The Baleful Tower update for 4 March 2024

Hello All,

Development of The Baleful Tower is continuing at a steady pace, and I am excited to share the latest update with you all.

Let me introduce the Necromancer class, which is unlocked by killing Zombies in the tower. Similar to the Mage, this is a more ranged oriented class with a focus on three powerful abilities. The first is the Life Drain, a melee attack that heals the user for every enemy hit. There is also the Terrifying Leer, a ranged attack that damages and Panics every enemy it passes through, making them run away from players in their abject fear. The centerpiece of the Necromancer’s toolkit is the ability to summon Skeletal Warriors to fight by their side. The Necromancer can summon up to seven of these fearsome fighters to dispatch the various foes that reside in The Baleful Tower. The Necromancer’s Essence is the Necrotic Leech, which has a small chance to heal the player every time they kill an enemy. Like all Essences, its potency can be increased and it can be mixed and matched with those of other classes by defeating the Zombies that spawn on the floors where previous adventurers have fallen.

Also new to this update is the Electric Biome, starting at floor 61. This biome contains various electric coils that shoot lightning bolts that will both damage and stun players, if they are not careful. There are also several powerful enemies within this biome, of course. At the end of it, Players can expect to face the Stormhawk, a lightning charged bird of prey whose attacks cover the field of battle, forcing players to be nimble and avoid an onslaught coming from all sides. Only when the Stormhawk gets tired and needs to recharge on the various perches on its floor can the player hope to damage it, by destroying the perch on which it is currently sitting.

There are also fifteen new enemies in this update. My goal with these was to increase the variety of the types of enemies you will encounter. For starters, each biome now has three exclusive enemy types, instead of two. There are also a couple new enemies that attack by emitting a sort of particle beam, be it an icy breath, poison gas or some other material. There are also regular enemies that have circular area of effect attacks centered on their location, similar to the Paladin’s Blinding Flash ability. But most importantly, there are now enemies that will buff certain stats of their nearby allies. Each biome has one of these three enemies, the Hastener, which increases speed, the Swordbringer, which increases attack, and the Shieldbearer, which increases defense.

In addition to these updates, I’ve also worked on various minor changes in hopes of correcting balance and improving stability. I’m very proud of the work I’ve done for this update and think it improves the game considerably. I really hope that you all like it. Below is the full list of changes.

Enjoy,
Grant

• Added the Necromancer Class

• Added Electric Biome and Stormhawk Boss

• Added 15 new enemy types

  • Frostback - Ice Biome Exclusive
  • Hydrox - Swamp Biome Exclusive
  • Carrot - Plant Biome Exclusive
  • Thermador - Fire Biome Exclusive
  • Lumen - Light Biome Exclusive
  • Corrupted - Dark Biome Exclusive
  • Charger - Electric Biome Exclusive
  • Sparky - Electric Biome Exclusive
  • Diode - Electric Biome Exclusive
  • Hastener - Support Enemy
  • Swordbringer - Support Enemy
  • Shieldbearer - Support Enemy
  • Spore - Standard Enemy
  • Goblin - Standard Enemy
  • Plaguebringer - Standard Enemy

• Added the option to have aiming be toggled by Left Shift key, as opposed to holding it down

• Players now restore 5% of their Max Mana immediately upon transitioning between floors

• Fixed bug where enemies would approach player and then wait to perform their first attack after spawning, rather than attacking as soon as the player is within range

• Added “Anti-Cheap Shot Protection” to prevent a single attack from killing the player if they have 25% of their health or more

• Changed spawn rate of different enemies

• Game Over Screen in Multiplayer now shows the different players’ usernames

• Increased potency of Burn and Poison damage by a factor of 4

• Reduced Floor Timer on non “Hurry to Exit” floors by 15 seconds

• Barbarian Ground Pound Ability now has a 5% chance of Stunning fellow players when Friendly Fire is set to Enhanced

• Fixed some irregular behavior of Blaze animations

• Fixed issue with sounds on the Client for Naturalist Thorn Bomb Ability

• Corrected the spelling of “Bestiary” in Main Menu

• Various minor balance tweaks

• Improved software stability