Beefy bosses and disconnect insurance: Update 1.2 explained

Hello Reclaimers,

Lead Game Designer Mike here. With this week's Update 1.2 turning out quite large, we thought a more feature-focused version of the patch notes would help shine some light on the 'what' and 'why' of this update. Some of the changes have some more significant effects on the gameplay experience, so I think that’s worth looking at in detail.

You can find the full 1.2 patch notes linked right here, and our explanations right down below.

Let’s get to it.

Balancing player power and game difficulty

With Update 1 players can more consistently reach higher power levels, which is good. It has become easier to trigger synergies and deal big damage. Currently certain systems (like crit damage and fire) are overrepresented in the upgrade pool, but this will even out as we add more upgrades and artifacts that work with the other elements of the damage system. However, the game needs to respond accordingly and many of the changes in Patch 1.2 focus on how the game can better test this power.

Difficulty and Risk Vectors

We really like the Risk Vector system as it gives a bit of agency in how the game's difficulty increases. Some allow you to increase the spice, others give you some benefits that make it a bit easier. This was not always the case however, as some Risk Vectors had almost no impact on the run. We have fixed and tweaked all the Risk Vectors that bring enemies into the run (like Edgestalker Patrol and Scorcher Horde) to make sure their impact is felt. Selecting these Risk Vectors and especially stacking them now has very real consequences, which is how we want it.

Beefier bosses

With Patch 1.2 we focused on making sure the Gatekeepers (AKA the bosses) can better withstand high-powered players. It’s fun to wreck a boss, but it’s even more fun if the boss tries to fight back in the process and can still pose a threat. Each Gatekeeper type now has counterattacks that they can perform to reduce pressure (on themselves) and temporarily block some or all of the player’s attacks while still applying pressure back on the Reclaimers. We also tweaked Gatekeeper health scaling to keep pace with the players’ power growth on 5- and 6-stage missions. And in relation to the previously mentioned Risk Vectors, they now also have an impact on the boss fight by adding their spawns to the pool of enemies that assist the Gatekeepers.

More Reaperworm pressure

Staying around when the threat level becomes critical is not something Reclaimers should take lightly. To more strongly encourage teams to get on the elevator, we now spawn more additional Reaperworms over time, starting roughly 30 seconds after the first worms appear. The exact rate depends on the number of players. (This change was missing from the original patch notes.)

Safeguarding from disconnects

In the event that a mission abruptly ends (whether due to a crash, a disconnect or getting rudely kicked from the team) you will now be awarded the XP rewards and bonuses you have earned up to that point, making sure that your time was not completely wasted.

That’s the main stuff! Again, the full patch notes are right here if you want to give them a look. But these are the key changes that we felt deserved a bit more explanation.

The next two weeks we'll be closed for the summer holidays. When we're back we'll continue working on Update 2, which we expect to have out in August. Hope everybody's having a nice summer. Rock and Stone!

With love,
-The Ghost Ship Crew