Hi folks,

I hope you got to read last Friday's post and are prepared for what's coming. If not, please take a moment to read about it here, as it's crucial.

The first patch for 2023 will be a significant balance pass and will come as early as this Monday, 9 January.

Many of you are probably wondering what 'Balance' has to do with your Single Player game and why I am trying to destroy your power fantasy. I am not; in fact, I am all in with you to break the game in many ways as long as this is your choice.

As you may know, this single-player game has released many updates, including three expansions, surpassing 5k cards. With the introduction of new mechanics and keywords at different times, it's understandable that the meta has changed and will continue to evolve. That's why it's essential to occasionally review the ruleset and cards to maintain consistency and provide a cohesive and enjoyable gameplay experience. Most of the changes made are based on your feedback on various aspects of the game in the past year.

Ok. A short version of the changes?

The overall impact of the changes is that the early game tactic of using CC (crowd control) is less dominant, and there are now more options for surviving the early game thanks to buffs to both damage and defense. Unique allies will feel more powerful and distinct, while temporary allies will be more disposable. Elite units and companies will be more useful, and legendary items will live up to their reputation.

A new Character isn't required.

While you can safely continue playing with your current save file, specific details may feel different. And you'll only be able to experience the full spectrum of the changes with your new characters. So whether you want to continue your character or roll a new one will be up to you.

You can skip the update or recover the old card definitions to use them instead.

There is also a new public branch called 'unnerfed,' which you can use to switch back to build 1.054.4 anytime. Ie. If you want to grab the old card and perk definitions or don't have steam, update the game and interrupt your game in progress with unwanted changes, etc.

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That's all for now, folks! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or if you encounter any issues!

You can read more details in the patch notes below.

Patch Notes - 09/01 # 1.051.5

Balance Changes

• TL;DR: Major rebalance across several aspects of the game based on your comments, suggestions, and grievances. While everything will apply to games in progress, starting a new character is recommended after installing this patch. You can switch to the Unnerfed Legacy 1.054.4 branch or, if you prefer, things before this balance patch. Or check your items and cards to ensure they are still usable by your characters and continue playing your old character.
  
• Buffed the damage of several Weapons and the defense of Shields.
  
• Buffed the defense of several cards.
  
• Buffed all the Legendary Equipment.
  
• Nerfed/increased the AP cost of the low tier/cost cards with Stun, Freeze & Bewitch.
  
• Bewitch effect is now much rarer in Tier <=2 cards and often will have other restrictions (i.e., the enemy to have a status already, or target non-boss enemies, etc.)
  
• Tweaked all the Starting Deck cards.
  
• Temporary Ally instances in play will no longer level up. For Teamwork Purposes:
  
  • Summoned Allies come into play at Summoning Card Level + 1.
    
  • Controlled Enemies retain their Level.
    
  • Temporary allies Lifespan, regardless if they are Companies or Elite, can never go above 12.
    
  
  
• Whenever a summoning card reactivates an existing Company or Elite Ally, the card itself counts as Effortless, and you'll pay only the ally Maintenance cost.
  
• Unique Allies now follow the same XP curve as the (unmodified) PC curve. However, their XP curve won't include the XP penalty modifiers the player has (it'll always be 50, 100, 150, etc...)
  
  • Unique Allies will receive a slightly increased stat boost from leveling up and will restore 10 HP/level. Additionally:
    
  • Their Power Max Cap will increase by (Level - 1) x 2
    
  • Their Health Max Cap will increase by (Level - 1) x 4
    
  
  
• Some of the Perks that previously increased the Power & Health cap will target temporary and Unique allies separately. Unique allies benefit from both types of perks.
  
• ExtendAlly & ExtendAllies[OfTypeX] rule addendum: "This effect can't increase allies' Lifespan above 12. (vanilla modes' SummonLifespanCap is set to 0, defaults to 12)".
  
• Streamlined the Ally Stat limits for all vanilla game modes.
  
  • The following limits are enforced in the vanilla game mode rules and can be changed to anything you prefer.
    
  • Temporary Ally max limits are 80 Power, 100 Health, and 12 Lifespan.
    
  • Unique Ally max limits are 120 Power and 160 Health.
    
  • These limits will apply in the displayed card values as well as display in each card's codex entry.
    
  
  
• Cards with 'Uses' skip the Discard Pile (unless they are Infused) and can't be retrieved with Recall.
  
• Channel using the Discard Pile has the following addendum: "If your Discard Pile count exceeds your Deck count, your Deck count is used instead."
  
• The base character's Health formula changed to: BaseSpeciesHealth + BaseClassHealth + Resilience + ModeBonus (from BaseSpeciesHealth + BaseClassHealth + Resilience Modifier + ModeBonus). This will give all characters a few more HP based on their Resilience attribute.
  
• Tweaked the initial attributes of several species and classes.
  
• Tweaked several perks to support the changes above better.
  
• Added around 18 new perks to various species and classifications.
  
• Nerfed Iluvann's and Alluna's Bloodline ripple effects.
  

Misc Changes and Additions

• Expanded the Codex entries for Mastery, Allies, Company, Elite, Strengthen Ally, Extend Ally & Fortify Ally
  
• Added Codex entries for Muster, Swift, and Loot keywords.
  
• Changed the wording of the perks that reduce enemy resistances to 0% to: 'Enemies have 0% natural resistance to x'.
  
• Changed the wording of 'Allies Upkeep' to 'Allies Maintenance' everywhere to be more evident that you pay at least 1 Concentration each time an ally becomes active and not once.
  

Bugfixes

• While imbuing an element to a Chaotic damage source, the Amplify of the imbued element wasn't increasing the damage output.
  
• When using the 'Attack All' command, Allies will attack in their visual order (as opposed to the order they were summoned).
  
• Fixed an issue with Unique allies gaining a large amount of XP if they were active and had full HP. They'll now use +2 XP instead.
  
• In the appendix entries of cards, ApplyStatus effects inside PlayOne constructs appeared an additional time with incorrect parsing.
  
• Fixed several card and perk typos.
  

Modding Additions

• In Game Mode rules SummonLifespanCap:x, 0 defaults to 12 and can be used as a cap for the Lifespan allies can gain.
  
• In Game Mode rules, UniqueSummonPowerCap:x and UniqueSummonHealthCap:x can be used to set a separate cap for Unique allies. If set to 0, they default to the same limits as SummonPowerCap:x and SummonHealthCap:x.
  
• Perks can modify Allies' Lifespan Cap using ModifyEffectAllyLifespanCap:x.
  
• Perks can modify the Power & Health cap specifically for Unique allies using ModifyEffectUniqueAllyPowerCap:x & ModifyEffectUniqueAllyHealthCap:x
  
• Added support for UniqueSummonHealthCap, UniqueSummonPowerCap & SummonLifespanCap in the ModifyGM shell command.
  
• ##Add#[Cardname]>>Effect1:x, Effect2:y, etc., can be used by modders to add effects to existing cards and leave the rest of the card unchanged.
  
  • To add 2 new keywords to a card called 'Golden Hammer', the syntax would go like so:
    
  • ##Add#Golden Hammer>>Presence:2, Hammer:1
    
  • The directive is ignored if the card doesn't exist.
    
  • If the card already has these effects, the values will be edited to the new specified values.
    
  • Note that this method can only be used to add or edit 'string:int' effects, but two specific 'string:string' effects are also supported:
    
  • ActivationSFX & ReUseArtwork, can also be used to change the ActivationSFX of the card or replace the reused artwork with another vanilla artwork.
    
  • , ie. ##Add#Golden Hammer>>ActivationSFX:Fire/Fire3, will change the card's Activation SFX sound to Fire/Fire3.wav
    
  
  
• ##Remove#[Cardname]>>Effect1:1, Effect2:1, etc., can be used by modders to remove effects from existing cards and leave the rest of the card unchanged. Ie.
  
  • ##Remove#Golden Hammer>>Cursed:1
    
  • The value isn't used, so it doesn't have to match and can be left at 1, but it shouldn't be omitted.
    
  • Remove can be used in conjunction with Add to remove scripted effects that can't be edited in order to add them back in a different way. Ie.
    
  • ##Remove#Silver Hammer>>ChangeAllyEffectMorale3xDx3=3;Silver=3;Element=Bludgeoning:1
    
  • ##Add#Silver Hammer>>ChangeAllyEffectMoraleFixedDamage=12;Silver=2;Element=Bludgeoning:1, Presence:2
    
  
  
• Perks can give the player resistance to Bleeding, Envenomed, Feeblemind, Frostbite & Burning using ModifyEffect[Status]Shield:x, ie. ModifyEffectBleedingShield:2 will reduce the Bleeding the player receives by 2 points.