4 October 2022 Patch

The following patch was deployed on 4 October 2022 for Darkest Dungeon II.

## Build 0.16.38730 Experimental Hotfix

### REGION GENERATION CHANGES

This is part of a larger effort to provide more texture to the expedition from Valley to Mountain. We will be monitoring feedback, so let us know how you feel!

### Length Variation

Now, region 1 (the first region past the Valley) will be a little shorter than standard regions, and region 3 (third region past the Valley) will be a bit longer than standard regions. Region 2 will be a "standard" region.
Despite Ordainment and some other behind-the-scenes mechanics (e.g. concentration of easier battles spawned in region 1; greater proportion of harder battles spawned in region 3) we still would like to explore ways to make the difficulty curve of the expedition less front-loaded. Slightly shortening the first region and lengthening the last region helps this, in addition to providing variety. Region 1 is crucial for early Candle-gathering for new players.
Related to the length tuning, we have also adjusted some location generation limits to provide additional texture:

* Watchtowers are not guaranteed to spawn in short regions
* Oases and Creature Dens are not guaranteed to spawn in any regions (the idea is to make them feel a little more special when they are present)
* Spawn rates of Academic's Studies increased some. Have fun hunting more Shamblers!
* Spawn rates of Cultist encounter locations increased some.

We anticipate experimenting further with region generation.

### Region Variation

We are also experimenting with making each region feel different in paths and contents.

### THE SPRAWL:

* Generally more location choices (2 to 3 per “row”)
* More Hoarders and Field Hospitals
* Less Academic’s Caches
* No Oasis or Creature Den
* More Resist encounter fights than normal (slightly less Oblivion’s Ingress, Assists)

### THE FOETOR:

* Standard balance of location choices (varies 1 to 3 per row)
* Less Field Hospitals
* More Academic’s Caches
* Less Oases
* Guaranteed Creature Den
* More Assist encounters than normal (slightly less Resists and Academic’s Studies)

### THE TANGLE:

* Standard balance of location choices
* Less Watchtowers
* Less Hoarders
* Less Field Hospitals
* More Oases
* Guaranteed Creature Den
* More Academic's Studies (slightly less Assists and Resists, standard Oblivion’s Ingress)

### THE SHROUD:

* Always 2 location choices per row
* Guaranteed Watchtowers (lighthouses!)
* Guaranteed Oases
* Standard mix of Assist, Resist, Oblivion’s Ingress, Academic’s Studies

### THE SLUICE:

* Always 1-2 location choices per row
* New Location: Swine Caches! (helps ensure some good loot when going to the Sluice)

### BATTLE LOOT AUDIT

We did a full audit of all battle-based loot, as it had been a while and we wanted to strengthen the identity of various fights as well as make some adjustments based upon the recent community loot survey.

* MASTERY: In general, reduced Mastery rewards a little. We would like to achieve a balance where it's not guaranteed to have enough Mastery to upgrade all 5 assigned hero skills for all 4 heroes by the time you reach the Mountain
* FOOD: now food cannot be found in combats. Food should be searched for at Assist Encounters or purchased from stores
* ROAD COMBATS: Reduced road combat loot a little overall, but also strengthened the identity of loot between pillager, gaunt, and faction road combats. Improved loot from Anty-Q fights and Ghoul fights
* CULTIST AMBUSHES (0 torch or max loathing): removed all loot except torch restoration and loathing reduction. These are meant to be punitive fights and should be avoided at all costs. Not intended to be farmed for good loot.
* FACTION RESISTANCE ENCOUNTERS (location fights): added bonus treasure chance and increased SC upgrade chance a little. Reduced Mastery chance a bit, reduced Inn item chance.
* CULTIST OBLIVION'S INGRESS ENCOUNTERS (location cultists): removed relics chance, but slightly increased trinket rewards
* SHAMBLER: increased Mastery rewards to 2 and added Otherworldly fragments as loot
* LAIR pre-wave fights: reduced combat item draw chance
* LAIR boss fights: added guaranteed combat item draw; added guaranteed rest item draw; added bonus treasure draw
* OBLIVION'S RAMPART (Guardian fights): removed relics and food (Cultists don't collect these things) but increased other loot (guaranteed combat item and inn item, added SC upgrade chance and bonus treasure draw)
* CREATURE DEN: made combat item guaranteed; made rest item guaranteed; removed trinkets draw; slightly reduced Mastery chance; slightly increased SC upgrade chance

### GAMEPLAY

* Fixed an issue where the Hellion could lose her natural low-health DMG buff when Memoried into a new run
* Fixed an issue where the Leper could lose his natural chance to spawn Blind when Memoried into a new run
* Fixed an issue where the Occultist could lose his natural self-Burn from Unchecked Power when Memoried into a new run
* Occultist's self-Burn related information is now shown on the Conditions tab instead of on Unchecked Power tokens
* Lairs in the Tangle can now contain Champion mashes when appropriate
* Cultist Altars can no longer spawn in Biome 1 as part of 0 torch ambushes or maximum Loathing Exemplar battles
* Tokens previewed at Resist nodes will now reflect their normal color regardless of the side to which they are applied
* Biome goals and modifiers will be unique per biome choice
* Caches can now appear in the SLUICE. (Part of the effort to ensure that SLUICE is a good risk/reward balance.)
* Several trinkets that modify healing received now only apply to healing effects from skills; Minor Bouncer's Belt, Bouncer's Belt, Greater Bouncer's Belt, Minor Heartseeker, Heartseeker, Snap Judgment, Dark Impulse (healing variation), Hags Hoard, Ghastly Gruel, Rat Skull, Foreclosure Notice
* Fixed an issue on the Bounty Hunter's trinket, Vengeful Kill List, where it was incorrectly providing the damage bonus on corpse kills
* Valley leaf piles will sometimes yield loot, as God intended

### ALTAR

* Tap and hold milestones in the Altar of Hope to purchase the milestone upgrade or tap and hold the upgrade buttons in the Altar of Hope to purchase the next available milestone (rest that tired candle-clicking finger!)
* Fixed an issue where some of the altars were not taking candles correctly
* Added breadcrumb notifications for new items unlocked from the Altar or discovered in game
* Added breadcrumb notifications at the Crossroads for newly unlocked hero paths
* Added altar class unlock timeline animation
* Added altar slider, hero unlock, milestone hold to unlock bar vfx and animations
* Fixed Altar of Hope selection diamond overlapping altar screens when selected with inputs
* Fixed some control issues with holding to upgrade Altar upgrades
* Fixed some unnecessary text being appended to Altar item reward presentation
* Fixed Altar Progress Bar aura effects getting clipped
* Fixed The Recollection tab showing an alert unintentionally
* Updated hero altar unlock title from Trademark Item to Signature Item

### MISC

* Added localization for all supported languages for the new update
* Brightness and Overall Lighting Adjustments: We were unhappy with the overall values appearing in screenshots and streams, and have adjusted lighting and tinting in every environment.  This is an ongoing process
* Improved and added strings relating to the various save invalidation states to better describe why your save won't load.
* Updated various tutorials to now account for the gameplay changes introduced with M5 - The Altar of Hope update
* The Crossroads now has a tab to show quirks and resistances
* Corrected Stagecoach skin names at the Altar of Hope

### FIXES

* Resize down various combat pop texts
* Fixed incorrect duration type being shown in character sheet conditions
* Adjusted the Combat Camera positions to be slightly closer.
* Fixed an issue where the Travelogue would sometimes not display the continue button
* Fixed an issue where heroes would be carried over to a new run if the previous run was invalidated
* Fixed an issue where drag and drop to equip a trinket while being over encumbered broke input
* Fixed an issue with the Infernal Flame bonuses not being visually displayed during end results, yet still rewarding the correct amount
* Fixed an issue where some stats would get refreshed out of sync which could result in an HP calculation bug thinking the character was dead, and not simply loaded yet
* Fixed an issue where the Relationship is Tested presentation would fire before you finished loading into the Inn resulting in UI elements to never finish loading
* Fixed an issue with the memory icons on the character sheets would flicker to other icons on open
* Fix for user reporting screenshots no longer hiding blur canvas, resulting in the screenshots being blurred incorrectly
* Fixed an issue where you could spend candles on maxed out tracks
* Fixed an issue where the Tutorial Toasts would render on top of the UI while the game was paused
* Fixed the text wrapping on story choice previews to allow for three digits
* Fixed an issue where the game would fail to load rarely during region transitions
* Updated all strings for loading invalidated saves to be more clear and specific to the case
* Fixed Minimap scrolling having too much inertia / floating feeling
* Various other UI fixes
* Added over-encumbered sfx, adjusted altar of hope ambiance