Hello Backlanders,

Today we celebrate 2 weeks of launch for Hell Clock - and what better way to do that than to release a massive update that addresses some of your most urgent requests?

Today's patch 1.0.2 brings a lot of fixes and changes, but most importantly it adds a new campaign balance and a new Endgame system.

"Regular" difficulty tries to address every single pacing, balancing and difficulty issue raised by our players in the last 14 days, and we think it serves as a great introduction for Hell Clock. Any pre-existing Save files will be considered "Veteran", so if you want to experience this streamlined version of the campaign, you will need to create a fresh new Save file.

Also, when you finish the Campaign, there is no more need for the scary Ascension reset: you can keep all of your progression from the Campaign and take it straight into Abyss and Oblivion - and also collect new item Tiers for your build! While we expect the vast majority of players to be able to clear Abyss, we expect Oblivion to challenge your build and take your character to the limit.

Whenever you want to give the challenge of Ascension a try, it has been moved to its own separate save file, and unlocks when you complete the Campaign once on any difficulty.

Also, we understand that testing new builds is currently very cumbersome due to the lack of a Gear stash of some sort. This is a high priority for us right now, and will come in the next update (check the "What's Next" section below for more details), as well as QoL features such as a Search/Filter for your storage and skill trees.

Changelog

Features

• Added new "Regular" Campaign Difficulty - this is a full rework of the pacing and difficulty of the game, taking into account 2 weeks of community feedback

• Added a new vertical endgame activity for Campaign: "Abyss & Oblivion" - keep progressing your build and items through Hell after the credits roll!

• Added a new skill tree for Campaign Endgame: The Oblivion Bell. It unlocks automatically after you enter Abyss for the first time. You will keep all of your Memory Level from The Great Bell.

• "Ascension" endgame is now a separate game mode - you no longer need to give up your Campaign progression in order to Ascend. PSA: If you previously had both Ascension and Campaign progression in any of your save files, you now find TWO separate save files: one containing your Campaign character, and the other containing your Ascension

• Added new Tier 7 and Tier 8 Blessed Gear pieces to all slots, with new art and a new visual for T8 Pajeú (white cloak!). These can only drop in Abyss & Oblivion

• Added new Tier 4 Relics, including Unique versions. These can only drop in Abyss & Oblivion;

• Main Menu/Game Setup reworked and Max Save Files increased from 3 to 6

• New "World Tier Selection" screen added to Benta NPC after beating the campaign, allowing you to freely switch from Normal, Abyss and Oblivion progression

• In-game HUD now displays information about the game world: Softcore/Hardcore, Regular/Veteran, and Normal/Abyss/Oblivion (this is particularly helpful for streaming)

• Added the option to fully respec Constellations (point-by-point respec is coming in a future update)

• Selecting a Blessing of Proficiency for over 1.5 seconds will now display a pop-up that better explains the Global Buff synergies for that particular Skill

• Selecting a Blessing of Foundation for over 1.5 seconds will now display a pop-up that better explains how it shapes the draws of your next Foundation statue

• Selecting a Blessing for over 1.5 seconds when attempting to Banish it will now display a pop-up that better explains the effects of Banish

• Added a new "Delete Save File" flow to help prevent user error when deleting files

Changes

• Reduced the base intensity of Lightning critical effects

• Reduced the lightning flash from Minister of War's dash skill

• Rebalanced Memory Level progression for endgame: it is now much harder to level beyond 80. PSA: If you had a high Memory Level before this update, you get to keep it, but your first level up will take a LOT more Soulstones than normal to "catch up" to the new balance. It might seem like you are "stuck" and not gaining XP, but just keep playing and it will fix itself eventually.

• Memory Level cap is now 120.

• "Vengeance Mode" bonuses now clearly show as a Status effect in-game

• Elite enemy density adjusted across multiple maps (especially in Act 3) - this is mostly an increase in Rare spawns.

• All Biomes now guarantee at least 1 Cursed Shrine spawn, when relevant

• Increased Summon skill cooldowns for Cursed Nests and Profane Nests in Acts 1 and 3

• Players are now immortal at the Quixeramobim hub

• Oxum Rebalancing: this Constellation was performing way, way above what was intended, so we are taking it down a notch, while boosting its damage output to compensate

  • Reduced Oxum's Bounty Gold Gain Constellation bonus from +10%\[+] to 7.5%\[+]

  • Reduced Oxum' Reward Gold Gain Constellation bonus from +30%\[x] to +15%\[x]

  • Oxum's Gold Constellation Notable damage bonus changed from Additive to Multiplicative

• Reduced Devotion unlock requirement for Caupé, Iemanjá and Jurupari to 2 Devotion Points. This is intended to facilitate hybrid builds early on, without requiring you to always pick the starting constellations for each Path (Ogum, St. Expeditus, Tupã).

• Toll of the Dead Unique Relic affix now adds 3 seconds of base Cooldown to the Old Bell. The intention is to still allow for crazy Summon builds using Toll of the Dead, but requiring those builds to invest in CDR to make them work, instead of being basically "free" as it stands today

• Endurance and Anti-Magic cap increased from 75% to 95%

Fixes

• Due to performance concerns, we are temporarily deactivating the "sync" options in the Graphics menu. Honestly, our Graphics settings are currently a bit poorly thought-out, and we intend to revamp them as we shift our focus to improving game performance and stability across the board for the next update

• Damage Numbers performance remains a serious issue that we are looking into, so for now we highly recommend playing with damage numbers TURNED OFF if you are experiencing performance issues. We apologize for the inconvenience as we are working to fix this as fast as possible

• Fixed an issue with Constellation Devotion Paths being inconsistent and becoming "bricked", requiring Ascension players to restart their worlds

• Fixed inconsistencies in Chest spawns amount, Rare Chest spawn rates, elite density, and shrine amounts across various maps (especially in Act 3). This is overall an increase in spawn rates.

• Fixed an issue where common and rare chests from all biomes after the Scorched Deeps were only dropping T2 Trinkets on all biomes

• Fixed an issue causing all rare chests in Acts 2 and 3 to drop only T1 Act 1 Relics and T2 Blessed Gear

• Fixed an issue where rare chests from Caves onward were not dropping Hell Clock timer increments

• Fixed an issue where some ring materials would display with distortion

• Fixed an issue where you could click the gravestone in the Hub to access a work-in-progress feature

• Fixed Jurupari the Demon Constellation name, which was incorrectly displayed as Jurupari the Judge

• Fixed regular Impaled enemies from ACT 2 F8~10 wrongly using the Wraith Unique drop table

• We have temporarily removed Vulture spawns from Cursed Shrines as we investigate an issue they were causing

• Saviour's Shield icon has been resized

• Fixed an issue where you could not Pause the game during non-intrusive Help pop-up screens

• Fixed an issue where some stats would display with a wrong value due to incorrect rounding of floats

• Fixed an issue where sometimes when interacting with Cursed Shrines your character could get stuck

• Fixed an issue where the "Reduced Mana Cost" affix would sometimes roll negative values and increase the Mana costs instead

What's Next?

We worked really (REALLY!) hard on bringing 1.0.2 to you as fast as possible, as we recognized a lot of frustration from a part of our community and didn't want them to feel let down. But this is not the last update for Hell Clock - quite the opposite!

Our focus is currently on our first Major Update, which we call Clockmaker's Tools (1.1.0), and our current target date for it is September 29th. Expect smaller fixes and patches until then, but no new features or significant additions.

Here's our development priority, in order:

1 - Performance, performance, performance. We want to make the game smoother and more responsive for the majority of players, regardless of how many effects they have flying on the screen at once.

2 - QoL for items and skills, including a Gear Stash, Loadouts, and a Search Filter for the Reliquary and the skill trees.

3- Improving the design of Defenses and the overall damage curve of the game. Right now in the late game it feels like you are either immortal or getting 1-shot, which is a terrible feeling in any ARPG, so we want to fix that.

4 - Adding more Constellations and Relics, focus on enabling new and varied builds.

PSA: Hell Clock Tools available

To the more crafty members of the community: if you want to create tools, build planners, wikis, etc., we have created a GitHub repository where we're exposing a lot of game data, including everything that has to do with Blessings and Skill Trees. In the near future we will also include Drop Tables.

You can access it here:

https://github.com/RogueSnail/hellclock-data-export

Thank you!

If you have stopped playing the game since launch due to the Campaign pacing and/or the Ascension endgame, we invite you to revisit the game and renew your feedback. We have listened to you, we have made significant changes, and we are willing to make more if that's what the community wants.

Thank you for your incredible support so far! You are making the future of Hell Clock brighter and brighter, and we are looking forward to witnessing just how far we can take this game, and how much better it can be as we keep improving it - together!

Cheers,

~Mark and the Hell Clock team