Playtest polish: sharper spells, fairer nights

After the events update we sat down and played Ignisfall for many nights in a row, writing down everything that looked wrong, felt unfair or got in the way. This update is that list, worked through.

Five skills, redrawn

Some skills did their job but did not look the part. We redrew them from scratch. Their numbers did not change: same damage, same reach, same icons. Only how they look changed (and, for the totems, how they sound).

Cinder Ray is now a braid of fire that ignites from your hand, coils and scorches the ground where it sweeps. Its Awakening, Solar Brand, is a golden lance that ends in a white-gold flare of sunfire.
Grave Lanterns swing on their chains and leave a trail of soulfire. When one hits, the monster burns violet and its soul flies up into the lantern. (Their Awakening, Wraith Choir, was already a favourite and stays as it was.)
Reaper's Crescent is a real scythe swing now: the blade sweeps the arc and each monster is cut the moment it passes. Harvest Moon swings twin moonlit scythes under a full moon.
Iron Snare is a proper bear trap: toothed jaws, a chain and a stake. You can see who it caught, because an iron chain and a shackle hold each one until the chain breaks. Iron Maiden raises a gilded cage of spikes that closes in.
Thunder Totem is a carved storm post crowned by a thunderbird, driven into the ground by a bolt. Tempest Spire raises black iron obelisks, and the walls between them are an electric fence.

Monsters strike when they hit

Many monsters used to reach you and just stand there while you took damage. Now every melee monster has its own strike: goblins stab, orcs chop with a cleaver, reed stalkers stab with their beaks, brood toads snap their tongues, and the Bone Colossus slams down its sarcophagus lid. The strike lands at the moment the hit does, so you can see where the damage came from.

Archers that aim

The Goblin Slinger and the Bone Archer missed almost every shot. Now their aim line follows you and locks a quarter of a second before they fire, and the line flares when it locks. Stand still and you will be hit; sidestep when the line flares and you dodge. The Slinger's coals also fly faster.

A new Eclipse

The old Eclipse turned the Ashen Wilds into violet mud. The new one is told on the land: a shadow sweeps across the ground, the land goes cold and dim while its embers, braziers and candles keep glowing, and at totality a small dark sun sits at the top of the screen. When it ends, the shadow slides away and the light comes back behind it. With Reduce Motion on, it simply fades.

A clearer health bar

The bar over your hunter is new: a framed blood-red bar with no text (the health orb keeps the numbers). A hit leaves a bright chip that drains away, a heal pours in, a blood shield shows as gold, and the bar glows red on the heartbeat when your health is low. A new setting, Gameplay > Combat > Hero Health Bar, lets you keep it always on, show it only when you are hurt, or turn it off.

Balance

Fewer chests at the start. A map now starts with 8 chests instead of 20, none of them right next to you: you find them by exploring. Boss, elite and event chests are unchanged.
The first event comes early. The first event of a run now arrives at around 2:00, so every night starts to change sooner.
No boss twice in a row. You meet every boss a land can send before any of them comes back.
Relics for every build. Relics no longer belong to a school: every 5 relics add 1 point to every Resonance, whatever you are building. Glacier Heart now shatters an enemy below 12% health under any status effect. The four strongest relics were toned down a little: Power Crystal +12% damage, Berserker Ring +20% attack speed, Assassin's Dagger +40% critical damage, Hexed Idol +15% damage.
The Frostbound Sentinel's Frost Nova now starts at level 3.

The Armory and achievements

The Armory, retuned. Every line was reviewed. Swiftness now gives +3% movement speed per rank and is the most expensive line, Greed gives +5% gold per rank over 4 ranks, and the other lines give a little less or cost more. Filling the whole Armory now takes much longer, and the first rank is still within reach after your first run.
No more refunds. A rank you buy is yours for good.
Achievements, redesigned. One strong first run used to unlock eighteen of them at once. Now it unlocks two. There are 36 achievements, built around goals that take more than one night: lifetime milestones, the bosses of each land, feats at higher Embers, the endless night, a challenge won and a full collection of events, bosses, relics and Awakenings.

Also fixed

The health orb never shows more health than your maximum.
The skill bar's tooltip no longer shows up broken the first time you hover a skill, and windows no longer change size when you hover or click their buttons.

Thank you for playing along. See you in the dark, and keep the fire lit.