dodge the dash will automatically extend if it can't reach its target, damage has been increased on all levels, stun duration has been increased, and the gold charge debuff is now a proper Reaper's Blade instead of a flat damage increase

Shadow Clone: Shadow Clone itself has not been nerfed, but due to the changes to basic attacks its damage output is much lower.

Two Handed

Heroic Slam: Damage slightly down on gold charge

Whirlslash: Damage up on all levels, EP cost up, level 1 slash has a slightly longer delay before it can be canceled

Throw: Can now be called back on all levels, can be picked up for an additional attack and partial EP refund, damage up on all levels, damage between throw and explosion can no longer be combined, faster charge time

Smash!: Smash balls can now be summoned to be used for ammo instead of enemies (always useful, but on bosses especially), damage up, charge time down

Berserker Style: Since skills now scale with ASPD, it plays very differently to begin with. Damage bonus increased on all levels, damage received increased on all levels, maximum attack speed gained has been lowered on all levels, EP decay is slower, EP decay is slowed down for a while after landing an attack or skill, EP decay is slowed down while charging a skill, EP recovery per hit has been lowered on higher levels

Fire Magic

Fireball: Damage up on all levels, and most importantly... new graphics!

Meteor: Damage up on all levels, EP cost down on gold charge

Flamethrower: Movement during silver charge slower, ep cost up on high levels, duration down, dps up, knockback removed, startup is faster, can withstand one weak hit without breaking (yes, looked like we buffed it, we thrive in chaos)

Ice Magic

Ice Spikes: Can now freeze! Damage up on all levels, ep cost down

Ice Nova: EP cost up, greater chance to freeze, damage up

Frosty Friend: Damage up on all levels, HP down on all levels, now has a maximum amount of targets that will be drawn towards it (1 on the tiny version, 2 on the medium and large version)

Earth Magic

Earth Spike: Reduced charge time, damage up, easier to land knockups, EP cost down for silver and gold

Summon Plant: Melee plants have increased range and damage, ranged plants have reduced range, plants will have a longer duration if not hitting stuff, but shorter if hitting stuff, the boss plant's two permanent minions are now weaker, moving the boss plant now costs a little bit of EP

Insect Swarm: Damage is dealt faster, damage slightly increased

Wind Magic

Chain Lightning: Damage increased on all levels, EP cost up, if nothing is in range no EP is lost, will now primarily damage whatever enemy the player is facing, damage is now more focused to one target, range up on higher levels

Cloud: Damage up on all levels - especially gold, damage per hit down but responsiveness and attack speed is increased

Static Touch: Damage up on all levels, no longer stuns, EP cost up, casting it now summons max cubes, cubes now disappear when zoning or entering a cutscene, you no longer lose cubes from getting hit, cubes trigger quicker on silver charge

Utility

Focus: Now scales with EP Regen - basically if you have no ep regen in your kit, it will be less effective, and if you have some EP Regen it will be more effective. The 'Focused' buff now reduces the cost of the next spell by 50 % instead of making it free.

Barrier: Barrier hits now grant a short hit immunity, if a barrier breaks the stun and knockback of the attack will now affect the player regularly, damage numbers are purple now to differentiate it from shield blocked attacks, in Arcade Mode a broken barrier means no more barrier that room, and it will also count against your score



Hotfix 2017-09-12

• Balance: The EP cost of Empower and Fortify has been lowered to 30
  
• Balance: Most spells have had their bronze charge made stronger to better reflect the added cost and charge time
  
• Bugfix: Getting hit while trying to retrieve a thrown weapon no longer makes the weapon unretrievable
  
• Bugfix: The Mimic's hourglass slow no longer condemns clients to an eternity in slowland
  
• Bugfix: Dying during a boss battle and then getting revived by a cutscene no longer gives a permanent MaxEP boost
  
• Bugfix: Certain miss timings in Robin's arrow game should no longer give negative combo values in multiplayer
  
• Bugfix: Freezing an enemy by perfect guarding with the Winter's Guard shield now uses the correct Freeze code
  
• Bugfix: You can once again turn off shadow clone, berserk and the cloud as a client!
  
• Bugfix: Freezing the Mimic before it wakes up no longer turns him into Briar Rose
  
• Bugfix: Fortify now actually works
  
• Bugfix: Piercing Dashing into a new zone as client no longer gives a supersonic speed boost
  
• Bugfix: (Housing) Placing a candle on a table, moving said table, then canceling a move of only the candle no longer crashes the game
  
• Bugfix: Dying in with a summon active no longer blocks resummoing it the next run
  
• Bugfix: Clients no longer seem to lose HP from a broken barrier
  
• Bugfix: Hovering over Angel's Thirst when it's equipped now shows the correct ATK within the parentheses
  
• Bugfix: Holding up pet taming items should now display properly on clients

Additions

• Command: You can now type /repet in the chat to reset the stats of your current pet

Changes

• Network: A lot of skills and spells should now feel more responsive as a client with high ping
  
• Gameplay: Giga Slime now has a minimum cooldown on the saw attack
  
• Gameplay: Monkeys no longer become invincible and run away during long combos
  
• Gameplay: All spells should now be able to crit (if they can't it's a bug)
  
• Housing: You can now buy more candles from Carpenter
  
• Misc: The Apprentice's Rod has been replaced by the 2H magic weapon Apprentice's Staff, and the Rod will become Magician's Rod, replacing Ruby Rod
  
• Misc: The cost for refunding has been significantly reduced, and is now based on main story progress, not character level
  
• Misc: Dying against Marino now spawns you right outside the gate
  
• Misc: Stasis now freezes the countdown on Reaper's Blade
  
• Misc: When a buff expires due to zoning, the player will now be notified of this
  
• Misc: Damage done to a Barrier now has a different color, to distinguish it from shield blocking

Bug Fixes

• Network: Fixed an issue where the game compensated for lag a bit too much if the connection was good
  
• Fixed a bug where you could blink past Teddy and Freddy without fighting them
  
• Fixed a bug where you could blink past the cutscene outside Flying Fortress
  
• Fixed a bug causing Berserker Mode to continue stacking permanent ASPD for clients
  
• The pet taming minigame now respects rebinds on controllers for the Attack and Shield presses
  
• Fixed some issues with Blink going through supposedly-path-blocking NPCs
  
• Barrier damage now counts against your Arcade Mode score, and damaging it fails 'Don't Get Hit'-challenges
  
• Perfect blocking with Barrier no longer applies the equipped shield's special effect
  
• A Barrier perfect block only negates the first hit - following hits can break the barrier
  
• Gold Charge Piercing Dash no longer goes through the Inner Shrine Gate of Tai Ming
  
• Made some changes on how server and client communicate skill charges that will hopefully fix som desync issues
  
• Phase Shifting while charging skills no longer leave the charge effects around
  
• The mirror puzzle in the Flying Fortress no longer needs all players to reset it, preventing locking out friends
  
• Monkeys now break out of their ice prison if panicked while frozen
  
• Fixed a crash that happened if a Barrier was broken twice the same frame
  
• Fixed a bug where the server would sometimes ignore basic attacks if the client spammed the button with great fervor and intensity
  
• Reaper's Blade no longer automatically fills up when battling against The Cursed Priestess
  
• Fixed a bug where blink would cause the camera to 'snap' to the target location after doing the Mt Bloom Phase Shift segment
  
• Perfect dodging poison clouds no longer crashes the game (nor does it trigger a perfect dodge)
  
• Fixed a bug where playing with Frosty Friend for a long time would cause ever increasing performance slowdown

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


Apart from further balancing (this will be a continuous process), we're going to add 5-10 talents to each of the talent categories (so 15-30 total). When those are in the game, the utility skills, rebalancing and the new talents will be uploaded to Stable and we can get on with the next task!

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Support Skills Done!
  
• Skill Balancing <- Nearly done
  
• Arcade Mode Updates
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• ...and other stuff!

Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

Support Utility Skills yo!

This is one of those real Frontline updates! All the sounds are either placeholder or missing, and some effects aren't final etc, but the functionality should be enough for testing!

Details

The Utility Skill prototypes have arrived! There are nine of them: three defensive, three offensive and three regular ol' buffs!

The utility skills differ a bit from regular skills in two ways: first off, they have no charge levels, meaning they will cast at full power with a tap of the button. Second, they only need three skill points to reach max level. We did this to make each level a bit more worthwhile, since unlocking charge levels is no longer the main goal with leveling. Also, it makes it so it's a bit more viable to skill for full support playstyles. It makes the support skills a bit less of a "silver point dump", but we're considering other mechanics for that instead!

Our hopes with these skills are not only to allow for people to go for supporting playstyles (buffing friends, debuffing enemies, crowd control, etc) but also to add more options for tweaking play styles in single player.

Now we'd love to hear your feedback on all sorts of things! Please share both if you dislike something, or if you enjoy a skill! Is the skill satisfying to use? Is it nice visually? Is it confusing? Does it seem too weak or too powerful?

For us to be able to evaluate the feedback properly, remember to add the circumstances when you played! Such as if you played alone or with friends, where you were fighting and if you were under- or overleveled compared to the enemies!

Something to note: This patch does not include some of the Utility-related talents we've planned. These include talents that heavily reduces EP cost when casting many buffs in a row, for example, and they will primarily make it more viable to play a full support. Right now managing EP for such play styles is a bit too tough!


Additions

• The real Utility Spell Page has been added! (formerly known as 'Support')
  
• Most importantly, you can now do a new emote by typing /annoyed

Changes

• The Haste and Protect spells have been removed (if you've put points in them, they've been refunded)
  
• If Marino runs through a player during the chase sequence, the player will get shoved away instead of just run through
  
• Santa Fae now counts as a safe zone and entering it refills HP and arrows

Bug Fixes

• Naniva's introduction banter with Bag is back after disappearing a few patches back
  
• Quinton no longer keeps his quest update icon if you don't talk to him when returning with Amalet
  
• Tai Ming's second zone's farming spot now properly counts statues as active enemies when deciding whether to add more respawns
  
• When defeating Freddy and Teddy on the bridge, the fist one defeated no longer 'bonus twirl' when the other faints
  
• Housing: You can no longer confuse the Carpenter to give you a couple of billion lumber and some pocket money to go with it
  
• Housing: Entering and exiting the housing menu quickly while moving Miki's ball no longer create multiple copies of her

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


We'll see what we'll do with the Utility spells based on all of your feedback! I imagine we'll be tinkering some with effects and numbers based on what comes up during testing. Whenever the spells are ready, we'll move on to the giant balance overhaul (called "Skill Balancing" in the list below)!

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Support Skills (< Here we are!)
  
• Skill Balancing
  
• Arcade Mode Updates
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• ...and other stuff!

Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions


Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

Summary

Support Utility Skills yo!

This is one of those real Frontline updates! All the sounds are either placeholder or missing, and some effects aren't final etc, but the functionality should be enough for testing!

Details

The Utility Skill prototypes have arrived! There are nine of them: three defensive, three offensive and three regular ol' buffs!

The utility skills differ a bit from regular skills in two ways: first off, they have no charge levels, meaning they will cast at full power with a tap of the button. Second, they only need three skill points to reach max level. We did this to make each level a bit more worthwhile, since unlocking charge levels is no longer the main goal with leveling. Also, it makes it so it's a bit more viable to skill for full support playstyles. It makes the support skills a bit less of a "silver point dump", but we're considering other mechanics for that instead!

Our hopes with these skills are not only to allow for people to go for supporting playstyles (buffing friends, debuffing enemies, crowd control, etc) but also to add more options for tweaking play styles in single player.

Now we'd love to hear your feedback on all sorts of things! Please share both if you dislike something, or if you enjoy a skill! Is the skill satisfying to use? Is it nice visually? Is it confusing? Does it seem too weak or too powerful?

For us to be able to evaluate the feedback properly, remember to add the circumstances when you played! Such as if you played alone or with friends, where you were fighting and if you were under- or overleveled compared to the enemies!

Something to note: This patch does not include some of the Utility-related talents we've planned. These include talents that heavily reduces EP cost when casting many buffs in a row, for example, and they will primarily make it more viable to play a full support. Right now managing EP for such play styles is a bit too tough!


Additions

• The real Utility Spell Page has been added! (formerly known as 'Support')
  
• Most importantly, you can now do a new emote by typing /annoyed

Changes

• The Haste and Protect spells have been removed (if you've put points in them, they've been refunded)
  
• If Marino runs through a player during the chase sequence, the player will get shoved away instead of just run through
  
• Santa Fae now counts as a safe zone and entering it refills HP and arrows

Bug Fixes

• Naniva's introduction banter with Bag is back after disappearing a few patches back
  
• Quinton no longer keeps his quest update icon if you don't talk to him when returning with Amalet
  
• Tai Ming's second zone's farming spot now properly counts statues as active enemies when deciding whether to add more respawns
  
• When defeating Freddy and Teddy on the bridge, the fist one defeated no longer 'bonus twirl' when the other faints
  
• Housing: You can no longer confuse the Carpenter to give you a couple of billion lumber and some pocket money to go with it
  
• Housing: Entering and exiting the housing menu quickly while moving Miki's ball no longer create multiple copies of her

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


We'll see what we'll do with the Utility spells based on all of your feedback! I imagine we'll be tinkering some with effects and numbers based on what comes up during testing. Whenever the spells are ready, we'll move on to the giant balance overhaul (called "Skill Balancing" in the list below)!

The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Support Skills (< Here we are!)
  
• Skill Balancing
  
• Arcade Mode Updates
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• ...and other stuff!

Recommended Level: anyone who's gotten past the first dungeon can build a house

Summary

This patch brings the housing stuff (and some other changes) to Stable! For Frontline players, there's nothing new to see - this is basically 0.708b.

Details

Carpenter and Kim, now bringing not-very-affordable housing for everyone!

The housing system ended up with the following features: ~150 items to decorate with, you can expand the house to be roughly four times the size of Evergrind City (if you've got a million gold or so to spare), you can save & load houses and you can adjust lighting for each room.

While the housing tools are feature locked for now, we'll of course keep adding furniture to fill up your houses with!

To get the house, talk to Carpenter and Kim in Evergrind City (they're next to the school).


If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Support Skills (< here we are)
  
• Skill Balancing
  
• Arcade Mode Updates
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• ...and other stuff!

Support skills!

Or, as we'll most likely call them... Utility Skills! We've already had a meeting at our local burger joint where we went through forum discussions and outlined what we wanted to achieve with the skills, and we also picked out 8 skills to create prototypes for.

We'll give a more thorough rundown of the skills before the next Frontline patch, but here are some key points:

* No skill should be useless in single player, meaning no ally-only spells

* The skills should be powerful enough to make an impact matching the EP investment

* The skills should not be more powerful with 4 allies than with 2 allies (or no allies)

* I'll rip this bandaid off right away: there will be no healing spells, but for the protective supports we'll experiment with a barrier spell that can block damage

* Utility skills will have 5 levels, and no charges - they are made to be cast quickly. This helps both solo players, who can incorporate utility spells easier in their gameplay, and also "full supports" who can cast the spells quickly on multiple friends

As always, nothing is set in stone and we'll see what changes and additions that are made based on feedback from you guys! Stay tuned for more detailed info on the skills!

Recommended Level: anyone who's gotten past the first dungeon can build a house

Summary

This patch brings the housing stuff (and some other changes) to Stable! For Frontline players, there's nothing new to see - this is basically 0.708b.

Details

Carpenter and Kim, now bringing not-very-affordable housing for everyone!

The housing system ended up with the following features: ~150 items to decorate with, you can expand the house to be roughly four times the size of Evergrind City (if you've got a million gold or so to spare), you can save & load houses and you can adjust lighting for each room.

While the housing tools are feature locked for now, we'll of course keep adding furniture to fill up your houses with!

To get the house, talk to Carpenter and Kim in Evergrind City (they're next to the school).


If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!


The current list of non-story content:

• Player Housing Done!
  
• Support Skills (< here we are)
  
• Skill Balancing
  
• Arcade Mode Updates
  
• Skipping quests completed in multiplayer Done!
  
• ...and other stuff!

Support skills!

Or, as we'll most likely call them... Utility Skills! We've already had a meeting at our local burger joint where we went through forum discussions and outlined what we wanted to achieve with the skills, and we also picked out 8 skills to create prototypes for.

We'll give a more thorough rundown of the skills before the next Frontline patch, but here are some key points:

* No skill should be useless in single player, meaning no ally-only spells

* The skills should be powerful enough to make an impact matching the EP investment

* The skills should not be more powerful with 4 allies than with 2 allies (or no allies)

* I'll rip this bandaid off right away: there will be no healing spells, but for the protective supports we'll experiment with a barrier spell that can block damage

* Utility skills will have 5 levels, and no charges - they are made to be cast quickly. This helps both solo players, who can incorporate utility spells easier in their gameplay, and also "full supports" who can cast the spells quickly on multiple friends

As always, nothing is set in stone and we'll see what changes and additions that are made based on feedback from you guys! Stay tuned for more detailed info on the skills!