Leaderboard, New Stat, UI & Arena Improvements and more!
White Dwarf · published · build 25098047
Hey everyone! Before we jump into the patch notes, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us. Your contributions during the development process have been incredible. Your feedback and objective reviews are helping White Dwarf evolve into a better game day by day. We’re so glad to have you on board! Let’s kick things off with the major updates and see what's new:
Leaderboard
We finally have a leaderboard where you can compete both globally and against your friends! We have 3 different charts: Best Wave, Best Kill (Lifetime), and Most Stardust (Lifetime). Let’s see which faded star will claim the top spots.
Anti-Cheat
Well, now that we have a leaderboard, we had to keep an eye on this; nobody wants to see a star sitting at the top unfairly. While we've taken serious anti-cheat measures, we also know it's impossible to prevent it entirely. But don't worry, our detection system is highly accurate and any action with "super-human" values is flagged immediately, preventing that run's data from being sent to the board. We also display a warning message to users caught using cheats. It’s your call, we can't tell you how to play the game. Of course, alongside all this, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the boards; if we spot impossible scores and verify they're illegitimate, we will wipe them from the list.
New Stats: Critical Hit & Critical Hit Damage
We have two new stats, and they are directly related to each other:
In the level-up stat pool, you’ll see a 6% Critical Hit Chance stat. Its base value is 0.
Since the base value of crit chance is 0, it wouldn't make sense to clutter the pool with Critical Hit Damage (multiplier) right from the start. Therefore, the damage multiplier won't appear in the pool unless your crit chance is above 0. This new multiplier stat has a base value of 2, and each level-up card adds 0.2 to it.
You’re probably very familiar with these mechanics, but just to explain the logic: every hit has a random chance to be a critical hit based on your crit (chance) stat. When it does, the damage comes from our other multiplier stat. If your base damage is 14 and you score a crit, it gets multiplied by the base value of 2 (meaning you deal 28 damage). As I mentioned, you can increase (scale) both stats by selecting them from level-up cards. This way, you scale not only your chance but also your multiplier.
Damage Numbers
Good news, you can finally see the damage you deal to asteroids! We tried to design it to be as minimal and easy on the eyes as possible. But if it still bothers you or the screen gets too crowded, you can turn it off in the settings anytime.
The Beauty of the Universe
Many of you suggested map improvements. We now have a brand-new map that doesn’t strain your eyes during runs, all while keeping that clean, minimal atmosphere. And just in case anyone still finds it a bit overwhelming, a "Map Details" setting has been added to the options.
UI Improvements
This was something we kind of glossed over during early access, but we finally have a UI that we believe is much better! We also snuck in a tiny GUI update; you can now track your real-time stardust gains and kill count in the top right corner during a run.
Balancing
Damage-over-time abilities (e.g., poison, bleed) now scale with your base damage.
The new critical hit effect can now be triggered by all abilities, including damage-over-time! This will both shake up your build habits and help you pull off better runs.
We tweaked the base stats of certain asteroids, especially the elite ones.
General Tweaks
Respawn: Using a respawn token used to give you 2.5 seconds of invulnerability, but we received complaints that it wasn't enough. You now get 3 seconds of invulnerability, and nearby enemies are pushed back a certain distance.
Audio Engine: We polished the procedural atmospheric music you all love so much, and fixed the bass effects that were causing crackling noises in certain spots.
Cursor: You let us know that the cursor with the trail effect was too distracting and unnecessary, so we swapped it out for a normal cursor!
Localization: Made several translation improvements across multiple languages.
AI Improvements: Asteroids are smarter now! We made some tweaks to the game AI. You won't have to deal with absurd and janky asteroid movements anymore. On the flip side, their increased intelligence might ruin your mood just a bit.
Discord Rich Presence
Discord activity support is here! Your friends can now track in real-time which star you’re playing, what wave you’re on, and how many minutes you’ve survived in White Dwarf!
Bug Fixes
A ton of bugs reported by you have been squashed in this patch! Aside from what you reported, we also included some minor fixes we found ourselves. Here is the list:
The Uncatchable Enemy Issue: Once you reached a certain movement speed, enemies literally couldn't catch up to you, which broke the core mechanics of the game. You could make serious progress just by running away instead of fighting. This is fixed; now, if an enemy can't even enter your radius for a set amount of time, it will teleport to a spot near you without boxing you in, and gain a brief movement speed buff.
Zombie Asteroids: Damage-over-time effects like bleed and poison were causing some asteroids to declare immortality at 0 HP. This is fixed; you will no longer have a zombie asteroid chasing you around.
Clumping Issue: Asteroids would sometimes clump up and clip into each other, creating a massive single threat. This has been prevented; they now behave in a way where they don't overlap, and will push each other away if necessary. Also, instead of making a straight line towards the closest point, they form a more consistent path to chase you. Ranged asteroids now hold more logical positions and don't just stay perfectly still at their maximum range.
Vitality Bug: Fixed the bug that prevented your health from fully regenerating when you picked up the Vitality stat. You can now grab this stat with peace of mind.
Controller and Mouse Conflict: Even if you had the "Play with mouse" option active and switched to a controller, the last position you left the mouse in would unfortunately block the controller input. This has now been fixed, so you can comfortably lean back and keep playing with your controller.
On top of all this, we made some serious developments in our architecture and project structure. We don't want to bore you with the technical details, but just know that we now perform better and have a foundation that is much more open to future innovations. Thank you so much, and please keep those great feedback coming!