Doomed Mode: First Wave & More!

Hey there, heroes!

This week, Doomed Mode has been updated, and a bunch of changes have been made to Book 1's early game!

Doomed Mode's first wave of changes has arrived, and... it's a lot!

First, let's go over the goals for Doomed Mode.

In designing Doomed Mode, we wanted to add a way to play the game that made it a bit more engaging and thoughtful. At the same time, we didn't want to make it too annoying or minigame-y. That said, length of time required to win wasn't a concern. With DragonFable's turn-based nature, naturally, just increasing damage and HP values inherently increases the interactivity you have with enemies. We had a couple of new characters that we playtested with Doomed Mode from the start of the game, and while it did take longer, and we did have to retry fights, (or in my case even grind out a level), it ended up pretty fun for us. Doomed Mode isn't about pressing one button and winning (Although Chaosweaver might still be able to do that), it's about navigating each fight and interacting with your skills in a meaningful way.

So, on to the changes! Doomed Mode now does the following:

• Gives enemies 10% + 1%/level more base damage. At level 90, enemies will do 2x damage, at level 1, enemies will do 11% more damage.
• Increases enemy HP between 1.9x to 2.1x, with a bias toward 2x.
• Removes external guests, i.e. guests that are not automatically added by quests. You can no longer bring in extra guests to quests to add as additional damage sources or tanks. Swapping to Doomed Mode mid-quest will remove external guests on the spot.
• Enemies will receive a random trait effect based on their element.
  • There is a generic trait pool shared by all elements that elemental traits are then added to.
  • There is also a group enemy trait pool that can be drawn from when there are multiple neemies in a fight. Group traits cannot be applied to the "first" enemy in a fight.
• Enemies will receive a random trait effect based on their enemy type.
  • There is a generic trait pool shared by all enemy types that type traits are then added to.
• Stuns applied to enemies will be limited to 1 turn duration. (Stuns applied to the player still have full duration).
• Enemies will drop 3x gold as a reward!
• Arena at the Edge of Time enemies have static 2x HP and 2x damage, and do not get any random traits (for now???)

If you forget all this, there's a handy new info box next to Doomed Mode in the options screen.

There are a lot of different traits! Some buff the enemy, some debuff the player, and some of them are more dangerous than others! Failure might happen, or you might get a bad roll on traits, but that's okay. That said, we did our best to tone down any that proved excessive or oppressive. Still, the majority of the traits implemented are fairly simple, and may not pose an issue for well geared or high level characters. This makes sense, as naturally, once you reach endgame, you're significantly more powerful than when you're starting. And something that might make things slightly more difficult for a high level character might make things impossible for a low level character. We also tried to avoid making any effects that were too weird or annoyingly in your face... but I have a lot of ideas for traits that could be pretty wacky, if feedback leans towards wanting that (For example, one trait that was not implemented would give an enemy +50 Boost every 3rd turn). Use EVERYTHING to your advantage to come out on top of the challenges ahead! Of course, if you want, you can still always toggle Doomed Mode mid-quest if you find clearing out quests too slow and just want it for bosses, or however else you'd like to tackle things!

Feedback is important here. Please let us know what kinds of effects or traits you might like to see! Remember, this isn't just about max level fully geared characters, though.

Speaking of which, alongside our Doomed Mode playthroughs, we decided to refine a lot of things in Book 1!

Starting with... Base Class changes!

• Warrior's Mana Strike has been replaced with a new skill: Momentum Swing
  • 1 hit x 100% damage, 9 turn CD
  • Self: +20 Boost/Bonus for 3 turns
• Rogue's Mind Numb has been replaced with a new skill: Flashing Blades
  • 4 hits x25% damage, 5 turn CD
  • Target: (On-hit) -20 Boost/Bonus for 4 turns
  • Can only be used when Stealthed.
• Mage's Mana Blackout has been replaced with a new skill: Overcharge
  • 5 hits x 45% damage (225%), 9 turn cd
  • Uses the element of the used elemental skill.
  • Requires using Fireball, Ice Strike, Wind Strike, and Lightning at least once each before each use.
• Warrior's Wound attack damage increased to 100% up from 50%.
• Rogue's Throw damage increased to 175% up from 150%
• Rogue's Surprise Attack now has +30 Bonus.
• Mage's Fireball combo damage reduced to 200% down from 250%, cooldown decreased to 3, from 4.
• Mage's Meditate MP recovery reduced to 15% down from 35%
• Mage's Acid damage increased to 100% up from 50%.

Next up, a number of shop items have been moved around or adjusted to improve access to proper elemental weapons before Undead Assault and Wrath of Xan.

• Chillfury has been adjusted and moved to Serenity's shop.
• Earth Breaker has been renamed to Glacier Breaker, adjusted, and moved to Serenity's Shop.
• Frozen Kris has been adjusted.
• Glorious Dawn Blade has been adjusted.
• Hunting Knife has been adjusted and moved to Serenity's Shop.
• Mooncalling Staff has been adjusted and moved to Serenity's Shop.

More early game changes:

• The levels of a lot of early game drops have been reduced by one (Adventurer's Spear through Extra Long Lucky Sock). 
• Drakath 1 and Gananana now have simple rotations.
• Boggabus and Stone Head have had their HP halved and damage doubled.
• The Spidermancer now increses its DoT stacks by 1 every time it hits, rather than per turn. Damage and scaling have been adjusted accordingly.
• Spidermancer's Immobility res increased to 100, Nature res decreased to 0.
• The Cave Creeper in Arachanattack now has a rotation.
• Added a Heal/Potions button to Sir Vey.
• Fixed a graphical issue if you lost or fled from Hydrahok.
• Pet Twilly now has Heal as a manual pet action, and heals 5% every four turns on a rotation when not manually controlled.
• Sir Ano has been re-nerfed after his art update.
• Enemies in general now have about a 5% variance in HP up or down. While we don't foresee this being an issue, this may change based on feedback.
• And on a completley different note, the second PvN war has been added to Ol'Raspy's tales in Book 3 Osprey Cove.

It was a lot! However, it gave Dove time to work on things, and Dracelix was able to relax a little! We want to keep refining the early game and Doomed Mode, so please let us know what you want to see!

I definitely suggest trying a new character if the changes to Doomed Mode sound interesting! (Everything up to The Hatching has been confirmed beatable with each base class without DoomKnight items or armor, overleveling, grinding, or too many rerolls!)

Also this week, we have some new seasonal cosmetics available!

The mysterious Rhubarb's Dread Helm and Cloak are now available from the Sunken Pirate Seasonal shop for 300 DCs each! Wherever could these strange relics have come from?

Other September seasonal shops have also returned! Check them out in the Book of Lore!

And that's all for this week! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Doomed Mode! I honestly enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would given the relatively simple traits. To me, figuring out which enemy to prioritize in group battles, or even just figuring out how you want to combo an enemy to lose the least amount of HP or MP possible is juuuuust enough thinking to be interesting while not being oppressive. Misses and blocks and crits are all part of the game— a lot of the boss battle victories were nail-biters, and it was better for it! (Even if this isn't received well, I also figured out a lot of new tricks to do with effects for the future... :D)

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