INTO EVIL Update 1.3ea - The Rewritten Mind Update

It's been a while, hasn't it? 😅 This update has taken a lot longer than expected (with good reason - read on!). However - at last - I am happy to report that the next content update is finally out!

What could possibly have taken so long? I'm glad you asked! Here are the patch notes:

Key Changes

• A new device can be discovered in the halls of the Inverted Tower - a Thoughtscribe Engine! This fell contraption can take your magical items, and - at the cost of a soul point - transfer the corresponding spell into your mind, granting you the ability to cast that spell permanently!

• This process can also be used to further empower your known spells (should you bear a source of sufficient power). Thus if you already know, say, the Firebolt spell, if you hold a scroll of Firebolt II (or III) you can consume them to level up your mastery Firebolt by one tier!

Magic Changes

• A new school of magic has been added to the game: Heroism! These martial skills (Aim, Charge, Deflect, Focus, Leap, Shout, Smite, and Withstand) allow you to perform supernaturally mighty deeds.

• Each existing school (Divination, Chirurgery, Pyromancy, Cryomancy, and Tempestry) also has two new spells - bringing up the total number of Invocations you can learn to 48! These new spells are Aegis, Contingency, Cyclone, Firewalk, Fortune’s Favor, Ice Barricade, Servant of Flame, Servant of Frost, Servant of Thunder, and The Void.

• Ignition and Winterchill both now inflict additional damage at higher tiers.

• Cartography now reveals a trail indicating where each player has travelled.

• Bonfire can no longer land “critical” hits but has a larger collider.

• Ignition and Winterchill now additionally inflict direct damage at higher tiers.

• Tomes of “Grand Arcana” can now be found - these rare treasures allow the choice of any 3 spells, providing many interesting opportunities for those lucky enough to acquire them!

• Other new catalysts can also be discovered, with more complex arcane abilities alongside their imbued spells.

• Various new item abilities can be discovered that improve your magical might.

• When your arcane power is boosted by items or effects, this is explicitly displayed in the HUD and Character Menu.

• The Archivist essence trait now additionally causes you to not strip arcane power from items when learning invocations.

Bugfixes / Tweaks

• AdjustedThe Friar has been adjustedhe can now Smite foes instead of Bolstering himself, and instead of discovering increased gold he now is harder to shove around!

• The Pyromancer no longer begins with a stave of Bonfire.

• Mighty weapon combat has been adjusted. Now, two-handing a weapon still requires a vigor cost each swing unless you are also Mighty. However, you can now still attack while exhausted (making Bleed less of a specific counter).

• Several additional new item mods can be discovered.

• Bosses are now invulnerable and properly hidden from AI controlled players before their battle begins.

• Quickly-thrown items are no longer dropped if their thrown animation is cancelled or otherwise disrupted.

• The Demon of Flesh now turns around slightly more slowly and gains less speed as its health depletes.

• It is slightly easier to see in rainbow light.

• Various rare bugs caused by frame-perfect animation event collisions should no longer occur.

• Items should no longer be able to acquire redundant modifiers (for example, you should no longer discover a Sacrificial Dagger of Sacrifice).

• Items now scatter a bit further from a dead player, making it easier to select which item(s) you want to retrieve during multiplayer.

• The wares sold by merchants have been rebalanced.

• Magic maps are slightly less common.

• Items imbued with the Bolster spell no longer conflict with subsequently applied damage-warding mods.

• Bone Knights now walk much more slowly and bear a spiked shield instead of one that provides them a charging attack. Correspondingly, they are now much easier to run away from (though they are still quite dangerous).

• Spiked shields no longer are knocked aside when they impact a surface that causes attacks to rebound (such as plate armor).

• Plate armor is now shiny.

• Various corpse sprites now have (or have improved) normal maps.

• Hellfire mines now have increased visibility and indicate their explosive radius before they fully explode.

• Gold is now automatically pooled between all players in multiplayer.

• Being Ethereal is now improved: you can now collect Vitae sparks, do not suffer damage from Status effects, and can pass through foes.

• On Gamepad, showing/hiding has been moved to the “select” button (or the controller-appropriate equivalent). As such, players can once more manually unlock from targets (though you must enable this option in the Options > Input > Controller menu, as new players have evidenced confusion when instinctively locking on to targets ended up being an “unlock” due to the auto-lock system already having done so).

• Players may now instantly turn around from locked-on targets if they need to perform fine-grained steering.

Pretty good, huh? A whole new progression system you can utilize instead of essence traits, 60% more spells in the game, improvements to old spells and the caster characters, many more item possibilities, and a bunch of gameplay fixes and tweaks... Altogether, there are way more options and potential combos of abilities each run than ever before!

So, I'm very happy with how this update has turned out. However, there is one thing that I'm not happy with: the fact that I haven't yet been able to work on content for the next region! Each of these content updates has been very huge, and I have only been able to dedicate my time to stuff that has been directly released in them.

Unfortunately, my aim is to queue up a giant content update that will add the next "region" of the game (~doubling the amount of dungeon you can delve). While the work here will leverage all of the new systems and content that I have created, I haven't, for example, added any of the new enemies and systems and levels and bosses that entails. (I haven't even started working on the guns yet!)

So, going forward, I'm going to need to change things up a bit. The next content updates will be smaller in scope, so that I have bandwidth to work on all that. I still think they'll add great stuff to the game, just... temper your expectations on the volume of changes to expect next month update compared to this one!

And what is the next update, you ask? Well, I will finally be addressing a common concern: shields feel underwhelming! I have some ideas on how that might be fixed - stay tuned!