Update log
Full Wielders of the Essence update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Repeated intro
Hello Wielders,
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- UI and audio
- Balance
About two weeks ago we launched our demo during Steam Next Fest. The result was truly spectacular and we now have over 25,000 Wishlists for the game. A huge thank you to each and every one of you who have played, wishlisted and left feedback for us!
Almost 1000 people have filled out the feedback form available through the game. On top of that we've read all Steam reviews, Discord messages and Tweets. It's a mountain of thoughts and suggestions, but we are happy to climb it! So today we want to talk about what we've learned from your feedback and what we're doing about it!
Here's a nifty summary from the week of Next Fest! It seems rejuvenation is a popular skill!
The early game needed further improvement. This was the single most common piece of feedback across every channel. The first few runs felt like too much of a grind. Rats took too many hits. Gold rewards were too low. Players were doing multiple runs without a sense of meaningful progression. At the same time we could see clearly that when people pushed past the initial grind they “got” the game. So, what are doing about it?
We've lowered building prices for your first structures, lowered certain enemy stats and added more enemy types to diversify the threat level. The first few runs should now be a more rewarding experience!
Testing requires a lot of data. Smart scripts and several game sessions open at the same time produces both relevant data and an AWFUL amount of noice! (We opted to show a screenshot instead of the video, your ears can be happy about that!)
Another big strand of feedback was that enemy waves felt inescapable. Enemies surrounding you with no way out, and no amount of skill or positioning could save you. The only answer was to grind meta-upgrades until you were strong enough to brute-force through it. While we are deliberately mixing incremental/meta progression as an important addition to the horde survival concept, we truly want you to be able to outplay a bad situation, not just out-stat it.
So we've now added gaps in enemy spawn patterns that give you openings to escape if you're paying attention and moving smart. We've also lowered the maximum enemy count on screen (from 400 down to 300) so the chaos still feels intense but never completely overwhelming. Furthermore the starting Wielder has slightly higher movement speed and a bit more pushback added to his weapon.
This was a new take on the key art and while some of us really liked it, we are going to explore a bit more epic and power fantasy ideas later on. What do you think of this one? Let us know in the comments!
Even some of the Songs of Conquest veterans told us they couldn't figure out what Essence does in this game. So we've rewritten parts of the Essence UI and descriptions to make it clearer that your troops generate Essence, and more Essence means you cast spells faster. We've also simplified how troops generate Essence so it's easier to understand at a glance. We hope!
Allied troops were hard to tell from enemies
In the chaos of a run, your own troops blended in with the enemy horde. Some of you were actively dodging your own allies. We've added an outline system for allied troops that activates when enemy density is high, so you can always tell who's on your side.
Spell balance needed a pass
Arcane Spear dominated.
Source