Dec 3, 2020

Update #10 - Infinite Dungeon and much more!

Ziggurat 2 - WaaghMan

Welcome back! Today we're releasing a new update, adding many new features and plenty of improvements to the game. The main highlights are the Extra Modes section, featuring the classic Ziggurat Trial and Infinite Dungeon modes, and the Damage Numbers, which will add additional feedback on the damage you're dealing to enemies.

We also have more in store for next week, including a bunch of new bosses to fight against, so stay tuned!

New features:

Damage numbers: See how much damage every hit deals! We've made sure they're not annoying or distracting at all, but if you want to get rid of them they can be disabled in settings.
Extra Modes: Ziggurat Trial (classic mode with no permanent progression and no loadout selection) and Infinite Dungeon (endless floors with ever-increasing difficulty).
Added Razer Chroma support. It will show selected weapon category and flash red if damaged.
Added Brazillian Portuguese language thanks to community localization.

Improvements:

Changed the way game data is structured. This should lead to slightly more disk space usage, but faster loads and smaller update download sizes in the future.
Inner Wisdom and similar perks now show which weapon received the boost.
Every boss has now its own lighting setting.
Totally revamped Player's movement system. Now it shouldn't get stuck as often with the environment as before. This has been a huge change in the game's internals, so if you find any problems please let us know.

Gameplay changes:

Decreased chances of getting a punishment in shrines. Now they're 60-25-15 chances of good-mixed-bad results.
Reduced number of enemies spawned in special combats (Obelisks, Scavenge, etc) in deeper floors.
Increased difficulty of the Chained Chest combat in deeper floors (was ok in the first floors, but too easy after that).
Bosses have more health in deeper floors (again, it was fine on the first floors, but they had too few health later).
Increased damage and number of minions spawned of Urguth the wise (Ice boss).

Bugfixes:

Fixed some enemies still turning around while frozen.
Fixed light and environment settings not being applied properly after first floor. This includes the "Lights Out" room modifier.
Fixed error message when trying to start a main quest without having enough map pieces.

Dec 3, 2020

Update 21 alpha open now

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

TL;DR:

Alpha for update 21 is available.
Malaise has been reworked.
Colours have been changed, with a re-focus on their primary identity.
Backpack will now be a meta upgrade and not dependent on two-handed weapons
4 new mutations, 3 are tied to the new backpack.
The much requested Katana has finally been added to the game.
New Mob, found in the distillery in 0BC and in some other levels in higher BCs
The most ridiculous skin ever done in DC, and 4 slightly less ridiculous outfits.

Hello everyone,

We hope you’re doing well in these times of uncertainty. On our side, we’ve been busy with the next DLC (see the announcement here) as well as spending a fair bit of time cleaning the code behind the game to make it easier to maintain in the long run.

However, we’ve also been working on the next update which will mainly be focused on reworking the Malaise, the 4/5BC mechanic, as the current version is often called out as detrimental to the overall experience. We’re aware that the new implementation isn’t perfect, however, we think it’s time to get it in public alpha and keep improving it with your help.

So, if you want to access the alpha go ahead and follow the instructions below. If you'd just like to see what's going to be arriving in the update, skip ahead:

Go to your Steam game library.
Right click on Dead Cells and click "properties".
Select the tab "Betas".
In the first dropdown box select "Alpha - Not for the faint hearted".
Click close and wait for the upload to finish downloading.
Start playing.

Before going into the detail of everything that has been added/changed in the update, please remember that the major changes are a work in progress and are likely to be tweaked. The list below is the 'highlights', for full detail check out the patchnotes. Anyway, let's get to the meaty stuff...

Malaise rework

The Malaise bar is still there, but now it fills with time (game time - which means it won’t fill in lore rooms, merchants, treasure rooms, etc.) rather than when you’re hit.
It also doesn’t destroy your health at 10% once you reach 10 malaise points anymore. Instead, enemies become more and more dangerous as your Malaise bar fills, dealing more damage, moving and detecting you faster. Mobs will randomly spawn around you, and some mobs will unexpectedly transform into Elites (without the random skill though).
The malaise contamination rate is tied to the number of enemies still alive in the level, the fewer enemies, the less quickly your malaise bar will fill. When only 10% of the enemies are left alive, the biome is considered "Malaise cleared". Easy right?

Colour changes

A lot of item and mutation colour changes have been made too, specifically designed to re-focus each stat on its primary identity:

Tactics keeps all things related to ranged gameplay: turrets & ranged weapons, with some utility and damaging spells to support it. Items that don't fit in that category but have poison or electricity gameplay will still dual scale with Tactics (e.g. Sadist's Stiletto, a knife that crits on poison targets, is not a turret or ranged weapon but has poison gameplay elements - so it will still scale with Tactics).
Brutality keeps its focus on fast melee weapons and everything related to jumping into the fray. Grenades stay mostly red. Non-melee weapons that have fire or blood gameplay will dual scale with Brutality.
Survival keeps its focus on crowd control, survivability, shields and slow, heavy melee weapons. Also supported by heavy damage skills with the long cooldown that goes with them. Unrelated weapons with root or ice gameplay will dual scale with Survival.

You can find the full changelog here, including the various nerfs and buffs coming with those changes.

Also, the health scaling of Survival and Brutality has been reduced. It’s not really significant without a high scroll count, so it will only impact the mid/late game of BC3+ players. Tactics got a slight buff, so there will be less difference between Survival’s hp pool and Tactic’s hp pool.

Updated backpack

The backpack will now be independent of two-handed weapons, so we’ve been working to make it less awkward to use and more customisable.

You can now empty your backpack by holding the use button, and you access your backpack storage when taking an item on the floor by pressing your secondary weapon button (Y on Xbox controller for instance).

In the video settings, you will also find an option to set the backpack slot opacity to your convenience, as well as an option to place it in the middle of the weapon and skills slots instead of to the right.

4 New mutations

3 new mutations have been added to go along with the new backpack:

Acrobatic Preparation*: Attacking with a ranged weapon also attacks with the ranged weapon in your backpack. Roll to reload. (Tactics).
Porcupine Backpack: Rolling through enemies attacks them with the melee weapon stored in your backpack. (Brutality)
Tortoise Wheel: Rolling parries attacks and projectiles with the shield stored in your backpack. (Survival)

The fourth mutation added, Fatal Cadence, increases your attack speed when you switch between the primary and secondary slot. It’s specifically designed for two-handed weapons, but can also be used with others.
As a side note, the two-handed weapons can now have different affixes on each slot.

*All names are placeholders until we find the time to think of better ones!

New weapon

With Christmas just around the corner, we thought we had to fulfill long-lasting requests from the community that gives us so much during the rest of the year. The Malaise rework is obviously a part of it, but we wanted to give a little something to everyone, not only to people with the crazy gaming skills able to beat the highest BCs.

So, here it finally is: the Katana, allowing you to attack swiftly by smashing the button, or to slice through mobs by holding it. We hope you enjoy using it!

New mob

Armed with Explosive Crossbows, the Demolisher can be found wandering in the Distillery (because there aren’t enough explosions there already) as well as in other biomes in other BCs.

New outfits

Massacre your merry way through the island as Santa Beheaded or try and hold your concentration as the Snowman. Nothing stands in the way of us becoming Game of the Century now *evil laugh*

New diet

One glaring hole in the game was the lack of smelly cheese to heal yourself with. As a French studio we had to rectify this immediately, so you can now scarf a whole wheel of cheese like a real Skyrim warrior. Vive la France!

Phew! That's it for now, we're going to let the alpha run for a week or so, and if you want to leave some feedback after trying it out then head over to our reddit thread here.

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Community Highlights:

krystofkykynkolar

lhaagillustrations

lazyapatheticturtle

Dec 3, 2020

Uprising - New Expansion out now!

Minion Masters - RGL_Trinity

Minion Masters!

The Slitherbound are in desperate need of help. You must fight to clear a path for their escape and keep them from the shackles which once bound them.

Stay tuned to our update site for more reveals about upcoming Season Passes.

Uprising - Season Pass #1

A new Season Pass has arrived to Minion Masters!
Tons of new rewards, including 2 cards, a Legendary Skin, bonus cards, and more!
Two new cards have been added to the game:

Chain Gang

Akinlep's Gong Of Pestilence
Dryad Morellia has also been added to the game!
The Season Pass will end on the 7th of January.

New Adventure

Brand New Story - Fight against the mighty Apep
Play as a special Adventures version of Slither Beast
This is a 3 Chapter Adventure that costs 2,010 Rubies or 1,000 rubies for just chapter 1.
Completing the Chapter will get you some cool rewards!
The adventure AI has been improved so opponents use a wider variety of cards, including high-cost cards. This applies retroactively and will impact older adventures.
Replays for adventures are now available.
The Adventure releases on December 10th.

Economy Changes

As we mentioned in our latest blog post, there will be some changes to the Minion Masters economy coming in 1.19. For details, read our blog post here https://blog.betadwarf.com/2020/11/minion-masters-economy-changes-follow-up.html

Shop Changes

All master skins will be available for purchase from the master selection screen.
If you receive a duplicate cosmetic item or master, you will receive a reimbursement of gold.

Glory Changes

Season bonus glory will no longer apply to conquest. While it still improves season pass progress, we wanted to make sure that users that buy the season pass don't have an unfair advantage in their conquest runs compared to free-to-play players.

Card Balance

Ardera

Divine shield is now only given to Empyrean Minions

Armored Scrats

Count 4 -> 3
Barrel Shield Health 50 -> 60

Blood Imps

Now only deals 50% damage to its controller’s master

Call to Arms

Disables building abilities on transform

This will only affect two interactions: Ghost Turret and Crystal Construct. They will no longer produce a spirit or mana, respectively, when transformed into a Warrior.

Crossbow Dudes

Damage 15 -> 20
Attack Cooldown 1.4 -> 1.8

Crystal Arcanist

Health 45 -> 40
AoE Range 2.5 -> 3

Crystal Archers

Health 45 -> 40
Damage 25 -> 30

Dormant Defenders

Duration 20 -> 40

Illusory Cleaver

Illusion Damage 30 -> 50

Illusory Dragon Whelp

Illusion Damage 30 -> 50

Leiliel’s Vortex

No longer moves allied units.

Screaming Scrat

Cost 1 -> 2
Explosion Damage 30 -> 130
Explosion Delay 5 -> 4
Barrel Shield Health 50 -> 60

Last patch we brought this back to 1 mana, however we've since learned that was a mistake. It simply has too many uses to be balanced at 1 mana, and with the puff rework there was no doubt in our minds that Screaming Scrat would have become the #1 premiere 1 drop in 85% of decks. So we decided to bring it back to 2 mana but increase its power to hopefully find a good balance.

Shield Captain Avea

Shield Radius 4 -> 6

Slitherbound Darter

Damage 5 -> 8

Slitherbound Lancer

Damage 10 -> 15

Soul Stealer

Attack Cooldown 1.5 -> 1.6

Sunburn

Damages its controller’s units as well

Puffs Rework

Ever since we did the 1 mana overhaul some patches back, we've seen Puffs have an incredible resurgence in play rate. While we definitely do not mind puffs being popular at all, we did find it slightly concerning when we looked at their win rates. One problem we ran into is that their main power is their ability to grab the bridges, cheap, quick and reliably. This means we'd have to nerf their inherent power level to find a good spot, but we feel that would be the wrong direction for them, as the puffs aren't meant to be a bridge grabbing unit but rather fun and quirky utility Minions. So instead we decided to restrict their spawn path in order to further emphasize the mechanics that make the unique.

”Puff” is now a card type, not a faction. Puff cards can only be spawned by the master tower and do not trigger minion abilities like Ratbo’s first and third perks.

Puffs have always been a bit of a weird faction, and as they are mostly designed around quirky utility purposes, they are not necessarily cards that you would build decks around. This sort of goes against our idea of what a faction is, and as we don't produce a ton of puff cards, it would always be underrepresented. We decided it was because Puffs shouldn't be a faction but a card type. This allows us to impress certain rules on these cards, as well as put them into factions where they might actually contribute to deck building.

Disruptor Puff

Faction - Puff -> Outlander
Card Type - Minion -> Puff
First teleport proc delay 3 -> 2
Speed 5 -> 10

Heal Puff

Faction - Puff -> Zen Chi
Card Type - Minion -> Puff
Cost 2 -> 1

Mana Puff

Faction - Puff -> Crystal Elf
Card Type - Minion -> Puff
First mana proc delay 10 -> 4

Mana Puff Madness

Cost 2 -> 3

Squire Puff

Faction - Puff -> Empyrean
Card Type - Minion -> Puff
First shield proc delay 10 -> 4

Wizard Puff

Faction - Puff -> Crystal Elf
Card Type - Minion -> Puff
Attack Cooldown 1.6 -> 1.4

Master Balance

Valorian

Damage boost per Empyrean card in hand 5 -> 3

Volco

Damage 40 -> 50
Burn the Bridges Cost 2 -> 1

Bugs

Reworked the jump and charge animations to ensure Bahra’s beam doesn’t become disconnected from targets.
Updated Cursebearer’s description to reflect the intended interaction with transform effects.
Fixed a bug causing Wreckinator’s self-destruct mode to do more damage with rage.
Fixed Propeller HOrde not getting beserkers rage.
Barrel scrats no longer move faster than normal scrats after their shield is broken.
Changed ghost’s attack type to special so it no longer picks up Volco’s bridge perk.
Fixed a bug causing bats bats bats to spawn the incorrect number of bats if played by two players at the same time.
We fixed the amount of points won/lost in contender not scaling correctly.
Nyrvir’s Breath no longer creates skeletons after breath’s effect has ended.

Misc

Xbox users can now take advantage of Twitch integration. Note that if you previously connected an account, you will likely have to email support@betadwarf.com to switch to a new account.
Christmas decorations have been turned on.
We made some changes to unit collision. Units that are standing still will move out of the way of same-sized units that are moving.

Dec 3, 2020

Update 0.9.99

The Wind and Wilting Blossom - Froren

Update 0.9.99 is now live!

Added the 8th and final leader!
Added tons of visual effects in battles
Added a new visual indicator to Events when a party member takes damage or dies
Added waves to the ocean in all regions
Added a unique battlefield background for boss battles
Added some buff and debuff iconography to units to indicate that they are active
Added a feature that, if there's room, will auto-equip acquired Charms
Added new art for the Bandit's Immobilize trap
Improved and tweaked a couple Leader layouts
Lowered the difficulty slightly for Easy games
Adjusted enemy spawning rules for Easy games to be less challenging
Changed Trap functionality to not damage player units
Changed Burning hexes to only trigger if a unit ends their turn in one
Removed random battlefield traps from all battles
Removed the Light Footed Charm from the game
Tweaked the main menu art
Removed the Ally UI wrapper in Leader Select if the selected Layout does not include Allies
Removed empty Weapon slots in the Leader Select menu if the Leader does not have the slot available
Tweaked a couple monster display names
Tweaked a couple achievements and descriptions
Tweaked the Combat tutorial text
Tweaked some Darkness tutorial text
Increased the prices of 50% cheaper shops to only be 25% cheaper
Removed the Reset Achievements button from the Options menu

Fixes

Fixed a crash related to the Onikuma fight
Fixed a crash related to selecting Start Game with Benkei Layout 1
Fixed an issue where the Darkness would not cause a loss from consuming the Exit location node if the player was out of Food
Fixed an issue where the Darkness would never consume the Exit location node in the Tohoku region
Fixed an issue where sometimes the Ezo region would not populate any Combats
Fixed an issue where the Ezo region was not populating with enough location nodes
Fixed the blood fx when a unit hits a trap
Fixed the starting location node in Ezo region to not be in front of other nodes
Fixed the Yuki Onna enemy to not appear in temperate regions
Fixed an issue where player units that are swallowed by Frog Takiyasha when it's killed were not returning to the battlefield
Fixed the tutorial checkboxes to toggle correctly
Fixed a bug where the Impervious achievement was unlocking with the wrong criteria
Fixed an issue where the Burn DoT would incorrectly tick twice on enemy units

Dec 3, 2020

Beta test: Multiplayer

DRIFT CE - ECCGames_Pawel

For the last few months, we have been working hard on the DRIFT21 multiplayer mode, and today we are ready to give you a chance to check the results of our work. Take into account that this is the first version of the multiplayer mode - there may still be some elements to refine. We are still working on improving the multiplayer mode, e.g. we are working on full support for the cars created in the garage or preparing new types of events.

We care about your feedback and impressions. You can share them in the dedicated Steam Forum thread or on our Discord server on the #suggestions and #multiplayer-test-chat channels in the "Multiplayer Test Area". If you run into any problems and errors related to connecting to the game, performance, or gameplay itself, please let us know. We will try to help you and will also take your feedback into account in further development.

How to access the closed_beta branch:

Right-click on Drift21 in your Steam library and select "Properties".
Select the "BETAS" tab at the top of the properties window.
Enter the access code: YUy9pLYrGyDEQFDF, and click the "CHECK CODE" button.
Select "multiplayer" from the drop-down list.

Below you will find some additional information about the tests.

A few words about the concept of multiplayer mode in DRIFT21
The main goal while working on multiplayer mode was for us to create a place where players will have full control over the session and experience. That's why we decided on a model, in which the practice mode acts as a kind of lobby.

Inside such a session you can, of course, freely move on the map, create tandems, accumulate drifting points, talk. For those who want to "compete" we will soon launch a module called "events". Every player in the session will be able to join the event. For the time of the event, players who are not interested will not see these rivals and vice versa. As for the events themselves - for testing purposes, you will soon have access to the simplest type, a kind of Free For All, in which players with the whole course at their disposal must compete with other players. The winner is the one who scores the most Drift Points within the set time. Of course, expect more event types. We are still working on them :)

Control over the multiplayer session
To better manage your session, in addition to text chat, we have also provided several commands and functions, for example:

Voting or forcing a map change
Voting or forcing the removal of a player
Host permissions transfer
Displaying and pinning messages
Resetting the position
Collision on/off
Hiding messages from individual/all players
Display or change session password

Some of the commands are available only to the session host.

What do we want to achieve during these tests?
We are very interested in your opinion so we will accept any feedback :)

How do you rate the performance of the game in a multiplayer session? Does the game work worse in this mode?
How do you rate the synchronization in multiplayer sessions? Do you have any problems with lags?
Is there any functionality that you think is missing in multiplayer mode?
Is the state of Tandem (appearing in case of parallel drifting cars) clear to you? Maybe you need more visual clues?

What else are we working on?

We are optimizing the performance of the game in multiplayer mode
We are improving the spectator mode (due to errors we had to temporarily turn it off)
We are preparing new types of events
We are working on full support for the cars created in the garage
We improve user experience and support for different controllers in a multiplayer session