Update V 1.0.13- Tuning Update

While there have been many patches since launch addressing bugs and crashes (it is very hard for me to have found everything, so I am grateful for your patience and reports. It was not my intent to have any bugs/crashes at launch) this update is the first tuning update since launch.

Tuning Philosophy

Inspired by a post by John Perry, I like to use the word "tuning" over "balance".

Balance implies that you're trying to get options balanced and fair relative to one another. That's often the better term for competitive multiplayer games. Tuning is not that. Tuning is adjusting values and mechanics in order to create an intended experience, rather than be strictly balanced.

This update focuses primarily on a few outliers in terms of damage output. The intended experience is not that you can absolutely destroy any boss or enemy in a single burst of damage. Big bursts of damage, especially with the Storm Beam, are being targeted here.

Breaking the game is fun, but when your game is linear it makes it so that it can invalidate the experience. As such, there's a fine line between fun and silly builds and still having to play the game that you don't have to aim for in something repeatable, like a roguelike. I'll still be aiming to let you do cool builds, but not so much on the completely game breaking side of things.

Patch Notes

Skill Chips:

-Critical Momentum: 5% ATK buff for 10 seconds per crit -> 4% ATK buff for 10 seconds with a maximum of +40% and -5% base ATK.

This chip allowed you to get incredibly high attack buffs with near 100% uptime with the right build, or even just a few skill chips that granted critical hits. It should still reward you for maintaining a steady output of critical hits, but should be down to a more reasonable level.

-Storm Split Beams: Adjusted behavior so that secondary beams can no longer critical hit. This adjustment also applies to Storm Thunder.

-Storm First Strike: 30% more damage to enemies with over 85% HP and 15% less otherwise -> The same, but now 30% less damage to enemies with less than 85% HP. Additionally, the effect actually matches the text, it was actually higher than the description had listed.

-Storm Voltage: Was 75% damage increase, now 50%. This was just too high.

-Resist BLI: 30% chance to resist blinds -> 35% chance. Chip limit has been reduced to 3. You shouldn't need that much resistance anyway.

Note that chance effects are multiplicative. In other words, you aren't adding more faces to a die, you're rolling more dice with the same number of hits. 3 chips is not 105% but is 74.5%. The intent is that if you want full resistance, use Null BLI instead.

Scavenger: 20% regen -> 15% regen. Also now actually works on chip cases. This was too high in light of how common drops ended up being.

Ice Flash Freeze: No longer triggers on Ice Shard hit.

General Mechanics:

Lifesteal and Shieldsteal effects can now each only trigger every 0.25 seconds. This shouldn't be a problem for a majority of builds, but the ability to deal huge bursts of damage and instantly heal were a little bit much. The intent of these abilities is to reliably sustain you over a long period of time, not fully burst you up. If you need burst healing, items are right there. Healing from chips should be somewhat more limited as such.

Enemy strength slightly increased at higher intensities.

Bug fixes:

-Fixed issue with final boss not triggering phases if dealt sufficient damage all at once.

-Fixed issue with final boss getting stuck if fought at maximum intensity. Also adjusted several moves at this difficulty level.

-Added additional safeguards against the music controller getting stuck.

-Other small fixes and text adjustments.

As the game gets more stable and I get fewer bug reports, I am aiming for a larger content update that focuses on ease of use and convenience. While I can't promise a ton of new content in the future (the game has not sold well enough to justify spending a ton more time on it) I do have a few things that I couldn't quite finish before launch as well as a few thoughts from player feedback.

I hope you are enjoying Star Rift Saga!

-J