Lichdom: Battlemage 1.2 is Now Live!

[bindzey]

We have just released Lichdom: Battlemage 1.2. This 5.7GB update includes the following content additions and bug fixes.

TL;DR

• New Achievements (for bosses, difficulties, and spell crafting)
  
• Allow players to choose a particular Synergy shape when synthesizing
  
• NG+ Fast Travel - Play the game again with scaling difficulty and loot
  
• Adjustable Player Difficulty - Casual, Explorer, Battlemage, Badass!
  
• Various sigil improvements
  
• User Interface improvements

Details

New Achievements

• “It does not get any better than this”
  
  • All equipped spells are tier 20
• “A need to acquire every permutation”
  
  • Craft every possible Synergy spell
• Bosses now have new achievements for defeating them on Battlemage and Badass difficulties. Previous boss achievements will be awarded for downing bosses on Casual or Explorer difficulties.
  
  • Badass difficulty boss achievements do not currently reward the Battlemage difficulty achievements. We plan to Hotfix this issue after 1.2 has been rolled out.

Controller Support

• Fixed an issue where sigils were not being highlighted in the sigil selection menu when using a controller
  
• Fixed menu focus bugs when using a controller

Unique Item Creator

• Players now have the option to choose which synergy gets crafted when upgrading to a unique shape. Players may also opt to create a unique shape without a synergy, instead selecting an extra stat modifier.
  
• New synergy tutorial video will play the first time a synergy is equipped

NG+ Improvements

• All fast travel Vortex Pools are accessible from the NG+ Hub. You can replay the campaign levels with scaling loot and difficulty.
  
• Increased the difficulty of NG+ to provide a more challenging experience

Gameplay Changes

• Sigil progression is not lost when playing in the first 3 difficulty settings
  
• New Feature: Players can now select from 4 difficulty settings
  
  • Casual
    
    • Players are immune to all detrimental status effects
      
    • No enemy Affixes
      
    • Player takes 25% less damage
      
    • Shield regeneration is not bound to a single pip
      
    • All sigils are automatically focused
  • Explorer
    
    • Shield regeneration is not bound to a single pip
      
    • All sigils are automatically focused
  • Battlemage
    
    • Default difficulty
      
    • All sigils are automatically focused
  • Badass
    
    • Players take 25% more damage
      
    • All enemies enrage when crowd controlled
      
    • Players are attacked more often
      
    • Only three sigils can be focused at any given time
• Pacing
  
  • Levels 4-8 have been rebalanced to improve pacing
    
  • Players now receive a 40% "out of combat" movement speed buff
• Sigils
  
  • Players may now choose from all available sigils upon reaching the third reliquary. The first three sigils acquired (fire, ice, kinesis) remain the same.

Spell Changes

• Delirium
  
  • Control
    
    • Control Delirium is now duration-based instead of encounter-based
      
    • Delirium pets are imbued with an existing status effect for their entire lifespan
      
    • Delirium pets kill themselves at the end of the Control duration
      
    • Pets can no longer be created while previous pet is still alive
      
    • Control Delirium marks targets for your pet to attack
      
    • Pets who have been shielded by Control Delirium are now immune to crowd control effects
  • Mastery
    
    • Enemies affected by Delirium Mastery are now taunted to your Delirium pet until the pet dies
  • Sigil Power
    
    • Invisibility now lasts for five spell casts instead of a duration
• Lightning
  
  • Sigil Power
    
    • Arc Lightning now lasts for five spell casts instead of a duration
• Ice
  
  • Control freeze and Mastery slow area curves were adjusted so that durations scale better when progressing through the game
• Phase
  
  • Synergies
    
    • Maw of the Abyss
      
      • Fixed a bug where the player would become stuck on respawn if the player died while standing in the synergy

User Interface

• Crafting and Inventory
  
  • Spells now display their tier using Arabic numerals instead of Roman numerals
    
  • Items of tiers 11-20 now display their tier values instead of an infinity symbol (lemniscate)
    
  • Spells with long names are no longer truncated in the inventory menus
• Prompts
  
  • Interactable objects now display 'Hold "F" or (A) button to activate.' to improve clarity for controller users

[3iN4r]

Looking good :)

Well, except for the change from roman to arabic numerals, but I think I will survive :)

[DaetherX]

Wow!
I'll have to play this some more and see this first hand.
The spell creation / item management stuff are things I wanted.

[ScMerlin]

Nice of you to keep working on the game after release, but please stop tampering with achievements already. I have not beaten the game yet, but at one point i am gonna finish it and get every achievement, as this is my plan after i finish some other games first. When i do finish it eventually, i would hate it when the achievements are changed or new ones added. That is not the way for you to get people back into the game!

[[JL]Batman]

This looks like it will be great. I can't wait to be able to choose the synergy! That's my only complain on that system as it was. I want to be able to make a perfect circle of three synergies, if possible, and I'm hoping that will make it easier.

[Slashimus]

OK so which difficulty level is comparable to the default that the game shipped with?

Also...when are we getting some DLC or a nice juicy expansion? Gimme gimme gimme!!!!!

[JD_2020]

Originally posted by ScPhantom:

Nice of you to keep working on the game after release, but please stop tampering with achievements already. I have not beaten the game yet, but at one point i am gonna finish it and get every achievement, as this is my plan after i finish some other games first. When i do finish it eventually, i would hate it when the achievements are changed or new ones added. That is not the way for you to get people back into the game!

100%-ing is a difficult subject for us, and it's certainly not our intent to make you feel obligated to come back and play again to maintain 100% status. But we also don't want to charge for any post-release content for Lichdom: Battlemage. Typically, achievements are tied to DLC packs, and if you don't purchase the DLC pack to which the achievement is associated, you don't even have access to the Achievement. So it's an opt-in addition at that point which sort of solves this problem for itself.

But that doesn't help us with these free updates :(. And while we'd rather deliver these content updates free-of-charge to our community, we still want to provide a compelling and complete Achievements system to reward those who go through the rigors of taking on all these new challenges we introduced with 1.2.

At least as of now, I can tell you there are no plans to add any new achievements beyond what we just have. But I also wanted to explain a little bit of the thought process and considerations behind their addition to 1.2.

Hope you enjoy the update!

-JD

[jclosed]

I am trying an new game (just for the fun of it - I let my "old" playcharacter rest for a while), and tried "Explorer" difficulty for an while. It sure feels not "too easy", so ... very well done. Something drewed my attention tough. I know the crafting elements you get are completely random, but until now (I just passed the "worm-thing") I got no targeting elements at all. I have gotten a whole lot of area, trap and nova parts, but not even an single lob or missile part.

Just as I said, I know it is random and it is possible I am simply not that lucky, but it just feels an bit unbalanced. Am I imagining things or has this part really undergone an re-balancing?

Anyway - Lots of fun now. Great update...

[3iN4r]

Started a new game, think I've managed to choose badass, but there seems to be fewer enemies than I remember? Should there be enemies in the first area after the first (monsterspawning loot) shrine, where a stone falls and smashes a bridge, just before I can walk down into the water with a scroll and some skellies and a dead cultist? I seem to remember enemies and a green wall till they're dead, unless I'm mixing with ngp. Another area a bit earlier _did_ lack enemies, the second encounter (I think) after the first meeting with falcon. The enemies spawn in the first area and in the area between it and the first shrine, but not between those two. Seem to remember at least an archer and some melees.

Is it possible to view which difficulty I'm playing on?

edit: maybe that is part of the rebalance?

[Xav_Wrath]

@3iN4r: There have been changes to the number and types of enemies throughout the game, so that part of your memory is accurate. There is a bonus challenge (aka "loot room") near the area you described, but if you're at the waterfall you JUST passed it.

You can view the game difficulty from the Options/Game menu.

[3iN4r]

I will have to look for it next time :)

When I go to the options/game menu it always says battlemage. I choose badass, confirm, and when I go back in it's back to battlemage.

[matthew]

was about to post the same issue, I have this too, verifying the game files reports no issues, deleted all my saves, in the main menu, no game running, still no joy, so yeah, can't change difficulty. as it just says battlemage for me as well.

edit

just tried deleting the save data folder for the game, no joy, still stuck on battlemage. guess we have to wait for a hotfix

[Xav_Wrath]

Yikes! We'll look into this ASAP - we tested extensively with both new and existing savegames before shipping the update so this is a bit of a mystery.

3iN4r and matthew: Just in case there's an environmental factor, would you mind sending your (compressed) save games and logs to [e-mail] and reference this thread?

[Denny Crane]

Any heads up on the optimization issues/Vsync issue? You said you were in contact with the AMD people to see if it was a fix on their end or yours. Any word yet?

[Dr. Spaceman]

I don't seem to be able to switch to badass difficulty. I'm playing on a NGP and went back to the first lvl. The loot lvl is 11, which seems correct, but it was still easy. When I killed the boss I only got the battlemage achievement. I returned to the diffuculty menu and saw it was still on Battlemage. No matter what I set it on, whenever I open it up it's always set to Battlemage. Am I missing something or is this a bug?

[Slashimus]

Bug...