Hello Survivors! :cozyroe:

The New Beginning update is here, and with it, we are bringing many changes and fixes to the game! The new update is bringing massive changes to the gameplay, adding a new character, element, weapons, skills, and much more! But before that, we want to invite you to participate in our Discord event called Big Damage! Join us On Discord to learn about it! Here is a short video that contains a lot of new mechanics: [previewyoutube=e_cDYpCv3LE;full][/previewyoutube] Here is the full list of changes for this update: New Character: The Monkey King - The first new character to join the game, the Monkey King is a master of the martial arts and has access to Slam, Earth, Holy, Electric, and Bomb skills, with 4 new weapons, 3 new runes, and his new ascension Twilight Harmony.
New Skill Type: Earth - Earth skills focus on allowing you to hit massive areas with potent effects while providing good defensive options to keep you in the fight.
New Ascension - Twilight Harmony - The Monkey King may follow the way between black and white, day and night, finding balance by collecting orbs of energy, which can be used to create powerful clones to fight at his side.
New Skills and a massive overhaul of existing skills - This update not only brings 50 entirely new skills but also changes how almost ALL the existing 250 skills in the game work, with a ton of new effects, synergies, and combos to explore.
New System: Stackable Buffs - As part of the skill overhaul we are introducing a new system, Stackable Buffs, which can be gained from casting skills, certain power-ups, and more, and allow you to explore countless new builds! New weapons and major changes to all characters: - Every character now has access to 5 skill types, down from 7, and each of their weapons is focused on one of these elements, focusing and changing the play style of most characters considerably. With this change many weapons have to be reworked from the ground up, so check out the existing weapons as well!




Massive Rune rebalance - A large chunk of runes has been rebalanced to be more in line with each other, making a ton more combinations possible and interesting to play with. Existing rune presets have been reset. New Power Ups - Tons of new power-ups were added to the game, focusing on incentivizing builds that would not have been possible before. Countless new combinations are to be discovered!
Enemies rebalanced from the ground up - Major changes to the scaling of enemies, Lords of the Void, new Danger Level added to each zone, and Endless mode scaling entirely revamped, all to bring a more interesting challenge to the game.
Curses Reworked - All curses are now optional, and you can pick and choose which ones to play with to progress to the next curse level. Customize the game and play whoever you want. Tanky Lords? Tons of Elites? Rain of fire from the void? You choose! Overlord Arena: Mode Reworked - In order to make Overlord mode more interesting and different from Endless mode its being entirely reworked. Enter the Overlord Arena, if you dare! This mode is for those of you seeking a fast-paced challenge!
Tons of UI and usability improvements - Loads of new additions, improvements, and UI reworks all across the game to make the experience smoother. Easter Season - Seasonal decorations on the menu and maps to celebrate Easter! Menu decorations will be enabled until 15/04, and its a great time to find the secrets in the Caves of Dhal Zhog! (Secret is unchanged, and available permanently independent of the decorations) Runes:

• New Rune: Battle Proficiency, gives you a chance to gain Prowess whenever you cast any skill;
• New Rune: Immortality, gives you one extra charge of Death Protection;
• New Rune: Focused Mind, reduces the number of skill slots by 3, but increases damage caused by 80%;
• Multiple balance changes to adapt to the new balance of most things in the game, as can be seen in more detail at the bottom of this list;

Skill Tree:

• Changes to a few nodes in multiple skill trees, mostly related to hit effects changing to stackable buff effects;
• Central skill tree has had its overall power considerably reduced, but its total cost is also reduced by approximately 35%;

Characters:

• Increased the cooldown of Dash from 2 to 2.5 seconds;
• Changed the experience formula, most of the time you will have a few less levels than before in a match, especially in long endless runs;
• Every character now has access to 5 skill types naturally, down from 7. This change makes the playstyle of each character more unique;
• Revised the weapons of multiple characters, as now each weapon will be related to one of the elements that the character has access to. A total of 12 weapons have been reworked or entirely changed to accommodate for this design change;

Skills:

• Most skill types now have entirely new "identities", for example, Electric no longer focuses on applying Dazed, instead it focuses on granting Electrified, a new type of stackable buff. Almost all skills in the game have had one or another change to their functionality and the full list can be seen at the bottom of this list;
• More than 50 new skills added to the game. These come in all shapes and forms, including generic skills, weapon skills, character skills and so on;

Negative Effects:

• Vulnerable and Paralysis are removed from the game;
• Melting is also removed, replaced by the new Shattered which reduces armor but does not cause damage over time;
• Rot is merged into Poison, so every Poison now can spread to other enemies;
• Cursed is merged with Doom, so every Doom now can cause damage to an area;
• Hemorrhage is merged with Bleed, so every Bleed now can cause damage when the target moves;
• Removed the "upgraded" relationship between all negative effects, for example, Disoriented is no longer related to Dazed. The same is true for all other negative effects;

Traits:

• New Trait - Devastating: Direct damage caused is multiplied by 3;
• New Trait - Piercing: Projectiles deal extra damage for each target they pierce;
• New Trait - Precise: Increases the damage based on how far you are from the target;
• New Trait - Brutal: Increases the damage based on how close you are to the target;
• New Trait - Impactful: Increases the damage based on how close the target is to the point of impact (such as from a Bomb);

Stackable Buffs:

• These new stackable buffs can be found in multiple skills across the game and can be used to grant you massive powers and define new builds to try. The newly available buffs are:
• Resilience - Increases armor power;
• Prowess - Increases damage modifier;
• Form - Increases critical damage chance;
• Haste - Increases movement speed;
• Finesse - Increases multi-cast modifier;
• Bulwark - Increases block power;
• Aptitude - Increases critical damage;
• Vigor - Increases max health;
• Colossal - Increases area modifier;
• Swiftness - Increases cast frequency modifier;
• Retaliation - Whenever you are hit, consume stacks of Retaliation to reduce the damage received and cast one of your skills back at the attacker instantly;
• Radiance - Whenever you cast a skill, consume stacks of Radiance to release a powerful beam of energy in the direction you are aiming at;
• Electrified - Whenever you cast a skill, consume stacks of Charged to release multiple jolts of electricity that move in random directions;
• Purity - Whenever you cast a skill, consume stacks of Purity to release a wave of holy light;
• Ammunition - Whenever you cast a skill, consume stacks of Ammunition to add 5 charges of multi cast to the skill being used;
• Icy Veins - Whenever you cast a skill, consume stacks of Icy Veins to launch frozen icicles towards random enemies;

Ascensions:

• New Ascension - Monkey King - Twilight Harmony: Collect Night and Day orbs to summon powerful clones to fight for you for a limited time;
• Most ascensions have had their values changed to adapt to the new balance of the game. In general, ascensions that grant multiplicative buffs are now less powerful, while ascensions that interact with summons or direct skills have had their power increased significantly. This change aims at bringing the different power levels of ascensions a bit closer;
• Sentinel now has a tracker pointing towards the Panther whenever it is active;
• Elementalist ascension has been adjusted to reflect the 5 skill types that the character has access to;

Power-Ups:

• New Power Up Type - Debuff Modifiers, allowing you to increase the efficiency of Burn, Poison, Doom and Bleed effects considerably in different ways;
• New Power Up Type - Distance-based powerful bonuses to allow for specialized melee or ranged builds;
• New Power Up Type - Stackable Buff Synergies, allowing you to make the most of the new buff effects;
• New Power Up Type - Skill Chain, which allows for one skill type to trigger another skill type, making many new builds not only viable but extremely strong;
• New Power Up Type - Cross Type Powers, which increases the power of skills based on how many skills of a certain type you have, once again allowing for some new and interesting combinations;
• New Power-Up Type - Ascension power-ups that can bring your ascension even further, empowering each ascension in a different way;
• New Power Up - New versions of negative effects on hit and on critical strikes that can help DoT builds specialize even further;

Enemies:

• New Danger Level: Each map now has its own Danger Level which makes its enemies more resistant, and creates a more defined difficulty progression between maps;
• Significant changes to the pacing, attributes and challenge level of all enemies in all maps, too many to list. Overall enemies should feel more resistant, but the game a lot more manageable in relation to red zones, in great part due to the changes to the Curses as listed below;
• Lords of the Void now appear encased in statues, and only when infused start to fight, giving you a few seconds to prepare for the fight;
• Elimination Objectives now only start counting when all Lords of the Void are eliminated, to avoid multiple groups of Lords accumulating at the same time;
• The health of Lords of the Void is no longer related to the time of a match, in general making it harder for very fast builds but easier for slower builds;
• Elite enemies in general should now feel considerably more resistant and appear in mixed groups, however they appear less often;
• Multiple fixes and changes to enemies that previously could be causing more damage than expected or with areas larger than expected;

Curses:

• All curses are now optional, allowing you to customize your matches however you want;
• Rewards for curses are now reworked. Instead of each individual curse granting a certain bonus and having an additional bonus for the group of curses, now the rewards are based on how many curses in a tier are selected;
• You no longer need lower tier curses enabled to gain bonuses from curses in higher tiers;
• Certain curses are marked as Elite Curses. These modifiers are more intense and will require more attention and reaction to be dealt with, but are entirely optional;
• Revenge of the Void now has a considerably smaller chance of releasing meteors whenever you kill enemies;
• Corrupted Void Hunters are now much more powerful, but appear in pre-determined moments in a match;
• Pillars of Despair now appear with a smaller frequency;
• New curses such as Ethereal Lords and Council of Lords introduced to allow you to further customize the challenge level you want to face;
• Increased the bonuses you can get for Minor Soulstones, Common and Uncommon minerals by activating curses;

Endless and Overlord:

• Both modes have had their scalings entirely reworked from the ground up. Enemies will have considerably less health, and both attack and movement speed are limited to a certain amount;
• A new enemy attribute is introduced, Armor Penetration, which will gradually ignore more and more of your armor power and block chance;
• Endless mode offers a more streamlined experience, where you continue fighting from map to map with ever increasing difficulty, but with a much more manageable enemy scaling;
• Overlord mode offers a greater challenge, focusing on Elite enemies and powerful Lords of the Void, and takes place in the new Overlord Arena. This mode is bound to keep you on your toes;

General:

• Trackers are now larger when they appear and slowly reduce in size to help give you a better sense of where the notification is pointing towards;
• New Death screen and effects introduced;
• You can now zoom out to view the entire Skill Tree and scrolling in general is more reliable;
• Fixed issue where runes would still be highlighted when switching presets;
• Fixed weapon description layout in the Blacksmith which sometimes could be overlapping;
• Fixed an issue where mine skills would be calculating multicast twice for their initial damage;
• Fixed an issue where certain skills could target enemies outside of the screen;
• Fixed an issue where certain channeling skills would not scale their projectiles and frequency of release properly;
• Tons of fixes to multiple skills with minor configuration issues;
• Tons of small UI improvements all across the game;
• Tons of fixes for gamepad interactions all across the game;
• Tons of fixes for sound effects and new sounds added to the game;

Balance Changes: Given that this update changed the balance of almost everything in the game, we decided to keep these changes separate from the core changes above, the list is a bit too extensive for this announcement (it literally cannot fit!), so here you can find the rune changes below, and a link in the bottom to view the skill and power up changes on Discord! Runes:

• Reroll Mastery now grants 1 extra reroll every 5 levels, instead of every 10 levels;
• Center of Attention now grants a 5% bonus area, down from 15%;
• Immovable Object now grants 20% bonus damage, down from 30%;
• Overwhelming Chaos maximum damage is now 220%, down from 250%;
• Last Resort now grants 20% bonus damage, down from 30%;
• Purity now grants 20% bonus damage, down from 50%;
• Purity damage reduction per negative effect is now 4%, down from 5%;
• Adaptive Empowerment now grants 10% bonus damage per fire skill, down from 20%;
• Synchrony now grants 0.7% bonus damage per skill type, up to a maximum of 20%, down 2% and 60% respectively;
• Head Start now grants 20% bonus damage, down from 30%. Other attributes unchanged;
• Multi Cast Mastery now grants a smaller bonus to multi cast chains;
• Critical Mastery now adds 25% of your critical chance as critical damage, down from 100%;
• Controlled Chaos is now Epic and costs 3 Runic Power, up from Rare with a cost 2;
• Death Touch is now considerably stronger;
• Impaler is now considerably stronger;
• Glass Cannon now grants 40% bonus damage and reduces health by 70%, down from 50% and 75% respectively;
• Oscillating Power now grants variable bonus damage from -10% to 30%, down from -20% to 80% respectively;
• Executioner now grants 4% bonus damage per negative effect, with a maximum of 20%, down from not having a maximum;
• Pulse of Agony now grants 0.5% bonus attack speed up to a maximum of 20%, down from 1% and 30% respectively;
• Generalist now grants 1.5% bonus damage per different skill type, down from 4%;
• Amplified Power now grants 0.1% bonus damage for every 500 minor soulstones to a maximum of 25%, down from 0.5% and 50% respectively;
• Lords Bane now grants 25% bonus damage whenever a Lord of the Void is active, instead of scaling with each Lord of the Void;
• Decapitator now may execute enemies with 40% health, up from 25%;
• Recklessness now grants 0.3% bonus damage per missing health point to a maximum of 30%, down from 0.4% and 70% respectively;
• Adrenaline now grants a 0.25% bonus attack speed per missing health point to a maximum of 25%, down from 0.4% and 60% respectively;
• Focus Fire now grants 30% bonus damage and reduces area by 15%, down from 60% and 30% respectively;
• Sacrificed Growth maximum damage bonus is now 25% and the experience penalty is 10%, down from 80% and 20% respectively;
• Vulnerable Exploit maximum bonus damage is now 25%, down from 50%;
• Searing Intensity maximum bonus damage is now 25%, down from 50%;
• Versatile Strength now grants 0.6% bonus damage per power-up type up to a maximum of 24%, down from 3% and 90% respectively;
• Commanding Presence now grants 25% bonus damage, down from 40%;
• Synergetic now increases the chance of synergies happening by 50% multiplicatively, instead of 25% additively (effectively unchanged from the existing values for negative effects);

If you want to see all the changes to all skills, Join us On Discord As always, we would like to thank you very much for your support and feedback! We continue working on loads of HUGE new features in 2024 and we are super excited about all that is coming. And, if you run into any issues with the game, don't hesitate to reach out! We will see you in the next one!
~Soulstone Team