A Dark and Darker hotfix has rolled out for the hardcore dungeon-crawler following its recent major update. Developer Ironmace explains some of the nerfs it made with early access patch one, and says it has plans moving forwards to “start working on some buffs.” The new Dark and Darker patch notes also revert the more generous merchants, after Ironmace determined that their new inventories “may have made it a little too easy.”
The Dark and Darker hotfix patch notes for Friday September 29, 2023 include some nice Rogue buffs, after the class was left feeling a little short-changed by weapon rebalancing in the first major update for the RPG game. Ironmace explains that it “wanted to have a clean baseline to start balancing the numerous weapons, armors, and classes,” hence all the nerfs and number flattening found in Dark and Darker patch 1.
“Our plan is to slowly build up from this baseline with what we’ve observed and learned during early access to get to a sweet spot where players across a wide range of needs can enjoy the game,” the team says. “Now that we’ve had our run with the nerf hammer, we’ll start to work the dials and start working on some buffs one by one.”
These start with an increase to the damage dealt by all daggers across the board, along with buffs to several Rogue skills. Bard and Ranger also see some slight buffs, but sadly the new movement speed buff on Torches and Lanterns has already been removed.
Perhaps the biggest adjustment in this hotfix is the reversion of merchant inventories, thus removing their ability to offer epic-tier gear. Ironmace admits, “although the changes had the intended effect of reducing the stress of gearing up, we may have made it a little too easy, thus disincentivizing the value of loot more than we wanted.”
As such, the team is reverting to the “more dynamic random modifiers” that were in use prior to early access patch 1. It does, however, note that it has “slightly tuned these modifiers so some of the more desirable stats are even better than before.” To help you get better loot, both sub bosses and special chests will now always drop guaranteed higher quality loot, and the Jack-O-Lantern has returned.
Dark and Darker hotfix patch notes – September 29, 2023
Here are the Dark and Darker patch notes for its September 29 hotfix, courtesy of developer Ironmace via the game’s official Discord.
Hotfix updates
- Fixed a rollback issue where players would revert to a previous state when exiting a dungeon.
- Fixed Occultist Boots movement speed.
- Fixed an issue where Curse of Pain’s instant damage would not occur when the Warlock uses Curse Mastery.
- Fixed an issue where Power of Sacrifice could not deal damage when the Warlock uses Curse Mastery.
- Lantern/Torch additional movement speed has been adjusted to 0.
- Lanterns can now appear with random modifiers at the higher rarities.
- Damage for all daggers has been slightly increased.
- Rogue’s Trap Detection range has been increased from 400 → 450.
- Rogue’s Jokester range has been increased from 350 → 450.
- Rogue’s Ambush physical damage bonus changed from 30% → 50%.
- Rogue’s Weak Point attack armor rating reduction has been changed from 25% → 30%, and the duration has been changed from 3s → 4s.
- Ranger’s Chase range has been increased from 400 → 450.
- Bard’s Warsong range has been increased from 350 → 450.
- Bard’s Story Teller range has been increased from 350 → 450.
- Jack-O-Lantern has returned.
- Regular merchants no longer sell Epic items.
- The random modifier properties that appear on the colored rarity items have been reverted to give the much larger value range and larger variety including the +all attributes from before the previous patch. This means that checking the rolls for your items means just as much or more than just the color grade of the item.
- Sub-bosses and Special Chests such as the Lion’s Head, Golden Chests, Marvelous, and Royal Coffins will always give colored grade loot now.
- Soulreaper name changed to Soulscraper.
Missing from patch 1
- The volume of footsteps that occur when walking crouched has been slightly reduced.
- Barbarian’s Ironwill now ignores knockback.
Have a look through our Dark and Darker classes guide if you’re interested in trying out something new with this latest set of patch notes. We’ve also rounded up the best battle royale games to duke it out for your attention.