Inkbound update for 20 September 2023

Letter from the Team

We’re excited to announce a variety of new features that we’re launching in a Starship of Terrors Mid-Season Update (0.2.6). Rather than wait until our next major update we wanted to get these improvements in your hands as soon as possible. We hope you’ll enjoy them and look forward to hearing your feedback.

Release Timing

This patch will be released at approximately 10 am PT (UTC-7) on September 21st, 2023.

This link will convert that to your local time.

New Features

Multiplayer Matchmaking

We have added a simple matchmaking system, replacing the prior “open my party for joins” system that was rarely used. This new feature can be found by clicking the “Find Party” button in the upper left HUD area while in the Atheneum.

Our goals with this feature were to reduce the friction to finding a party and to allow people to do other things while waiting for a match. Here’s how it works: upon opening the UI, you’ll see the three types of runs listed. If you immediately click “Start Search” you will be placed into the matchmaking pool for all three run types. If you wish to only look for certain types of runs, you can toggle the others off.

While you are waiting for a match you are free to do whatever you want with only a few restrictions. This includes playing Quick Dives and Deep Dives. A spinner with a button to cancel the search is shown in the party area of the HUD.

Right now we are prioritizing match speed above all other considerations, which means it is highly likely matched parties will consist of 2 players. We may extend this with more options and functionality based on demand and how much the feature is utilized.

Once a match is found, both players have 10 seconds to accept or decline. If someone is AFK, they auto-decline after 10 seconds. If all players accept the run, the run immediately starts. Note: this means you will be pulled out of whatever you are doing if you accept the match and the run starts.

Let us know what you think.

Improved Ping System

Did you know that in multiplayer you can ping things and other players see your pings? By default it's mapped to the “G” key on English keyboards. Other players in your party can see your pings. We’ve significantly improved the utility of pinging in terms of both visual and functional clarity.

Ping enemies!

Ping vote choices, ping rewards, ping NPCs, ping anything!

We’ve also added a player-requested feature related to exclusive items. Now if you ping a player-exclusive item on the ground it will reveal the item to the rest of the party immediately. This way others can pick it up without requiring the player who owns the exclusive item to have to pick it up and drop it again.

Change Challenge Tier in UI

For a while we have had a way to modify the challenge tier of Deep Dives by typing in the special commands “/rankup” and “/rankdown” in chat, capped between the lowest tier and the highest tier of the party members. Of course those types of chat commands are very hidden. We’ve moved this functionality to the UI in the upper right corner to make it more discoverable.

This can be handy if you want to play a Deep Dive at an easier difficulty level.

Reworked Systems and Quality of Life

Trinkets Saved Per-Aspect

By popular demand we’ve changed Trinkets to be saved per-Aspect, so you can more easily have your favorite Trinket equipped to each Aspect you play without having to visit the Trinket Cabinet.

Smaller Islands for Faster Runs

We’ve shrunk the physical size of the environment art across all Books in the game. This means runs will be shorter and interesting decisions will be closer together.

Score Visible in Daily Challenges

You can now see the running total of your current Daily Challenge score in the HUD while playing that mode.

Additional Stats Displayed in HUD

If you pick up bonuses for non-core stats at the Font of Wisdom they will now be displayed in the HUD, as in this example where the player picked up some Poison Damage.

Aspect Complexity Meter

When selecting an Aspect we now show an estimate of how complicated that aspect is to play. This change is designed to help new players select their first Aspect and have a better understanding of what to expect.

Balance Changes

Our goal with this patch is to approach a shift in how we balance intended for Season 3, so moving into Season 3 it will be less of a huge change. The first thing to be aware of is that you now have a 50 HP heal after all boss fights. Also in general we've made the Guardian boss fights (the ones at the end of books) much more difficult, but brought down damage and health up slightly from 'normal' enemies. Our goal here is to have the average fight mostly do 'chip' damage, while you want to conserve your health for the upcoming Guardian fight, which might end your run if you're not fully prepared. Win though, and you get that full heal and on to the next challenges. Our other goal here is to generally bring up the 'baseline' difficulty of the game, you can't quite sleepwalk as much through Daily Challenges and Quick Dives, while reducing some of the pain points at higher ranks.

Improved Performance

We’ve made a number of performance improvements to CPU utilization, particularly in busy Atheneums with lots of players running around. We hope this will benefit players who have mentioned they’d like to see performance improved.

Other Changes

General and Quests

• Unlocked the Obelisk Aspect by default.
• Ctrl+Clicking to move and collect an orb has been significantly improved, and now should work consistently.
• Challenge Tier 1 no longer increases Minion’s Attack, Minion HP increased by 20% >>> 10%.
• Challenge Tier 14 Minion HP increased by 40% >>> 20%. Reduced Minion Attack scaling.
• Challenge Tier 10, 20, Guardians no longer scale their HP as much when buffed by a Challenge Tier, as their base HP has increased significantly.
• Creeping Blight now appears 1 turn sooner, but creeps in slightly slower.
• Creeping Blight for Guardian combats now appears 2 turns later.
• Reduced the number of waves by 1 across various combats. Our goal is for certain higher hp enemies to last longer, and for battles themselves to be resolved quicker, once they’re already won.
• Slightly increased threat of Book 1 Hard Encounter 2 and Hard Encounter 3 encounters, to match their 1st wave threat a bit better with the first encounter in Book 1.
• Updated some Book 1 combats and slightly increased their number of units.
• Prevented large units from gaining physical and magic resistance Challenge Buffs.
• Removed Quill Augmentation from Book Mutator pool. Added it to the Challenge Buff pool.
• Removed Quillion Hybrid from Challenge Buff pool.
• Updated Challenge Buff Inkdrain: "When hitting a player, heal 20% of maxhp and permanently drain -1 maxhp." >>> "When hitting a player, permanently drain -1 maxhp."
• In multiplayer enemies have slightly more HP.
• Ensnared no longer stacks but now reduces movement by 35.
• Updated Prickly Puffer: "On hitting, 50% chance to inflict Hex and 50% chance to inflict Shattered." >>> "On hitting, randomly inflict either Hex or Shattered."
• Blight Puddles duration has been reduced from 3 >>> 2 turns.
• Increased post-guardian Font of Healing to heal from 10 >>> 50. Our goal with this change is to allow bosses to be much more threatening in terms of ending a run, but less likely to cause you to die shortly after them.
• Healing cost at merchants now 150 Kwillings due to the lower incoming damage from average battles.
• Dazed damage reduction reduced 30% >>> 25%. Dazed can make certain battles significantly easier, especially in multiplayer, and we wanted to bring down how critical it can feel to acquire.
• Overall our crit buffs multiplying with each other was making it somewhat too easy to get ‘out of control’ builds, and we’re trying to do some targeting adjustments down to make it take more work to create truly off the rails crit builds.
• Reduced crit damage from fonts, in order of rarity: 120 >>> 100, 80 >>> 60, 60 >>> 45, 40 >>> 30, 20 >>> 15.
• Uncommon crit chance upgrade at fonts from 5 >>> 4.
• Rare crit chance upgrade at fonts from 8 >>> 6.
• Epic crit chance from 10 >>> 8.
• Healing from fonts has been reduced slightly: from 5 >>> 4 and 7 >>> 6.
• Updated the Victory Board quest that required 100 Crit Chance to require 70 instead. Sorry to folks who already did it. With the lowered amounts we needed to bring it down some.
• Slightly increased boss damage in higher player count runs. Moreso in higher ranks.
• Guardians now drop more Kwillings.

Enemies

• Increased Rhinferno Book 1 HP from 2500 >>> 5000.
• Increased Rhinferno Book 2 HP from 9000 >>> 16000.
• Rhinferno now faces the attacker when preparing for a charge.
• Rhinferno's AOE has an additional ring.
• Slightly increased the size of the Rhinferno lava charge.
• Rhinferno lava only lasts 1 turn.
• Rhinferno now enrages at half HP and does more damage.
• Updated Lusk the Blightbag Book 1 HP from 4000 >>> 5000.
• Updated Lusk the Blightbag Book 2 HP from 9000 >>> 15000.
• Lusk the Blightbag now creates more Lil’ Lusks in the second phase.
• Increased Book 1 Lil’ Lusks HP from 80 >>> 100.
• Increased Book 2 Lil’ Lusks HP from 260 >>> 300.
• Increased Book 1 Nim the Lost HP from 4000 >>> 5000.
• Increased Book 2 Nim the Lost HP from 17500 >>> 20000.
• Decreased Nim the Losts damage.
• Increased Book 2 Nimbits HP from 400 >>> 600.
• Decreased Nimbits attack slightly.
• Increased Book 1 Janus HP from 2600 >>> 5000.
• Increased Book 2 Janus HP from 9500 >>> 14000.
• Decreased Janus attack slightly.
• Increased Mimic Book 1 HP from 3000 >>> 5000.
• Increased Mimic Book 2 HP from 12000 >>> 20000.
• Reduced Mimic attack slightly.
• Increased Book 1 Captor HP from 1200 >>> 2000.
• Increased Book 2 Captor HP from 6000 >>> 7000.
• Decreased Book 1 Captor attack slightly.
• Increased Book 2 Captor attack slightly.
• Support Spindlecasters no longer heal themselves or other Support Spindlecasters.
• Fixed Inkzooka being named as ‘Inkblaster’
• Increased the size of the Burrower emerge attack.
• Updated Bombbit to explode on turn end instead of on next turn.
• Updated Rhinkling. They now appear in Book 1 instead of Book 2. HP reduced from 1500 >>> 750. They now turn to face the attacker for their charge attacks.
• Increased damage scaling of Rhinkling AOE rings
• Replaced Book 2 Rhinklings with Armored Rhinklings. They gain 15% of their HP as armor each turn.
• Book 1 Treasure Pot HP increased from 450 >>> 600.
• Book 2 Treasure Pot HP increased from 1500 >>> 1800.
• Decreased Figment damage slightly.
• Increased Book 1 Enemy Inkpot HP from 350 >>> 650.
• Increased Book 2 Enemy Inkpot HP from 1050 >>> 1450.
• Decreased Inkpot AOE damage scaling from 200% >>> 100%
• Increased Book 1 Enemy Ink Pen HP from 175 >>> 300.
• Increased Book 2 Enemy Ink Pen HP from 350 >>> 600.
• Decreased Ink Pen attack slightly.
• Ink Pens now have a chance to start with either their AOE or their direct attack.
• Decreased Gunk duration specifically from inkpots and ink pens from 2 >>> 1.
• Increased Book 1 Enemy Inkling Slasher HP from 170 >>> 350.
• Melee Inklings now have a chance to start with either their AOE or their direct attack.
• Increased Book 1 Enemy Inkling Jabber HP from 60 >>> 150.
• Increased Book 1 Enemy Sparring Dummy HP from 200 >>> 250.
• Increased Book 2 Enemy Sparring Dummy HP from 600 >>> 650.
• Sparring Dummies now have a chance to start with either their AOE or their direct attack.
• Increased Book 2 Enemy Ghostquill HP from 600 >>> 900. Slightly decreased their attack.
• Decreased Book 2 Enemy Chompy HP from 450 >>> 400.
• Decreased Book 2 Enemy Chompy attack slightly.
• Increased Book 1 Enemy Figment Earthshaker HP from 650 >>> 900.
• Decreased Book 2 Enemy Bombbit attack slightly.
• Decreased Book 2 Enemy Inkstain attack slightly.
• Decreased Book 2 Enemy Inkzooka attack slightly.
• Decreased Book 2 Enemy Slimpe attack slightly.

Magma Miner

• Updated Magma Miner passive: 3 Shield at 5 stacks of Heat >>> 2 Shield and 15 Movement every 5 stacks of Heat.
• Slightly increased Bonk width from 1.2 >>> 1.5.
• Smash base damage increased from 120 >>> 150.
• Fixed Rare Magma Miner vestige Miner’s Gloves granting incorrect amount of ability power.

Mosscloak

• Slightly increased Hunter's Dash width from 1.25 >>> 1.5.
• Hunter’s Dash now also grants 20 Movement. Updated ascensions to match.
• Decreased Flurry damage per shuriken from 35 >>> 25.
• Decreased Flurry ascension Relentless Barrage additional damage per extra shuriken from 10 >>> 5. Increased Flurry ascension Relentless Barrage base damage per shuriken from 20 >>> 25.

Weaver

• Slightly increased Thread width from 1 >>> 1.25.
• Increased Constrict damage from 100 >>> 150. Updated ascensions to match.

Obelisk

• Decreased Ironclap base damage from 30 >>> 20.
• Slightly increased Shield Bash range from 4 >>> 5.
• Increased Shield Bash base damage from 75 >>> 90.
• Increased Shield Bash ascension Battering Ram Will cost from 1 >>> 2 to match the base Binding and other ascensions.
• Decreased Ironclap ascension Ground Slam damage from 50 >>> 30.
• Decreased Ironclap ascension Impulse damage from 50 >>> 40.
• Decreased Ironclap ascension Shell shield gain from 2 >>> 1.
• Decreased Shield Bash ascension Headbutt damage from 75 >>> 25.

Star Captain

• Decreased Chillazer damage from 30 >>> 25. Updated ascensions to match.
• Decreased Chillazer ascension Freezing Ray frostbite damage gain from 15 >>> 10.

Draftable Bindings

• Updated Toxic: "On defeat, inflict stacks of poison to nearby Enemies." >>> "On defeat, inflict half stacks of Poison to nearby Enemies."
• Updated Wildfire: "On defeat, inflict stacks of Burn to nearby Enemies." >>> "On defeat, inflict half stacks of Burn to nearby Enemies."
• Decreased Restoration ascension Greater Restoration heal from 10 >>> 8.

Vestiges

• Health Stimulant vigor granted reduced from 5 >>> 3.
• Braced Belt now shield granted reduced from 10 >>> 5.
• Twin Fangs crit chance boost reduced 5 >>> 3.
• Dun's Head crit chance reduced 10 >>> 8.
• Shocking Corecap crit chance reduced 15 >>> 10.
• Amulet of Floral Transposition crit chance reduced 10 >>> 7.
• Counterassistance has reduced crit damage 15 >>> 10.
• Inkritto crit chance reduced 10 >>> 5.
• Lucky Horseshoe Crab now gives 20 >>> 10 Damage Resist and 20 >>> 10 Crit Chance.
• Oozing Jelly now gives 15 >>> 10 Crit Chance.
• Shaheen's Shimmering Shadow now happens on gaining crit instead of on critting.

UI

• Added note in initial Aspect select to let new players know they can change Aspect after completing the initial tutorial quest.
• Fixed bug that caused displayed player challenge tier above the heads of remote players to display incorrectly in the Atheneum.
• Improved UI for interactables that have a Kwilling cost within runs.
• Fixed bug where if you finished a Daily Challenge while the timer rolls over to release a new challenge you would not be shown the “Yesterday” leaderboard automatically at the end of run.

Audio

• Added new Nim spawn/summon sounds.

Visuals

• Added spawn-in animations for all enemies.
• Polished and improved a variety of visual effects.