Dev Blog 2020: the nearest future

Hello, necromancers!

Iratus: Lord of the Dead has been in early access on Steam for over half a year. During this time, we have received a huge amount of feedback from our players. Thanks to all who shared their suggestions for improving the game, Iratus is getting better and better because of you!

In this dev blog we will start sharing our near-term plans and upcoming features.
 

The release, Pre-Patch and open beta testing.

As we said, we are planning to release the full version in the second quarter of 2020.
Now we have a large number of new functions and mechanics, so we decide to release Pre-Patch, which includes most of the planned changes (but NOT new content – that will be just in the full version of the game). There are a lot of new features, so we decided to switch to a new patch in two stages:

1. At the first stage, it will be an open beta test of all new mechanics. Anyone will be able to join the beta branch on Steam with the newest version of the game. Beta testing will begin in February — the exact date will be announced later. Instructions will be published on our Discord server (you can join it now):



2. After the beta testing will be over, a game update will be released for all our players.
Important: saves from old versions will not be compatible with the new version due to significant changes in mechanics. We’ll notify players about this beforehand. The patch date will be announced later.

So, what new mechanics are we introducing?
 

Iratus and minion experience

Gaining experience for Iratus and his minions will be much more flexible and intuitive.
How much experience is gained from the effect of an artifact or event will depend on the current level of Iratus and his minions, and even the level of the minion from the Grave will correlate with the level of the current squad. As you progress along the map, you will gain more experience from victories and find more powerful artifacts and minion items in Coffins, Chests and on Sacrificial Altar.
 

Minion Upgrading

The most significant new feature is a much more convenient system for upgrading minion characteristics. Many players don’t like the current part system:

• Random drop — the player is forced to roll the necessary bonuses. Some amount of randomness is certainly needed, but we want to give you the opportunity to more comfortably customize your minions without RNG influence.
• Part creation requires a lot of routine actions and a lot of clicks.
• Upgrading-with-parts system is not intuitive and too complicated for new players.
• The most popular strategy was to cumulate low-rarity parts until the moment when you can make a Legendary part from them. In our opinion, it will be much more pleasant for players to immediately receive any obvious increases to the minion characteristics, without the need to store resources.

We decided to give players a simple tool for configuring minion characteristics:

• As in the current version, minions will receive a different amount of experience for a victory, regardless of their actions in the battle.
  
  
   
• The maximum level of minions will not be limited. And the higher the level, the more experience points will be required to get the next one. A soft cap rather than a hard cap.
• Each time the minion levels up, the minions will receive Stat points. For Stat points, the player will be able to upgrade the available parameters of the minion of his choice.
  
  
   
• The current skill upgrade system will stay: for every three levels, the minion will receive a Skill Points (of course, we will change the upgrade bonuses for balance sake).
  
  
   
• Parts with quality higher than Common will no longer give random bonuses, but Stat points, which player will be able to custom configure in a user-friendly interface. We will remove the random and economically unprofitable ability to increase the rarity of parts in Alchemy: now you can gain them after the battle, as a reward for an event or on the Sacrificial Altar.

So in the new version, minions upgrading will be more convenient and smooth. You can customize the characteristics of minions according to your chosen strategy and playstyle.

Alchemy

Distillation instead of improving the rarity of the parts will provide an ability to restore the Vigor of all minions for parts and/or minion items — often an opportunity to refresh a squad after a hard battle can make a difference.
In Calcination, the amount of restored mana will no longer depend on the rarity of the parts used; and needless minion items can be converted here too.
All types of Alchemy will be available from the start — fewer bounds more freedom!

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the second part of the dev blog. Now you can discuss upcoming features in the comments and on Discord. See you soon!