Dark Envoy: Director's Cut - guns n' sorcery RTwP RPG by Tower of Time developer

[Lacrymas]

They can identify it however they wish.

 

[Tyranicon]

They're going backwards, unfortunately.

 

[Infinitron]

I think the Director's Cut is out:



https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/945770/view/4181106571620949301

Patch 4 - 14.05.2024
Version:
1.4.0.73319
download size
: 23,1 GB

Highlights

• Reworked tutorial. Characters will no longer split up for the first part of the game, allowing for more seamless co-op play from the first minutes of the game. NOTE: Due to multiple changes to the flow in the early part of the game, saves made on the very first location will not be compatible with the new version. All other saves from further points in the game should be fully compatible. If you encounter any issues, please inform us using the in-game Report Issue function.
• Rebalanced and updated combat encounters throughout the game and a general overhaul of player skills, items and even the tech tree. Our focus was to increase the variance in valid player options instead of nerfing the builds that were performing extremely well. As such, the changes mostly include buffs to the most overlooked items and upgrades, including a considerable boost to 2-handed weapons and melee options. There was, however, slight nerf to the most powerful combinations but we expect them to still perform well despite the changes (looking at you, dual pistols with chaos damage enchantment and maxed out Crit Chance). Detailed overview of balance changes can be found here:
  [LINK]
• Recut and improved dialogues with high emphasis on improving the overall pacing, especially at the beginning of the game.
• 4 new cinematics throughout the game, including a brand new intro.
• 18 new unique items including custom handcrafted Boss drops, granting distinctive new weapon skills. Ever wanted to be able to throw explosive rats like a certain Rodent Monarch or summon Manaless out of enemy corpses? Now’s your chance!
• 2 new minibosses: Imperial Elite Assassin and League Winter’s Breath. Both may now appear on any random dungeon with the corresponding faction, further increasing their variance.
• New cutscenes as well general improvement and polish on the existing ones.
• Added a highly requested UX feature: clicking on the map will now move the camera to the designated point.
• Reworked Rex bossfight for increased clarity in boss mechanics and smoother experience.
• Upgraded world map: it now has an additional layer, showing the geographical names and borders of various regions for some extra lore and greater immersion. In addition, previously visited locations will remain visible (although grayed out, to be easily distinguishable), showing a map of your previous voyages.

Other changes

• Added tutorial pop-ups explaining each side objective as they appear for the first time - either in the main game or in random dungeons.
• New 20 level challenge awaits in the challenge arena - complete with a unique reward.
• Polished audio, with high focus on UI and player abilities. New audio events for many interactable objects.
• Respecialization Trainer got his own custom icon. He certainly deserved one!
• Skill cooldowns will now immediately reset on combat end. No more sitting around, waiting for this juicy ultimate to be available again.
• Further improvements to lighting and level art on both quest locations and random dungeons.
• More dynamic cameras in select dialogue scenes, overall cutscene and dialogues polish.
• Fixed issues with healing fountains occasionally bugging out and not healing the user despite having additional charges.
• Most skills effects will now automatically disappear as soon as a cutscene starts. No more firewalls and summoned trees blocking the view.
• Mining deposits received new looks based on the resource they grant.
• A “select all” button was added over the leftmost character portrait.
• Added an option to hide all tutorials. It can be turned on and off at will in the settings.
• Forgotten Altar side objective will now reset on each game load, making it harder to brute force it with a save/load tactic.
• Increased responsiveness on enemy units and fixed an AI issue that occasionally caused them to get stuck in-between actions.
• Ancient Generator side objective will now correctly count down on the timer at the top of the screen, as indicated by the player goal.
• Enemy tooltips will now correctly appear when the currently selected character is armed with a prism.
• Crafting menu will now display a “Craft Item” button instead of “Precraft Item” for Normal rarity items that do not need to be precrafted.
• Invisible units will no longer immediately exit combat.
• Solved numerous small graphical issues on enemy and summon units and their abilities.
• Multiple fixes to desync issues and other co-op specific bugs.
• Fixed waypoint interactions on gamepad.
• The Challenge Arena will no longer misleadingly inform the player that they would not be able to return if they leave. In fact, they are welcome to!
• Fixed an issue with HP bars occasionally not updating correctly.
• Fixed an issue that occasionally could have caused the controls to glitch upon changing the keybindings.
• Fixed a potential blocker in the Faction Meeting quest.
• Numerous other fixes, corrections and slight upgrades throughout the whole game.

 

[lukaszek]

I think the Director's Cut is out:

director cut after what... 0.5y after the release?

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/945770/view/4181106571619336295

Director's Cut is Live! The letter to our community.
Patch 1.4, also known as Dark Envoy Director's Cut, is available now along with the new trailer!

Dear Community, Players, Warriors, Sorcerers
We want to share an enormous thank you! We’re releasing Dark Envoy: Director’s Cut using each and every comment, report, and piece of feedback you’ve shared with us over the last six months.

Summary of most important Changes:

• Less shy about connections with Tower of Time universe, new main meta level voiced narration
• Major narrative changes, reworked main cutscenes, some VO reworked, creating a completely different experience, especially during the first few hours of the game.
• Balancing, polishing then reworking again, then repeating the process
• Improved Jaan map and unique boss items
• further optimization and QoL improvements

And we fixed one major sinister memory leak bug that made us all so miserable!

Instead of pushing the marketing for Dark Envoy, we gave this game 6 months of pure love and improvements. We’re still not done, but want to share this news with you.

If you’ve enjoyed your time with Dark Envoy, please leave us a review and share your thoughts with your fellow players! Tell your friends, sister, neighbor and maybe a hamster or two; HELP OUR LITTLE INDIE STUDIO COMPETE FOR VISIBILITY in this harsh AAA market.

Brutally honest one, but dire straits tend to create the best anecdotes.

The Director’s Cut update is coming, along with a 40% off Steam Daily Deal starting from Wednesday, May 15th, 2024, which will last for a week.

It was thanks to your immense support and belief in out team that we've managed to complete this enhanced version. We deeply appreciate your ongoing collaboration with us on this world that we love so dearly. We are committed to making this game as perfect as it can be.

Great THANK YOU from all 13 of us!

Dark Envoy Team

Full Patch Note:

Version: 1.4.0.73319 download size: 23,1 GB

Highlights

• Reworked tutorial. Characters will no longer split up for the first part of the game, allowing for more seamless co-op play from the first minutes of the game. NOTE: Due to multiple changes to the flow in the early part of the game, saves made on the very first location will not be compatible with the new version. All other saves from further points in the game should be fully compatible. If you encounter any issues, please inform us using the in-game Report Issue function.
• Rebalanced and updated combat encounters throughout the game and a general overhaul of player skills, items and even the tech tree. Our focus was to increase the variance in valid player options instead of nerfing the builds that were performing extremely well. As such, the changes mostly include buffs to the most overlooked items and upgrades, including a considerable boost to 2-handed weapons and melee options. There was, however, slight nerf to the most powerful combinations but we expect them to still perform well despite the changes (looking at you, dual pistols with chaos damage enchantment and maxed out Crit Chance). Detailed overview of balance changes can be found here:
  [LINK]
• Recut and improved dialogues with high emphasis on improving the overall pacing, especially at the beginning of the game.
• 4 new cinematics throughout the game, including a brand new intro.
• 18 new unique items including custom handcrafted Boss drops, granting distinctive new weapon skills. Ever wanted to be able to throw explosive rats like a certain Rodent Monarch or summon Manaless out of enemy corpses? Now’s your chance!
• 2 new minibosses: Imperial Elite Assassin and League Winter’s Breath. Both may now appear on any random dungeon with the corresponding faction, further increasing their variance.
• New cutscenes as well general improvement and polish on the existing ones.
• Added a highly requested UX feature: clicking on the map will now move the camera to the designated point.
• Reworked Rex bossfight for increased clarity in boss mechanics and smoother experience.
• Upgraded world map: it now has an additional layer, showing the geographical names and borders of various regions for some extra lore and greater immersion. In addition, previously visited locations will remain visible (although grayed out, to be easily distinguishable), showing a map of your previous voyages.

Other changes

• Added tutorial pop-ups explaining each side objective as they appear for the first time - either in the main game or in random dungeons.
• New 20 level challenge awaits in the challenge arena - complete with a unique reward.
• Polished audio, with high focus on UI and player abilities. New audio events for many interactable objects.
• Respecialization Trainer got his own custom icon. He certainly deserved one!
• Skill cooldowns will now immediately reset on combat end. No more sitting around, waiting for this juicy ultimate to be available again.
• Further improvements to lighting and level art on both quest locations and random dungeons.
• More dynamic cameras in select dialogue scenes, overall cutscene and dialogues polish.
• Fixed issues with healing fountains occasionally bugging out and not healing the user despite having additional charges.
• Most skills effects will now automatically disappear as soon as a cutscene starts. No more firewalls and summoned trees blocking the view.
• Mining deposits received new looks based on the resource they grant.
• A “select all” button was added over the leftmost character portrait.
• Added an option to hide all tutorials. It can be turned on and off at will in the settings.
• Forgotten Altar side objective will now reset on each game load, making it harder to brute force it with a save/load tactic.
• Increased responsiveness on enemy units and fixed an AI issue that occasionally caused them to get stuck in-between actions.
• Ancient Generator side objective will now correctly count down on the timer at the top of the screen, as indicated by the player goal.
• Enemy tooltips will now correctly appear when the currently selected character is armed with a prism.
• Crafting menu will now display a “Craft Item” button instead of “Precraft Item” for Normal rarity items that do not need to be precrafted.
• Invisible units will no longer immediately exit combat.
• Solved numerous small graphical issues on enemy and summon units and their abilities.
• Multiple fixes to desync issues and other co-op specific bugs.
• Fixed waypoint interactions on gamepad.
• The Challenge Arena will no longer misleadingly inform the player that they would not be able to return if they leave. In fact, they are welcome to!
• Fixed an issue with HP bars occasionally not updating correctly.
• Fixed an issue that occasionally could have caused the controls to glitch upon changing the keybindings.
• Fixed a potential blocker in the Faction Meeting quest.
• Numerous other fixes, corrections and slight upgrades throughout the whole game.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I think the Director's Cut is out:

director cut after what... 0.5y after the release?

They made huge changes after the release, it was a sneaky early access/beta release in disguise.

 

[Lacrymas]

Is the game even good? It's real time, so that's automatically points off.

 

[toro]

On Hard difficulty level I've tried 3 different combinations of min-max and I could not clear the second map. I've spent like 4 hours banging my head against the wall.

I simply could not win because my party's damage output was shit therefore the only way to clean the second map was to trigger some shock turrets ... but I could not because it takes time to guide the mobs near the turrets and there are reinforcements.

Theoretically the fight should be winnable but in practice is very hard to get the absolute right combination of elements. This is garbage encounters design.

I decided to check steam forum to validate my frustration and it looks like they fucked up.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/945770/discussions/0/4337607287058295507/

Massive post-patch difficulty spike?

I started a new playthrough with the new patch, going for a Warrior/Engineer combo for a solid melee+CC core team. I figured with the melee buffs, this would be good.

A few missions in and I don't know what is going on. I had to lower the difficulty all the way from Insane to Normal for the random dungeons in the early game and I still can't finish them.

I get dungeons with bosses like Envoy (ca 2-3k hp, 3 shots my Warrior), the new Imperial Assassin (chain-silences my party, so only auto-attacks for me) and objectives like "protect the generator" against 10-15 ancients at a time, with the healbots and Overseers swarming me.

I finished the game on insane pre-patch and now Normal is kicking my ass. Am I crazy or did the game get a massive difficulty spike for the early game?

Don't get me wrong, the mid to end game needed increased difficulty, but the early game seems extremely brutal now, beyond the line I would consider reasonable.

The answer from the dev:

Also, I can already confirm that there is a rare bug that makes some random dungeons at the beginning a little difficult. We will try to fix it as soon as possible with the next hotfix.

This is peak retardation.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Ooooof

 

[toro]

Ooooof

They rebalanced all fights for a full party but you only have 2 characters in the beginning therefore you cannot win all fights during the first maps.

Please oooofff more.

 

[lukaszek]

introducing party is always a mistake