Update 1.1: Speed Stars, Gambit Overhaul & More!

It’s time for the first major content patch for Diceheart! Let’s jump right in.

Major Features

A lot of the major additions included in this patch are expansions or refinements to existing systems, with the goal of making battles feel more dynamic with tighter balance and incentives to use more of the game’s mechanics.

Speed Stars

Move fast!

Introducing the new speed star system! Beneath the round counter in your dice tray, you’ll now see 3 stars, which start to drain as the battle wears on. The more stars you have when you win, the more gems you’ll get, and the higher your chance at getting a juicy trick reward! Take too long, and the opposite is true: less gems, and almost certainly no trick reward.

This change will have a major impact on your gameplay, as it incentivises you to explore new strategies to end battles earlier to reap the rewards. We’ve found ourselves using charge tricks sooner than we would otherwise and even intentionally taking damage to close out fights to eke out as many gems as we could. This system should also discourage cheesy stall tactics such as power gauge farming and Bezoar spamming – they’re still valid options, but you’ll have to think about whether or not they’re worth going for as often.

Character Expert Tricks

Incredible new gameplay styles!

We’ve replaced each character’s generic trick upgrade with brand new curios! These were all designed to augment our favourite aspects of their playstyles, and each is guaranteed to add another layer of strategic gameplay to your runs.

• • Mechanism of Fortune – Guy’s new limited (3) trick allows him to take both tricks from any trick reward. That’s it. That’s the whole trick. 10/10.

• • Quark-Gluon Plasma Forge – Hua’s new once per battle trick allows him to turn off Igneous Armour for the round, and generate a quantum fire die with a quality equal to the block he lost out on. Hua’s a forgemaster for a reason, after all.

• • Deus Ex Natura – Lief’s new once per round trick lets him convert his wither stack into block and resistance, or his wither resistance into his stack, depending on which is higher, giving him even more fine-tuned control over One With the World. Talk about a force of nature.

• • Zero-Point Energy Field – Glacistov’s new once per battle trick lets him set an enemy’s attack die result to 0 and freeze it. Then, if the die was big enough, he’ll generate a quantum duplicate of it of half the quality. That’s pretty damn cold of you, Glacistov.

• • Toll the Dead – Himitsu’s new passive trick is the reward for all those times you tried to activate Already Dead at full health. Now, whenever her Already Dead triggers, all of Himitsu’s poison dice will gain a single-use modifier equal to the amount of healing wasted. Hope you brought your calculator.

• • Harmonic Chaos Generator – Mixigilly’s new passive trick gives them a completely unique power gauge that’s able to be charged by both holy and necro dice, and you can select which of the two power-ups to use when you activate it. To top it off, they also get to start with a D4 (quantum, of course) that switches between holy and necro every round. Oh, and as they were one upgrade short compared to everyone else, they also get to keep Predictive Algorithm. Mixi’s eating good.

We’ve also tweaked the requirements for character upgrades, and rebalanced their resistances in light of us getting more gameplay time in with each of them.

70+ New Tricks

Multiverse keeps growing!

Aside from the character-specific tricks we shared above, we’ve also got a wide assortment of new tricks for you to discover!

There’s obviously too many to go through in detail here, but suffice to say, you’ll find an array of new options of varying power levels to augment any build you can think of. Many of these were designed to fill in the gaps between the existing tricks; for instance, there wasn’t a trick that let you simply pick a die and grant it a modifier – now there’s 5! Wowzers.

Additionally, many older tricks have received tweaks, quality of life improvements, and – for the most part – straight-up buffs. In particular, a lot of the tricks from the early days of development have been enhanced now that we have a solid grasp of the power scaling in runs. We’re pretty confident in saying that there’s always a situation for any given trick to be useful (and, if there isn’t, maybe there will be later down the line… looking at you, Inventor’s Goggles).

20 of the new tricks are gated behind XP levels (which have also been rejigged slightly), and if you’re already at or above their required level, you’ll have them instantly appear in the spawn pool when you next load up the game.

Huge Gambit Buffs

It’s time to d-d-d-duel!

We won’t mince words: gambits were kind of useless in a lot of situations, outside of a few extremely powerful combos. So we buffed them. Pretty much all of them.

Our original thinking was that gambits should allow you to turn bad rolls into something a little better, almost like a compromise. But we overlooked the fact that you’ll be constantly mitigating this issue throughout your run, be it with tricks or dice upgrades. So, instead, we shifted our philosophy: why not make gambits strong, but harder to use?

We applied this principle to most of the gambits we altered, but in many cases, it made more sense just to reduce their costs while keeping their effects mostly untouched. Additionally, most of the frankly terrible ones have been completely reworked – Slice and Slash, for instance, now deal increased damage the more enemies they hit, making them extremely powerful against large groups. We’ve also made it so that normal slots can be filled with holy and necro dice, allowing them to still be useful in builds that go all-in on elemental dice.

We’ve also greatly expanded the roster of combo gambits, to the extent that you can now combine every single base gambit with one another (except Jackpot and Bezoar). A lot of these new recipes result in brand new cards, but others were filling in gaps that we missed the first time around. You can now also combine Basic and Refined gambits with one another, which should make getting into combos way easier.

All in all, there’s a ton of changes to gambits, and we’re excited to see the ways people incorporate them into their runs. But that’s not all she wrote in that regard…

Expanded Laboratory

Cash in your dud cards!

Unlike tricks, you can get any number of identical gambits, which often ended up cluttering your inventory. Not a bad problem to have if you got good ones, but a lot of the time, you’d just end up with a dozen or so gambits you didn’t even have the correct dice to use.

To help resolve this, the laboratory has been expanded with 2 brand new features: the gambit recycler and gambit duplicator!

Gambit recycling is a free, unlimited service that allows you to trade in up to 3 of your gambits at a time and get a brand new one in return. What makes this handy beyond Marie Kondo-ing your inventory is that you can choose what type of gambit you want in return. This means Hua can scrap the poison gambits he doesn’t have dice for, and get a shiny new fire gambit in return!

The output card’s rarity will vary depending on which cards you put in, which means if you managed to nab a rarer card you have no need for, recycling that will give you a much higher shot at getting something more to your tastes. However, as with everything in Diceheart, there’s always a risk involved – there’ll always be a chance for the recycling process to fail, giving you nothing in return. At least it’s clean waste disposal.

Gambit duplication is a bit more simple: plug in a gambit, pay the fee, and get another copy of it. Unlike recycling, this service will cost you, and the price climbs higher each time you do it, but it could be your best shot at getting the most powerful combos out there.

Balance Improvements

Souped-up foes and greater rewards!

The difficulty curve of Diceheart has always been a little odd – runs tend to start off harder, before things quickly snowball out of control around the midpoint after you got some tricks up your sleeves and more dice in your tray. So we thought we’d better even it out a bit. And by a bit, I mean a lot.

Every single enemy group after the second stage has been completely reworked to be significantly more challenging, particularly configurations that were trivial in most runs before. That’s not to say they’re unfair – just you’ll actually have to fight them rather than utterly demolish them with no thought. For the most part, this mainly takes the form of changing which enemies appear in any given encounter, but you’ll also notice that a handful of enemies have new abilities and movesets.

We’ve also strengthened all of the sentinels except ACACIA, who always felt like the most threatening of the four. All of them now require you to be on your toes and have a solid strategy of how to handle them before going in. We’ve also buffed Dicecade and Pontiff Crabicus, who generally felt weaker than their sister level’s bosses.

Element Changes

First up, we’ve adjusted the 2 offensive elements:

• • Burn damage from fire dice will now reduce the burnt character’s stack on hit, just like other elements do when they deal burn damage.

• • Poison damage will now only reduce the character’s stack on hit by half the damage, instead of the full amount.

We ran the numbers on burn pre-1.1, and it turned out to be a better damage over time than poison if you compared an all-fire build to an all-poison build. With this change, poison will start to overtake burn the longer you keep up a big stack on an opponent.

We’ve also adjusted the base prices of elements at the forge and in shops. From most to least expensive: fire, nature, frost, poison, normal. The reason for this is in part due to the adjustments to fire and poison explained above, but also the impact each element has on battle speed now that speed stars are a thing. Poison and frost inherently slow down battles, which means your ability to get 3-star battles is diminished, and you’ll generally end up getting fewer gems than a fire or nature build. You should now be able to afford a roughly equal amount of dice upgrades whatever build you go for.

Augmenting these elemental adjustments are the introduction of per-level element discounts in forges. Now, transforming a die to the element of the level you’re on or upgrading a die whose element already matches it will have its base price cut by 10%, making these destination much more enticing for elemental builds. This also applies to the Holy Sea and Nuclear Nile Nation, but as aligned dice aren’t upgradable, each has 2 discounts: nature/frost and fire/poison, respectively.

Blood Rage

The blood fountain became a staple in pretty much every successful run due to the increased amount of gems you got, and runs generally hinged around how quickly you could find it on each level. So we’ve switched them up a little.

Blood enemies after the Cave now have an ability called blood rage, which makes the battles way tougher as they go on: each time you defeat an enemy, every other enemy’s dice will all gain a positive modifier. The exact modifier varies from level to level – +1 on Blockdown/Capsitoa, +2 on Frontier/Effervert, and +3 on Holy Sea/Nile Nation. What’s more, this modifier stacks each time you defeat an enemy – that means you’ll potentially be facing a juiced-up Cractus with a +9 on all its dice if you’re not careful. This makes using the blood fountain a much riskier endeavour, rather than one you’re trying to do as early in the level as possible.

Revamped Elites

Elites have received a total overhaul. In addition to rocking new accessories befitting their rank, they’ve also toughened up to match their blood fountain equivalents – so any buffed health, dice, and abilities that a blood enemy has, the elite now has too, minus blood rage.

That doesn’t sound so bad on paper, but in practice, elite groups come in combinations that are extremely tough to deal with, often even more so than blooded hard groups on that level. Still want the locked chest? You’d better be prepared; these will be some of the toughest fights the game has to offer.

That said, elites on earlier levels seem to have got a little too big for their boots, and are a little too overconfident in their abilities. I’m sure you’ll be able to humble them.

These changes have left bounties in the dust somewhat, but don’t worry – we’ll be giving them a brand new coat of paint in the next major patch.

Much More

If the above changes sound scary, don’t worry: in practice, they’re counteracted heavily by the improved gambits and new tricks you’ll have access to.

To help ease you in at the start of runs, you’ll now receive extra gems on the first level, and it’s considerably easier to gain access to the locked chest there due to the changes to elites on that level. This will hopefully give people a much more solid foundation for their runs.

Something Else…?

Feels like there’s something else we forgot to mention. Hmm… Well, can’t have been that important, I suppose.

Enjoy!

P.S. The game will receive a 20% discount later today!

(Mostly) Complete Patch Notes

We’ve updated the wiki with all the up-to-date changes from this patch, so be sure to check there if you ever want to delve deeper!

Major changes

• Added the speed star system.
• Added character expert tricks.
• Added 70+ new tricks.
• Added gambit recycling and gambit duplication to the laboratory.
• Added 60+ new gambits.
• Reworked virtually every existing gambit with improved effects or easier dice costs.
• Lightly nerfed burn so that it will always reduce stack on hit, even from fire dice.
• Lightly buffed poison, so that the stack will reduce by half the damage on hit instead of the full amount.
• Added blood rage ability to blood fountain enemies.
• Revamped elites with new configurations and gave them brand new sprites.
• Rebalanced virtually every enemy group from Refrigerated Frontier/Effervert Forest and onward.
• [REDACTED]

Balance changes

• Changed one of Himitsu’s starting poison D4s to a D6.
• Adjusted characters’ resistance upgrades.
• Adjusted requirements for character upgrades.
• Adjusted base element prices at the forge and shop.
• Made the forge offer discounts on that level’s element.
• Made normal gambit slots accept holy and necro dice.

Adjusted the following tricks:

• Deadly Riposte (now stacks with Auto-Parry)
• Quantum Navigator (buffed)
• Quantum Compass (new effect)
• Bite the Dust (buffed)
• Die Slowly (buffed)
• Warm Coat (nerfed)
• Bee Button (buffed)
• Nanomachines (buffed)
• Critical Roll (new effect)
• D4 Shear (new effect/buffed)
• Wyvern/Dryad/Giant/Basilisk Soul (nerfed)
• Discerning Eye (now affects gambits)
• Quantum Balance/Flame/Frailty/Chill/Toxin/Rite/Curse (buffed)
• Transient Rite/Curse (buffed)
• Strong Coffee (buffed)
• Traveller’s Banjo (reworked)
• Duality (keeps count after fleeing)
• Smart Battery (new effect)
• Soap Stone (buffed)
• Half/Full Rodriguez (buffed)
• Focus Fire (new effect/buffed)
• Toxic Relationship (nerfed)
• Solarbeam (new effect)
• False Negative (buffed)
• Saikoronibi (new effect)
• Score Counter (nerfed)
• Superposition (new effect/buffed)
• Antimatter Launcher (new effect/buffed)
• Anti-Seed (buffed)
• Bangers (buffed)
• Diceshroom (…buffed?)
• Marksman (buffed)
• Uncle’s Special Tonic (buffed)
• Rediecling (now copies result)
• Shapechanger (…nerfed?)
• Fungal Infestation (nerfed)
• Stunning Strike (nerfed)
• Discombobulator (buffed)
• Skill Issue (now only grants a normal D16)
• Funky Fungi (nerfed)
• Wafer Shield (buffed)
• Radioactive Lamp (buffed)
• Crabby Mitre (buffed)
• Gavel (new effect/buffed)

• You can now parry self-inflicted damage.
• Prevented elite groups offering trick rewards.
• Adjusted spawn pools of various tricks.
• Buffed Dicecade’s resistances and gave their Patrons abilities.
• Buffed Pontiff Crabicus’ dice and made them more aggressive when they’ve summoned Archdeacrustaceans.
• Adjusted Pontiff Crabicus’ and Necro MaDjinn’s resistances.
• Increased Blessing and Curse appearance rates after picking up at least one (yet again).
• Made AGGAYU deal double burn damage to block, and made them inflict burn stack equal to the amount of block both you and they have.
• Made BOREAS cause your frozen dice to provide no block, and reduced their healing amount to 5 per frozen die.
• Made ISHARA’s poison damage infliction increase each time you block with a die.

Minor Changes

• Updated the title screen.
• Gave every enemy unique attack wind-up SFX.
• Made the map void colour match the level’s element.
• Predefined the map for first-time runs on profiles to ensure new players don’t receive tutorials out-of-order.
• Added prerequisites section to trick entries in the encyclopedia.
• Adjusted descriptions of various tricks.
• Added SFX to trick and gambit rewards.

Quality of Life

• Added damage prediction to many more tricks.
• Added a more detailed breakdown of stack and resistance in player’s debuff tooltips.
• Added extra info to fountain tooltips.
• Neatened damage indicator stacking.
• Unified styling of stack/resistance indicators.
• Allowed combining base gambits of different qualities in recipes.
• Added notification when starting a run with Mixigilly telling you what dice you start with.
• Made notifications show above screen transitions.
• Gave colour to dice modifiers that show up on hover, reflecting whether they’ll do more or less damage than their value.
• Prevented many more tricks from being offered late enough in runs that you’d have no use for them anymore.

fixes

• • Made Necro MaDjinn’s moveset non-random, so they’ll attack with necro dice on alternating turns as originally intended.
  • Fixed Uncle’s Special Tonic not working on blood fountains.
  • Fixed temporary health disappearing if you took any amount of health damage or upgraded your health after a boss.
  • Fixed various gambits that weren’t functioning as intended.
  • Split up Bernando’s and Kuraokami’s death SFX so they no longer play their upgrade SFX if you kill them both at the same time.