Hey everyone!
This update is all about boss fights. I dug in recently for a bit of rebalancing and extra information during fights. So things should be a lot more clear now.
The Tollgate: a real fight now, in two phases
- Phase 1: until his hull is down to half, Lord Evander casts weaker (tier I) spells, so a single ward layer stops them. He keeps one ward layer, holds back his Glacier and Ring of Ice, and his batteries fire every 16 seconds.
- Phase 2: at half hull, a popup tells you that you feel a surge of magical power from his Casting Room. From then on his spells are tier II, his wards and batteries go back to full strength, and he brings out the big spells.
- His frost no longer locks your weapons down: frozen weapon rooms now thaw in 8 seconds instead of 20.
- "Flask Store" is now called what it really is: his Still Room (flasks).
- The tip now tells you what actually works: wreck his Casting Room to stop his spells for a while.
- He's now honestly rated "A hard fight".
See why spells get through your wards
A stronger spell needs more ward layers to stop it: tier II needs 2 layers, tier III needs 3, and tier IV ignores wards. The game never told you that clearly. Now it does:
- While an enemy is casting a tier II or III spell at you, a purple warning shows how many ward layers it will pass.
- When a spell does pass your ward, the ward lights up with a magical splash where it hit, with a "Tier II" label right there, so you know exactly what happened. Your ward stays up.
- The Battle report tells you how many spells passed your wards, and how many ward layers would have stopped them.
- The Ward Loom, the glossary and How to Play all explain the rule properly now.
- Your Greater Ward from a Flow surge still blocks or deflects everything, whatever the tier.
Boss weak spots you can actually find
- Rooms a boss tip tells you to hit now have a red target ring on the enemy ship, and hovering one tells you why it matters.
- Every boss tip has been rewritten to say what really works, and which icon a special room wears.
Boss balance
- Tallowmere: she couldn't be beaten, even by upgraded ships. Less hull, slower escort repairs, and her Needle Battery only appears on higher marks.
- Orrery: its Ward Wisp shot down every bolt you fired. The wisp and the Needle Battery now only appear on higher marks, and it has a little less hull.
- Stormmother: she dodges a bit less, and you now get a 3-second warning before each dive.
- Pale Regatta: her duelist is a little softer on lower marks.
- Cistern: her spill throws 6 bolts instead of 8 on Trade Winds.
- Gray Sovereign and the dungeon wardens: they can no longer dodge almost everything, and the Great Sunlance hits less hard.
- Boss phase popups are now a normal size instead of stretching across the whole screen.
Smarter Auto Battle
- When you're boarded, Auto Battle sends your crew to fight, including your pilot and mages if you're short-handed, then sends them back to their posts.
- It aims at boss weak spots: the Tollgate's Casting Room and the Pale Regatta's sloops.
- It stops firing into a beast's wind shield, which was throwing your own shots back at you.
All new text is translated into all 30 supported languages.
Thank you for the reports!