PATCH NOTES

The third stage of Darkblade Ascent happens in Abyssal Perdition, a place that will incite a feeling of unfamiliarity and a sense of being small and insignificant in the grandeur that is the Abyss. The 3 unique maps that make up this stage will take you through a journey that we hope will leave you in awe. In order to diversify the challenge that you will face, we introduced 4 new enemies in this stage that are a lot smarter with interesting behaviours, abilities and movement. You'll also get to discover new mechanics, challenges and dangers in this stage and we can't wait to see how you overcome and how creative you are in utilising these new features. We felt that the diversity of builds from one run to another was not sufficiently unique, so we created a new game-changing feature that will massively improve replayability and uniqueness of each run, further increasing that "one more run" feeling. With each enemy killed you increase the chance of an Abyssally Infused Enemy to appear. Upon killing this enemy you will be presented with a crystal that will let you choose a boon from a total of 39 boons. These boons are build-altering effects that synergize with each other and with your existing build, giving you a lot of creativity and freedom into becoming an overpowered force of nature. Opening a chest will also reward you with a single pre-determined boon that you can take or ignore. The Astral Vendor will also reward you with ANY boon of your choice for a price. We're really excited to see what crazy builds you manage to create... or break the game.

• - Increased parry cost from 30 to 35 stamina
• - Decreased dodge cost from 33 to 25 stamina
• Note: We felt that parrying and especially missing a parry was too forgiving given how it also rewards the player with Pushback. There were very few reasons to dodge and we hope this change will make players decide between when to parry and when to dodge.
• - Dodge can only be used once while in the air or while jumping.
• - Dodging without a direction will automatically dodge forward.
• - Keybindings will now save between sessions.
• - Gamepad keys can now be rebound.
• - Added contextual input mappings. Custom keybinds will now be reflected on screen via icons (glyphs).
• - Added force feedback (vibration) on supporting controllers on various actions and events.
• - Added vibration intensity slider in settings menu.
• - Removed previous legendary scrolls from chests and vendor that are now replaced with Malevar's Boons.
• - Added visual feedback indicator for when the player is stepping in danger.
• - Increased the XP needed to level up.
• - Coins dropped from enemies will linger for 1 second on the ground before being picked up.
• - Stormcaller's lightning storm will now shock enemies before applying damage thus having its damage amplified by shock.
• - Run speed has been capped at 600.
• - Added notifications on screen for most upgrades and fixed text where some were displaying "+-".
• - Text changes on Frosweaver passives to be more descriptive.
• - Increased the size of UI ultimate passive cards to accommodate more text.
• - Receiving damage while having frost shield active will indicate damage taken on screen.
• - Added more achievements for all new content added.
• - Removed camera shake and time dilation when hitting inanimate objects with weapons.
• - Finishing a map now only rewards 1 ability passive point to accommodate for the new 3 maps in stage three.
• - Enemies will now move in a smaller radius after spawning.
• - Several performance optimizations in multiple categories: AI, navigation mesh, UI, behaviours, LODs and more.
• - Enemies can no longer be damaged before completely spawning in.
• - Changed the visuals of enemy health bars.
• - Added per hit indicator on enemy health bars.
• - Rerolling the stats on weapons at vendor now has a flat cost of 100 gold for each reroll.
• - Reduced maximum level weapons that drop on the second boss to 30.
• - Changed the floor in "Secret astral room" and improved visuals.

• - Frostweaver passives now have the correct icons / glyphs.
• - The video settings page should now correctly display the default settings when first entering the game.
• - Dagger upgrades at vendor now correctly scale with the dagger damage.
• - Fixed a bug where sometimes pushback would "miss" enemies in front.
• - Fixed several typos.
• - Daggers should no longer miss when having very high attack speed.
• - Goblin spells deflected in Mountains, Caves and Swamps will now correctly fly back to the caster.
• - Activating the Spear ability will make the player immune to damage while being performed.

Daggers have very fast attack speed with smaller reach and damage and can be unlocked by reaching level 20.

• - New Daggers Ability: Phantom Strike: Dash towards and enemy stabbing them with both daggers. If the enemy dies the ability is reset.
• - New Dagger specific crystals
• - 5 new passive tree unlockables for daggers

• - Reduced XP needed for each level up
• - Increased enemy XP given
• - Increased parry window from 0.315s to 0.4s
• - Reduced level needed for unlocks:
• - Spears unlock at level 4
• - Stormcaller unlocks at level 8
• - Axes unlock at level 12
• - Frostweaver unlocks at level 16
• - Daggers unlock at level 20
• - Berserker unlocks at level 24 (Coming Soon)
• - Added overlay tutorial screen when starting a new run
• - Added overlay tutorial screen on passive tree
• - Reduced damage done by enemies in Dungeon and Courtyard by ~50%
• - Changed weapon abilities descriptions in passive tree to be more descriptive

• - Varon the Necromant can no longer get stuck around the tree
• - Fixed a spot where players could get stuck in Mountains map
• - Some out of bounds gold items in swamps can now be picked up.

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• - Improvements to combat effects and combat feel
• - Improved the player stats tab to be able to see your picked-up ultimate ability passive tooltip, your taken Maleward's Boons and Gauntlet Runes
• - Added attack queuing system. Players no longer have to perfectly time their attacks in order to start the next attack.

• - One of the doors in Dungeon will no longer close if you do not pass though it
• - Unlocks are correctly awarded to Demo players based on their current level
• - Enemies no longer block fire DOT
• - Killing Gromar now correctly registers the achievement unlock

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• - Tentative fix for screen distortion when entering Abyssal Rift
• - Last room exit in Swamps should now correctly open and lead to next area
• - Improved performance in Swamps & Caves
• - Certain gold item in Swamps can now be picked up
• - Removed a tree that would sometime get in the way in Swamps

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• - Waves will correctly end in Abyssal Rift when all enemies have been cleared
• - Entering Abyssal Rift will no longer cause visual artifacts
• - Guiding wisp will no longer prematurely spawn in dungeon
• - Trader no longer rerolls Legendary Crystal on opening and closing the UI
• - Dodge cost can no longer go into negative values

• - Added button to reset all progression in Settings > Gameplay menu
• - Abundance passive: Reduced the boost of number of riches (gold items) spawned in the world
• - Abyssal Rift gold reward per wave reduced from 200 gold to 150 gold
• - Visual changes for Legendary Crystal into Legendary Scroll to be more distinctive
• - Only one Legendary Crystal can be bought for each Trader visit
• - Dodge cost capped at 10 stamina
• - Increased gold cost of Max Health upgrade at Trader
• - Added Bug Report and Feedback Form buttons in main menu