From the Devs
The full patch notes are below, here are our comments we have regarding the changes. This patch focuses on pacing, balance, and improvements to the perspective.Perspective Changes
Players handle depth perception differently, changes in this patch will help with the 3D perspective. All elementals are closer to the ground & have darker shadows, and a new row & column highlight feature helps summoning elementals into the correct lane (can be disabled in the options).
Pacing
Chapter 1 was designed to ease players in and make the game accessible for players new to the genre. We felt the pacing in this chapter was too slow, making it take too long to get to the really cool mechanics like the spell book and upgrades. To address this we have shortened all of the levels in Chapter 1 (in most cases by 1 wave). This still allows players to be eased in and learn the ropes, but they can get through the content quicker, and into the really fun levels in Chapter 3 and beyond.
Balance
Riftbound offers 3 separate difficulties. "Hard" is intended to offer a significant challenge, but "Normal" is intended to be suitable for more players. Some enemies were making some levels more difficult than intended, namely the Summoner (who became too powerful if not interrupted and left unchecked), and the Reaper Boss fight - which relied too much on knowing some special mechanics.
In this patch, the Reaper's damage and the overall fight should now be easier on "Normal". Some changes to how the abilities work will also help with this, including Spirit Shield completely blocking damage from the special boss attacks that can be reflected.
The Summoner was in a tricky place. When interrupted in time, they weren't much of a problem - but if you didn't interrupt they could quickly snowball with a large army of restless skeletons! We addressed this in two ways. Firstly the skeletons summoned now deal less damage, and more importantly, a Summoner will only summon new skeletons if it has less than 3 active summons, preventing the snowball effect and making it less reliant on interrupts.
We will continue to provide more updates to balance as needed, so keep the feedback coming in!
Patch v1.0.3
Changes
- Recall now returns more energy based on the elemental Tier being recalled (20 x Tier)
- Enemies can now be pushed into lanes before they reach the battlefield when using Water Spout
- Added an extra warning when choosing hard mode
- Added a new overlay that highlights the lane/column when targeting spells that target a tile (can be disabled in game options)
- Added a new game option to Highlight Lane while Targeting (on by default)
- Added a new game option to Highlight Column while Targeting (on by default)
- Added a new game option to enable quick casting with spell keybinds (disabled by default)
- Elementals have been moved closer to the ground where possible to help with depth perception
- The shadow from elementals is now darker to make it clearer which tile they are on
- Adjusted the height of the evolution buttons so they are closer to the elemental that is evolving
- Reduced the volume of the Victory sound effect screen slightly
- Cutscene fastmode speed increased from 2x to 4x
- Updated the look of the lane tiles in the Enchanted Forest environment
Reaper Boss Fight
- Slash (red spinners) base damage reduced from 40 to 20, and damage per hit is reduced by 50% instead of 25%
- Scythe Throw initial end tile impact damage reduced from 300 to 50% of combined max health
- Scythe Throw damage on return reduced from 100 to 80
- Scythe Throw no longer deals damage on impact to a unit with Spirit Shield
- Doom Toll tick damage reduced from 10+10% to 0+3% per second
- Doom Toll prefers to target closer elementals first
- Phase 1 - Reduced Wraith spawns from 2 to 1 (except hard)
- Phase 2 - Reduced Spear spawns from 2 to 1 (all difficulties) & Wraith spawns from 2 to 1 (except hard)
- Phase 3 - Changed Defender+Soldier pair to a Soldier (all difficulties) and removed a Defender+Spear pair (except hard)
Giant Troll Boss Fight
- Club Slam no longer deals damage to a unit with Spirit Shield, as this reflects the projectile
- Club Slam initial impact now only hits 1 tile in front of the Troll instead of 2
- Club Slam can now be reflected in Tile 7 (previously it had to be done in Tile 6 or lower)
- Rock Throw damage to elementals changed from 400 to 50% of combined max health, and now stuns the unit it hits. Still deals 400 damage to any skeletons it hits.
Warlord Boss Fight
- Warlord armor reduced from 2500 to 1700, to reduce the duration of the bosses first phase
- Warlord can now only throw barrels as far as Tile 4 (previously it could throw further, to Tile 3)
Other Balance Changes
- Summoners will now only summon if they have less than 3 active summoned skeletons
- Restless Skeleton damage changed from 20 to 12 per hit
- Weak Skeleton damage changed from 20 to 10 per hit
Level Changes
- Level 1/2 - Journey Begins - is now shorter with only one (final) wave
- Level 3 - Lying in Wait - reduced from 2 waves to 1 wave
- Level 4 - Earth Defenders - reduced from 2 waves to 1 wave
- Level 5 - Fletching Time - reduced from 3 waves to 2 waves
- Level 6 - River Crossing - Fixed the number of tiles destroyed per difficulty, now 8/9/13 ,limitied to 4 per lane (3 in casual)
- Level 6 - River Crossing - The battle now ends in victory as soon as you destroy all barriers
- Level 6 - River Crossing - Elementals can no longer destroy barriers after the battle has ended in defeat
- Level 6 - River Crossing - Barricades are now immune to push, dazed, time and stun effects
- Level 7 - Icy Water - reduced from 3 waves to 2 waves
- Level 8 - Frozen Rescue - reduced from 3 waves to 2 waves
- Level 9 - Evolution - reduced from 3 waves to 2 waves
- Level 10 - Riverbank Ambush - reduced from 4 waves to 3 waves
- Level 11 - To The Bridge - reduced from 4 waves to 3 waves
- Level 13 - Time to Upgrade - reduced from 4 waves to 3 waves
- Level 14 - Windy Detour - reduced from 4 waves to 3 waves
- Level 15 - Into the Woods - reduced from 4 waves to 3 waves
Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the text in the comic speech bubble was cut off for Simplified Chinese
- Fixed an issue where Giant Troll Boss wouldn't play its stunned animation when Club Slam was reflected from further away
- Updated various translations for Simplified Chinese
- Various grammar fixes and tweak to dialog in English
What's Next?
The next patch will focus on UI improvements and new options, please feel free to join our discord or jump on to the Steam forums and share your feedback!Reporting Bugs or Performance Issues
Things have been pretty smooth so far for most players, however if you do encounter any bugs or performance issues please do let us know - we aim to fix any issues that appear very quickly! You can join our Discord and let us know, or email support@riftbound.com.Join Us!
We are very active devs, so you are more than welcome to join our discord or leave your feedback on the Steam forum with anything you would love to see in the future of the game. This is just the beginning of very exciting times ahead!Join discord here
Changed files in this update