Hello everyone! Since the past couple of months, we've been working on a pretty large Balance Update. We've made some great progress but there are still quite a bit of things that we want to change. If you haven't, I suggest you read our previous [url=https://steamcommunity.com/games/1104280/announcements/detail/4174347995207375133]Slormite Chronicles[/url] as I'm going to expand on some of the points that were discussed there. With this update, our goal is to balance Combat but also Player's Experience to better fit our vision for the game, to modernize some of the mechanics and to work on the most criticized aspects of The Slormancer. The Patch Notes is getting larger and larger everyday and is substantially bigger than anticipated. We won't be able to cover every entry in our Slormite Chronicles but I'll try to talk about some of the most important points that were not mentioned in our previous one. [h2]Slorm Reapers[/h2] [b]Slorm Reaper Mastery[/b] Regarding new player's experience, one of the most important issues that we've had to deal with is that getting a Slorm Reaper during leveling is often very underwhelming because of the damage difference between the one you have equipped and the one you just got. It just sets you back to equip it no matter how exciting its new effect is. The easy solution would be to drop Slorm Reapers at a relevant Level like dropping a Level 25 Slorm Reaper when you are at Level 25 and although we've considered this option, this is something that doesn't feel right. We feel like Slorm Reapers would lose some meaning in the process, and a bit of their identity. We believe that a Slorm Reaper should always start at Level 1. So here's what we did: We've added a Slorm Reaper Mastery system in The Slormancer that levels up to Level 100 as you level up Slorm Reapers. Slorm Reaper Mastery increases the Reaper Damage of your Slorm Reaper as if it was at the level of your Slorm Reaper Mastery. Basically, if you equip a Level 1 Slorm Reaper, with a Slorm Reaper Mastery of 75, your newly equipped Slorm Reaper will have its Reaper Damage set to its Level 75 value. In the following example, my Sword of the Unkillable Berzerker is at Level 1, yet it already deals substantial Damage because my Slorm Reaper Mastery is at Level 100 so I will be able to equip it and level it up on the fly. As I level up, its effect scaling on Reaper Level will increase but most Slorm Reapers have enough non-scaling effects to be immediately viable with the addition of Slorm Reaper Mastery. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35818693/4d82093a178c8990f37c99d4d71b45b6ae3f4571.jpg[/img] I believe that it will be fairly easy and natural and players won't even have to notice its existence. The Slorm Reaper Mastery will level up about 20% slower than a Slorm Reaper so by the time you reach Level 15 with your first Slorm Reaper, your Slorm Reaper Mastery will be about Level 12. Now, leveling up Slorm Reapers only level their effects scaling on Reaper Level, but it also does something new, which brings me to my next point. [b]Primordial Slorm Reapers[/b] Primordial Slorm Reapers will no longer be found whenever you reach 42 000 Victims. This process was a bit too tedious and the path of least resistance to reach it was definitely not the most fun. We've decided to make Primordial Slorm Reapers more accessible because they are a core part of the experience we want to offer with The Slormancer. With this update, reaching Level 100 with a Slorm Reaper will immediately unlock its Primordial Form. It feels like a much more natural goal to reach that doesn't require the player to chain the notorious "Temppopotamus' Bastion Runs". [b]Slorm Reapers and Primordial Slorm Reapers[/b] Another VERY important change we're making to Slorm Reapers is that their Primordial Form is no longer considered as a new weapon. It is now considered as the other face as the same weapon. What this means is that a Slorm Reaper and its Primordial Form now share their Experience. So as soon as you unlock a Primordial Slorm Reaper, it will be at Level 100 (by default) and all its previous Evolutions will be immediately unlocked aswell. After some careful thinking, we believe that there is absolutely no good justification to force the player to Level a Slorm Reaper that he already leveled back up to Level 100, even though it is [i]slightly [/i]different. The Primordial Form should feel like one of the greatest rewards the game has to offer, not like a downgrade or a punishment. As for the Slorm Reaper Affinity, instead of reducing the Victim Cap required to get a Primordial Slorm Reaper, it will now reduce the Level required down to Level 70. With all those changes, we've decided to increase by about 100% the Experience required to reach Level 100 with a Slorm Reaper. And given the shape of our experience curve, getting a Slorm Reaper to Level 100 today will result in a Level 80 with our upcoming update. That being said, even though we are changing the experience curve, the Level of your Slorm Reapers will not be lowered by this change and will be adjusted to remain the same. So if you want to get all those sweets Slorm Reapers to Level 100 before the change, now is a good time to do so. :) [h2]Skill Masteries[/h2] Skill Mastery is one of our most old-school mechanics I believe. The initial idea was to offer some form of "light reroll". Since the game doesn't offer / encourage class rerolls, we felt that Class Skills could offer that "start from scratch with a different build" feeling that you get when starting a new character on another ARPG. Clearly, this was not properly implemented because I believe no one ever got that feeling from our Mastery system. We've made a few minor changes during Early Access but it was never enough to fix how tedious it was to gain Mastery. It always ended up in being a chore, or being afk-farmed. Hopefully, the following changes will create a better experience: Masteries will now be based on Kills instead of Casts and all equipped Skill will now gain the same amount of Mastery (so you no longer need to cast Skills you don’t want to cast in a given situation just for the sake of gaining Mastery) and the time to reach Mastery 10 (the last tier of Class Skills) has been reduced. On top of that, Wrath Levels will now grant Mastery Gains similar to Experience (up to 150%). And finally, whenever you unlock a new Class Skill, say, Orb of the Arcane Master, at Level 24, some of its Upgrades will already be immediately available so that the Skill is immediately relevant to you. In the case of Orb of the Arcane Master, since it is the last Skill unlocked by the Mischievous Mage, it will already have its first 2 Tiers of Upgrades unlocked, thus needing to reach Mastery 7 to have all of its Upgrades available instead of Mastery 10 for say, Arcane Missile, that is unlocked at Level 1. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35818693/839457cc4ad0badd4ceebcf2a26331d0b3e578bd.jpg[/img] [h2]Skills and Refunds[/h2] We really want The Slormancer to offer easy options to change builds and while our goal was for players to max out all of its Skills and Upgrades so that he could later easily switch his build around, we had to acknowledge that it was not user friendly for new players, and it did not encourage trying out the various unlocked Upgrades at all. And although there is a Refund option allowing to your respec while leveling, it comes with a 10% Cost in Slorm. So we decided to fully embrace what we wanted and give much easier options for everyone, especially for new players. With this Update, you will now be able to Rank Up or Rank Down an Upgrade directly from the menu with no additional Cost (and get back 100% of your Slorm when Ranking Down). The Refund from Ormos and Oleros will also have no cost and grant you 100% of your Slorm aswell. This will not make much of a difference if you want to Max out everything, but it should drastically open up your options while leveling, and encourage experimentation because it no longer comes with a cost. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35818693/b3bf2ef8b0a491c6f64c3e5c587f6592f4be8d51.jpg[/img] And as you may have noticed, we've made a few changes to the UI. You can now directly click on your Skill bar to equip a Skill. [h2]Wrath Levels[/h2] When we first designed Wrath Levels and decided to grant +20 000% Max Life to enemies, it was not intended to be reached. It was an absurdly high value that gave a really hard goal for seasoned players. This was based on some internal testings we've made before the release in Early Access. What's weird with the current state of Wrath 10 is that it feels too high for us a developers, yet it feels easy (and almost too low) for players. And since it is the Wrath Level that offers the most rewards, it is also the one that everyone aims for. We would like to slowly change this. First, with this Balance pass, and if we manage to properly remove all the broken or exploitable mechanics, we should get to a healthy state, where Wrath 10 is no longer easily achievable. With this Update, we will introduce something new for seasoned players called "Wrath X Plus", which will allow players to increase the difficulty even more. On Battlefield Expeditions only (for now), you will be able to increase the Wrath X Plus difficulty, up to 100. Each level will increase the Wrath 10 Multipliers by 20%. However, the rewards will remain the same. This is just a way to measure how far a build can go, but no longer something that is required to farm in an optimal way. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35818693/d9698b0a617ce79e19e0833c37c6e7df180f9423.jpg[/img] Hopefully, this is a fun new option for experienced players but ultimately, it will help us adjust the various Wrath Levels from 0 to 10 and the overall experience of the game. "Wrath X Plus" will allow us to eventually reduce the Wrath 10 multipliers without frustrating players that were already crushing this content, as they will have a harder content to look for. For now, no changes are coming regarding Wrath 0 to 10. We will add "Wrath X Plus" then carefully observe. [h2]Bonus Point: Storage[/h2] Since it has been heaviliy requested, we've added a few additional Storage Stashes. And regarding Storage, your Storage Chest and Legendary Chest will now automatically spawn next to you in The Great Forge when completing a run. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35818693/8ecf92d0caf3a16b8130bd5d7b0e9caf998991f1.jpg[/img] [h2]Class Skills[/h2] Classes were the very first layer of customization that was added to The Slormancer, probably 6 years ago. And it does feel old and clunky compared to our latest additions. This is what we are currently working on and this is taking longer than anticipated because we really feel like there are a lot of things that needs to be worked on. I'm not talking about balance, but "basic playability" I think would be appropriate term. Some Skills are barely playable. They are either too slow, or way too uncomfortable to use. As for Upgrades, it often feels like there is one clear option and no meaningful choice to be made. That's why we're doing our best to get everything to a"playable" state. [h2]Balance Patch: Release Plan[/h2] For the Balance Update, instead of uploading the Update once it is ready, we will instead do a couple of intermediate steps prior to the release: [olist] [*] [u]Uploading the Patch Notes:[/u] We will start by uploading the Patch Notes once it is ready so that we can discuss it with the community and make sure that we're not breaking something up or missing out on something else, at least on paper. [*] [u]Experimental Branch:[/u] Exceptionally, we will upload the Balance Update on the Experimental Branch for at least a couple of weeks, to be sure that everything is properly working and that, again, we're not actually breaking something up or actually missing out on something else. [*] [u]Actual Release:[/u] Once the Update has been validated by the community and properly tested, it will move on to the Live branch. [/olist] That's about it! There's no release date for now but we'll get there eventually (can I be more vague, I'm not sure...) Cheers!