Patch 1.5: End Game Balancing

Patch 1.5 is a complete overhaul of the game that balances the end game scaling. Before, once you got your character rolling there was little that could stop you. This led to the leaderboard simply being a competition of who was willing to play the longest. This fixes that.

Note: Because of the nature of these changes, there is a new fresh leaderboard to compete on. You can still see the original leaderboard by clicking the Season 1 button in the top left corner, but all new scores will be going to the Season 2 leaderboard.

Mechanic Changes

• New Scoring System

  The leaderboard is now based on a player's score instead of how many floors they have completed.

  Players score is made up by the following

  3 points per floor completed. 1 point per enemy killed. 1 point per orb picked up.

• Enemies now scale faster depending on their type. Rats still scale at the same speed but knights scale much faster. This will lead to a higher variety in enemy strength in the end game.

• The cost for most items scale as you get deeper into the dungeon. This happens at a rate of +2 gold cost for every 5 floors completed. Some items do not scale, such as the potion.

Quality Of Life Changes

• You can now cancel purchasing a skill after you hit the buy button but before you assign it to a slot.

• The compass item now has unique art so it is easier to tell apart from the clock items.

• The quest tracker is now semi transparent. Reminder that you can hide the quest tracker completely with the 'Q' key or 'R1/LB' on a controller.

• The blood pact skill now has a text popup that shows how much time has been added.

• Quest rewards now scale as you go further in the dungeon. This ensures that quests are always worth doing.

Balance Changes

• Armor now blocks half of incoming damage, rounded up, instead of all damage. It will always block at least 1 damage.

• Necromancer item now gives +3 health per summon, up from +1.

• The immortality skill now lasts 3 seconds, down from 10.

• The time stop item, which makes time not move on the next floor, has been removed for now. I would like to add this item back in the future, but at the moment it creates too many exploits.

• The immortality skill now lasts 3 seconds, down from 10.

• You can now only purchase watch this (+1 clock on all floors) item once per run. The item was the main reason people were able to play indefinitely.

• There is now a maximum amount of 3 re-rolls you can earn, down from 12.

• Treasure chests now reward 3 gold, down from 5.

• Removed the oops all clocks item. It was way too powerful compared to other upgrades.

• Heart of Gold (switch your health and gold values) is now free.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the floors completed UI could sometimes be off by a few floors.

• Fixed a bug where a shop could sell you a skill you already own.

• Fixed a bug where the marked enemy quest did not interact correctly with the pied piper or dark soul item.

• Fixed a bug where the smite skill would not reward any gold. It now rewards gold the same way normal kills do.

• Fixed a bug where a specific quest would sometimes reward 110 gold instead of 10.

• Fixed a bug where the oops all.... items were not working correctly.

• The perm upgrade count in stats now shows the correct number of upgrades.

Reset

It is my hope that these changes will make the end game much more enjoyable. In a perfect world, this is the last leaderboard reset I will have to do. But the fact that I am a solo developer and the sheer amount of upgrade combinations in the game means I will likely need to do it again. I will always give substantial notice before creating a new season of leaderboard.

What's Next?

There are still a lot of enemy/item ideas I would like to add to the game. I have been working on bug fixes and balance changes since launch so I haven't been able to think about any new content. Hopefully this patch will put the game in a much better place where I can focus on expanding the game next.

Thanks for playing and to follow development you can follow me on Twitter