Patch #1.13.3 - Shepherd rework, fixes, and more!

It’s been a little over a month since the release of Into The Wild and the return of Dungeon Crawl! We’ve loved seeing all of the inventive ways players have discovered how to traverse through Gauntlet mode, and we can’t get enough of everyone falling in love with Lil Honey!

This patch centres around a couple of areas—a few dungeon glow-ups in Dungeon Crawl, quality-of-life changes, bug fixes, and a whole lot of sheep. The Shepherd oversees a new flock of upgraded sheep that now behave like our pet companions, rather than the one-hit taunt sponge they’ve been for quite some time. Read on below for all the info.

Dungeon Crawl

Gauntlet Leaderboard

First, let’s talk about leaderboards. We’ve read all of the feedback on the zero-round leaderboard scores. We can confirm that they are legitimate. Zero round scores are a heavy min-max meta centred on Focus abilities of certain characters. We had so many internal conversations and playtests around this meta to determine if and how we wanted to address it. By the end of the first month, the low rounds were not completely dominating the leaderboard. Ultimately, there is more than one way to post a high score - which we see as a good thing. We will continue to monitor the discussions on Discord, Reddit, and socials, and we’ll monitor the leaderboard and go through posted scores to ensure that scores are legit. We’re not opposed to changing the leaderboard formula; our overall goal is to make sure that Dungeon Crawl: Gauntlet is fun, honest, and has multiple ways to win. As this mode doesn’t have a “lifetime” high score like Dark Carnival, we are more open to changing things up, but for now we’re going to continue to observe and centre our discussions around the focus usage in certain modes.

Dungeon Glow Ups

Since we’re a smaller studio, we needed a bit more time to deliver the final versions of certain dungeons. This update brings in new visuals for the Flooded Crypt, Mage Dungeon, and the Water Temple. These are visual changes to reflect our initial vision of Dungeon Crawl. We hope you all like them as much as we do!

Steam post imageSteam post imageSteam post image

Animation Glow Ups

All of the unique Dark Carnival encounters (ie. Screeching Busker, Trapped Prey, etc) have received new overworld animations to further bring Dungeon Crawl to life. While we were in encounter animations, we also updated the Devious Enchanter, Pipe Smith, and the Trainer that appear in all chapters and modes.

Updates

Shepherd Update

The Shepherd has been at the bottom of most people’s tier lists for way longer than we’d like to admit. This update brings in a new mechanic for the Shepherd and a wider variety of new sheep companions.

• Nurture - A passive ability that rewards the Shepherds' companions with an XP boost and HP regeneration.

• Herd - Chance to summon one of several types of Sheep as a Companion and behave like other pets. Meaning they now gain XP and can level up alongside the Shepherd.

• The New Flock:

  • Basic Sheep: Now has higher HP, similar to the previous basic iteration.

  • Golden Ewe: A support-focused summon, the Golden Ewe can cast beneficial status effects on the party and will heal in a splash radius on death.

  • Shaggy Sheep: Tanky Sheep with high HP and strong Armour & Resistance. The Shaggy Sheep can also Taunt and Splash Defence Up on allies.

  • Demon Ram: Stun your enemies with the Demon Ram! Utility offered through this Sheep’s skills includes Dazing and Burning enemies, alongside a stun to give your party the upper hand.

  • Big Bad Wolf: This odd-looking fluffy friend comes with a ferocious bite attack and a Splash Attack Up status for its allies. It can also apply bleed and mark.

A New Age

• We’ve added more Portal and Teleport scrolls to the loot drops in the Void. We’ve seen the feedback about certain Void spawns being challenging to traverse. While we had previously felt we had enough drops to allow players to get around the Void comfortably, people were still getting stranded. Since this is a run-ending consequence, we wanted to improve the odds of being able to travel without having to lose a run.

Enemies and Balance

We’ve added two new enemy types and improved how Elementals and Golems behave.

New Enemies

• Desert Bandits (shown below)

  • A Parched Waste bandit prowling the barren lands looking for adventures to rob.

• Gun Bandits

  • Musket-toting bandits that can mark our heroes and take a critical advantage in combat.

• Elementals & Golems

  • Improved elemental immunities so that they are no longer immune to their counter-element. (ie - Fire Elemental is no longer immune to water)

  • Improved the elemental and golem loot drops so that they have a higher chance of dropping their corresponding elemental-themed equipment.

Gameplay

• The Woodcutter can now trigger Justice when equipped with a two-handed lance.

• Lances are now flex weapons and can be used in the front row or the back row.

• Mercs and Pets now share the benefits of herbs in non-combat phases. If the player uses a Panax in the overworld, their companion also gets their poison cured. Some instances are excluded; for example, Mercs don’t level up, so they don’t get any XP from Scholar’s Wort.

• We had a long discussion internally about the Fortune Teller’s channel ability carrying over from room to room in dungeons or siege battles. This goes against the initial implementation of the Fortune Teller’s channel ability; however, we’ve decided to leave it as is, as current feedback indicates it makes the character more fun and calculating in combat. In our internal playtesting, we felt it wasn’t overpowered, so it’s here to stay for now.

• Lil’ Honey and all pets can now be renamed from within the inventory menu.

• We’ve improved the Pathfinder to avoid hazards better (i.e chaos tiles) when navigating on the overworld.

Combat Pings

• In combat, players can now “ping” a tile on the combat grid. This can be done in single or multiplayer. This can be greatly beneficial in multiplayer sessions when trying to call out which enemy your squadmate should attack, or which hero the support class should target with their Party Heal.

Party Customization

• Players can now choose the character's default helmet with any cosmetic. Previously, changing to a new armour piece would prevent using the default helmet.

Online

We’ve moved the Party List over a bit and changed its opacity to allow for better visibility in online sessions. We’ve also reduced the amount it overlaps character faces in online party customization.

Bug Fixes

This update contains a host of fixes that were brought up by the community. Big thank you to everyone who reached out via Discord and Reddit or sent in-game bug reports. We may not be able to respond to all of them, but we try to read all posts and reports.

Noteworthy

• Fixed a softlock that could occur when feeding Pogey a shock-based weapon.

• Fixed an issue in A New Age when playing with the Beekeeper and Lil Honey could get assigned to a non-Beekeeper when interacting with King Jeremy.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur in the Dark Carnival if the party has 4 followers and attempts to summon Lil Honey multiple times.

• Fixed an issue where Shock splash damage wasn’t doing the intended damage. Lightning Books, Mystic Wand, and Queen Staves will now apply the correct shock splash damage.

• Improved the accuracy of the duration of the effects of fish grilled by the Angler.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur in combat when removing a cursed follower with a Hag’s Bane.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur when transferring equipment/items/gold from a dead party member when there is only one remaining hero alive.

Softlock

• Fixed a softlock that could occur when feeding Koola Honey Taffy while Kool has active damage modifiers.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur if the overworld markers exceeded a count of 13.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur in Child of Chaos when loading into an autosave in the Forgotten Guardhouse in the Royal Mimic encounter.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur if a Chaos and Scourge event activates at the same time as the party transitions back to the Overworld.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur after a Killer Bee uses their kamikaze attack and then the party attempts to go into a new bee combat encounter.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur if a party member was killed by thorn damage but was not properly removed from the party.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur when a Murder of Crows swarm has crows flee after non-crows have been killed in the same fight.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur in combat when one bomb attack was cancelled after Focus is applied, and the player then switches to another bomb.

• Fixed a softlock that could occur with the tower defence quest on A New Age.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where the Veteran’s Discount trait was not working as expected in the Merc Market of the Dark Carnival.

• Fixed an issue where consumed Focus for movement could be inadvertently applied to Dark Carnival encounter unfocusable rolls.

• Fixed an issue where the Kraken health bar would not disappear after killing the Kraken head.

• Fixed an issue where the fourth character would not always get the benefits of grilling fish.

Combat

• Fixed an issue where players could not cast Self-targeted abilities if they were on a combat tile that had previously been occupied by a Powder Keg.

• Fixed an issue where the Boss Killer trait was not receiving the proper buff when fighting certain Dungeon Crawl bosses.

• Fixed an issue where bombs may become “equipped” after cancelling item use in certain orders of operation.

Quest Markers

• Fixed an issue where certain quest markers may reveal Points-of-Interest hidden by clouds.

• Fixed an issue where certain encounters may unintentionally hide quest markers despite the encounter being in view.

• Fixed an issue where players could assign more than 4 player markers in certain situations.

UX/UI

• Fixed an issue with the Dungeon Crawl leaderboard showing the seed refreshed at local time and not fixed time.

• Fixed an issue where the Wheel Shield was not displaying the correct information in the item card.

• Fixed an issue where feeding pets kibble would not always show the correct popcorn text.

• Fixed an issue where saved presets were not respecting the No Helmet option

• Fixed an issue where being Linked with Aileen could cause a dead party member to show 1 HP.

• Fixed an issue where companion detail windows could not be opened after the owner had received buffs from a grilled fish.

• Fixed an issue where Young Godsfin was showing popcorn text twice.

• Fixed an issue where inventory tab counters were not always updating in real-time.

• Fixed an issue where Pet names and Player names could be displayed in All Caps in certain parts of the UI.

• Fixed the Powder Shot ability not using the correct icon.

• Fixed an issue where certain glass weapons were using an incorrect icon colour.

• Fixed an issue where scrolling over a gamerun with the mouse would not always select the hovered gamerun.

Art

• Fixed an issue where Bees were not playing a projectile when using their ranged ability.

• Fixed an issue with the Scoundrel not being centred on the combat encounter cam.

• Fixed an issue with the Pixie encounter cam where they could fly out of frame.

• Cleaned up some lines on the King’s Maze combat venue.

• Fixed an issue with Arachnophobia mode not displaying the correct portrait when Wild Spider joins the party.

• Cleaned up the armour clipping on the Dungeon Crawl Boss, Lord Balor.

• Cleaned up the Dungeon Crawl Boss, King Khufu, not holding their staff correctly,

• Cleaned up various ready-up animations in party customization.

• Fixed a barrel prop in the Rogue Isles that could misbehave.

• Fixed an issue where the Angler would not play their fishing animation if they were standing on a Rally Banner.

• Fixed an issue where shotguns were showing combat and idle animations inconsistently.

• Smoothed out instances where characters could appear to “slide” while travelling on the overworld.

• Fixed an issue where certain saved Beekeeper presets would make the Beekeeper’s backpack fall to the ground.

• Fixed an issue where loading into a gamerun where a character had died, their HUD profile picture was not updating correctly.

Controller

• Fixed an issue in combat where cancelling an ability with a controller prevented the player from navigating to other abilities.

Localization

• Fixed the missing non-English localization on the Sticky Kitty encounter in Dungeon Crawl.

• Fixed a missing localization string on the Omus charging ability.

• Fixed a missing localization string on a generic Stone Hero within a dungeon.

Thanks again, Intrepid Heroes! We can't wait to see your Dungeon Crawl scores this month. As always, we'll keep an eye on feedback and reports to ensure the best experience in the realm of Fahrul!

Happy adventuring!

⚔ ️IronOak Games

Join the IronOak Games and For The King community on: