Hello miners,
This patch is big and offers a lot of changes all over the game to improve the experience. I want to speak a bit about the major ones and explain why those changes felt mandatory before I could move on to important additions.
The biggest change here concerns the mining phase: previously no matter the order in which you used your pickaxe to mark block, the dwarf would handle the mining order himself. In most cases, that was completely fine: he would mine closer blocks first. But some problems could rise depending on specific situations:
if you had the Dynamite Relic and/or the Bomb Storage Building, since those effects are happening after the last block is dug (and by extension the last area the effect could trigger).
There were also some situations where the dwarf could choose to dig a Mushroom first and this effect would send the dwarf to an area where you already choose to dig, resulting in a net lose of pickaxes for the day.
Both cases felt really bad for players, especially those who love optimizing. In this patch, I changed how the dwarf is handling the order of blocks. It now respects the order in which you marked blocks, making mining easier to predict.
Another big addition of this patch is the Codex, available from the main menu. You'll be able to get all the information for heroes, buildings, relics, the different types of blocks, enemies and the synergies available in the game. It's also a good way to see what's left to unlock in each category through quests. This is "in-game wiki" will be expanded in future updates with more categories (like Boss and Weather) and improvements.
Several players asked me to add the possibility to make different perk loadout, this patch adds 3 different loadout. Because I had to make several architectural code changes, the perks have been reset: you’ll need to reassign your unlocked perk points again after this update.
Another thing I wanted to mention concerns the overall grind of Mithril Shard that unlock perk points. Since the meta progression release few months ago, I've tried to reduce the grind required to unlock all points and make it more interesting. But I discovered a bug two weeks ago that made the mine generation locking the mithril shard spawn after a certain amount is set. That was not intended and this patch fix the issue. It should make the grind less painful and reward players for properly exploring the mine.
This update also includes several small additions, balancing changes and bug fixes that should improve your game experience. I hope you'll like it!
Patch Highlights
Mining Order
Codex
Perks Alternative Loadout
Several Hero buffs
New Gems & Variants
Extra Settings (incl. Default Game Speed)
Many Bug Fixes (incl. Shard Spawning in the Mine)
Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters
Only a small portion of players leave a review, so if you like the game, please consider leaving one at it is a major way to help Hold The Mine. I've been reading through all your reviews, it helps me shaping and refining the game to make it the best it can be. Your support is important!
Patch Notes - Early Access Version 0.8.0
Addition
The miner now respects the order of the marked block. A number near each mark has been added to help keep track and predict the order of the mining.
Added the possibility to create up to 3 different perk loadouts. Keep in mind you’ll need to attribute your perk points again after this update. The button "Reset Perks" now only reset the current loadout.
Added a Codex Panel accessible from the Main Menu where you can see all the information on Heroes, Buildings, Relics, Synergies, Enemies and Blocks. I plan to further expand the codex with Weathers, Random Events and Bosses in the near future.
Added an extra setting allowing you to choose the default game speed at which future runs will start. The game speed can still be changed during the run, only the one saved in the setting will be used as the default one on new run start.
Added an extra setting allowing you to completely skip the run introduction sequence.
Added a brand new gem, allowing the equipped hero to apply Curse with basic attacks.
Added several variants of existing gems with increased effects.
Balancing
Increased significantly the amount of Mithril Shards down the mine for players that are not at max level.
Increased Catalysis (Alchemist Power) extra damage per stack of poison on the enemy from 1 to 2.
Increased Sparks (Wizard Power) amount of potential target from 1 to an infinite number of enemies closed to the initial target.
Increased Chaos Bolt (Cursed Apostle Power) range to travel and deal damage to an entire side.
Reduced significantly the range affecting the spawn rate of enemies during a night, making each individual night more consistent and predictable.
Increased Noxious Cauldron (Building) damage from 10 to 20 and construction cost from 5 to 7.
Removed the hidden limit of Alchemist Workshop (Building) effect, preventing it to add more than one stack of Poison when an attack or effect would apply multiple stacks in a single trigger. Increased construction cost from 5 to 7.
Reduced Sealed Sewer (Building) amount of extra damage per stack of poison from 3 to 2.
Increased Minefield (Engineer Power) damage from 10 to 15 but reduced knockback from 3 to 2.
Decreased Lightning Rod (Astrologer Power) periodic cooldown from 9 to 8 seconds.
Other Changes
The game now saves your setting and quest progression more regularly.
Added an extra security check to prevent any enemy from hitting the door more than once.
Visual of the Settings Panel has been changed.
Removed the text “Survive!” when the battle starts.
Reduced slightly the size of the battle timer.
Clicking on a hero at the surface to open the hero panel is now possible (only outside of battle).
Icon for the button on the top right corner of the screen that allows players to see buildings constructed and blueprints found has been updated.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where the same enemy could hit the door multiple times in case of performance issues.
Fixed an issue preventing Mithril Shards to appear in the mine after a small amount of related blocks has been generated.
Fixed an issue allowing the blocks burnt by the Boss Dragon to still have the Lucky Digger particles active, making the nature of those blocks easy to guess despite the boss effect.
Fixed an issue where moving the cursor quickly near a hero could prevent the stats and range to be properly displayed.
Fixed an issue where the first time the cursor is hovering an element the tooltip would not show properly.
Fixed some issues in the Japanese language with several title texts that were hard to read.
Fixed several issues affecting texts in the UI depending on the chosen language.
Fixed an issue affecting some building effects like Bomb Workshop and Windmaker.
Fixed an issue making some texts overflow in the settings panel in some languages.
Fixed an issue preventing duplicated types of gems to appear in the shop.
Fixed an issue where the small indicator nearby the Dwarf Perks button on the main menu would not show up in some cases even when you have an unspent point.
What's Next? Mid Save Run!
Now this patch is out, the next big thing coming into the game is a proper Mid Save Run system, allowing players to continue from where they were in the middle of a run. This is currently my main focus, I know this is something the community has been asking for a very long time so rest assure this time it's the next new thing that will be released in Hold The Mine.
After that? Well, I cannot share more details yet but there is a lot of cool stuff coming into the game in the coming months including the Conquest Mode and a lot of new content. Keep an eye out, we'll have new exciting announcements really soon.
Join the Hold The Mine Community
Come be part of the Hold The Mine community. Join us on Discord (link) to share your thoughts, talk with other players, share your tips and see what others are building underground. You can also find updates and discussions on Reddit (link).
