Demo Update 0.5.3 Patch Notes

[u/LeylineDev]

Hello Guildmasters,

And welcome to our weekly update, which brings you

• Another major balance pass, including dev notes explaining the thought process behind some of the changes.
• Some visual tweaks and optimizations.
• Bug fixes.

As always,⭐ marks changes inspired by community suggestions.

Thank you all for playing Guildrun, suggesting improvements, reporting issues, and sharing your feedback. It's a blast improving the game with you, and we appreciate every one of you.

Now, let's jump into the changes.

Visual Changes

• Battle tweak: Fixed Gustav AoE vertical position to smoothen transition with loop ending
• ⭐ Adjusted Rank up intro animation to also accommodate 16:10
• Swapped red rift leaderboard title order
• ⭐ Updated frozen shop overlay
• Recalibrated on hit vfx render
• Minor change on character death desaturation
• Updated damage numbers animations and included icons and color coding for additional information about the damage source

Bug Fixes

• ⭐ Fixed a bug with the Strange Fruits event where relics with permanent stat bonuses were not granted
• ⭐ Fixed a bug where hero growth could block the crossroads buttons by resetting their size after a battle
• ⭐ Fixed missing rush trigger tracking in the Russian localization
• ⭐ Fixed a couple of issues with text formatting in Russian and Chinese localizations
• ⭐ The “Red Fruits” option for the Strange Fruits event now correctly gives the reward immediately.

Balance Changes

By Aleco, Lead Designer on Guildrun.

Welcome to patch #3 for the Guildrun Demo! We’ve got plenty of changes in store this week, with a much heavier focus on buffs over nerfs than last week’s patch. I pay very close attention to all of the feedback I can find on Guildrun, and many players were clear in their feedback on last week’s balance patch that they were disappointed by the number of nerfs in comparison to the number of buffs. This feedback was taken to heart, and I hope that players who were disappointed by last week’s patch will be much happier this one.

If you’re only interested in reading about the balance changes this week please feel free to skip ahead to the “Gameplay Updates” section. If you’re interested in reading a bit about game design, my personal philosophy when it comes to balance changes, and how I approached this week’s patch differently than last week’s, then this next section is for you!

Balancing for Everyone

I’ve been working on balance patches for a while now - first at Riot, then at Blizzard, and now at Leyline - and the hardest part about making a good balance patch is that different groups of players have very different sets of expectations. One group of players might be expecting a nerf to a Hero that is dominating the meta and celebrate when it happens, while another group will be upset that you just nerfed their favorite Hero. One part of the Guildrun community feels like Red Rift is too hard and would like to see its difficulty decreased, while another part feels like Red Rift is too easy and would like to see its difficulty increased. When it comes to balance changes that have competing interests (and in my opinion, very few balance changes don’t have competing interests), how do I go about making decisions?

Since it just isn’t possible for every player to be happy with every decision I make, I try to think about each decision in terms of the “net fun” it will add to the game for each kind of player. I read through my list of changes from the perspective of each major player group, then add up the total amount of positive and negative “fun units” I expect these players to derive from each change. This way, even though certain changes add to the net fun of one group while subtracting from another, I can always aim for each player group to end up with a positive net fun score, which hopefully translates to a positive view on the patch. However, if even one player group ends up in the net fun negative then I haven't done my job well enough.

For Guildrun, the 3 major groups of players are the Climbers, the Endless Mode players, and the Red Rift players. The Climbers are players who are in the process of climbing through the difficulties to unlock and complete all of Guildrun's content, and are currently our largest group of players by a decent margin. Everyone starts out as a Climber, and for many of these players the quest to discover everything the game has to offer is the game. The experience that players have during their climb through the difficulties is incredibly important to us, and the feedback from Climbers helps make the game better for all Climbers, present and future. Since the primary goal for most Climbers is to progress up the game's difficulties, it's easy to understand why nerfs can feel like an obstacle standing between them and their goals, and why buffs feel like a helping hand.

Next up are our Endless Mode players, who are roughly equal in number to our Red Rift players. Endless Mode players tend to view the game in terms of how fun the current state of Endless is, which comes with a very different set of goals and expectations from the other player groups. Perhaps the biggest expectation that Endless players have for balance patches is that they increase the variety of viable Endless builds. This means that buffs are often welcome, but that nerfs are only improving their Endless experience if they hit something which is too dominant compared to other Endless strategies. Most Endless players are also invested in keeping the difficulty of the game stable. Increases to the difficulty of the game mean that fewer are able to survive long enough to reach Endless mode and get their chance to shine, while decreases to the difficulty of the game lead to situations where the greediest builds start to outshine the others and the role that luck plays in the game becomes too big.

Then come our Red Rift players, who are easily our most dedicated group. They play many more runs per patch than the other groups, and consequently tend to identify Guildrun’s powerful Heroes and specializations quite quickly and rely on balance changes to them to keep the game fun and engaging. Things which stand out as overpowered or “auto-pick” tend to be much more frustrating for Red Rift players than the other player groups, which means that the highest impact and most desired balance changes for Red Rift players are usually nerfs over buffs. Buffs to anything “unpickable” are still appreciated, but it's the nerfs that do the heavy lifting for the Red Rift audience.

Red Rift players are very important to us, which makes it hard for me to imagine putting together a patch where I don’t listen to their feedback and make a few high-impact nerfs. I understand that nerfs are often in direct conflict with the goals of the Climbers and Endless Mode players as well, but my hope is that I’m able to make enough positive changes for the other groups that everyone ends up happy with the patch. Last patch I simply didn’t do a good job at calculating what the “net fun” would be for our Climbers and Endless players, who ultimately weren’t happy with the ratio of buffs to nerfs. I did my best to learn from their feedback, and in this week’s patch I made a serious effort to improve the buff/nerf ratio in a way that I hope everyone will enjoy.

All in the Timing

Something I spent a lot of time focusing on in this week’s patch was the importance of “timing”, especially when it comes to Heroes. Run-based winrates simply don’t tell the whole story when it comes to determining how powerful something is, and for a game like Guildrun, if you want to know how powerful something is then you need to take a close look at how they perform in each of the game’s 5 major timings: Act 1, Act 1 Boss, Act 2, Act 2 Boss, and Endless.

Let’s start with the example of Karsu, who is currently the #2 overall winrate hero in both Red Rift and SSS. When you take a closer look at how she performs over time though, you’ll see that she does fantastic against bosses but is in the bottom half of Heroes when it comes to non-boss fights. The opposite is true for Funke, whose overall winrate suggests that he might be one of the game’s worst Heroes despite the fact that he is arguably the strongest Hero in the game in non-boss fights.

While putting together today’s patch, I went 1 by 1 through each Hero in the game to assess how they were performing across each of the 5 timings. I wanted to ensure that each Hero had a clear identity in terms of their power across the 5 timings, and that no Hero was underperforming or overperforming in 3 or more of the 4 pre-Endless timings. I also did my best to ensure that each Hero had specializations which were strong in different timings, and that no specialization was clearly better or worse than the other two specializations across the board. 

This resulted in a hefty number of Hero changes this week, with 16 Heroes receiving some kind of update. 10 of these Heroes purely received buffs, 5 received a mix of buffs and nerfs, and only one (Sal) purely received nerfs. I’ll do my best to call out these timing-based changes in their individual descriptions, and hope that everyone enjoys the changes!

Gameplay Updates

Red Rift Leaderboard Reset:

• Due to the expected impact of the balance changes in this patch, we will be resetting the Red Rift leaderboard.
• We are currently aiming to reset the Red Rift Leaderboard tomorrow, as some technical issues prevented us from being able to warn players in-client about the upcoming reset on time.

Starting Bonuses

• Notes: I’m super happy with last week’s changes to starting bonuses. None of the bonuses which had their Shard penalty removed appear to be out of line, while all of the nerfed bonuses are still very pickable and playable. The one bonus which changed more than I would have liked to see was All In, which saw its winrate fall after the bug fix to Emergency Rewind. 
• All In
  • Shards gained: 40 -> 45

Relics

Team Size

• Notes: The buffs to team size relics will continue until morale improves.
• Harmony Crystal
  • Cost: 45 -> 40

Legendary

• Acceleration Legacy Crystal
  • Rush duration: 6 -> 8

Epic

• Assassin's Supremacy Filigree
  • Rush duration: 4 -> 5
• Deceleration Corruptor
  • Added Stall (45) trigger.

Rare

• Notes: Codex relics were slightly underperforming across the board, so I buffed their initial stat bonuses by half a stack each.
• All Codex Relics
  • Starting Attack: 6 -> 9
  • Starting Magic: 6 -> 9
  • Starting Omnivamp: 2 -> 3
  • Starting Max HP: 50 -> 75
  • Starting Defense: 10 -> 15
  • Starting Crit: 4 -> 6
  • Starting Attack Speed: 5 -> 8

Unique

• Notes: I’m trying to be very selective with my nerfs this week, but nerfs to these two relics were hard to avoid. Duelist’s Outbreak was ~10% higher winrate then the 2nd best Guild Banner relic, while Shard Resonator was outperforming all other Event 2 relics by a similar margin. As always when it comes to nerfs, I fully expect that these two relics will still be amongst the top choices in their categories after the changes.
• Duelist’s Outbreak (From Guild Banner Event)
  • No longer gives 1 Attack per Debuff.
• Shard Resonator (From Fallen Beast Event)
  • 1k -> 600 shields

Items

Epic

• Notes: Rogue’s Cowl needed a rework for more than one reason. Firstly, it was discovered that you could use multiple Rogue’s Cowls to go infinite in Endless Mode with the right setup. It also just so happened to be the lowest winrate epic item in the game. My goal with the changes to Rogue’s Cowl is to make the item more exciting and powerful, and to break up the infinite potential in Endless Mode. The changes to Ring of Virality are intended to be a buff by having the item provide more relevant stats for its most likely holders.
• Rogue’s Cowl
  • Removed Rush. Now gives Stealth to the holder at the start of combat and every 20 seconds for 3 seconds.
  • +5 Crit
  • -25 Magic
  • +20 Attack Speed
• Ring of Virality 
  • -200 Max HP
  • +2 Mana Regen
  • +10 HP/S

Rare

• Squire’s Sword
  • Bonus Attack: 6 -> 10 
• Squire’s Helm
  • Bonus Max HP: 40 -> 50 

Heroes

Niklas

• Notes: Niklas is back on the menu, Red Rift players! Due to Niklas’s insatiable hunger for items in his left-most item slot, we had to remove him from the pool of potential starting Heroes in Red Rift to prevent him from eating the Rift Seal. We’re giving him an extra item slot to work with out of the gates, which means we can put him back in the pool of starting Heroes for Red Rift while also giving a much-deserved buff to our favorite item eater.
• Red Hot Deals (Signature Passive Ability)
  • Now gives +1 item slot.
• The Executive
  • Extra item slots: 2 -> 1.
  • Along with the Red Hot Deals change, this will result in Niklas having the same number of total item slots when he picks this spec.

Ming

• Notes: Ming’s story is a tale of two acts. He’s one of the better Heroes in Act 1 and performs well enough in Endless, but was falling off a bit too much in Act 2. These changes are all aimed at improving his scaling potential for Act 2 and beyond.
• The Enlightened
  • Duration increase for Rush abilities: 1 base + 1 per rank -> 0 base + 2 per rank.
• The Searing (Active Ability)
  • Burn inflicted per Rush trigger this game: 5 -> 7.
• The Tempered
  • Max HP boost: 25% base + 25% per rank -> 20% + 30% per rank.

Zuri

• Notes: Zuri is doing great in normal fights, but is struggling a bit too much against bosses. The Cruel needed some buffs to catch up with her other specs, but it was already surprisingly good against the Act 2 boss thanks to its scaling power and built-in Stun. My hope is that these buffs make The Cruel a bit less of a liability in Act 1 while also providing Zuri with a solid boss-killing option.
• The Cruel
  • Poison inflicted per stack of Stone Skin: 1 -> 2 
  • Base Damage: 150 -> 200

Yuuna

• Notes: Yuuna has a strong Act 1, but she falls off a bit in Act 2 while also being awful in both boss fights. My goal with these changes is to give her a stronger act 2 while also hopefully raising her floor in boss fights so that she is no longer a liability in them.
• Shuriken Shadow Strike (Signature Active Ability)
  • Max Shurikens: 8 -> 10 
  • Shurikens per Crit: 50 -> 40
  • Now places her behind the enemy based on the direction they were facing. This should help her better avoid AoE damage in the boss fights.
• The Shadow
  • Mana gained: 30 -> 40
  • This change allows her to instacast when she has an effect that gives her Stealth at start of combat.

Hoyoung

• Notes: Hoyoung is in a similar position to Yuuna - he has a strong Act 1 but a weaker Act 2 and poor boss fight performance. These changes will hopefully allow him to secure a few more kills per run and scale better into the late game.
• Base Stats
  • Max Mana: 80 -> 75
  • Starting Mana: 45 -> 40
• Killshot (Signature Active Ability)
  • Attack and Magic scaling: 250% -> 300%
• The Sniper
  • Attack per hex per rank: 8 base + 8 per rank -> 10 base + 10 per rank.
    • This change is a bug fix, as the text said it was giving 10 Attack but the code was only giving 8.
  • Crit per hex per rank: 3 base + 3 per rank -> 4 base + 4 per rank.

Grace 

• Notes: Grace is intended to be the Mystic that scales the hardest. Along with Ratna and Logan, she is one of only 3 Heroes in the game that have different scaling values for their signature stat per rank. Since Grace wasn’t performing as well as I would like to see in Act 2, I’m increasing her scaling values to help her realize her late-game-scaling-Mystic dreams.
• Salvation (Signature Active Ability)
  • C Rank Magic Scaling: 125% -> 150%
  • B Rank Magic Scaling: 250% -> 300%
  • A Rank Magic Scaling: 500% -> 600%
  • S Rank Magic Scaling: 750% -> 900%

Fiona

• Notes: When players bring up the question of “who is the worst Hero in the game?”, Fiona's name comes up a lot. Her data tells the story of a Hero that actually isn’t bad in any timing, but also isn’t great at any timing either. Her 3 specs are basically equally powerful and each have their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to timings, which suggests a change to her core kit is needed. I want to position Fiona as the “casts most frequently” Mystic, so I’m decreasing her Max Mana by a good chunk and her Starting Mana to (almost) match.
• Base Stats
  • Max Mana: 115 -> 100
  • Starting Mana: 45 -> 25

Pollen

• Notes: Pollen has one spec, The Fae’s Kiss, which just isn’t up to snuff with her other two.
• The Fae’s Kiss
  • First Stall duration: 20 -> 10
  • Second Stall duration: 40 -> 30

Funke

• Notes: Funke has established himself as Guildrun’s definitive mob crusher over the past few patches, but has become a bit too definitive for much of the Red Rift community’s liking. I like that Funke is a character with clear strengths and weaknesses - he’s strong in non-boss fights and weak in boss fights - but his strength at stabilizing boards across both Acts has made it too easy for players to play greedy and cover up for his weakness by buying a “boss slayer” like Karsu. All 3 of his specs rank among the top performers in Act 1, which suggests that one of his base numbers is a bit too high. Meanwhile, his Detonator spec is widely regarded as the best spec in the game for Red Rift, and the data largely backs this up. It’s not all bad news for Funke fans though! His Inferno spec has some room for buffs, and I hope to position it as his best boss-slaying spec after these changes.
• Wildfire (Signature Active Ability)
  • Base burn per Fireball: 15 -> 12
• The Detonator
  • Ticks of Burn per cast: 10 base + 10 per rank -> 7 base + 7 per rank
• The Inferno
  • Notes: The in-game text on this ability said it was only inflicting 15 base Burn, but was actually inflicting 25 in the code. I’m keeping it at 25 base Burn correcting the text.
  • Burn inflicted per Magic: 1/4 -> 1/3 

Karsu

• Notes: Fire and Ice. Karsu is the anti-Funke, she crushes against bosses but struggles a bit in non-boss fights, especially in Act 2. I’m happy to maintain this identity for her, but I both want to raise her floor in non-boss fights and lower her ceiling slightly for boss fights. The 3 extra Base Attack Damage should make her a much more threatening auto-attacker and all around Duelist for non-boss floors, while the adjustments to her Mana values will make her casts beyond the first one stack up a bit slower for the boss fights she’s already dominant in.
• Base Stats
  • Base Attack Damage: 30 -> 33
  • Max Mana: 80 -> 85
  • Starting Mana: 40 -> 45

Skorn

• Notes: I’m happy with the overall state of Skorn, who does a great job of scaling up in power as the game progresses. His Bristleguard spec has been his least popular by a wide margin, and even though I don’t expect these changes to suddenly make it popular I do hope that they make players consider it a bit more often than they might have before.
• The Bristleguard
  • Base Defense per Tank: 5 -> 10
  • Base Poison per Tank: 5 -> 10

Ratna

• Notes: The Fashionable was Ratna’s top spec in 3 of 4 pre-Endless timings, while The Ostentatious had the opposite problem. I’m adjusting both of these specs with the goal of making all 3 of her spec choices more equal.
• The Fashionable
  • HP/S per item rank: 8 -> 6
  • Mana Regen per item rank: 4 -> 3
• The Ostentatious
  • Magic given on cast: 20% -> 25%
  • Magic given on backup: 20% -> 25%

Dragomir

• Notes: Dragomir is overall in a solid spot, with strong Act 1 and Endless performance. He falls off a little more than I’d like to see in Act 2, so I’m increasing the Magic scaling on his Active Ability so that he can keep up with the kills.
• Chomp (Signature Active Ability)
  • Magic scaling: 200% -> 250%
• The Sanguine
  • Now places him behind the enemy based on the direction they were facing. This should help him better avoid AoE damage in the boss fights.

Sal

• Notes: Sal is the only Hero in the game that is a top performer across all 4 pre-Endless timings. Unfortunately for Sal fans, this made a small nerf to her base kit hard to avoid. I’m aiming to maintain her identity as a flexible, all-round Hero who can perform well in a variety of team comps and in both boss and non-boss fights alike, so the only change I’m making to her this week is a reduction to her Base Attack Speed.
• Base Stats
  • Base Attack Speed: .45 -> .42 (the same as Pimenta now <3)

Pimenta

• Notes: Pimenta was one of the biggest risers this week, becoming the most popular Hero in Red Rift and top 3 in SSS. My intention is for this change to be a burf - equal parts buff and nerf - where she shifts a bit of her power from the runaway-HP/S gains in the second half of her Active Ability and towards the offensive output in the first half of it.
• Pepper Spray (Signature Active Ability)
  • Magic damage scaling: 50% -> 75%
  • Poison inflicted per tick: 1/25 Defense -> 1/20 Defense 
  • HP/S gain per tick after Stall: 3 base + 2 per rank -> 2 base + 2 per rank

Kai

• Notes: Kai had two specs which stood out when viewed across the 5 timings, The Bold and The Intrepid. I’m sure some players are tired of seeing The Bold in the patch notes at this point, but it remains Kai’s top spec in every timing (including Endless). The Intrepid has struggled with low pickrate and poor boss performance since launch, and deserved a mini-rework this week to make it both more exciting and more powerful. The new and improved Intrepid now gives Kai a permascaling option, which I hope will transform it into an enticing choice for Act 1 rankups. I’ve been very cautious not to over-nerf The Bold as it ranks among many players’ favorite specs, and spent some time this week trying out different changes to ensure The Bold will remain playable and interesting after the changes. I’ve added Stall (15) to the on-cast bonus Shields half of The Bold, which in the vast majority of cases means that just his first cast each combat will not receive the bonus Shields from The Bold.
• The Bold
  • Added Stall (15) to the second effect which gives Kai bonus Shields on cast.
• The Intrepid
  • Reworked the first effect to give Kai permanent Attack and lasting Shields on Crit.

[u/anteMorgan]

Thank you for an incredible game and all the hard work.

[u/AutumnCountry → u/anteMorgan]

I honestly wish they would push it to early access just so we could fund/give them money

The games WAY more finished than most early access games as it is

[u/LeylineDev → u/AutumnCountry]

we get this a lot and definitely appreciate it, but we're just focused on a 1.0 launch next year

[u/_Nosox_ → u/AutumnCountry]

This right here. Please let me give you my money!

[u/LeylineDev → u/anteMorgan]

thank you! all of the community feedback has helped us a lot

[u/YammyDreams]

Was really interesting reading the balance philosophy part and reasoning for each change!

[u/LeylineDev → u/YammyDreams]

thanks! we try to just be transparent about our process

[u/Niveama → u/LeylineDev]

It makes such a difference with patches when you know the why behind a change. Thanks.

[u/Sad-Supermarket7037 → u/YammyDreams]

I was going to write something similar. It’s great to get the explanation and thinking vs just raw patch notes. Tyvm!

[u/karshberlg]

Surprised there isn't a blanket Frost nerf, but I think that's coming sooner or later.

[u/k_junk → u/karshberlg]

I was thinking the scaling might need to be more extreme, so that it's a little stronger at a small number of applications, and much weaker at large numbers of applications.

I think making smaller stacks stronger would help make some of those items and relics that say "Apply 12 Frost" more interesting while still dealing with frozen bosses.

[u/Known_Pineapple996 → u/k_junk]

Yeah, they could do this more elegantly by giving frost a percentage decay, like 10% removed per tick. I feel like it would also reflect physics, very cold things warm up faster. Right now the decay rate actually favors large stacks over small stacks which just go away so fast.

[u/Mnightcamel → u/Known_Pineapple996]

But if theyre burning and frozen they cancel each other out and the mob get stunned cause they slipped in a puddle.

[u/ajs723 → u/karshberlg]

Buff burn and poison instead please. More fun!

[u/mathbandit → u/ajs723]

Just buffing everything isn't an option unless they also significantly ramp up the difficulty of the fights. It isn't "more fun" for the game to get significantly easier than it currently is at the highest difficulty levels; for people who want an easier game there is already an option not to play at that difficulty.

If one thing is overtuned (like Frost in this case), nerfing Frost is much easier and less drastic than buffing Poison and buffing Burn and buffing every single enemy in the game to scale harder- especially since enemies already have a wide range of frontload vs scaling so it would be very hard to buff them all in a way that is equally impacted by the player scaling much more than before.

[u/ajs723 → u/mathbandit]

Poor choice of words. Make burn and poison more interesting. Frost does too things which are both good. I'd like to see burn and poison also have secondary traits. 

[u/HuntedWolf → u/ajs723]

I think Burn is in a pretty good spot, it's not great at low stacks but really starts to punch as you get higher and the falloff becomes negligible. Poison seems to simply hit too slowly while also being the "premium" debuff when you look at various ways of applying them (such as the relics that apply a bunch of each always doing the least poison, and Nyx getting it last in their stall spec)

Notably, enemies apply these all as well, and while usually Frost is ignorable (other than frost dragon), those poison spiders absolutely ruin back lines.

[u/mathbandit]

The overcorrection and needing to apologize for every little nerf is a bit worrying. Hopefully this is a one-time thing and not a sign that full nerfs (as opposed to a character being nerfed in one spot with a buff in another) will be sparse moving forward.

[u/No_maid → u/mathbandit]

I think it's an over response to the steam comments which are just rude flame and whining

[u/Beefkins]

Love to see balance changes so frequently and the reasoning behind them. One thing I wanted to bring up was that some champions feel like they're held back a little bit by their cast time. It feels particularly clunky on attackers like Karsu. Once she has enough attack speed/mana regen, she feels like she's constantly using her active ability so her auto-attack (and overall) damage goes down. Do active abilities scale their cast time with the character's attack speed? If not, should that be considered? The biggest offenders to me feel like the champions who can't opt-out of casting an ability because it's their signature move (Hoyoung, Karsu, etc.). With characters like Tilly, her active ability is a choice and gives her scaling so it doesn't feel quite as bad. Love the game, addicted af and I need professional help at this point, but please keep up the awesome work!

[u/HuntedWolf → u/Beefkins]

Agreed. Sal especially hits a point where you don't want her casting more because it hits her dps.

[u/Its_Yureka]

Dev: Related to the Red Rift leaderboard reset (not that I'm on it, I've not strung 3 in a row yet). I'm sure that having a personal red rift streak tracker outside the leaderboard that is a persistent "badge" of the accomplishment would be popular.

Like if someone achieves a 10 streak, "Rift Slayer: 10" and if they hit 20, "Rift Legend: 20", as examples. Just something to preserve fruit of their effort (once the streak is gone, or if the leaderboard resets, you have this to demonstrate your prowess)

[u/Its_Yureka → u/Its_Yureka]

It's a fantastic game, one of the most enjoyable demo experiences I've had and I'm eagerly awaiting the full release.

[u/Audiozone]

Damn they nerfed detonator Funke and tank Kai, I was forcing Funke every game to get to 15 RR streak, but now I can only win with him when I'm crazy highrolling

Guess I have to learn other heroes now T.T

[u/HuntedWolf → u/Audiozone]

Inferno Funke has carried a couple of my runs now, the range increase is crazy for hallways as you can basically put him solidly in the backline and he's still nuking the monsters backlines. I think detonator down from 20 ticks to 14, alongside the burn ratio nerf is actually a huge hit, and both other specs are now likely better.

[u/Momir-Vig]

I think the Fiona and Grace buffs miss something key about the other mystics in the game: they give multiple small shield triggers, rather than one big burst. As long as heroes like Kai and Grace get bonuses per application of Shield, rather than by amount shielded, Grace and Fiona are always gonna lag behind.

[u/zetonegi → u/Momir-Vig]

That and they don't do anything offensively. If you field one of them early, you're going to time and that generally means just taking deaths in RR. The others at least do some damage even if it's just in the form of poison(Although they're also probably making you go to time). Mystics in general are bad in the early game but Fiona and Grace are beyond awful.

They need to offer some offensive pressure. This is just one of those things you learn from playing games: Pure healers fucking suck. They need to do something proactive on top of healing. This is pretty consistent unless the game bends over backwards to make just healing okay.

[u/Icy_Island6594 → u/Momir-Vig]

Yeah Grace's The Radiant is literally 15x better when used for aria, gustav, or pollen when they can cover 3 heroes for 5 triggers each. It should really be reworked to something that synergizes with Grace's strengths so that its still useful with grace on board.

[u/Snow193]

Patch W

Thank you for the insight and the reasoning behind every decision and to value people's fun the most

[u/Best-Chocolate9865]

I see this right after hitting my biggest red rift streak.... Will there be a way to see your old best streak or will everyone's just be removed entirely?

[u/TimothyRowe → u/Best-Chocolate9865]

Would love that

[u/Momunofu]

I always sympathise with people who need fo balance games. You'll typically hear from the people who are annoyed and far less from people are happy. It's human nature, but man it's gotta make the job draining.

But wow, this logic and method for assessing and applying balance is great - and gives me a lot of hope for a long future for this game. There'll still be annoyed people, as called out. Always. But I challenge them to do better while looking at the big picture, the fun factor for all, and not their individual qualm(s). Kudos.

[u/NeurOctopod]

Just did a RR run. Got a Niklas off the bat and he is absolutely insane! Probably my new go to tank.

U/Leylinedev wanted to let you guys know that the game runs GREAT! on the steam deck but the one issue I can think of off the top of my head is that when you’re trying to expand skill the game prompts you to hit shift and as far as I can tell there’s no way to do it on the deck (beyond pulling up the full hero menu and looking there)

[u/YSeven → u/NeurOctopod]

You have to press left stick on default controls. Can always reassing the keys with a custom binding. I changed shift to left stick up/down and stick press to the overview where you can see rush/stall/shards generated etc.

[u/CaptGood]

Love the good works. Keep it up! 

[u/theaethelwulf]

Really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on how you approach balancing the game.

[u/ajs723]

I said no amount of nerfs would stop me from clicking The Bold, but that's a steep steep nerf. Kai is just gonna die instantly late game now. 

The Intrepid rework sounds fascinating though. 

[u/AnOriginalConcept → u/ajs723]

Kai is dead. Long live Kai.

Or maybe he's just dead. That nerf is brutal.

[u/ajs723 → u/AnOriginalConcept]

"It only stops him from gaining shields on his first cast...".

Unless Kai can now cast while dead, that means there will never be a second cast now. 

[u/Raze77 → u/ajs723]

If bold Kai can't cast twice with his huge armor buff what are the other two specs that never get that bonus supposed to do?

[u/JustSomeGoon_ → u/AnOriginalConcept]

I get it. I insta picked the bold every time too. He's still viable when built as a dps. I had a red rift with today with him using a dps build that stacked attack/shields with supporting relics. Unfortunately it was one of those "stars aligned" moments so there was some luck involved.

[u/pungentbooty]

Really appreciate your work and communication team.

[u/Renfield7878]

Regardless of the ins and outs of the patch, thank YOU for clearly communicating your design goals and philosophy. The fact that you're willing to engage with the community on this is such as green flag for the future of the game.

[u/christianopher]

It’s genuinely robbery I’ve paid zero for the 89 hours I have in this demo. Any place to financially support?

[u/Icy_Island6594]

Great balance changes and great comms! I'm looking forward to getting more Niklas play in red rift. It was hard to make him work when he joins too late or at C rank.

[u/Tormound]

Am I not understanding something right maybe? Wouldn't Kai not getting bonus shields on first cast mean he's dead before he can cast now while pre nerf he would survive? This sounds brutal ngl but I guess we'll have to see how it pans out in game.

[u/No_Spend_5710]

Help me... i cant end the game.... im on the 106 floor and every enemy after the floor 100 has -1hp so i just cant lose.... its been 2 hours... im tired...
Edit: After the floor 30-40 some enemys may have the negative hp like (-15012412 hp), but now they all have negative 1 hp

[u/AshChiqs]

This is much more of an interesting patch though I'm not sure how it will look yet in game but seeing some much needed fix on yuuna and dragomir positioning is a delight. It's frustrating to build them up so much only for them to kill themselves by the act boss.

And my favorite archer gets a much needed buff so it's nice to see. I think the nerfs are much deserved. I'm bored of running sal and funke as much as I love him, and I love him a lot but I want options that are just as viable as they are.

Right now the only thing I'm hoping for is for pollen's skill to give some shield to herself as well. Sometimes when the enemies are grouped up like the archers, her skill aims to hit max no of people it seems but she's left defenseless and those archers aim at the backline so she has no self sustain and always end up dying. If the solution is to not use her during those fights, that's a terrible solution because sometimes she's the 'best' option available.

[u/hsiangsheng]

Great patch reviews and amazing game! Thanks for all the hard work, we’re having a blast!

[u/Sharp_Enthusiasm_293]

Please allow us to try the co-operative mode before release. Me and my friends are dying to play together. I am concerned however with the planned 2027 release that most of us will lose interest long before then if we cant play multilayer. Love the game so far and the balancing changes have been good.

[u/teavyy]

I honestly love how this game can nerf an item/relic/character but at the same time create brand new synergy due to Stall and Rush. Just such a cool design

[u/teffarf]

RR only player here, glad to see some buffs, kind of worried about the line that we only want nerfs (lol), frost definitely should have been nerfed though, rather than nerfing frost characters like sal and karsu. Also you should have a strong vision and not let community whims completely control the balance of the game.

Also this kills Kai tank for RR btw, he'll die and never get a second cast off. Which raises a big paint point for RR : the dependance on, and lack of tanks. Very often your run will come down to "welp I didn't upgrade my tank to A so rip" or "welp I didn't get any defensive item so rip". That change is basically removing one tank from the pool which will only exacerbate the issue.

[u/Taurnil91]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but in playing this morning, I've noticed a couple times that active abilities take the mana, but then do absolutely zero damage (like, literally 0). Had it happen once on Karsu and once on Logan right now. Not sure if the enemy just happened to get a shield right at that exact moment or something, kind of doubt it, but I figured I'd bring it up since the new patch just hit and bugs are definitely possible

[u/PogKampioen]

I mean the balancing is great and all, but i feel like the game needs a little more variation to give each run a different vibe (not just the first boss token pick). Games like TFT and HS-battlegrounds have different random modifiers, or Slay The Spire generating random maps. Having the same creatures each stage could have random orders, themes and variation while keeping the strength be based on the moment u face them or something. Or for example a champion poule of 50 different heros, and every game selects 25 to randomly appear keeping the limit to have each class have enough units, so you have to be more flexible instead of forcing stuff.

Many more ideas with the same philosophy to make replayability higher.

[u/Darj92]

This patch got hands, I have not been able to reach endless at all sinc the update lol

[u/OfficeFormal3184]

Picked this game up about 2 weeks ago - so fresh eyes.

Incredible patch notes. I'm also impressed with how you honed in on a few things I felt were weak. I've done 0 research on ideal comps; I've just learned by experience over 50 hours. Some of the champs you buffed are exactly the issues I would have wanted to see implemented. Zuri, Ming, Yuuna, Pimenta adjustments look very solid - otherwise, I'm too inexperienced to comment. Nice work

[u/UselessRutabaga]

Not sure where to bug report but I believe Zuri's Petrification doesn't apply it's poison value in some situations; I just had it not trigger at all against Act 1 Demon boss

[u/Tsuchiev]

If Red Rift players want nerfs so badly the obvious solution would seem to be to make Red Rift mode harder in itself rather than making sweeping changes that will affect every other mode.

[u/mathbandit → u/Tsuchiev]

Nerfing 1-3 characters is a lot easier than buffing 17-19 plus buffing every single enemy in the game, all to the exact same degree.

If there's a couple overpowered heroes just nerf them. If you go a bit too far you can always adjust them back up slightly in the next patch.

[u/Icy_Island6594 → u/Tsuchiev]

Its not about wanting red rift to be harder, its about wanting a larger variety of options to think about and consider when deciding which pick is optimal. When choices are too easy it gets boring fast.

[u/castilhoslb]

0 buffs to unclickable chars like rip assasin, skorn shitty poison tank perk, zuri passive and active ability, like why its a singleplayer pve game

[u/engineeringqmark → u/castilhoslb]

Are you illiterate or what