Break the Path | Balancing, QoL & Stability Patch 0.9.2

Hey All!

It’s been exactly two weeks since Break the Path launched, and the momentum hasn’t slowed down! A huge thank you for the continued love and the detailed feedback you’ve shared over the past days.

We’ve been busy refining the experience based on your latest feedback. While we have more "cooking" for the future, we wanted to highlight the key fixes and balance changes that went live this week to keep your journeys challenging but fair.

We are always listening closely to your messages on Discord — please join us there if you haven't already!

Thanks for being part of this Early Access.
— Bidju & everyone at MT

Patch Notes

Note: ⭐️ indicates changes inspired by community feedback!

New

• ⭐️ Options: Added a Button Style setting to manually toggle between Automatic, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo icons.

Balancing

• ⭐️ Level Generation:
  - Rewards are now more likely to spawn at the very end of branching paths.
  - Challenges will now tend to appear just before the end of branching paths to test your resolve before the reward.
  - Banking Fish: No longer guaranteed to appear before the Boss once you have reached a certain progression thresholds.
  - Hexed Giver: The pillar will now always spawn in the Incubator if it hasn't appeared earlier in the Expedition.
• ⭐️ Difficulty: Biome's enemy strength scaling is now calculated based on island depth rather than distance from the entrance to better align with the new level generation.
• ⭐️ Enemies:
  - Enemies now have a brief recovery window when returning to the stage after falling.
  - Factory: Bunkers can now transition between islands to pursue you.
• ⭐️ Freeze: Slightly increased enemy reaction time and wind-up delay after defrosting. 0.9.1.4

QoL

• ⭐️ LD: Improved path readability for branching island layouts. 0.9.1.6
• ⭐️ Teleporters: Added teleporters next to Hex Givers and Banking Fish to streamline exploration.
• ⭐️ UI:
  - Loots: Added a position marker to items dropped on the ground for better visibility. 0.9.1.6
  - Rarity Altar: Now displays specific sub-goal amounts.
  - Givers / Pickups: Improved navigation flow to make wrapping around to the Backpack faster when replacing Gear.
• Options: Controls: Gamepad and Steam Deck layouts now explicitly display the 'Teleport to Team' binding. 0.9.1.4
• ⭐️ Keyboard:
  - TAB can now be used to close the pause menu and its inventory.
  - Emotes are now bound to the keys 1, 2, 3 and 4 by default for easier use during action.
• Ark: Memorial: Improved the clarity of the access stone label.

Bugfixes

• ⭐️ Level Generation:
  - Resolved a rare generation failure triggered by specific secret chunks. 0.9.1.3
  - Fixed an issue where teleporters were being removed illogically during world generation.
• ⭐️ LD:
  - Grounded a teleporter that was floating in the air (it wasn't meant to act like a bird). 0.9.1.3
  - Lost Archipelago: Rematerialized a missing island that previously blocked progression. 0.9.1.5
  - Clarified the pathing for a confusing secret entrance. 0.9.1.5
• ⭐️ Hex Giver: Fixed an issue where drops could become stuck behind decorations. 0.9.1.6
• Enemies: Fixed an issue where secret enemies could be pushed off the map for an instant kill.
• ⭐️ Map: Fixed Map teleportation being interrupted by player dashes.
• ⭐️ Refillable Heal Flask: Fixed refill percentage resetting to 0% when the refillable heal flask gift is amplified.
• ⭐️ Controls Rebinding: Fixed a bug that prevented players from rebinding WASD and Arrow keys. 0.9.1.4
• ⭐️ UI:
  - Options:Fixed navigation quirks in the Controls panel for smoother menu browsing. 0.9.1.3
  - Eroding Hex: Fixed incorrect bonus values displayed in the inventory.
  - Trinkets: Fixed an incorrect delay display for the 'rare relaunch' affix.
  - Givers: Fixed opening animations appearing stretched on certain aspect ratios.
  - Controls: Fixed Emotes icons not being the same as in-game.
  - Send Feedback Menu: Fixed menu inputs triggering unintended in-game actions.
  - End Run Screen: Fixed a bugged item description overlaying Encrypted Memories.
  - Training Rack: Added missing Gear stats to item descriptions.
  - Rarity Altar: Fixed the interface not responding to mouse inputs.
• ⭐️ Endless: Resolved a value overflow issue when calculating critical hit damage.
• ⭐️ Visuals:
  - Decorations: Fixed several instances of "flying" decorations being partially buried in the ground. 0.9.1.3
  - Decorations: Resolved other cases of foliage clipping into the ground.
  - Weapons: Umbrella: Fixed weapon color rendering.
  - Bodies: Snake: Fixed missing hot towels in the Onsens.
  - Gates: Fixed pressure plates for sealed gates not appearing disabled.
• ⭐️ HUD: Fixed Minimap input icon shown when using a non-PlayStation controller. 0.9.1.7
• ⭐️ Localization:
  - Restored missing translations for recently added dialogues. 0.9.1.4
  - Resolved an issue where certain Asian language fonts were missing required glyphs. 0.9.1.4
• ⭐️ Co-op / Softlock:
  - Fixed fallback weapon behavior in Alterattack tutorials.
  - Fixed a softlock occurring when a teammate failed teleporting to the Onsen.
• ⭐️ Co-op / UI: Fixed the teammate Shells counter being truncated at high values.
• ⭐️ Various under the hood fixes.

Optimization

• Improved performance for Tree and Bush decorations via optimized rendering. 0.9.1.3
• ⭐️ Optimized vegetation in Factory, Lost Archipelago and Rat Village. 0.9.1.7
• Optimized foliage rendering and animation performance in Rat Village.
• Optimized the level generation algorithm.