Apr 30, 2021

Update #21: HUGE Daughter of the Void Expansion!

Vault of the Void - Josh Bruce

It’s here.

A long time coming, this card expansion really challenges the others in terms of sheer content. It ended up being at least 30 new cards, with around an additional 20+ cards either tweaked or changed in some way! There was so much balance and tweaking, that rather than list EVERY card that was tweaked, I added a feature to the Compendium where, if you search this version number (1.3.52), any card that was updated/added in this patch will be shown as a result.

Okay let's dive into some details.

Daughter Expansion

So the goal here was to give the Daughter the same treatment as the Hidden and the Enlightened, expand her pool, rebalance where needed and inject some fun. The Corruption starter decks feels pretty smooth right now, but Soultithe needed some tweaks in a few areas. Namely, how it was conceived as being played.

Often, it would be something where people assumed it was required to be kept under control, increasing a little, and then decreasing a little. A number of cards had token amounts of “Soultithe Reduction”, which I think sent the wrong message. You’ll see a focus here on shifting to a more “Manage ST with Block, rather than trying to reduce it”. Generally, this patch has lowered a lot of the ST gain anyway (unless you lean HARD into it).

The high risk, high reward nature has been emphasised, with more Deathstrike, Rage and Vulnerable entering the toolkit. Stacking these buffs/debuffs together is what makes a Soultithe build really sing. You’ll also notice Grasp took a bit of a direction change as well, adding a little Corruption scaling to the ST deck for some nice synergy options. Plus, Death Striking a Grasp with a little Rage can now pop into some... pretty high numbers. Feels good.

Void Coins are now a thing, as we tried to double down on her Sift/Discard/Recur mechanics. Lots more Discard synergy flooding her kit, doubling down on her playstyle and interaction there.

A couple of new Elite artifacts for her managed to make their way in as well. However next week I’ll be shifting a huge focus to expanding the Artifact pool across all classes!

All in all, the Card Council team has done a phenomenal job with this expansion - I've been working with this team in calls all week to ensure this expansion is smooth and fun to play, each volunteering their time. There was numerous times where watching test runs had me getting carried away with the result. Overall, I’m very happy with things, and I hope you get some enjoyment out of it as well!

Fortitude Bars

Ever dragged a card onto a creature with 10 HP and seen the damage prediction show 11 - a certain kill! Only to be thwarted by Fortitude not being taken into account? We all have.

But no longer! With the new Fortitude Bar Expansion Pack (aka. Me not being silly and dedicating the time required here), Fortitude will now not only appear as its own bar, but will be considered with the reactive HP bars. No more tears - only dreams!

Void HP

Took another look at the stats from the Void fight - and in response I’ve toned down the HP of the Void just a touch, again. From here I’ll keep an eye on things, but I expect it should sit somewhere pretty final now, with any tweaks now coming to the scaling of its AP/Frenzy. The numbers are pretty good right now, but a small tweak here and there may be needed!

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT

Wow ! Thank you all so much for the amazing feedback - over 100% positive reviews over the last 30 days (even longer now actually!). I’m so humbled by the amazing support - I don't deserve it, I can’t thank you all enough! Make sure you’re using the special community unlock code on the Card Back screen:

Steam250Love

To get your special community card back reward, as my thanks to you all!!

That's all from me - it's been a HUGE week here, and I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. Looking forward to hearing all the feedback on the new Daughter tools, and I hope you all enjoy it!!

All for now.
- Josh

General
- HUGE Daughter of the Void expansion. 30(ish) new cards, with another 20 or so updated! Search "1.3.52" in the compendium to see all changes.
- All Affliction cards now have unique partcile effects when in your hand, and unique card frames.
- The Void has had their HP reduced by another pass.
- New Fortitude bars added, and reactive HP bars will now account for Fortitude.

Items;
- Bleak Contract has been reduced to a Common, from Elite
- 6 New Elite artifacts for the Daughter; Midnight Clock, Compost, Abandoned Pet, Ballet Shoe, Rotten Egg, Abacus.
- Dark Feather is now a Hidden Artifact
- Enchanted Water Bottle is now a Enlightened Artifact
- Poisoning Kit upped from 6 to 8 Bleed
- Cultist Ward is now "When you play a Buff card, Delay Block 10"
- Leftovers is now "Turn 1, Delay Block 15".

Bugs
- Fixed some issues with Unholy Cleansing hitting Fort.
- The CTRL shortcut will now work on cards in your hand (for viewing upgrades).
- Fixed It's here somewhere interacting with X Cost cards.
- Fixed an issue with Shii not displaying on the health bar correctly.
- Fixed an issue with the Voids Phase 2 attacks not counting for Response & Backstab.
- Updated the Void Stone tooltips in the Deck Manager to match the style throughout the game
- Fixed some interactions with Garnet Band, Lascerations and Sanguine Stopwatch
- Removed "Temporary" as a keyword from card text.
- Fixed the Legend showing weird code in text.
- Void's named attacks now count as "Attacks"
- Shadow Utility does its effects in the correct order now
- Unholy Cleansing will now obey Fortitude, as well as serve its damage as one hit.
- Mastery display fixed
- Shield Wall count bug fixed
- Side Step calc issue fixed.

Apr 30, 2021

Friday Blog 198 - An Overhauled Overhaul!

Colony Survival - Pipliznl

Built by JoeMan

In December, we released 0.8.0, which tried to improve some fundamental systems and fix some flaws. In January and February, we were making huge plans for 0.9.0. We wanted to take our time, add a lot of new content, and introduce awesome new features. We were considering to implement realistic logistics.

This would be a huge change and impact a lot of other systems. We were trying to think through the entire plan. For example: with realistic logistics between colonies, it’s important to spread out resources. It doesn’t make sense for all ores to be present at every location. So resources like iron ore should only appear in certain specific places.

But that means players need multiple colonies when they get into the Iron Age! That’s a lot earlier than currently is the case. So we’ll need to add a lot of pre-Iron Age gameplay to balance things out.

We also added things like support for longer crafting times, which requires a full overhaul of all the crafting recipes. Zun optimized the savegames, which also leads to the requirement for new worlds in 0.9.0 (Disclaimer: Old worlds will always be accessible in old branches / 0.9.0 is a long way out / a converter might appear!). The need for savegame continuity is pretty restricting, and without that need, we have a lot of extra possibilities. We want to use as many as possible of them, to make sure future updates don’t require another continuity-break.

At the end of March, I started moving. It was quite a lot of work, and due to some unforeseen problems I spent nearly two weeks without proper access to the internet. But things are working now :D Things are still a bit Early Access but I don’t mind that too much.

I’ve had a lot of time to think, and things seemed a bit… overwhelming. Update 0.9.0 had become a gigantic overhaul with loads of uncertain but interdependent features, and a three year workload. The plans certainly sounded awesome, but doing it all in one gigantic step started to seem impractical.

So we had a long discussion and decided to change our plans for 0.9.0. It’s still not 100% certain, there are plenty of details to work out, and we’re open to your input! But here are our rough plans.

Update 0.4.0 added a nice progression system. From inventing bronze to smelting iron to producing steel, slings > bows > crossbows > muskets, from slow weak monsters to fast strong monsters. It works very well, and it’s still the core of the game. 0.5.0 and 0.6.0 added ‘branches’ to this framework, and 0.7.0 added multiple colonies to the end of this system. But the ‘spine’ of the game is still the bronze/iron/steel thing (with the related monsters and weapons), added after a couple of months of development in 2017.

We’re considering to refactor that spine. To improve it and to extend it. To make it work with all the other features we’ve added since 2017, and the features we’re planning to add in 0.9.0 (and keeping in mind the features we’re hoping to add afterwards!).

We want to increase the timespan. We’d love to start in the Stone Age and have players invent and use copper tools as a serious improvement above stone tools. Tin should become a rare resource, and to start the Bronze Age, players would have to export luxury goods and import tin.

To decrease their dependence on expensive imports, players should have the ability to start using iron. We’ve done quite a bit of extra research into iron, and apparently, producing it is hard. Iron loves to bind with oxygen, so you’ve got to remove it from your iron ore and prevent the oxygen from returning again too soon (which is known as ‘rust’). To do so, you’ve got to mix it with carbon while heated, but heating the ore up increases iron’s susceptibility to binding with oxygen. Leave too much carbon in your iron and it’ll become brittle; leave too little carbon in your iron and it’ll become soft.

Correctly executing this process requires a lot of knowledge, the right tools, and a lot of good fuel. We’d love to implement this into the game more realistically. We’re considering having multiple ‘levels’ of iron and multiple methods of smelting iron. There could be simple but lengthy processes that result in weak, brittle tools and weapons, and more complicated methods that result in better tools and weapons.

The final step could be steel - which requires very high temperatures or huge amounts of labor to achieve. Add some chromium to get stainless steel. The mass production of steel only became possible at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Of course, each of these steps should have a purpose and not just be a messy crafting chain required to get to the endgame as soon as possible. We’re considering to add “Tools” as a crucial component of the game. Instead of just foresters and miners requiring a one-time specific tool, most jobs should use them. Instead of each job having their own specific requirement, the Tools would be more general. But Tools will have a trait ‘Durability’, and when it’s depleted, the tool breaks and the worker will require new tools. The tools should also impact productivity. That way, each tool can have their own unique set of benefits and drawbacks. Copper Tools could be cheap but with low durability. Bronze Tools could have high durability, a large boost to productivity, but cost a lot to produce. Primitive Iron Tools could have the same boost to productivity at a lower cost, but also with lower durability.

Now, we don’t just want to make the game more convoluted, with more steps and more requirements. The new crafting chain and the new tech tree should also lead to more possibilities! An underdeveloped aspect of the game, which players have often requested to be expanded, is the combat-side of the game. We’d love to add more monsters and more guards, with new abilities. How about ranged monsters? Guards with area-of-effect damage, and others with the ability to poison or slow down enemies? How about monsters that strengthen nearby monsters, and monsters that get harder to defeat the longer they live? That would make mazes less overpowered and allow for a more diverse array of strategies to be useful. We're also considering options to make some monsters more intelligent. They're harder to implement properly, but monsters that fill moats or scale walls would be very interesting.

Just as in 0.4.0, these things should be connected. Unlocking new materials requires expansion of the colony, new materials lead to new weapons, expansion of the colony leads to more and stronger monsters.

Compared to realistic logistics, these plans are a lot more achievable in less time, while we’re still very enthusiastic about the outcome. We think it would be a huge improvement above the current situation. Let us know your opinion and it’ll help us make a final decision!

The plans for realistic logistics aren’t completely scrapped. We do keep them in mind while working on 0.9.0 and make our choices appropriately. We’re pretty certain we want to make ores like tin scarce, requiring multiple colonies if you want to play without importing and exporting from (offscreen) ‘NPC colonies’. But logistics between multiple colonies were always intended as some kind of endgame, and we’d like to put a lot of effort into the early and midgame first.

TL;DR: I moved successfully, plans for 0.9.0 got extremely huge, considering a new plan for a refactored, improved and lengthened early-to-mid-game with more realistic metals and tools, and new weapons and monsters. Let us know what you think!

Bedankt voor het lezen!

Reddit // Twitter // YouTube // Website // Discord

Apr 30, 2021

Weekly Winner - April 26th

Train Valley 2 - Osja AA-gun

Your weekly guide into Train Valley 2 Workshop — best of the most recent puzzling captivating beautiful handcrafted levels and level series. Try them out today!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2467656645 and its updated version
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2467654331

A tiny and delightful level by @engineer_cat — get in, connect everything and deliver the goods, get out. Fast and smooth, an outstanding appetizer for today's selection :)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2466097390
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2466091741
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2466087202

A railroad puzzle trifecta by @Gaztibelza, based on a motion picture of the same name. Challenging additional requirements, a lot of things to take care of, all three with almost the same terrain but each with a different feel. Story is a nice bonus.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2466173300

A wild ride indeed by @LittleBear, busy marine cargo terminal is filled with possibilities and different routes, a whopping 134 trains to deliver objective and all those SPIDERS and BATS orders to fill — this rollercoaster is a must to try.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2465775610

This one by @Pierluigi75 is for the tough guys :) A carefully crafted adventure that has it all - explosions, tons of loot, clever plan B, authorities on high alert and train chases (just no train crashing please), even some unexpected bridge construction. Bellissimo!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2461727621

A process or method through the application of which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a device, process, system, or piece of software accomplishes a task with very little (if any) insight into exactly how it does so. Reverse Engineering by @ishKiia is backed by a captivating story about betrayal, hostile takeover, some heavy duty train deliveries and a mind blowing layout that won't leave your Subscribed list that easily :)

@ishKiia, outstanding work! A €10 Steam gift card is heading your way right now :)

Don't forget to tell us about your TV2 workshop adventures and visit our Discord server for an upcoming LPT challenge. Until next week!

----

:tvhook: Train Valley 2 Discord Server.

:tv2computer: Our Twitter.

Apr 30, 2021

Patch 1.4.30-Guide to developments and bug fixes.

Battle of Hunters : Beast Zone - MeuChika

<Bug fixes and developments>
● Fixed a problem that can be canceled by expressing emotions while using skills.
● Changed the animation of the shuriken throw.
● FlyingKick animation changes.
● NerdMaker animation changes.
● NerdMaker-Cooldown 25->12 seconds, effect duration default 7 seconds -> 3 seconds modified.
● Fixed the phenomenon that the projectile collides with itself.
● Fixed an issue where throwing a shuriken while boarding does not hit itself and fly away.
● The motion of kneeling in emotional expression.
● When using emotional expression kneeling, it is modified to be released when moving.
● SpiritBomb- Fixed a bug that keeps floating above even if you pass out while collecting.
● Storm Fist-Cooldown changed from 20 seconds to 12 seconds
● Fixed a bug where the skill was not used when dashing or attacked immediately after using IronBody.
● Cannon Fist-Added knockback effect.
● Tai Chi-Modified so that it is reflected only when looking in the other direction.
● ThrowingSnot -Apply sound.
● Stadium skill-My pet and teammate's pets in the thorn can lose HP and be faint, but they will not die completely.
● When using the left mouse button while using GodBlow, the drop rate increase is doubled.
"● Trans Skill - Add objects- box, houses, stone statues, and rocks.
-Transformation time correction-Level 1 5 seconds -> 3 seconds. +0.025 seconds per up -> 0.05 seconds decrease"
"● The tree circumference of the tree of life has been reduced to about 50%. The protection shield is reduced to 20M and then modified to decrease by 1m per minute.
Modified to reduce the shield to a maximum of 10M."
● Modified so that the defense power is not displayed more than 100%.
● Double the flying speed of the IceShoot.
● Concentration-When raising other stats, +0.6 is modified to increase.
● Apnea hit damage from 50% of power to 30% of power.
● Radar Skill-Spell memorization time is reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds, and the time per up is reduced by 0.9->0.04 seconds.
● Revision of the critical text to be smaller and to move upwards without covering the target.
● Changed the default walking speed to the running speed and removed the running function.
● Fixed a bug where the slow effect did not work.