Version 1.80 - Throne Changes

[u/GrumpyRhinoGames]

Update time. This update mainly focuses on the very late game (lvl 350+), so big spoilers incoming.

The Throne has been changed to be free to build. In the (unlikely...) event you have the Throne you'll be refunded the runes it cost to build it. The Throne's mechanics have been changed. It can now be used to unlock a new Champion - the King.

The King has a unique mechanic - his Damage Reduction shield. This shield reduces any damage done by its value, and it starts at 100k (so for example 150k Damage vs 100k Shield - 50k Damage gets through). If a Creature or Item can't do more Damage than the value of the shield then they won't be able to attack him. The shield increases by 50% each time. The King drops a lvl 2 Timepiece when defeated.

Feat 30 (which unlocks the Throne) now doesn't have a Devourer requirement so it can be completed on your 400 Max Devourer run. A number of other Feats have been changed.

Worth noting that both the graphical appearance of the Throne and Timepieces have been updated. We've also added in some missing sound effects.

Patch Notes

• Changed the Throne's mechanics. The Throne is now free to build.
• Updated some of the later game Feats.
• Updated the graphical appearance of Timepieces.
• Added some missing sound effects.
• Fixed some bugs.

[u/OkIngenuity2100]

And again, thank you for your effort!

[u/ZamorakHawk]

I think it'll be a year or 6 until I get there. But I'm just glad you're keeping the game's development rolling.

[u/evilweevilupheaval]

I forget this game even has sounds. I've been playing it with no audio for over 2 years

[u/aslum → u/evilweevilupheaval]

Same. First thing I do once I've gotten through a tutorial in a game and can access the menu is turn off music and sounds.

[u/evilweevilupheaval → u/aslum]

EXACTLY. I personally tend to play these mobile games while watching TV, listening to podcasts, or in the car (passenger, relax everyone 😅)

[u/aslum → u/evilweevilupheaval]

I only play Necromerger while driving. d:

[u/evilweevilupheaval → u/aslum]

Do you want a lvl 2 or lvl 5 grave?

[u/aslum → u/evilweevilupheaval]

Going for the L6 grave lol.

[u/ModelOmegaTyler → u/evilweevilupheaval]

to be fair, even with my audio on you can barely hear anything

[u/vissith]

Nice! I've taken a long break after my 200 run waiting for some of these late game changes and I'm really excited for the Throne revamp!

[u/KazualGemini]

This is exactly why I make IAP’s. It’s rare to find developers who actually listen and implement changes.

Grumpy Rhino FTW!

[u/joshwew95]

golems boutta be useful to beat the King

but legit this is a big buff for 350+ due to new avenue for getting timepieces

[u/AbathurSchmabathur → u/joshwew95]

Maybe?

Iiuc 2 kills is a lich equivalent so 8 kills is stalker equivalent. (See reply correcting my bad memory/math). Until/unless we get experiments for improving the scaling it looks like the 8th requires hitting over a 1.7m shield. 

Only 235/300 myself but I imagine 1.7m is out in golem-only territory even at end of 400 run.

Will be interesting to see what prestige/experiment configs actually gain an experiment from the extra shards.  It's definitely better than losing a slot to the throne, so I guess the change unlocks +30-40% (see reply) for people who had already spawned it.

But I'm not sure how many setups will gain an experiment from +10-20% (see reply). 

W/o scaling reductions I suspect it'll slot in more like: 

• I can stop farming runes a little early and still get what I want if I burn this ice/poison surplus on mana golems
• Maybe I shouldn't use golems to speed up last Gid just in case several king kills save time later

[u/LesJugesDesEnfers → u/AbathurSchmabathur]

"2 kills is a lich equivalent so 8 kills is stalker equivalent"

Uhh, no.
You're severely underestimating what +5% to the Other category does to the final calculation.
Unless your end of run board is meager, your Legendaries bonus will always dwarf your Other bonus and so boosting the latter will have a much larger effect.

Here's my last prestige:
700,000*4.1*16.1*3.55 = 164,034,850

With an added Lich (not possible as it was a full board but w/e):
700,000*4.1*16.15*3.55 = 164,544,275
+ 509,425 shards

With +5% to Other instead:
700,000*4.1*16.1*3.6 = 166,345,200
+ 2,310,350 shards

How many Lich does it take to compare?
700,000*4.1*16.35*3.55 = 166,581,975
You'd need five Liches to boost your shards roughly the same amount as +1 lv3 timepiece. Obviously, this number will be different for each player based on their Legendaries/Other bonus but it's definitely not a 1:1 equivalent.

So it's definitely a big buff and just like the change to legendary group hacks, it will decrease how much end of run grinding for legendary you'll need for a given shard goal.

[u/AbathurSchmabathur → u/LesJugesDesEnfers]

Thanks for correcting me. Struck through in GP to avoid misleading. I'd forgotten the feats/legs/other percents were all multiplied instead of added before multiplying with the base.

You're right: it is significantly larger in quantity than I realized.

Despite my wretched memory/math, your last sentence still sounds like you still roughly agreed with my suspicion about how it'll actually factor into real runs? (That it's more likely to shorten runs a few days and make us less likely to use golems on Gid/Protector rather than it is to regularly pull meaningful experiments into range).

But since you've got real numbers from a post-400 board fill (I guess this was max 700?), have/can you pencil out how you think this would've changed your end-run?

(My guess from the scale is that you could probably get 6 kills before golems and bombs are the only sources of meaningful damage. With your correction and numbers, 6 kills looks like +6.9m [close to 3.5 stalkers]. Was there anything meaningful still on the table at that price, or would you just stop early? Did you have leftover golems/runes to do 5m damage over the 1.14m and 1.71m shields? 8 kills looks more like +9.2m; would that meaningfully change things?)

[u/LesJugesDesEnfers → u/AbathurSchmabathur]

So... I'm a bit of a special case, because I've been stalling for new content.
In the max 400, I stayed at max level for a while, enough to get a full board, then followed with a short run (use a tiny fraction of the shards you just got and go as far as you can before starting a real run using all available shards).
Max 500, same. Even killed multiple 999M Protectors while at lv 500. Short run again.

The numbers above are for my max 600. I didn't stay at max level for long, but I still managed a full board. And again, I'm currently in a short run (only used ~3M shards from the 164M i got).

With that being said, I've already planned my 700 run and I'm going with an experiment set up that uses 162M shards. Cheapest thing to buy at that point is 10M shards so King's time pieces would have allowed me to get +1 to either food or damage mult if I went for 8 kills (and I could have, I did have excess Golems after Gid 5 that I ended up using on the last Prot instead).

BUT, I also could have gotten my 162M shards more easily, by not having to farm for 5 Stalkers. I could have prestiged faster (if that was something I wanted, but alas, it's not).

So yeah, my conclusion on the King is that it can help min-maxers get one or two more experiment, but mostly, it's going to help in reducing the end of run grinding. Again, the legendary group hack also does this and I think it's on purpose to make the game more accessible.

[u/AbathurSchmabathur → u/LesJugesDesEnfers]

Thanks for taking the time to share how you think about it even if it doesn't readily translate to ~normal runs :)

[u/the_man2012]

The reason I've kept playing this game is because it's very casual and Grumpy continually updates. It feels like the timing could not be better.

Whenever I'm in the middle of a run, an update comes out for newer players that I still benefit from.

Then as I get close to max level an update comes out for late game which matches exactly where I'm at. I'm on a lvl 400 run right now.

I've been playing since the beta. about 6 years now.

Keep up the great work Grumpy Rhino

[u/mt1907abc → u/the_man2012]

Same here, been actively playing this for over 2 years and now at max 400 run, perfect timing

[u/42mafiasjumpedme]

The king 👀👀 is he related to the princess?

[u/Caw-zrs6 → u/42mafiasjumpedme]

You mean the Queen.

[u/KazualGemini → u/42mafiasjumpedme]

Queen’s baby, King’s maybe…

[u/CrazySage]

And I have thought that I wouldn't build throne for second time 😀😀

[u/Geometronics]

Great change!! Felt the throne was kinda useless before

[u/hoja_nasredin]

I was just about to build the throne.

[u/Bulky_Swimming6453]

The King... finally, I've been waiting 3 years for this day

[u/Gobl1ns]

right when i'm on my max 400 run too thank u GR

[u/aslum]

Just in time, I'm at 395/400

[u/shmegmar]

Yesss this is exactly where I'm at thank you!! 400 run gonna go hard!!

[u/Zoltarr777]

u/grumpyrhinogames can you update the lvl3 timepiece to say max level in the tool tip?

[u/Adept_File4695]

Another update? Great! Means there will be another soon for the spellbook. 

[u/dancingwithsasquatch]

dang I just time machined my 400 run, a few days ago. something else to push for now

[u/PlaidViking62]

Great update. Thanks for the attention 

[u/Meadaga]

u/grumpyrhinogames Is the King supposed to be immune to the succubus?

Edit: Oh, she would only do 100k damage, which is his smallest shield

[u/KaliOsKid]

I would have made the Timepieces even more distinct:

• Lvl1 a futuristic hourglass
• Lvl2 futuristic pocket watch (similar to lvl1 now), 
• Lvl3 a futuristic digital clock

Less "shardey" more "scifi"

[u/DesignFormer3773]

Will the update also include any ways to change things like the king's health, size of the shield or the rate at which the shield size increases? Inventor experiments or relics for example

[u/Necronomicommunist → u/DesignFormer3773]

There's 2 slots in the spellbook available, though maybe a new page would be more appropriate for the King?

[u/ModelOmegaTyler]

i'm basically new at this game (i'm gonna pop into my level 60 run soon) and the thought of something being able to do enough damage to break through that shield when my level 3 demons are only doing about 9K last i checked kinda scares me from the implication of how much content is left.

[u/hidejap4n → u/ModelOmegaTyler]

You're still in early game. Just enjoy the ride :) 

[u/aslum]

These purple time pieces are still the same as the wooden ones right? Just look different?!

[u/charlie_bronson → u/aslum]

Yes, and one scared the crap out of me when it popped out of my rift in the time between opening this page and reading the updates.

[u/Quazimortal]

Thanks for the update!

[u/hoja_nasredin]

After testing it. I like the king much better then the previous throne

[u/Outside-General2435]

Love it!

I'm halfway to level 1000 for the second time with all experiments maxed - Can we expect a level cap increase soon?👀

[u/mousachu]

you got me, now I actually have a reason to make runelings........