Daily Challenges!

Each day there is a Daily Challenge where everyone gets to take on the same run. This will decide the character, starting spells, modifiers and dungeon layout. Starting spells are non-standard, all badges will be considered unlocked for consistency, and each run is +2 rank.

This isn’t meant as a fierce competition and there are no scores or attempt limits (although you’re free to self-impose!). It is a daily dose and a chance to try something a little bit different. This has prompted a bit of rewrite and modifier shake up. So I have also added some more modifiers, removed some duds, and rebalanced some existing ones.

The Gang's All Here

Although they are somewhat cryptic, the quests to unlock the fourth, fifth and sixth characters are no longer hidden. For clarity, these extra 3 characters have been playable from launch providing the player completed certain hidden quests, but I am making them easier to find because completion rate was very low. Also, keeping up the pretence these were hidden would make daily quests extremely clunky… it just didn’t seem right to hide these so well.

Pwca Stone Shop

The intentionality behind Pwca’s design is that she has access to every spell. As she cannot naturally generate certain stones, and is less likely to obtain generator spells, her shop usually stocked special Spells to swap stone types like “Curse Weapons” which turned all Daggers into Soul Gems.

Unfortunately, not only does this require a lot of different things to line up, it also takes up an entire spell slot. This usually isn’t worth it and regulates Pwca into playing as a discount Gwen or Aerfen with a lot of dud options.

To remedy this, when playing as Pwca she now has an expanded shop for additional stones. Once purchased, these will be added to regular the rotation of stones that drop. I wondered about what to do with her old “bridge” Spells and I decided it would be better to just... get rid of them. So, a hot new feature in the first update: Less spells!

This also makes a certain quest impossible so that has changed (vague much?) and makes the Exodia Spell a lot easier to cast. So I've reduced its power to Dragon Slave levels. Honestly, it’s just a bit of fun, you could already use Scythe on it, and I’m not too precious about these things… but that did seem a bit too silly.

Scrying Is Free

Scrying was overvalued as a mechanic. It is now always unlocked, always free, and has no associated modifiers.

Balance Changes

• Modifier feature is now unlocked after meeting 3 bosses rather than 5
• When a modifier removes a map node it is less likely to place a camp in a dead-end
• Stones created by Spells will not deprioritise replacing Jammers, Corruption and Drosera
• Incoming stone status effects will continue to prioritise stones that do not already have a status, but if forced they will replace an existing effect instead of doing nothing
• Player character will heal after defeating Arawn
• M.O.T.H.E.R. Medical Drone base damage down from 4 to 2
• Warmech self-heal down from 10 to 5
• Arawn casts anti-magic shield last in sequence
• Ice and Fire Elementals won’t sync their attacks and attack lowered from 5 to 3
• Cleaning Droid base damage down from 6 to 4
• Sprout Badge now adds +0 damage allowing the recipient to scale
• Sprout Badge has no maximum value
• Chaff Spell now has a normal cast sequence and deals +1 damage for each Jammer on the board
• Tantrum Spell is now 0 damage with no Pain keyword
• Pact Spell damage down from 3 to 2
• Hidden Blade Spell damage increased from 2 to 3
• Riposte Spell no longer has the cooldown keyword
• Nemesis Spell cast sequence reduced
• Bloodlust Spell also has 1 damage and 2 leech
• Propagate Seeds Spell now also heals for 2
• If a floor has a portal open then clearing the boss will not end the run

Bug Fixes And Clarity:

• Added a tooltip on summons explaining there is a limit of 2
• Clear Mind tooltip made a bit clearer
• Clear mind, as with similar effects, no longer touches stones inside the active path and clarification has been added to all these spells as a sub-tip
• Nodes with no content (i.e. a Blessing when you have every Blessing) will now be marked as complete upon entering the floor
• Quickly navigating to an entity with the controller while they are still fading out no longer orphans the cursor
• Gamepad can no longer swap badges onto restricted spells
• Pain keyword reduces Rage stacks
• Evading a Barrage attack will not prevent statuses being applied to other targets
• All direct damage should proc rage (even if reduced to zero by block or plate)
• Poison no longer triggers Vulnerable
• Self-damage does not trigger thorns
• Player character’s bonus damage is no longer added to Volatile
• Perk description on character select will always appear
• The small Foxglove icon no longer moves 1 pixel to the left when activated
• Green stones are a little bit more rounded
• The Repeat keyword is crossed out on spells with End Path keyword