Pillar of Salt news & patch notes

Hello Pillars!

This week's update adds the new Elemental Incarnation system you can read about below. It also focuses heavily on general improvements as well as a large revamp to the ability system. Now abilities should be more valuable to use, but at a higher price to match. The goal is reducing the need to constantly spam abilities and create more variety in player choice's mid-combat. This should also make using abilities more useful for characters that aren't already heavily invested in using abilities.

I'm working on one more patch for the demo that will address some outstanding issues, which will be out soon. I hope you enjoy these updates. I'll be back with more soon!

Build 0.1.4 Patch Notes

New Additions

Added new Elemental Incarnation system to enemies. All normal enemies in the game can now spawn as any of 5 elemental subtypes, which comes with special additional effects as well as being worth more gold and experience to kill.

Fiery:

• Gains an additional melee attack per round

• 20% of melee damage is done as Fire.

• Increased Fire ability power and AC.

• Reduced Cold ability power and AC.

Frigid:

• Increased base AC

• 20% of melee damage is done as Cold.

• Increased Cold ability power and AC.

• Reduced Fire ability power and AC.

Rustic:

• Heals 10% of base health at the end of each combat round

• 20% of melee damage is done as Nature.

• Increased Nature ability power and AC.

• Reduced Holy ability power and AC.

• Reduced Dark ability power and AC.

Divine:

• Increased ability AC to all types

• 20% of melee damage is done as Holy.

• Increased Holy ability power and AC.

• Reduced Nature ability power and AC.

• Reduced Dark ability power and AC.

Gloomy:

• Lifesteal on melee attacks

• 20% of melee damage is done as Dark.

• Increased Dark ability power and AC.

• Reduced Nature ability power and AC.

• Reduced Holy ability power and AC.

You can mouse over enemies in combat to see what stats and effects they might have.

Changes

• Combat text will now display a small icon of what kind of damage or effect it belongs to, improving visual clarity.

• Standardized combat text coloring

• Improved font readability across all screen resolutions

• Now steals and other applied effects on hit will combine into a single message at the end of an attack action. This will help with those runs where you have area attacks spamming the screen with +1s.

• Increased enemy base health growth per level

• Reduced enemy base attack growth per level

• Reduced AC across many items

• Revamped player Ability AC system

• Increased enemy instant ability damage by 20%

• Increased Sovereign Orb effect chance to 60%

• Increased Acid Spit base damage and mana cost by 50%

• Increased Chill base damage and mana cost by 50%

• Increased all instant ability damage by 75%

• Increased player damage over time and healing over time base power by 50%

• Increased base cost of Curse to 25

• Reduced Forbidden Codex from +100% instant ability damage to +75%

• Casting an ability as AREA now costs double their base mana cost (unless the ability is default AREA cast type).

• Revamped ability cost calculation to more smoothly grow as a character's spell power increases

• Reduced healing and damage over time stack decay rate to 10%

Fixes

• Fixed a few error cases with inventory stat arrows

• Fixed bug where inventory tooltips would report incorrect crit values

• Fixed bug where camera shake would become apocalyptic when party is hit particularly hard

• Fixed bug where resurrected Bone Knight would double Paragon himself and lay waste to the party

• Fixed bug where an enemy blocking would end a player's turn prematurely

• Fixed issue where shrine item options could be unintentionally rerolled

• Fixed bug where damage over time wouldn't count towards the run's maximum spell hit

• Fixed bug where beneficial abilities would still remove taunt charges

Hello Pillars!

This week's update is primarily some quality of life additions to help with the influx of new players. There is now a help glossary filled with entries that will hopefully answer some questions players might have, as well as more visual queues for various things throughout the game. The biggest balance change is damage over time and healing over time now decay at 20% of their total per round. I hope you enjoy these updates! I'll be back with more next week!

Build 0.1.3 Patch Notes

New Additions

• Added new battle scene for the Castle

• Added note to inventory screen explaining the "empty slot" areas

• Added help window (default mapped to Q key)

• Added reminder to check help

• Added stat arrows to inventory screen that highlight changes

• Added crit and block to stat tooltips in inventory window

• Added stat tooltips to character selection window

Changes

• Changed Blacksmith to Armorsmith (to make it more clear they only deal with armor)

• Card matching minigame now reveals the remaining cards after game over

• Increased Taunt charges when Sovereign Orb applies its effect

• All weapons in the game are now visible on characters when attacking

• Updated Day 1 title at game start

• Updated some sprite art

• Mob ability power and AC generation is now much more complex (in a good way :) )

• Ability AC system updated to more smoothly and predictably reduce incoming damage

• Damage over time and healing over time stacks now naturally decay by 20% per round.

• Standardized Ability Power term across tooltips

Fixes

• Fixed The Creator's Quill doing Blunt damage

• Fixed issue where you could sometimes find the same legendary twice in a run

• Slight reduction to the success rate at Armorsmith

Hello Pillars!

This update is the last before the demo's official launch tomorrow! It includes several quality-of-life improvements and completes my move to standardize some of the mechanics in the game. For instance, all relics are now stackable. Also included are a lot of small and medium-sized adjustments I've made for balance. I hope you enjoy it, and I'll be back with more next week!

Build 0.1.2 Patch Notes

New Additions

• Added hotkey labels to UI buttons

• Added hotkey labels to speed buttons in combat

• Added character inventories to run history files (runs completed prior to build 0.1.2 will not have their items recorded)

• Added wishlist button to main menu

• Added reminder for players to equip their first item

• Added duration and type to ability tooltips

• Added lore text to most items in the game

Changes

• Changed UI button icons

• Experience gains reduced from all sources by roughly 30%

• Enemy evasion formula rewritten (should result in a general reduction of growth rate)

• Enemy area damage reduced

• "???" nodes on map are now simply called "Minigame"

• First step on the meadow map will always be a shrine now

• Changed enemy melee damage calculation

• Reduced attack on all weapons by 30%

• Reduced player character attack growth per level

• Reduced enemy hp growth by 20%

• Reduced instant damage ability power growth per player level

• Reduced the Scrivener's relic by 50%

• Reduced Golden Stone reward and made it stackable

• Reworked Anvil of the Dawn and reforged version to be stackable

• Sovereign Orbs are now stackable

• Buffed Soap Bubbles and reforged

• Changed reforged Dark Jewel to be in line with its default version

• Changed reforged Holy Jewel to be in line with its default version

• Changed reforged Nature Jewel to be in line with its default version

• Changed reforged Fire Jewel to be in line with its default version

• Changed reforged Cold Jewel to be in line with its default version

• Changed reforged Caltrops to be in line with its default version

• Removed smithing rates when the item can no longer be smithed

• Moved win rate history tracker to the run history screen

• Reduced base gold amount most enemies reward

• Increased effect of Red Candle and its reforge

• Increased effect of Blue Candle and its reforge

• Reworked Jester's Hat and its reforge

• Reformatted ability tooltip for readability

• Removed taunt charge limit

Fixes

• Fixed ability tooltip not adjusting correctly when you equip an item

• Fixed bug with damage animations sometimes skipping frames

• Fixed the bosses minions being resurrected with their old buffs and debuffs still applied

Hello Testers!

This update includes several changes to address the feedback I've received from you all. There is more to come as we approach Next Fest this Fall, and you can expect additional content shortly. Some of the changes in here will reflect a movement towards standardizing terminology in the game as well as expected interactions. The next patch will address this even more as I work to bring everything in line.

I want to say thank you again to every tester, your feedback is helping Pillar of Salt be the best I can make it. Please keep it coming!

Build 0.1.1 Patch Notes

New Additions

• Added a relic indicator to win screen to more easily reference what benefits that character is receiving

• Added Mac version of game

• Added WASD movement option for map. these keys are remappable in options

• Added enemy stat tooltips when moused over in battle

• Added 12 new relics

• Added demo run attempt and win counts to progress screen

• Added a run history screen. This will only record your completed runs (lost or won) from this patch on. restarting a run partway through won't record its stats

• Added damage shield, lifesteal, and manasteal stats to the AC and attack tooltips in the inventory

Changes

• Map point labels no longer show as you are dragging the camera around

• Potion is now mana-only and stacks

• Battle intros can now be sped up as well

• Updated icon for Djinn's Gift

• Updated icon for Potion

• Mob early melee damage buffed

• Nuke spell scaling buffed

• Reduced the sound levels of Acid Spit ability

• Slightly increased chance of shops, mystics, and blacksmiths spawning on map

• Base mana cost of all abilities reduced by 20%

• Base ability power of all instant spells increased by 20%

• Changed low health target system to look for target with most missing health first and then lowest overall if no target is hurt

• Lowered guaranteed bottom of mob ability resist calculation. This means ability damage will reliably get through for a bit more on everything

• Slightly increased weapon, offhand, and ring drop rates

Fixes

• Several typo corrections

• Saturnalia relic no longer reports "No Mana" when you try to cast something beneficial

• Fixed bug causing logo in main menu to stop moving

• Fixed speed control hotkeys not working until battle started

• Fixed some issues causing health bars to report out-of-sync with character's actual stats

• Fixed Jeweled Dirk incorrectly being blunt damage

• Fixed overlapping issue with losing screen

• Fixed issue of reforged relic not updating icon correctly

• Fixed several map pathing option errors

• Fixed recruitment box overlap issues in tavern

• Fixed a bug causing the mouse not to re-center correctly on certain resolutions

• Fixed bug where Paragon buff didn't always apply correctly for mobs

• Fixed multiple melee swings not applying effects each time (area attacks still only count as 1 swing for effect application).