[Demo] Patch Notes — v1.0.3801

Weapon skills

Every weapon now has three skills of its own. Z plays to the weapon's strength, X covers its weak spot, and C is its ultimate, on a long wait. Fighting with a weapon fills its mastery as your level fills, and every mastery level is a point to spend on that weapon's skills in the new WEAPONS tab of SKILLS. Z opens at mastery 1, X at 10 and C at 25, and each has an upgrade with three ranks. Mastery stays when you ascend, but it does not grow in WILD HUNT, DAILY RIFT or CASCADE.

In a run, press a skill's key, or let AUTO CAST fire it when there is work for it. Hover a skill on the WEAPONS tab to watch it go off. The nine shared skills stay as they were, on the COMMON tab.

Each weapon's skills, in Z, X, C order:

• SWORD: CRESCENT, GUARDBREAK, FINAL CUT
• SCYTHE: DEATH KNELL, SOUL REND, GRIM CIRCLE
• WHIP: CRACKSHOT, COIL, SERPENT
• FLAIL: WRECKING BALL, ANCHOR, COMET
• TWIN DAGGERS: QUICKSILVER, FAN OF KNIVES, THOUSAND CUTS
• SPEAR: IMPALE, BROADHEAD, SPIKE FIELD
• GREATSWORD: CRUSH, OVERHEAD, JUDGMENT
• CHAKRAM: SPLIT RING, SAWBLADE, RING STORM
• HOOK: HARPOON, GAFF, GALLOWS
• WARHAMMER: AFTERSHOCK, BONEBREAKER, TREMOR

CASCADE

A new mode for 1 to 24 players, under RUN beside DAILY RIFT. Everyone fights on one field, each on a floor of their own with their own build. The host's floor is in the middle, where the Heart stands, and the other floors are laid round it, ring by ring. Whatever you let through walks on into the floor nearer the middle, and from there to the Heart. If the Heart breaks, everyone loses. Clear the goal stage and your floor holds; when every floor holds, the table wins.

• Play SOLO WITH BOTS, host a table on Steam for your friends, or host one on your local network. The host picks the tier and the goal stage (10, 30, 50 or 100) and can fill empty seats with bots.
• Zoom out to watch the floors round yours, or hold TAB for a map of the whole field (the map's key can be moved on THE KEYS page). On the outer floors a pointer shows where the Heart lies, and monsters coming from a neighbour are marked at the edge they walk in at.
• There is no stage clock, and the table waits for nobody: an awakening picks itself after 10 seconds, and a pause hands your blade to AUTO-CUT. Alone with bots, a pause stops the whole table.
• When a table on Steam or your network ends, the host can deal SAME TABLE AGAIN with every seat kept, and each player comes BACK TO THE TABLE from their end page.
• Nothing a CASCADE earns is kept, and your saved run is left as it was.

New

Isometric view

Flip the brass coin under the zoom pill, or press V, to play the fight from an isometric angle. The field blinks shut and opens on the turned view. Only the camera changes: the fight plays exactly as before. The same choice is in SETTINGS > SCREEN > VIEW, V can be rebound on THE KEYS page, and a one-time guide points the coin out from stage 3 on.

Look around

Zoomed in, hold an arrow key while your hand rests to slide the view across the floor, faster with Shift. A mark at the floor's edge points back at your sword, and moving the mouse brings the view back to it.

Burning Path

BURNING PATH now burns as slim flames that lean off your swing on a ribbon of light, instead of a wall of campfires.

More

• Weapon sounds: every weapon now lands with its own hit sound. The sword rings when it cuts a body dead centre, a thrown chakram's ting climbs the scale as it cuts, and a warhammer's slam crunches louder the more it catches.
• AUTO-CUT key: the tutorial draws the AUTO-CUT key (SPACE) as a key cap, and reminds you of it the first time you take the blade back from AUTO-CUT on a later stage.
• Wishlist: the title and pause screens have an ADD TO WISHLIST button, and the demo now also asks when your first run ends.

Changes

• Tutorial text no longer follows the cursor. The AUTO-CUT reminder settles under the AUTO-CUT switch, and HANDS OFF holds still while your hand works.
• The ascension page shows only the tier your melt pays on. A melt pays on its best tier alone, and the old list read like a sum.
• The game's name stays in English in every language.
• Saves are crash-safe: a crash while saving can no longer wipe your record, and a damaged save file falls back to the last good copy.
• If your record is held off the leaderboards for review, RANKS says so and lets you APPEAL. A copy too old for the server is asked to restart Steam to update.

Performance

• The desktop game is over 150 MB smaller on disk and holds less memory while it plays.
• Big hordes hitch less: kills, crits, lightning and slashes no longer churn memory every frame.
• The title opens about half a second sooner.
• Cloud saves sync in one request when only this PC has played.

Fixes

• Long sessions no longer leak a little memory on every stage.