EARLY ACCESS 0.82.1 - Ascend to Champion and fixes.

Hello everyone!

Sending a new patch with content I have been preparing and expected to launch later this week, but since it fixes the performance issues and the duplicate saves , I am sending it now.

It includes new content with the new Ascend to Champion option.

I hope you like it! There are also new advanced tactics and UI improvements that we have been testing in the closed beta branch.

Thank you!

Ascend to Champion

Ascend existing fighters into Champions and teach them compatible abilities from other classes.

Cross-class ability slots unlock with fighter level and replace regular ability slots.

Added Champions’ Vault capacity upgrades, ability reselection and the option to relinquish the title.

AI clubs can also ascend fighters as the campaign progresses.

Ascended fighters are allowed in Challenge Tower, sharing its one-Champion limit with regular Champions.

Abilities Codex

Added the full catalogue of 720 abilities under Intel - Codex - Abilities.

Includes search, family filters, rarity borders and full hover details with expandable calculations.

Advanced Tactics

Added Minimum allies requirements for area support and expanded Minimum enemies settings.

Added per-ability Open with it, Save it and Emergency only timing.

Added Heal below thresholds and Combo starter / Finisher only roles.

Improved tactical tooltips, translated options and Legacy panel readability.

Save fixes

Fixed saves drifting from your chosen slot into Slot 2, Slot 3 and so on. After using Continue, submitting a team to the Chaos Tower could create a new save slot even though your campaign already had one. Quicksaves would then keep creating more slots.

Quicksave now overwrites your campaign's most recent save instead of opening a new slot.

Performance

Optimized repeated rendering work across several VFX abilities that caused stuttering.

Reduced repeated geometry creation, temporary allocations and rendering buffer work.

Optimized high-HP health bars, cooldown queries, support evaluation, targeting and duplicate AI range checks.

Campaign & Loans

Reduced Form loss by 50% in Season 1 and 25% in Season 2, returning to normal from Season 3.

Medic discounts now also apply to Form recovery.

Improved campaign RNG persistence so reloading or browsing menus does not reroll campaign outcomes.

Redesigned loan lists with comparison tables, class and level filters, sorting, stats and ability previews.

Added estimated demand by loan duration, with rejection explanations.

AI clubs now prioritize their strongest eligible surplus fighters when listing loans.

Combat & Balance

Hellforged, Crucible: now pulls enemies into close range and stuns for 0.6 seconds. Base damage increased from 18 → 30.

Hellforged, Passive nova: damage increased from 22 → 30; mana-paid spells now trigger it too.

Lam: Trail Mend healing reduced by 30%, including healing received by Dorian. Starting Power reduced from 10 → 9.

Fixed Doomfall consuming mana and cooldown without producing a Titan when multiple Warlocks competed for summon capacity.

Fixed Oxifall’s two-slot reservation and Titan recall at full capacity.

Fixed Shift opening the regular pause menu instead of tactical pause.

Updated Manta Illusions and Induction Cage visuals. Interface

Added FighterCard previews to chest reveals and reward summaries.

Reorganized the roster’s right-click menu into clearer sections.

Improved season award layouts with winner sprites, aligned columns and MVP emphasis.

Updated Market, Loans, Academy and Club section headings.

Centered fighter-picker labels and made Academy substitute columns adapt to the available width.

Expanded Gold and Renown icon usage and fixed the tournament registration Gold icon.

Removed multicolored shiny panel borders and cycling names while preserving shiny sprites and VFX.

Appearance

Expanded clothing, hairstyles and color options for Thunderclaw, Bullbreaker, Archmage, Cleric, Swordmaster, Rogue, Bowman and Reaper.