Valerion
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Alpha Version 1.0.23

Android 18 · iOS 23 Latest

Changes since the previous build (Android 17 / iOS 22).

This one is big too. Quests and realms are now full-screen fights that advance wave by wave. Bosses are creatures of their own realms. The Dungeon and the Territories map were redrawn. Fights can run at 2× and 4×. The second skill paths opened. The inventory and the Skill Tree merged into a new Character tab. The heavy stutter in the dungeon on Android is gone. The part we need most is “What we would like you to look at” at the very end.

Quests and realms are a fight now

  • A quest is no longer a timer. Starting one puts you straight into a full-screen fight. Your hero runs forward, cuts down skeletons wave by wave, and at the end fights a creature boss. The top of the screen says which wave you are on. If you lose, it tells you which wave you fell in.
  • The wardens in the realms are fought the same way: the skeleton waves first, then the warden itself.
  • Quests now cost lives. You have 5 lives and one comes back every hour. For Lightbearer subscribers it is 10 lives, 2 an hour. When lives run out you can enter a quest with Valor Stones.
  • Lives, dungeon and realm energy share the same lightning readout. It shows the number and when the next one arrives. When it is full it does not say “full”, it just shows the number.
  • The quest boss got a little easier. On four-wave quests the boss was a wall.

Combat

  • Every fight can be played at 1×, 2× or 4×. The speed button sits next to AUTO. 4× is open to Lightbearer subscribers only; when locked it shows a padlock. The speed you choose carries into later fights.
  • The “your turn” label is gone. A glowing ring shows whose turn it is, and the ring on the portrait shows the time left.
  • The second paths opened: Juggernaut for the Warrior, Frost for the Mage. Stun, freeze, chill, demoralise and guard effects entered combat, and Ice Barrier (which strikes back when broken), Unbreakable, Shield Slam and Shatter came with them.
  • Mana Shield changed: it takes half of each blow for between 3 and 7 blows, and costs no mana.
  • The plain strike is always ready. It has its own slot on the battle screen. The Mage’s plain strike is now a spark of magic.
  • A skill point every level now (it was one every five). The Warrior gains 15 Energy at the start of each of their turns.
  • AUTO now follows the Loadout order. It continues from the slot after the last skill used; if the skill whose turn it is cannot be afforded, it saves up for it. A move you pick by hand also advances the order.
  • The first fork of the Frost path changed: Frostbolt or Deep Freeze. Ice Barrier moved to the second fork. If that change left you with a skill outside the tree, its point was returned to you.
  • Fights take place in six different realms: ice, volcano, scorched lands, ruins, darkwood and the bone realm. A realm warden is fought in its own region, a dungeon floor in its own biome, and a quest in the realm its name suggests.
  • Every boss is a creature now. Each one is one of the fourteen, and its portrait stands against the background of its own realm. Dungeon bosses are these creatures too; the old thousand dungeon portraits were removed.
  • Losing brings up a “how do I get stronger” card. The card suggests, in order: an unspent skill point, a skill not placed in the Loadout, upgrading an item at the Blacksmith, a flask, new gear. Each suggestion opens the place it belongs to.
  • Your power shows green when you drink a flask. On your own screens (Character and the home screen) flask-boosted power appears green. The bottle of the flask you drank sits next to the number it affects. Rankings and matchmaking continue to use your permanent power.

The dungeon was redrawn

  • The thousand-floor tower is one painted map. Each of the ten biomes has its own ground, doors, dens, thickets, grasses and a path worn by footsteps. The biomes blend into each other at their borders. The ground never repeats itself anywhere. The numbered steps grew by half.
  • Smooth on Android. In the previous build the dungeon stuttered badly, especially when scrolling into new regions, and the game’s memory climbed to 2.5 GB. The cause was the shadow under every rock and tree being recalculated on every frame. The dungeon now runs at roughly 60 frames a second on a Redmi Note 8 Pro and memory stays around 730 MB. The picture is the same.
  • Going from the dungeon to the realms and back into the dungeon crashed the game; that is fixed.

The Territories map

  • The map is drawn like the village: panning, zooming and motion are as smooth as they are there. Six regions laid out two by three. Each region has its icon in the middle and the dens of its three wardens around it.
  • Touching a den or its medallion opens only that warden’s page. Touching the region icon or the ground opens all three wardens together.
  • The map draws less while it sits still. An idle map was dropping frames when the phone got hot; it no longer does.

New: the Character tab

  • The inventory and the Skill Tree are one tab, second in the bottom bar. At the top there are the Inventory and Growth sections. Inventory holds Bag and Mounts; Growth holds the Skills, Loadout, Attributes and Feats pages. The tab opens where you last left it.
  • The red dot: it appears on the Character tab, on the section and on the page when new gear drops into the bag or when you have an unspent skill or attribute point.
  • The Inventory and Skill Tree buttons on the home screen were removed. The home tab’s icon is the village now. Only the selected tab’s name is written in the bottom bar.
  • On iPhone the app crashed going from the Loadout to Attributes; that is fixed.
  • Free attribute points land as fast as you can tap. Taps that arrive mid-stream are no longer lost. When your free points run out, extra taps no longer spend gold by accident: no attribute is bought with gold for one second.
  • The multi-attribute window now sits above the keyboard.
  • An attribute you do not use (Strength on a Mage’s ring, say) simply shows grey. The “Mages do not use this” line under it was removed, because it read as though you could not use the item.
  • The attributes next to the hero now sit 16 pt above the weapon slot on every screen.
  • Some common helmets and gauntlets were drawn on the champion differently from the item in the slot; fixed.

The top bar is the same on every tab

  • Home, Character, Merchant, Battle and Adventure now use the same top bar. On the left is your player strip: your face, your name, your level and your experience bar. On the right, the gold and Valor Stone readouts. Touch the strip and your profile opens. The Guild keeps using its own bar.
  • The experience you win from a fight shows immediately on whichever tab you return to.
  • The profile and mail buttons on Merchant, Battle and Adventure were removed. You reach your letters from the mail post in the village. The unread-letter dot is there too.

The home screen and the village

  • The Social button on the home screen was removed. The mail post in the village opens Social.
  • While the Delve is working, the time left shows under the Delve’s name plate. When it ends, it says “Shift Complete”. Touching the plate opens the Delve.
  • If a building with a red dot is off screen, an arrow pointing to it appears at the edge of the map. Touch the arrow and the camera slides to the building.
  • The power icon on the home screen is now the flexed arm used everywhere else (it was a sword). The shield’s remaining time sits next to the shield too.

The Battle screen

  • Rankings are now the fourth tab of the Battle screen: Attack, History, Market, Rankings. The rankings button on the home screen was removed. There is a single selector in Rankings: PvP, PvE, Guilds. The tabs and the search stay at the top however far you scroll the list.
  • When an Arena season ends, the first time you open the game you are shown once how you finished the season: your rank, your score, your wins and losses, and your reward.
  • The protection card on the History tab now draws the shield itself.

Guild and Social

  • The Lightbearer mark now shows next to subscribers’ names in guild chat, in the guild member list and in the rankings.
  • The guild war screen now opens immediately, with a back button. It sometimes stayed on a black screen before. Members without permission to start a war no longer see the DECLARE WAR button.
  • In the window that opens when you touch a guild member, “Remove friend” is now below the safe options.
  • The sender filter in the mailbox (All / Valerion Team / Players) was removed; search still finds by sender. The search field and the selectors in Social are now comfortable to read over the background.

Subscription (Lightbearer)

  • The subscription screen was redrawn. The list now carries exactly what subscribers get: 25% more gold and experience, 25% more loot, double quest lives and double refill speed, double bag, 25% off in the shop and 25% more on sales, 1.5× longer Delve shifts, double Valor Stone drops, 4× battle speed and the mark next to your name.
  • Buying a subscription on Android works now.

New players

  • A new Game Center or Play Games player now goes straight into the game; the PLAY / I HAVE AN ACCOUNT choice does not appear. That screen only appears if an account cannot be created, and says why. To move your account to a new phone, press Logout on the character creation screen and sign in with your own account.
  • Character creation was redrawn: your hero standing in the light inside the keep, with face, class and name steps. While you choose a class, your hero wears that class’s sets in order from common to valor. Where the class’s power comes from is written there too.

Loot and red dots

  • Loot leans toward your class. Half of the armour and weapons used to belong to the other class. Now about 57% of what drops is your class’s, 19% the other class’s, and 24% shared.
  • A finished quest or an arriving expedition now lights its red dot: on the Adventure tab and on the quest board in the village.
  • The Delve warning now sits above Adventure’s content and appears as soon as a shift starts.

Behind the scenes

  • The guild war roster went from about 1 second to 0.25. The guild page got faster too.

Not finished yet

  • On the first entry into the dungeon after opening the app, a quarter-second hitch remains, once.
  • We have not yet measured the battle screens on low-end Android phones. Some testers reported slight stutter; that is our next job.
  • Heroes are still drawn with the same silhouette in combat; armour does not show.

What we would like you to look at

  1. Quest fights: play a few quests. Are the waves and the boss balanced? If you lost, in which wave? Do lives come back once an hour? Tell us your level and class too.
  2. Battle speed: are 2× and 4× smooth? If you are not a subscriber, is 4× locked, and does touching it say why?
  3. The second paths and AUTO: try the Juggernaut or Frost path. Are stun and freeze clear? Does AUTO follow your Loadout order?
  4. The dungeon (especially on Android): scroll the map up and down quickly, move into new biomes. Is it smooth, does it stutter? Does the phone get hot? Which phone are you using?
  5. The Territories map: does touching a den open the right warden? Is the map smooth?
  6. The Character tab: move between the sections and pages. Are the red dots in the right place? Does the app crash on iPhone?
  7. The top bar: are level and experience right on every tab? Does the tab you return to after a fight update?
  8. Subscription: does buying work on Android? Do the benefits on the screen really happen while you are subscribed?
  9. New player: does the game open straight away with a new account or a new phone? Does anything overflow or get cut off on the character creation screen?
  10. Loot: does your own class’s gear drop more often now?
  11. Mail: can you find your letters comfortably from the mail post in the village? Do you find yourself looking for the mail button on the other tabs?