The Arena & Balance Update: Weekly Update #5

Weekly Update!

Hello! Welcome to our Fifth Weekly Patch Notes!

We are continuing the Thursday/Friday weekly update and remain on schedule for our 1.0 release in August!

Just like all weekly updates these patch notes are divided into the Default Branch and Beta Branch Updates. This week the previous Beta Branch has been rolled into the new Default Branch completely.

The new Beta introduces a lot of new features and polish focusing on a reworked arena, balance changes, and a focus on smashing some of the more obscure bugs.

Hope you all enjoy!

DEFAULT BRANCH UPDATE:

NEW FEATURES

This week's default update reworks crafting from the ground up, overhauls combat targeting and presentation, and gives every enemy a real ability kit.

All enemies have been given a unique abiltiy that function correctly and works with MP, this should add more depth to combat and help give the player more avenues to pursue in combat.

Crafting has just been implemented and with its own new crafting skill.

Finally, I've really been working to fine tune targeting and the combat UI to have a cleaner and more finished look and game balance. The player should feel significantly stronger in this patch than previous patches. I hope that comes across well and you all like the new combat!

Thanks for playing!

New: Gated Crafting

• Recipes are now something you learn, not have by default. Find or buy recipe scrolls and read them to permanently add them to your repertoire.

• Craft at any Weapon, Armour, or Alchemy shop through the new Craft tab.

• Recipes drop from enemies (matched to their tier) and turn up in dungeon Forgotten Caches.

• Each of the 15 zone bosses guards one unique capstone recipe available nowhere else.

• There is a new Crafting Skill! Earn skill by reading crafting recipes or by crafting items.

• Evolve your crafting skill to a higher tier to be able to craft higher tier items and upgrades.

Combat Overhaul

• Full roster targeting: press T to cycle through every enemy, ally, and yourself. Any attack or ability can target any combatant, so you can heal or buff a chosen ally (or yourself) directly.

• Redesigned combat screen: clean bordered panels for your party and the enemies, aligned columns, uniform health bars, level indicators, and a marker showing whose turn it is.

• All status effects now apply correctly and display as clear colored tags like [BURNING], [POISONED], and [DAZED].

• Defend tooltip removed to avoid clutter and instead shows the boosted value after using it.

• Smoother, flicker free redrawing. Switching targets no longer ticks the round forward.

• Balance changes increase the players base attack

Enemies & Abilities

• Every enemy type now has its own fixed, hand tuned ability set, all catalogued in the Monster Grimoire.

• Enemies carry mana pools and cast level appropriate abilities that use that mana pool.

• New enemy mechanics: taunt and fade targeting, gold stealing Pickpockets, mana drain and silence, and curses that sap your maximum health have been retooled to ensure they apply correctly in all scenarios.

• Reworked buff and debuff system: stat changes stack, respect sensible caps, and are color coded in the HUD.

Companions

• Edited some Personal quest chains for your companions

• Companions now share experience fairly with the rest of the party.

New Combat Screen

• A cleaner text aesthetic throughout (all emojis replaced with readable tags).

• The combat screen has been redone to better empasize party combat. Parties are clearly separated and extra information has been removed

• Combat UI has been reorganized to make the game more readable and for a player to more easily asses the battle at a glance (should compliment the colorcoded and text based status conditions)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a quest being overwritten on save and reload.

• Fixed map misalignment for three character location labels.

• Fixed enemy stun and freeze occasionally striking the wrong target.

• Fixed various companion bugs

• Fixed duplicate "Press Enter" prompts in dungeons and after some abilities.

• Restoration for MP works correctly, plus potion menu fixes.

BETA BRANCH UPDATE:

NEW FEATURES

This update leads with a complete rebuild of the Arena, brings your whole party into every fight, reworks companion evolution to respect how each ally battles, and layers a big polish and balance pass over the top.

The Arena has been rebuilt from the ground up. It runs on the real combat and ability systems now, so every fighter is a genuine character with a class, a mana pool, and a full kit. You can duel, spectate, bet, and climb a ladder against a whole roster of house fighters, and there is a new Arena Association tying it all together.

Your allies come everywhere with you now, dungeons included, so party building finally pays off in every corner of the world. Companions that evolve at higher tiers are offered paths that match how they actually fight.

An important note is the game should feel easier and faster with this patch as levling speed has been increased as well as player damage.

And a lot of quiet work went into making the game read better and feel fairer, from a stronger, more consistent character to cleaner menus, cleaner dialogue, and a smoother combat screen. I hope it all lands well. Thanks for sticking with the beta!

The Arena, Completely Reworked

• The Arena now uses the real combat and ability systems. Every fighter has a class, a mana pool, and a full ability kit, and fights play out exactly like the rest of the game.

• Duel a roster of hand crafted house fighters, each with their own class, level, wager, and reputation.

• Duels are non lethal. Lose and you simply yield, with no death and no penalty beyond your wager.

• Spectate and bet on bouts between house fighters, or pit your own companions against each other and back them.

• Enter single elimination tournaments for a purse and a champion's cup.

• A per save leaderboard tracks wins, losses, and cups for every fighter, including you and your companions.

• Every arena town has a named master with with unique lines that tell you their background, from bloodthirsty ex gladiators to scheming bookmakers guarding the Association's gambling monopoly a diverse cast find themselves as Arena Masters.

• Ironhold (2400,2400) is now THE GRAND ARENA, seat of the new Arena Association, run by Grand Arena Master Karl.

• New Grand Arena questline from Karl. Win a sanctioned bout to gain his trust and then willingly defend the Arena Associations monopoly as you purge the Bloodstone Arena. After removing the dissidents Karl will reward you with the Arena Association Card, a living directory of every arena in the world and proof that you are on the right side of controlled capitalism.

• Every arena town outside the Grand Arena fields its own local roster, so each region's fights feel distinct.

• Added arena cooldowns and tournament gating. Fighters need to rest between fights.

Party Combat Everywhere

• Your companions and hired adventurers now join you automatically in every non arena fight.

• That includes dungeons, procedural crawls and hand built story vaults alike.

• Every dungeon now runs on one unified system, so your party shows up and behaves consistently no matter where you dive.

Companion Evolution

• Companions at Tier 3 and beyond are now offered class evolutions that match how they actually fight. A physical bruiser is offered physical classes, a caster is offered casters, a hybrid gets both, and a generalist Adventurer can branch into anything.

• Each evolution path comes with themed dialogue for that companion.

• Companion abilities now apply their bonus riders correctly, and effects that trigger from a downed ally work as intended.

Balance and Progression

• Title and skill stat bonuses now actually apply (max HP, defense, and percentage bonuses). Your character should feel noticeably stronger this patch.

• Adventurer rank progression fixed. Only contracts at or above your current rank count toward promotion.

• Basic Herbalism now triggers correctly when harvesting herbs.

New Abilities

• New solar light healing and buff abilities. We now have a clear "Healer" type class in the game with the Solar Magic skill for those interested in the playstyle or who want their companion to back them up as one.

• Single target abilities can now be freely aimed at any valid target.

• Basic Arcana is now offered through the standard learn prompt.

Combat Feel and Presentation

• Enemy stun, freeze, and taunt are unified into clean status tags in the HUD.

• Flicker free combat redraw restored. Switching targets updates in place, and advancing the turn clears cleanly instead of piling up old frames.

• Victory now prints inline instead of wiping the screen first.

• XP rewards now show the true amount gained.

• The combat HUD is narrower so wide health rows wrap less in smaller windows.

NPCs and Dialogue

• Step through NPC dialogue one line at a time with a Keep talking option.

• Bare Enter now rolls through dialogue without an extra keypress.

• Town Criers use the same clean step through.

Menus and Readability

• Universal Back. Every menu now backs out with Space instead of a mix of keys.

• The Evolve a Skill menu can be backed out of without committing to a pick.

• The skills menu is regrouped under clear, player facing headers, with stealth skills tucked under Survival.

• Potion menu cleanup and consistent Space to back out.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a tavern crash.

• Fixed dungeon bosses fleeing being counted as a victory.

• Fixed solo win rewards printing twice.

• Fixed a double Press Enter after harvesting when a skill is discovered.

• Fixed a dungeon depth bonus that was scaling incorrectly and leaking between runs.

• Moved tome spells back to Tier 1 where they belong.

• Cleaned up leftover references to the removed Proficient Arcane Arts merge.

Thanks for playing the beta!

Future Plans:

I am now entirely focused on balance and squashing bugs.

This was the last major feature rollout I planned and now the game should effectively be in its final state which should make it easy to nail down any remaining bugs and zero in on balancing the game to make it feel rewarding, full of choices, and fair.

Next week should come with reworked stat values and abilities with these goals in mind.

I want to keep adding playstyles to current class/skill paths (like we did with solar this week making them a heal focused path) to give more options for you to pursue, but otherwise I don't expect much content to be added between now and release.

If you have features you want me to consider adding that are currently missing from the game please let me know and I'll do my best to incorporate them! A lot of our current systems came from player suggestion and they have all helped make this game much better than I ever could have solo.

Have a great weekend!

-Lansdolli