Anniversary Update 1.1.0 Extended Patchnote

We wanted to make a proper patch note to go in details over exactly what changed in this update and why. If you like detailed patch notes (Numbers <3) or are looking for insight into why a feature got changed, here is the place.

The overall goal with this update was to use feedback and lessons learned from looking at player journeys to improve the game where it is lacking. We observed 3 exit points at which players usually quit the game, never to return :

1. Very early in the game, if they are struggling too much to beat the first boss. And the movement doesn’t “click”.
2. around 2-4 hours for some experienced players, usually around the time they finish their first run, but haven’t really engaged with the story.
3. around 15-20 hours, those are players that finished the story with the true ending.

Because roguelites are technically infinitely replayable, players choose their own end goal, for a lot of them that goal is finishing their first run. The intention with the story was to hook players in before they finish their first run so that their goal now becomes finishing the story. Thus this third exit point is actually the story working as intended. We focused our efforts for new players on smoothing out the early journey so they don’t quit at the first boss, but also increase the difficulty later to allow time for the story to hook the player before they finish their first run.

Reworked content

After looking extensively at player journeys since the release we noticed some areas of the game that could be improved. Especially relating to onboarding, D1 retention and long term retention. The following changes focus primarily on those key points.

Onboarding and early game pacing

From the feedback received as well as our own observations we noticed there was a big difficulty spike with the first boss. Mainly due to players not properly learning the Wall Run mechanic. Berude, the first boss, is a skill check for this traversal mechanic. She won’t let you pass until you’ve learned how to wall run in action. This difficulty spike would in turn frustrate a lot of players because the runback through Zagros and Aqueduct was so long.

Why was it happening ?

Players could use the air dash instead of the wall run for most platforming obstacles, and since it’s ubiquitous in platformers they are more comfortable with it. Meaning players took longer to master the wall run. To fix this :

• We added a lot of mandatory wall run sections (especially in the tutorial, Zagros and aqueduct) forcing the player to master it quickly.
• Added a Popup text reminding the player to use the wallrun if they haven’t used it in a long time. Displays the input for wall running.
• Buff wallrun by having it score vayu breath points. Incentivizing the player to use it more.
• Made the airdash distance a little bit smaller outside of Vayu, so it doesn’t outshine the wall run.

The first two biomes were too long, longer than we would like. It becomes painfully obvious when the player has to run through them over and over again for each attempt against Berude in the beginning.

• Made Zagros, Aqueduc and Huns camp shorter. They now appear more dense (in enemies and loot) which is good.

New players were meeting Berude too early. Because you cannot die during the tutorial, barely lose HP, and aqueduct isn’t much of a challenge, players usually meet Berude on their first run. Also a lot of players probably don’t know how the roguelite death loop works, they need to be taught that before being thrown in a die and retry loop with the boss so they can feel the progression.

• Rework the tutorial level to make the tutorial part smaller to have more challenges after it, so it feels like a real biome.
• Reduce the tutorial damage reduction passive to only start at 50% health, so players lose more health in the tutorial, so they can die in the second biome.
• Fountains now have to be unlocked per biome in Paachi’s Tent. Blueprints are acquired after exiting each biome for the first time. This prevents players familiar with the genre from beating the game on their first run. While adding progression checkpoints throughout the journey for first run completion, adding a feeling of having conquered a biome.
• With this, we no longer needed to delay the apparition of medallion to the second run. Moved medallion tutorial to tutorial biome, players now get medallions in their first run. Getting the real experience sooner.
• During the Berude fight there is one attack that gets beginners more often then any others which is the rock wave coming from the boss vertical slam attack. They add a bit too much to the confusion of trying to read the fight for the first time. That rock wave will now only appear from the 2nd wave onward.

With these changes as well as the balancing changes mentioned below we manage to kill beginner players in aqueduct during the first run. They usually need to either learn the mechanics or invest skill points in health/potion options to arrive at Berude for the first time, by which point they are better armed to face the boss. It also becomes all the more rewarding when they finally defeat her.

Vayu

Vayu breath bar (speed boost) is a mechanic players really like. But with it fully refilling with any parkour move of kill, any progression geared towards it felt trivial (especially with corrupted medallions). With the added Vayu scoring to back wall run it became clear that this needed to change.

• Additions to the vayu score no longer fill the entire vayu anymore while in Vayu, they just add to the current score like they do outside of Vayu.
• Wallrun now add to the Vayu score
• Attacks hit now add to the Vayu score

Final boss

The final boss, Corrupted Nogai, didn’t live up to its place in the run in terms of difficulty and spectacle. He should make the player feel like the Prince is no longer just saving his family, he’s saving the world. To achieve this goal we had two angles to tackle the problem from : the combat gameplay itself and the cutscene after the fight.

Corrupted Nogai fight

• Added building in the background to fix the lacking parallax. Helping land the scale of the boss better.
• During the intro cutscene, when Nogai transforms, one of these buildings crumbles, to illustrate the destruction and power this enemy represents before he even appears.
• The other remaining two buildings crumble during the boss phase transition.
• Stronger rumble feedback in Intro for when his hands land on the ground.
• Added corrupted flames that appear during the fight, behind the game ground, then in front of it, escalating the threat and filling the screen.
• Added corrupted tentacles to the sides, purely to help reading the arena’s boundaries.

We also changed 2 of his existing patterns to improve the spectacle :

• Lightning attack : instead of having just a couple of lightning strikes around the player, he now summons them over the entire arena at regular distance intervals. Works like the previous version, just scarier.
• Spear attack : during phase 3, he summons 5 spears at the same time. While not harder to dodge it does get that wow effect.
• Added fiery meteors that fall from the sky continuously after phase 1. Their numbers increase in phase 3. They are stopped by collisions, so most of the time they won’t reach the prince.

With these changes as well as some balancing, the fight now look like a proper boss fight.

Corrupted Nogai outro direction

Once the boss is defeated the game plays one of two similar cutscenes depending on whether or not it’s the true ending. These cutscenes also lack spectacle, and although it has a prime spot to help drive the story, it doesn’t really. They were like this because of time constraints at the end of production. We took this opportunity to give them the love they need.

Previously : The boss would fall on his face, dead. Start emanating corrupted smoke, which would kill the Prince in the normal ending. In the true ending the Prince would resist the corruption thanks to the armor, and place the bola onto the boss head, transferring to the Nogai inside.

Now : The boss now passes out standing. The corrupted hands from his body would forcibly open his mouth, grab the prince and force feed him to the unconscious boss. After a short bite transition, we find our prince in the belly of the beast, where an unconscious Nogai is imprisoned. While trying to reach the desperate chief Hun, the prince would ultimately succumb to the environmental corruption, dying and being transferred to the bola. In the true ending the prince resists the corruption like previously. Now able to move freely and reach Nogai, the prince (after a short dialogue) places his bola onto Nogai transitioning the cinematic like before.

These new cutscenes achieve more than they previously did :

• The state of Nogai is clearer, which helps understand how saving him saves us in the end.
• Until the true ending the final is never seen fully defeated, helping transition players whose goal it was to just finish a run to now find how to truly defeat the final boss.
• It adds massively more spectacle.

New Content

With this update we wanted to cater to new but also returning players. As such we added new content that would increase the combinatory possibilities of the game.

Freeze

We felt there was room for an additional source of crowd control, one that would open new avenues for build synergies and also have more juice than our current stun.

• Added a new systemic element to the game : The freeze.

When applied once to an enemy they are kicked and thrown farther. When applied twice they are frozen in place, lose their shield, and take reduced damage. When the effect ends they are dealt an amount of damage depending on the number of stacks applied. Dealing damage to them reduces the remaining duration of the freeze. Kicking rocks or other mobs instantly ends the effect.

It also synergize with other elements :

• Fire : Reduces the duration faster
• Poison : isn’t affected by the damage reduction
• Resin and Water : apply a second stack to any enemy that already has one

New stats

This is to help clarify the vocabulary. Some items were already playing with those, they are now standardized.

• Critical Damage
  • Increases the amount of damage dealt by critical hits (Additive)
• Damage Resistance
  • Reduces incoming damage (Multiplicative)

Affixes

We noticed weapon choice was lacking depth, this made players gravitate towards their favorite weapons pretty often. This behavior further diminishes weapon variety. We needed a way to make other weapons sometimes more attractive in context without having to change all weapons. Additionally some weapons don’t really have clear avenues for synergies and thus struggle to find their way into players builds.

• Added affixes to weapons and tools.

Affixes are random modifiers applied to items. Items get one affix for each tier above iron (Iron : 0, Bronze : 1, Silver : 2, Gold : 3, Diamond : 4). Weapons can get one additional affix per Astara upgrade. Astara can also reroll all the affixes on an item, for a price. This also means mid and late game builds have another synergie factor which requires balancing for.

There are a total of 22 affixes. They focus on synergies that already exist in medallions, so that one could fit better into the player’s current loadout than their favorite one.

• Simple damage increase:
  • +10% Damage
  • +20 Damage per Hit
• Energy regeneration/reduction:
  • +10 Energy on Hit
  • +50 Energy on Kill
  • +30 Energy on Critical Hit
  • -25% Energy Tool Cost (Tools only)
• Elemental status increase damage:
  • +50% Damage to Poisoned enemies
  • +50% Damage to Frozen enemies
  • +50% Damage to Burning enemies
  • +50% Damage to enemies in Resin
  • +100% Damage to enemies with Protection Aura
  • +30% Damage to Stunned enemies
• Vay’u Breath generation bonuses:
  • +20% Vay’u Breath on Critical Hit
  • +10% Vay’u Breath on Hit,
  • +50% Vay’u Breath on Kill
• Critical modifiers:
  • +10% Critical Chance
  • +30% Critical Damage
• Performing actions increase timed damage boost:
  • +50% Damage for 2s after using your Tool (Weapon only)
  • +25% Damage for 2s after Wall running
  • +40% Damage for 2s after using your Weapon (Tool only)
• Others:
  • +25% Special Attack Damage (Weapon only)
  • +50% Damage on Backstab

New Weapons

The affixes did help for weapon variety, but it can always use more, so we added 2 new weapons. We also needed some weapons to help showcase some of the new stats/elements.

• Shamal Crescent : The freeze blade
  • Release a wind slash with every attack
  • Special applies one stack of freeze
• Blazing Cuffs : The Damage resistance fists
  • Damage increases with total damage resistance
  • Special : Cast a 5 second shield that increases damage resistance and burns at the end
  • Critical condition : When the shield is active and the enemy burning

New Tools

Tools did lack variety, so we added more of them.

• Flaming Horses : Chinese new year (Added previously in 1.0.5)
  • Energy cost : 60
  • Unleashes a herd of flaming horses that charge forward, leaving a burning trail.
• Freezing Arrow Launcher : Freeze bow
  • Energy Cost : 30
  • Shoots a single ice arrow, applying freeze to the target.
• Ice Trap : Freeze bomb (first trap tool)
  • Energy cost : 40
  • Deploys a trap that triggers on proximity. It deals damage to nearby enemies and applies freeze to enemies in a wider radius.
• Corrupted Turret : Elemental turret (first turret)
  • Energy cost 60
  • Summons an automatic turret that fires arrows imbued with the status applied on the turret. (Max: One turret deployed at a time)

New Medallions

For the same reason with new element and stats come new medallions :

Basic :

• Critical Sharpener : Increase Critical Damage (Left and Right)

Rare :

• Vault Toxin : Vault spawns poison cloud (Added for the new onboarding)
• Freezing Shieldbreaker : Breaking protective aura freeze nearby enemies
• Freezingly Critical : Critical hits freeze enemies
• Freezing Breath : When Vay’u Breath ends, nearby enemies are frozen
• Freezing Blade : Attacks have 20% chance to freeze enemies
• FrostBreaker : Shattering a Frozen enemy inflicts an additional 100% damage.
• Freezing Murderer : Killing an enemy freezes nearby enemies
• Freezing Dive : Dive attacks freeze enemies.
• Piercing Frost : Your attack ignores the damage resistance of Frozen enemies, dealing full damage.

New Achievement

We underestimated the will of players to earn all achievements. Knowing this now we feel we missed an opportunity with having an achievement related to difficulty modifiers. We are changing this to better reflect the intended difficulty level for completing the game and give a reason for achievement hunters to engage with the difficulty system.

• Added an achievement for completing a run with awakening 40+ (Note : Due to platform constraints on consoles, this achievement will only be available on Steam)

Arenas

Biomes were missing some more variability as well as player agency. Especially to get that Stop-orMore effect.

• Added arena rooms biomes

These act like a combat challenge room. The player chooses if they want to risk a dangerous fight for more loot. Players will find them in biomes (up to one per biome). Once the fight is started the player cannot escape until all waves of enemies are defeated.

New Victory screen and run history

An often asked feature from long time players was a better way to share their builds, and somewhere to look at past runs. So we added those. The victory screen appears in the Bola space after defeating the final boss, just before returning to the Oasis. Players can unlock the run history in Paachi’s shop, and then consult it next to the Prince tent in the Oasis. There players will find summaries of all their recent runs (victory or failure), everything needed to improve.

• Added Victory screen in bola space
• Added unlockable Run History interactable in Oasis

New Timer accessibility option

The speedrunning community asked for an in-game timer for better support of console players. On PC they can hook onto what they need on their own, but on console this isn’t an option. So speedrunners usually gather around a shared in-game timer to standardize run times across platforms. The timer can be set to one of a few modes depending on if they want pauses to pause the timer, and if new runs should reset the timer.

• Added UI timer option

Balancing

As mentioned at the beginning, players are completing their first run too early, and some complain the game is too easy with base difficulty. So we made balance changes now that we understand better what works and what doesn’t.

Difficulty

Nogai

This boss was too easy for the expectation players have for a last boss, even if it’s his first phase. The fight is still varied and fun, he isn’t really missing any pattern or anything. So we just pushed his timings towards leaving less down time and the ability to start other actions during his falling rocks attack. With the fight now harder we reduced his HP.

• HP : 15,000 -> 13,000
• Reduced timing in all his attacks recovery
• Shorter duration of his laser sweep

Corrupted Nogai

He has the same issues as his first combat, he has a lot of down time where he gets bullied or where the player is waiting for him to move. Also he is bigger in this version, he should have more health than Nogai.

• HP : 12,000 -> 15,000
• Faster spears action to have some overlap
• Fist slam attack : slams 2 times instead of three in phase 1 & 2
• Shorter interval between fist slams, shorter even with each phase
• Shorter rockwave in Fist slams (to account for new airdash distance)
• Shorter cooldowns between attacks

Palace Archers

The mobs in the palace, while having more health and damage than their base version, really felt like a step back in difficulty. For that we decided that they should also feel stronger than their base version, not just in stats but in behaviour. Unfortunately we only got around to updating the archer.

• Shoots 2 arrows in quick succession (Timings remains the same)

Mobs

Most mobs are shared between adjacent biome layers (ex: Zagros and aqueduct, port and district). This brings 2 issues :

• Because mobs have a unique set of stat they usually feel weaker in the second biome.
• A lot of the mobs in the base unlocked biomes overlap (ex: Zagros and Aqueduc share Hatchet, Lookout, Brute, Bomber. Only Pangolin gets swapped for Spiker)

To remedy this we moved around some mobs to mitigate the impression of lack of content in early playthrough, by showcasing more of the cast of mobs. Prioritizing stronger mobs for the second biome in the pair.

• Lancer replaces Hatchet in Aqueduct
• Archer replaces Bomber in Aqueduct
• Spinner replaces Duelist in Garden
• Arbalist replaces Assassin in Oblivion

Some mobs have low stats for the biome they’re in. Buffed some of them to allow them to survive one more hit, or kill the player a bit faster

• Archer : Dmg 20 -> 30 ; Health 50 -> 60
• Archer-Palace : Dmg 55 -> 60
• Bomber : Health 80 -> 90
• Inquisitor : Health 200 -> 240
• Lizard : Dmg 25 -> 30
• SkyStalker : Health 50 -> 60
• Hatchet : Health 80 -> 90
• Haatcher-Palace : Damage 60 -> 70
• Dualist : Health 200 -> 220

Because mobs are shared between adjacent biome layers, the second biome needs something other than stats to be more difficult. One way to do that is to increase their numbers.

• Changed the number of mobs in biomes :
  • Huns 45 to 55 -> 40 to 50
  • Academy 45 to 55 -> 50 to 60
  • Aqueduc 40 to 50 -> 50 to 60
  • Port 50 to 60 -> 60 to 70
  • Temple 45 to 60 -> 55 to 70
  • District 50 to 60 -> 70 to 80
  • Garden 45 to 50 -> 70 to 80
  • Palace 40 to 60 -> 80 to 90

Items balance

Weapons

A few weapons have specials that dealt more damage than intended, nerfing them to one step lower.

• Cest special : Reduced damage on the second part, total damage 100/110/160/184/256 -> 80/90/120/148/208
• Kaali Scythe special : Reduced damage on the dash part, total damage 130/142/200/228/328 -> 110/122/160/192/272
• Mace Special : Damage 110/120/160/200/288 -> 80/87/120/136/192

Tools

The “Saw” is unquestionably the most powerful tool in the game by a mile. We nerfed its damage by half to bring it more inline with other tools. Considering the many advantages it has (area of effect/passive damage/stacking) this might not even be enough, but lower than that and it starts feeling useless outside of bosses. Additionally its damage descriptor doesn’t really reflect its power, a DPS indicator makes more sense.

• Saw :
  • Damage per hit 20 -> 10
  • Changed damage descriptor to DPS

Skills

“Verethragna’s Stamina” felt too random, sometimes players wouldn’t get heals for a long time, others would get multiple in quick succession. Making this source of health more consistent.

• Reworked “Verethragna’s Stamina” : drops a first aid 2% chance on kill every 25 enemies killed.

Critical

The critical build was overly strong, and synergized with everything (Weapon Damage, Special Damage, Weapon crit conditions, Tool crit, Crit triggers in medallions). The best by far. We still feel it should be a good and strong build but not so much above everything else. A big part of why this happens is the damage scaling stacking multiplicatively and doubling with crits.

• Critical hits deal 200% damage -> 150% damage
• Critical damage stack modifiers are now applied additively
  • Previously : Damage x (base Critical damage x ( 1 + stacked Critical modifiers))
  • Now : Damage x (base Critical damage + stacked Critical modifiers)
• Critical Greed : 20 Gold on crit -> 10 Gold on Crit

We added 2 base medallions to still allow for the busted build, but it will take more luck and more medallion slots

• Critical Sharpener Left : +10% Critical damage, 15% if Right is equipped
• Critical Sharpener Right : +10% Critical damage, 15% if Left is equipped

Medallion pacing

The number of medallion slots is a really big factor in the power level of the player’s build. We observed a really big variability in the number offered to players each run, with some reaching 7 slots after the first biome while others are still only at 3 slots when fighting the final boss. Some would even get more medallion slots than medallions offered, which is a problem. To make that number less variable and more reliable we changed when slot increase was offered, as well as dropping more medallions.

• Removed “Add medallion slot” item from chests
• Removed “Add medallion slot” item from medallion gamblers
• Added “Add medallion slot” to Shops for a price (50% chance to appear in each shop)
• Added “Add medallion slot” to bosses loot. Bringing the minimum slots to 5 when finishing a run
• Elites now drop a random medallion in addition to minor heal

Bug fixes

Obviously we fixed a whole many many bugs that we won’t all mention here. So here are the most noteworthy ones.

• Fixed an issue with cloud saves where an old run would take priority over a more recent global save
• Fixed an issue with achievement on XBox where the last achievement (Platinum) would never unlock
• Fixed an issue that would cause weapons to no longer deal any damage for the rest of the session
• Fixed some medallion descriptions in french (had Fire icon instead of Stun/Poisoned/Resin)
• Fixed an issue where skipping the ending cinematic wouldn’t stop its music
• Fixed a few cutscenes with Nyamtur where his face would remain neutral throughout

Now go smack some huns ! Good luck on your runs !

Cheers, Joseph