Hello!

As promised, here is the 2nd part of Major Update 1 (there will be no other parts). This wraps up the changes for the Chest/Relic System. It doesn't mean I'll never ever make changes to them again, it's that the priority has now shifted to other things.

This should help take care of some complaints about the RNG nature of Relics while still keeping the spirit of them being, well, random. I won't be able to please everyone, so if you're still unsatisfied with the system, then there's probably nothing I can do for that. I apologize.

This patch introduces a new system when opening chests: Invocations. Invocations are a special perk (that isn't randomly chosen) you get to choose alongside having a Relic. They make opening Chests more strategical, as well as offering some bonuses that are useful without being overpowered.

Alongside this, a new Relic Reroll system has been introduced, where you can reroll the Relics you've been offered by choosing to spend Rerolls. The cost to Relic Reroll increases each time you choose to do it in a run, by double.

So, your first Relic Reroll would cost 2 Rerolls. Your next would cost 4 Rerolls, then 8 Rerolls, and so forth. You're supposed to use it sparingly, but there has also been a new (albeit expensive) Upgrade introduced which may help with that.

Did I say Relics? That's not a typo. You are now offered more than 1 Relic when opening a chest and you can choose which one you like. For now, you are offered 2 Relics. I'm going to see how the feedback is on the system to decide whether or not it should be increased, but to avoid going too crazy at the start, 2 options will suffice.

Here's the changelog:

CHANGELOG

• Introduced new Invocation system when opening Chests. What does it do? How does it work? You should play and find out.
  
  
• <COMMUNITY> Introduced new system where you are presented more than 1 Relic to choose from when opening a Chest.
  
  
• Introduced a Relic Reroll system where normal Rerolls can be spent to reroll your offered Relics, with an ever-increasing cost (resets each run).
  
  
• Immaterial Cloak, Ascension, and the Quickling's Weapon Skill no longer continue to play their SFX when the game is paused.
  
  
• <COMMUNITY> When killing Boss enemies, if you don't have the achievement for obtaining their Boss Skill yet, an internal variable will be increased by 1 each kill. When this variable reaches a certain number, the Boss Skill is guaranteed.
  
  - This should help for all of the people who are achievement hunting and are getting stuck having to grind out bosses to try and get their skills. This guarantee only happens if you have never gotten the skill before. The number of kills varies, but doesn't go higher than 10 kills.
  
  - NOTE: Boss kill tracking has only been implemented with this update. Unfortunately, all past kills you've done will not count towards this number.
  
  
• Ascension no longer stacks on itself if you have a lot of cooldown reduction and duration increases, which creates unintended results when the old Ascension expires while the new one is still active. You can still have Ascension up at all times, but it'll no longer behave incorrectly.
  
  
• The visual aesthetic of opening a chest has been changed. The slot machine visuals did not particularly suit the theme of Nomad Survival and has been changed in favor of something more toned down.
  
  
• When leveling up and choosing between skills, when using a gamepad or keyboard to navigate, you might've noticed that the mouse cursor takes priority. This has been changed. If there's no movement detected in the mouse cursor, it will be ignored in favor of using a keyboard or gamepad to make a selection.
  
  
• <COMMUNITY> The enemy that leaves behind the black pool during the Moonlight phase in The Crossroads now has a distinct outline.
  
  
• Lowered the SFX volume of Crusader's Weapon Skill.
  
  
• The corridors going east and west in The Crossroads has been widened to be closer to the size of the north and south corridors.
  - This was not done just for sake of consistency. The paths going east and west were so small that they were causing problems with portals (which are bulky spawns).
  

BUG FIXES

• Fixed issue where map event objects, such as the Crystallized Chest, would continuously play SFX of them being damaged while the game is paused. They wouldn't actually be taking damage while paused, merely the SFX would loop.
  
  
• Fixed issue where boss enemies could have less than 0 HP. This would display a visual bug with their HP bar that was confusing.
  
  
• Fixed issue where enemies visually looked very stuttery when playing on Normal Speed.
  
  
• Attempted to fix the issue where Crystalized Chests could be knocked back. Let me know if it still happens in your playthroughs.
  
  
• Fixed issue where the line indicator of the Golem boss (and the final boss) of The Dry Marsh would be colored black if Infernal Ray was active
  

WHAT'S NEXT

Wow, that Upgrade screen is starting to look very cramped! I'd like to rework some of the UI in the future, but it's low priority for now.

What I want to work on next is finishing up localization efforts for the game, so that -- thanks to our lovely translators in Discord -- Nomad Survival can be enjoyed by a more global audience. It won't be ALL of the planned languages, only what's available right now based on ready translations. To our Chinese-speaking friends, we hear you, but the Chinese translation is nowhere near finished. We may explore options of getting this done through other means. Thank you for your patience.

After localization is done, I'm probably going to start working on the a new, third map.

A new map will take time, so please be patient. Once localization efforts are complete, I'll be implementing translated languages into the game as they're finished and begin working on the map right after.

I'd also like to make the keyboard/gamepad experience more consistent. It's long overdue being fully compatible with the game. So much to do yet!

As always, thank you all for your continued support. I hope you enjoy the changes!