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[Klei Publishing] Announcing U.V.S. Nirmana

[Game Update] - 638095

Release Date: 10/24/24

Update Information:

Hello hunters!

Today we are releasing the first part of our Fall Update for Rotwood. 

The Splintershard Cavern includes a wide variety of content that we have been working on since our previous update: a new Weapon Type; a new Hunt and its associated Boss, Miniboss, Rots, Armour, Weapons, Heartstone, and more; the addition of Super Frenzies for more late-game content and challenges; crafting of Boss Weapons to begin harnessing the power of Boss Rots for yourself and some world restructuring provide a smoother and less grindy experience for new players and old players alike, while laying the groundwork for incoming narrative.

NOTE: We wanted some more time to put a high shine on Anomalies and Gems so those will be released in the second part of the Fall Update in November. We'll be opening up the beta for Anomalies and Gems very soon!

One last note. A big thanks once again to everybody that helped with testing during the beta. We appreciate all of those bug reports and well thought out feedback. See you in part 2 very soon!

Highlights Include:

  • A new weapon type: the Bow
  • A new hunt and its associated content: Splintershard Cavern
  • Super Frenzies, Elite Bosses, and Boss Weapons for two Hunts
  • Anomalies: temporary and forever-changing modifiers to some Frenzy Hunts offering much more variety (coming to beta very soon)
  • Gems (coming to beta very soon)
  • Economy updates and equipment upgrading balance changes
  • Game progression improvements and smoothing
  • Improvements to game feel, including more consistent ability to Stagger and Interrupt enemies

We're going to spend a bit of time responding to any issues that pop up for this release and then we're going to focus on getting ready for the Anomalies and Gems beta coming soon. Stay tuned!

New Content

  • Added new weapon class: Bow
  • Added new Hunt: Splintershard Chasm, including new rots, miniboss, boss, traps, armour, weapons, masteries, titles, Nimble challenges, emotes, decorations, powers, and heartstone
  • Added Elite Bosses and 5 levels of Super Frenzy for two hunts: Great Rotwood Forest (Elite Mother Treek) and Nocturne Grove (Elite Owlitzer)
  • Added Boss Weapon crafting sequence for Mother Treek and Owlitzer
  • Began rolling out new, more local multiplayer-friendly and small screen-friendly UI style which scale up

Additions

  • Controls
    • Add support for rebinding mouse buttons (required a reset of options, sorry!)
    • Allow ability to rebind "Customize Town"
    • Allow ability to rebind "Show Player Status"
  • Hunts
    • Added countdown when players are waiting for another player to choose an exit in a network game
  • Market
    • Added additional eggs to Nimble's shop in single player and more in multiplayer
  • Narrative
    • Added Alphonse quips
    • Added Hamish quips
    • Added Flitt quips
  • Player
    • Heavy attacks from every weapon class now consistently interrupt attacks of small mobs during their attack startups and attack states
    • Skills from every weapon class now consistently interrupt attacks of small mobs during their attack startups and attack states
    • Added several new unlocked-by-default cosmetic options for each species
  • Powers
    • Added several support powers for the Charged Fabled Power family
    • Added several support powers for the Shield Fabled Power family
    • Add a higher than usual chance Fabled Power family support powers to drop in Fabled Power drop rooms
    • Cornered Coyote: Added new FX
    • Encore: Added new FX
    • Light Precision: Added new FX
    • Lil' Schemer: Added new FX
    • Righteous Fury: Added new FX
    • Momentum: Added new FX
    • Simply Stunning: Added new FX
    • Weighted Weaponry: Added new FX
    • Sheepdog: Added new FX
    • Thin the Herd: Added new FX
    • Herd Growth: Added new FX
  • UI
    • Tooltips that reference Weapon Damage will now calculate what the viewing player's Weapon Damage is
    • Tooltips that reference Focus Hit will now list what the viewing player's method of Focus Hitting is
    • Removed "recommended Attack" and "recommended Defense", replace with an easier-to-use and communicate Hunt Level
    • Show average party level on world map
    • Show all players and their individual levels on world map
    • Added Rescue Icons for Berna and Hamish on the world map
    • Added Dungeon
    • Added Hunt nameplate above the Damselfly when starting a hunt
    • Add optional profanity filter for chat and names for English
    • Added new Building screen
    • Added new Emote screen
    • Added new Loot Chest screen
    • Added new Mastery screen
    • Added new Power Upgrade screen
  • Zones/Progression
    • Restructured game into two "zones" - Hunt 1-4, and Hunt 5-6+.
    • Difficulty level between one dungeon and the next is less than previously, requiring no grinding to enter the next dungeon confidently. Equipment from a given zone has been rebalanced to retain the same relationship to the dungeon as before.
    • Compress amount of equipment scaling capable at current progression level of the game -- the numerical differences between "high level" players and "low level" players are compressed
    • Hunts 2-4 are unlocked simultaneously after clearing Hunt 1
    • Frenzy Levels for a zone are only unlocked after completing the zone for the first time, and they are all of equivalent difficulty
    • Equipment from the same zone can be purchased at any Market in that zone
    • Individual items no longer need to be fortified, but instead Hamish and Berna's stations can be fortified to bring items from Zone 1 into Zone 2
    • Tweaking of difficulty curve from beginning of the game all the way up to Super Frenzies
    • Corestone requirements and drop counts no longer scale higher and higher throughout the game
    • Boss Loot requirements are lessened, and so Boss Rots drop less loot for now
    • Added ability to choose Hammer or Spear in intro room of a new save, instead of being forced to play Hammer. Both are unlocked by default.

Changes

  • Customization
    • Improved layering of various hairs, horns, ears and armour pieces
    • Randomizing while customizing body/legs no longer randomizes species
  • Equipment
    • Adjust how "damage" values of weapons are displayed so they are more in line with how armour is displayed (numbers are smaller, but this has no gameplay effect -- ONLY visual)
    • Simplified item upgrading process so that you are only upgrading the level of each item
      • Item damage and armour values are determined by the item's level
      • Item rarity is now determined by the item's level
      • The effectiveness of an item's power is now tied directly to that item's rarity
      • Items earned in more difficult content starts at a higher item level
      • Reworked item upgrading recipes
    • Reworked item fortification process
      • Instead of fortifying each item individually with ingots each level, Berna and Hamish will now request that you upgrade their crafting stations. This enables you to bring all items of a lower item level up to the new cap without the need for more ingots.
    • Strip unshipped equipment from the game
    • All Groak weapons: skill now interrupts attacks and deals multiple small hits while target is in the inhale area
    • Armour: Colossapphire Greaves: Reduced maximum damage bonus from 200% to 100%.
    • Armour: Colossapphire Greaves: Increased charge time from 3 seconds to 4 seconds
    • Armour: Colossapphire Greaves: You now have to be standing still for a shorter amount of time before charge starts to build
    • Armour: Colossapphire Greaves: Glow the armour piece instead of the weapon to more clearly indicate the pants are working
    • Armour: Gustree Helm - fixed triggering twice
    • Armour: Meowl Cowl - Crit damage boost 20/40/60 -> 25/50/100. Duration 3s -> 5s
    • Armour: Yammo Singlet - now specifies that it only functions against Regular boss Rots
    • Cannon: Fix inability to change direction when late-pressing Light or Heavy attack after a Heavy Attack
    • Cannon: Planting states, before committing to a choice, are now non-interruptible
    • Hammer: Bugbuster - Can now charge Rolling Light and Fading Light attacks
    • Hammer: Bugbuster - Charged Light damage buff 100 / 125 / 150 -> 300 / 325 / 350
    • Hammer: The Tenderizer - Add ability to cancel into attack, dodge, or walk sooner.
    • Hammer: The Tenderizer - Fix FX don't persist between clearings while active
    • Hammer: The Tenderizer - Heavy explosion is now considered a "skill" attack, and so receives bonus from Floracrane Skirt etc
    • Spear: Catuceus Staff - Fixed missing sound for As-You-Will skill
    • Spear: Long Arm of the Claw - no longer does reduced normal damage
    • Spear: Sharpoon - Matched Weight to other Floracrane weapon variations: M -> L
  • Hunts
    • Destructibles spawned by enemies are no longer considered "Environmental Objects"
    • Destructibles clear any status effects on death
    • Ground warning markers are now specific to what will land there (trap, rot, etc)
    • Great Rotwood Forest: Reduced the amount of encounters that include 3 Treeks
    • Guarantee seeing a market in all non-frenzy runs
    • Increase health of enemies spawned in 3p and 4p to account for lower count, particularly in Major, Miniboss and Minor enemies
    • Reduce amount of extra enemies spawned in 3p and 4p matches to reduce chaos onscreen
    • Set lifetime on bomb scorches in bossrooms to prevent infinite stacking of decals during some boss fights
    • Silhouettes: Ground projected trap silhouettes are significantly less pronounced
    • Silhouettes: Torches no longer use 'trap' silhouette colours
    • Spike Traps: no longer trigger on dead/revivable players
    • Wellspring port: Improve responsiveness when claiming rewards
  • Market
    • Nimble's prices are randomized slightly within a range
    • Swap location of Armour and Weapon stalls
    • Reduced cost of equipment
    • Equipment you buy will now start at the level of your best piece of equipment in that slot, up to that item's pre-fortification level cap
  • Music
    • Post-victory music stinger is less loud
  • Narrative
    • Allow pressing "Interact" (F/RB) to advance conversation
    • Pacing tweaks to existing chats for many characters
    • Modified many strings to match new flow and prepare more narrative beats for the future
    • Changed rescue spawn conditions for Berna and Hamish to match new game progression sequence
  • Networking
    • Improved network bandwidth across the board
    • Added network event throttling to prevent major bandwidth spikes in some cases
  • Player
    • Added iframes to player on hit while non-interruptible
    • Fixed bug where only end of roll was affected by movespeed modifiers, resulting in a jittery roll
    • Increased base move speed by 12.5%
    • Reduced effect of runspeed modifiers on attacks, resulting in a less "slidey" feel at high runspeed
    • Reduced effect of runspeed modifiers on dodges, resulting in a less "slidey" feel at high runspeed
    • Reduced player revivable state stun time from 3 -> 1.5 seconds
    • Weight is now represented by an icon where the "Food" frame used to be. [Note: we are still planning Food, but it will be displayed in a different way.]
    • Cannon: Strong Shockwave is now considered airborne
    • Hammer: Jumping Heavy Somersault is no longer considered two attacks
    • Hammer: Order in the Court skill: Added more lenient cancel timings for all charge levels
    • Spear: Allow cancelling from the recovery of a Heavy Attack into another Heavy Attack closer to the timing that you could cancel into a Light Attack
    • Spear: Allow cancelling out of the recovery of multithrust into another light attack or heavy attack.
    • Spear: Allow dodge-cancelling during the startup frames of all Light Attacks
    • Spear: Allow dodge-cancelling recovery of Light Attacks 1f earlier
    • Spear: Allow cancelling from a Light Attack 3 back into a Light Attack 1
    • Spear: Allow dodge-cancelling during the pre-airborne frames of a Heavy Attack
    • Spear: Allow dodge-cancelling sooner in the startup frames of a Multi-thrust Attack
    • Spear: Improve responsiveness when dodge-cancelling the recovery of a Spinning Drill
    • Spear: Fixed bug where an Agile Build rolling back heavy traveled much farther than intended, making it difficult to position focus hits
    • Spear: Fixed long buffer for 'dodge' button on the Spinning Drill Attack
    • Spear: Fixed Flicker doesn't work at end of Spinning Drill attack and various attack recoveries
    • Striker: More lenient dodge cancel windows across the board
    • Striker: Fix inability to hit Gourdo healing seeds
    • Striker: Fix inability to throw-cancel after headbutt
  • Powers
    • Fix infinite-loop slowdown with a Critical Hit / Healing build
    • "Beam"-style effects spawned by network players now display properly (Teleport, Charged)
    • Moved Salted Wounds, High Ground, Concentrated Cure, and Thrill Seeker to the default power pool
    • Replace Great Rotwood Forest's first power unlocks with High Ruler, Imposing Presence, Property Damage, and Parting Gifts
    • Heavy Defense: update description to reflect the fact that this power triggers on targets, not just enemies
    • Parting Gifts: Now displays countdown text on the power icon
    • Resolute: now only triggers when killing enemies, to match the description
    • Retail Therapy: Increased heal from 250/500 to 500/1000
    • Shield Detonation: Reduced radius from 10 to 8 to match other powers using the same radius description
    • Static Charge: Fixed the fact that Chain Reactions would not happen if the attack that applied Charge to an enemy for the first time also killed it
    • Static Shock: Fixed the fact that Chain Reactions would not happen if the attack that applied Charge to an enemy for the first time also killed it
    • Twist of the Knife: Added "Crit Chance" and "Crit Hit" tooltips
  • Rots
    • Fixed many cases of airborne_high attacks whiffing when they shouldn't, or grounded attacks hitting airborne_high when they shouldn't
    • Changed "Elite" descriptor from "Imbued" to "Frenzied"
    • Reduced effect of runspeed modifiers on enemy attacks
    • Arctic Stunk: Revised attack tells to make them stand out more
    • Arctic Stunk: Fixed walk animation bug
    • Enigmox: Fixed peekaboom stalactite not being visible upon landing
    • Frenzied Bulbin: Fixed bug where spin attack would not hit players if they stood too close
    • Frenzied Bulbin: Reduced possible distance of spin attack by 40%. Will exit early if they collide with room bounds
    • Frenzied Bulbin: Reduced amount of simultaneous enemies allowed to target a player
    • Frenzied Gnarlic: Reduced amount of simultaneous enemies allowed to target a player
    • Frenzied Gustree: Reduce range of spikeball throw by about 20%
    • Frenzied Treek: Increased cooldown on uproot and throw attacks
    • Frenzied Treek: Reduced amount of simultaneous enemies allowed to target a player
    • Groak: Can now swallow and spit out Wollusk shells
    • Wollusk shells are more responsive to hits from more weapons
    • Owlitzer: Fixed fly-by wind effect staying on for too long after Owlitzer flies by
  • Sound
    • Made Gourdo Face Bash emote stay in sync when Small
    • Made Thatcher Air Guitar emote stay in sync when Small
  • Town
    • Fixed flipped props not displaying properly for network players
  • UI
    • Fixed bug where the run summary screen would always show the player's weapon without its upgrades
    • Presentation work on Nimble Challenges
    • Weapon tips are shown the first time the player interacts with that weapon type's weapon rack if they have never seen it before
    • Update licenses

Other Fixes

  • Fixed many crashes
  • Fixed many softlocks

For more details about the update you can see our description from the beta below:

Spoiler


The Bow

This update includes our first new Weapon Type: the Bow. The bow is a ranged weapon that rewards good positioning and good timing with massive damage and massive hitstreaks. The moveset, compared to something like the Cannon, is relatively simple so that your focus is spent on mobility, execution, and lining up perfect shots.

For players who want to play Rotwood with a ranged weapon, there wasn’t really an easy-to-pick up weapon class: the Cannon can be pretty complex having to manage ammo to optimize damage output and defense, and the Striker is more of a mid-range weapon. The Bow was designed from the ground up to give players an easy to pick up ranged weapon that feels natural right away, and has a high skill ceiling for players who want to invest into it.
 

Splintershard Cavern

We've introduced a new dungeon, Splintershard Cavern! In this Hunt, fight against new monsters, and utilize sliding blocks to hit them, but watch out because monsters can hit them back at you!

In Bonechill Quarry, we understood that players were frustrated by Blizzards, a mechanic that only punished you, without any associated tool that you can use creatively against your enemies. Shortly after its release, we added the Ice Bombs that you can use to freeze your enemies to give you more tools to play with.

With that lesson learned, for Splintershard Cavern we have focused from the ground up on a main mechanic that doesn’t just punish, but one where you can be creative, utilize it against enemies, and use cooperatively too.

As usual, this Hunt includes an entirely new environment, new enemies, new traps and obstacles, a new miniboss, a new boss, and all of the equipment and unlockables that these contain. (If you’ll forgive my self-insertion here, my personal favourite inclusion is the music that plays in the boss fight! That last phase is just chef’s kiss)
 

Progression, zones, and grind reduction

You will notice that your Equipment and the World Map look a little different. One of the main ways that Rotwood wasn’t providing the experience we wanted was in the new-player progression through the game. Because the strength of Rots jumped so dramatically from one dungeon to the next, the game nearly required players to grind before even thinking of entering a new dungeon, almost immediately upon starting the game. 

As we said previously, there is a place for grind in a game like this, but it shouldn’t be required to enjoy the game and we regret that we were too heavy handed here at the start.

Now that we have more Hunts to work with, we have shaped the game into two Zones: from Great Rotwood Forest to The Molded Grave, and then from Bonechill Quarry onward. Within a Zone, progression should feel relatively smooth and not require much grinding, if any. More than one Hunt within a Zone unlocks at once so you have more choice over how you progress, and the difficulty jump from one Hunt to the next is smaller than before. Alphonse’s Market features equipment from any Hunt in that Zone, and it comes pre-upgraded to match your progression so there is less friction to try new pieces. Lastly, Frenzies of a given Zone are now unlocked upon completion of that Zone, and they begin at the same difficulty level.

Individual equipment pieces no longer require Fortification, and now you can just help Hamish and Berna fortify their workstations instead which allows all equipment to be upgraded past their natural levels. We have also adjusted the economy and costs for normal upgrades.

We have been following a mantra of “A little work for progression, and more work for perfection”. We feel these changes provide a smoother landing for new players and less grind for existing players, making it a lot easier to build a toolkit of equipment that you can use to overcome the challenges thrown at you. In our eyes, your Armoury and Weapon Rack should be creative places to develop and try new ideas with the equipment you’ve invested in, rather than a place of dread because you have to spend hours upgrading before even considering trying a new idea.

Existing saves will be updated to fit into the new system, and we have worked to preserve your progression. Note that while you may see different stats than you are used to, this does not actually represent a nerf to your equipment but is just a display adjustment to match the new system. Your equipment should still be as strong as it was before, relative to the content you've been playing.
 

Staggers and interrupts

We have heard and understand well that players are frustrated by enemies being “stagger resistant.” Scoring an interruption was very situational, and some weapons had a much easier time than others, resulting in a very inconsistent feel across the board. It was difficult to know when you could interrupt, so we have made this more consistent: now, for any small Rot, a well-timed Heavy Attack or Skill from any Weapon will interrupt their attack. This also means that these Heavy Attacks will also knock an airborne Rot out of the air creating the opportunity to follow up with a combo.

Of course, heavier enemies like Yammo and some Elites will still be more difficult to interrupt, but please try out your Heavy Attacks and Skills against those Bulbins and take advantage of your new opportunities. 

We have been very happy with this change in our internal playtesting, and are grateful that players provided this feedback. It is always our intention that Rotwood requires paying attention to the battlefield to play successfully, and this change has not only made the game feel more consistent but rewards keen-eyed players and provides new opportunities for creative combos.
 

More late-game challenges

Speaking of overcoming “the challenges thrown at you,” we have been hard at work on those too: we know that many players are already craving more difficulty to test their skills against. On the other end of the game, we have begun to add a higher difficulty ceiling for players wanting even more challenges and rewards, with Super Frenzies. 

Mother Treek and Owlitzer have been affected by your progress through the Rotwood, and now even they have become Frenzied. Super Frenzies start with “Bosses are Elite”, and go upwards from there for several levels, with much more to come. Elite boss encounters take time to design and so we will be releasing them and the Super Frenzies for their associated location over time.

While Frenzies don’t care about what weapon you use, Super Frenzies are cleared on a per-weapon type basis. There will be a lot more uses (now and later) for the Imbued Teffra Hearts, and so you will need a way to get many more of them. Clearing Super Frenzies with a Hammer will provide a heart per clear, and you can get even more by clearing with other weapon types.

These Imbued Teffra Hearts are related to the introduction of Boss Weapons, but we’ll leave that for you to discover.

A note about Food:
Please note that this update replaces the existing empty Food slot in the UI with an icon representing the player’s Weight Class. We are still working on adding Food to the game, and this change does not represent its removal from the plan.


You can join in the Discussion Topic here.
If you run into a bug, please visit the Klei Bug Tracker.

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