Welcome to Alpha 4.2, out 22nd alpha update!

We know it’s been THREE whole weeks since our last update, sorry for being so slack ;) but alpha 4.2 ended up being a much bigger update than we originally planned so I am sure you will all agree the wait was worth it :-)

Customisation

We are happy to FINALLY deliver our first pass on the Character Customisation system. Players can switch out their characters heads, hair and body textures with others we provide in game.

This version doesn’t have Steam Workshop in it yet - that is still being finished, and we hope to have it out in either alpha 4.3 or 4.4.

Our selection of new items is not very big right now (No additional body textures apart from 1 fighter skin, as an example) but now that the functionality is in, we will keep adding more in future updates and of course once we activate the Steam Workshop system, players will be free to create and share their own heads, hair and body textures.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=296988900

Dragon Fight

We’ve reworked some substantial elements of the Dragon Fight for this update. The dragon has some cool new moves to keep you on your toes and we’ve also tweaked damage rates to ensure he still provides a challenge regardless of level.

You will also now receive special loot at certain intervals of the dragon’s health. These “Dragon Rings” are special timed items that change your character in unique ways and only last a finite amount of time. Once the time is up, the ring will become useless.

We also now change the dragon arena as you progress, making the environment harder with more lava, traps and tricky paths to navigate.

Dragon Rings in action:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=296152209

The Dragon arena now also has a first pass at audio & sound fx.


NOTE: As part of these changes, and taking into account how unbalanced the Dragon was prior to this update, we’ve decided to clear all players Dragon progress, leaderboards and ranks.

Snow Content for ACK

We’ve added a heap of snow content to the ACK and we’re super keen to see what you all make with it. There are 5 snowy tile materials, as well as a bunch of existing props that have been modified for snowy environments. We’ve also included a new 3 Sprockets adventure FROSTBITE PASS, to show some of the new content in action.

Frostbite Pass:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=296945266

Balance Changes

We’ve made some changes to the overall game balance for this update. There are a lot of changes, but the main points are:

• Slightly increased XP drop rates across the board, particularly on difficult enemies
• Reduced damage from enemies, particularly difficult ones
• Fixed a bug that was clamping weapon damage to 99, at Level 40 it should been around 120-140
• Revised XP calculation for online games to ensure all players level faster

The intended result is to make the overall game slightly easier (particularly the end-game), we’d love to hear what you think once you’ve had a play!

New Difficulty System Calculations

We have implemented a new algorithm for calculating our Suggested Difficulty of your adventure in the ACK.

The main change revolves around how we calculate enemy and trap costs. Enemy and trap costs are now impacted by how they are clumped together, so having a Troll standing by himself with no enemies directly next to it in it’s 8 neighbour tiles will now just be the cost of that Troll, but add in another Troll next to it, or some Skeletons around it and the cost of all of the enemies in that clump go up beyond their individual costs.

This means that placing 20 Rats on a 20 tile room will now cost WAY more than it did before and will *hopefully* stop creators from just flooding rooms/adventures with small enemies.

We have also removed Loot chests from the calculation and adjusted costs on Potion chests and healing portals and some enemies have also had their difficulty costs adjusted to.

Our difficulty calculation algorithm will never be perfect, but we feel it is much closer now.


Alpha 4.2 Change List

New

• New character customisation system
• Added a new 3 Sprockets level “Frostbite Pass”
• Added new weapon type - Frost Staffs
• Added new UI for networked games when in Home Screen, everybody can now access Loot Shrine/Customisation/Inventory and see what other players are doing
• Added 4 new crossbow visuals
• Added new Dragon Ring rewards
• Added proper ragdolls for enemies at different difficulty levels
• Added a new Mutator: “Drainer” - drains mana of nearby adventurers
• Added some UI when you die and run out of lives in split-screen/online to explain what’s happening
• ACK: New difficulty rating system
• ACK: Added a shifting Time Of Day option
• ACK: Added new Snow Props and Materials
• ACK: Added new coloured variants for lava and lanterns

Changes/Improvements

• Major dragon reworking - now has more attacks, better balance and a changing arena environment
• Added an “Are you sure” dialogue when donating Extraordinary or Legendary items to the Loot Shrine
• Added a HELP button with some in-game help on the multiplayer menu
• Rogue’s grenade attack now detonates on impact with an enemy
• Orcs now dual wield two swords
• Tweaked the Regen mutator - now loses effectiveness over time
• Mutated enemies now award 25% extra XP per mutator
• Increased XP drop rates in multiplayer games
• Can now see character HP + Stamina at Loot Shrine
• Increased slugs time between attacks and reduced damage dealt
• Added some logic to Mutators to avoid certain enemies. eg. Firestarter will no longer apply to Worms, since they don’t move
• Added more audio SFX and fixed a bunch of level issues on existing audio
• Made audio work in online games based on player positions

Fixes

• Fixed a bunch of issues with the Grabber Mutator
• Fixed high level weapon damage being clamped at 99 - weapon drops at level 40 should now be around 20% higher
• Fixed split-screen bug where player 1 was dead with no lives and player 2 dropped out
• Fixed Rogue’s grenade applying damage inconsistently
• Fixed XP progress bar always appearing full when at Level 1
• Character now stops all animations when the Game Ends (stops running on the spot)
• Fixed home level not updating correctly when completing adventures in a networked game
• Fixed some enemy movement bugs when moving through water
• Fixed Worms and Rock Golems not behaving correctly in a networked game on non-host machines
• Fixed being unable to place barrels on ground decals
• Fixed a bug that destroyed the weapon equipped in the secondary slot when equipping an armour via the inventory into an empty slot (sorry!)
• Fixed mouse attacks changing direction erratically when under bridges
• Fixed a bunch of bugs relating to casting abilities or opening the inventory by clicking on the UI
• Fixed some issues with enemies walking up steps
• Fixed some display issues with some chest armour pieces
• Fixed issue where adjusting the UI scaling option in Settings would push UI off-screen
• Fixed some items getting +0 modifiers - unfortunately this won’t fix existing items but should fix any new items you find
• Fixed mutated enemies losing glow after a single hit
• ACK: Fixed a problem where loading adventures wouldn’t clear the difficulty from the last adventure
• ACK: Fixed some enemy pathfinding issues when moving around props (playing from world map was unaffected)