Dev Blog #5 - Alchemy & Adventure & Advertisement

Hello again everyone. I hope you've all been having a good start to your spooky month. This week has been stressful, but rewarding! While the team has been away focusing on catching up with life, I've been pounding away at Verdant and been making some really great progress. At the same time I was able to bust out the Hallowing Event and develop an entire Public Dungeon with a bunch of new loot. Anyways, this week we have a lot to go over it so I won't yap here too long.

Is ManaSoul Dead?

There has been some minor discussion and comments here and there about ManaSoul's current player counts so I just want to delve into that a bit and talk about game development, why things are the way they are right now, and how/why they will improve in the future. No. ManaSoul is not dead. It hasn't even been born yet. Despite what the larger gaming community may think thanks to hundreds of publishers and games abusing it, Early Access is NOT a channel for you to release your basically finished game and have a shield for glaring gameplay issues. Early Access is intended as a relationship between the core players who are interested in your idea, and you as a developer. When working on such an ambitious project such an indie mmo, its foolish to think that you would just get everything right on the first try, and by developing so much of your game privately before it touches player's hands, you leave yourself open to unfixable core problems later down the line. We are striving to use Early Access for its intended purpose. To actively develop the game alongside players and use their feedback to shape the development process from Alpha all the way through to a final realized product. This has setbacks however that we were more than aware of when going in. Most players DO have the expectation that an Early Access game should be mostly 100% completed with just some small jank. Many players when booting up ManaSoul for the first time are not necessarily prepared for a game that is still in fully active development, nor are many players as interested in helping test games as they are just playing a finished one. We were fully aware that during Early Access our numbers would be low. "But you said that we would have a bunch more players for 0.3!" You would be correct, we definitely did not pull as big of traction as we expected from the 0.3 push, and that actually ended up being a very good thing. While I can't speak for the entire development team, I at least was extremely excited and bouncing off the walls with all of our progress, new features, tools, and developer-side stuff, as well as our new levelling formula and other things. But what most players want is a complete experience, and with an MMO that includes a replayable endgame, which 0.3 completely lacked. As for *why* 0.3 didn't pull in many players, there are a few factors that we'll be working on as we approach full release. 1) We need a new trailer of a professional quality that showcases the best ManaSoul has to offer. 2) We need to plan a coordinated advertisement push alongside a Steam visibility round and let people know about ManaSoul. And 3) We need to streamline the onboarding experience to better acquaint long time RPG enjoyers with some of ManaSoul's more unique systems and provide a more clear path for new players through the levelling experience. We understand that for testers it can kill some of the enjoyment of the game when not many people are online, or you're even the only one online, so we don't want to just do nothing until full release, and as such we will be doing another Steam Visibility Round for the release of 0.4 in which ManaSoul will finally have both a fully realized levelling experience, but also a fully realized endgame gameplay loop that can keep players having fun for months, leaving us with time to develop new content without leaving you guys hanging in a big content draught.

Alchemy Is Here

We've been wrestling with the idea of crafting for quite some time now. While crafting and gathering are RPG staples, ManaSoul isn't your traditional RPG and it always felt quite strange picturing a wizard with his big grey beard and impressive hat to be swinging away a pickaxe at some rocks. Not only that but Crafting in general is typically hugely expensive in terms of development time. We wanted to do it right and in a way that wasn't overbearing on future development time budgets. Enter Alchemy. A simple to understand crafting system that can easily be maintained and expanded by the development team in the future, as well as offering more rewards to players and things to chase without being haunted by that one weapon you just cant roll. Here is a quick bullet point breakdown of how Alchemy works.

Players can visit Alchemists in various towns and locations to perform Alchemy
Each Alchemy Station contains different recipes to craft
All crafts require a combination of Ore/Lumber/Fabric/Herbs + Gold + Prismatic Materials
Certain Alchemists possess "Advanced Recipes". All Advanced Recipes require Lumin per craft
Ore/Lumber/Fabric/Herbs come in all rarities, indicated by a colored outline
Ore/Lumber/Fabric/Herbs can be acquired from a wide range of sources
Most enemies will only drop 1 type of material, such as only Fabric, or only Ore
Some recipes also require certain Monster Trophies as reagents
Some recipes may have a chance to fail, consuming your materials and cancelling the craft

Alchemy will be launching alongside Patch 0.4 with Verdant Boughs.

Delve and Dungeon Update

I believe that ManaSoul's PvE content has become a bit too "hardcore" skewed. I have played MMOs for a very long time, both 2d and 3d, and have been really sweaty at quite a few. It comes naturally to me and I enjoy really masochistic challenges and difficulty. Because of this I feel as though I have left a gap in the available content for the more midcore or casual players. This is where Delves were supposed to come in but the comparison between rewards for a player clearing Delves and Dungeons was far too great. There just really wasn't any reason to run them. Going forward we are going to be shifting focus a bit from Dungeons to Delves and try to make them far more fleshed out, fun, and rewarding. But we're not just going to be vague about it, here is our gameplan for improving Delves:

Going forward Level 50 Delves will be larger and take more time to complete
Delves are balanced around 2 players, but you may enter with up to 4
Going forward all Level 50 Delves will have 3 bosses
All Bosses in Delves will now drop loot
All Mobs in Delves will now drop loot
Secret paths can be found within certain Delves
Delves now contain special Chests that can only be opened with a special key obtained via Alchemy
Dungeons will still release, though there will be less of them, typically 1 per major zone release
Delves now have more mechanics, but are not as punishing as Dungeons

And thats all for this week. See you guys with hopefully a less massive wall next week!

[ 2024-10-12 23:31:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dev Log #4 - Guilds and Community

Hey everyone! Sorry we missed you last week, we were hard at work for the Hallowing Event alongside development of the Verdant Boughs. This week's is extra juicy though so make sure you read through! Guilds, while existing, are basically completely useless at the moment. We do have Guild Wars planned for the future, but thats competitive PvP and not every guild is going to want to focus on that. Not to mention our PvP update is still a decent bit away so I figured lets get something out with Verdant to help fix that issue. As always I'm going to breakdown everything into some categories for easier reading.

Guild Tasks & Guild Coins

Guild Tasks are Daily, Weekly, and Seasonal quests to take on for members of a Guild. Completing a Guild Task will earn that Guild "Reputation Points" and will give some Guild Coins to the player who completed the Task. Guild Coins can be spent on an abundance of items at your Guild's Base or the Guild Hall.

Guild Bases

The first three Guild Bases will be available for purchase. One located in the Sapphire Path, one located in the Ruby Crag, and one located in the Verdant Boughs. They cost 100,000, 250,000, and 750,000 Gold Coins respectively. Guild Bases are instanced and any number of Guilds may choose a certain Base. At first Guild Bases are little more than a cool building that your Guild can enter and a place to spend Guild Coins, however, Guild Members may invest Guild Coins into improving the base and adding infrastructure that adds more functionality such as an enhanced Recall, Fast Travel to different areas of the map, Vendors, a PvP arena, and Guild Buff Shrines that can grant buffs to your entire Guild. Each Guild may only own 1 base at a time. Only the owner of a guild may remove ownership of a Guild Base or purchase a new Guild Base.

Guild Bosses

Guild Members may spend their Guild Coins to unlock a Chaotic Gate in their Guild Base. When you have access to a Chaotic Gate, you may challenge up to 3 World Bosses per day (Guild wide). These World Bosses take place in a Guild-Only Instance and grant normal World Boss loot as well as a large amount of Guild Reputation.

Guild Reputation

Guild Reputation is earned everytime your Guild mates defeat a World Boss, complete a Guild Task, or win a Guild War. Guild Reputation has one purpose; Expeditions. Expeditions are a new form of large-scale group content coming soon after the Verdant Boughs which are essentially large scale dungeons in which an entire Guild can enter. As your guild gains Reputation you will unlock new Expeditions and gain access to higher tier rewards. More information will be given after the release of 0.4. Thats all for this week, hopefully you guys have some fun forming some Guilds and completing some cool Guild content together! See ya next week

[ 2024-10-07 03:46:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Hallowing Event

This month begins The Hallowing Event! Access the new Festival Grounds and take part in a new World Boss and Trial with more coming throughout the month! We're trying something new with seasonal events and having them update and progress throughout the month of the event adding more content, rewards, and decorations. The event will be running until Novermber 1st so stop in and check it out!

[ 2024-10-04 20:47:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dev Blog #3 - Fat Rolling

Good afternoon students! This week's dev blog is a bit more juicy than the last few we've had so lets get right into it! So, after the release of 0.3 and the follow up paches, the team went on a small hiatus. We had a pretty insane crunch over those 9 months and needed some time to prevent burnout. During that time I tried to keep my brain on the game by brainstorming some new ideas for systems, and now that we're back into dev mode I've begun to implement some of them ahead of Verdant so that we may design that content around these changes. First off is combat. 0.3 pretty drastically changed everything about combat and now ManaSoul combat is much more actiony and fast. I felt like something was missing, however, and I believe that is Dodging. In action combat games you almost always have a dodge ability. While most players may think of dodging as a tool for the player, its actually a tool for developers as well. With the inclusion of dodges we can leverage that capability in content, allowing us to make much more interesting and fun gameplay. I didn't just want to add a generic dodge button though, that felt a bit lame and not magical enough for ManaSoul, so instead I hit two birds with one stone and updated our Arcane Spells and added Dodges all in one with some changes listed below.

Core Spells

Arcane Spells are being replaced and renamed to "Core Spells" in your Spellbook. Core Spells instead of sharing 1 Cooldown Group, have 3 different Cooldown Groups. Offensive, Defensive, and Dodge.

Offensive Core Spells

Offensive Core Spells offer buffs, debuffs, and utility based on inflicting damage or pressing an offensive.

Pierca - You soften your target's armor with a spell, causing that target to take increased Physical Damage
Veila - You weaken your target's wards with a spell, causing that target to take increased Magical Damage
Manastia - You surge your Mana from within, granting a bonus to all Schools of Magick but increasing damage taken.
Ventillo - You cast a spell of luck on yourself, granting you increased chance to Critical Hit
Chrona - You speed up time for yourself, granting increased Cooldown Reduction

Defensive Core Spells

Defensive Core Spells offer buffs, debuffs, and utility based on mitigating damage or restoring health

Wardia - You erect a magical ward around yourself, reducing Magical Damage taken
Signio - You bolster your attire making it as hard as steel, reducing Physical Damage taken
Bolide - You create a barrier on yourself, granting a Shield that blocks damage
Vampiro - You imbue yourself with a vampiric essence, granting Lifesteal
Cleansea - You cleanse your surroundings, removing negative debuffs from yourself and nearby allies

Dodge Core Spells

Dodge Core Spells offer a variety of different dodges that allow the player to evade danger

Blur - You dodge forward a small distance, granting a small window of Invulnerability. Low Cooldown
Blink - You dodge forward a moderate distance, granting a moderate window of Invulnerability. Medium Cooldown
Mistwalk - You dodge forward a large distance, granting a large window of Invulnerability. Long Cooldown

With these new Dodges and the utility choices offered by Core Spells now in the player's arsenal you can expect much more action-packed encounter design in Verdant Boughs. Let us know what you think about these changes and if you're excited to fat roll boss mechanics. Thats all for this week, see ya guys next time!

[ 2024-09-23 19:18:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dev Blog #2 - Expanding the World

Hello again everyone! Apologies for the couple days of lateness for this week's dev blog, this weekend got a bit crazy! Today we'll be going over our progress on expanding the world of Valeyra to be more than just a play space and breathing some life into it. Players should notice the changes as soon as they enter the Verdant Boughs as they are met with cutscenes, lore, and a population of people who they can learn more about and earn reputation with. The entire zone has been designed with this history in mind and with a lot to find referencing niche lore, the Fae, and the history of Valeyra. We now have a pretty great suite for developing cutscenes quickly and easily, and we will be putting that to more use with more cutscenes in quests, and other content where they are applicable. Cutscenes help with the progression of story that doesn't require player input, and can be a very effective way to deliver a big moment in a quest or storyline. So far we already have over 10 cutscenes planned for Verdant with more likely to come through the last stages of development. We're also working on adding a ton of little side content focused solely on lore for players to discover and learn more about Valeyra from. I also want to focus on a full revamp of the Academy starting experience post Verdant by fully fleshing it out as an academy with more utility, a better player experience, a reputation system, cutscenes, quests, and more. Other than Lore we're still chipping away at mapping and some quest content has been completed. However, this coming week will be a bit of a break from development as our team sorts out some real life work that has piled up and we'll be back at it next week! Apologies for the short dev blog this week, next week's should be much more juicy as we get back into full steam development and things pick up the pace. Expect to see more rapid updates and teasers as the month comes to a close!

[ 2024-09-16 20:50:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dev Blog #1 - The Beginning of the End(game)

Hello there current and future mages! Today will be the start of a weekly Dev Blog series in which we talk a bit more casually and openly to the community about the current development process, our plans, and even share some sneak peeks.

What's been going on, man?

Recently things have been pretty quiet. After 0.3 and the followup patches we've been dark for a few weeks now, save for the new rotating banner and the release of Hephaestus' Forge. As many of you know, this is because work has begun full steam on the Verdant Boughs, our first fully end-game zone. Currently we've gotten pretty great feedback about the current gameplay feel, the content available, and the overall direction of the game, so we're moving on from the levelling experience into long term repeatable content in a massive zone that rewards you for your time.

What are we doing?

Verdant is the single largest zone we've made to date. It is approximately the size of two Sapphire Paths and planned to be far more content dense. As of the time of writing we have fully completed planning for most content in the zone and have begun active development. I am focused on mapping up the place and making it pretty while the other devs help pump out of some of the progression systems and new features. ain't she perty

Our goal with the zone is to create a long-lasting endgame area that will provide players with a huge amount of goals to work towards both short term and long term, and have a ton of fun in the process. There are a ton of new features and systems coming with this update so I'll give you guys a little sneak preview at some of the cooler things coming here!

Artifact Weapons

While memories are the core way of obtaining gear in ManaSoul, we wanted to add a more deterministic way for players both casual and hardcore to earn themselves an Ultra Rare Weapon. Artifact Weapons are a new system coming with 0.4 and Verdant that will feature 4 new obtainable Ultra Rare Weapons for players to work towards obtaining. Each expansion (X.0 Patch) will feature a new set of 4 Artifact Weapons and 1 new Artifact Questline that must be completed to access the Artifact Weapons. In Verdan't case, the Artifact Weapons will require a *substantial* effort across all of the content in the Verdant Boughs from Rare/Epic mobs, to normal Mobs, to Dungeons, Delves, Trials, World Bosses, Daily/Weekly Quests and more. These weapons are intended to be a substantial reward for a substantial effort and as such they are *not* easy to obtain and should be viewed as a long-term goal to slowly work towards over your account's career. Artifact Weapons also do not require duplicates for Upgrading and instead use a rare material that can be dropped from certain monsters and bosses or found in a particular banner.

Gear Upgrading

Players will be able to visit a Spellforge, like the one in Gemshine, to upgrade their Weapons, Accessories, and Runes. In today's dev blog we will cover Weapons and Accessories, as they function differently from Runes. When receiving a new weapon, lets say Goliath's Hammer, it will start at 0/5 Stars. Upon earning or trading for a second duplicate Goliath's Hammer, I can take the extra to the Spellforge, along with some Prismatics and Gold Coins, to upgrade the Goliath's Hammer to 1/5 Stars, increasing its damage and stats. The same applies for Accessories. Obtaining duplicate copies of gear that you like will allow you to make it more powerful! There are some restrictions and a bit more details but we'll get into the nitty gritty in the patch notes for the patch when we can really dive into all the specifics. Overall we think that this zone could be the beginning of something great for ManaSoul, as most of our playtesting and feedback has been that the current game feels great, but we need to have more content for retention. Hopefully Verdant will provide that fun long term MMO endgame feel for you guys and we can kickstart some really nice patch cadence! Thank you for reading and I'll see you guys next week o7

[ 2024-09-06 19:34:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hephaestus' Forge

Players can now take on Hephaestus' Forge, a new Level 50 dungeon to receive great rewards! In addition, there is also a new Rotating Banner available for players to spend their Luminous Memories on. The team is working hard on Verdant Boughs for the big 0.4 update which will be here before the end of the year and will cement ManaSoul's long term replayability. We hope you enjoy today's small patch!

[ 2024-09-03 02:15:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 0.3.0.2

Hey everyone! Thanks for the great turnout for 0.3, we all had a lot of fun playing along with you guys and seeing you tackle the content. We received a lot of player feedback during that time and we would like to address some of the more pressing concerns immediately in the form of a Hotfix Patch coming very soon. Here we will detail the preliminary patch notes for the changes. These are preliminary notes and the patch is not yet released Progression

More Quests are being added to the Sapphire Path, Ruby Crag, Jadewood, and Topaz Rise to aid with levelling
World Map Markers have been added that show you where content is and what level it is to better help you navigate the levelling experience
The Tutorial has been completely remade from the ground up and now features more interactive gameplay elements and teaches players more about the core fundamentals of ManaSoul before they even set foot in the world
Certain Trials have been adjusted to be more forgiving

Content

The final boss of the Ruby Caverns Delve has been reworked to address an issue regarding his entrance
Trial and Delve bosses now have a chance to drop Golden Memories which can be used on a special rare banner for unique cosmetics and bonuses

Coming Soon Our development roadmap for the 0.3.X Patch series is here! We have a lot of really cool and fun stuff lined up for you guys, and we can't wait to see you in Valeyra again!

[ 2024-07-26 19:16:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

ManaSoul Patch 0.3

After months of blood, sweat, and tears, we're finally here! ManaSoul 0.3 is now ready to play! For notes on changes check here Thank you all so much for your support and we hope to see you in Valeyra!

[ 2024-07-20 21:10:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

ManaSoul 0.3 Release Date Announcement

After 7 months of blood, sweat, and tears, ManaSoul Patch 0.3 is finally ready for a release date. Despite being labelled a 0.3 patch, this is more like a 0.1 of an almost entirely new game. We have iterated on gameplay, completely reworked huge swathes of the game, introduced all new visuals, and so so much more. This patch is a direct love letter to every single player who supported ManaSoul during our early access so far and we hope you feel it when you play. So without further ado, ManaSoul Patch 0.3 will be going live on Steam on July 20th at 5:00pm EST We hope to see you there!

[ 2024-07-12 18:48:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 0.3 Open Testing Begins!

Testing for Patch 0.3 is well underway and we're making tremendous progress! So much in fact that we would like to expand the testing to more people. If you would like to try the fully new and improved ManaSoul early and help test it before it goes live, come join us! To join the 0.3 Testing simply right click ManaSoul in your Steam Library and select "Properties". Then navigate to the Betas section and enter the password: LongLiveClawpy Once the password has been entered you will have access to the private 0.3 testing build! Please be sure to join our discord and post any feedback you have for us and thank you all again for all of the support!

[ 2024-06-20 02:05:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 0.3 Prep - Server Downtime

As of 6/5 this month, ManaSoul's immense Patch 0.3 went live on our test realm for testing. Things have been going absolutely amazing and the team has pushed out an insane amount of features, work and content during the last week. Because our progress is creeping up fast, and due to the upcoming wipe of player data, we have made the decision to temporarily take the servers for Live into maintenance until the release of patch 0.3 as we've had many newcomers come in and sink a lot of time only to realize later that we're going to be wiping! We're aiming for a late June/Early July release but those timelines may shift! In the meantime if you'd like to jump on board to help test Patch 0.3 early, you can join our Discord and contact the development team! Thanks all, and I can't wait to see you in Valeyra again.

[ 2024-06-13 21:31:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

ManaSoul Patch 0.3 - Patch Notes (UPDATED)

Hello Steam! Its been a while since we left the shadows of Discord. After we released the pre-patch notes a few months back, quite a lot went on. These patch notes are intended to catch everyone up on what went down for transparency's sake, as well as get into the meat of the updated Patch Notes for 0.3. Where have you been!? During our development cycle for 0.3, quite a lot happened in the real lives of our developers. I started a new job which ate a good bit of time, and our two programmers had to move across across the country. This cost us a lot of time but also gave us time to take some stock in what we have, what we want, and what the community has been asking for. We've gone through over a dozen iterations of how the game could look a year from now, trying to align our vision of the game with what players want and we think we've found a perfect sweet spot and have thus dubbed this update the Community Celebration Update as almost all of the changes have been a direct result of player feedback in our Discord and in game.

COMBAT

Since the early access alpha launch of ManaSoul we got quite a lot of feedback on the combat feeling too janky, unresponsive, and restrictive. We agreed and have since completely re-written combat in its entirety.

Players can now move in 360 degrees and are no longer beholden to the tile system.
Spells and abilities now have custom hitboxes rather than taking up X tiles
Players and enemies now have dynamic hitboxes that are based on their size
All spells in the game have been improved and reworked, though there will be less on patch
Almost all bosses now have more engaging and interesting attacks to deal with
Hit registration has been improved massively for projectiles and aoe spells
Weapons are now more powerful and unique
The Cooldowns of all Spells have been reduced

SPELLS 2,0

One of the biggest points of contention throughout ManaSoul's short life so far has been the spells. Some of our spells have just been really underwhelming, while others have remained extremely powerful. This has largely been due to us trying to give players maximum freedom in builds which can lead to some crazy interactions, and I won't sit here and pretend like we can solve a problem that has remained unsolved for 30+ years, so we're just going to dial it back a bit with Spell 2.0

Spells now fit into 1 of 5 types; Focused, Burst, Creative, Recovery, and Ultimate
Spells that share a type also share the cooldown of the last spell used in that type
Focused Spells typically involve channels or longer lasting effects, or focus on 1 target
Burst spells focus on instant powerful effects but sometimes feature channels
Creative spells are unique spells that can offer damage, utility, or anything in between
Recovery Spells do not cost Mana but instead restore Mana in return for less combat power
Ultimate Spells are extremely potent spells that feature the longest cooldowns
These changes will still allow mixing and matching, but guarantee that more spells have a use

ManaSoul Impact

Another point of player feedback we've received is that Memories feel a bit boring compared to real Gacha games, and we agree, so we've overhauled the entire looting and gacha experience while maintaining our never-ending stance that you should never be able to pay real money for gambling in an online video game.

Memories can no longer be opened for loot directly
Memories can now be converted at Summoners into different Summoning Crystals
Summoning Crystals can now be spent to roll on specific Banners
Banners operate similarly to other Gacha games and consist of a list of loot to roll on
Each Banner accepts its own form of Summoning Crystal, and has its own unique loot
Summoners can now be found all over Valeyra with their own Banners
There is now a Pity System for each Banner. After X rolls you will be guaranteed a roll of X rarity

Gearing

We really messed this one up. Gearing felt quite bad in ManaSoul and the players felt it too. Though we did want to focus on Builds and Spells more, gear is an enabler in that process. We've overhauled Gearing completely to put more emphasis on "Cornerstone" pieces of loot with a lot of variety and uniqueness, and stat-block loot that helps you meet the goals of your desired build]

You can no longer collect Helmets, Armor/Robes, or Off-Hand gear
Helmet, Robe, and Off-Hand slots have been replaced along with a new gear slot
You can now equip Weapons, Accessories, and 5 Soulrunes
Weapons are now unique and no longer parts of sets.
Weapons are now more powerful and can feature unique attack patterns or projectiles
Accessories are now unique and no longer parts of sets.
Accessories are now more powerful and add powerful unique effects like CDR or Vampirism
Soulrunes can now drop directly from monsters on the overworld as well as in Banners

Character Customization

Players didnt really have access to look the way they wanted to before without paying for custom cosmetics. Now all players have specific cosmetic slots for items they find in the world or earn via subscriber benefits. All cosmetics have no level or element requirements so you can customize to your leisure!

Level Cap Raised to 50!

Players can now level up to Level 50 and the levelling experience has been reworked for that purpose.

Sapphire Path now features Level 1-12 Content
Ruby Crag now features Level 12-24 Content
The Jadewoods now features Level 24-36 Content
Topaz Spire now features Level 36-48 Content
A new zone featuring 48-50 and endgame content will be arriving soon after Patch 0.3
All existing Dungeons and Raids have been pushed to, and balanced around, Level 50
All existing Dungeon and Raid loot has been completely reworked

Thank You So Much!

Without the wonderful little community we've built we wouldn't have the motivation or the inspiration to keep going, so thank you to everyone who has supported the project thus far, and a special shout out to our Discord which has fostered an extremely welcoming, funny, and garfield enjoying gamers. For more information on Private Testing of Patch 0.3 please visit our Discord linked in our Store Page.

Patch 0.3 is scheduled to launch in June

[ 2024-05-17 18:24:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 0.3 Pre-Release Patch Notes

Hi again everyone!

For those of you who are not aware, ManaSoul has been in a minor development hiatus as we worked on the core engine to add new functionality and address some of the core concerns we got from a lot of players. We also wanted to step back early in the game's Early Access period to analyze what players liked, what they didnt, what was working, and what needed to be fixed. So here we are with over 1,000 individual changes. We hope these changes flesh out our ideas into something that can grow far bigger. Now please enjoy [strike]my thesis[/strike] the Patch Notes.

CHARACTER PROGRESSION

The maximum Character Level has been raised from 20 to 50
The First Main Story Arc is fully completed and ready for players
The Sapphire Path is now a Level 1 - 15 zone
The Ruby Crag is now a Level 15 - 30 zone
The Jadewood is now a Level 30 - 40 zone
The Topaz Rise is now a Level 40-50 zone
Rebirth reward tiers have been lowered from (1,5,10,25,50,100) to (1,3,5,10,15,20,25,50)
All Delves are now designed to be soloable but can be more rewarding and faster with a group
Trials are now solo-instanced content and have become more difficult
Trials now offer greater rewards for their increased difficulty
The Levelling experience has become more streamlined and easier to understand, but longer

LOOT & MEMORIES

Armor, Off-hand, and Helmet gear have been removed from the game
Characters now have a Weapon slot, Accessory slot, and 5 Runestone Slots
Heartune, Soulrune, Magickrune, Bodyrune, and Mindrunes can now be acquired
Each Runestone slot can only slot its own individual type of rune listed above
A plethora of new character cosmetics have been added to replace the lost gear cosmetics
Weapons and Accessories are now unique and no longer randomly roll stats
Weapons and Accessories have become more difficult to acquire to compensate
Faded, Profound, and Legendary Memories have been discontinued
There are now a plethora of new memories unique to different types of content and areas
Memories now have unique and compact loot tables.
You can no longer acquire unwanted crafting materials in Gear Specific memories
Players can now craft a large variety of Weapons, Accessories, and Runestones
Players can now salvage all Runestones for Runedust to be used to craft new rolls of specific Runes
All monsters now drop at least 1 unique crafting material
Overall looting during testing has felt much more fufilling and fun!

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

Pixel-Based movement has been implemented and now players can freely move in all directions
A new hitbox/hurtbox system is planned for this update to expand upon combat possibilities
Players now have access to a Mini-Map featuring enemy locations, other players, and more
Players now have access to an interactive world map featuring pins and tool-tips
Players now have access to a second hotbar for storing useful items such as Flasks or Scrolls
Scrolls have been added. Scrolls act as powerful consumable Buffs that last for a limited time
All Scroll cooldowns are shared so you can only have one active at a time
Scrolls can drop from memories, enemies, or be crafted
Hundreds of minor changes

VISUAL CHANGES

ManaSoul has gotten a fresh coat of paint by taking on the "Leafling" art style
By migrating to this art style we gain a massive back catalogue of high quality art
ManaSoul has received a brand new User Interface. The UI is now much more clean and polished
Many areas have had slight visual touch ups
More base character skins are now available

There is many many more minor changes as well that we want you to experience live in game! We hope to see you in Valeyra later on this month for Patch 0.3! Stay tuned for more announcements and a release date! Thank you all so much and enjoy this amazing year of gaming :)

[ 2024-03-06 14:55:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy Holidays! Patch 0.21 - Middle Ages Online Collaboration

ManaSoul has teamed up with Middle Ages Online to deliver a fun crossover event this holiday. Strange beasts called "Santa's Pet" have popped up all over Valeyra! Defeat them with your allies to gain Christmas Presents, Starlight Memories, and powerup the Starlight Globe in town! Everytime players slay a Santa's Pet rare mob, the Starlight Globe will gain power! The more power the Starlight Globe accrues, the better the rewards from Christmas Presents will become! Can you and your fellow mages reach maximum power!? Event will be running from 12/21 > 12/25 Check out Middle Ages Online for their version of the Crossover Event! Its a fun, old-school tribute to 90s gaming made by a very talented and passionate developer! Play today at: https://www.middleages.online/

[ 2023-12-21 20:01:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

ManaSoul
Celtaria Productions

Developer

Celtaria Productions

Publisher

2023-12-01

Release

Action Indie Strategy Casual RPG Adventure Simulation F2P Sports MMO Racing Singleplayer Multiplayer Coop EA