New skill effects
- Fire, smoke and embers. Skill rings are now waves of real fire and dark smoke instead of rings of glowing beads.
- Blood Wind throws blood and grit instead of red blocks.
- Blood splashes, bubbles, mist and flying stone chips are real particle effects, and enemy casts, spits, telegraph edges and loot beams have new effects too.
- This is the first pass. The effects keep getting sharper and heavier in the coming patches.
Skills and Oaths
- Fourteen Oaths now work. Blood Rush, Sundering Blow, Shield Bash, War Cry, Grave Stance, Reaping Circle and Blood Moon Roar could be sworn but did nothing. All fourteen now do exactly what their text says.
- Berserk's ranks and Oaths work. Ranks II and III lengthen Berserk, Red Tide adds 3 seconds, and Crushing Fury stuns what your knockback hits.
- Ranks count everywhere. Grave Stance, Bitter Draught, Hold the Line and Headsman's Mercy now grow with their rank.
- Blows land when they look like they land. Sundering Blow, Marrow Break and Shield Bash deal their damage on the visible strike, and Ashen Ward starts cutting when the axe is planted.
- Attack sparks on impact. The flash and sparks of a swing now appear when the blow connects, not when it starts. A miss makes only a whoosh.
- Headsman's Mercy executes bosses below 10% health instead of 20%.
- Reaping Circle always strikes five times, Ashen Ward stops burning when you fall, and Blood Moon Roar no longer erases your Red Sight seconds.
- War Cry slows bosses instead of sending them running.
- Crushing Fury's stun can't lock the same enemy again for a moment, and no longer shouts STUNNED on every hit.
- Bone Wall now gives +30% armour in Grave Stance, and Harvest adds up to 2 extra seconds to a Reaping Circle.
- Eight skill tooltips corrected to match what the skills really do.
A buff bar
- See what is running. A row above the skill bar shows your active buffs with the time left, debuffs such as venom and webs in red, and your passives, which light up while they are working.
- Hover any of them to see its current bonuses.
Loot and gold
- Gold grows with the danger. Monsters and chests pay more gold the higher their level, and forge prices rise with an item's level, so gear costs about the same amount of play at every stage.
- Changing an Oath, healing and cleansing now scale with your level, never below their old prices.
- Cheaper stash tabs: 1,500, 6,000, 15,000 and 30,000 gold. Tabs you already bought stay yours.
- Bleed on hit works with Bleeder's Cut. Gear bleed was ignored once you knew Bleeder's Cut. Now every 1% of bleed chance adds 1% to the skill's bleed damage.
- Real gear on the ground. Dropped helms, chests, gloves, boots and belts show the actual piece instead of a plain shape.
- Easier to read item text. Tooltips, the forge and the character sheet use larger, heavier type with clear line spacing, and long lines wrap inside the card.
The Broken Fortress
- Every door opens. Walls stood in several doorways on every depth, which blocked the treasure room, sealed off rooms and left elites nobody could reach. All of them are cleared.
- The stairs always open. A monster stuck where no hero can reach it no longer keeps the way down sealed.
- Every depth has been checked end to end: all rooms, chests, levers and monsters can be reached, and each stair leads down to solid floor.
World and look
- Ashenmoor is paved in dark gravel inside the town wall instead of meadow grass.
- New trees. The pines and dead trees of the Starting Lands are rebuilt in far more detail.
- Sharper text. Text is drawn on whole pixels and never below a readable size, so it stays crisp at 1080p and on lower resolutions.
- A heavier grade. Deeper shadows, warmer highlights and a touch of bloom on fire and light.
- Weightier hits. Heavy blows, crits and kills pause for a heartbeat and flash the struck spot.
- Bosses now warn of their big attacks with a red telegraph instead of the elite purple.
- Spiders face you when they bite.
- Quest givers go back to standing still when you close a conversation instead of wandering off.
Known Issues
- Grass and rocks outside the town still have their old look; new rocks are on their way.
- The hero's walk is still the old one; a heavier walk is on its way.