Patch 0.5.1.718

Hello Guildmasters,

and welcome to our first update to the demo.

Before I jump into the changes, I wanted to give a warm and enthusiastic thank you to each and everyone of you. By now, over 200,000 of you have played the demo and have made us the #1 demo on Steam one day after release. None of us at the studio expected remotely that something like this would happen, and we’re incredibly happy and very grateful at the same time. Another special thank you to our Discord community, who in the first week of the demo release put together a wiki, guides, teambuilders, fan art and even a website. You guys are the best.

Now, onto this week’s patch notes. The first update to the demo brings you

• A big balance update to expand the number of playable strategies and to address some points of frustrations you expressed

• Small quality of life improvements and bug fixes based on your feedback

⭐ = Community Suggestions

Note for our new players: The Merged and SSS Leaderboards both reset with our weekly updates, to give everyone a level playing field, while the red rift leaderboards stays on longer as more of a seasonal feature. The leaderboard Hall of Fame can be found in our Discord.

General Changes

• ⭐ The last difficulty you picked last run is now the difficulty of your next run by default

• Added a reset timer to the leaderboard panels to indicate when the next reset will take place (implemented earlier this week with a hotfix)

Bug Fixes

• ⭐ Fixed refreshing Rushes counting twice to the Rush counter

• ⭐ Fixed an exploit that allowed players to quit the game without saving during the shop

• Fixed option to disable data collection in the settings not appearing

• ⭐ Fixed a soft lock happening due to a wrong delay in the results screen after the Emergency Rewind triggered (implemented earlier this week with a hotfix)

• ⭐ Fixed an exception happening when clickspamming the "Proceed" button in the shop under certain circumstances (implemented earlier this week with a hotfix)

• ⭐ Fixed S Rank heroes offered in the shop and endless events sometimes having duplicate class modifiers (implemented earlier this week with a hotfix)

Balance Changes

By Aleco, Lead Designer on Guildrun

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Guildrun demo’s first balance patch! My name is Aleco and I’m the lead game designer on Guildrun. One of my favorite parts of working on Guildrun is putting together our balance patches and writing up their patch notes, which I’ve been doing every week throughout our closed Alpha since January.

One of the main things I use for making balance decisions (along with player feedback) is our internal data, which uses data from completed runs to track statistics such as the popularity and winrate of Heroes, items, relics, etc. I genuinely never could have imagined just how much beautiful, beautiful data I would have access to for putting together this balance patch when we launched the demo. As of writing these patch notes we are closing in on 2 million completed runs of Guildrun in our first week, which translates to plenty of data for me to work with! I’m incredibly grateful for all of the time and passion that players have poured into Guildrun so far, and I owe our community a huge thanks for all of the incredible support they’ve shown us.

I hope you enjoy the patch, and look forward to hearing your feedback on these changes!

Patch Goals

• Expand the number of playable strategies, particularly in Endless Mode and Red Rift, by buffing things which are unpopular/underperforming and nerfing things which stand out as the best within their category.

  • For difficulties below SSS, I’m very pleased with the wide variety of Heroes and strategies that appear to be viable according to our internal data. There don’t seem to be any Heroes that stand out as too weak or too strong for sub-SSS runs which don’t stand out in the same way for SSS/Red Rift.

  • In both Red Rift and Endless Mode, there were a few Heroes and specializations which stood out as outliers which did not stand out in lower difficulties.

• Identify things which are preventing players from enjoying the game or progressing in their runs, and take steps to address them when possible.

  • One of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve been hearing from players is that it is frustrating to run out of Boss Tokens, particularly while doing Red Rift runs. We are currently exploring changes to the Boss Token system and plan to make a change to this system in an upcoming patch.

  • There were a few Challenge Fights and Fight Events which were more difficult than their counterparts, which have been nerfed in this patch.

  • Team Size Quest relics in the Auction House were underperforming across the board, and have had their cost reduced by 5 Shards.

Challenge Fights

I’m happy with the overall balance of challenge fights, particularly in the lower difficulties where the winrate delta between the hardest and easiest challenges is pretty tight. However, a few challenges stood out as overly punishing in higher difficulties.

• Rapid Growth (Act 1):

  • Fixed a bug where the Hydra’s Healing SSS Act Boss effect would give enemies more HP/S than intended in combination with Rapid Growth.

• Pain (Act 1)

  • ⬇️2.75% -> 2.5% Max HP damage per second

• Pain (Act 2)

  • ⬇️8% -> 7% Max HP damage per second

• Decay (Act 2)

  • ⬇️17.5% -> 15% decreased basic stats

Fight Events

The Single Combat fight event was too difficult, evident both from player feedback and from our internal data. I reduced both the offensive and defensive stats of the Forest Golem in all fights, and will be monitoring the effect of these changes over the next week.

• Single Combat (Act 1 and Act 2)

  • ⬇️Moderately decreased difficulty.

• Endurance (Act 2)

  • ⬇️Slightly decreased difficulty.

Relics

One of the bigger changes I’m making this week is the reduction in cost for Team Size Quest relics in the Auction House. The winrate for these relics on the whole were underperforming compared to Epic relics (which had the same cost), and the feedback from players in higher difficulties was that these relics were often not as strong as ones which made an immediate impact.

The rest of the relic changes target relics which stood out in the data as either much better or much worse than other relics of the same rarity. I was hoping to do more buffs than nerfs here, but the reality was that there were more relics which were too strong than relics which were too weak.

• Team Size Quest

  • ⬆️Reduced the cost of all Team Size Quest relics by 5 Shards.

  • Merchant Mandate:

    • ⬆️Reroll 9 -> 8 times.

• Starting

  • Bossy:

    • ⬇️Gain 50 -> 40 Shards.

• Legendary

  • Plague Transmission Engine:

    • ⬆️Fixed a bug where this relic incorrectly triggered every 15 seconds instead of every 10 seconds as stated.

  • Shield Fragmentation Engine:

    • ⬆️Reflect 200% -> 250% of Shield damage taken.

• Epic

  • Critical Absorption Prism:

    • ⬇️Steals 60 -> 50 Max HP.

  • Deceleration Aegis:

    • ⬇️Gives 800 -> 700 Shields.

  • Deceleration Apotheosis:

    • ⬇️Gives 20% -> 15% basic stats.

  • Poison Ascendancy:

    • ⬆️Enemy Attack and Attack Speed decreased by 50% -> 66%.

  • Alignment Ascendancy:

    • ⬆️Gives 10 -> 15 Attack Speed.

• Rare

  • Notes: This nerf may seem harsh, but Precision Nexus was one of the top performing ones across multiple modes and I anticipate that it will still be quite playable with these new numbers.

  • Precision Nexus:

    • ⬇️Heals 40 -> 30 HP

    • ⬇️Gives 4 -> 3 Mana.

• Common

  • Acceleration Lattice:

    • ⬆️Gives 20 -> 25 HP/S.

  • Deceleration Lattice:

    • ⬆️Gives 10 -> 15 HP/S.

Items

Items are perfect, nothing to see here folks! In all seriousness, the delta between the top performing and lowest performing item in each rarity was pretty tight. I may or may not do a larger pass on item balance in a future patch, but for the moment items were not the squeaky wheel that got the balance grease.

• Epic

  • Adaptive Sword:

    • ⬆️20 base Attack Speed -> 30 base Attack Speed.

    • ⬆️Changed the priority of this item to trigger later than other start of combat effects.

Class Modifiers

There were a handful of Class Modifiers that were too weak in our internal data, but not very many that stood out as overpowered. I’m taking a buff-only approach to Class Modifiers this week and will follow up in a future patch with nerfs if necessary.

• Assassin

  • Poisonous Eye:

    • ⬆️Inflict 10 -> 15 Poison plus Poison equal to 25% -> 33% of Crit.

  • Poisonous Edge:

    • ⬆️Gain 50% -> 66% Crit.

  • Poisonous Burst:

    • ⬆️Inflicts 1 Poison per 15 Crit -> 1 Poison per 10 Crit.

• Duelist

  • Golden Eye:

    • ⬆️Gain 1 Shard every 10 -> 9 auto attacks.

  • Poisonous Attacks:

    • ⬆️Inflicts 1 Poison plus 1 per 120 Attack Speed -> 1 per 100 Attack Speed Poison.

• Mystic

  • Sideline Empowerment:

    • ⬆️Gives 25 -> 50 base Attack and Magic.

• Mage

  • Burning Absorption:

    • ⬆️Gives 1 Magic per 8 -> 6 Burn on cast.

  • Hermit:

    • ⬆️Gives 25% -> 33% Magic.

  • Stalled Heat:

    • ⬆️Inflicts Burn equal to 50% -> 66% of Magic.

Heroes and Specializations

Heroes and specs are the backbone of Guildrun. If we learned anything from our balance patches during the closed alpha, it was that seemingly small changes to Heroes and specs can sometimes have a bigger impact on their overall popularity and winrate than expected. For this reason, when it comes to Hero and spec balance changes I prefer making smaller changes over multiple patches instead of taking big swings.

As I briefly mentioned in the patch goals section, I couldn’t find any major Hero/spec outliers in lower difficulties which weren’t also an outlier in higher difficulties. However, there were several outliers in Red Rift and high Endless Mode which weren’t an issue in lower difficulties. This means that a good chunk of the balance changes below are intended to specifically target high difficulties while impacting the lower difficulties as little as possible.

• Yuuna

  • Notes:

    • Yuuna has been one of our most popular Heroes since launch, but her overall winrate (especially in Red Rift) is a little lower than I’d like to see. Since all 3 of her specs appear to be equally powerful, I’m giving her a boost to her base Defense in order to help her better survive early fights and cast her Active Ability multiple times.

  • Base Stats:

    • ⬆️Defense: 37 -> 39

• Hoyoung

  • Notes:

    • Much like Yuuna, Hoyoung is an Assassin with 3 balanced specs and a slightly low winrate in higher difficulties. I’m making an adjustment to Killshot which both adds a bit of immediate power (+25 Crit at Rank C) and scaling power (+50 Crit per additional rank) in order to make sure he can consistently rack up those kills as the run progresses.

  • Killshot (Active Ability)

    • ⬆️Arrow gains 25 flat Crit -> gains 50 Crit per rank.

• Zuri

  • Notes:

    • Zuri’s “The Cruel” is performing a little worse than her other specs. I’m shaving a full 10 points of the Max Mana off its Active Ability in order to help it have a quicker first cast as well as more frequent subsequent casts. I’m also giving her a boost to her Base Attack Damage and Base Attack Speed, as she’s been playing much more “Tank” than “Assassin”.

  • Base Stats:

    • ⬆️Base Attack Damage: 30 -> 33

    • ⬆️Base Attack Speed: .37 -> .38

  • The Cruel (Gives “Petrification” Active Ability)

    • ⬆️Max Mana: 110 -> 100

• Fiona

  • Notes:

    • Fiona’s power level is looking solid in our internal data, with the caveat that her very popular “The Right Hand” spec is underperforming compared to other two.

  • The Right Hand

    • ⬆️Gives 2 base Shards + 1 Shard per rank  -> gives 2 base Shards + 2 Shards per rank.

• Funke

  • Note:

    • The Inferno is Funke’s weakest spec across difficulties, even though it was bugged to trigger after Stall 20 instead of Stall 25 as stated on the ability. Since it’s pretty important to get Burn going early, I’m going to try lowering the Stall duration on this spec before making other potential changes.

  • The Inferno

    • ⬆️Stall 20 -> 15.

• Kai

  • Notes:

    • Kai’s “The Bold” stands out as his strongest spec across all difficulties, and is a power outlier in particular on Red Rift. I’m toning down the base bonus Shields he gets per cast while preserving all of the Defense-based Shield scaling the spec gives him. My goal is to have this spec provide less of an immediate boost while still maintaining its late game power when properly invested into.

  • The Bold

    • ⬇️Gains 250 -> 100 base Shields on ability cast.

• Gustav

  • Notes:

    • Gustav is a top performing Hero in every mode, including Red Rift and Endless. The Glacier stands out a bit from his other 2 specs (especially in deep Endless runs), but all 3 of them are performing well above average which indicates the need for a small change to his base kit.

  • The Glacier

    • ⬇️Bonus Defense on acquire: 50 -> 40

  • Blizzard (Active Ability)

    • ⬇️Shield Magic scaling: 100% -> 75%

• Grace

  • Notes:

    • Grace’s “Selfless” spec is outshining her others, especially in deep Endless runs.

  • The Selfless

    • ⬇️333 -> 250 shields per rank.

• Rip

  • Fixed a bug where Rip’s “Bloodthirsty” signature Passive Ability would sometimes double-count its Rush triggers.

    • ⬇️This change means he’ll be stacking his Glutton spec a bit slower, but both Rip and Rush builds were in a pretty good spot (especially in Red Rift) and I anticipate Rip will still be quite playable after this bug fix.

• Nyx

  • Fixed a bug where Nyx’s “Ferality” signature Passive Ability would sometimes double-count its Rush triggers.

    • ⬇️Same as above, Nyx was gaining the correct amount of stats for their passive but was stacking up rush triggers more quickly than intended.

  • Notes:

    • Nyx is a character that performs better and better the higher the difficulty gets, perhaps because they have so many different synergies to hook into and can be used in a wide variety of ways. I’m happy with Nyx’s power level and popularity, but their “Spark” spec was a major outlier in Red Rift runs.

  • The Spark

    • ⬇️Burn: 2 + 1/30 -> 1 + 1/50

    • ⬇️Frost: 1 + 1/40 -> 1 + 1/75

    • 🔄Poison: 0 + 1/50 -> 1 + 1/100

• Dragomir

  • Notes

    • Players seem to be a fan of Dragomir’s high risk/high reward playstyle, as he’s been one of the most popular Heroes in the game since release. I don’t want to mess with something that’s working, but The Sanguine has been a top spec in Red Rift and offers a bit too much immediate stability when picked. This change aims to tone down its immediate power while still maintaining the fantasy of chain-killing multiple enemies per fight.

  • The Sanguine

    • ⬇️Omnivamp gained on cast: 4 base + 4 per rank -> 0 base + 5 per rank.

    • ⬇️Mana gained on kill: 70 -> 60