Hello Survivors! :cozyroe:

Almost two weeks ago we introduced you to the "A New Beginning" update and after a couple of days of your feedback and suggestions, we decided to temporarily revert it to give ourselves time to work on some of the more crucial changes. Since then we focused on the main points brought to us by the community, tested these changes in the public alpha, gathered more feedback and we are now ready to bring the update back once again!
Since this is a bit of an atypical situation, in this announcement you will find the full list of changes of this update in comparison to the first release of the "New Beginning" update, however, we do recommend you also take a look at the original announcement of the "New Beginning" update if you haven't already. You can access it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2066020/view/4121429431236805606

Full list of changes from the previous "New Beginning" update:

• XP formula has been reverted back to what it was prior to the update;
• Both Curse and Endless scaling have been reverted to what they were prior to the update. Curses are still optional and use the new reward system. Overlord still works as in the original update, but with adjusted scaling to be similar to the old system;
• Removed block chance for Lords of the Void and Elites from curses, but increased the health and armor values to compensate;
• Lords of the Void still spawn one at a time, but the new Council of Lords curse works slightly different from before. Now it increases the number of active bosses by 1, and has 3 instances spread out across different tiers, so you can always have "all bosses enabled" regardless of the curse tier you are in;
• Curse Tier 7 now requires 6 curse intensity to be complete, making Ethereal Lords officially optional;
• Endless and Overlord still have limited scaling on Attack Speed and Movement Speed, and reduced the effects of Armor Penetration considerably as well;
• The central skill tree now gives you 10 rerolls/banishes/locks, up from 5;
• Dash cooldown reverted from 2.5 to 2 seconds. Movement speed is unchanged (as it was unchanged before as well);
• Most Summon skills have been buffed as they were performing worse than intended especially in higher curses;
• Removed distance based power ups from the pool, due to the challenge of informing exactly how they work;
• Added option to disable the new Death Effect;
• Changed how the Quality Standards rune works under the hood, it now gives you better chances of finding rare, epic and legendary power ups than without it;
• Fixed multiple issues regarding the "More Details" option on tooltips, which could be showing the incorrect scaling for multiple things like negative effects, buffs and what not in certain situations;
• Fixed an issue where entering a portal while mounted on the Panther and using the Ascended skin would soft-lock the game;
• Fixed an issue where the Matches tab of the Profile screen would not work for some players;
• Fixed an issue where Ethereal Bosses would not be removed in high Endless/Overlord cycles;
• Fixed an issue where certain ascension objects (like the Spellblade activation portal, or Beastmaster's tracks) could spawn inside a rock in the Scorching Valley;
• Fixed an issue where the Assassin's mission could take longer to be given to the player than intended;
• Fixed an issue where buffs such as Bloodlust would not benefit properly from some multiplicative bonuses such as Adaptive Empowerment rune;
• Fixed a couple of issues with gamepad navigation in the Profile screen;
• Fixed issue where selecting a power up could move the power up selection when using a controller;
• Fixed issue with the Vultures in the Frozen Wasteland, which could cause considerable performance degradation;
• Added Brutal to the description of Whirling Defense;
• Aelfraed now slows down during his Bladestorm;
• Achievements that reward Skins will now appear in the Characters tab;

Developer notes

First of all, we want to THANK YOU for all your support during this time. As a small team, it takes a lot of effort to be able to keep up with the community feedback in all channels, but it is something we have taken as a pillar of our development since the very beginning. It's not an easy task to process all this feedback and align it with our vision for the game, as very often different players will have opposite views on the same subject, but something we strive for at all times. This update brings changes to a lot of existing systems and skills, and we know that change can be hard. Soulstone Survivors is still in Early Access, and we could just leave things as they are and rush to 1.0, just adding the bare minimum content promised in our original roadmap and call it a day. It would definitely be the safest and easiest path for us and the game would "be done" by now, however, that is not how we want to move the company forward. Since the beginning of Early Access we have put a lot of effort into improving and expanding the existing systems in the game because we want the core, the foundation of the game to be as solid as it can be, and this update is no different. From here forward, you can expect pretty much all future updates to focus on new content. We are finally ready to look forward, there are still 7 new characters to come with yet another bunch of runes, skills and ascensions, game modes that alter considerably how you play the game, and tons of new challenges to be faced, loads of quality of life improvements... and with your help, Im sure we will get there. Thank you once again for your support and feedback, we always want to deliver the best possible game and by seeing all the great support you have given us we feel even more motivated to continue our work! Have a great day!
~Soulstone Steam