Greetings mighty gladiators!

In this week's main patch, I've added in two interesting new things to the game. Firstly, permadeath mode is now available when you start a new game. In this mode, if you are killed in battle, your game is over and you do not return to the campfire. This is a challenge mode for hardcore players to test how long they can survive in the game.

After last week's patch increased boss difficulty too much, I talked with fans about the challenges of balancing the game to suit the needs of a wide spectrum of players, and decided that a difficulty slider was in everyone's best interests.

Now, when you create a new character, you will have the option to select a difficulty to your liking ( as well as turn on tougher bosses and permadeath ). This slider will alter the amount of stats enemy gladiators have as well as the amount of skills and items they bring into battle.

This new difficulty slider does not mean I won't continue to balance and improve the way the game plays of course, it just gives more players options to play the game how they want. I've also gone through and refined once again the stats enemy bosses have. They all still have more stats than you ( on a sliding scale ) but should be more reasonable to fight against - and now of course you have the option of higher difficulty modes too.

In the next patch, I will be adding in the alignment system into the game ( this is about 60% complete but couldn't fit it into today's patch.)

Cheers, Oli

V 0.5.4.0.A Patch notes (July20,2022)

--- NEW FEATURES ---
• Game Difficulty Settings - You can now select your game's difficulty ( new characters only ) at the start of a game! There are a number of difficulty settings ranging from 'cakewalk' to 'insane'. Scaling the difficulty of the game increases or decreases the amount of stats enemy gladiators will have, as well as the skills and items they take into battle.
• Tough Bosses Option - An additional parameter than optionally boosts arena champion stats for extra challenge.
• Permadeath Mode - Games can now be permadeath - the first time you die in battle, the game is over. If an enemy gladiator spares your life, you will live on.
• Added two new music tracks into the game : "Crusader Redux Remix" and "S&S Medieval It’s A Duel" theme

--- BALANCE CHANGES / STAT FIXES ---
• Bosses stats have all been reworked - they now will all have higher stats than gladiators of the same level , but not as high as they were in the previous patch.
* Regional champs* (11 base plus 2.2 stat points per character level instead of 3 base + 2 per level for normal gladiators)
* Grand champs * (13 base plus 2.4 stat points per character level instead of 3 base + 2 per level for normal gladiators)
NOTE - These stat increases will scale in difficulty. Remember, bosses have one stat a lot higher than nurmal due to armour bonuses. This stat can be reduced in battle of course when you destroy their enchanted armour.
• Increased the base health of all arena champions to compensate for lowered stats
• Reduced Doomtrek portal stars cost
• Changed some species passive talent terrain penalties that once lowered your defence. Instead it lowers your hitchance.
• If Knightly resolve is used when spirit meter is above 0, you gain 25 spirit
• Golems now use Rock of Ages only when low on health
• Returned item weapon power/cost to pre 0.5.3.B levels ( was OP )
• Reduced item weapon power of all enchanted weapons
• Changed how the Excelsior talent works. Now critical hits against you restore X% of your health and essence. You will hear a sound when this happens.
• Slightly reduced reset talent cost
• Capped Height / Weight bonuses + penalties at -25/25 either way
• Reduced Fear Of Wizards bonus to 2%
• Reduced hit chances of basic attacks power/medium/quick to 25/40/55
• Fixed a bug where Final Judgement increased crit chance by far too much

--- BATTLE CHANGES / FIXES ---
• Gladiators using shields now have a separate % chance to block physical attacks (melee and ranged attacks, not spells). You will see them raise their shield if the block is successful. This does not show up as a regular 'attack' chance but is a separate roll between 1-100. So if you have a shield with 25% shield block chance and the separate roll is <= 25, you will successfully block the attack.
• Fixed a bug where spirit meter would trigger even if enemy was dead
• Fixed a bug where the fight log did not show most combat actions
• Fixed a bug where legless gladiators casting command would move enemy gladiators down to their Y pos
• Gladiators no longer use purification potions if they have no negative status effects
• Fixed an animation bug where gladiators with sonic weapons played the 'sheathe' celebration animation
• Fixed a bug where gladiators would appear to stand up after being defeated

--- MISC FIXES AND CHANGES ---
• If Special FX is set to OFF in your settings panel, gladiators will no longer show visual effects for shockwaves when taunting etc Turn this on if your computer is very old and you find the game crashing.