The biggest update to Requiem for a Lost World is finally here!

Hi! Hey! Hello!

For a last couple of months I've been teasing and talking about the 1.7.0 version and a few changes it may bring but to be honest it exceeded the scope I was initially going for. I wanted it to be the best release yet! Of course there were some hiccups and personal issues that got in the way delaying the project for a good 2-3 weeks but I would say the wait was forth it.

Anyway, I bet everyone is excited for this version's breakdown! We have a lot of quality of life and brand new features and fixes on the table so lets jump right to it-

New character

I mentioned the new character in the blog post about a month ago and she's finally here

Yami-no-Tokiya is a Cosmic damage dealer specializing in Reactions and Follow-Up attacks. With her absolute control over space and time she's able to effortlessly pause enemy movements and stage timers while delivering heavy hits.

Every time Yami-no-Tokiya triggers elemental reaction an Abyss Flower will appear on the map either empowering her or dealing damage in an explosion.

If situation calls for it, she can unleash her ultimate: Void Sunder to pause all stage timers, attacks and enemy movement while delivering up to 4 attacks dealing damage to every enemy - regardless how far they may run.

Her weapon of choice is a Reality Shattering series of slashes dealing AoE cosmic damage.

I have been thinking about her kit for the longest time now but I think I'm fairly satisfied. She was the first character I ever thought of making and it makes me happy to see her finally released!

Twitch Integration

Are you a streamer? Do you want to stream but don't know what to? Want to bully the streamer playing this game?

Whatever may be the case Requiem for a Lost World has Twitch integration now! 

So far it's fairly limited but will be expanded upon with upcoming versions. Here is what the chat can do in the game:

• Pick weapons during level up
• Spawn hordes of enemies
• Ban weapons from ever appearing
• Buff or debuff the player
• Modify stage rules, such as enemy spawn rate, health or damage

Twitch integration can be configured in the settings under Integration tab!

New Weapons and Items

Oh boy did I want to expand the options.

Before we get to new weapons let me introduce a few new mechanics

• Follow-Up attacks - we had a couple mentions of these type of attacks in character's kits but never any weapons following the similar logic. Follow-Up weapons attack when certain conditions are met instead of always attacking off cool-down. These should allow players  more options for interactive game-play
• Resistance Penetration (RES Pen) - A new stat that allow characters to bypass a certain percentage of enemy resistances
• Unstable weapons - New element that weapons can possess, weapons with this trait will deal instance of damage of random element each time

So here is a couple of new weapons:

	Reality Shatter - Perform multiple series of slashes in an area which causes fabric of reality to shatter.
	Magic Arrow - Send homing projectiles at nearby enemies
	Meteor Shower  - Send rain of stones in front of the character
	Geode Resonance - Summon a stone pillar that emits waves of damage in an area
	Low Pressure Strike - Create a low pressure point on enemies after inflicting any type of damage on them
	Piercing Wind - Send forward a projectile of condensed wind
	Flame From Beyond - Upon dealing damage to enemies summon a portal that shoots a beam of fire at the damaged enemy
	Wind Vortex - Create vortex of strong wind that pulls in enemies and deals damage in an affected area
	Claw - Claw at enemies in front while applying bleeding
	Seed of Frost - Spawn a frost seed after picking up 50 shards. Seeds shoot homing projectiles at nearby enemies every X seconds. Picking up shards while Seed is active extends it's duration. Multiple Seeds can be summoned at the same time.
	Lightning Orb - Summon ball of electricity in a circle around the player that stays in place and deals damage in an area
	Sand Storm - Summon a miniature sand storm field on a random enemy that applies DoT on enemies passing through it
	Digital Arrow - Send a projectile of unknown origin at nearby foes, deal 50% split damage considered as Follow-Up damage

And new items:

	Energy Amplifier - Increase the effect of all elemental reactions by X%
	Ring of Flow - Increase follow up attack damage by X%
	Guardian’s Aegis - Increase max health by X but reduce damage dealt by Y%
	Brute's Talisman - Reduce EXP gain by X% but increase crit rate by Y% and crit damage by Z%
	Bloodthorn Scarf - Increase all healing by X% but reduce max health by Y%
	Cursed Thorn - Allow damage over time type attacks to crit
	Phantom Crown - Ignore X% of enemy resistances when attacking
	Arrow of Arcana - Increase the amount of enemies projectiles can pierce through
	Cosmic Affinity - Increase cosmic damage by X% but lower light damage by Y%
	Earth Affinity - Increase earth damage by X% but lower wind damage by Y%
	Fire Affinity - Increase fire damage by X% but lower ice damage by Y%
	Ice Affinity - Increase ice damage by X% but lower fire damage by Y%
	Wind Affinity - Increase wind damage by X% but lower earth damage by Y%
	Lightning Affinity - Increase lightning damage by X% but lower physical damage by Y%
	Light Affinity - Increase light damage by X% but lower cosmic damage by Y%

It's a pretty long list!

With this I also revisited the weapon rarity benefits and adjusted them to be more rewarding. Previously a stat difference between a common and a mythic weapon were negligible. Now it should be more on par with item rarity upgrades.

New Map

New map is out! 

There is a lot of secrets and puzzles to solve so take your time exploring! I won't spoil anything with screenshots. One from the previous post is still valid. Capital Undergrounds introduce all new enemies and the game-play in this stage have been reduced to 20 minutes instead of classic 30.

Small tip: Look for buttons, these may unlock a secret path!

Map Updates

Capital Outskirts also got 3 new points of interests, if you can find them that is!

New Runes

Following the few new stats:

• Rune of Penetration - increases character RES Pen, allowing to deal more damage to enemies with higher resistance to weapon's element
• Rune of Assistance - increases damage dealt by Follow-Up attacks
• Rune of Harmony - increases effects of elemental reactions. Swirl will reduce resistances further, explosion will deal more damage and shock will stun enemies for longer. Fun!

UI Improvements

Following up from the last UI update I bring you even more goodies!

• Weapons and items will display their respective types, such as pierce, follow-up or DoT just so you know what you are getting yourself into before actually picking
• Collection screen will also display these informations
• New loading screen have been added when loading into the level so you don't have to wonder whether you pressed the play button or not
• Character shard stories will be getting some updates in future versions and Yami-no-Tokiya already have some extensive lore in there so the lore can now be scrolled! Same for the collection menu
  
• You can now change damage number size or even turn them off completely in the settings
• Visiting any of our social media and leaving feedback will now reward players for doing so
• Selected game options will now be remembered between game sessions so you can jump right in with the same settings as before
• Option to disable SSAO is now available so you can squeeze the last performance from the game

Almost all the items and weapons have gotten their icons updated. Especially items since I wanted items to be... you know, items. The abstract art for them was never my vision but it was the only thing I could generate back in the day, with better models I can make actual items for icons!

And some bug fixes in this section:

• Shop didn't scale properly on ultra-wide resolutions
• The weird layering issue in the collection menu have also been resolved
• Rune benefits that reduce certain stats displayed as "+-" instead of simply "-"

Camera Improvements

I've been fighting with the camera for some time now and the previous versions saw some improvements but it wasn't quite there yet.

With this version I took another step to possibly make the camera even better!

• First of all the weird camera delay when hitting walls is now gone.
• Static 3rd person camera now allows for an up and down movement - being a perfect mix between the old version and the Free 3rd person version
• Additionally you can configure camera distance and FOV in the settings to move the camera away from the character or get a wider view
• 1st person camera's position have also been adjusted to be a little higher

Hopefully this brings a much better experience!

Core game changes

• New game rule: random item on level up (self explanatory I hope)
• Character fragments can now be bought directly in the shop, if you prefer not to gamble for characters!
• Permanent upgrades bought in the shop can now be refunded. I'm looking at that one person maxing out curse- We need them to be able to go back
• Enemies in the Capital Outskirts got a buff and now resist damage from certain elements. It will be much harder to hurt burning enemies with fire or damage rock with a rock
• Until now only one vulnerabilities could have been present on the enemy, meaning you had to plan carefully to not overwrite it with a weaker one. From now on vulnerabilities stack and have independent duration for the big de-buff damages
• Short play mode have been nerfed, just so it can be more approachable: enemy damage buff have been reduced to 25% and the EXP acquisition speed have been increased to 50%
• Enemies in the Capital Outskirts will now have some probabilities when spawning, so the more annoying enemies will spawn less

There is one massive fix in here that's been driving me crazy

• Dashes will no longer stutter, end prematurely or be affected by the surface's curvature

CO-OP Improvements

CO-OP have been here for a while and bit by bit I've been working on improving the experience and this update delivers on quite a lot of changes.

• Damage calculation is now performed by the host which means stuff like elemental application, weakness, slow effects, defense reductions and so on can be shared between players!
• Weapon kill effects will now also correctly apply in CO-OP
• Reduced the difficulty scaling per player
• Time required to revive players have also been reduced to 3.5 seconds instead of 6.5 because there just isn't much skill in reviving

I'm currently thinking of ways to improve CO-OP experience further so stay tuned for more updates!

Bug fixes and balance changes

• Fixed camera view during David's skill duration - it used to get stuck in his fire bubble
• Fixed Adam's 4✦ rank up applying only once 5✦ is unlocked
• Fixed Lightning Needle's upgrade (Swift Voltage (I)) reducing the DoT frequency
• Fix description of Armor missing '%' sign next to the buff provided
• Fixed character/shard unlocking with fragments that required 51 fragments for unlock instead of displayed 50
• Reduced the max level of Greed upgrade from 25 to 20 and changed the bonus from 5% per level to 6% per level
• Reduced the requirement for achievement: <b>The Path of Pain</b> from 10000 damage healed and taken to 1500
• Reduced glow on <b>Time Blade</b>'s attacks
• Increased Adam's passive damage (0.1% → 0.25%) and damage taken (0.1% → 0.25%)

What's next?

And that's it for the version 1.7.0

The list is quite extensive and the overall game feels much better to play, at least from my and my friend's personal experience.

In the upcoming versions I plan on further expanding available weapons and items, possibly targeting CO-OP play as well.

CO-OP enemy AI and balance changes are to be expected in the near future.

Twitch integration is a big thing I want to work on. I want to add a bunch of fun effects that chat can trigger to either help or troll the streamer.

4 new characters have been planned and will be releasing over the course of upcoming versions.

Possibly work on the 3rd map will begin shortly but most likely won't be releasing any time soon.

Some bag news

I also have some bad news regarding the project. But don't worry! It will not affect anyone who only plays the game!

I will be close-sourcing the project on Github, the decision is not yet final but the development is taking more time as the scope increases and I would like to focus on what's important for the progress. I already started using some unpaid assets as well as one paid asset to speed up the development in the areas I'm just not good at. I don't want to dance around sending just a bit of the project to github and be careful not to expose too much of things I'm not supposed to share... So far I haven't had anybody contribute to the repository so I'm pretty sure this decision won't affect anyone. BUT if someone is willing to collaborate or contribute indirectly I'm still opened to discussion. AND once I have nothing better to do I will also implement modding support so I'm not turning my back to community's innovations!

Once again, thank you for anyone keeping up with the Requiem for a Lost World and I hope you will have a blast with this version as well!

PS.

This release is for PC only, android version is coming out in a few!