This patch aims to make improvements to the equipment system, making it a much more enjoyable part of the game with the help of your suggestions. There is also a significant performance optimization, which should let the game run much faster. Aside from these improvement changes, 3 new trophy items and 2 consumable items are added along with a brand new decision event!

Equipment Rework

With the new changes, I aimed to make the equipment you come across in your journey much more recognizable and easier to manage. The weapons and clothes are now not fully randomly generated. Instead, there are several pre-determined sets with fixed attributes. These set names designate the primary attributes of a piece of equipment. The images will vary based on this name as well. On top of this, an adjective may be added, giving it another attribute for variation. In summary, the attributes of an equipment are solely determined by its name, rarity (condition) and level. This will let you recognize each piece of equipment more easily.
The attribute values of equipment are also now much more simplified. The power attributes will always be integers (like +1, +2, +3...), while defense values will only have one decimal place (such as +5.1 instead of +5.14). This should help with equipment management feeling too convoluted and crowded, by eliminating the unnecessary clutter. The equipment UI is also refined. The inventory is separated by slot types. In addition, the loot window along with the card selection now contains character avatars, which you can select to directly give equipment and cards to your allies.

Performance Optimization

The performance of Draft of Darkness is greatly improved. With this optimization tweak, the game should run up to 500% faster (depending on your hardware) during the exploration phase. This is more of an "overall" update to the exploration phase. I'm still working on making the path-finding time for the point-and-click based movement better, and eliminating the pauses between each step while walking.

Content

I've added a new decision event involving a background character, [spoiler]The Puppetmaster[/spoiler], who hasn't been mentioned before, but was already related to some of the events in the game. This event can be seen as a small side-quest for obtaining a new consumable item called [spoiler]Wooden Puppet[/spoiler], which can also be turned into a blueprint. This item lets you [spoiler]re-spec one of your allies by reassigning their stat points[/spoiler]. The new event has a chance to spawn in the Streets area.
Aside from the event items, 1 new consumable and 3 new trophy items are added to the game. The newly added consumable "Smoke Grenade" allows you to disable enemies during exploration to walk past them if they are blocking your path. It can also be activated during an encounter to gain Stealth, allowing you to flee or avoid a powerful attack. (Or use it for your Stealth strats, anything is possible). The trophy items are selected from the ideas which have been sent to our Discord Server by our members. I have credited them in the full changelog below. Thanks again to our members for taking their time to write item and cards ideas, I'm looking forward to add more of them to the game.

The Halloween Patch

The next patch will be coming during the Halloween, and will contain a new hero, companion, new weapon types and enemies. When the exact date of the patch is decided, I will update the roadmap with it. If you have anything you think should be prioritized, send it over via the Steam forums, our Discord Server or via the in-game reports. Until next time!

Full Patch Notes for v0.5.5

Improvement

- Gear generation has been changed to generate from set names and fixed attributes. - Character selection is added to loot window allowing for attribute previews and directly assigning equipment. - Character selection is added to card selection window, allowing for directly assigning cards to a character. - Equipment inventory UI is separated into segments according to slot type (Head, Chest, Weapon, Legs). - Equipment comparison tooltips will now show equipped item side-by-side with the aimed equipment. - Holding "Shift" while equipping weapons will equip it to the offhand slot. - Equipment can be designated as Junk while looting them. - Added an animation to the health and energy bars, visualising damage and heal amounts. - For simplicity, attribute values on equipment now have fewer decimal places. The amount of decimal places are as follows: Power attributes: 0, Defence attributes: 1, Speed: 1, Crit. Chance: 1. - Character avatars in character window, loot window and rest screen will show tooltips when hovered over. - Flavour text is removed from generated gear. - (Optimization) Sprite animation scripts are disabled for hidden objects during exploration.

Content

- (Item/Trophy) "The Guide to Hacking": Stagger robot enemies whenever an ally deals critical damage to them. (Credits: @King Mordred#6223) - (Item/Trophy) "Kaleidoscope": At the start of each ally turn, randomise the energy cost of all cards in hand until the end of turn. (Min -3 Energy, Max +3 Energy) (Credits: @Strikeing#1158) - (Item/Trophy) "Spoiled Beef Jerky": Whenever the possessor gains Radiation during encounters, have a 50% chance to negate it and heal for the amount negated. (Credits: @Waffles#2657) - (Item/Consumable) "Smoke Grenade": Exploration: Aim at a floor tile to disable enemies within 3 tiles for 6 seconds. Encounter: Give all allies Stealth 1. - (Item/Consumable) "Wooden Puppet": Re-spec the targeted ally's stats. - (Item/Quest) "Puppet Master's Box": Contains "1x Wooden Puppet". - (Item/Quest) "Puppet Master's Key": Unlocks "Puppet Master's Box". - (Decision Event) "Public Phone".

Balance

- Tweaked some of the starting equipment and event reward weapons to be upgradeable. - Equipment upgrades will advance equipment level by 10 instead of 5. - (Card/Unarmed) "Repel": Energy Cost 3->2.

Bugfixes

- Fixed character death state not registering when they have 0 health. - Fixed double activation of cards when clicking on a target quickly after selecting a card. - Fixed not being able to use zero-cost cards while having negative energy.