Today’s changes: - **The Daily Hunt.** Each day you’ll be tasked with hunting down a certain monster type in a random region near the village. Regions have unique background art and custom native monster populations. Earn 500 XP bounty for first 10 quarry killed, with the bounty doubling with each subsequent 10. (currently capped at 8K per bounty). You can repeat hunts, but you cannot repeat bounty awards in a day, so it's only worth re-hunting if you think you can do better. - ** Enhanced Training eliminated.** Now there is no use for mana in career mode. - **Challenge modes cost mana.** Every hunt (including re-hunts) cost 1 mana. Tourney's cost 5 mana for the week. Campaigns cost 10 mana for the 5 game attempt. - **High Level Fame Crunch.** We wiped out 4 out of every 5 levels above 75. (Examples: Fame 75 or below did not change. Fame 100 went to 80. Fame 200 went to 100.) - **Mana for Potions.** For career games, you’ll earn 1 mana for each health potion remaining after a victory. For your efforts before this release, we awarded 1 mana per fame level (post-wipe). - **Less bonus dragon loot.** Extra dragon loot is now generated for each dragon over 4 in a room (formerly 3). - **Starting Gear is More Mundane.** All games (except hunts) now begin with +1 weapons. (Attic and Cellar eliminated.) - **Upgraded Vanish Scroll.** Base chance of being spotted is now 0% plus 5% per adjacent monster. - **Monster changes.** New ettins. Frogmen join the frogs. Snakemen moved to the snake grouping. Reaper now has 2 health. Please let us know what you think.

Actual opinions to come later, but here's some statistics to give you an idea of the lair changes from the previous two updates. These are *simulated* rather than computed (exact computation is feasible but I got lazy), and the algorithm I used might not even match the game's, so don't trust the numbers too much. First up, 15 dragons in 3 rooms, aggregate chances of getting each number of dragons/room, and the extra loot per room. |dragons|2|3|4|5|6|7|extra loot|×3 |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- |15 old||3%|24%|45%|24%|3%| |Nov |||0.24|0.91|0.73|0.12|2.00|6.00 |15 new|-|2%|22%|51%|25%|| |Dec |||0.22|1.02|0.76||2.00|6.00 |Jan ||||0.51|0.51||1.02|3.05 16 dragons in 4 rooms: |dragons|2|3|4|5|6|7|extra loot|×4 |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- |16 old||27%|48%|22%|3%|0%| |Nov |||0.48|0.44|0.08|0.0|1.00|4.00 |16 new|4%|25%|43%|25%|4%|| |Dec |||0.43|0.49|0.12||1.04|4.15 |Jan ||||0.25|0.08||0.32|1.29

(All this stuff might be rather specific to my situation. For reference, my fame post-wipe was 78.) > - **The Daily Hunt.** Each day you’ll be tasked with hunting down a certain monster type in a random region near the village. This needs region descriptions so players don't go "Oh, tangled woods! Forests are supposed to be easy right?" and also a warning about hero swapping not being available. > - **Challenge modes cost mana.** Every hunt (including re-hunts) cost 1 mana. Tourney's cost 5 mana for the week. Campaigns cost 10 mana for the 5 game attempt. I'm not boycotting these out of spite against the changes, but 5 mana (plus all the time spent playing tourney) for a one week boost? 10 mana for a game mode I can and have failed in 5 minutes? I'm not touching those until I can figure out where they stand in relation to Daily Hunt. > - **High Level Fame Crunch.** We wiped out 4 out of every 5 levels above 75. (Examples: Fame 75 or below did not change. Fame 100 went to 80. Fame 200 went to 100.) I kind of understand why, but this never sounds like good news for any game. Players' patience for this kind of nerf is highly limited, so be careful! > - **Mana for Potions.** For career games, you’ll earn 1 mana for each health potion remaining after a victory. For your efforts before this release, we awarded 1 mana per fame level (post-wipe). This is the main issue I see. In theory, mana is limited because you'll eventually hit a career wall and stop earning mana. (I'm not there yet, of course.) If so, keeping fame and getting only 1 mana per level is also a theoretical disadvantage. Playing for maximum safety is tedious and the game needs more features to make hero switching faster. Also, if I was testing any game mechanics in career mode, I'd have to resign and start a new game to aim for maximum potions. I've accidentally left a potion behind when killing the final dragon, so that's bad. On the other hand, there's now a reason to use up all your scrolls to keep your health, so that's not so bad. > - **Monster changes.** New ettins. Frogmen join the frogs. Snakemen moved to the snake grouping. Reaper now has 2 health. So far so good. While we're updating these, can we finally get shamblers into the monster manual?

> > *Originally posted by **[unekdoud](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13326895)**:* > (All this stuff might be rather specific to my situation. For reference, my fame post-wipe was 78.) > > > - **The Daily Hunt.** Each day you’ll be tasked with hunting down a certain monster type in a random region near the village. > > This needs region descriptions so players don't go "Oh, tangled woods! Forests are supposed to be easy right?" and also a warning about hero swapping not being available. Good points. We'll provide more info upfront. > > - **Challenge modes cost mana.** Every hunt (including re-hunts) cost 1 mana. Tourney's cost 5 mana for the week. Campaigns cost 10 mana for the 5 game attempt. > > I'm not boycotting these out of spite against the changes, but 5 mana (plus all the time spent playing tourney) for a one week boost? 10 mana for a game mode I can and have failed in 5 minutes? I'm not touching those until I can figure out where they stand in relation to Daily Hunt. Do you think it would be better if the pricing for Campaigns was 2 per game? (So if you die against the Whites, it only costs you 2 mana. Only if you made it to the reds would it cost 10.) > > - **High Level Fame Crunch.** We wiped out 4 out of every 5 levels above 75. (Examples: Fame 75 or below did not change. Fame 100 went to 80. Fame 200 went to 100.) > > I kind of understand why, but this never sounds like good news for any game. Players' patience for this kind of nerf is highly limited, so be careful! Understood. > > - **Mana for Potions.** For career games, you’ll earn 1 mana for each health potion remaining after a victory. For your efforts before this release, we awarded 1 mana per fame level (post-wipe). > > This is the main issue I see. In theory, mana is limited because you'll eventually hit a career wall and stop earning mana. (I'm not there yet, of course.) If so, keeping fame and getting only 1 mana per level is also a theoretical disadvantage. > > Playing for maximum safety is tedious and the game needs more features to make hero switching faster. Also, if I was testing any game mechanics in career mode, I'd have to resign and start a new game to aim for maximum potions. > > I've accidentally left a potion behind when killing the final dragon, so that's bad. On the other hand, there's now a reason to use up all your scrolls to keep your health, so that's not so bad. Yeah, this is a tough issue. You've hit upon both sides of it. Would you prefer there to be just a fixed mana award for career victories, regardless of potions remaining? > > - **Monster changes.** New ettins. Frogmen join the frogs. Snakemen moved to the snake grouping. Reaper now has 2 health. > > So far so good. While we're updating these, can we finally get shamblers into the monster manual? > > Thanks. We didn't even notice it wasn't there!

> *Originally posted by **[RogueSword](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13327158)**:* > Do you think it would be better if the pricing for Campaigns was 2 per game? (So if you die against the Whites, it only costs you 2 mana. Only if you made it to the reds would it cost 10.) This looks fair to me. Logically speaking it should cost 10 and refund 2 per undefeated color, but perhaps that would be too complicated. > Yeah, this is a tough issue. You've hit upon both sides of it. > > Would you prefer there to be just a fixed mana award for career victories, regardless of potions remaining? Since career victories become harder over time, you might imagine going several days without gaining any mana. In this sense, winning still feels like losing. I'd aim for three particular targets: 1. Minimum mana gain available per day, so that even players who have trouble winning career have the option to play Daily Hunt daily. 2. Saving health not always necessary for mana. There should at least be some situations where players would want to play for speed/ease rather than perfection. 3. Less dependence on the number or location of potions spawned. For example, consider a very different system where you get mana per lair room cleared between the moment you enter the lair and the moment you consume a potion. Then 1) you can gain mana even in a losing game, 2) the pressure is off once you perform badly enough, and 3) it doesn't even matter how many potions you get/save outside the lair. Another idea based on other games: randomly set three targets for potions remaining (and three for dragon kills in a single game, if you want to reward that). Players get 1 mana for each target reached, but the targets only reset on a victory or on a new week. Then 1) because of the periodic reset players are guaranteed a tiny steady flow of mana from the lowest targets, and 2) even if you lose, claimed mana targets no longer need to be considered on subsequent games. (These are more complex and different than counting potions or wins, so they're just hypothetical examples!)

> *Originally posted by **[unekdoud](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13328048)**:* > 1. Minimum mana gain available per day For me as a free to play player, this is the most important thing. I'm fame 42, haven't played in a long time, just came back because I saw there was an update. When I used to play, I really liked playing Tournament, and thought Campaign was an interesting idea that I'd probably like a lot once I was able to progress it enough that it was challenging, not just grinding the early levels again. I only saw Career as a grind to slowly get to the hero unlocks, which I never made it to. When I saw these changes, the first thing I thought was "Ah, I guess I can't play Tournament anymore, I guess I'll have to focus on Campaign instead". The second thing I thought was "Now my Campaign can only keep up with half of my Career progress, so it'll be hard to get out of the early grind, but it should be fine", and then when I realized that failed attempts consumed the cost too, it felt like I couldn't really play that mode either, and I came to the forums to check if there was some way of getting free mana that I was missing. I think that having Tournament behind a repeated paywall just feels bad. It's the one mode where your score is directly linked to your skill rather than the amount of time you put in, it gives no permanent boosts, and it's already time limited. Plus, the payout is based on the average skill of the people playing it, the better you are relative to them the more you earn, with no payout if you're in the bottom half. So if a paywall filters out the bottom half who weren't likely to get rewards anyway, it becomes worth even less to most of those who do buy in, likely pushing some of them out too, and forming a massive barrier to entry for new players who need to buy in with almost no hope of seeing any payout. This problem goes away if there's enough mana income for free to play players to play each week, but then it's not making you the revenue you want anyway. At current price points, I'd suggest giving 1 mana for every 5 or 10 dragons killed (cumulative between runs, even if you fail), up to 20 mana per week. That would allow you to play the tournament and a bit of campaign each week, with enough buffer to help compensate for campaigns where you die early on. If you don't want to give mana directly, maybe make the first game of campaign each day free, with every game after that costing 2, and then make tournament either fully free, or alternate free one week and 5 mana cost the next. That way players who don't buy mana can still play each mode, but there's still a reason to buy and spend mana.

> *Originally posted by **[SirFred131](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13334379)**:* > > *Originally posted by **[unekdoud](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13328048)**:* > I think that having Tournament behind a repeated paywall just feels bad. It's the one mode where your score is directly linked to your skill rather than the amount of time you put in, it gives no permanent boosts, and it's already time limited. Plus, the payout is based on the average skill of the people playing it, the better you are relative to them the more you earn, with no payout if you're in the bottom half. So if a paywall filters out the bottom half who weren't likely to get rewards anyway, it becomes worth even less to most of those who do buy in, likely pushing some of them out too, and forming a massive barrier to entry for new players who need to buy in with almost no hope of seeing any payout. This problem goes away if there's enough mana income for free to play players to play each week, but then it's not making you the revenue you want anyway. > That is a good point. What if, instead of a 5 mana entry fee, it was 1 mana for each tourney game. That way it costs less for the players who don't go as far. Although I'm not sure how I feel about a system where doing well means you pay more. Or ... perhaps we give everyone with a tourney victory some XP bonus. Like 0-25% gets a +25% bonus and 26-50% gets a 50% bonus. Maybe we also throw in a flat XP award (~1,000) for each tourney victory, which would help low level players more than high level players, and thus entice them to play.

Tried out the daily hunt which seemed interesting - it was ok. The other changes were definitely not in the "wow - now I am going to spend so much more time playing the game" > > > *Originally posted by **[unekdoud](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13326895)**:* > > > - **High Level Fame Crunch.** We wiped out 4 out of every 5 levels above 75. (Examples: Fame 75 or below did not change. Fame 100 went to 80. Fame 200 went to 100.) > > I kind of understand why, but this never sounds like good news for any game. Players' patience for this kind of nerf is highly limited, so be careful! > Like unekdoud I understand as well the rationale for the above - though as per your reply you surely understand as well that it really pissed me off to see my fame cut. Fame which at the end of the day was the only reward of spending time in the game. All the above -at least for me- feels like a bit of a way to tell old free player that you actually do not want them in your game anymore.

> *Originally posted by **[rmagere](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13335064)**:* > All the above -at least for me- feels like a bit of a way to tell old free player that you actually do not want them in your game anymore. After a few runs since coming back, I kinda feel the same way. It's a good game, and I understand that making money off of it is perfectly fair, but this feels like it was handled really poorly. I've only felt three real changes since I left nearly a year ago. The first is that Trinkets not triggering Riposte hurts the swordsman's dragon slaying game. The second is that Dragon mages are a thing. Not sure how much they really change yet. The third is that I play worse than I used to. New modes like daily hunt coming in with mana costs is fine. Mana costs limitting the *amount* you can play something in a time period, but still letting you play it a little for free, is fine. But going back and putting a repeated price tag on content that has been free and mostly unchanged for ten months just feels like an intentional decision to take content away and make the game experience worse for anyone who doesn't want to repeatedly pay in. That may not be how it was intended, but it is how it comes across. Especially since this is a free game site to begin with, so being required to pay for major features isn't the norm and games that do require it usually do it as a one-time charge to unlock it forever.

I like the daily hunt, it's a very nice addition. Regarding the mana cost for game modes I think it would be better to pay steps and instead of going all. Losing against white dragons in campaign hurts more than losing against red dragons, as you at least got several games for the same amount of mana (though you could play career for free). Also 10 for campaign seems a bit too much to me. 5 for tournament seems ok to me, maybe you could lower this even more for lower fame levels. As it is I'm a bit afraid of running out of mana too quickly. I guess I won't play campaign anytime soon, as it's the most expensive and therefore punishing game mode. Maybe the campaign is the best mode for farming mana. Gaining 5 mana for a victory against red dragons in career is pretty much the same as a campaign victory. If a campaign victory is awarded with more mana than it costs, it's a much more attractive mode. You could either award just the full camapign victory, or even the single steps. Maybe you can get already a net gain of mana for a victory against green or blue dragons. You could also allow the players to "bet" mana for playing campaign with better reward for higher entry fees.

Sure, everyone wants to be able to spend mana to directly gain more mana, but there is a question of how much gambling elements you want in your game. I certainly care more about roguelike strategy than casino strategy, and having to manage mana gain/loss really disrupts my rhythm. To put it differently, you wouldn't build such a metagame if you were just sitting down with friends for a tabletop game. Anyway in less serious talk, I played Daily Hunt and got a score of 52 with a fitting joke in the ending dialogue. Well played, developers!

Why after this update. Now can 't pick a Hero for Daily Hunting. After all, the Daily Hunt was specially made for it. to add experience to lagging heroes. And now vs Magic units I can 't take Elven Huntress, who has little experience and against magical units is the only hero who can have a lot of experience there to take. Now very inconvenient... And I have to fight in the Daily Hunt - with a hero man.. Who has far more experience than Elvin Huntress and the fact that he is there against the magic units in general is almost useless.

I killed 226 Bugbears in todays Hunt O.o Bugbears (+4) at the Haunted Hills (+3) with the Dwarf. Bugbears have max +4 Melee and +7 Magic. The Haunted Hills are home of Ghosts, Ghouls and a few Wraiths and Firebugs. Maybe I was ridiculously lucky, but most of the time I faced only +4 Melees (and ofc lots of Mages). With Adrenaline the Dwarf became nearly immune to that kind of enemy: Items +7, Adrenaline +2 and Hunker +3 make the lowest chance to fail 14 (roll of 2 as 1 would use trinket), while 14 is the max result for an attack +4 monster. I guess it's obvious I was at least lucky with the mages, my blocks against their firaballs were great. But looking at the Heroic Deeds I saw much better results for Hunt as usual, just a few below 50, most around 75 and a few just above 100. While this was kinda fun, I wouldn't have used the Dwarf if I had a choice (the Human needs the easy XP). Btw: Is there a limit to Spectres at Haunted Hills? I think I faced 4, at least 3 for sure.

The Celars of Mumies with the Elf was very nice but also got very hard real fast. Only managed to get 20 bandages since there was no room to manuver later on and the - from mulitiple despairs only made evading an option but that failed to fast. Still really nice hunt. Love what this game has become as a very old follower of the true D&D spirit.

Why do we get +4 equipment for Bugbears but just +3 against Cave Trolls? Imo Trolls are stronger and should give the better equipment. Edit: Minotaurs also give just +3 equipment. Why are Bugbears rated that high? Do they give better equipment because they can field mages?

> *Originally posted by **[MisterSinister](/forums/979845/topics/1890306?page=1#13394207)**:* > Why do we get +4 equipment for Bugbears but just +3 against Cave Trolls? Imo Trolls are stronger and should give the better equipment. > > Edit: Minotaurs also give just +3 equipment. Why are Bugbears rated that high? Do they give better equipment because they can field mages? Yes, bugbears having a warlock is why they are rated higher. However, we are still tweaking the difficulties, so your feedback is appreciated.

Hello, hunters. Now that you've had to to get used to the daily hunt being limited to a different hero each day ... what do you think of that change?

Hello - RogueSword I already wrote about this. Becase day hunting was invented for this... for heroes, who have the least experience. And choose a hero against convenient monsters. And human against magic monsters will not be effective.

I have a slightly different experience from Draggx. Often I'd start up Daily Hunt without knowing what monsters are in the biome, so I can't plan the most effective hero. With the daily hunt change, there's no need to wrack my brains on that particular point. However, I remain curious about how the heroes compare, especially because being overequipped or underequipped means a different thing for each. The lack of worms makes a difference from the regular dungeon, but in the long run the focus shifts to guarding on every turn with adrenaline active, so I believe the Elf (mine is lagging in level) just doesn't get enough benefit from her Evade.

> Now that you've had to to get used to the daily hunt being limited to a different hero each day ... what do you think of that change? Like Draggx I did like the hunt especially to train a specific hero. The limitation to a single hero is a bit too much in my opinion, it's pretty much the opposite extreme to the free choice. Gonna be honest: With the old format I always started the first hunt with the human, swapping to another hero, if the warrior couldn't reach 50 kills. On some hunts I even played every character giving the extra XP to more than just one char (though only the 50 kill run took the most XP for that hero). I think it wasn't intended that way so the change makes sense. However the new system seems too strictly limited to me. Some hunts are just a waste of time as the hunted monster or the region is just a missmatch to that hero. On the opposite some hunts are extremely easy and neither that fun to play imo, mostly the dwarf becoming nearly invulnerable (with Adrenaline). I remember an hunt against ropers with the dwarf and +9 equipment. I started that hunt way too late that day and didn't expect it to take that long, but every roper in a room making attacks every turn is very time consuming. I killed 177 ropers that hunt, I think that took about two hours. I don't want to complain about all the XP, but to me an exciting gameplay is more important. I think the best solution lays between these two extremes. I came up with two different ideas: * Either a free choice but you can't use the same hero on consecutive hunts * or a free choice but you have to stick to that choice for that hunt (no abusive char swapping to max the benefits) I'd prefer the second idea, it would allow to adapt to the hunted monster and/or the region and it would allow non-advanced players to hunt daily instead of just 1 in 3 days. Also I want to make another hunt related suggestion: I'd really love to see more tiers like the outstanding hunt for 50+ kills. After these 50 kills there isn't much reason to keep going (may be different with lower heros) or better say there is no other aim than just to kill as many as possible. If there was another bonus for 100+ kills (possible to reach but most of the time really hard) that could influence the gameplay as there would still be some kind of long game you could go for. I could even imagine another bonus on 150+ kills, I doubt that would happen too often while it could reward hunting results more adequately. To throw some random numbers I think 100 kills (heroic hunt?) could give another 5k while 150 kills (legendary hunt?) could even give 10k xp. > in the long run the focus shifts to guarding on every turn with adrenaline active, so I believe the Elf (mine is lagging in level) just doesn't get enough benefit from her Evade I agree, the Elven Huntress ironically seems to be the weakest hero for hunting. Her biggest weakness are crowded rooms, but that is exactly what every hunt leads to. Guarding every turn is one approach for long runs, the other is feat chaining, but that are both things the Elf isn't too great at. Being the least equipment depending hero (imo) she could compensate low equipment, if we were able choose a hero for hunting.

This was great feedback. We are going add back the ability to choose your hero. We are also going to change the system for increasing density so that there is more variation in density so there will be more rooms where the elf has room to work. And are also going to implement MisterSinister's extra hunt bonus idea, like: Epic Hunts (100+Kills) and Legendary Hunts (150+Kills) But we have a question: After reaching each of the first two milestones (Outstanding and Epic), would you like the hunt to somehow get more difficult? Like after 50 quarry kills, there's an occasional dragon thrown into the hunt regions? (If we did that, then maybe Epic and Legendary would require fewer kills, like 75/100 instead of 100/150.)

Glad you like it and looking forward to the changes :) Right now it is the raising monster density that makes a hunt progressively harder. I can't say how the new density will feel and effect the difficulty, that makes it hard to evaluate difficulty related aspects right now. I think every completed bonus could be a mark to raise the difficulty a bit harsher, maybe by raising the density from there on by some kind of factor. I also thought about the equipment wearing off and lowering it's bonus, but this might be too much. Another approach could be the monsters of the region, typically there are some stronger and weaker ones. When reaching a bonus more of the stronger monsters could spawn and less of the weaker, or even more elite versions of the monsters (if they have some). I'm not sure about the occasional dragon. On the one hand it may be way too hard to face a dragon with quite low equipment. On the other hand I would always try to ignore that dragon by keeping important scrolls. If the dragon won't respawn on the next stage again, I think it would be pretty easy to just bypass it unharmed.

Yes to dragons, but after a threshold number of kills. I have a weird idea to give them some bite: give each dragon an equivalent drop value, for example white = 3. Before/after each dragon spawns, it will steal that many of your drops and return them when killed. If you start leaving multiple dragons alive, the accumulated loss can be huge. I was thinking of breaking the roguelike formula a bit for daily hunts to reward replays and hero diversity: Something along the lines of the following: - Dragons spawn after 50 and gradually increase in difficulty. If you're reusing a hero, dragons spawn slightly earlier. - After you claim your Outstanding bonus, subsequent playthroughs will award one of each consumable instead. - After you claim your Epic bonus, subsequent playthroughs spawn an altar instead. - You can claim Legendary bonus once per hero.

Just a short while in the new hunts, and I've seen a greater ghoul runt. It's fantastic!

Just played my first new hunt, totally loving it :3 The different bounties seem adequate and motivate to always keep going. What I like the most is the raising difficulty by making the hunted monsters progressively stronger. Before that it was pretty common to finally get killed by just a monster of the hunting region, but I think it's more interesting the new way. Also it's so funny to see the monsters growing to enormous sizes (can't wait to see screen filling Giants :D ). I think so but just for clarification: These new monster types only show up during hunts, right? Thanks for the great update, much appreciated :) Edit: Just saw a Crocodile Warrior Runt, so adorable <3