PATCH 1.7.a Rumble & Rebalance

Phew!

It's been a little while.

The plan was always for this to be a quiet month, with slow but steady work on the next update for Haste.

Well, someone should have told the dev team!

To summarise the headline features:

• Major item overhaul!

• Rumble!

• Disaster in Endless!

We better get started.

First of all this update brings a much-requested new feature for controller players - RUMBLE!

For a game like Haste it makes a lot of sense to feel as connected to the action as possible, and a little vibration in your controller goes a long way.

The most notable addition is probably the Running Rumble, a constant stream of intense little footsteps. It sounds like a joke, but give it a try!

There's of course settings to adjust the strength of the various different types of rumble in the game, and many different kinds of controllers, so experiment to find which style you prefer.

There's also a special setup for controllers that use "haptics", so if you're using one of those (SteamDeck and PS5 DualSense) you can look forward to some extra precise vibrations.

Then there are two more little things before we get to the big one:

Disaster Mode is now playable in Endless!

Once you've unlocked a Disaster Mode, you can choose to equip it in your Endless run as well. You will get the effects and obstacle spawns caused by the Disaster Crowns, but the difficulty of the levels will still be decided by the Endless difficulty setting you use.

I'm not sure how many of you want to play Peaceful with Disaster Level 4, but the option now exists!

Increased Obstacle Difficulty setting!

The slider for the Obstacle difficulty setting has been adjusted so it now goes up to 500%, even without mods! The actual difficulty presets remain at their old values, but this is a fun way to increase the challenge beyond the game's normal limits.

And finally we get to what is probably the most important change - the long-awaited item overhaul!

Here's a prepared statement the team has asked me to include:

"We have long been aware that the item economy has been very lopsided, with little rhyme or reason to item frequency or power. Some of the best items in the game were in the 'Common' rarity category, which under certain circumstances would be just as rare as 'Legendary' items, the highest rarity category. Our goal with this update is to adjust the rarity categories so the lower rarities are more useful, while the highest rarities feel exciting and powerful to come across. While thios change is going to make some extreme builds less common, it will hopefully create a much broader range of viable builds during runs, leading to much greater variety. The way we have gone about all this is by-"

Wow, this goes on for a while. Let me just skim it...

Okay, so veeery long story short, low-rarity items are now more frequent, high rarity less so, but a bunch of items have been given new (lower) rarities, and many items have been given improved effects.

Big changes like this are always scary, but it really makes the game more interesting and fun!

There's also a promise in here that this will not be the last set of item balance changes, so if you have feedback about the new system or about specific items, please let the team know, preferably through the Discord.

Oh before we get to the very long patch notes here's a video of INK creating the Hungry Weeboh!

Have a look at the full balance changes below.

Exciting times, huh?

Patch Notes

Features:

• RUMBLE! (Including a bunch of settings)

• Disaster Mode is now playable in the Endless Shard

• Increased maximum Obstacle difficulty setting

• "Chance Items" with a percentage chance for something to happen now show the final Luck-modified value instead of just the base value (along with a tooltip with a breakdown of the calculation)

• You now start with full Energy in the Hub World

• New difficulty setting for Item Rarity, which multiplies the chance of getting higher-rarity items. (Defaults to 100% on all difficulty levels)

• The post-run stat screen now shows your item loadout

Fixes:

• Abilities can no longer be triggered while not running, which fixes a number of edge cases (mostly related to spending all your Energy while Zoe is off-screen)

• Improved the way Boost Rings spawn from Items

• Item effects that stack every time they are triggered (like Well Earned Confidence) now carry over between Fragments

• Stacking triggered item effects now correctly get removed if you remove the item

• You can no longer exploit the Reroll button in Endless multiplayer to get near infinite items (sorry!)

• The UI for equipping skins now correctly opens with your currently equipped skins selected

• Eliminated a momentary freeze when closing the Shard Setting menu

• The Fragment Disruption tooltip for Research Outpost discounts is now correct

• A number of Luck items were incorrectly multiplying each others effects

• Added a message about why you cannot send items to another player if you are in an empty multiplayer session

• Item Tooltips now shift to the left side of the Item description if there's no more space to the right on the screen

Balance:

• Hard and Very Hard Endless now start at slightly higher difficulty

• Items granting +% of Max Health no longer multiply themselves (this is a much more intuitive behaviour in addition to being easier to balance)

ITEM OVERHAUL:

• Lower-rarity items are now more common, higher-rarity items less common

• Shard difficulty and progress now has a bigger impact on the rarity of items you find, so higher-rarity items become more frequent the further you get in a Shard

• Lots of items have had their Rarity adjusted

• Some items now have an Item Cost Multiplier for their own price. This has been sparingly used and is not surfaced in-game, but is another lever for balance in the long run.

ITEM CHANGE LIST:

Golden Necklace:

10% Boost -> 8% Boost

Overclocked Medical Drone:

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Growth Potential

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Big Spark Magnet

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Steady Investment

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Bitter Herbs

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Recyclable Rocket

Rarity: Rare -> Common

35s Cooldown -> 20s Cooldown

+50 Speed -> +40 Speed

No longer removes Speed after duration ends

Reheated Soup

Rarity: Rare -> Common

400-leaf Clover

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Heart Shaped Mirror

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Interest

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Performance Based Health Insurance

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Protective Medallion

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Spark Plug

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Vitamins

10% more expensive than items of the same Rarity

Spark Powered Propeller

Rarity: Rare -> Common

10% more expensive than items of the same Rarity

Grunt's Helmet

Rarity: Rare -> Common

1s Invulnerability -> 0.5s Invulnerability

Clown Shoes

Rarity: Rare -> Common

30% Chance to save a non-perfect Landing -> 25% Chance to save a non-perfect Landing

Mysterious Spring

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Delayed Emergency Device

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Velocity Powered Syringe

Rarity: Rare -> Common

Big Pumpkin

Rarity: Rare -> Common

+60 Max Health -> +50 Max Health

Personal Gravity Enhancer

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

35s Cooldown -> 15s Cooldown

35% Boost -> 50% Boost

5s Duration -> 6s Duration

Quick Taco

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

Instant Compensation Machine

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

25 Sparks on taking damage -> 40 Sparks on taking damage

1s Cooldown -> 6s Cooldown

Boost Remote

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

Energy Lash

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

40s Cooldown -> 20s Cooldown

Low Grade Timeline Swapper

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

Brittle Breastplate

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

1s Cooldown -> 6s Cooldown

Karma

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

2% Luck per missing Health -> 5% Luck per missing Health

Leadership Pipe

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

Time Dilation Thing

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

Risk and Reward

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

Timeline Shifter

Rarity: Epic -> Rare

40s Cooldown -> 20s Cooldown

N-Dimensional Leaf Clover

25% Luck -> 100% Luck

Emergency Shoes

35s Cooldown -> 25s Cooldown

<80m/s to trigger -> <85m/s to trigger

Jackpot

100 Sparks -> 250 Sparks

Big Squash

+50% Health -> +60% Health

Perpetual Motion Machine

Rarity: Common -> Epic

Well-Earned Confidence

Rarity: Rare -> Epic

5% Boost per Perfect Landing -> 3% Boost per Perfect Landing

Atomic Timepiece

1s Cooldown Reduction -> 2s Cooldown Reduction

Tight Schedule

0.25s Cooldown Reduction -> 0.5s Cooldown Reduction

Plutonium Coin

Rarity: Rare -> Epic

Painful Coil

0.3% Boost per missing Health -> 0.6% Boost per missing Health

Timeline Attractor

Rarity: Epic -> Legendary

General Relativity

Rarity: Epic -> Legendary

Portable Harvester

45s Cooldown -> 30s Cooldown

Now also gives 60 Sparks

Otherworldly Contact

35s Cooldown -> 30s Cooldown

Now also gives 50 Health

-----------------------------------

Okay, seems like that was everything! I'm exhausted.

If you have any feedback, be sure to let the team know on the Discord.

Until next time, see you out there in the worlds!

/RIZA