Hello adventurers! Today's patch has been in beta testing for nearly two weeks, as it contains some big changes to the pet system, lots of engine optimizations to make the game smoother than ever, and complete localization to Japanese! We're extremely excited to bring Tangledeep to a new audience :D To switch languages, just click the flag on the title screen and restart the game.

PET SYSTEM REWORKS

Going forward, your corral pet will (finally) gain experience and level up while fighting alongside you! This is something that’s been a long time coming. Your pet gains a % of the XP that *you* earn, whether through defeating monsters or completing rumors. Once your pet gets enough XP, it will level up, gaining more power, stats, and health. This new method of advancement feels a lot more intuitive, and it supercedes the wonky previous system of pet health scaling. Also, this means that you can actually get a really powerful pet simply through regular gameplay, without *needing* to do any pet breeding. To make sure pets aren’t too overpowered, your pets can now only reach a maximum of level 12 in the regular game (which is about the level of the very hardest monsters.) To get them to level 15, you will need to beat the game and play New Game+. In either case, breeding is a way to increase a monster’s power even if they are at the level cap.

BREEDING

Breeding is still a powerful tool, and it works almost identically to how it did before. Breeding two pets will average all their stats, generate a new pool of abilities based on the parents’ abilities, and - if you add some extra JP - increase their base stats further as well. The only difference is that now, breeding will NOT cause the pet to actually gain an XP level. So, by both breeding AND leveling up a pet, you can gain even higher stats - without needing to go through as many ‘generations’ of pets as before.

MONSTER RELATIONSHIPS

Previously, monster relationships (affection) would develop naturally over time, but in many cases, affection would go down for any number of reasons. Now, monster affection will either stay the same, or increase. The chance of affection between two monsters rising is based on beauty (higher beauty = more affection), happiness of both monsters (the higher, the better), and monster family (same family, such as Frogs, means more affection.) Bottom line: It should be much easier for pets to *naturally* develop loving relationships without needing to be force-fed Romantic meals.

PET DEFEAT & INSURANCE

Because you can now invest much more time into a pet, we think it would feel really bad if you’re adventuring with your Harmless Frog from level 3 to level 12, only to lose it to a random crit. So now, if a pet would normally be defeated, it will instead go back to the corral with its Happiness reset to 0. Furthermore, it will be unavailable as a pet for 3 ingame days. (The corral UI will say that the pet is upset with you.) If you have Pet Insurance, of course, that penalty will be removed (just like it is now.)

PET TECHNIQUES

There is a new NPC who can show up in Riverstone Grove! To find the NPC, visit the Frog Bog. She will be able to teach your pets unique skills that can’t be obtained anywhere else! Teaching your pet these skills will cost JP and scales up based on the level of your pet. There are four skills now, and more may be added later.

ART/VISUALS

• Way better game load / dungeon creation screens featuring Grace Liu’s original art

AUDIO/MUSIC

• New music for the final areas of the game
• Steam soundtrack now includes the final area(s) music and the Job Trials theme

BALANCE

• JP is now capped at 99,999 per job
• Gold carried is now capped at 9,999,999*
• You can no longer capture Barrier Crystals as pets (didn’t make sense anyway!)
• It should no longer be possible to get duplicate legendaries in NG+ or on NG+ restarts (however, in making this change, you will temporarily find duplicate legendaries…)
• “Toxified” status now qualifies as a poison, for the purposes of abilities like Iron Breathing
• Necro Band no longer gives your Escape Portal or Healing Flask a health cost (lol)

BUGS

• Fixed bug with Elemental King power scaling being too high
• Fixed various bugs with **Wild Untamed** monsters
• Fixed rare Item Dream monster scaling bug
• Fixed bug where some special areas allowed you to walk through walls near stairs (i.e. craggan mine entrance)
• Fixed game errors that could occur relating to Wild Untamed rumors and item dreams
• Fixed yet more strange LOS bugs… maybe? Switched to a new spiral check method
• Fixed rare bug that could happen with monster summoning
• Multiples of the same legendary should no longer show up in the Casino shop
• The banker will no longer let you withdraw more than the max possible gold
• Summoned objects should no longer appear under terrain
• Fixed bug where Tsukida’s Elixir and Muguzmo’s Campfire Meat would not stack with identical items
• Fixed bug where restarting NG+ would allow you to learn more Ultimate techniques
• Fixed bug where entering NG+ would *not* preserve the # of champs defeated with each weapon type
• Attempted to fix issue where mod levels (such as Replicator 88) would sometimes show up in earlygame rumors
• Medi-Ray Dispatchers can no longer be knocked out with a monster mallet
• Fixed game error that could occur when switching combat log text sizes
• Fixed bug that could make certain mastery abilities not appear in the skill list (or appear when they shouldn’t, while switching from one mastered job to another)
• Attempted fix at bug where the Painter quest would sometimes not mark as completed if you hit a monster with the Monster Mallet
• The Spirit stat no longer makes Delayed Teleport take longer (lol)
• Fixed bug where Kunai Toss (monster ability) could hit friendlies

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY

• See the monster pet changes and additions above!

ENGINE

• Significant work done for localization prep
• Miscellaneous minor engine optimizations
• Major optimization related to the combat log draw time (caused stutters during heavy combat)
• Faster and smoother game loading
• Major optimization related to any objects spawned ingame, ranging from dialog buttons to sprite FX, reducing stutter and making the game smoother
• Up to 38% reduction in save file size, which means faster load times
• Further data file size reduction (faster loading of core data)

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Further cleanup of the hover info bar, giving monsters their own separate line(s)
• When landing a stun with Shield Mastery, “STUNNED!” should appear above the monster.
• Merchants will now consistently announce that they have new goods upon entering the floor, until you talk to them next
• Jesse, the monster rancher, now explains the new pet advancement mechanic, and will also remind you of how monster romance works!
• Consolidated Dreamcaster affinity UI if the dream has all 5 elemental affinities
• You will now be prompted if you attempt to destroy an object such as an Ice Block that causes damage on destruction.
• When starting or restarting New Game+, all toggle abilities will be cleared and reset