We just released a small update and hotfix to Book Two. Here is a short summary:

Update

• Added description to Battle Challenges.
• Added relative "power" of Battle Challenges, giving the idea about difficulty of each challenge.
• Titan - added autoattacks, as was always intended.
• Few Melee bosses - they complained that Players were kiting them too much. They received an upgrade in a form of various "I catch you" skills.

Skill changes

• Kane, Dash - Enhancement 2 decreases mana and cooldown, making it a useful utility skill.
• Rakhem, Fire Power - Enhancement 1 - adds armor and resistances, making him a durable tank.

Hotfix

• Fixed a bug with some interactive elements not being "active" - that could case game freezes.
• Fixed few places where crash could occur.

That said, we have found two other small isues, which are not game-breaking.

• Flickering cursor over some rotate-able element (but they do work).
• Small delay when moving between inventory and skill tree.

We will address them in a next hotfix coming soon:

Difficulty Levels

The best RPG is the one that keeps the player engaged until the very last. Party advancement, item progression and challenging combat is essential in that. Once you build a party than can handle anything with ease, the game looses charm for some. We are putting a lot of effort to avoid that - that's the reason why we spend a lot of time balancing combat and thinking about new tactical challenges. We have 5 difficulty levels in game. When you start New Game you can select one of them. You can also change difficulty at any point later on.
What is our aim behind them: Story - for those who came just for the story. Set your champions to Move & Attack and go get coffee Easy - very light challenge, you will have to use skills occasionally but no-one should die. Normal - a challenge. You will need to use the skills a lot and perhaps go to slow time 2-3 times per combat. Boss encounters will require even more attention. Hard- very hard challenge. Your performance in combat might not be enough. Clever champion builds, skill and skill enhancement, using enchantments will also be required. You will probably use slow time a lot, especially for boss fights and more challenging encounters Epic - for those who enjoy nightmarish challenge. Here you need to think outside of the box and really experiment a lot - e.g. try building Kane as a caster tank. You will spend a lot of time in slow time, you will need to be smart about crowd control and use the map to your advantage - e.g. "gather" enemies in tight spots for maximum aoe damage or use walls to break line of sight for channel skills. Difficulty level is not only about increasing damage and health of the enemies. The combat system in Tower of Time is quite complex and it changes depending on the combat mode, but unless you play and experiment, it is not easy to explain.

Recommendation

When you get to Tower proper (past intro) - we recommend that you play game on normal for the first 2-3 fights and then decide how to adjust the difficulty. Alternatively - start a game on Epic, assign attributes and skill points and see if you can win the first combat. (Yes, it is do-able :) That being said, the game is still in EA - we are doing what we can to balance it well, but it just requires time and feedback, a lot of feedback. If you are willing to share it with us, we will be very grateful. If you find some enemies too easy, then it means that probably you are geared up for higher level or you are a very good tactician. Tower of Time is not about button-mashing, slow time gives everyone an equal chance.

Challenges

Challenges are optional fights you unlock during the progress of the game. They are meant to test yourself against different, sometimes crazy setups - for a reward. For example - you fought four elemental lords in different battles. Well, can you handle ALL four of them in the same battle? Also, each enemy group consists of 6 challenges. Challenges 1-4 are defined to be beatable immediately after you unlock them. However, challenges 5-6 are much different and sometimes require more champions, higher levels or stronger items.
In the coming small update, we will add proper description of each challenge as well as an "indication" of the challenge power (difficulty). Here is the example for challenges 1 and 6 from Risen.
As you can see, Challenge 6 is much (much) more difficult than Challenge 1. So don't be discouraged if you cannot beat the last two challenges. They are not meant to be beatable immediately. Come back to them later. Thanks for playing Tower of Time. Please let us know if you encounter anything new. We also appreciate Your feedback, especially on the improved combat. Cheers, KM (Our unique Boss - Titan - is also very happy that he got those autoattacks...)

[ 2017-12-22 23:38:34 CET ] [ Original post ]