Beta

This is a beta release that you can opt into from the game's properties in your Steam library. Beta releases include new mechanics or significant changes that require testing and refinement before they can be made standard.

Raw Damage

I am introducing a new mechanic called "raw" damage, which is a damage modifier (and not a new type of damage) that ignores standard defenses (but not firm defense or immunity). Raw damage is indicated by a flashing damage icon.

Traps and damage-dealing items now exclusively deal raw damage types. This makes these damage sources slightly less effective, because previously, they ignored all defense (except immunity). For traps, this has been offset by the removal of trap saves, where each trap had a designated type of defense that ignored that trap.

Replacing their current behavior, weaknesses now convert all incoming damage of the indicated type into raw damage of that type. This definitely makes weaknesses more impactful, but because characters gain firm defense as they level, their weaknesses diminish with advancement.

The goal of these changes is to replace a handful of poorly explained mechanics (Why did trap and item damage ignore defenses? Where do you view trap saves? What do weaknesses really mean?) with a single, more visible mechanic.

I had started to go down the route of having characters gain raw damage as they level, but I felt it was a little unintuitive. However, the mechanic may offer another thing for items, abilities, or banners to play with in the future.

Tooltips

All tooltips have been moved to a single tooltip bar at the bottom of the screen. One recurring and very reasonable category of criticism I hear from players is that the game is too busy, and the tooltips constantly popping up and changing right next to the mouse cursor felt like part (though certainly not all) of the problem.

Additionally, many icons throughout tooltips and in the codex are now grouped in threes when they appear adjacent to other icons of the same category. This helps compress large amounts of icons, and also makes them easier to count quickly.

All of the tooltips now appear on a single line, and in a few places, this meant trimming down the content. If there is any information you would like to see in the tooltips (whether it was there before or not), or you have any other feedback on this subject, I would love to hear it!

Miscellany

There's a new floor with an Orc Warlord; the appearance of a certain floor element is such that it would have been more timely about a month ago, but whatever. The Warlord is tough and he buffs physical damage on melee units, so he's pretty useful, if not so unique. There are a lot of goblin path floors now--I'll try to move away from that for a bit.

Now that everyone has just a single attack, everyone's been given either a Ranged (this one was in the last update), Melee, or Caster trait. Some abilities have been altered to leverage these new traits.

There have been some pacing changes to combat, to make it easier to follow how damage is being applied. A more deliberate pace means longer battles, which has balance implications. As always, let me know how the game feels to you.

I also added a simple scanline filter; it could use some improvement, but considering the game's other graphical filters, this seemed like a glaring omission.

Over such a long span of time, there have been other assorted modifications going on; I've included the nature of those changes below, but most of these are minor elements that haven't been closely tracked (such as individual pieces of art revision or character stat changes).

What's Next?

I didn't want to address this up front, but if you've been following the game for a long while, you may have noticed that it's been an entire frickin' year since the last update. And that update was also a beta; I don't even dare look at the timestamp on the last real update--the shame is too great.

I don't want to dwell on that here, though. I want to focus on the short-term: making these beta changes standard. In order to push all of these elements into the standard release, I need help finding problems and improving balance. With your continued help, I hope I can make this happen in the next few weeks; it is long overdue.

Thank you for all of your feedback, bug reports, and patience ːtotcordialː!

Changelog

Additions:

• Raw damage mechanic (a modifier for existing damage types that ignores standard defenses)
  
• Threatening Throne (Stockpile + Pens); Orc Warlord (increases melee allies' physical damage)
  
• Logging to ToTDump in your .prefs save folder when the game crashes unexpectedly
  
• Single tooltip bar at the bottom of the screen
  
• Melee and Caster traits added
  
• Simple scanline filter
  

Changes:

• Traps deal raw damage
  
• Items deal raw damage
  
• Weaknesses convert incoming damage of the specified type into raw damage
  
• Battle damage calculation was revised to be more consistent
  
• Battle pacing has been slowed to allow clearer visual damage application
  
• Many icons--especially damage types--have been altered, to increase visual clarity
  
• Some alterations were made to leveling bonuses; characters with countable passive bonuses (such as a damage boost) now gain an additional point to their passive rather than a second damage bonus
  
• Some character stat and ability revisions (for instance, to leverage the new Melee and Caster traits)
  
• Related icons are now grouped into threes to aid in countability at a glance
  
• Removed trap saves
  
• Lots of tooltip language and content revisions
  
• Assorted flavor text, floor art, and character appearance modifications
  

Fixes:

• There were a lot of passive application and eligibility issues in the previous beta release; I believe these have all been addressed
  
• Potion effects weren't scaling properly
  
• Codex "history" tabs at the bottom weren't cutting off items, traps, and banners
  
• At least one confirmed crash, involving the Taskmaster
  
• Tooltips no longer display during the epilogue