Hello Guildmasters,
And welcome to our weekly update, which brings you
balance updates
some visual tweaks and quality of life changes, and
bug fixes.
As always,⭐ marks changes inspired by community suggestions.
As every week, we want to thank you all for playing Guildrun and talking to us about it. It’s a pleasure for us to have so much input from you and working with it. If you haven`t already, stop by our Discord and say hi!
By the way: We also publish our patch notes on our youtube channel if you wanna check it out (always a bit after we publish them on Steam as we are still working on the video.
Now, let's jump into the changes.
Visual & Audio Changes
⭐ Hide item slots over character's health bars when dragging other characters
Tweaked Resurrection vfx on Emergency Rewind break
⭐ Fixed Logan Ming and Sal not being desaturated at death
Fixed Resurrection Vfx playing twice
Fixed Aria move animation not scaling with movement speed
Bug Fixes
⭐Fixed effects that automatically triggered auto attacks (like Lone Wolf's Bow) from triggering each other
⭐The epic relic Shield Investment Filigree now correctly specifies that it starts at 250 Shields.
⭐The Ming’s Enlightened spec now correctly applies him 2 seconds of Rush extension per rank.
⭐The rare item Sentinel’s Plate now correctly gives 40 bonus Defense when it triggers (was previously giving 60 bonus Defense).
⭐Niklas no longer can start the game with Quantity over Quality bonus in Red Rift
⭐Niklas no longer incorrectly gains certain bonus stats from items he consumes.
Gameplay Changes
Hello and welcome to another edition of Aleco’s weekly Guildrun patch notes! Let’s dive straight in.
As always, the bulk of changes in this week’s patch are aimed at improving the overall level of balance and excitement, especially for the game’s Heroes and their specializations. I’ve made changes to 10 Heroes this week, including a mini-rework to Karsu’s active ability which I am very excited for players to get their hands on. The other big change this week is one which applies to Red Rift only, and is a band-aid aimed at the power level of Frost against the Act 2 Boss.
I’m going to discuss what I mean by “band-aid” and why I feel as though band-aid changes are necessary in a moment, but first I have a quick message for all the Endless Mode fans. I spent a good amount of time this week looking through the data, reading online feedback, and talking with players about some of the things they’d like to see changed for Endless Mode. I’m currently working on some solutions to a few key issues, including adjustments to how Stun durations stack, but these solutions just weren’t ready in time to make it into this week’s patch. I’ll be focusing on targeted balance changes for Endless Mode soon, and am planning for them to be one of the major focuses for next week’s patch.
Alright, let’s talk about band-aids. To me, a “band-aid” change is one which aims to treat the symptoms of a problem without attempting to solve the underlying problem itself. This week’s Red-Rift-only change which makes the Act 2 Boss resist 50% of Frost is a pretty textbook example of one, as it only aims to address a symptom (Frost is making the Act 2 Boss too easy in Red Rift) and does not address the underlying problem (Frost is stronger than the other 2 Debuffs).
This raises the question: why would I ever go for a band-aid solution instead of trying to fix the underlying problem? The reality is that many of the changes I’d love to make for the demo, such as adjustments to how Debuffs like Frost and Poison work, are simply too difficult for me to make for the Guildrun demo due to the amount of testing and iteration they’d require. Even if I were to only change the numbers on Frost and nothing else, it would impact so many different Heroes, specializations, items, relics, enemies, and more, that I would need to do a pass on all of the numbers of everything Frost-related in the entire game, as well as extensive playtesting to make sure that all of the changes made the game more fun, more balanced, and didn’t introduce any new bugs. Various changes to the way that Debuffs work are on the “definitely going to happen” list for full release, but are unfortunately relegated to the “definitely not going to happen” list for the demo due to these challenges.
Now that we’re 4 patches deep into the Guildrun demo, I’m finding that more and more of the problems I’d like to fix are ones that I can really only cure for the full release, where I’ll have time to iterate on different solutions and find the proper treatments. And if I can’t treat the problem, then treating the symptom is often the next best thing. Band-aid changes like today’s Red Rift Frost adjustment or the +1 Boss Token change in patch #2 are only meant to treat symptoms, and I hope that players can see changes like these as a signal that I’ll work on a proper cure for full release. It’s worth emphasizing that just because something is “not fixable for the demo” does not mean that it is also “not worth talking about or giving feedback on”. All of the feedback we've received throughout the demo has been invaluable to us, and has not only helped us improve the demo but has also helped us make the best full release that we possibly can. Please, keep it coming!
Balance Changes
Red Rift
⬇️ The Act 2 Boss resists Frost, reducing its effects by 50%.
Against the Act 2 Boss in Red Rift only, it will take 4 Frost to reduce the boss’s Defense and Attack Speed by 1 instead of 2.
Players can view this on the Red Rift relic given to them at the start of each run.
From now on, the Red Rift leaderboard will reset on a weekly basis with the release of each patch.
Event Items
Notes: Power Crystals have proven themselves to be a bit too potent, and are being toned down slightly. I still expect them to be quite effective, but a bit less explosive on multi-class Heroes in particular. Ring items given from the 2nd event were consistently getting outperformed by their counterparts, so I’ve added half a common item worth of stats to most of them (except Greedy Ring, you know what you did!). I’m also toning down the output of two Shard generation-related items from this event, which were taking over early games a bit too often.
⬇️ Power Crystal
Permanently grants 2 common items of stats (60 defense, 400 max hp) -> Permanently grants 1.5 common items of stats (45 defense, 300 max hp).
⬇️ Large Power Crystal
Permanently grants 4 common items of stats (120 defense, 800 max hp) -> Permanently grants 3 common items of stats (90 defense, 600 max hp).
⬆️ Hasty Ring
Base Attack 12 -> 25
⬆️ Searing Ring
Base Magic 12 -> 25
⬆️ Toxic Ring
Base Crit 7 -> 15
⬆️ Infectious Ring
Base Attack Speed 10 -> 20
⬆️ Shielding Ring
Base Max HP 100 -> 200
⬆️ Freezing Ring
Base Magic 12 -> 25
⬆️ Patient Ring
Base Defense 15 -> 30
⬇️ Greedy Gauntlets
Shields per Generate trigger: 1250 -> 750
⬇️ Greedy Shiv
Damage per Generate trigger: 750 -> 450
Heroes
Niklas
Notes: I’m very happy with last week’s change to Niklas, which gave him an extra item slot at baseline and made him much more fun and easy to use (especially in Red Rift). It also made him a wee bit OP. This change targets his early stat snowballing while also giving him some rank-based scaling. He should snowball a bit less hard in the early game now, while also gaining extra potential to become a late-game demon thanks to the additional stat scaling potential at S rank.
⬇️Red Hot Deals (Signature Passive Ability)
Gains 100% of the stats of the consumed item -> gains 50% base +25% per rank of the consumed item’s stats.
Karsu
Notes: This mini-rework for Karsu aims to raise her scaling potential and power level floor in non-boss significantly, while also lowering her power level against bosses slightly. Like Yuuna with her Shurikens, Karsu now fires additional arrows as she gains more Attack Speed so that she can dish out big damage to enemies in her range. The Frost applied per arrow now scales with Rank instead of Attack Speed, which means she’ll on average be inflicting less Frost per arrow and will require a little more investment than she did before to quickly overwhelm bosses with Frost. The Falling Snow also required a mini-rework due to her arrow change, which I hope players will enjoy experimenting with.
🔀⬆️ Snowpiercer (Signature Active Ability)
Now fires an additional arrow for every 50 Attack Speed she has, up to a max of 14.
Arrows now inflict 3 base Frost + 2 Frost per rank.
🔀The Falling Snow
Now reduces Karsu’s Max Mana by 1 on auto attack, to a minimum of 40.
No longer fires 5 additional arrows.
Kai
Notes: Kai’s reworked Intrepid spec is outperforming his others by a bit too much. I’m also throwing a few small buffs his way, both to his base stats and the damage on his active ability, to help him catch up a bit to other Warriors.
⬆️Base Stats
Base Attack Speed: .38 -> .39
Defense: 40 -> 41
⬆️Resolute Strike
Attack scaling on the damage: 100% -> 150%
⬇️The Intrepid
Rush Duration: 8 -> 6
Rowan
Notes: The Tectonic (his active spec) is outperforming his other specs in all 4 pre-endless timings. A clear signal for a change.
⬇️The Tectonic (Active Ability)
Shields gained on cast: 33% -> 25%
Max Mana: 110 -> 115
Logan
Notes: The Iron was statistically the worst spec in Red Rift. If an extra item slot worked for Niklas, why wouldn’t it work for The Iron?
⬆️The Iron
Now gives Logan an extra item slot.
Grace
Notes: Grace continues to carry runs from the bench, while not having quite enough incentive to be played on board. These changes are aimed at making her a more appealing on-board option while making The Selfless a bit less of an insta-pick.
⬆️Salvation (Signature Active Ability)
Base Shield duration: 5 -> 6
⬆️The Benevolent
Stall duration: 20 -> 15
⬇️The Selfless
Backup Only Shields given per rank: 250 -> 200
Ming
Notes: Just a minor follow-up change to last week’s buffs to improve his scaling slightly. A bug fix to The Enlightened should also provide Ming with a bit of a boost this week.
⬆️Inner Flame (Signature Passive Ability)
Burn inflicted per Max HP: 650 -> 600
Gustav
Notes: Gustav has a weak Act 1 right now. Both of these changes are meant to improve his performance in Act 1 without heavily impacting his Act 2 performance.
⬆️Blizzard (Signature Active Ability)
Base damage per tick: 10 -> 15
Frost per tick: 1 + 1/8 MR -> 2 + 1/8 MR
Fiona
Notes: With the previous “inflict Burn per Shield removed” clause, Heroes with high Defense would often absorb low damage hits from enemy autos without dishing any Burn back. By removing that clause, this spec should inflict far more burn in the average fight than it did previously. It’ll be a bit less effective in deep Endless runs where the damage numbers get really high, but this should ultimately land as far more buff than nerf.
🔀⬆️The Lustrous
No longer inflicts Burn per 20 Shields removed. Now inflicts Burn whenever a Hero with Shields is damaged.
Skorn
Notes: More band-aid than treatment, these changes should help Skorn in Act 1 where he currently struggles a bit.
⬆️Base Stats
Max HP: 925 -> 950
⬆️Retribution (Signature Passive Ability)
Base Poison inflicted: 0 -> 1