Map Changes

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• Maps now have a variable number of floors of increasing difficulty\n
• Each floor contains a boss, who will spawn portals to advance upon death\n
• Areas are significantly shorter and less branchy\n
• Maps end with a portal to a new Treasure Room area\n
• Maps now drop at a lower level than the current area, so reaching deeper floors is required to advance map tiers\n

Item Changes

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• Locking Orbs can now be used again to change which modifier is locked\n
• Added Stygian Shards, which increase the tier of a map\n
• Added a powerful new maximum-rarity Unique Belt\n
• Blue Gems now have more possible modifiers, including an Increased Mana Cost Efficiency prefix and suffix\n

New Runes

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• Magnetic Rune: Attract stackable items to you\n
• Rune of Guiding Hands: Attract stackable items and items with Favored Mods to you\n
• Protection Rune: Increased local Armor, Evasion, and Energy Shield\n
• Striking Rune: Increased local Physical Damage\n
• Avarice Rune: Increased Rarity of Items Found\n

Combat

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• All hits now deal Knockback, which monsters gain resistance to over time\n
• Fixed a bug where the Energy Shield regeneration delay could be reduced to 0\n
• Removed the cap of 90% Physical Damage Reduction from Armor\n
• Bosses now deal increasing damage for every Enrage stack they have. Monsters gain one Enrage stack per 10 seconds while in combat\n

Other Changes

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• Pressing B now creates an interactable portal instead of immediately returning to town\n
• Many other small bug fixes, performance improvements, and visual enhancements\n

The Beta Season 3 Update is out now!

If you haven\'t already, make sure to join the playtest!

Let\'s have a look at some of the highlights from the patch, shall we?

Tome Gems

The Sudoku-inspired gem grid is the beating heart of your character\'s progression journey in Tome.

This update adds a truly massive amount of depth to Tome\'s most foundational system, the Tome itself. The space of possibilities is busting wide open with this one.

Connection Modifiers

Normally, Support Gems connect to Red Gems in their row, column, or box.

However, this update introduces new modifiers for gems which can change their connection targets.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/06037e04599b74ce2d4d2126b8256f7a02ab7bdd.png\"][/img]

Notice how this Yellow Gem can connect to the Red Gem through a Purple Gem?

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/91d180cd1a551779acdeff237067a0eb98c70247.png\"][/img]

It\'s theoretically possible to connect as many as 65 Support Gems to a single Red Gem if aligned correctly with these new modifiers.

Source/Target Magnitude Modifiers

Gems can now roll modifiers which scale the bonuses provided to/from its connected gems, and have a maximum of four modifiers.

For example, consider the effects provided by this gem to a single Red Gem in both its row and box (yes, they can stack):

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/05ba7f8eff91de6c5ab99981c5a4cd1ec17f4dbc.png\"][/img]

Or, imagine what happens to the bonuses from a White Gem supporting this one:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/2c88bbcd7ed4385d321a27ee18998ee3e1edac73.png\"][/img]

In fact, this update even adds Purple Gems, aka Conduit Gems, whose sole function is to enhance and pass along the bonuses of the gems that target them:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/bb31d6f79ef9bd5b1e776ffa9232ff4f3cc8e6cb.png\"][/img]

Effects propagate multiplicatively through the gem chains you create in your Tome, making the benefits of a well-arranged Tome... significant:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/235573d69467019f8dab99ae5952bea28254263e.png\"][/img]

Duplicate Gems

Previously, only a single instance of a specific named gem could be inserted into your Tome. This restriction has been removed, including for Skill Gems. If you\'d like to run nine copies of Heartseeker, go wild!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/6a3b4e969d9c4022d927905ad802bd563751cfe5.png\"][/img]

Skill Gem Levels

Red Gems now have skill levels, which power up the base damage of their spells and attacks. There are a few ways to gain levels.

Mastery Gems are a new item which may be used on a Red Gem to increase its base level. Three Mastery Gems of the same level may be combined into one of the level above it in the Tesseract.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/9eff73733fa51320b9a0b3b61cf44720cea5247b.png\"][/img]

Orange Gems are a new class of gem which can provide skill levels to eligible connected skills.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/cf235e9031f86277d2f4569da85e8db920e5d5b6.png\"][/img]

Favored Mods

The Season 3 update introduces the Favored Mods system (aka TomeDB). While inspecting an item, hold to view the modifier pool for that item, including the minimum item level for each specific modifier tier to appear.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/3fefbee2f12d1942636298b2b7898e4985221ca1.png\"][/img]

This system also allows you to mark modifiers as Favored. items on the ground will show a star in its name for each Favored Mod on that item.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/7fd3423833ac45a927ffb2fc7194d85c96faefe4.png\"][/img]

And the item\'s advanced tooltip view will show which mods matched your preferences:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/52cba5f34a21f0e82c1ab579ad5786122e97a887.png\"][/img]

This system will never affect loot drops or crafting outcomes, but it does have an important role to play in the upcoming trade system.

Socketables

Many new socketable Runes have been added to the game, but there\'s one in particular worth highlighting.

Rune of Wayfinding

The Rune of Wayfinding is a powerful, highly-experimental new Rune which can be socketed into your boots:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/3777676d7ca36c490120f0c64f23ba87fa3b2613.png\"][/img]

It can be found as early as level 30, and grants Autopilot:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/cfc6de201fa64353d4a6740f510107199f303c11.png\"][/img]

Once equipped, you can toggle Autopilot with the G key to set your character autonomously navigating along the lighted path to the area\'s boss, all while you fiddle with your gems. Set waypoints with your mouse as desired.

Extremely useful and convenient, yes. But: will you choose it over the other new socketable options for your boots?

Socketable Effect Modifiers

All equipment which can have sockets (of sufficient item level) can roll modifiers to increase the effects of socketed items.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/58fac9a520854368e7e702f873882896e99f8df2.png\"][/img]

Additionally, equipment drops with sockets (of any rarity) also have a small chance to gain another socket, possibly exceeding the usual maximum number of sockets for items of that type.

Other Changes

Beyond the items mentioned here, there are many graphical and performance changes.

Minimap

The minimap now has fog-of-war, can be zoomed with +/- keys, and supports a full-screen overlay mode with :

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45134237/6de425a21d5005a54464ed9aa1fbbd3d7b955f7b.png\"][/img]

Maps

The level generation algorithm has been reworked to generate more interesting layouts, and more quickly. Areas will be larger on average.

Map bosses now always drop another map two levels higher than the current area, making item maps a viable alternative for leveling up straight from level 1.

Meows

Loot Kittens will now meow. The audio is spatialized and can be heard from any distance, enabling acquisition of their loot through acoustic triangulation. Special thanks to KN4RR for the voice work on this one.

Next Steps

Some major crafting system updates are in-flight but weren\'t quite ready in time for this patch, and I didn\'t want to delay the update. They\'ll be released in another patch in the next few weeks.

I am so very excited to see what you do with this update.

Have fun! :)

Mesh

Hey y\'all,

I\'m excited to share that the Beta Season 3 Update is coming on Friday, October 10.

Existing characters will be moved to the Legacy league and will still be playable, but the leaderboard for Season 2 will be locked, and I strongly recommend making a fresh character to engage will all the new stuff coming.

Everyone on the Playtest Waitlist will receive an invitation to participate within a few hours of the update going live, with patch notes coming around the same time.

Thank you all very much for playing!

Mesh