Daughter Balance + New Cards
The main focus for this patch was obviously the Daughter of the Void, and her getting a nice balance pass and some new cards to play with! Overall, the Daughter wasn’t in too much of a bad spot, but as usual we passed over every card, gathered input from players and also analytics and made a bunch of little tweaks here and there.One of the biggest changes, may also appear to be the smallest! Her class Artifact has gained a new line, and now reads:
This means Purging for Corruption, even when at full energy, has an extra bonus! This little boost should help kick start her Corruption gain even more, and speed things a lot.
As with all balance passes, there has also been some nerfs to certain cards and archetypes. Grasp, Masochist and Harness Sin all come to mind. Whilst they all did a thing well, they just tended to do it a little too well, and the community has helped shape some small changes in their direction, to hopefully help promote more deckbuilding.
For the first time, I’ll probably note that this balance pass isn’t 100% done. We’re happy with where it's at, but still think there is a bit more to tweak here -- maybe. Daughter is pretty complicated, and whilst all the testing has been generally really positive, there's still a few things we’d like to smooth out. Expect a few small changes and even a quick injection of new cards in the next week or so on top of what is here!
As with all balance patches, we don’t close the book here. We’ll be monitoring the numbers over the next week and making changes where needed. This goes for the Hidden and Enlightened as well, who will be getting another look over the new data and will have stuff bundled in as needed!
I’ll include a full list of all the changes at the bottom of this update!
New VFX Changes + Purge Effects
Okay -- so one thing which you may have noticed is small amounts of lag when first starting fights, when certain FX load etc. Also, due to Vault’s “2D sprite sheet” FX, I feel the game did tend to lack a bit of charm. When I first started working on Vault, I couldn’t figure out particle systems at all. I couldn’t make anything look good -- and pretty much gave up thinking it was a flawed system haha!Fast forward to now, a few years more experience under my belt, I decided to dive back into the particle system and see what I could work at. Thats been a huge focus of my time, and I’m really happy to announce that almost all the 2D sprite sheet effects have been replaced with nice particles effects! This should be overall better for performance, I’ve cut texture pages down by over a third!
The byproduct of this little experiment means I got to have some fun with something that I’m really hyped about! A new Cosmetic Unlock is available under the Unlocks screen! Purge Effects give you a way to add some visual flair to your Purges. I have heaps of fun making these -- if you have any suggestions or ideas, please let me know! I hope you enjoy them !
If you have issues with the new effects on your PC or Laptop, there is a new slider under Options which allows you to scale down the amount of particles you see!
Daily Draft Changes + Leaderboard Reset
The Daily Draft has seen some changes reach its shores. It’s been on the cards for awhile, but the biggest and simplest of these is that each hex now includes a new card reward, so you’ll be able to deckbuild more as you go! Also, two hexes include artifacts, and there's been some visual tweaks to scoring to show where you’re at mid fight.Once the dust settles and feedback is good on these changes, I’ll go ahead and put the Tempest (finally) into rotation!
Also a note, as is the way with Early Access, there will be an Overall Leaderboard reset coming in the next week or so. A lot of the top scores are from cards that no longer act the way they did, or relics from a scoring system that has been changed over time. Individual scoreboards won’t reset though, so you’ll still have all your medals!
New Alternative Artwork Pack
A new Alternative Artwork pack, done by the talented Adrian Bueno, has been added to the Unlocks! I love this set!Large Fonts and Steam Deck
I've added a Large Fonts option in the Options menu now. This definitely helps out a lot on smaller screen displays. I'll continue to make improvements on this as I get a chance to play around with it more.In conjunction with this, I actually just recieved a Steam Deck from Valve (thanks Valve!) to test and setup Vault on! I've had a quick play around already -- whilst a lot of the changes that will come with Controller Support will help in this case, it already works pretty well! I can definitely see a few imporvements that I can slot in quickly though, and will look to this over the next little while.
Of course -- bundled into all this is a load of bug fixes and performance tweaks. Thanks to everyone who has reported stuff, I'm always sweeping through and making changes where needed!
Again, big thank you for all the support and reviews! If you're enjoying Vault, please do remember to leave a review, it helps so much when it comes to spreading the word -- which is a massive thing for small solo dev projects like Vault!
Thanks everyone -- take care!
- Josh
Full Change List (Subject to small changes)
Starter Artifact Void Manipulator: Added "Energy gained past the max turns into Corruption."Unleash Darkness: Made the upgrade also increase Discard Corruption to 2.
Cursed Shield: "Block 6(8). If Corruption is over 20, Block 3(4)."
Void Kiss: 1 cost, Deal 9(10), Draw & Discard 1(2)
Wreath, replacing Spirit Shield as 2 cost common daughter starter (in Corruption): Block 14(19). Opener: Expel and add 2(3) Void Coins to Deck.
Grasp: Now deals 2 more base damage but only 25% Corruption damage normally - the upgrade increases the Corruption damage to 50% instead of increasing base damage.
Harness Sin: Instead of giving the rage if you purge it while having 5+ soultithe, it's simply "gain 25% Rage if you have no rage", with the upgrade removing the "no rage" condition.
Soul Kiss: The upgrade also increases the Rage to 50%.
Dirty Soul: -1 Threshold, +1 Corruption, pre and post upgrade
Dark Pulse: +1 Corruption on slay, has 75% Corruption base damage and upgrade is Solo: 50% Corruption damage, instead.
Maddening: +1 corruption pre and post upgrade
Debt Repaid: +2 its damage numbers, pre/post upgrade and both play and purge
Strike with Blood: Upgraded to 35 damage.
Allomancy: Changed to "add 2 Void Coins" (per damage)
Proliferate: Changed damage to 7(9), Threshold to 4(3) and Block to 5(6).
Flesh and Blood: Deals 125(150)% and Purge on base, the upgrade increases the Purge: Gain 1 Corruption to 2.
Knife in the Dark: Deal 5(7) damage. Apply Vulnerable 2(3). (Apply Weak 1.) - Upgrade stays 1 cost.
Wither Shield: Changed block from 10(14) to 12(15)
Separated Soul: Added the Discard: Gain 1 Corruption to the base card, and then made it go to 2 on upgrade.
Exploit: Increased the Rage in the opener from 50% to 75% and the damage from 8(12) to 9(13)
Cycle of Agony: Changed it to "Soultithe 2. Deal 50(75)% Corruption damage. Loop."
Ghost Walk: Changed to "Deal 50% Corruption damage. Gain 1(2) Corruption. Ghost. Inert."
What Was Owed: +1 damage pre and post upgrade
Limit: -1 cost
Acquired Resistance: Changed to "At the start of each turn, Threshold 6(4): Block 8(9). Expel."
Collect: Changed to "Gain 2 Corruption for each Affliction in hand. Deal 75(100)% Corruption damage." and make it an Attack.
Discount Death: Made it an attack. Lower cost to 3. Lower damage to 150(200). Added "Draw & Discard 1." after the Corruption damage and before the cost modification.
Unholy Cleansing: The upgrade is now the base functionality. The new upgrade is to lose Expel.
Reap and Sow: Made the damage always be 75% - the upgrade instead increases Sift from 1 to 2.
Null and Void: Extra 25% Corruption damage pre and post upgrade
Deliver from Evil: +2 Block pre and post upgrade
Blade of Darkness: +1 damage pre and post upgrade
Shed No longer cost reduces on upgrade
My House My Rules costs 2 more and will probably continue to explode the universe.
Neutral Changes
Blood for Blood: Change the damage to 12(16)Do Over: +2 to damage pre and post upgrade
Supernova: Make this do +8 damage pre- and post- upgrade. It's a neutral brute force AoE *rare*!
Riposte: Add +1 to both damage and block, pre and post upgrade
Changed files in this update