Patch 0.5.2

Hello Guildmasters,

and welcome back to our weekly update, which brings you

• The second balance update to Guildrun with another leaderboard reset

• New event artwork and visual updates

• Bug fixes.

⭐ = Community Suggestions

Visual & Audio Changes

• New Event images

  • The Three Urns

  • The Well of Temptations

• Tutorial Update

  • Drag and drop item to hero now highlights every hero's item slot

  • Tweaked darkened area when highlighting battle grid and crossroad

• Environment Update

  • Reduced redundant Vfx for optimization

  • Textures for more contrast

• Vfx Updated

  • Updated burn effect to be more stylized

  • Generic timing pass to accommodate highest battle speed

• UI update

  • ⭐ Event Effects panel can now be collapsed to prevent blocking the battle

  • Tweaked back button

  • ⭐ Fixed and updated comic speechbubble (thanks MondSemmel!)

  • ⭐ Fixed event images being cut off on 16:10

  • Leaderboard visual polish and icon order to accommodate more digits

  • New layout on difficulty selection and updated button textures

Bug Fixes

• ⭐Fixed item scalings being reset after loading

• ⭐Fixed Red Rift not warning you if you don't skip the last Campfire reward

• ⭐Fixed Red Rift staying in a limbo state that required you to abandon the run if you would beat the final boss with pending missions besides the Hero Deaths one (related to the bug above)

• Fixed Ming A and B rank being swapped on Compendium

• Fixed Aria's chain visual glitch

• Updated the text on abilities with multiple instances of Stall to only use the word “Stall” once. The effects of these abilities have not changed.

• Fixed a bug where the Emergency Rewind would accumulate Shards while broken. It will now always start at 10 Shards when recharged, instead of 10 Shards + 10 Shards per round since it broke.

• Fixed a bug where Trial fights accumulated Shards for Emergency Rewind.

  • We are aware that these two bug fixes to Emergency Rewind can amount to less Shards for the player per run, which has the potential to be both surprising and frustrating. We will be closelying monitoring the feedback from players and the impact this bug fix has on winrates, and will follow up immediately in a future patch or hotfix if needed.

Balance Changes

By Aleco, Lead Designer on Guildrun.

Hello everybody, and welcome to the Guildrun Demo’s 2nd balance patch!

While I was looking through our internal data to put together this patch, the big thing that jumped out to me is how much players were able to improve and discover in such a short amount of time. Winrates are up across the board, especially in higher difficulties such as Red Rift which saw a massive increase from 7% winrate in week 1 to 12% in week 2. The average Endless Mode score also rose by half a floor, which represents a 7% improvement from week 1.

Though we didn’t make any balance changes this week with the goal of making the game any harder or easier, a change that players will notice is a pair of bug fixes related to Emergency Rewind. It was gaining more Shards than intended when it was recharged, which means the recharge option at the Act 1 Campfire will be less potent this week than it was in the last patch. I’ll be monitoring the effects of this bug fix closely and am prepared to make adjustments quickly if the impact of this change is bigger than anticipated, but my expectation is that these changes will be offset by other changes being made in this patch (more Boss Tokens!) as well as players continuing to improve and discover new strategies.

We have plenty of balance and gameplay changes to discuss this week, so let’s dive in!

Boss Tokens

As noted in last week’s patch notes, one of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve been hearing from players is that running out of Boss Tokens can be quite frustrating. I explored many potential changes to the Boss Token system this week, but ended up settling on the following:

Players now get 2 Boss Tokens for reaching a Boss (up from 1).

My primary goal with this change is to minimize how often players run out of Boss Tokens by being much more generous with them. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that this change is far from a perfect solution, but it was the best solution I could find which didn’t involve a complete overhaul of the current system (something which would not have been possible for us to do in time for this patch). I’ll be paying close attention to the feedback on this change, and promise that we will be exploring larger changes to Boss Tokens and starting bonuses for Guildrun’s full release.

Starting Bonuses

While exploring potential changes to the Boss Token system, I took a close look at the data for each of the game’s starting bonuses. One clear trend was that bonuses which immediately cost the player Shards (with the exception Fast Track) tended to be picked less often and perform worse than bonuses which did not cost Shards. This is especially true in Red Rift, where it is very important to have 30 Shards in order to purchase 2 Heroes in the first shop. In addition to removing Shard penalties from the majority of starting bonuses, I also made a few nerfs to starting bonuses which were consistently outperforming others in the data.

• Crest Windfall

  • ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.

• Survivor Charm

  • ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.

• All Class “Equipment” Bonuses

  • ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.

• Item Windfall

  • 🔄Removed -5 starting Shards penalty. Now gives 2 fewer common items.

• Stability System

  • ⬇️Rewards 5 fewer Shards.

• Shard Pouch

  • ⬇️Rewards 3 fewer Shards.

• Starter Bundle

  • ⬇️Rewards 2 fewer Shards.

• All In

  • The bug fix for Emergency Rewind recharge is particularly impactful for this starting bonus. I decided not to make a preemptive change here as this was one of the better starting bonuses, but will follow up in a future patch with a change if needed.

Fight Events

⭐ Increased the Shard reward option for Single Combat from 15 to 20.

Players correctly pointed out that the Shard reward option was always worse than the epic item option, as epic items sell in the shop for 16 Shards.

Relics

Nothing too spicy to report for this week’s relic changes. Once again there were more relics that stood out as performing better than other relics in their rarity than relics which stood out as performing too poorly.

• Legendary

  • Mage’s Cataclysm Engine

    • ⬇️Inflict Burn and Frost equal to 20% -> 15% of the Hero’s Magic on cast.

  • Warrior’s Bloodshed Engine

    • ⬇️Gain lasting Shields equal to 15% -> 10% of the damage dealt.

  • Mystic’s Abundance Engine

    • ⬇️Apply lasting Shields equal to 50% -> 33% of the Shields applied.

• Epic

  • Warrior's Sundering Filigree

    • ⬇️Reduce enemy Defense by 20 -> 15 on Crit.

  • Critical Absorption Prism

    • Note: This relic was nerfed last patch, but remained one of the top performing epic relics. I expect it will still be quite playable after this change.

    • ⬇️Steals 50 -> 40 Max HP on Crit.

  • Perfect Divergence Prism

    • ⬇️Increase basic stats by 33% -> 25%.

  • Poison Ascendancy

    • Notes: No balance changes were made to this relic, but a bug fix was made to it which fixed an issue where it would GIVE enemies attack and attack speed, not lower it. This should improve this relic significantly.

  • Shield Converter

    • ⬆️Damage the nearest enemy for 33% -> 50% of the Shield applied.

• Rare

  • Mage’s Memento

    • ⬇️Applies 15 -> 12 Frost per Mage.

  • Assassin’s Memento

    • ⬆️Gains 4 -> 5 Shards per Assassin.

• Common

  • Frost Surge

    • ⬇️Applies 20 -> 15 Frost.

Items

As promised, I took a deeper dive into items this week and was able to find a few which were worth making changes to.

• Epic

  • Polymath’s Prism

    • ⬇️This item was bugged to give 25% basic stats per class instead of 20% as stated on the text. It has been fixed to give 20%.

  • 🔄⬆️Temporal Accelerator

    • Notes: I re-arranged the stat bonuses on this item to provide more general utility. This is intended to be a notable buff, as it was underperforming compared to other epic items in the data.

    • ⬇️300 -> 200 Max HP

    • ⬇️40 -> 0 Attack

    • ⬆️0 -> 15 Omnivamp

    • ⬆️0 -> 20 Attack Speed

  • Ring of Virality

    • ⬆️Inflicts 50% -> 75% more Poison.

• Rare

  • Sentinel’s Plate

    • Notes: This item was a big outlier in Red Rift, where defensive stats are at a premium.

    • ⬇️30 -> 20 Defense

  • Runic Buckler

    • Notes: Same as above, this item was simply doing too much in Red Rift runs.

    • ⬇️Gain a Shield equal to 400% -> 250% of Defense.

  • Toxic Contract

    • ⬆️Applies 33% -> 50% increased Poison.

  • Spellblade

    • Notes: This is a pretty notable buff to this item, which was previously both underplayed and underperforming. To be perfectly honest, I just think this  design is really neat and wouldn’t mind if it became one of the more powerful rare items (so long as it doesn’t become an outlier).

    • ⬆️Gives 1 -> 2 Magic on auto attack.

    • ⬆️Gives 25 -> 30 Attack on cast.

  • Warrior’s Greataxe

    • ⬆️Gains 10 -> 12 Attack on combat survival.

Class Modifiers

Class Modifiers are in a great spot right now, with very few of them standing out in the data in either direction.

• Warrior

  • Shield Power

    • ⬆️Gain 1 Attack per 10 -> 8 Shields.

• Assassin

  • Poisonous Eye

    • ⬆️Inflicts 15 -> 30 base Poison.

Heroes and Specializations

The Guildrun community successfully honed in on the game’s most powerful Hero specs this week, especially in Red Rift. A major trend in the data was that the gap in pickrate between the best/most popular specs and worst/least popular specs on certain Heroes widened significantly compared to last patch. This is a strong indicator that players have “solved” which spec is the best for these Heroes, which is a spot I’d rather not have any Hero to exist in. My goal when balancing Hero specs is to reach a point where all 3 specs on every Hero feel equally playable (depending on the situation of course), which meant that nerfs to some of the game’s top specs felt necessary this week.

That being said, I’m very pleased with the overall state of Hero balance right now and am aiming to be as minimally disruptive with these changes as possible. I would hate to take something that is popular and being enjoyed by players and turn it into something which feels no longer playable. My expectation is that everything being nerfed in this patch will remain playable, and my hope is that these changes will lead players to consider a wider variety of specs than they may have considered in the previous patch.

• Aria

  • Notes: The cat is out of the bag! Players have caught onto the power level of Aria, who was the strongest Hero across every difficulty this week. Her popularity is rising, and her Harmony spec in particular stood out as a run-winner in SSS and RR. One of the critiques of Aria was that she was weak at C rank even though she scaled well into the game, so one of the things I was sure to do with these changes was give her active ability a bit more base damage per tick in exchange for the loss in scaling. Requiem Barrage now deals slightly more damage on C rank without any items equipped, but will fall off a bit more damage as the game goes on.

  • 🔄⬇️Requiem Barrage (Active Ability)

    • ⬇️Scales with 100% -> 75% of Magic.

    • ⬆️Deals 10 -> 25 base damage per tick.

  • 🔄⬇️The Harmony

    • ⬇️Scales with 50% -> 33% of Magic.

    • ⬇️Scales with 500% -> 300% of Mana Regen.

    • ⬆️Applies 0 -> 10 base Shields per tick.

• Sal

  • Notes: Breezy is a bit stronger than Sal’s other other specs.

  • The Breezy

    • ⬇️Gains 1 base + 1 per rank -> 0 base + 1 per rank Magic on Debuff inflicted.

• Irini

  • Notes: Though not as popular as her Olympic spec, The Mighty has been a top performer in higher difficulties for the past few weeks. Since there weren’t any numbers to reduce on this spec (it gives Heroes 1 Attack and 1 Attack Speed per trigger), the natural change was to add Stall to the ability to gate its upfront power a bit. This does add some new synergies to the ability which didn’t exist before, but my expectation is this change will slightly lower its power level overall.

  • The Mighty

    • ⬇️Added Stall (10).

• Kai

  • Notes: Despite last week’s nerf to The Bold, its winrate went up this week. It remained his best spec across the board, and needed another adjustment this week in order to bring it more in line with his other choices.

  • The Bold

    • ⬇️Gives 45 -> 30 Defense when acquired.

    • ⬇️Gives Shields equal to 500% -> 400% of Defense on cast.

• Gustav

  • Notes: The Glacier has been Gustav’s most popular spec, which is something I’m quite sympathetic to. I love taking this spec in my runs, but often noticed that because Gustav has 3 attack range he often wouldn’t move forward when switching targets to occupy space and hit the maximum number of characters with his self-targeting Blizzard. A friend suggested that I remove 1 Attack Range from this spec, an idea which I instantly loved. I expect that this change will either be neutral or a slight improvement The Glacier (which was already his top spec in Endless Mode by a decent margin), so its being joined by a small nerf to its Shield scaling.

  • The Glacier

    • 🔄Now gives -1 Attack Range.

    • ⬇️Applies Shields equal to 100% -> 75% of Defense.

• Pollen

  • Notes: The Earth’s Child was Pollen’s top spec this week across all modes.

  • Earth’s Child

    • ⬇️Gives 40 -> 30 Magic when acquired.

• Ratna

  • Notes: Our favorite hyper-scaling Mage might be scaling a bit too much with her Magnanimous spec, which was the most common overall spec in deep Endless Mode runs. I’m nudging down the scaling just a bit for now, and will follow up with additional changes if need be.

  • The Magnanimous:

    • ⬇️Gives 3 base + 3 per rank -> 3 base + 2 per rank permanent Crit on kill.

• Ming

  • Notes:

    • Ming has been struggling slightly in higher difficulties. The Enlightened has been the weakest of his 3 specs for SSS/RR, and it hasn’t been overperforming in Endless Mode like it used to throughout most of the alpha.

  • Inner Flame (Signature Passive Ability)

    • ⬆️+2 seconds of Rush duration.

  • The Enlightened

    • ⬆️+1 second of Rush duration.

• Grace

  • Notes: Grace has been crushing it in the reserves, but hasn’t been performing as well as other Mystic’s while on board. I’m adjusting her Mana values to help her cast more early and more often, which should help out with all 3 of her specs. Additionally, The Radiant is one of the top overall specs in the game (mainly as a Backup) and is in need of a small nerf.

  • Base Stats

    • ⬆️Max Mana: 120 -> 110

    • ⬆️Starting Mana: 35 -> 50

  • The Radiant

    • ⬇️Gives 6 base + 4 per rank -> 4 base + 4 per rank Attack and Magic on Shields applies.

• Logan

  • Notes: The Iron was one of the weakest specs last patch, and could use a fairly significant buff.

  • The Iron

    • ⬆️+4 seconds of Rush duration.

• Reyna

  • Notes: Reyna’s Boxer spec is in a great spot right now, while her other two specs are struggling a bit. I’m giving a buff to both The Champion and The Brawler in an attempt to equalize the power level of all 3 of her specs.

  • The Champion

    • ⬆️+3 seconds of Rush duration.

  • The Brawler

    • ⬆️Gives 1 Attack per 12 -> 10 Shields.

    • ⬆️Maximum Attack gained up to 33% -> 50% of Max HP.

• Rip

  • Notes: One slightly underperforming spec = 1 small buff.

  • The Brute

    • ⬆️Gain 25 -> 35 Crit when acquired.