Lichgate: Tower Survivor news & patch notes

Developer's Notes:

• 1.4 introduces new relics and items that can be unlocked through achievements. The Codex can help you find out more details. Any items locked behind achievements you've already completed will automatically be available to you. More achievements and items will be added in future patches.

• This new set of items introduces some new one-off mechanics. You can expect UX improvements for feedback to help with clarity on these in the next patch.

New Content

Weapons

Common

• Flamestream: Single Target Hel Weapon with Burn damage

• Piezostone: Splash Stone Weapon with Static

• Chilling Touch: Bouncing Soul Weapon with Frost

• Voidburst: Splash Arcane Weapon with Corruption damage

Legendary

These new legendaries are designed to be a bit more situational and provide some new build paths.

• Combustor: Single Target Hel Weapon that deals damage equal to 300% of Burn on enemy, if enemy dies the damage explodes onto nearby enemies

• Golem: Zone Stone Weapon that summons a golem with 50% of tower's Max HP, Thorns, Regen, and Armor

• Contagion: Bouncing Soul Weapon that spreads debuffs between enemies

• Ice Spire: Zone Arcane Weapon that summons a decoy that explodes on death, freezing all nearby enemies

Upgrades

Investment upgrades provide a new avenue for economy (they scale with Bounty). Duplicators will help you more easily get the build you're looking for without having to reroll as often.

• Ankh: +1 Revive

• Frost Finesse: +25% Frost effectiveness

• Frost Expertise: +50% Frost effectiveness, +25% damage to Frozen enemies

• Coin Flip: 50% chance to receive 250 gold

• Basic Investment: Receive 500 gold after 5 rounds

• Improved Investment: Receive 1200 gold after 5 rounds

• Advanced Investment: Receive 3000 gold after 5 rounds

• Perfected Investment: Receive 8000 gold after 5 rounds

• Basic Duplicator: Get an extra copy of the next Basic item you acquire

• Common Duplicator: Get an extra copy of the next Common item you acquire

• Rare Duplicator: Get an extra copy of the next Rare item you acquire

• Legendary Duplicator: Get an extra copy of the Legendary item you acquire

Relics

Starter

For those that want to roll different builds than what the other starter relics help with.

• Lich's Favor: Reroll Cost -50%

Unique

New options for Thorns lovers and ways to manipulate shop and pact outcomes!

• Reactive Barrier: Activate Thorns when Barrier is damaged, Max Barrier +2000, Thorns +100

• Sharp Thorns: Thorns Crit Chance +20%, Thorns +100, Crit Rate +25%, Crit Damage +10%

• Elitesbane: Damage vs Elites +50%

• Omnipotence: All damage multipliers +6%

• Hand of Midas: Every round Bounty +0.5%

• Hyper Roll: Increase attack speed +100% for 2 seconds after purchasing a shop reroll

• Overkill: Spread 100% of excess damage to a nearby enemy on kill

• Bonus Pact: Bounty +10%, Shop Level +1

• Devil's Advocate: Rerolling pacts no longer increases punishment severity

• Glass Cannon: +50% All Damage, +50% Damage Taken

UX Changes

• Certain items are now locked behind Achievements and will not appear in runs until the required achievements are completed

• New Codex filters for Locked and Unlocked items

• Codex filters now show number of items in each category based on current filter

Balance Changes

• Frozen status effect duration 2s -> 3s

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused large numbers with a zero in the ten-thousands digit to display as "3.04m" instead of "3.4m"

This was part of a larger content patch I'm working on, but I decided to carve these changes off so that the time between patches isn't too long. As a sneak peek for next patch (not included in this one): there are 11 new relics and 12 new upgrades to look forward to, in addition to some more new weapons as well.

New Weapons

There are now basic tier weapons of every combination of damage type + attack type in the game now. This should help with the early game of achievement hunting.

• Hel Scattershot (Multistrike)

• Hel Glaive (Bounce)

• Hel Blast (Splash)

• Hel Lance (Wave)

• Hel Miasma (Zone)

• Stone Scattershot (Multistrike)

• Stone Glaive (Bounce)

• Stone Blast (Splash)

• Stone Lance (Wave)

• Stone Miasma (Zone)

• Soul Scattershot (Multistrike)

• Soul Glaive (Bounce)

• Soul Blast (Splash)

• Soul Lance (Wave)

• Soul Miasma (Zone)

• Arcane Scattershot (Multistrike)

• Arcane Glaive (Bounce)

• Arcane Blast (Splash)

• Arcane Lance (Wave)

• Arcane Miasma (Zone)

Balance Changes

Added some base stats to certain relics so that you can still get use out of them if acquired before purchasing relevant upgrades. Also applied a fairly significant nerf to some relics that were overperforming with runaway power scaling (Overcharge, Void Plague, & Harvester).

• All healing effects (such as Harvester relic) now have Hell Mode regen effectiveness reduction applied

• Burning Thorns: Thorns +0 -> +100, Burn damage +0% -> +25%, Thorns damage as Burn +15% -> +20%

• Rapid Barrier: Max Barrier +0 -> +2000

• Unstable Barrier: Max Barrier +0 -> +2000

• Void Plague: No longer benefits from bonus Corruption Damage, Corruption Spread +20% -> +30%

• Overcharge: No longer benefits from bonus Static Damage

UX Changes

• Relics will no longer appear for the rest of the run on Power pact when rerolled

• Relics and Weapons in the Codex are now sorted alphabetically by name within the same tier

• Icons for Glacier and Voidstone updated to better fit color scheme of Stone weapons

• Burning Touch icon updated

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused fast forward to appear active on first run when it wasn't actually on

• Corruption Damage bonuses are now calculated correctly

• Static Damage bonuses are now calculated correctly

• Fixed an issue causing Unstable Barrier VFX to not appear on first use

• Fixed an issue causing Power Up menu to auto scroll when using mouse if a game controller was previously used

New Feature: The Codex

The Codex has been added to the game! Available from the main menu or the pause menu, the Codex allows you to look through all items in the game for easier learning and reference. In it you can also find a breakdown of mechanics in the game and various tips for newer players.

In addition, the Boss Damage leaderboards have been split per Gate. This means previous scores have been reset. Now you can flex your scores on Gate 9 without competing against players on Gate 1.

UX Changes

• Codex added to main menu and pause menu

• Boss Damage leaderboard is now split per Gate

• Japanese localization improvements

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug that caused boss damage to carry over between runs

• Fixed bug that could cause leaderboard fetches to fail when playing offline

• Fixed animation bug causing enemy attack animations to not play at correct speed when fast forward is active

• Fixed a case where leaderboard scores might be posted without run info causing relics to not appear

Known Issues

• Occasionally after starting the game the UI will show fast forward mode enabled but still be running at 1X. Still hunting the root cause of this issue, but for now you can work around it by just re-toggling fast forward.

First off, I want to thank everyone for your support with purchasing the game. It's been awesome seeing people already climbing the leaderboards and hearing about the fun builds you put together!

I wanted to let you all know that I've been paying close attention to all of the reviews and feedback that has been shared. The common thread is the lack of meta progression, and understandably so. I apologize that this didn't meet expectations at launch.

Now that the bugs that were reported during launch weekend have been fixed, my top priority is going to be adding more content and adding more meta progression functionality this month. Thank you for your patience. I'm excited to see Lichgate grow and get better with each update!

-Daniel

UX Changes

• Run in Background option added to Gameplay Settings menu

• Energy Transmutation relic is now mutually exclusive with Unstable Barrier, Rapid Barrier, and Last Stand

• Energy Transmutation and Blood Barrier descriptions expanded for clarity

• Enemy tooltip now shows damage and HP

• Leaderboard now shows what relics were used for a score (only works for entries from v1.0.11 or later)

• Leaderboard now supports viewing more than 100 entries

• Changed icon for upgrade items to reduce confusion with stat gems

• Improved legibility of item counts on inventory HUD

• Simplified Chrono Slam description

• Added support for Steam rich presence

• Scrolling game over screen and leaderboard menu when using controller now uses right thumbstick

• Improved localization pass

Balance Changes

General

• Gate 3: Starting gold 1200 -> 1500

Hel

• Hel Curse: Damage 100 -> 140

• Imprisonment: Damage 100 -> 130

• Lightning Spire: Damage 160 -> 180

Stone

• Stone Curse: Damage 100 -> 140

• Fortifier: Damage 320 -> 350

Soul

• Soul Curse: Damage 100 -> 140

• Burning Touch: Damage 50 -> 80

• Life Siphon: Multistrike 3 -> 4, Damage 90 -> 75

• Terror: Damage 200 -> 225

Arcane

• Arcane Curse: Damage 100 -> 140

• Generator: Damage 320 -> 350

• Ice Barrage: Damage 40 -> 42

• Flame Spitter: Damage 20 -> 25, Cooldown 0.7 -> 0.5

• Ice Wave: 175 -> 180

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug that caused music to stop playing when too many SFX played at once

• Fixed Boss tooltip to show correct name

• Fixed enemy tooltip for special enemies to show "None" instead of "Special" for weak/strong vs

• Fixed weapon and upgrade inventories to scale with HUD scale setting

• Fixed leaderboard display to not cut off 4 digit ranks

• Fixed Life Siphon to count as a healing item for Keeping a Safe Distance achievement

• Fixed stat gem bonuses from blocking achievements

• Fixed bug that caused game over menu to lose selection when playing with a controller

• Fixed controller selection focus sometimes being lost when opening or closing the settings menu

• Fixed an error that would sometimes occur when attempting to rebind inputs

UX Changes

• Replaced icons for the following items:

  • Necronomicon

  • Shatter

  • Splash Expertise

  • Zone Expertise

  • Burning Touch

• Added missing localization for achievements

• Leaderboard menu now refreshes more often

Balance Changes

• Splash Precision: Splash Size +0% -> +25%

Bug Fixes

• Fixed tooltip scale setting to work on all tooltips

Developer note about the icon changes

Through the help of a player it was brought to my attention that some of the icons that I had licensed from a 3rd party were likely plagiarized. This was extremely disappointing to discover, and I've done an audit to identify any other icons that might also be problematic and have replaced them. In addition, I have reached out to the company responsible to try to remedy the situation. The icons are the only art assets that weren't custom made for the game due to budget constraints. If anyone identifies any other possible issues like this please do not hesitate to let me know and I will address it as quickly as I can. Thank you for your understanding.

The game is now live!

Try out the weekly challenge to see how far you get with only a single weapon, chase some achievements, and climb those leaderboards.

Join us on Discord to get tips or share your craziest run.

Thank you to everyone playing the game, your support is much appreciated!

UX Changes

• Added link to Discord server on main menu

Bug Fixes

• Fixed missing instructions for unlocking starter relics

Gameplay Changes

• Removed weapon limit in Standard mode

• Default controller binding for fast forward moved to right bumper

• All existing achievements now have a Gate 9 version

• Added achievements for clearing each Gate

Bug Fixes

• Fixed controller compatibility on game mode menu for Weekly Challenge mode

Gameplay Changes

• Standard mode now has a limit of 8 unique weapons each run

UX Improvements

• Pacts can now be selected using shopping hotkeys (Q, W, E for selection and V for reroll)

• Moved attack type descriptions into SHIFT tooltips to make main item descriptions more concise

• Added shadow to revive icon to make it easier to see

• Increased final boss size and disabled boss health bar

• Improved some tooltips for better comprehension

Balance Changes

General

• Enemy damage per difficulty Gate 0% -> +1%

• XP bonus per difficulty Gate +25% -> +15%

• All stat gem bonuses per rank +5% -> +4%

Weapons

• Fire Starter: Range Medium -> Long

• Wither: Range Medium -> Short

• Chain Lightning: Static +5% -> +8%

Upgrades

• Basic Armor: Flat damage reduction 3 -> 2

• Advanced Armor: Flat damage reduction 9 -> 6

• Perfected Fortifications: Damage per 1k HP +0.2% -> 0.1%

• Static Finesse: Static Damage +25% -> +15%

• Static Expertise: Static Damage +50% -> +30%

Relics

• Burning Thorns: Burn damage +20% -> +15%

• Unstable Barrier: Max Barrier as damage 20% -> 25%

• Wildfire: Spread Burn 100% -> 80%

Bug Fixes

• Fixed hotkey hints to update when keyboard layout changes

• Fixed Unstable Barrier and Concussive relics to benefit from various damage multipliers

• Fixed Thorns, Unstable Barrier, and Concussive to be affected by hell mode damage decay

• Fixed relic inventory UI to scale correctly

UX Improvements

• Demo now ends at end of round 40 after all enemies have been defeated

• Demo main menu now shows what players can expect from the full version

• Improved item synergy highlight to be more noticeable

• Improved fast forward visual indication

• Item synergy highlight now shows when moving the cursor over Power pact items

• On-screen button added for accessing Esc menu

• Round counter changed to show total number of rounds

• Relevant leaderboards now always show on game over screen regardless of new highscore

• Difficulty level now shown in game

• Improved button for continuing run in Hell Mode and added tooltip to provide context

• Environment now visually changes in Hell Mode

• Replaced text with icons for health and barrier UI to prevent overlap with large numbers

• Added camera transitions before and after runs

• Damage type "None" renamed to "Special"

Balance Changes

General

• Reroll base cost reduced from 50 -> 10

• Enemy spawns per group changed from 1-4 -> 2-3

• Enemy spawn count and base damage reduced to make first few rounds easier

• Enemy HP scaling per difficulty gate +2% -> +4%

• Enemy damage scaling per difficulty gate +2% -> +0%

• Difficulty Gate 3 effect: Enemies have more health -> Less starting gold

• Difficulty Gate 5 effect: Enemies attack faster -> More elites spawn

• Difficulty Gate 7 effect: Enemy damage +15% -> +10%

• Knockback distance is now reduced when enemies have stun resistance

• Burn Damage Power Up per rank +10% -> +5%

• Static Damage Power Up per rank +10% -> +5%

• Corruption Damage Power Up per rank +10% -> +5%

Hel

• Hel Strike: Cooldown 1.2s -> 1s

• Pentagram: Burn damage +30% -> +20%

• Ice Shards: Frost per hit +12% -> +15%

Stone

• Stone Strike: Cooldown 1.2s -> 1s

• Glacier: Frost per hit +50% -> +60%

Soul

• Soul Strike: Cooldown 1.2s -> 1s

• Void Orb: Damage 75 -> 100, Corruption +80% -> +75%

• Void Beam: Base damage 25 -> 20

Arcane

• Arcane Strike: Cooldown 1.2s -> 1s

• Energy Siphon: Max Barrier Repair +0.5% -> +0.4%, Max Barrier Repair is now affected by regen decay after round 50

• Ice Barrage: Frost per hit +10% -> +12%

• Ice Wave: Frost per hit +25% -> +30%

• Chrono Slam: Damage 800 -> 700

Relics

• Echo Strike: Chance to double crit is now fixed at 50%

• Overcharge: Static on Static Damage +20% -> +15%

• Void Plague: Corruption spread 25% -> 20%

Bug Fixes

• Fixed weapon range preview to work correctly while game is paused

• Fixed health and armor upgrades not sorting correctly if purchased in a specific order

• Fixed errors caused by reaching round 100

• Fixed issue caused by having too many projectiles simultaneously

• Fixed damage numbers from continuing to play long after an enemy dies when lots of small attacks stack up

Gameplay Changes

• Can now purchase items and rerolls while the game is paused

• Burn damage no longer removes frost stacks

• Frostfire Relic now does increased damage vs enemies with Frost

• Shop reroll now has a very small cooldown (100ms) to prevent accidental double purchase with sensitive input devices

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Ward relics to apply damage bonus to Thorns damage

• Settings menus should always start with the scrollbar at the top now

• Fixed incorrect Xbox controller glyph for B button

Balance Changes

General

• Basic Strike weapon attack cooldown 1.3s -> 1.2s

• Regen modifier after round 50 adjusted from (50% - 1% per round) to (100% - 2% per round)

• Stat Gem Bonus Thorns: +5% per rank -> +10% per rank

• Difficulty Six enemy CC resistance +25% -> +50%

• Difficulty levels now add an additional +2% enemy HP and damage per level in addition to existing effects

Hel Weapons

• Pentagram: Damage 15 -> 8

• Fire Starter: Damage 35 -> 50

• Fire Nova: Damage 20 -> 25

Stone Weapons

• Voidstone: Damage 60 -> 50

• Void Orb: Damage 50 -> 75

• Glacier: Damage 300 -> 400

• Fissure: Damage 70 -> 80

• Trebuchet: Damage increased by Max HP +1% -> +2%

Soul Weapons

• Voidscatter: Damage 40 -> 45

• Wither: Damage 45 -> 35

• Storm Wraith: Static +20% -> +15%

Arcane Weapons

• Chain Lightning: Damage 50 -> 55

• Energy Siphon: Barrier repair on hit +50 -> 0.5% Max Barrier

• Flame Spitter: Damage 10 -> 20

• Ice Wave: Damage 200 -> 175

• Chrono Slam: Damage 600 -> 800

Relics

• Blood Barrier: Health To Barrier Conversion 200% -> 240%

• Energy Transmutation: Barrier To Health Conversion 50% -> 60%

• Wrath of Midas: Damage per 1K Gold: 2% -> 4%

• Void Plague: Corruption Spread +20% -> +25%

• Last Stand: Damage per 1K Broken Barrier +2.5% -> +3%

Upgrades

• Advanced Regeneration: HP Regen +80 -> +100

• Perfected Regeneration: HP Regen +0 -> +300

• Advanced Fortifications: Max HP +2500 -> +3000

• Perfected Fortifications: Max HP +0 -> +7500, Max HP +20% -> +15%, Damage per 1K Max HP +0.5% -> +0.2%

• Advanced Barrier: Max Barrier +5000 -> +6000

• Perfected Barrier: Max Barrier +0 -> +15000, +20% -> +15%

• Basic Armor: Flat Damage Reduction +2 -> +3

• Advanced Armor: Flat Damage Reduction +8 -> +9

• Crit Expertise: Crit Rate +80% -> +120%

• Crit Mastery: Crit Rate +0% -> +200%, Crit Multiplier +25% -> +10%

• Stun Expertise: Stun Duration +10% -> +20%

• Single Target Expertise: Single Target Damage +30% -> +40%, Crit Damage +0% -> +10%

• Wave Expertise: Wave Damage +30% -> 50%

• Zone Expertise: Zone Size +10% -> +25%

• Hel Expertise: Hel Damage +40% -> 60%

• Hel Mastery: Hel Damage +80% -> 125%, Damage vs Undead +20% -> +25%

• Stone Expertise: Stone Damage +40% -> 60%

• Stone Mastery: Stone Damage +80% -> 125%, Damage vs Creatures +20% -> +25%

• Soul Expertise: Soul Damage +40% -> 60%

• Soul Mastery: Soul Damage +80% -> 125%, Damage vs Spirits +20% -> +25%

• Arcane Expertise: Arcane Damage +40% -> 60%

• Arcane Mastery: Arcane Damage +80% -> 125%, Damage vs Demons +20% -> +25%

• Basic Thorns: Thorns +50 -> +30

• Improved Thorns: Thorns +50 -> +30, Thorns Per Round +10 -> +5

• Advanced Thorns: Thorns +250 -> +200, Thorns +5% -> Thorns +10%

• Perfected Thorns: Thorns +500 -> +600, Thorns +20% -> Thorns +30%

Lichgate: Tower Survivor is participating in Next Fest from Feb 23 - Mar 2! Join us for a developer stream where I will do a few runs and give some pointers on best strategies for surviving the Lichgate!

Features

• User settings are now synced via Steam Cloud

• Game will now automatically pause if active controller is disconnected or Steam overlay is opened

• Added controller input hints on Audio & Credits submenus

Bug Fixes

• Fixed calculation of unused gems, fixing an exploit that allowed duplicated stat gems

• Fixed controller support for Credits submenu

• Fixed cursor not being hidden when launching game with a controller active

Features

• Last set Fast Forward state now persists across runs and play sessions

• Game can now be played while offline

• New art for tutorial mentor

Balance

• Thorns damage power-up reduced from 10% -> 5% per rank

Bug Fixes

• Fixed number abbreviations for 1.01m-1.09m

• Fixed the shop to refocus upon continuing a run when playing with a controller

• Fixed the revive badge from incorrectly showing after forfeiting a run with Necronomicon and then selecting another starter relic

• Removed irrelevant difficulty indicator on Boss Damage leaderboard on the game over screen

Localization

• Added missing translations for the tutorial across all languages

Features

• Inspecting weapons now shows a preview of attack range

• Added purchase protection to rerolls when round is about to end or just started to prevent accidentally wasting gold

• Improved tutorial to cover more topics and improved brevity

  • NOTE: Returning players that have already completed the previous tutorials will see the new tutorials appear on the first run after patching.

  • NOTE: Currently English only; translations for updated tutorial will be added in a later patch.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Chrono Slam visuals to align with the enemy being knocked back

• Fixed bug that caused XP to be awarded twice when continuing past round 50

Localization

• Added missing translations for Simplified Chinese

• Achievements and Steam store page translated for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese (Brazilian)

Bug Fixes

- Fixed leaderboard UI error on game start

- Fixed broken description of Curse weapons for Simplified Chinese (zh)

- Added missing translations for Japanese (ja) and Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR)

The demo for Lichgate: Tower Survivor is now live! 🎉

The demo let's you play up to round 40 for free with full access to all tower weapons and upgrades. The full game at release will include challenges to unlock new relics, higher difficulties, leveling with stat bonuses, leaderboards to compete with your friends, and achievements for using specific builds.

Give it a try and let us know what you think in the forums or on our discord!

If you enjoy the demo, please consider wishlisting the game and telling your friends about it. It's the best way to help support our development!