Welcome to another blog post for Lost One Found! Another Update is about to drop, that being the "Greater Strength" Update! Its purpose is to flesh out the main gameplay loop by making it more satisfying and even more fun than before! Let's not waste any time and start with Ranks and Enemy Difficulty!

In versions before v3.0.0.0, enemies got tougher every 10 corridors, increasing their Damage by 20%. This was alright at first, but it lead to higher Corridors to be very strict to play. This caused many issues. For example;

- Limited the amount of viable Perk builds

- The Gent Goggles Hat was generally better to get at lower Corridors since enemy XP never scaled throughout your entire playthrough.

In this update, changes were made to fix both of these issues. Enemies now drop 30% less XP than before, making lower Corridors quite inefficient at getting to higher Levels.

This sounds bad, but in combination of the following changes it will make sense. Instead of the difficulty scaling every 10 Corridors, it will now scale every new Rank you reach. Each Rank will now buff Enemy Damage and Enemy XP by a decent amount!

Bronze: No buffs
Silver: +25% Enemy Damage, +20% XP Gained
Lead: +50% Enemy Damage, +40% XP Gained
Gold: +75% Enemy Damage, +60% XP Gained
Rose Gold: +100% Enemy Damage, +80% XP Gained
Marigold: +125% Enemy Damage, +100% XP Gained
Pure Gold: +150% Enemy Damage, +120% XP Gained
Demon's Gold: +175% Enemy Damage, +140% XP Gained

You might've noticed that some Ranks are a little different. The last 3 Ranks (Pure Gold 1, 2 and 3) were renamed and redesigned to have an unique identity when compared to other ranks!

Pure Gold I -> Marigold
Pure Gold II -> Pure Gold
Pure Gold III -> Demon's Gold

If you calculated things right, you would've also noticed that being at higher Ranks brings more XP than in previous versions, up to 68% more XP to be exact! While Gent Goggles are now harder to get in lower Corridors, they should be way easier to get in higher Corridors!

One thing to note is that Enemy Damage after reaching the last Rank will not be scaled further, making pushing at higher Corridors alot easier, but it might be repetitive... for now ;)

Another new feature coming with this update are DEMON RANKS!

After reaching the new Demon's Gold rank, you'll also unlock Demon Ranks. Demon Ranks are a cool flex to show how far you've climbed the Studio! It increases every 100 Score gained after 2000 Score.

The Demon Rank for now serves just this simple purpose, but in future updates I plan on expanding it further with something to make the endgame very fun and challenging 👀. There might be a rare chance you'll stumble upon a hint of what it could be in this update...

Next change on the list is the new CREST SYSTEM!

Want to get even stronger? The Crest System can be used to up your potential! Every time you reach a new Level, you'll gain 1 Crest. You can gain up to 30 total. These Crests can be used to buff your Defense, Damage, Attack Speed or Movement Speed by a very small amount.

You can focus all of your Crests into one stat, spread the Crests to all stats or in any other way you can think of! Go with whatever improves your playstyle! Spent Crests can be withdrawn aswell, so you can adjust your build whenever you feel like it.

With this new Crest System, there is now a Level Cap of 30! This Level Cap will increase every time a new Perk is added in future Updates.

Those are the main features coming in this update! Next we have Balance Changes for the game:

PLAYER
- The player felt a little slow and unsatisfying to play and defininetly didn't feel intuitive, so the movement speed has been buffed to make dodging feel less clunky. Ontop of that, animation sprites have been hastened aswell! This is mostly visual, but the attack sprite is a big exception, as it acts as a delay before your attack actually executes.

HASTY SWING, AMBUSH
- When used in unison with eachother (or with Adrenaline Rush), they became very dependent on Pain Therapy, which would annoyingly fill up a Perk Slot. Enemies have something called Invincibility Frames which trigger after being hit, lasting for a short duration. Pain Therapy used to lower that duration by 50% so attack speed perks would be able to bypass the issue of player damage being absorbed by the invincibility frames while spamming attacks. Obviously, this was a stupid design choice. Now the ability to reduce Enemy Invincibility Frames has been split amongst Hasty Swing and Ambush to remove the need to use this perk.

PAIN THERAPY
- With now being quite obsolete, the changes to Hasty Swing and Ambush warranted a necessary rework. Now, Pain Therapy makes your attacks deal more Damage to enemies that are at max hitpoints, which can be very useful to counter certain enemies!

OWN WORST CRITIC
- This was the strongest damage based perk in the game. It offered alot of utility with other damage perks (Last Stand, Pipe XXL, etc.) and basically allowed you to "delete" everything in your path. Own Worst Critic with this update would've gotten way stronger with the new Pain Therapy rework and Crest System, so a nerf was definitely needed.

STEALTH
- Stealth is a very hard to use perk, but very rewarding to utilize. This change should make it even more rewarding as it now acts as a complete parry of any attack that comes your way!

ELECTRO PIPE
- Electro Pipe is a very strong Perk, but sometimes doesn't work how it should. Its issues should now be fixed alongside a nerf that should make it charge up alot less frequently to make sure this perk doesn't end up being too strong!

SLICE N' DICE
- Slice N' Dice felt somewhat rewarding, but at the cost of a very harsh punishment when you get hit by a projectile. Its Damage potential and ramp up has been increased to make reaching that reward alot faster. Ontop of that, being hit now only sets you 10 Bonus Damage back instead of resetting your Bonus Damage back to 0.

And those were the Balance Changes! There have also been some minor changes to improve the experience overall! Hope you like what's coming in this next Update, have a good rest of your day!

- Code has been improved in crucial areas
- Updated Mighty Crown Hat to match with the Demon's Gold rank Color Scheme
- Jack's Fedora and Sammy's Mask hats now have a 1/9 chance of dropping instead of 1/12
- Adjustments to some sound effect volumes
- Updated Tutorial Screens for Enemies and Ranks while also adding a tutorial for Crests and Demon Rank.

Also, the Update will be dropping on... the 11th of this month!