MASSIVE CHALICE Early Access Beta Patch 0.93
We’ve got another big patch lined up for today! Our key focus has been on adding Difficulty Modes, IRON mode, a simple tactical tutorial to help new players at the beginning of the game, and some new features to make the Timeline a lot more useable on the Strategy layer!
We’re getting close to the 1.0 release of MASSIVE CHALICE. Thanks for supporting the game in Early Access and thanks for your feedback! :D!
OPTIONS RESET
We had to reset everyone’s options settings. You’ll see a small warning when you start the game up after the patch. Just a quick head’s up!
DIFFICULTY MODES
We’ve added an Easy and Hard mode on top of the current Normal Difficulty. The following parameters are adjusted up or down to make the game easier or harder depending on the setting:
*Enemy Health
*Enemy Evasion
*Enemy Damage
*Hero XP Level Requirements
*Research Times
Additionally, on Hard Difficulty, the Nation will start with 5 randomly assigned Corruption Strikes to the outer ring of Regions.
IRON MODE
When starting a new game you can now select the IRON Mode option. This setting allows only one save slot and auto-saves after every decision you make. This is a super challenging way to play the game where you are forced to live with your mistakes!
TACTICAL TUTORIAL
We’ve added a tutorial to the very first tactical mission of the game to give you some pointers on how to control the camera and your heroes. It’s intended to be as succinct as possible, but we’ve also included a checkbox so that you can turn it off when you make a new game. This is really useful for experienced players!
TIMELINE IMPROVEMENTS
The Timeline has always been cool to look at but a bit of an eyesore as you start to pile up tons of overlapping events. We’ve added some new features to the Timeline to address this and make it a more useful tool to help you diagnose the Nation!
*Nearby events will clump together into a “multi-event.” Click on a multi-event to unravel it and see all of the events inside it!
*Zoom the Timeline in and out using the Mouse wheel.
*Left click and drag to pan the Timeline left and right. You can even see upcoming events in the future!
KEYBINDINGS
There’s now an option inside of the Controls menu to rebind your keys!
ART
Hit Percentage Coloration - Hit Percentage is now colored GREEN (>75%), YELLOW (>50% and <=75%), or RED (<=50%).
Salt Stacks Keep - This map is now brighter and has less shadows covering the heroes’ starting location.
Timeline Icons - Added some more appropriate icons to the Timeline and changed up some of their colors.
Blinded Debuff Visuals - Added VFX for the “Blinded” state caused by the Hunter’s Blinding Shot.
TACTICAL BALANCE
Cradle Accuracy - Cradle bomb Accuracy reduced from 85 to 65 (Normal Cradle) and 90 to 80 (Advanced Cradle).
Advanced Rupture Damage - Increased damage from 8-12 to 12-16.
Twitcher Swap - Twitchers can now swap places with characters through very tall blockers. This isn’t a huge change but you might see more Twitcher abductions than before!
STRATEGIC BALANCE
Fertility Trait - The opposite of “Bountiful” is now “Low Fertility” and not “Infertile.” “Infertile” is now its own rare standalone trait.
FEATURES
Ranged Attack Icon - Added a new icon on the enemy’s HP flag that indicates whether or not a hero could execute a ranged attack on the enemy from the potential destination. This is similar to the eyeball and explosion icons but for Hunters instead!
Explosion Icon switched to a Flask Toss Icon - Changed the explosion icon on the enemy’s HP flag to a Flask Toss to make it more clear.
Sagewright Guild / Crucible Bonus Display - Changed the display of the Intuition/day and XP/day of Sagewrights and Standards to be in the form of Intuition/year and XP/year in order to make this a bit more understandable without a calculator!
Regent Appointment Flow - When assigning a Regent, you now determine their Partner before “locking in” both choices. This lets you preview your selections and not get stuck with a Regent that really doesn’t have any suitable Partners!
Richer Save Game Data - Displays whether the player was in a tactical battle at the time of saving.
Balanced Start Now Respects Fertility - Balanced Start now ensures that you get at least one FERTILE hero of each class!
BUG FIXES
Sagewright Battles now support all 3 Possible Sagewrights - Added missing locations for Sagewrights to spawn in Guild Defense missions.
Never-ending Final Battle - Fixed a bug that was causing infinite waves to spawn in the Final Battle if you continually saved and re-loaded.
Random Event deaths lead to Relic drops - When a hero dies in a random event they can now create a Relic or hand it off appropriately. Note that there are still events (like the “Balloon Man!”) where a hero with a Relic can be lost forever without the chance to hand it over!
Proper Relic Destruction - Make sure that Relics are destroyed when the player opts to not give them to a living heir.
Ancestor Fix - Added some additional checks for the Final Battle to make sure that the spawned Ancestor has the same Primary Class as the hero that just died.
HEROES and RESEARCH buttons have been flipped - Not technically a bug, but this was discovered through playtesting! New players tend to click the first button at the Chalice screen. RESEARCH is the most important button so it’s now at the top!
AoE VFX and Audio Fix - Fixed a bug that was causing AoE skills and abilities to trigger their VFX and audio multiple times.
Kingmaker + Kingmaker Fix - Fixed some bad math that was causing a Kingmaker + Kingmaker couple to ONLY have sons while a Queenmaker + Queenmaker couple had a 7/8 chance to have a daughter. This is now symmetrical for both, with a 7/8 chance.