Hey everyone!
We know the recent 0.5 update made the game harder than intended. It could feel too grindy, and player choices didn’t matter as much as they should.
We’re very sorry about this. With this release, we’ve taken steps to fix these issues.
One of the most noticeable problems was how Amount scaling worked during a run. Before 0.5, it was possible to build around increasing skill projectile Amount, but in 0.5 those builds were almost non-existent. This was caused by a design issue in how Amount cards were calculated to appear, giving them a significantly lower chance compared to other upgrade cards. This has been corrected in this release.
Damage scaling had also drifted too far from the pre-0.5 balance. With this update, we’ve brought it closer to the original experience so that player power scales correctly with enemy strength, as originally intended.
The damage scaling issue in 0.5 also made it harder to kill enemies, which caused them to pile up on screen and significantly impacted performance. While this update doesn’t completely resolve all performance issues, it should bring performance closer to what it was previously. We’re also planning a dedicated optimization patch in our future update.
Finally, regarding progression: the higher difficulty in 0.5 reduced the chances of successfully completing Starpath quests, making progression feel frustratingly slow. With this release, progression should be back to its intended pace.
Thanks for all the feedback — it’s been invaluable in helping us improve the game.
Patch Notes 0.5.1 - Gameplay Calculation Adjustment
Gameplay Changes
The calculations that determine the appearance chance of Amount Upgrade Cards have been redesigned. This issue caused the Amount attribute to have a significantly lower chance compared to other attributes, resulting in player power being much lower than intended.
Damage upgrade rarity values for all Skill Cards have been increased to better reflect older values.
All weapons now correctly have 5% Crit Chance and 150% Crit Damage by default.
Damage, Attack/Charge Speed, Crit Chance, and Crit Damage values for all Weapon Upgrade Cards have been increased.
Shrine spawn weights have been adjusted.
Reinforcement Fire Curse now spawns copies with 50% of the original enemy’s health. Copies now use a different colored outline to distinguish them from the original.
Frozen Pond slipperiness has been reduced, allowing more player control in the arena.
Balancing Updates
Groovba
Now has +60% increased debuff damage by default.
Each Nature Card increases this bonus by an additional +20%.
Joomba
Bonus damage per Sky Card has been increased from +5% to +10%.
Now correctly affects both weapon and skill damage.
Sexy Totem
XP pickup requirement has been increased from 10 to 25.
Wider Area
Base value reduced from 6% to 5%.
Bug Fixes
Fixed X-olotl’s Starpath progression not being saved properly.
Fixed Stinky Trail and Frozen Splash not working on X-olotl and Fuzzbug.
Correctly hid X-olotl’s clones when mounting Potatobot.
Fixed X-olotl’s clones being able to drown below ground level.
Grass Slash now correctly ignores Move Speed.
Fixed Shieldshroom being retroactively affected by Reinforcement from Fire Curse.
Fixed Infernal Escape, Burrow Down, Midnight Ghost, and Lightning Speed not pausing dash cooldowns, resulting in infinite dash usage.
Fixed chests sometimes do not drop anything even though you have upgradeable cards.
Thank you for reading,
Stairway Games