Mega Crit has detailed the first major balance patch coming to Slay the Spire 2. This is being added to the game’s beta branch on Steam now, so it’ll have some testing before it rolls out for everyone.
As Mega Crit notes, this patch contains a “huge” balance pass, the main aim of which is to make ‘infinites’ harder to achieve. They’re a cheeky sort of thing. By cleverly stacking zero-cost cards with the right requirements, you can effectively keep playing a hand of cards that never ends. This obviously bends the game out of shape.
That’s the major area of concern, then, but there are also considerable tweaks to each of the game’s character classes – especially the newer ones, The Regent and Necrobinder – and there’s a Phobia mode being added to neutralise some of the more phobia-triggering enemies.
There’s some new art and some new visual effects on the way too, such as one seen when you earn energy. The full patch notes are below.
Slay the Spire 2 has enjoyed record-breaking launch success for a roguelike game, racing to 3m sales in a little over a week. This being an early access release also means there’s development still to do, notably on bringing new act variants to the game. Developer Mega Crit doesn’t want to commit to a roadmap but ensured these features will come.
- Changed Nibbit: now properly scales with Ascension
- Hiss move now scales from 2 -> 3 Strength on A9
- Slice move damage now scales from 6 -> 7 on A9
- Slice move Block now scales from 5 -> 6 on A8
- Nerfed Phantasmal Gardeners: HP decreased from 28(29)-32(33) -> 26(27)-31(32)
- Buffed Seapunk: Sea Kick move damage increased from 11(12) -> 11(13)
- Nerfed Terror Eel:
- Crash damage now scales from 17(19) -> 16(18)
- Thrash Vigor now scales from 7 -> 6
- Changed Test Subject: Phase 2 no longer has the Pounce move, instead will repeat Multi Claw move every turn
Ancients:
- Buffed Neow’s Fury card: the number of cards returned to your hand now upgrades from 2 -> 3
- Nerfed Neow’s Leafy Poultice relic: blessing’s max HP loss increased from 10 -> 12
- Nerfed Neow’s Precarious Shears relic: blessing’s self-damage increased from 13 -> 16
- Changed Tanx’s Tri-Boomerang relic: Instinct enchantment no longer reduces cost, instead doubles damage on enchanted Attacks
- Changed Vakuu’s Preserved Fog relic:
- Cards removed decreased from 5 -> 3
- Folly curse is now Ethereal
Events:
- Changed Dense Vegetation event: Trudge On option is now “Lose 8 HP. Gain 61-99 Gold.”
- Changed Endless Conveyor event:
- Can no longer spawn unless all players have at least 120 Gold (up from 105)
- “Grab off the Belt” option cost increased from 35 -> 40 Gold
- Changed Grave of the Forgotten event: can no longer spawn unless every player has a card with Exhaust in their deck
- Changed Morphic Grove event:
- Can no longer spawn unless all players have at least 2 transformable cards in their decks
- Group option now costs ALL of the player’s gold
- In multiplayer, is now a collaborative event
- Changed Spirit Grafter event: Rejection option is now “Lose 10 HP. Upgrade a card.”
- Changed The Round Tea Party event: can no longer spawn unless all players have at least 12 HP
Multiplayer:
- Nerfed Beacon of Hope card: can no longer be stacked
- Nerfed Believe in You card: Energy decreased from 3(4)-> 2(3)
- Nerfed Huddle Up card: now Exhausts
ART:
- Infection affliction card overlay is no longer animated when Phobia Mode is turned on
- Added alternate Phobia Mode visuals for:
- Hive backgrounds
- The Insatiable
- Phrog Parasite
- Wrigglers
- Terror Eel
- Entomancer
- Added portrait for the following cards:
- Gang Up
- Seeker Strike
- Spinner
- Volley
- Knockdown
- Lift
- Updated asset for Kifuda relic
- Added asset for No Energy Gain power
- Added animation for Ovicopter buff
- Added placeholder sketches for the following relics:
- Neow’s Talisman
- Hefty Tablet
USER INTERFACE & EXPERIENCE:
- Added Phobia Mode tickbox in the Settings
- You can now skip relics received at treasure chests
- Added disclaimers for Daily and Custom runs that you cannot unlock Epochs and Achievements with them anymore
- Added icon in top bar if player is unable to obtain epochs, achievements in a run
- Hovering over the character icon now explains if you cant get achievements or epochs
- Added a way to disable map drawings in multiplayer
- The invite button now uses a hotkey on controller instead of manual navigation
WRITING:
- Huddle Up card now says “ALL players” instead of “ALL allies”
- Improved wording clarity for Bombardment and Howl from Beyond cards
- The descriptions for Fairy in a Bottle potion and Lizard Tail relic now specify that they trigger specifically when you reach 0 HP, rather than when you die in any manner
- The Insatiable boss’s Sandpit power is now worded more clearly on the turn that it will eat you
LOCALIZATION:
- Updated translations for various languages
- Updated Korean text spacing to be a little bit closer
- The “Fight” message in multiplayer treasure room is now translatable
BUG FIXES:
General:
- Fixed rare Fatal Error when syncing Steam cloud saves
- Fixed rare bug where save could be reset
- Fixed exploit where players could controller navigate to card grid when the upgrade/remove/enchant/transform preview screen is open
- Fixed a crash that could occur when triggering the thin slice visual effect
- Fixed crashes related to screen transitions, logo animation, and creature deaths
- Fixed an issue when viewing the text of a card or power which has numerical values (damage, block, etc.) that have grown very large
- Fixed an issue where, if you saved and quit after winning a combat that rewards a predetermined relic, the relic reward would be randomized when continuing the run later
- Fixed an issue where, when a player would view their deck with “View Upgrades” enabled, changing the sort order would cause the screen to break
- Fixed softlock when card selection screen would show 0 options
- Fixed an issue with Call of the Void card’s hovertips when playing in Castilian Spanish
Regent
- The Regent’s character select screen now properly displays all constellations among the stars in the background
Defect:
- Fixed softlock when trying to transform Rip and Tear card
Ancients:
- Fixed card prompts auto-selecting without player input after a run with Vakuu’s Whispering Earring relic
- Fixed softlock when Vakuu’s Whispering Earring relic would auto-play Hand Trick card with 2+ eligible Skills
Events:
- Fixed missing Eternal hovertip when showing card preview for Greed curse in Sunken Treasury event
Multiplayer:
- Fixed a crash that could occur when rapidly retrying multiplayer joins
- Fixed a multiplayer sync issue that occurred when players used different OS languages
- Fixed a softlock that could occur when a player would die to Breakthrough card’s self-HP loss in multiplayer
- Fixed softlock at the end of the Architect event in multiplayer
- A proper error is now displayed when trying to accept a stale invite
- Fixed state divergence related to Imbued enchantment and Letter Opener relic
- Fixed state divergence related to Defect orb passives triggering during a player choice
- Fixed a multiplayer softlock caused by auto-playing a sequence of multiple cards (via Cascade card or another similar effect) and dying before the last card in the sequence has been played
