Dear Monster Keepers,
Today we're launching the second major post-launch update for Monster Sanctuary! It's releasing today on all platforms - PC and consoles. We're calling this one the "Legendary Keeper Update", but it also includes player costumes, a couple of different speedrun features, and more! Check out the trailer here:
Legendary Keeper Challenge
We added a new end-game / post-game challenge to the game! Deep within the Magma Chamber, you will find the hall of Legendary Keepers. Each statue is dedicated to one of our most generous Kickstarter backers, who helped make the production of Monster Sanctuary possible.
We asked each of those backers if they could contribute to our Legendary Keeper challenge with a team of Monsters of their own choosing. This resulted in a series of fourteen unique Keeper fights, which are some of the most challenging fights in the game! Each fight will reward you with some high-tier goodies once you've beaten it. Those who manage to beat every single fight will be awarded with a new unique accessory for their Monsters to equip!
Player Costumes
The big, flashy new feature of this update: player customization! You may now find different costumes on your travels through the Sanctuary. Six new costumes have been added to the game with this update, and we will add more with future updates. Also, there are now different color palettes for all of the player costumes, including the default player costume.
Some of the costumes can be found in new treasure chests that have been added to different areas of the game, while others are awarded for epic accomplishments in the game - like the "Keeper Master" outfit that is only granted to those who defeat all of the Champion Monsters in the game.
Once you've unlocked a costume, it carries over to NewGame+. You can change your costume in a new room inside the Keepers' Stronghold. There's also the option to change your character's gender and name there.
Speedrun Features
We also added a combination of different features to the game that should add quite some quality of life for those who'd like to speedrun Monster Sanctuary. Many thanks to those in our speedrunning community who helped us with their feedback, like Dixnine, PurpleThiccmin, vstevenv22, Odyssey18, ShneekeyTheLost, and KungFuSandshrew among others!
- We added a timer that can be turned on as you start a new game. The timer keeps running while you're in game menus. The timer pauses during loading screens. The timer stops once you reduce the final boss's health points to 0 (but the timer will still run after the credits, in case you wish to continue your speedrun afterwards).
- We added cutscene skipping to all larger cutscenes and NPC interactions in the game.
- We added a new 3x combat speed option for even faster combat animations.
The current record (pre-update) for any% is held by DixNine at around 2 hours and 6 minutes. We are excited to see everyone's attempts to break the game in record time!
Direct PvP Challenges
With update 1.2, you will also be able to directly challenge your friends to a PvP match. It's very simple to use: One player has to "host" the game, which will give them a four-digit code. The other player joins their match by using this four-digit code. Private matches also allow you to adjust two PvP settings: who goes first and whether duplicate Monsters are allowed or not.
Please take note that PvP still only works if both players are playing on the same platform. Also, we unfortunately had to disable the PvP direct challenge feature on Xbox because of technical limitations.
Other changes
The Legendary Keeper Update (also called Update 1.2) also includes several highly requested changes that should increase the game's quality of life:
- You can now automatically sort Monsters and your inventory based on different criteria.
- The buff overview screen in combat is greatly improved, allowing you to see all the different active buff and debuff stacks at once.
- Whether you’re new to the game or just need some additional guidance on your journey, when talking to your Spectral Familiar, they can now help you with some useful, general gameplay tips to get accustomed to the game’s mechanics.
- For those up for more challenging encounters while backtracking old areas, there is now an NPC at the Monster Farm that lets you increase the minimum level for all wild Monsters depending on your Keeper Rank. This setting can be turned on and off.
- The Health Bar now previews shield amounts for shielding actions. Also, we were able to finally fix the bug with the red bar not disappearing properly.
- We start a new season for the PvP Leaderboards (Season 3).
- Even on Casual mode, some of the Keeper battles were still too tough for some of our players. With this update, we specifically decreased the difficulty of Keeper battles on Casual mode by lowering all of the enemy Keeper Monsters' attributes.
Hardcover Monster Journals
As a small sidenote, we wanted to inform you that we printed a new batch of hardcover Monster Journals - which are available on our page:
https://monster-sanctuary.com
These new Monster Journals are the "second edition" print - meaning that the skill trees inside are based on the current skill trees from the new Legendary Keeper update.
Balancing Changes
Monster skill tree changes:
- Qilin: Gains 'Charged Anomaly', 'Shock Charging', 'Buff Charging', 'Charged Healing', 'Attack Plus', 'Mana Plus' and 'Initial Shock', Loses 'Blessed Strikes', 'Dragon skin' and 'Armor Shred'
- Magmamoth: Gains 'Charged Destruction'. Some passives on its left most skill tree got rearanged.
- Goblin Pilot: Gains 'Charged Hazard', loses 'Armor Shred'
- Glowfly: Gains 'Charged Hazard', 'Multishock' is now available at level 10+
- Glowdra: Loses one instance of 'Mana Proc'
- Skorch: Gains 'Charged Destruction'
- Crackle Knight: Gains 'Multi Shock', Loses 'Wind Affinity'
- Goblin Miner: Gains 'Charged Banner', 'Charge Amplifier', 'Load Up' and an additional 'Mana Plus' node, loses 'Buff Charging'
- Salahammer: Gains 'Charged Banner'
- Koi: Gains 'Critical Healing' and 'Charged Reflexes'
- Vaero: Gains 'Charged Reflexes'
- Sycophantom: Gains 'Charged Chant', 'Load Up' and 'Healing Shield', loses 'Magic Powered Shield' and one 'Magic Plus' node
- Blade Widow: Gains +1 Base Defense, both shifts gain +1 Base Attack
- Beetloid: Light shift got -1 Base Defense
- Targoat: Gains 'Load Up'
- Dracozul: Gains 'Shared Barrier', loses one 'Health Plus' node
- Darnation: Gains 'Antitoxins'
- Aurumtail: 'Glimmer' was moved up in the skill tree
- Kame: Gains +2 Base Attack, 'Multi Might', 'Charged Reflexes', 'Load Up', loses -1 Base Health, 'Meditate', one 'Attack Plus' and one 'Static'
Skill changes:
- Meditation now grants 6 Charge stacks (instead of 5)
- Charging Sphere now grants 3 Charge stacks on highest upgrade level (instead of 2)
- 'Backstab' damage bonus increased to 25% (from 20%)
- All mass shielding actions got their shield amounts increased
- 'Force of Nature', 'Carnage' and 'Polar Winds' heal amount increased
- 'Power Focus' now grants a damage multiplier based on how many monsters acted the turn, meaning to get the most out of it you'll need the monster now to use it last in turn.
- 'Solar Blaze' mana cost increased to 250 (from 240)
- 'Solar Burst' level 3 mana cost increased to 230 (from 220)
- 'Gale' level 3 mana cost increased to 230 (from 220)
- 'Critical Socery' crit chance reduced to 5% (from 6%)
- 'Enlighten' trigger chance got reduced to 55% (from 60%)
- 'Martial Prowess' chance got reduced to 70% (from 75%)
- 'Channeling Balance' damage multipier + damage reduction value reduced to 6% (from 7.5%)
- 'Extra Channel' chance reduced to 12% (from 15%)
- 'Shield Burst' now expends 90% of the whole shield but the damage is lower (200% for Shield Burst level 2)
- 'Healing Wave' level 3 base heal amount reduced to 200 (from 225)
- 'Life Wave' heal amount increased for all levels
- 'Avalanche' crit damage bonus increased for level 2 + 3
- 'Dragon Mastery', 'Steam Punk', 'Tranquility' and 'Phoenix Heritage' applied debuffs now trigger proliferate, Flash Freeze and similar passives
- 'Holy Presence' now also triggers on healing and shielding actions
- 'Intelligent Swarm' now has 100% chance to apply a charge stack again (instead of 75%)
- 'Thorn Tendril' increases critical damage now (instead of critical chance) and the bleed damage is based on critical damage now (500% at highest upgrade level)
- 'Abyssal Sword' Buff/Debuff apply chance increased (60% at highest upgrade level)
- 'Center of Mass' damage increased to 30% (from 25%)
- 'Electric Field', 'Icy Skin', 'Poison Glands' + 'Spiky Defense' now have 50% chance to trigger (instead of 40%)
- 'Spark' now has 50% chance to trigger on highest upgrade level (instead of 40%)
Additional Quality of Life changes
- A new setting in the options menu: you can switch to the older Snowy Peaks and Keepers' Stronghold themes
- Performance improvements (which should especially help the performance on the consoles) - the issue of a memory leak due to the player jumping was fixed
- When the player is buying items, the quantity of already owned items of that type are displayed now
- The player now gets warned when they are about to donate a Champion Monster
- Ancestral Medal can now be found in Level 5 Reward Boxes, replacing Omni Ring; Omni Ring has been moved to Level 4 Reward Boxes, where it replaces +5 Belt