We hope you've been doing well! It's been a few months since our last Captain's Log, so we wanted to give an update here before the Holiday season.
This post, in particular, will be going over some larger balance changes, some new Wildlander enemies we'll be adding, and one of the Champ-exclusive enemies. A lot of this stuff is in active development, so not everything here may stay the same.
We're also going to be creating another holiday-themed Captain Q & A video! You can find the question submission form here: https://forms.gle/163wYFjAL1bHCfkr7
We were quite pleased with the reception to our last video, and they don't impede the progress of the mod, so we're going to continue to do these every once in a while.
Ready when it's Ready
We've been seeing several rumors/speculations about when our 1.0 release date would be. Most of these speculations are either hopelessly unrealistic (six months or less) or hilariously optimistic (before the end of the year). In our last Captain's log, we listed off all of the features we planned to include and clearly stated that this will be our largest update to date. In addition to this, we also stated that we planned to hold off on giving an official release date until everything in the update was ready to prevent crunch on our end. To meet those standards and expectations, the next update will take a VERY LONG TIME to develop, internally test, and polish, much longer than the aforementioned speculated timeframes. We want Black Reliquary and its conclusion to be a memorable experience, hopefully even as memorable as Darkest Dungeon's ending itself. To accomplish that, this update will be Ready when it's Ready, and we encourage our community to reiterate that message when asked.
New Wildlander Enemies
We're pleased to announce that we'll be including two new Wildlander enemies to the Exposed Interior. These enemies are not difficulty exclusive and look to diversify the threats of Wildlander Faction as a whole.
The first enemy we'll be including is the Wildlander Hecatomb: The Wildlander Hecatomb was a concept from our previous Wildlander enemy poll. He functions as frontline stress-caster primarily but can apply some hefty defensive debuffs.
When his HP gets low, the Wildlander Hecatomb will make a pact with a member of the ancient pantheon, offering his life to bolster the rest of his team. During his next turn, the Hecatomb will sacrifice himself to provide a strong heal and offensive buffs to his team and may deal a large amount of stress to the hero party (details are still being sorted out).
The second enemy we'll be including is the Wildlander Powderclaw: This ursine menace is as much of a ranged threat as it is a melee one, firing the cannon strapped to his back during the prep round and launching a payload far into the air.
A couple rounds later, this cannonball will land dealing tremendous damage and applying a stun to the target hero.
New Champion Exclusive Enemy
In addition to the two new Wildlander enemies, we're also ready to introduce the Bristleback Baboon. This will be a new Champion-Exclusive Wildlife enemy, found only in the Treasury. The Bristleback Baboon primarily feeds on Cactonids, using its sensitive nose to pick up on Cactonid blossoms to track and hunt its prey. When found with Cactonids, the Baboon may choose to attack and devour one of them, bolstering its defenses and improving his blighting capabilities. However, when found with other wildlife, the Baboon may fall into a hungered frenzy and release a blood-curdling howl, debuffing the hero party's DODGE/SPD, and buffing up its DMG/CRT.
Balance Adjustments - Toning Down Power Creep
Overall, we've noticed that many aspects of the mod have steadily power crept (heroes more steadily over time, and monsters a little with each dungeon patch), and we're going to be making some larger balance changes in an attempt to even out the balance a little.
Resistance Changes
A lot of people will be glad to hear this, but we're going to be toning down the scaling on enemy resistances to match hero scaling, having it match Vanilla Darkest Dungeon. We'll be toning down extra status chance on select skills that had their status chances increased specifically to deal with this. Obviously, we'll likely be heavily rebalancing status trinkets/heroes that were already strong before this nerf.
Other Changes
Of course, we'll still be doing the usual balance to heroes, monsters, trinkets, ship decks, quirks, etc, but we're definitely more focused on nerfing overperformers rather than buffing underperformers this time around. That being said, balance adjustments overall will take a back seat to the development of the rest of the mod.
==================
Just a reminder, a lot of what we're showing here is in active development so keep in mind that things may change.
We've also been hard at work sorting out the closed testing for the Black Reliquary dungeon, but as we've mentioned before in our previous post, we're not planning on sharing any details directly related to the Black Reliquary itself before the 1.0 Release goes live.
Thank you all for your support and patience, -Team Reliquary
Vez'nan reveals his grand plan to capture Hammerhold. Will you answer the call to lead the assault?
Malik is leading the citadel’s defense troops. They've fortified their walls and put up defensive towers. Legionnaires have been busy amassing their troops. Word is that they've even managed to tame hefty desert elephants and mystic djinns.
You're to lead a surprise landing on their desert shores. Don't be surprised if familiar heroes stumble into our path.
Do you fancy yourself worthy of this endeavor, or shall the Dark Lord search for someone less... hesitant?
The decision is yours. Add it to your wishlist now!
Vez'nan reveals his grand plan to capture Hammerhold. Will you answer the call to lead the assault?
Malik is leading the citadel’s defense troops. They've fortified their walls and put up defensive towers. Legionnaires have been busy amassing their troops. Word is that they've even managed to tame hefty desert elephants and mystic djinns.
You're to lead a surprise landing on their desert shores. Don't be surprised if familiar heroes stumble into our path.
Do you fancy yourself worthy of this endeavor, or shall the Dark Lord search for someone less... hesitant?
The decision is yours. Add it to your wishlist now!
Vez'nan reveals his grand plan to capture Hammerhold. Will you answer the call to lead the assault?
Malik is leading the citadel’s defense troops. They've fortified their walls and put up defensive towers. Legionnaires have been busy amassing their troops. Word is that they've even managed to tame hefty desert elephants and mystic djinns.
You're to lead a surprise landing on their desert shores. Don't be surprised if familiar heroes stumble into our path.
Do you fancy yourself worthy of this endeavor, or shall the Dark Lord search for someone less... hesitant?
The decision is yours. Add it to your wishlist now!
Hello, I'm so thankful for everybody that has been playing the game and enjoying it. Chapter 2 has been taking a lot longer than expected to complete and I'm sorry for that I am currently in college and trying to get Chapter 2 done in my free time.
Current state of Chapter 2 - I have Scare fields fully completed and am in the final stages of creating the Fun Time level and moving on to creating the boss of Fun Time. Overall, I have Chapter 2 mostly finished I just need time to make sure it's a polished finished release.
Window for Release - I am planning on releasing Chapter 2 within the range of December - January. This is not a fully set date and subject to change.
Price - 1.99$
Thank you all again for your support on The Paper Trials and I hope to get you guys new content to play soon!
Vez'nan reveals his grand plan to capture Hammerhold. Will you answer the call to lead the assault?
Malik is leading the citadel’s defense troops. They've fortified their walls and put up defensive towers. Legionnaires have been busy amassing their troops. Word is that they've even managed to tame hefty desert elephants and mystic djinns.
You're to lead a surprise landing on their desert shores. Don't be surprised if familiar heroes stumble into our path.
Do you fancy yourself worthy of this endeavor, or shall the Dark Lord search for someone less... hesitant?
The decision is yours. Add it to your wishlist now!
The Thaumaturge Demo featuring the Prologue of the game is once more available. If you've missed it during the Steam Next Fest, now is the perfect opportunity to catch up!
After playing, please take a moment to complete a short survey. The game's coming on February 20th 2024 and your feedback will help us a lot in polishing out the game before its release: 🗳️https://forms.gle/yEvSXVF8f9sfGhtE6
Last time we took a peek at the various personalities of Outcast Tales and took some guesses on what kinds of interactions might arise from these hellish concoctions.
This time we are diving even deeper into the banter, the contemplation, and the eleventh-hour backstabbing.🗡
As you venture through the Wasteland, it’s not just mindless goons and loot that await you. There are also events, encounters, sticky situations, and all manner of shenanigans to block your path forward. Will you shoot ‘em with your gun or strike ‘em down with the pure, unadulterated power of your mind?
Ah, witch hunting. Your run-of-the-mill moral dilemma.
Some dialogues are tied to in-game mechanics, such as shops. But unlike many other games, accepting or declining the offer ain’t your only choices…
The famous 30% off stare-down.
Still, some choices are more complex than that…
Child’s play indeed.
Not only are there skill checks, but you can choose between personal and party checks as well. Really puts all that character creation you did in the beginning into perspective, doesn’t it?
Dead bodies in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?! The horror!
Beware: failing skill checks might put a damper on your morale, among other things. And nobody likes a party pooper. But hey, at least you'll have your two trusty (and deadly) sidekicks to bail you out, just try not to make them regret tagging along with you in the first place.
If only our parents saying that came with a perk…
As in life, failing at something can also come with experience of its own. No pain no gain, right? Not all encounters are one-off affairs, by the way. Some are multi-phase events that just keep going as you keep traveling. But just like in reality, actions have consequences. So don’t expect being a weirdo not to catch up with you.
This road sign just won’t let up!
So many people, so many stories! Sometimes you meet a kind stranger on your way, sometimes you get indoctrinated into a weird cult. Stuff happens. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, so we hope you join in for more soon! And do expect a bigger update just around the corner. 👀
Finally, here's something to chew on for dessert: a couple of dialogue snippets you might or might not run into during your adventure. Don’t forget to join us on Discord and Twitter while you’re chewing: they say it’s good for you.
Happy Friday Sker Islanders, our team have been working on resolving some pesky bugs and issues this week! Not only that, we've added partial Welsh language support for our Welsh speaking players!
Sker Ritual Patch v.0.5.2 - 17/11/2023
ADDITIONS & ISSUE FIXES
- Added partial Welsh Language support - The in-game difficulty change Sword & Shield interacts now get disabled when you hit Wave 10 - Modified the Max Ammo Power-up to give Ammo to all weapons in the inventory - Lucky will no longer give you weapons that are in your inventory - Time between waves on normal difficulties now lowers after Wave 60 & 70 - Updated visuals of the targets in the "Bull's Eye" objective in "Sewers of the Dead" so they can still be recognized if certain post-processing effects have been turned off in Graphics Options
- Fixed an issue causing the Half Price powerup to calculate incorrectly in Easy, Hard and Nightmare difficulties - Fixed an issue causing the Abomination's health to reset when it enters combat - Fixed an issue causing people to drop into the boss room in "The Ashes of Sker Hotel" if they get pushed through the geometry in the Labyrinth - Fixed an issue causing people to get stuck if they fall into the core room in "The Cursed Lands of Lavernock"
- Updated NVIDIA DLSS to support NVIDIA DLSS 3.0
Once again, thank you for supporting Sker Ritual and our team! We hope you're enjoying all of the improvements and updates, and look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below and over on the Sker Ritual Discord!
If you also have a spare moment please do leave the game a review over on the Steam page which supports our Early Access Beta journey!