Beneath the Nexus: Closed Testing 2 Begins!

Hey all! This devlog is a quickie. Closed Testing is up! A lot has changed since the last testing phase, so I’ll copy over the Patch Notes from our Discord. If you aren’t already there, stop in and say hi @ https://playbtn.com/discord!

Progression

• Completely rework Realms so that content is grouped by difficulty
• Massively adjust the strength of Basic Items to make space for Runes/Skill Tree
• Stat Fruit drops are now common (even in Easy/Medium biomes)
• New accounts start with four character slots so that they can play one of each root class
• Began work on Legendary and Primal items, and the role they should play in routine gameplay

Content

• Darkest Depths (Hard rank) dungeon
• Gate to the Underworld (Hard rank) dungeon – 40% done but playable
• Collapsed Woods (Medium rank) biome – 30% done but playable
• Shrouded Sanctum (Medium rank) biome – 30% done but playable
• Riverside Refuge (Medium rank) biome – 30% done but playable
• Tomb of Decaying Death (Medium rank) biome – 30% done but playable
• Sacrificial Grounds (Medium rank) biome – 30% done but playable
• Flaming Hearth (Medium rank) biome – 25% done but playable
• A LOT of Heroic, Legendary, and Primal items

Gameplay Systems

• Lasers now signal their attacks and fulfill their intended role in boss fights
• Shielding (HP buffer) on players, used in some items and effects
• Oxygen/air bubble system (used in Darkest Depths)
• Legendary effect system (more info below)
• Primal effect system, (more info below)
• Runes – Cores and Masterworks (more info below)
• Defense damage mitigation now capped at 90%
• Fruit Stand to store excess stat Fruit
• Vault system to store items between characters

Runes and Skill Tree

• Skill Tree system (as previewed in devlog) now available. Equip Rune Cores to unlock Masterwork slots, and equip Masterworks to use skill points (gained per level)
• Skill Tree stats are now based on Fruit stats
• Added a LOT of Core Runes (Glass Cannon, Mana Hunger, Adrenaline Rush, Soul Siphon… and many more)
• Added a LOT of Masterwork Runes (Celestial Drift, Perfectionist, Inner Peace, Magic Buildup… and many more)
• 30+ Runes to collect

Legendary Items

• Legendary items drop with a randomly selected Legendary Effect
• Effects include:
  • Final Stand (90% done)
  • Angel’s Touch (50% done)
  • Lion’s Shout (10% done)
  • Nexus Blessing (90% done)
  • Setback (75% done)
  • Retaliation (90% done)
• Added a LOT of legendary items (Absolute Authority, Phantom’s Bane, The Amalgamate, Gjallarhorn, Aegis of War, Anubis’s Ankh, Optic Occlusion, Aegishjalmarr, Asgardian Aegis, Sagacity… 50+ items)

Primal Items

• Primal effect system written to support completely insane effects
• Added a LOT of primal items (Sun’s Devastation, Draupner, Absolute Authority, The Encephalon, Hela’s Power, Hel’s Massacre, Cursed Heart… 20+ items)

HUD

• Completely broke the HUD in preparation for something new.
• We eventually want the HUD to take up less screen real-estate, so parts of the HUD are now toggle-able (alpha).

Style

• Lighting system completely overhauled (will work better once HUD is fixed)
• Lasers are now pretty, and more clearly signal/communicate what they are going to do
• Updated in-game branding

Music

• Asgard music in Midgard, the Observatory/Bifrost, and Loki
• Nexus music polished with higher quality instruments

Technical Systems

• New stat prediction system that allows client lag to be smoothly reconciled with the server
• Rework sprite rendering, fixes frame-rate issues in certain object-dense areas (Asgard Thor fight, Gate to the Underworld Fire Lakes)
• Proper interserver messaging
• Loot Notifier and Death Notifier (wip)

Bugfixes

• Make empty biome bug occur less frequently (still occurs though)
• Fix runes completely breaking Attack scaling
• Fix desync caused by treating all projectiles as Abilities
• Fix issue with invisible tiles in Realms
• Fix miscellaneous issues, and make new issues

Check back here in 15 minutes—we’ll be dropping some keys! We’re still fixing things, but as things stabilize, we’ll likely give away a lot more testing keys. Until then, thank you so much for reading our devlogs. We’re getting there!

Edit: Here are the keys!

Use at https://playbtn.com/. Good luck!