A new set of rainbow cards is now yours to break the game. A long overdue rework of neglected perks is finally here. Key balancing tweaks will help us make overlooked builds more competitive. Exploits were identified and removed from multiplayer. And of course, QoL, performance improvements, and bug fixes are also in order as always, thanks to your support and constant feedback. We hope you have fun with patch 30!
Update 0.9.6:
Perk rework
In this patch, we're tweaking several perks. Besides buffing some neglected perks, we also replaced some effects so they'd synergize with the card's effects in more interesting ways. Perks like Arcane and Sorcerous, for example, now interact with the Wizard and Warlord's passive abilities instead of just adding mindless 10% initial stat buffs.
NEW:
Trashy (Progress): Adds +1 Trash card to your hand every time a Recycler is destroyed. Note: this perk is replacing "Bellicist", which was a Precision-related perk.
Benevolent (Nothing): Gives you +1 Wildcard every Rainbow Army battle. Note: this perk is replacing "Berserk", which was a generic/redundant perk (Swift) when a Wildcard perk was missing.
Thorough (Universal): Get +1 random card from your king in year 33.
Resilient (Universal): Start with +1 life.
Elevated (Universal): All summons start +10% stronger.
Authoritarian (Rainbow/Multiplayer): The top left regular perk is always x3. No more, no less.
Vigilant (Multiplayer): Starts with +2 years of protection.
Moderate (Multiplayer): All universal perks are now x2. No more, no less. (It's back!)
BIG REWORK:
Blighted (Blood): When a Cemetery is placed, adds +1 Pile of Bones to your hand.
Hunter (Stone): Trapper's traps now stun +50% longer.
Arcane (Spells): Wizards gain +1% damage for every Enchantment it bears.
Sorcerous (Spells): Warlocks gain +1% HP for every Tome used.
Rebellious (Nomads): Mobs plots now get +1 unit every year.
Reptilian (Nomads): Dragon Den now gets +3% buff every destruction effect.
Explosive (Blood): Bombers now start with +3 units.
Toxic (Nature): poison ticks are now +10% faster.
Exiler (Time): it now allow Bastion to warp troops +1 time.
BUFFS:
Brutal (Time): ALL your troops now start with +1 Adrenaline stack.
Gardener (Nature): it now gives Orchards +1 per plot level.
Eldritch (Spells): it now gives Shamans +20% damage (instead of +10%).
Electric (Spells): Static deals +3 damage (instead of +1).
Farsighted (Nothing): it now gives Archers +50% range distance (instead of +20%).
Jurassic (Nomads): it now gives Raptors +20% damage (instead of +10%).
Diabolical (Blood): Pagoda can now summon +9 Ghosts (instead of +3).
Elven (Nature): it now gives Elves +20% damage (instead of +10%).
Destructive (Time): it now gives Orbiters +50% damage (instead of +20%).
Wrathful (All): troops now start with +10% damage (instead of +5%).
Rainbow cards!
We had a massive problem up until today: our current number of rainbow cards was not a multiple of 9. Now, we finally have a total of 27 unique rainbow cards to make the game more diverse than ever. As always, we tried to fill in gaps of different card types with ideas that we always wanted to explore but that couldn't really fit a base deck. We hope you have fun exploring all of them.
Dwarf (Troop): Moves to an adjacent plot every year, including locked plots. Gains 50% to all stats every time it unlocks a new plot.
Codex (Building): Gives back a copy of any Tome card used on it and then self-destructs. Gives +1 copy per level.
Warehouse (Building): Effects of adjacent support buildings are applied +1 time per level.
Surge (Tome): Triggers the effect of target support building 9 times. (i.e. it will trigger 27 stacks of the effect of a level 3 Blacksmith. If you have Overwork, that'd make it 36)
Extraction (Tome): Destroy target plot and adds 5 copies of it to your hand.
Precision (Enchantment): Target's first hit deals +100% damage per stack. Yes, Precision is making a comeback as a Rainbow card with a new effect!
Rainbow decrees!
Besides the perks and cards, we're also introducing three new rainbow decrees.
Rare Goods: Every shop always has one rainbow card to sell.
Havoc: Gives you a random destruction card every time you destroy a plot.
Rebound: Whenever you get to 0 gold, gets 99 gold.
Rainbow & Chaos Compendium
You can now view Rainbow and Chaos cards you've used before in the Compendium screen. But only those you've used before. Catch 'em all to complete your compendium!
Regional Rankings
You can now check out how you compare to your neighbors in the multiplayer regional rankings!
Year 99 flow
This is a small tweak, but it was long due and deserves a quick note: you probably already noticed that there's no novelty in a run after year 99. That's because year 99 is the true ending of the game, while the intended experience was always meant to be 33 years. You also never got any EXP after year 99. So now we made some tweaks to make this information clear: once you beat year 99, you're hit with the result screen, where you get a final victory screen and can see your actual performance. You can still choose to keep playing after that for as long as you like, but the disclaimer is now much more straightforward. To be clear: game design was not changed at all with this updated, we just updated the messaging. Expect cooler victory animations in 1.0!
Balancing
Trapper's traps now stun enemies in battle! And its duration increases per level. This made the card much more satisfying and will enable interesting synergies with builds that require stalling. Trappers now also have 5 units to make traps more scalable. We've been having a lot of fun with this rework and we're confident THIS might finally be the ultimate trapper version.
Demon Altar damage gained upon units deaths was doubled. All level up buffs when an Altar is leveled up were also increased. NOTE: Demon Altar buff calculation is now transparent: instead of showing +0.5% of the Demon's original base damage, it now shows a +0.1 raw buff. While the initial number you see might feel lower, this is actually a big buff to Demons.
Pagodas can now summon Ghosts considerably faster.
Placing a Pile of Bones next to a Cemetery will create an actual skeleton troop inheriting the Cemetery stats (with 9 units per level of the Cemetery).
Overwork now works with Vault.
Beacons now work continuously in all situations as intended.
Enemy troops are now much better spread across Walls.
Imps now gain +100% damage on level up. They no longer gain HP.
Castle attack speed was slightly increased and damage slightly decreased.
Manglers now also gain an HP boost when leveling up.
Manglers can now receive Shield cards.
Flametower now attacks enemy Walls properly.
Poison Vial now gives troops 3 poison stacks instead of 1.
Over-invest is now triggered twice when used on a Golem as intended.
Explorer decree now works properly with Razing.
Fixed an exploitable glitch that allowed players to get multiple cards from a loot event.
Fixed an exploitable glitch that gave you bonus gold when buying cards with a full hand.
Fixed an exploitable glitch that allowed Vaults to level up more than intended when combined with Overhaul and Speculation.
Slaughterhouse quest: Manglers now start a bit stronger.
Necropolis quest: you now start with one extra Sacrifice card.
QoL
Perk pagination: as soon as you have 18+ perks, your perks will be split by type (you can navigate through them using the arrows on the left)
Stun now has a dedicated stat on tooltips of troops with that effect (i.e. Trappers and Orchards)
Stunned troops now display a visual FX
Heavily improved game performance with high troop counts.
Heavily improved Reinforce performance.
Havoc and Bootcamp decrees now have a cool Rainbow shader.
Improved plot unlocking FX
Card types are now highlighted on descriptions.
Improved decree navigation responsiveness.
Added controller glyphs to tutorial screen.
Several Steamdeck display improvements
Controller: Return button now works on all screens.
Controller: Added return button shortcuts on several screens
Controller: You can now view plot stats on preview mode.
Controller: Improved world map navigation in Quest Mode.
Camp and Recycler now have dedicated SFXs.
Dragon's Den is now just called Dragon Den.
Fixes
Created a safeguard to prevent the frozen projectiles glitch on the battlefield.
Fixed a bug that caused enemies to freeze when fighting invisible Warpers.
Added extra safeguards to prevent the occasional Ghost Boar/Raptor bug.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to softlock when using Portals with Dismantling decree.
When you Transmutate a troop adjacent to a Cemetery it now becomes a Imp (instead of a Skeleton) as intended.
Fixed the number display on Mortgage when using Smuggler perk.
Fixed Adrenaline display math: it now shows 1% again as intended.
Fixed Diversification display math: it now shows the correct number of bonus cards.
Converter's tooltip now displays its beam count.
Catharsis, Transmutation, and Randomfy now works properly with high troop counts.
Fixed a rare soft lock when triggering the Expansion event after you have all plots unlocked.
Updated Converter spawns in "Infertility" quest.
Removed the "Champion" lettering glitching when you progress to endless mode.
Fixed a glitch that caused the hourglass icon to stay in the UI after Migrating Ogres.
Wall animation will no longer re-trigger when something levels up.
Fixed Perk screen color code in the pause menu.
Several controller UI glitches were fixed.
Removed cursor when playing with a controller on all occasions.
Hotfixes (0.9.6.1)
- Codex properly gives you a Broken Codex card when you Clone/Earthwork it.
- Rewind properly gives you a Bone Pile instead of a Skeleton card.
- Fixed the slow Vault gold pop-up.
- Fixed the Poison Vial stacking numbers.
- Improved transition UI screen delays.
- Fix a glitch when spamming buttons during the end screen.
- Fixed a couple of controller navigation glitches.
- Fixed a game breaking glitch in a Turkish decree caused by a broken character.
Hotfixes (0.9.6.2)
- Fixed a French localization number display
- Witchcraft decree no longer wrongly duplicates Migrated troop's enchantments.
- Improved pop-up speed for high level buildings.
- Fixed pop-up delays when using Surge on high level buildings.
Hotfixes (0.9.6.3/0.9.6.4)
- Pillage now synergizes with Migration and Extraction.
- Pillage now properly synergizes with Dragon Den.
- Fixed some unintended Codex exploits.
- Fixed a notation bug in German numbers.
- Fixed in-game life display with new extra life perk.
After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]
Coming Next
We're moving full speed ahead, and our eyes are locked on the 1.0 release. New decrees, perks, blessings, more polishing, and the Joker game mode await. Make sure to keep sharing your feedback :)
Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters
We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. Please continue sharing your thoughts, so we can know to focus on for each upcoming patch and make 9 Kings the best game it can be. It's really important to us!
Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team Love, Sad Socket team
