Our most ambitious and content-rich update reimagines the core experience, bringing a version of MythForce that is maxed out, full power, bigger, bolder, and better than ever before!
Greetings, friends! Project Director Luke here.
Welcome to the absolutely massive overhaul of MythForce that is version 1.2. It’s a huge departure in many ways from the MythForce we launched back in 2023, almost a total re-imagining of the broader game.
We’ve gone over all of the feedback we’ve gotten from our launch into Early Access, then since launch, looking at what we’ve done right, and wrong, with each of our previous updates, to see what resonated and what didn’t, and the big pain points that still exist in the game today. We’ve thought long and hard about what we wanted the identity of the game to be, and decided that to make MythForce the game we truly want you to experience, it was going to require us to rethink the very soul of MythForce’s gameplay.
At its heart, MythForce is about adventuring with your friends through the Cursed Lands, slashing and bashing monsters, and getting stronger as you go. It should be a series of big, joyous moments, and you should always feel like you’re powerful.
Many of the Roguelite elements that we were leaning on weren’t really hitting the mark - there was certainly fun to be had in the randomness and chancing on the perfect run, but too much was left to rolls of the dice, and too little was truly in your hands to choose. We want you to “have the power” in MythForce, and that means a big shift away from powering up in the dungeon, instead turning the focus on gaining power through play, then crafting the build you truly will enjoy playing.
Though we still have plenty of randomness to keep you on your toes in the dungeon, 1.2 takes a big step back from “Roguelite” and much further into a more traditional co-op action game - We’ve turned our focus on giving you the ability power up and build out your hero to take on the challenges of the dungeon.
There isn’t nearly enough space in our patch notes to cover all of the changes made, so you’ll have to discover some for yourself, but here are the big headlines:
Metagame 3.0
In this reimagining of MythForce, we approached the metagame from a perspective of changing the previous “Spend currency to expand your possibility space” to “Level up and create your perfect build”
Character leveling
The main method of powering your character up over time in 1.2 is via leveling up your character. After each run in the dungeon, you will receive a certain amount of XP which will contribute to the level of the character. These levels unlock access to more powerful upgrades in each of the buildings in the Citadel, as well as giving you ability points to further customize your character in the Sun Disc (see below). For those players who joined us during Early Access, this may feel familiar as a greatly powered-up version of our pre-1.0 Rank system.
As your character’s level increases, the city will continue to be rebuilt (No more spending to upgrade buildings), and offer access to better services.
The Armory
The armory is now a place to customize your weapons. We’ve moved weapon enchantments out of the dungeon and into Sir Lucien’s capable hands. Choose your weapons and apply up to 4 powerful enchantments per weapon to take with you into the dungeon.
Weapons are no longer character-locked. Any character can carry any weapon.
Instead of specific weapon sets, loadouts are composed of a main and offhand slot.
You no longer unlock and upgrade enchantments to be found in the dungeon.
Enchantments are now applied to weapons inside the Armory.
Each weapon has a primary enchantment slot and up to 3 secondary slots.
Selected weapons in either loadout are separately enchantable.
The Library
The Library is largely unchanged in 1.2, but does include the addition of a 4th book: A Glossary of terms that will help you in understanding all of the various effects that you can encounter in MythForce. The Glossary is fully unlocked without collecting any lost pages in the dungeon.
The Sun Disc
The Sun Disc has seen the largest change in 1.2, as we have completely removed the concept of shards and slotting shards into constellations. Now, the Sun Disc is the place you go to power yourself up by spending points in your character’s skill trees.
Each character now has 3 distinct skill trees. Skill points are gained every level, which can be spent freely across all 3 trees, but points must be spent in each level of the tree to unlock access to the next step up toward the top of the tree.
Each tree also has 3 loadout slots that you can use to custom-build different builds for different playstyles.
As you level up, you also gain attribute points, which can be applied to Strength, Magic, or Toughness (Now encompassing both physical and magic defense).
The Emporium
Keaton offers a new service in loaning out trinkets for you to take with you into the dungeon! Now you can upgrade your amulets, bracers, boots, and charms in the emporium, then bring one of each with you into the dungeon. Beware, Redcaps can (and will!) still steal your gear, so watch out! Not to worry though, any stolen trinkets will be available for your next dungeon run.
A number of new trinkets have been added for each category, for a total of 15 each.
Glyphs can be spent in the emporium to permanently power up the trinkets you can take into the dungeon. Higher level upgrades are locked behind character level.
The Conclave
There are fewer perks in MythForce than there were previously, with many former perk offerings being rolled into the player Skill Trees, but a few new perks have been added, and upgrades to perks are now instantly applied when found in the dungeon, allowing for access to much greater power without having to stack multiple choices.
The Boutique
The Boutique remains the same as it was - use Glyphs to buy cosmetics, voice lines, and emotes that can be applied to your character to use in the dungeon.
New Encounter Objectives
The biggest change to the dungeon experience is in the addition of a number of new “Encounter Objective” types that flavor the way you interact with each room as you play. Now each time you enter a new room in the dungeon, you will be given an objective that must be completed in order to progress to the next room. Some of the objectives are as follows:
Defeat Enemies: The classic, simple combat experience. There will be a number of waves of enemies that spawn, and each must be defeated in order to move on.
Horde Mode: Once the entire party has gathered in the room, the forces of evil begin throwing everything they have at you. The horde will continue spawning until the timer expires. Upon defeating the remaining enemies after the timer expires, the exit will be unlocked.
Destroy the Crystals: There are a number of Power Crystals magically locking the exit of the room. All but one crystal at a time will be protected by a shield. Destroy each crystal in order, while defending yourself from waves of enemies, to move on.
Discharge the Relic: A large Relic powers a shield guarding the exit. Discharge it by staying in close proximity for some time while fighting a horde of enemies. After the Relic is discharged, defeat remaining enemies to unlock the exit.
Disable the Barrier: The exit is sealed with a powerful magical barrier. Fight through a horde of enemies, picking up the Soul Gems they drop. Fire the Soul Gems at the barrier to bring it down. Defeat remaining enemies to unlock the exit.
Protect the Artifact: Activate a mighty Artifact that can bring down the barrier around the exit. Protect it long enough from a horde of enemies to drop the barrier. Fail, and the Artifact will be reset and you will be forced to start again! Defeat remaining enemies to unlock the exit.
Slot the Medallions: 3 Stone Medallions have fallen out of their receptacles and are scattered throughout the room. Slot them into their receptacles while fighting off a horde of enemies to unlock the door mechanism. After all Stone Medallions have been slotted, defeat the remaining enemies to unlock the exit.
Destroy the jewels with Soul Gems: 3 blue soul jewels are located in the room. Fight through a horde of enemies, picking up the Soul Gems they drop. Destroy the Jewels by firing the Soul Gem at them. When all Jewels are destroyed, defeat the remaining enemies to unlock the exit.
Destroy the jewels in sequence: 3 green soul jewels are mounted on the wall in the room. Destroy them in sequence by attacking the highlighted jewel while fighting off a horde of enemies. Each jewel must be destroyed before the timer runs out or the sequence will be reset.
New Potions
We’ve added a variety of new potions that can be acquired in dungeons. These potions will confer one of our new buffs to the player for a fixed period of time: Invincible, Powerful, Recharge, Relentless, and Speedy. These potions only appear at the Merchant or at Gambling Shrines. Similar to Health Potions, these can spawn as Small/Medium/Large, with the buff duration increasing by quality. Note that the Bottomless trinket works with these new potions, but Bolstering and Overflow do not.
Buffs, Debuffs, and Keywords
All status effects are now associated with a number of specific keywords, each one covered in detail within the new Glossary, which can be found in the Library in the Citadel. These tags will make the effects of all of the abilities and effects in the game much clearer. Also, every effect has been clearly sorted into the category of Buffs and Debuffs which have their own dedicated space on the screen while adventuring. Some new keywords include (But are not limited to):
Bravado: Guarantees the next hit to be a crit.
Lethal: Lethal attacks instantly kill Non-Tough creatures and deal double damage against Tough creatures.
Tough: Only take double damage from Lethal attacks, and can’t be Knocked Back, Knocked Down, or Frozen.
Affinity: Having Affinity with an element causes you to be healed by it instead of damaged.
Weakened: Decreases damage output by the weakened creature.
Exposed: Guarantees that the next hit on the Exposed creature does Critical damage.
Damage Linked: A portion of the damage dealt to Damage Linked creatures is also dealt to other Damage Linked creatures.
You can peruse all 37 keywords and their effects in the Glossary!
Trinket Infusions
You will now find Infusion Orbs at the Merchant that will give you the option to add stats to your equipped Trinkets. These increases are small but cumulative for the duration of the dungeon. They do not persist after the run is finished. The bonuses on a particular trinket will be related to the Trinket’s type: attack related bonuses for Amulets, defense related bonuses for Bracers, and speed related bonuses for Boots. Charms cannot be infused. The bonuses are tied to the Trinket that was infused, so watch out for those Redcaps!
Elemental Combos
Now elemental effects can be combined to create powerful magical explosions, affecting all enemies nearby. When an enemy is afflicted with Burning, Chilled, or Electrified, then applying one of the other elemental effects causes an AoE explosion causing elemental damage and applying a debuff:
Burning + Chilled = Weakened
Burning + Electrified = Exposed
Chilled + Electrified = Damage Linked
Mystic Forges
We’ve changed how Mystic Forges appear in your dungeon runs. Instead of alternating between forges and Skill Shrines, now they can occasionally appear randomly in dungeon rooms while exploring. They will always provide 4 choices - 1 per weapon, per loadout, or 2 for a 2-handed weapon (i.e. if you have a sword and shield, you will get 1 sword enchantment, 1 shield enchantment, or 2 enchantments for a bow). The Enchantment shrine will grant from the pool of all secondary enchantments available.
Difficulty
We’ve added Mythics 4 - 7! So please enjoy pushing your character builds to the limit. Additionally, on the Difficulty Selection screen a crown icon is now displayed beside each difficulty you've completed per-adventure.
Note: this uses stats that were not tracked prior to this change, so it won't know if your save file had beat difficulties in a previous build of the game
General Improvements, Changes, & QoL Fixes
Did a consistency pass on strings where we now refer to either "buffs" or "debuffs", as well as "elemental debuffs" or "non-elemental debuffs". We don't use the term "status effect" anymore.
We have added “Uncommon” as a distinct tier across all weapons, trinkets, and perks.
Added new icons to the dungeon depth progress bar to show special rooms (Treasure icon for Treasure/Merchant, skull icon for Lieutenant/Boss/Setpiece).
Rerolls can now be used freely up to the limit per-run, instead of one reroll per shrine.
Trap damage now scales against enemies, making them always viable against enemies, even in high difficulty and late-game.
In all Mythic difficulties, all monsters that can appear in the chapter will be able to spawn in any episode in that chapter at any depth. Creature rosters will still progress more gradually in Easy~Hard difficulty.
Added button to "Claim All" quests.
Added new Maggie's Research entries to the Scrapbook.
UI
A number of improvements to the in-game HUD
Re-organized and simplified the display of buffs and debuffs in the HUD to make it easier to understand the state of your character during gameplay.
UI Navigation with controller has been improved and stabilized.
Enemy types
Champion enemies will no longer spawn in Chapter 1 on Easy or Normal difficulty.
Previous “Filler” enemies like Redcaps are now part of the regular creature roster, so they can spawn as part of enemy waves, instead of only at the beginning of a room. Only Potstickers are now “fixed spawn” enemies.
Bug Fixes
You can check out our MythForce blog for a list of some of the most “visible” items updated and fixed in 1.2 here: https://www.beamdog.com/news/mythforce-12-patch-notes/
Note that the list there is long, 27-pages (!) long, and it also covers all of the fixes and changes that were made to PC versions of MythForce prior to 1.2. These changes are all finally coming to console versions in 1.2.4.0 today (the Switch patch is still in testing with Nintendo though)!
