After nearly 2 years in Early Access, Plague Breaker is finally out! Thanks everyone who helped along the way, your feedback has been invaluable in making Plague Breaker awesome.
Improvements in Depth
Before I show off each of the individual changes, I wanted to highlight why the full release is an improved experience over the previous Early Access versions.
More and better loot
One problem that was common was reaching a plateau in your items, especially at later levels. With limited money from enemies and only one chest per level, runs generally gained only 2 or so items per level. In theory this was a fine amount of items, but many items simply don't work per build and had to be sold for a small amount or just ignored.
Once you made it to the later and longer levels it became optimal to simply rush the boss and ignore the level itself due to this restraint. The Alchemist Lab can take generally 10-15 minutes to fully clear, which is enough time to start a new run and just hope you get better items. This isn't what I wanted the later levels to be, but this is what most runs turned into as players got better at the game.
I solved this problem in two ways: More loot, and better loot.
More Loot
First, more loot. This is an obvious solution, if it isn't worth it to spend 15 minutes exploring a level just to get 1 item then how many items would have to be in the level for it to be worth it? Simply adding more chests as the levels go on might work as well, but it can also result in chests feeling a lot less special if there are too many of them. It also has a side effect of potentially causing each run to be overpowered simply through receiving so many items.
So how do I add more loot without reducing the "special" feeling from chests? I added a new type of chest: Common Chests
A Common chest is a lower tier treasure chest that contains a common item, money or a potion. This variety of "simpler" items means that each common chest is beneficial to pick up, but not so beneficial that you'll find your character growing overpowered through just common items. Common chests are now scattered throughout the level, with more appearing in later levels to provide some reward for exploring.
This also has the added benefits of making potions far more viable, as previously they were too expensive to spend your limited money on over a full item. Now each run tends to have a lot more basic items and more money, without having so much that you no longer have to think about what you want to buy.
Better Loot
Common chests means more basic loot, so to contrast this the Treasure chests have had their loot pools improved greatly. A treasure chest will now contain one of the three categories of items: Class optimized items, Rare items or Legendary items. Once you've reached the Castle Peak, there is also a new type of item rarely available at Treasure chests: Cursed items.
This makes every treasure chest far more important than they were previously, where a treasure chest could give any item. Getting a useless common item from a Treasure chest really sucks, but improving the loot pools means they are always viable. The right legendary item at the right time can save a ruined run or greatly improve an already awesome build.
Overall, these two changes mean that your runs will have more items and more money, but not so many more items that you find that all runs are the same or that you are always flush with cash.
Better end game
With each individual run being improved through more items, the next issue was what do people do after they beat the final boss? Having 5 classes means that there is always some replayability, but without a specific goal it's a lot less exciting to play again. I alluded to a new boss in the previous update, while I won't spoil the boss here I will highlight how to actually reach it!
New Boss
The final boss is unlocked from beating the game with every class. This means you'll get to play every class fully through without feeling like you aren't making any progress. Be warned though, the final boss is not easy! You'll need skill and a good build to fully beat Plague Breaker now!
Once each class is on the mantle, you'll unlock the final boss. You'll have to beat the game on Normal or higher however!
Cursed Items
I also wanted to throw in some late game specific items that can totally change how the game plays, just to add some variety to replays or to potentially save a failing run. This is totally optional since each cursed item changes the game in some manner, which may not be what you want. For example, the Cursed Gem item replaces all items in all chests with Gems while buffing each gems power.
Cursed Items are only unlocked once you beat the Plague Herald.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think Plague Breaker is in an awesome state right now. Each run is fun and exploring the castle at each floor is rewarding, the game is still challenging without being unfair, and there is enough content and unlockables to keep you coming back for more! I look forward to hearing everyones thoughts on the full release, so go have fun and try it out!
Other New Stuff
The above covers all of the major features I've added to improve Plague Breaker, while below is covering new items and general improvements to the game that aren't covered previously.
New Items
Plague Breaker now has 102 items! I'm not going to list all of them here, but I'll cover a few of the new special items that I think are pretty fun:
- Titanium Anvil - Rerolls at the Armor Shop are free
- Gem Ring - Gems are more effective, gain a free gem when you get this item
- Item Box - Gain 2 random common items
- Greater Elemental Rune - Enemies take 15% more damage for each status effect afflicting them
- Phylactory - Your maximum health is 10. On death, resurrect with 1 less max HP.
- Pandora's Box - Remove all of your items and your gold. Gain a random item in each slot and a random amount of gold.
- Gem Bag - Gain 1 of every gem
- Elemental Potion - Gain resistance to elemental damage for a short window
There are a lot more new items than that of course but you'll just have to play Plague Breaker to find them!
New Buffs
I've also added new armor and weapon buffs to improve the variety in the Armor shop. These include, but are not limited to:
- Hearty and Greater Hearty - Increase max HP when equipped
- Dueling weapons - Increase armor while equipped
- Greater and Lesser resistances - 33% and 66% resistance to a specific elemental type
- Holy and Smiting weapons - Deal increased damage to undead, or light them on fire!
- Sharp weapons - Deal extra backstab damage
- Keen weapons - Have a small crit chance
General Improvements
This is a list of other changes I've made that aren't covered above:
- Zombies now have 10 hp instead of 12
- Poison Bloats have a smaller poison pool and much less HP
- Shield Armor now have much less HP
- Bats can only hurt you during their charge
- Healing Mages now heal much more than before
- Font can be changed to non-pixelated font
- Shops have more items and coins are more common
- Adventurer now unlocks after beating the final boss
- Nightmare Mode now unlocks after beating the game on Hard once
- Added some steam achievments
Bug Fixes
This is a non-exhaustive list of bug fixes, mostly just highlighting the major ones:
- Steam cloud saves now work as intended
- Fixed bug where Greater Armor would get stuck against the wall if you were rogue
- Fixed a lot of UI spacing
- Fixed cameras in boss fights
- Enemies will no longer target a dead player in co-op
- Fixed bug where the player could get stuck in the idle animation
- Fixed bug where the Plague Rider could bounce around trying to reach his destination
- Fixed bug where stunned flying enemies would fly all over the place
- The Acolyte no longer attacks while stunned
- The Flute, Crown, Elven Cloak now works as intended
- Many, many, many other small bugs
Thanks Everyone
Finally, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped out with Plague Breaker along the way. I hope you all enjoy the game!