August Update - Playtest, Overhauls, Ascensions, and Controllers!

The August playtest is open. Sign up on the store page and jump in!

Discuss this update: https://steamcommunity.com/app/3739840/discussions/ Join on Discord: https://discord.gg/hcvGzeWCG3

These are the notes for build 0.21. It was meant to be a polish pass on everything the July playtest turned up, and it grew a bit. Ring 1 ends on a real boss now, there are ten Ascension levels waiting once you finish a campaign, and the whole game plays on a pad.

Same as last time: this is a playtest, not a demo. We want to know what breaks.

The big stuff

Visual overhaul

We've done a huge visual pass across the game, including new enemy animation blends, textures, spell effects, shaders and more. Enjoy!

Ascensions

Ten levels of New Game+: Win a campaign and the next level unlocks. They stack, so a run at Ascension 4 carries every modifier from 1 through 4. You pick your level on the campaign prep screen.

1. All combats contain 1 additional Greater enemy

2. 2 additional minions spawn when a Greater enemy dies

3. Gems and health crystals no longer regenerate before combat

4. Enemies have more health, and grow tougher with each ring

5. Groups of enemies can attack 50% more often

6. Cursed items appear 20% more often, and shop items cost 20% more

7. Rite nodes contain 1 additional Greater enemy

8. Enemies have even more health, scaling higher with each ring

9. Enemies gain 20% haste, initiating their attacks faster

10. Projectiles are 20% faster

The Overcharged Godwrought Ravager

Ring 1 ends on an actual boss. An iron golem that's been standing on the gate's live conduits since the elder days, drinking far more power than it was built to hold, and it has to vent the excess or burst.

Perseverance

Dying on a node now gives you a comeback buff on that node. Each death stacks +20% damage and +1 shield capacity up to four stacks, and all of it drops the moment the node is cleared or you leave it. It doesn't accrue on Ascension runs.

Savage Orbs

New pickup. +5 Attack Power and +5 Spell Power for 8 seconds, stacking three times. You mostly get them by interrupting dangerous casts, and a few Conduits generate them on their own.

Bullion shop

A second currency with its own vendor, stocking what gold doesn't sell: three extra lives, a Conduit draft, a health crystal, a gem draft, a prismatic crystal, a Consecrate charge, and rare gear drafts.

Conduits

Design and implementation passes on the level 1 and level 2 sets. The level 1 pass leans hard into keystone mechanics that you might plan builds around. Ring 2 Conduits lean heavier into raw damage, and have attribute requirements.

Controller support

First pass of controller support is here! It's rough on the fringes, not all UI screens are perfectly responsive to your input. Still a work in progress.

Battlecaster Logs

We've rolled out a full combat analysis suite, to enable you to analyze your gameplay at https://battlecasterlogs.com/. A big inspiration of Battlecaster 2 in terms of our design for longevity, is the "parsing" community in MMO's and speed running community in various titles. Our logs site is our way of leaning into this sort of community building.

Gameplay and balance

• Major pass on enemy AI pathing

• Rage stops decaying for 1.5 seconds after you deal damage

• Two new event nodes

• Rares cost 2x and epics 4x in the shop

• Potions and scrolls are gone, to be re-implemented later on.

• Removed the Rimefang Sigil

• Removed the -10% damage curse from the Engulfment

• Wormbeak melee damage lowered from 2 to 1.

• Removed burning status effect from Wormbeak fireballs

• You can no longer equip or unequip during events and combat

Feel and visuals

• Overhauled the enemy animation system

• Enemies flinch when you hit them. Landing a hit on something already in a hit reaction or standing idle used to read as nothing happening, so their bones get nudged now and you can see the impact go in.

• After-images on movement abilities

• New triplanar shader and a grass system

• Texture pass on Ring 1

• Enemy readability pass

• Better green gem and white gem visuals

• Better ambient audio

• Blood gets cleaned up on scene exit instead of following you into the next one

UI

• Full damage attribution in the combat log, so you can see exactly what killed you

• Ascension selector on the prep screen

• Bullion shop UI

• Renamed Trinkets to Conduits

Fixes

• The starting choice event could offer you the same option twice, fixed.

• Items didn't always auto equip. Fixed.

• The "new" marker no longer sticks on items that get equipped instantly, and it shows up on cursed items like it should

• Engulfment curses were hitting filled cells, including challenge and shop cells you'd already unlocked, fixed.

• Ring 2 nodes wouldn't generate through normal game flow, fixed.

• The first node on Ring 2 didn't always trunk properly, so you'd see other nodes linked off the start

• Removed the Ring 2 first node encounter, and renamed the first node event

• The escape menu did nothing on the map after you died, so there was no way back to the menu

• Return to menu is back, and exiting to the main menu does a proper cleanup instead of leaving state behind

• Reward screen option texts were wrong

• Conduit effects were leaking from run to run, fixed.