Become the Moon Update 1.1.0

Hi everyone! This is Ben, the lead designer for Become the Moon and 1/3rd of the Feldspar Games team. Thanks for waiting patiently for this update, I’m hopeful that it will make the experience of playing the game a bit less hostile, and a lot more fun, while still remaining challenging. I included some notes within the patch notes to provide some insight behind why some of the changes were made.

Patch Notes

Drafting System Improvements

• Whenever you choose a card while drafting, set your reroll cost to (0). Bill was feeling generous and decided to share his ability with everyone!

• When you reroll a set of cards, those cards won't appear again for the rest of this draft (unless you run out of cards from their rarity, in which case, all cards of that rarity will be able to appear again)

• When you reroll the first set of cards in each draft, their rarity will be preserved (so if your first set of cards in a draft are all legendary, rerolling them will always give 3 different legendaries until you make a selection).

• Heavily reduced the chance of Common (Bronze) cards appearing on Tiers 3, 4, 5, 6 and beyond.

• Increased the odds of seeing Uncommon (Silver) cards at Tier 3.

• Increased the odds of seeing Rare (Gold) cards at Tiers 4, 5, 6, and beyond.

• Slightly increased the odds of seeing Legendary (Amethyst) cards at Tiers 4, 5, 6 and beyond.

• Your first three cards at Tier 6 and beyond are now guaranteed to be Legendary rarity.

Changes to how Star Cards can be Randomly Generated

• Push can no longer be randomly generated.

• Bind can only be randomly generated if you haven’t played Bind this round and are not currently holding Bind in your hand.

• Garden can no longer be randomly generated.

• Tub can only be randomly generated if you haven’t generated Tub this round, aren’t currently holding Tub in hand, and have more than 4 relics currently.

• Build, Call, and Lyceum can no longer be chosen by Horoscope. Any other Star Card can, including cards detailed above.

Dev Note: Filling your hand with random star cards is fun, but not if you get bloated with cards you don’t want to play like Push or Bind, so I’ve added some restrictions to ensure that these random cards will almost always be cards you will actually want to play! Also note that Push and Call have both been changed, which is detailed below.

Leader Balance Changes

• Pain Killer now reads "Restore \[2 -> 3] Health to your leader. If they're still damaged, draw \[2 -> 3] cards."

• Allison Lycette now reads "All star cards (except Build) lose Destroy this, cost (1) more, and don't Retain."

• Nepotism gains "Exhaust this for a round, but cost reduced \[1 -> 0]."

Dev Note: The changes to Allison are to prevent infinite combos enabled by Build and Hoard not having Destroy This. Outside of the context of infinite combos, these changes should be a buff to Allison, not a nerf.

Card Reworks

• Sleeping Death cost reduced \[4 -> 2], Health increased \[4 -> 6], now reads "Minions and relics that deal damage to random enemy minions deal twice as much damage."

• Parting Song now reads "Choose a friendly battle spell to remain in play for an additional round. Draw a card.

• Moonlight Enchantress cost reduced \[5 -> 4], stats reduced \[3/7 -> 2/2], now reads "Minions you summon during battle gain Attack equal to this minion's."

• Understudy Sonia stats increased \[3/2 -> 5/5], now reads "Shield. Minions you summon during battle gain +5 Attack and Shield." (Effectively, Sonia and Enchantress have swapped abilities!)

• Call now reads "Add 2 random Star Cards to your hand. Destroy this."

• Push now does what Call used to do, but there's no longer a limit to how many times it can be cast each round.

• Wishbone now reads "Start of Round: If you have one or fewer minions in play, double your mana."

• Lunar Condenser now reads "When you play a spell that costs (1) or more while your draw pile is empty, get a random Star Card."

Dev Note: The changes to Wishbone and Lunar Condenser are also to prevent infinite combos. These relics should still be very powerful, so hopefully this doesn’t feel like too large of a change. The remaining changes are purely to make the game more fun and strategically diverse. Sleeping Death is the most “out there” change by far and may not be perfect still, but hopefully people will be able to find some fun uses for it!

Card Buffs

• Carrion Rose Attack increased \[2 -> 3].

• Medal Detector Attack increased \[1 -> 2].

• Middle Manager Health increased \[3 -> 4].

• Eternity Perfume buff increased \[+3/+2 -> +3/+3].

• Scry cost reduced \[1 -> 0].

• Rise to the Occasion Attack buff increased \[+2 -> +4].

• Angermancer cost reduced \[3 -> 2], Health reduced \[5 -> 4].

• Jar Smasher Health increased \[1 -> 3].

• Overseer cost reduced \[4 -> 3], Attack reduced \[3 -> 2].

• Show of Force Attack buff increased \[+1 -> +2].

• Potent Peddler cost reduced \[3 -> 2].

• Lifedrinker cost reduced \[5 -> 4].

• Dumpster Diver cost reduced \[2 -> 1].

• Moonlit Summoner cost reduced \[4 -> 3], Attack increased \[3 -> 4].

• Elusive Owl Health increased \[4 -> 5].

• Recycle’s mana gain increased \[+2 -> +3]."

• Deep Breath cost reduced \[5 -> 3].

• Mimicry cost reduced \[4 -> 3].

• Battle Symphony cost reduced \[5 -> 4].

• General Koi cost reduced \[6 -> 4], Health reduced \[8 -> 6].

• Ellipsis Von Battalia stats reduced \[5/4 -> 4/3], gains Quick Attack.

• Seek Higher Knowledge cost reduced \[4 -> 3].

• Enfeebling Spores cost reduced \[5 -> 4].

• Cattle Prod damage reduced \[5 -> 3].

• Targeting Machine damage increased \[7 -> 10].

• Mushroom Tea Attack buff increased \[+1 -> +2].

• Fish no longer requires you to make a choice.

• Lyceum no longer requires you to make a choice.

Card Nerfs

• Pyramid Scheme gains "Exhaust this for a round."

Dev Note: This is one final change to prevent infinite combos. Pyramid Scheme was probably the most problematic card of all, enabling many different infinites. This felt like the best change to make to prevent infinites without destroying the viability of the card. Technically infinites can still be achieved, but they will require significantly more effort to assemble.

Encounter Balance Changes

• Replaced one of the two 2/3 Deathtouch, Shield Toy Soldiers in Porch-2 with a 10/9 Doublestrike, Shield Toy Soldier.

• All Porch-3 enemy leader's Attack values reduced \[3 -> 2].

• All Lyceum-3 enemy leader's Health values reduced \[4 -> 3].

• Lyceum-3 Lab incidents Attack reduced \[7 -> 6], Health reduced \[28 -> 25], Lights Out battle spell removed.

• Lyceum-3 Slimes Attack increased \[10 -> 12].

• Moon-1 enemy leader's Attack reduced \[3 -> 2].

• Moon-2 Lunar Guardians Attack reduced \[30 -> 25].

• Moon-2 Leader Health reduced \[2 -> 1].

• Heart of Sonoya and Mouth of Sonoya have had their stats and textboxes swapped.

• If an enemy minion has had its abilities removed by Pesticide, its abilities will still be removed when resummoned by Late Spring.

Dev Note: Encounters are by far the easiest thing to change in the game, so if any particular encounter still feels oppressive after this patch, please let the team know in our Discord server or the Steam forums. 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a rare crash caused by having a Grand Magister Fogg with quick attack and one or more minions with Flying and Quick Attack to the right of him.

• Fixed Astral Plane wins not being counted after the first win with a leader.

• Fixed Taker's Revenge achievement not being rewarded.

• Fixed Big Boy and Bigger Boy achievements only having the chance to reward when a card is buffed.

• Fixed Startrash and One Man Army achievements losing track of progress after you quitting and continuing a run.

• The order of the first 4 leaders you unlock is now fixed even after you unlock the 6th region.

• The Retain tooltip now correctly specifies "Round" instead of "Turn."

• The leader unlock screen now correctly specifies "Leader" instead of "Character."

For those who want to continue playing on the previous version of the game, there is now a legacy branch in Steam called `legacy-branch` which will contain the previous version of the game from this point onward.

Lastly, I teased “something entirely new” in the last update post, which isn’t present in this update. It still isn’t quite ready yet, but I didn’t want to delay this update any longer, so it’ll be released when it’s ready.

Thanks for playing Become the Moon!

-Ben, and the rest of the Feldspar Games Team