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Patch #29: The big deck rework!

Jul 29

1.0 update is on the way but we still have time for more major updates before that and we couldn't be more pumped.

In this patch, we're making several meaningful design improvements based on your feedback. Our ultimate goal for 9 Kings is that you have fun no matter how you choose to play. This means we want to get rid of any F-tier cards/decrees and make sure every mechanic in the game is comprehensible.

With the data we've gathered over the last 12 months, we're now implementing big changes we believe will be undeniable improvements across the board, always keeping simplicity and fun in mind. We're also adding several new QoL features, implementing new balancing tweaks and addressing bugs as usual.

TL;DR: New cards, new features, better gameplay. Let's go.

0.9.5 patch:

Card rework

Blood Deck:

Oblation (NEW CARD): When you throw this tome into the pit, all your troops get +1 unit. Oblation's effect is increased by +1 whenever any card is thrown into the pit.

Mangler: Manglers now summon meat trolls. Its passive mechanic remains the same, but the tower will now spit living meat balls that inherit all summon buffs and work as fodder for Cemeteries, Demon Altars, and other builds.
Pagoda: Pagoda's ghost count now increases whenever a unit is destroyed. You will get 9 ghosts per level + any unit destroyed during your run. Pagoda Ghost count was always an arbitrary number and we hated that. Now you have total control of its scaling and can make full builds around it. By proxy, it also adds a whole new layer to cards like Sacrifice.
Cemetery: Skeletons now spawn from the Cemetery plot, improving armies distribution during battle, increasing Cemetery's effect clarity, and unlocking new placement strategies. And yes, it now officially summons Skeletons (aesthetic change only).
Cemetery (pt. 2): When you destroy a troop plot adjacent to a Cemetery, it will now summon a unique Skeleton plot in its place. Yes, Cemetery's battle effect now works as a passive too!
Bomber: explosion & pathfinding were heavily improved. Before today, all Bombers would usually explode together very near each other minimizing their total damage. Now, Bombers will pick different targets in the beginning of the battle so that their AoE is spread (if they reach the target without being killed, of course).

Chaos Oblation (NEW): When you throw this tome into the pit, all your troops get +3 units per card thrown into the pit.
Chaos Sacrifice now adds sacrificed cards' damage and HP to adjacent plots (instead of replacing).
Demon Altar: Demon's Altar is just now just called Demon Altar.
Bloodbath (NEW DECREE): whenever Oblation gives you any unit, also gives that troop +1% damage.
Butcher (NEW PERK): Manglers get extra damage per sacrificed unit.
Oracle (NEW PERK): Oblation starts with +1 effect stack.
Blood Money (QUEST): you now start with two Embalming stacks.

Progress Deck:

Recycler (NEW): Every time you throw a card into the pit, adjacent plots get +2% damage and HP per level.

Reinforce got a full rework. It now gives you +2% HP per second during battle. And heals beyond max HP. It's a card that comes to fill the void left by Vampirism, but offers a much more tangible (and objectively better) buff.
Converter now gains +1 ray per level.
Mothership movement speed was slightly increased. Leveling up now increases movement speed.
Lab Rat initial stats were buffed.
Lab Rat chain effect is now also triggered by Patronage.
Overhaul number of current level ups now is updated in real time in the card description.
Junkyard (NEW DECREE): Adds 9 random trash cards to your hand.
Futurism (DECREE): it now allows all troops to level up up to level 99.

Stone Deck:

Wallmaker now gains +10% HP every year its on the field. Initial HP was slightly decreased.
Trebuchet projectiles now deal AoE damage, making it substantially stronger. FXs are also much cooler now.
Trebuchet no longer wrongly targets Pagoda's ghosts.
Cauldron now gives 3 stacks of poison per level instead of one.
Trapper base stats were increased.
Ballista projectiles are now stopped by walls.
Brickmaster (DECREE): It now doubles the HP of all buildings that have HP.

Greed Deck:

Beacon: it now also increases movement speed.
Vault: it now automatically levels up every year.
Mercenary: Mercenaries now cost 9 gold per unit (instead of 15). Card's base stats were nerfed.
Midas Touch now displays a gold splash when triggered in battle.
Speculation (DECREE): this is a new decree that increases the level cap of Vaults to 99.

Rainbow:

Obelisk starting stats were buffed.
X-Ray now works beyond max level.
Osmosis now give +30% to all stats.
Ogre now gets empty plot buffs from locked plots too.
Diffracting a Golem will now give you twice as many cards.
Patronage now also triggers the Lab Rat chain effect.

Other Deck Improvements:

Nothing: Scout Tower now shoots one more projectile per level (3 > 6 > 9...)
Nothing: Scout Tower no longer wrongly targets Pagoda's ghosts.
Nothing: Twinshot decree now doubles the amount of projectiles instead of adding +1.
Nothing: Freshmen decree can now be picked 3 times.
Spells: Spire's damage was halved and attack speed was doubled. This ensures a more continued stream of healing for troops and better scalability for the card. You can now also view healing numbers (see QoL).
Spells: Spires now trigger pop-ups showing healing numbers during battle.
Spells: Abrakadabra now makes frogs wander aimlessly instead of marching towards your base.
Spells: Static Fields is now called Tempest (to avoid any confusion with Static).
Nomads: Dragon's Den attack area and damage were substantially increased.
Time: Fixed the critical % of Warper minions.
Nature: Boar base HP was slightly decreased.
Nature: Horticulture decree now adds +2% HP per stack.
Bargain is now a universal decree.
Rebirth now gives you +3 lives beyond max lives.

Battle pathfinding

In this patch, we've drastically improved battle pathfinding! Troops will now be distributed more evenly on the battlefield and "clusterization" of troops will occur much less often. Troop placement before the battle begins was also heavily improved. This not only makes battles more aesthetically pleasing but also drastically improves clarity and balancing.

Game optimization

Enchantments like Static and Smite were considerably optimized. Invisibility and targeting are more efficient. Battle FXs were also considerably optimized.

Trash cards

We created a proper "trash card" type. This category will nest cards like Broken Cabulators, Temp Nulls, Broken Gachas, Spare Change, and the new Bone Pile.

Tutorial revamp

If you're reading this, you probably already know how to play 9 Kings. But let your newcomer friends know the tutorial has been completely revamped! It's now much more detailed, accessible, and overall... it just looks better.

The Pit

The pit is something that's been awfully underused until this patch, and we believe the new cards we're adding today will create whole new strategies to play the game. You can expect more updates where we'll add decrees and other mechanics to make it an interesting play style for those who want to test it out.

Gameplay clarity

If you hold an upgrade card on top of a card placed on a plot, you'll now see which stats/effects it will increase.

If you hover over a card's name, you will now see a preview of that card.

Tome effect preview visuals were considerably improved.

If you hover over a troop's Enchantment icon, you'll now see the effect of the enchantment.
Decrees like Smithy, Horticulture, and Kintsugi now change the numbers in the description of the cards they affect.
Perks like Patron, Gardener, and Aggressive now change the numbers in the description of the cards they affect.
Building/Tower tooltips now display projectile count, effect stacks, and summon speed.
Building/Tower tooltips now display projectile count and effect stacks.
Added extra stat pop-ups that were missing.

QoL

Clicking anywhere during the end stats screen will skip the animation.
Options screen total revamp!
Card text now has dynamic number highlights for clarity.
Blessing warnings are now faster.
Improved UI controller/keyboard navigation in the perk and multiplayer screens.
Improved pause screen interactivity

Fixes

Multiplayer: Fixed meaningful client-server connection issues. This will make sure players will no longer lose rank points unfairly if certain glitches occur during their runs.
Multiplayer: Added a safeguard to prevent occasional softlocks when you lose a life during late game high-processing battles.
Multiplayer: If you lose in year 32, the leaderboard now gives you the proper rank points.
Added some safeguards to prevent the infamous "ghost boar" bug. Please keep us posted on this one.
Fixed stat calculation after Migrating or Echoforming plots with very high troop count.
Fixed a glitch that caused the pause screen to overlap with your cards when coming back from the Compendium screen.
Several localization fixes.
Fixed minor UI glitches.

Hotfixes (0.9.5.3)

Nerfed enemy Bombers.
Increased Executioner and Lab Rat initial stats.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to break when Illuminism leveled up a Portal to level 3.
Fixed Mangler plot stats on all quests (i.e., Slaughterhouse).
Fixed Mangler/Amplifier interactions.
Fixed stat preview icons and numbers.
Added move speed to Mangler tooltips.
When you Randomfy your base plot, your new base card will be added to your card pool.
Fixed stat calculation when you Randomfy a plot that had already been Randomfied.
Card preview size in descriptions was increased.
Fixed Trebuchet SFX volume overlap issue.
Fixed some dynamic text interactions.
Fixed localization issues (i.e., Rebirth decree).
Inverted icons on card preview to match in-game design.

After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at https://report@sadsocket.com

Dev notes:

On the blood deck:

Our main goal with those changes is to make sure that the Blood deck has better synergies within itself, enabling new potential strategies while also offering cards that can be valuable to any other king.

Oblation is a very cool card that will help make the pit a more interesting mechanic throughout the game while also creating very strong synergies with the King of Blood and other decks. We're also excited to see new destruction strategies being explored with the new synergy with Pagodas and the passive mechanic from Cemeteries.

Important: Oblation is replacing Vampirism. After studying a lot of data, we realized that Vampirism was not an effective card and also didn't really integrate well into a diverse set of builds, like we want all cards to. Long story short, a healing card wasn't really matching with a death-focused deck. We're adding a new Enchantment to fill the void left by Vampirism, and don't worry: Vampires might still make a come back with a more interesting design in another form.

On the Progress deck:

We paid close attention to the community here and learned that Precision was the least used card in the game as of today. We believe that the current decks lack proper combos to make it work, making Precision loose in a deck that doesn't really synergize with it. That's why Recycler is taking its place.

We believe Recycler fills a few voids that are gonna make King of Progress more interesting: it enables completely new strategies (diversifying the meta), unlocks new synergies with pit cards and other kings, and adds one support building to his deck. We'll keep studying to implement new crit mechanics to the game in the future.

As for the old Reinforce: someone might say that the card was functional with Lab Rats, but that was its problem: its limited use cases. As mentioned above, the core idea behind 9 Kings is to make every card synergize in as many unexpected ways as possible, and we felt that previous iteration of Reinforce only led to dead ends. We will keep working to add a new Enchantment with an interesting passive effect to the game.

On everything else:

We've been trying to address as many community requests as possible in the last few months. The good news is that many of those were already aligned with what we had planned in our roadmap, which made our job much easier. There are still several improvements to be made, new cards and decrees to be added, and a few other surprises on the way. Please keep the feedback coming. We'll keep polishing the game, balancing everything, and making 9 Kings as fun as it can be.

Coming next

We're moving full speed ahead, and our eyes are locked on the 1.0 release. We'll keep working hard to bring new content and balance the game. We'll be back with more news soon. For now, make sure to keep sharing your feedback :)

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. Please continue sharing your thoughts, so we can know to focus on for each upcoming patch and make 9 Kings the best game it can be. It's really important to us!

Please join us on Discord[discord.gg] and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki[wiki.hoodedhorse.com] page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team
Love,
Sad Socket team

9 Kings

1,920

125

Save 50% on 9 Kings

Jul 9

9 Kings is on sale at 50% off during the Hooded Horse July Publisher Sale.

9 Kings is a fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder. Grow your empire and fight massive battles against powerful rival kings. Break the game with thousands of insane builds to become the King of Kings.

Hooded Horse July Publisher Sale[store.steampowered.com]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2784470/9_Kings/

9 Kings

9 Kings News Roundup at the Hooded Horse Summer Sale

Jul 2

Hey everybody!

The 9 Kings devs have been hard at work launching two new patches since the last Round Up, bringing new content to the game, focusing on the multiplayer experience, reworking systems, and bringing better quality of life to all aspects of the game! Check out the full Round Up below to get all the news you may have missed.

9 Kings is also part of the Hooded Horse Summer Sale at 50% off. Check it out, and check out the other games on sale during the Hooded Horse Summer sale.

Hooded Horse Summer Sale

9 Kings News Recap

Patch #27 (a multiple of 9, fun side note) is a very exciting patch adding big new multiplayer features, new cards, and fixes throughout the entire game. Sabotage was added as a new event in year 25, allowing players to eliminate an enemy king from their run forever in multiplayer. Allowing players to clear annoying enemies and giving them more tools to strategize with in each run.

Fun rainbow card changes and additions were also made in this patch, adding the rainbow rotation and a rotating set of 9 rainbow cards that change each season! You can check this season's pools by clicking on the deck in the bottom left corner of the multiplayer menu. New rainbow cards were also added, Obelisk, Smite, and Diffraction. Casual play was also added for those who prefer lower stakes in their multiplayer experience. Make sure to check out the full patch notes here to see all the content, fixes, and quality of life this patch added!

Patch #28 is the newest patch to come to 9 Kings and introduces several quality of life changes, balancing improvements, and a decree rework. Perk build slots are introduced in this patch allowing you to save three different perk loadouts for each king. Decrees have also been reworked in a second pass to ensure each decree is equally powerful in the right context. UI components have also been reworked to provide a clearer look at stats while keeping in mind the simple minimalistic design the devs have envisioned.

Make sure to check out the entire patch log for this one as we cant fit each change in the round up!

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming!
~ The Hooded Horse Team

9 Kings

211

Patch #28: Decree Reworks, Huge QoL improvements, Mac Fixes

Jun 26

In this patch, we're introducing several QoL and balancing improvements. We've been taking notes of all the suggestions you've been giving us and we're stoked to be able to share some of them with you today!

0.9.3:

Perk build slots

You can now store three separate perk configurations for each king. This has been a community request for a long time and it will make experimentation smoother and more fun.

Decree Reworks

It was about time to do a second pass on some decrees that have been around for a while but felt a bit underwhelming. Our ultimate goal is to make every decree equally powerful in the right context.

Glass Staffs: Wizards now get +100 damage instead of having their damage set to 100.
Burglary: Not only your current troops will gain 3 stacks of Midas Touch, but also any new troop that you place for the rest of the run.
Abracadabra: it's now working as intended.
Loan: Gives you +9 gold multiplied by the year you're in.
Dynamites: Each trap is now triggered +1 time in battle (also re-applying any Enchantment effects).
Transmutation: All active troops become Imps with twice as many units.
Freshmen: Level 1 troops have tripled stats (not only your current troops, but also any new troop that you place for the rest of the run).
Sharp Blades: Increases the damage of all your current units and towers by 50%.
Settlement: All new troops and towers placed on empty plots start with triple stats.
Eyeglass: All your plots get +30% raw chance to deal critical damage.
Fireworks and Gunpowder now display unique FXs.

Clearer stats

This also has been a consistent request and it has been on our pipeline for a while: we're improving our UIs to give more detailed information on different elements of the game. Our vision for 9 Kings was always to make sure the game remains simple with a minimalistic design. But we want to make sure all elements are super clear and that, if you're the kind of player that does want some extra details, you're able to get that as well.

You can now view a card's full stats when hovering over its type icon!
New pop-ups now indicate when a construction plot gains extra effect stacks (i.e Blacksmith) or extra projectiles (i.e Scout Tower)
Decree responsiveness: whenever a decree effect is happening in the game, its icon will have an active FX on screen.
You can now view the enemy kings' decks on single player diplomacy events.
Improved pop-up visuals.

Blessings improvement

Blessings will no longer only target empty plots. They can now also target plots with cards that can be affected by respective effects.
Added a clear blessing warning one year before it happens.
Drastically improved blessing warning visuals.

Mac Improvements

Fixed Mac focus mode double click issue. FINALLY!!!!!
Addressed the cross-save Windows/Mac issue. It should now be working properly but please email us at https://reports@sadsocket.com in case you experience any problems with your save file.
Fixed some Mac artifacts generated by a rendering issue.

Multiplayer

With the new patch, a new season has begun today. Congrats to the top kings of this season!
Kingly rankings now display the total points a player has with a king (instead of their overall rank)
Removed broken runs and created new cheating filters.
Added new profanity filters.

Performance

Heavily improved performance of plots with 9999+ troops.
Migration & Chaos Migration performance was heavily increased on high troop counts.

Other QoL & Visuals

You can now navigate between kings on single player without needing to go back to the main menu!
Vampirism now displays a visual FX when triggered.
Drastically improved visibility of the expansion mode locked plots.
Improved Compendium UI interactivity.

Hotfixes (0.9.2.1)

Infertility Quest is now working properly again.
Smite no longer targets bases.
Smite now has SFX.

Coming next

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

Please join us on Discord[discord.gg] and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki[wiki.hoodedhorse.com] page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team
Love,
Sad Socket team

9 Kings

1,103

Save 50% on 9 Kings

Jun 25

9 Kings is on sale at 50% off during the Hooded Horse Summer Sale.

9 Kings is a fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder. Grow your empire and fight massive battles against powerful rival kings. Break the game with thousands of insane builds to become the King of Kings.

Hooded Horse Summer Sale[store.steampowered.com]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2784470/9_Kings/

9 Kings

Patch #27: Sabotage! Rainbow Content! Casual mode! New Rankings!

Jun 5

Very exciting patch today! Not only is patch 27 a multiple of 9, but we're also adding big new multiplayer features, new cards, and fixes throughout the entire game.

Update 0.9.2:

Sabotage!

Assassinate one of your enemies with this new event: in year 25, you can now eliminate an enemy king from your run forever in multiplayer. This will help you deal with annoying enemies and give you more tools to strategize across each run.

Rainbow rotation!

Multiplayer now has a rainbow card rotation every season. Each season will have a pool of 9 rainbow cards. This is gonna be a pretty fun change to incentivize new strategies every season and to make sure there's no perpetual meta in the game. You can check this season's pool by clicking on the deck on the bottom left corner of the multiplayer menu.

New rainbow cards!

To celebrate the new season and the rotation system... we're adding 3 brand new Rainbow cards to the game!

Obelisk (Tower): gets 9 times stronger every time you lose a life. It's our first rainbow tower!
Smite (Enchantment): a magic bolt is triggered whenever the enchanted troop gets hit. It's our first rainbow enchantment!
Diffraction (Tome): destroys a plot to give you two rainbow cards. It's our first rainbow destruction card!

Casual play!

Tired of the pressure of having your rank at stake every run? We got you. You can now turn casual mode on to play without any stress. In this mode, you won't gain or lose rank points nor medals. To turn the mode on, click the checkbox on the right bottom corner of the multiplayer menu.

Kingly rankings!

Ever wondered who's the best King of Time in the world? Now you'll know. The Kingly Rankings will give you more reasons to compete, try new kings, and reach for glory. Click the arrows in the rankings to switch leaderboards. This ranking will only register the points you've earned with the king in question.

A new season begins

A new multiplay season has just begun. As we've explained before: new season means all King rank points are reset. That levels the playing field so that anyone has a shot at reaching the top 9 in the next season. Congrats to the top 9 of this season! You've all won a profile badge that will last forever.

QoL & Fixes

If you're a time traveler and defeated 9 of your enemies, you'll break the time continuum and get warped to year 33 for a final showdown against the last enemy king.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze when you lost your last life at year 32.
Broken Cabulators no longer get level ups when using Progressive perk.
Invisibility now works properly with Warpers (enemies will no longer freeze fighting against them)
Added smooth re-roll transition animations.
Added smoother tooltip pop up transition.
Added a loading indicator when the game is gathering end game data from the server.
During a battle, you can now view a plot's tooltip even after all troops are dead.
Steamdeck/Controller: you can now navigate the ranking screen properly.
All UI buttons now trigger proper SFX.
ESC button now works on all screens.

Hotfixes (0.9.2.2)

Portal logic massive revamp: fixed dozens of soflock occasions on Multiplayer. Hopefully this issue should be fixed for good. Please keep us posted.
Final fix for Warper + Invisibility battle freeze bug.
Fixed Mac focus mode double click issue. FINALLY!!!!!
Drastically improved visibility of the expansion mode locked plots.
Fixed a rare bug where sabotaging a king + killing the last king before year 33 wouldn't warp you to the final showdown.
Fixed an issue where manual base attacks wouldn't be triggered at the very center and the corners of the map.
Fixed some Mac artifacts generated by a rendering issue.
HP boosts from Amplifiers are now transfered properly to Base plots in Multiplayer.
Fixed a glitch where Dispensers wouldn't reach bases that are far in the back.
Troop tooltip can now be viewed during battle even after all troops are dead.
Fixed level 3 Camp plot opacity while placing.

Last week hotfixes:

Over the last few days, we've been posting hotfixes and adding them our previous patch note. In case you missed anything, here's the full list of tweaks:

Fixed Warlord AUTO aiming glitch during battles.
Enemy Goats no longer march towards your base.
Perks no longer briefly disappear from your set when you remove the "Expander" perk from your board.
Added a flipped artwork for enemy Dispensers.
Fixed a visual glitch on the Nomads map bottom borders.
If you lose a battle in year 33, the battle isn't automatically over. You'll keep fighting all the remaining kings to see where you rank compared to all of them.
Time traveling until you kill all enemies will no longer soft lock you.
Fixed a exponential math issue with Executioners stats on very high levels.
Fixed a bug that caused Palace to sometimes one-hit-kill enemy bases.
Improved final battle overall flow.
Heavily improved server stability.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze when you lost a life in year 32 when playing as the King of Nomads.
End results no longer wrongly show +0 points/gold occasionally. This is was just a visual glitch caused by the delay between your game and the server.
Tooltip now shows added Move Speed properly (i.e when using Leatherworks)
Fixed a bug that caused lives from enemies to come back when traveling in time.
Opportunist perk no longer wrongly gives you gold when an enemy plot levels up.
Fixed a few occurrences of a game freezing bug after using Portals with Concabulators/Shrines. Please keep us posted on this one.
Poison ticks now remove a stack of Steel Coat as intended.

Coming next

We're moving full speed ahead, and our eyes are locked on the 1.0 release. We'll keep working hard to bring new content and balance the game. Expect big updates for ALL game modes. We'll be back with more news soon. Make sure to keep sharing your feedback :)

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

Please join us on Discord[discord.gg] and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki[wiki.hoodedhorse.com] page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team
Love,
Sad Socket team

9 Kings

828

9 Kings News Roundup at the Hooded Horse May Publisher Sale

Jun 1

9 Kings has been popping off lately, launching three new patches in just the last few weeks. From a patch focused on balancing quest mode to the long-awaited multiplayer update, the development of 9 Kings is in full bloom with lots of new changes, features, and balance changes. Join us for the full roundup below!

9 Kings is also part of the Hooded Horse May Publisher Sale at 55% off. Check it out, and the other games on sale during the Hooded Horse May Publisher sale.

Hooded Horse May Publisher Sale[store.steampowered.com]

9 Kings News Recap

Patch #23 focused heavily on balancing, quest difficulty, and preparing for the multiplayer update! There is now an option to select the difficulty of quest mode:

Knight (easy)
King (medium)
Chaos (hard)

This patch also addressed the balance for a few quests that were making them harder than they were meant to be. There were also several gameplay adjustments, fixes, and QOL changes.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2784470/view/502856256328827989
Patch #24 brought one of the biggest changes 9 Kings has ever seen! This update introduces multiplayer, a new way to play that has been heavily requested by the game's community. Multiplayer mode is a new asynchronous experience where you fight against nine other players and their kingdoms. This update keeps the core spirit of 9 Kings intact, allowing you to play at your own pace while facing new, interesting, and intense runs.

This update makes a bunch of other changes and additions:

Added competitive ladders so you can fight for the ultimate 9 Kings glory
Added 99+ new vanity items that you can unlock via multiplayer and use to further customize your king
Added daily missions to keep runs fresh and fun
Added a new boss and new epic ending
Added wealth of balancing, gameplay, QOL improvements, and fixes

The full changelog also included a special note from the developers that discusses the update and their ambitions and vision for the future of the game. Make sure to check out the post below!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2784470/view/677372009606284435
Building on the momentum from the multiplayer update, Patch #25 continued improving the multiplayer experience. Multiplayer perks were added to continue diversifying the multiplayer experience. These replace rainbow perks with unique perks to use in multiplayer. It also made some tweaks to the calendar in multiplayer, and rebalanced how the calendar interacts with this new mode.

Rest assured that unlocks will be permanent, and your current ranks will not be erased.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2784470/view/701017176467834070

Thanks for reading, and enjoy taking down your friends in multiplayer!
~ The Hooded Horse Team

9 Kings

245

Patch #26: Multiplayer improvements (pt. 2)

May 30

You've given your feedback, we've studied the data, and a big improvement is coming to multiplayer today.

In this patch, we'll tweak some key design decisions on the multiplayer loop to game the game more fair and straightforward. We restructured a few things, keeping the core of what was working and improving what wasn't. As always, we're also adding new QoL features and fixing reported issues!

0.9.1:

A better multiplayer flow

One of the things we heard the most in this first week of Multiplayer was the lack of clarity on the interactions between you and your enemies. The other was questions about fairness regarding year 33 and The Angel battle. Our main goal is to make things more fair and to make sure people understand exactly what it takes to win a game. And with that in mind we're introducing a new loop that we're really excited about.

Here's how the new flow works:

Enemies now only lose lives when you beat them directly. This means you'll have to defeat all kings with your own hands!
You'll start at war against 3 kings, like in single player.
Every battle, either you or your direct opponent will lose one life.
Every time a king loses all their lives, it's time to make war with a new one.
When you reach year 33, the surviving kings face each other in year 33 in a final showdown.
The final showdown consists of individual face-offs between you and each survivor. Instead of the angel, the final battle is between you and the builds you were facing the whole game.

We believe those changes will make multiplayer runs feel much more fair and straightforward. You're in control of who you defeat and how you defeat them. Diplomacy and king re-rolls will play a much bigger role in this new model, as you can now adjust your strategy to take down kings or avoid them until the last minute. Not to mention the new ending will solve all the current current issues with year 33.

Streak points

You will now gain bonus rank points if you finish first two or more runs in a row. This will help new advanced players climb the ladders faster.

Improved cheating prevention

We analyzed over 100.000 runs and implemented new filters that should be addressing several issues with cheaters. People can't ALT+F4 their way out of losing rank points anymore either.

A new season begins

Each season is intended to last 9 days. But with this big changes, we felt it'd be only fair to give everyone a fresh start. As we've explained before: new season means all King rank points are reset. That levels the playing field so that anyone has a shot at reaching the top 9 in the next season.
Congrats to the top 9 of this season! You've all won a profile badge that will last forever.

QoL & Balancing

You now have 5 lives in Multiplayer!
Tweaked troop cards high-end level up stats so they scale a little faster. The goal is to balance out the differences between troop builds and base builds. Troops should be stronger now!
Regression now works with Broken Cabulators and Broken Gachas!
Removed Moderate perk to encourage more diversification. We will add a new Multiplayer perk to replace it.
Balance now only works with troop cards (as it was always intended).
Citadels no longer insta-kill Walls (this perk is intended to work exclusively with troops)
Palace no longer one-hit kills other bases (unintended interaction).
Palace no longer gets gold when hitting a unit with Steel Coat that doesn't actually die.
Pagoda Ghosts will now be spawned more evenly (instead of all being spawned in a single frame while on AUTO)
Fixed a glitch that was giving Paladins with Balance more HP than the actual damage gained.
Heavily Improved cheat prevention system.
Drastically improved the matchmaking formula.
Exploit prevention: if you force quit the game intentionally during a run, you will now finish last.
Pause screen now displays the current rank you're playing in.
A MISSION COMPLETE pop-up will appear whenever you complete a mission for clarity.
Pause screen now displays customized enemy king icons.
Steamdeck UI improvements

Fixes

Fixed Warlord AUTO aiming glitch during battles.
Enemy Goats no longer march towards your base.
Perks no longer briefly disappear from your set when you remove the "Expander" perk from your board.
Added a flipped artwork for enemy Dispensers.
Fixed a visual glitch on the Nomads map bottom borders.

Hotfixes (0.9.1.2)

If you lose a battle in year 33, the battle isn't automatically over. You'll keep fighting all the remaining kings to see where you rank compared to all of them.
Time traveling until you kill all enemies will no longer soft lock you. Once you defeat everyone, you break time continuum and is warped to the final battle.
Fixed a exponential math issue with Executioners stats on very high levels.
Fixed a bug that caused Palace to sometimes one-hit-kill enemy bases.
Improved final battle overall flow.
Heavily improved server stability.

Hotfixes (0.9.1.3)

Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze when you lost a life in year 32 when playing as the King of Nomads.
End results no longer wrongly show +0 points/gold occasionally. This is was just a visual glitch caused by the delay between your game and the server.
Tooltip now shows added Move Speed properly (i.e when using Leatherworks)
Fixed a bug that caused lives from enemies to come back when traveling in time.
Opportunist perk no longer wrongly gives you gold when an enemy plot levels up.
Fixed a few occurrences of a game freezing bug after using Portals with Concabulators/Shrines. Please keep us posted on this one.
Poison ticks now remove a stack of Steel Coat as intended.

Some notes on our vision for Multiplayer

We've been super stoked with the overwhelmingly positive reactions we've been getting with the new game mode. Thank you so much! But of course, we've also gotten a few other questions, requests and complaints, and we'd like to address them here so that you know our thoughts with transparency.

1. On async: Some people might not be familiar with this term, but it's a key part of our game design. Async multiplayer means you're fighting against "ghosts" of real players who played before you. It's a very common kind of multiplayer on strategy games. This system is perfect for 9 Kings due to the single player nature of the game. We want players to have the time to think and make insane moves. We don't want people to have to wait for a play where your enemy drew 30 cards. We want our servers to handle hundreds of thousands of units battling in real time. The current design protects the core of 9 Kings we've always envisioned and mixes things we love about both single player and multiplayer games. A live PVP service means making a new game from scratch. Programming wise, design wise, server capabilities wise. A game that just isn't... 9 Kings. This is not to say that in the future, after the 9 Kings is a complete game, we couldn't explore a new project with that nature. But our only goal as of today is to make the 9 Kings you know the best game it can be.

2. On playing with friends:

We're working to implement features that will allow more ways to interact with your friends in multiplayer.

3. On multiplayer difficulty: This week we went from 1000 to 50.000 players on multiplayer. We couldn't be happier, but it's important to understand that this means the game might be harder as there's more competition. We know fighting against some OP builds can be frustrating. And we're working hard to balance the ladders and filter out outliers so that everyone can have fun. There is a system in place that filters out the most OP runs from matchmaking (the % varies according to rank). The more people play, the more the ranks will adjust themselves. We'll keep finessing the filters to make things fun for everyone.

4. On King rank: King rank is intended to be our version of a pro-level ELO competition. This means it will be ruthless, and the more people join the game and get better at it, the harder it will become. Like on most multiplayer games, this is a rank intended for 1% of the player base, and we hope you understand you might enjoy yourself more at Prince rank, for example. The reason 9 kings has 9 ranks, besides the running joke with the number 9, is the very intentional fact that we wanted there to be a rank for all kinds of players. We will be adding new leaderboards soon so that everyone has something to look forward to and the means to reach royal glory.

5. On bots:There are no bots playing against you. All runs you face were played by real players. There never were and there never will be bots in our matchmaking. Believe us, it'd be much harder for us to implement a consistent bot system than to load your snapshots, haha.

Coming next

New content for all game modes! This week marks one year of 9 Kings EA release. And we promise you it'll be our only EA birthday. We're moving full speed ahead, and our eyes are locked on the 1.0 release. We'll keep working hard to bring new content and balance the game. Expect big updates for ALL game modes. We'll be back with more news soon. For now, make sure to keep sharing your feedback as we flesh Multiplayer out :)

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

Please join us on Discord[discord.gg] and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki[wiki.hoodedhorse.com] page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team

Love,
Sad Socket team

9 Kings

708

122

Patch #25: Multiplayer improvements (pt. 1)

May 26

Multiplayer is just out. And now our goal is to spend the next days gathering feedback and fleshing everything out as fast as we can.

This week also marks one year of 9 Kings EA release! And even though there was a patch yesterday, we just had to bring you another one today. So here it goes!

0.9.0.2:

Multiplayer perks

After watching hours of live streams and analyzing our data, we've decided to improve the multiplayer perk system in a very simple way: instead of rainbow perks, you'll have access to unique multiplayer perks. Multiplayer perks play the same role as the rainbow perks you know. But you'll only see those that are compatible with this game mode. And they're all unlocked for everyone from day one.

Here's why this is good:

Reduced clutter. Keeping a bunch of locked perks in the perk screen was not doing anyone any good. You might've noticed we like to keep things as clean as possible.
Accessibility and fairness. Rainbow perks are key for your build, and we want a fresh 9 Kings player to be familiar with what the perk system can do and have access to it from day 1.
Same experience. Yeah, rainbow perks are all banned here. Multiplayer perks took their place. But they'll offer you the same experience in a more straightforward way.
Single player interaction. You now have a unique board for single player and another for multiplayer so that you can transition seamlessly between modes without the need to rearrange your board every time.
Room for growth. For now, these are versions of rainbow perks. But we might add new ones that only make sense in multiplayer. Got any ideas? Make sure to share with us in the forums or on Discord[discord.gg]!
You already get a new perk! Hardy is a new Multiplayer perk that will increase the HP of your base card.

Multiplayer calendar tweaks

Thanks to the nature of the diplomacy mechanics in Multiplayer, we were able to tweak the calendar a bit, and we believe it can lead to some interesting outcomes.

The first shop event now happens one year later. This means you'll have +9 gold to spend, which means being able to afford one extra card in an average run.
The second expansion event now happens one year earlier. This means you'll struggle a little bit less with plot management in the late game.

Your unlocks are permanent

You might've seen a notice saying that your unlocks might be erased during the current stage of multiplayer. Your unlocked items and your current rank will not be erased and are permanent.

QoL & Balancing

It now only takes 3 runs to unlock multiplayer.
Angels are now much tougher against all kinds of builds.
Bday victory track was added.
Bases HP were lowered (~20%) to make battles faster.
Base stalemate is now faster.
Created a special in-game state for viewing the kingdom of enemies who already lost.
You now get +1 rank point when finishing first.
You lose one fewer point when finishing last.

Fixes

Fixed a bug that caused Walls to occasionally be converted by Embalming decree, breaking the battle.
When you have no vanity items, the game will now clearly indicate the option is locked.
Walls are now properly displayed when viewing enemy kingdoms.
Fixed some visual overlaps.
Fixed personal rank text layout to properly display bigger numbers (we surpassed 20k profiles!)
Fixed Steamdeck navigation issues on Multiplayer.

Quest Mode fixes

Fixed troop count glitch on Royal Guard (Nothing).
Fixed troop count glitch on Gigantafield (Spells).
Fixed troop count glitch on Rite (Spells).

After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at

https://report@sadsocket.com

Coming next

Year 33: We're aware of some issues with year 33 and we're working as we speak to improve the end game experience. You can expect not only performance tweaks but also design changes to make the final stage of the game more solid for everyone.
Fixes: We'll also be addressing as many reported bugs as we can on all game modes asap.

New content: After that, you can also expect new matchmaking updates (such as a casual option to be matched with your Steam friends async profiles) and new content for both single player & multiplayer modes!

Issues with the server in Russia

We just learned that Russia has blocked access to Cloudflare, which is making our servers unreachable for players in the country. We're really sorry about this issue and will work to find a solution. We hope you understand this is beyond our control. In the meantime, consider using a VPN if your region allows it.

I wanted to wrap up this patch note with a very sincere message. This month we surpassed 1 million copies sold. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be writing this here, but: thank you so freaking much. Over the last 12 months you literally changed our lives forever, and we'll keep working hard to give back what you've given us. This is just the start.

This week marks one year of 9 Kings EA release. And we promise you it'll be our only EA birthday. We're moving full speed ahead, and our eyes are locked on the 1.0 release. We'll keep working hard to bring new content and balance the game. Expect big updates for ALL game modes. We'll be back with more news soon. For now, make sure to keep sharing your feedback as we flesh Multiplayer out :)

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

Please join us on Discord[discord.gg] and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki[wiki.hoodedhorse.com] page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team
Love,
Sad Socket team

9 Kings

735

Patch #24: Multiplayer!

May 25

Async. Multiplayer. PVP. The much awaited new game mode is officially here!

Multiplayer Mode introduces a massive new way to play 9 Kings. Fight players head to head on async battles and experience the core game experience of the game while being challenged like never before. Fighting against players from all over the world, you will face endless new challenges and will need to reinvent all you know about your 9 Kings strategies in an ever-changing world of enemies.

Seriously, we're super stoked about this patch. This is our most ambitious update yet and we're really looking forward to the next chapters of this journey. Together we hope we can make this a huge chapter that will make 9 Kings bigger than ever! :)

Anyway, with no further ado...

Patch 0.9: Multiplayer

⚔️ Async PVP battles

👑 Fight against 9 real kings armies (and kingdoms!)

💪 Climb 9 ladders, reach the top 9, and become the king of kings.

🥸 Fully customize your king with 99+ vanity items.

🏅 Complete daily missions for extra points.

Here's the full breakdown of what you can expect from this brand new game mode:

Async PVP

In this new game mode, we have 9 kings from all over the world fighting to find out whose kingdom lasts longer. But only one can climb up the ranks and become the king of kings. The PVP dynamic creates a fresh and totally new way to play 9 Kings. Be ready for short & intense runs and insane match ups.
An async experience means we're keeping the core spirit of 9 Kings intact, and allowing you to play at your own pace while also changing the game's challenges entirely. You will be facing players who played before you, under the same conditions, and the same rank. You will be matched with players in the same level as you, making it a challenging competitive experience for all kinds of players. But be prepared: this game mode will really test your skills like never before.

In Multiplayer, you'll experience a different kind of battle: Your base card now has HP. You'll start with 5 cards. Diplomacy is made when a king dies. You won't lose lives in the first 3 years (Mulligans). And much more.

Competitive Ladders

Climb your way through 9 ranks, become one of the top 9 players, and reach ultimate 9 Kings glory. The different ladders will offer a competitive, engaging, and fluid experience. But we designed it in a way you can fun regardless of your ambitions. We'll be paying close attention to the ladder balancing in the coming days and we look forward to see what will come out of it!

Customizable Kings

A Punk King of Nothing? An afro King of Greed? A pirate King of Nature? Customize your own avatar and the 9 Kings in ways you never thought would be possible. With the medals you get from multiplayer battles, you will unlock 99+ unique vanity items and victory tracks (more to come!). We had so much fun with this and we hope you do to.

Daily Missions

Get extra motivation to get to battle with daily missions. Those will keep runs fresh and fun, motivate you to get new achievements and diversify your play style, and give you bonus medals to unlock new items!

A new boss, an epic ending

If you're one of the few to make it to year 33, you will face the final showdown. And a foe more powerful than any other. There's no running from him, but you can test your might like never before and keep the score! The final battle works as a tie break between the kings who endured that far, and is intended to keep runs dynamic and fresh. Oh, and if you reach year 33, you'll earn +3 bonus medals!

Unlocking the new game mode

To unlock multiplayer, all you need is to have played the base game 9 times. This is very intentional, as multiplayer requires basic knowledge of the game and its kings. Like Quest Mode, there is a learning curve. And though you can just jump in after 9 games if you feel like it, we recommend understanding the basics of the game before joining. It's gonna be fun, we promise!

Overall improvements

As always, this patch comes with more important tweaks to the game. See below:

Balancing & Gameplay:

Warlord's base now shoots arrows after the last Warlord troop dies.
Removed Nostalgia blessing. It was just not fun enough.
Innovator perk (Progress): you now start with Concabulators instead of Reinforce cards. We found the previous iteration to be underwhelming to most players. This should be a considerable buff to Progress early game.
Ingenious perk (Universal): now gives you +3 levels instead of +5. This is long due, given we now have Regression and a buffed Patronage.
Executioner (Progress) now has 9 troops.
Orbiter (Time) now has 9 troops.
Warlord (Nomads) now has 9 troops.
Camp (Nomads) now triggers its own effect when placed.
Mob (Nomads) HP and damage were increased.
Temple (Rainbow) now gives a 9% boost.
There is now a cap on the number of cards you can have in your hand. It's still broken (36 cards!), but we needed to add a guardrail to prevent closed loops that are just not fun. We want every run to flow naturally, and we don't want to make people feel like they're missing out if they're not exploring an endless exploit. Not to mention we want you to be able to view your board.
If you travel back in time 33 years, you'll break the time continuum and be warped to the nearest boss fight. Like we said in the previous bullet point, our goal is for every run to flow naturally.
Updated Merchant's Rainbow card pool. Each Jack will now only sell Rainbow cards of their own type (we have enough in the pool now).
King of Blood got a lil cool map revamp.
Quest: Against the Void enemies strength was scaled down.
Chaos Mode Quests: Battlecamp, Nowhereland, Riots, Unification are now harder.

QoL & Fixes:

Quest Mode now displays a "Restart" button after you lose a game!
Fixed a bug where some quests wouldn't unlock properly.
Expansion tower animation is now faster.
"The year is..." screen is now faster.
Plot tooltip is now displayed on the side of the plot to improve visibility.
Fixed chest visual layer placement.
Fixed Wall visual layer placement (this was ugly as hell, sorry!)
Improved Warper performance.
Improved Stalemate scalability on very late game builds to prevent soft locks.
Fixed several occurrences of the "ghost troop" bug.
Fixed several occurrences of the troop freeze bug.
Updated localization

*Developer note

Whenever we drop a big patch like this, I try to talk a little bit about our ambitions and vision for the game. So here we go!
We think Multiplayer mode can be a massive addition to 9 Kings, making it more replayable, shareable, and engaging than ever while also retaining its essence. Async design means we were able to mix strengths of what we like the most about 9 Kings and multiplayer games. A year ago, most people wouldn't think that blend would be possible (ourselves included!) and yet here we are. And we couldn't be more stoked.

Please bear in mind: this is an EA version, so you can expect a lot of tweaks, balancing decisions, and bug fixes as we learn with your help. We wanted to be bold with the design of this game mode and this means some things might be broken (that was always the nature of 9 Kings, after all). Of course, it's just the start. We hope you give it a shot and let us know your thoughts.

And for those who are not interested in multiplayer, we have two notes: first, consider giving it a shot, you might be surprised! And second, single player will keep getting all the love it deserves as the core 9 Kings experience. Expect new content & big community requests being addressed very soon. We intend to improve everything in the coming weeks. You can expect balancing patches, more content, QoL, and polishing ahead of 1.0.

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

Please join us on Discord[discord.gg] and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki[wiki.hoodedhorse.com] page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team

Love,
Sad Socket team

9 Kings

1,066

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