Upcoming Valour Rift Balance Patch
Upcoming Valour Rift Balance Patch
As previously mentioned in recent patch notes, the ability to retreat in the Rift Gauntlet Tower is temporarily disabled while we work on correcting an issue with the Valour Rift. Due to an oversight on our part, the ability to retreat in the Rift Gauntlet Tower greatly accelerated adventure completion and would lead to an extremely repetitive and tedious gameplay loop once reaching max upgrade levels.
We disabled the ability to retreat so early players in the area would not obtain rewards at a much quicker pace than players entering the area later. With retreat disabled, we could devote the needed attention to correcting the problem and focus on finding the best possible solution rather than a quick fix. Thanks for your patience while we worked on correcting this problem.
What We've Been Working On
We've taken an extensive look at the feedback and suggestions provided by players to work on how to best correct the issue. After summarizing various approaches and weighing the pros and cons, we playtested what we believe to be the best fix with a group of players. These changes are now ready to be applied. However, we'd like to detail the upcoming changes in advance to allow hunters to decide how they best want to approach the transition.
Summary of Upcoming October 28 Changes
Changes to Valour Rift will be applied on Monday, October 28 at approximately 3:00pm UTC.
- Will once again be able to retreat from the Rift Gauntlet Tower
- Gold cache values will be relative to steps taken, making them lower on floors 5-20 and higher on floors 21 and above
- Tower Secret cache values will be relative to steps taken, reducing Tower Secrets on lower floors (9-37) while increasing them on higher floors (38+)
- Tower Secrets will reach their maximum cache value of 300 on Floor 80
- Soldier of the Shade Mouse will drop up to three Tower Secrets
- Prestigious Adventurer mice will have a chance of dropping an additional Tower Secret
- Possessed Armaments mice will have a chance of dropping an additional Tower Secret
- All champion mice will have a chance of dropping an additional Tower Secret
- Fragments/Cores dropped by the Shade/Total Eclipse will be increased on higher floors
- Fragments/Cores dropped will increase by 2 per catch until Floor 80
- Fragments/Cores dropped will increase by 3 per catch starting on Floor 88 and higher
- Drop quantities will be: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, 37, 40, 43, 46, 49, 52, 55, 58, 61, 64
- Cost of Ultimate Umbra will be increased from 50 to 75 Fragments of the Eclipse to accommodate for the much higher drop rate of Fragments
- Level 4 Speed will cost 25 fewer Tower Secrets (75 instead of 100)
- Level 4 Sync will cost 25 fewer Tower Secrets (75 instead of 100)
- Level 3 Siphon will cost 25 fewer Tower Secrets (75 instead of 100)
- Level 6 Speed will cost 50 fewer Tower Secrets (250 instead of 300)
- Level 6 Sync will cost 50 fewer Tower Secrets (250 instead of 300)
- Note: The change in upgrade costs will be in order to keep roughly the same timeframe for unlocking upgrades. If you've already made these upgrades, you've done so while being able to collect a greater quantity of Tower Secrets on lower floors. Going forward, hunters new to the area will collect fewer Tower Secrets on lower floors which is why the cost is now lower and hunters that already upgraded did so in a way that is relative to the time it will take new hunters.
- Adding "Unstable Rift Core" to Valour General Store
- Requires a completed Codex of Valour
- Costs several Cores of the Eclipse
- When "poked", unstable cores will each reward Champion's Fire, various Rift Power Charms, various Essences (Aleth, Ber, or Magic Essence), and Gold
- The Codex of Valour description will be updated to mention its 5% Power Bonus while having a Rift trap equipped
Thanks once again for your patience and understanding while we worked on these fixes to help ensure the Valour Rift is as fun as it can be. We understand changes to content after its been released can be frustrating and confusing and we will strive to do our best to avoid these kinds of oversights going forward.
(w/ Special Guest Dave Vanderburg)
On a personal note, I want to apologize to both players as well as my teammates on the MouseHunt development team. Although the entire team is involved in gameplay design, final details and organizing playtests is my responsibility.
I've read all sorts of positive feedback on the amazing mice and HUD illustrations the art team put together, as well as the fun creative touches the interface team put into the heads-up display. I feel like I let players and my colleagues* down by not executing my part of the release as well as I know I'm capable of doing.
I'll use this mistake as inspiration to improve going forward and deliver the quality of releases that MouseHunters deserve.
*Editor's Note: You didn't let me down, Dave. You're my hero and my fearless leader. --Giorgio Sintichakis
Look forward to these updates on Monday, October 28!
