Today we are releasing a major Roguebook update for PC, Mac, and Linux versions.
Before we go further, it is important to note that runs from previous versions will become incompatible with 1.6.
If you have a run in progress, you will be prompted the following when you log in:
From here, you may either drop your current run and begin anew in 1.6, or choose to downgrade your version and continue. Once you downgrade, however, you will need to re-update in order to continue playing.
Please find further detailed instructions in this separate news post:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1076200/view/2979683242489856953
Without further ado, here’s what’s new:
New features
Controller support
Roguebook is now fully supported on controller. Here are most of the default bindings:
Legacy and Run Summaries
There will now be a comprehensive history logged of all your previous runs. You can find this in the "Progression" area of the main menu.
In addition, each completed run will now have its own summary page where you can view your journey in brief. This summary will be shown at the end of each run, and can be accessed again at any time in the Legacy menu.
Hero Progress Revamp
We have revamped the Hero Progress screen in the main menu. Where previously it only showed your progress to the next level up, it now shows:
- Your wins with each hero pair.
- Your total runs
- Highest Epilogue reached with each hero pair
- Your highest and current win streaks in various tiers of Epilogues.
Example:
Epilogue 15+ Mode
We have introduced a sandbox mode for those who have completed Epilogue 15. You may now enter Epilogue 15+ mode, which allows you to stack additional modifiers on top of the most difficult ones in the game.
While we have plans for more challenges in the future, for now we found this to be a pretty simple way to introduce a new mode of play for the time being. This feature is more intended to be something extra to enjoy, rather than become ‘the highest level’ of play.
Epilogue Completion Tracking
Each Epilogue now tracks which heroes you have completed them with.
In the above screenshot, Sharra is the only hero left to complete this specific Epilogue modifier.
New Content
New Final boss:
We have introduced an additional final boss in the last chapter: Twin Chaos. This will bring the total number of potential final bosses to 3.
Twin Chaos is a battle against two manifestations of the Roguebook: Pain and Wrath
You’ll need to manage your attacks against both. You’ll be unable to swap until you hit one of them, and must hit the other as much as possible to reduce its damage. Good luck.
New Treasures
Five new treasures have been added to the game. These treasures are globally available in all future runs.
New Narratives
Four new narrative events have been added to the game, including three that are hero-specific. This rounds out the hero-specific narratives to all four heroes. (Aurora had one previously)
- Sharra: Day of the Dragons
- Sorocco: Ogre Dance
- Seifer: Blood Song
- All heroes: Celeste, Crystal Dragon
New Animations
We’ve added new hero animations to the following cards:
- Sharra: Gain Dagger
- Aurora: Gain Sip
- Sorocco: Gain Headbang
- Sorocco: Firebreath
- Sorocco: Flatten
- Sorocco: Hammertime
- Seifer: Disintegrate
- Seifer: Doom
Several of these are the result of our last community survey on what card they would like to see animated most. The most common response was Firebreath, followed by Flatten and Hammer Time… apparently people like seeing Sorocco do things. Disintegrate and Doom were the highest voted Seifer cards, so we put those in too. We also added in some animations for the stackable cards.
Balancing
Overall, we’ve determined the increase in difficulty in the higher Epilogues from version 1.5 was a bit too much. Here is some data we have on what happened to the overall win rates across three sections of Epilogue groups. (Blue =1-5, Green = 6-10, Purple = 11-16)
You can see the dip on August 11th, when 1.5 was released. This is a bit more dramatic of an increase in difficulty than we intended, so we have toned it back a bit. The earlier Epilogues were unaffected, so we have not made many changes there.
Here are the major balance changes that come with version 1.6:
- In the Exploration category: Four epilogue modifiers have been swapped in their order in an effort to smooth that particular category's progression of difficulty.
- The scaling of Chapter 1 and 2 Elites and Bosses has been decreased in the higher epilogue levels.
- Tiki Palanquin and Cap-10 in particular have much weaker scaling.
- Lantern faeries have less health at all Epilogues.
- Gem Mine Traps now have less health at all epilogues, and lowered Epilogue scaling.
Other specific changes and fixes
- The entire system for saving the progress of a run has changed. This involved a huge refactoring of the code and will be mostly unnoticeable to players, except for the above mentioned issues with continuing a run from the previous version.
- It is now possible to Use or Discard healing hearts while the loot bag is opened. This is useful when all 3 slots are full while on the loot bag UI.
- Naddim will no longer inappropriately turn his back to you. Was a bit rude.
- Camera position improvements on the main menu.
- The amount of particles on the sky of Chapter 2 has been reduced.
- Several performance improvements to background particles in general.
- The Gem Mine background texture has had some improvements.
Conclusion
Thank you for your continued feedback when playing Roguebook. We have more major updates planned, and are already in the process of working on the next. While this one may not have the content you’re looking for, perhaps it will appear in the next. As always, feel free to leave us feedback here on Steam, or in our official Discord at discord.gg/Roguebook.