Dream Cycle Major Update 1: The Quickening Update

Hi folks! Wake up and arm yourselves because, just like the game, this patch note is going to take you on a big adventure. Check out our new trailer and screenshots of the game (which you can view on our steam page). Listen to Morgan's tale as she reveals the predicament she's in. Join with her as her story unravels whilst adventuring through the Dreamlands. Her goal; to recover her own powers and thwart Randolph's sinister plans to become a god.

Before we relay the multitude of changes your way, we want to take this moment to highlight a few things and, most importantly, thank you for taking this adventure with Morgan into Dream Cycle.

We saw option customizations suggested by the community and can report that we've managed to include them into this build. You'll see such options as; more buttons can now be remapped, options to turn off motion blur, toggle/hold for crouch and run and the spell buttons for keyboard users being separated. UI tweaks such as map screen legends have also made it in. Thank you again for your suggestions, and keep them coming!

In the waking world, we want to highlight our world enhancements. We started with lighting and, seeing how interesting it was getting, we pushed forward to create flowing waterfalls, sun-touched snow, more props, better building layouts and generally a more breathtaking world all around.

Combat has also been improved; we've added more animation and refinements. Fight to your heart's content, and let us know how it feels!

Finally, we would love the community to have some fun with Photo Mode. With all the changes to beautify Dream Cycle, it would be amazing to see your favourite shots and show the community and us what wonders you'll see on your adventure.

Now, onwards to the notes!

Lighting overhaul

• All lights increased

• Decreased ambient fogging in all conditions

• Player light attached to character not camera

• Added light to astral character

Reworked Mouse and Keyboard controls

• Changed the basic keyboard layout to combo sprint and dodge on Left Shift.

• Split the Ranged spell button onto the Q button on the keyboard.

• Enabled remapping of spell slot keys

• New Spell slot shelf for keyboard mode with separated Ranged and personal spells.

New Photo Mode Added

• From the main menu there is an option to enter the mode.

• On the keyboard you can press N to start it anytime.

• Offers camera and other options to compose screenshot

• Screenshots saved to Steam as usual

Astral Projection

• Doubled range

• Added light to character

• Camera angle no longer changes on use

• Enemies no longer invisible when far away from Morgan

• Added ability to mark an objective and have it remain visible after exiting projection

• Added cloud to show general location of an enemy that has not been spotted yet

Item Spawning

• Added visual and sound effects call attention to new drops

• More gold drops

• Added Disassembly system that breaks down duplicate or over capacity items into components that can be used to buy other upgrades

• Increased chance for perks, spells, and vouchers from chests

• More potions in chests

• Balancing of prices for items in Cavern

World Updates

• New “settlements” system concentrates gameplay

• Moved chests into spaces with enemy patrols

• Added set dressings

• Added new destructible items

• Increased minimum building size to reduce very tight spaces

• Tuned several rock layouts to be more climbable

• The denizens of the Dreamlands have become more aware of their environment. You’ll now find them eating, sleeping, practicing their attack moves and engaged in many other activities.

• Forests have been tuned to be less dense overall

• Added waterfalls, which can be used to hide (like a bush)

• Updated level art

• Snow now can be found up in the mountains.

• Reenabled Ruins Location style

• Separated Ruins / Outside habitation from Inside habitation

• The world now has a sky with clouds and stars!

• Edge of the mist has been improved and the old ‘card’ system removed.

• Increased interaction distance and spread range

• Decreased amount of intersection allowed for props

Combat

• Tuned weak spot size and time to make the weak spot gameplay more accessible at lower difficulty levels.

• Decreased the noise level of explosive spells

• Ichor no longer returns mana

• Tightened the timing on perfect dodge

• Slightly increased sprint speed

• Slightly increased Shadow Step range

• Kicking Weakspots now launches enemies

• Machine guns had their damage decreased and ammo increased

• Fixed a bug where once a machine gun had crit once, all following hits were automatically crits

• Picking up treasure now automatically also picks up all nearby treasure

• Kick launches at higher angle

• Added force to kick

• Flying kick can launch Eidolon

• Added stamina bar to enemies

• Added stamina regen after hit reacts

• Fixed sound on silenced pistols

• Added Arrow drop prediction for weak spot targeting

• All Bows had their projectile velocities tuned. Crossbow bolts are slower, Longbow arrows are faster.

• Fixed a bug that meant you could shoot yourself or throw a grenade into yourself

• You can no longer be damaged by other enemies if you are in the middle of an ‘execution’ animation.

• Fixed an issue where you could hit a weak spot with your sword even if it was out of range.

• Updated melee targeting to avoid hitting the environment when there is an enemy nearby

• Dodge is now a part of sprint

• Ghoul attacks have been replaced by single strikes

• Kick has had its range increased

• Added parry when you use the dodge button with no directional input.

• All new kick, sword and dodge animations to add weight and variety to combat

• Added new player combat FX and SFX

• Fixed two issues that caused melee attacks to sometimes fail to hit

• Added mini shadow strike when hitting weakspots during normal sword combat

• Improved hit FX

• Removed Second swing from one of the pagan attacks

• Added an attack flash to enemies just before they attack

• Parry does not stagger ranged enemies anymore

• Parry opens an extra large weakspot

• First person animations added for all the new sword attacks

• Added all new motion capture executes for Ghouls and Humans

• All executes happen in third person now

• Changed weakspot render distance to be at max all the time

• Removed Root motion on backwards sword attack

• Made velocity changes smoother on new sword attacks.

• Added a small amount of warping on forwards and side sword attacks if you are pointing at an enemy when attacking

• Lowered the multiplier on the stab attack

• Sword and kick attacks align to the target

• Execute is no longer a hold to charge followed by a release, it is now just a longer hold on the attack. Tap to strike, Hold to Shadowstrike.

• Aim assist has been fixed

• Re-enabled Aim assist for mouse users

• Aim assist strength can be set in the options for both mouse and controller separately

• Lowered stamina for most enemies, meaning they can be interrupted more easily with normal attacks

• Increased stamina damage for swords

• Enemies have a short hit pause when hit if they don’t stagger

• Witches do less damage overall

• Removed uninterruptible from several attacks

• Increased shotgun force

• Added alert warhorn for Pagan women - draws nearby enemies to the fight

• Higher tier enemies don’t have such extremely shortened weakness windows

• Successful parries now open slightly longer weakness windows than a normal hit react

• Increased Sprint speed slightly

• Added Sprint full screen effect to help you know that you are in sprint

• Changed the screen edge feedback for crouching to a blue glow on the bottom of the screen instead of the previous vignetting

• Added second execution animation for Ghouls

• Tuned Machine Gun base damage up, but lowered crit damage to compensate

• Increased Gug Weakspot size

• Eidolons are much less likely to be launched by kick or explosions

• Increased Eidolon damage and Stamina

Magic

• Fixed a bug where Grenade weapons could fail to explode if they hit an enemy weak spot

• Grenade Weapons are now thrown from the character not the camera

• If a ‘Grenade’ type spell fails to cast (no room to appear) you will not be charged mana. This is true for bullets too.

• Glyphs of force are generally more powerful

• Mana can now go negative allowing you to cast so long as the regen will end up positive

• Glyphs have lower cooldowns but cost a bit more

• Spell of light now does a better job of lighting up the environment nearby and has a visible source in third person

• Increased range of Raven Swarm

• Doubled range of Glyph placement.

• Fixed inconsistent mana costs for Glyphs

Tutorials

• Fixed up First Ichor Tutorial

• Fixed up First combat Tutorial

• Fixed up Equip spells Tutorial

• Improved path out of Big combat room in the tutorial

• Fixed up the Shadow Step Tutorial

• Added Kick Launch Tutorial on Bridge

• Objective marker on Arch and Gate during intro

• Objective Marker marking tutorial In Cavern Of Flames

Miscellaneous

• Removed Rusty Sword

• Added Basic Sword voucher to Cavern of Flame to ensure minimum weapon

• Basic sword is free from vending machine

• Added experience bar to main display

• Improved end of level chest and portal spawning to safe spacing

• Edge outlines fade at distance

• New core spawning algorithm scales the spawn quantities by Adventure Tier with more variance, making for a smoother difficulty ramping curve as the Adventure Tier (difficulty) increases.

• New core spawning algorithm scales the spawn quantities by Adventure Tier with more variance, making for a smoother difficulty ramping curve as the Adventure Tier (difficulty) increases.

• Arch pieces should be much harder to find

• The difficulty varies much more across the map

• There are more Revenant areas now

• Motion blur can be disabled in settings

• Mouse Acceleration can be disabled in settings

• FOV and its relation to turn rate has been modified to (hopefully) be closer to industry standards.

• Hooked up aim assist strength for both controller and mouse in settings

• New camera mode button added. D-pad down and Keyboard ‘V’. Tap to swap shoulders, hold to switch between First and Third Person modes.

• Eternal flame motes spread across zone after first level

• Removed cursor during cutscenes