We have been busy reading all your feedback and working on the next update for Salt and Sacrifice. There's still a lot more we want to do but we decided it was time to start letting players get their hands on what we've been tweaking. There's a new "Preview" branch under Properties->Betas that will allow you to test the WIP patch 2.0.0.1. This update has now been released to retail!

We also invite you to join our Discord and chat directly with us and others.
https://discord.gg/skastudios


Salt and Sacrifice 2.0.0.1 Balance Update
(Updated 12/07/2023)

Weapon and armor balance
- Slower weapon scaling and target damage increased.
- Hyper armor added to heavy attacks for greathammers, greatblades, greatswords, and glaives, allowing them to withstand more poise damage before being interrupted.
- Whip scaling and target damage increased.
- Poison and Fungal weapon damage increased.
- Tarcloth weapon buffs duration increased by 87.5%.
- Wearing light armor and no armor adds a burst of stamina recovery per slot.
- Buffed blocking of all weapons.
- Buffed blocking of vanguards even more.
- Greathammer sprint attack damage reduced but poise damage increased.
- Various weapon damage and poise balance.
- Increased fungal amulet effect.
- Runic arts damage when using staves has been slightly increased.

Player balance
- Endurance now adds additional poise per slot of heavy armor worn.
- Being hazeburnt no longer decreases hitpoints. Instead, being guiltless (non-hazeburnt) increases defense and item find chance.
- Players can now change their aim direction when not firing/throwing.
- Flask drinking speed and healing speed has been increased.
- Ladder climbing speed has been increased.
- Antidote cures all poison on use.

Monster balance
- Reduced juggle damage from monsters by 50% on subsequent hits.
- Reduced poise damage of a variety of smaller monsters.
- Ashen Congregant damage has been reduced.
- Temple Highblade damage has been reduced.
- Mages will only partially heal on player death or rest.
- Reduced Kraeaxenar breath attack damage. Fixed damage type.
- Reduced Electromancer homing bolt turn speed.
- Trials of the Brave monster tiers are now agnostic of NG+ level.
- Increased Salt + artifact awards from final boss.
- Removed Candlebearer spawn outside of Worm That Does Not Die arena.
- Various monster and minion balance tweaks to outliers.
- Nameless who end up in a boss arena should quickly leave now.
- Hazeburnt enemies will spawn together less frequently and no longer guard ledges forever.

Quality of Life
- Hearthen flasks, haze decoctions, and ranged ammo will always replenish to max when restocking but missing materials costs will be deducted from current player silver amount at a 10% markup. Materials are still maxed if the player lacks the silver for the materials.
- Stamina will continue to regenerate when sprinting outside of combat.
- Skill tree hints highlight nodes for required class level and runic art abilities for the currently equipped weapons and armor.
- Dying by falling will drop salt at the point the player jumped and not where they landed.
- Defeating the final boss no longer locks the player into ascending to NG+.
- Added inventory sorting.

Multiplayer
- Enemies no longer deal increased damage when cooperating with additional players.
- Fast traveling will automatically bring along all ally players.
- Dawnlight players will get a token when helping the host defeat roaming mages.
- PVP bonus damage from items and buffs has been adjusted based on the target's level.
- Flasks are now scaled independently of other equipment.
- Invaders and defenders will have a max of 2/3 * (Host's Hearthen Flasks+1).
- Fixed a bug that could cause the 20-minute invasion cooldown to be much shorter.
- Fixed a bug that could cause network players to desync in the Heart of Altarstone.
- Fixed a bug that could cause some players to be invisible to each other.

Misc Bugs
- Fixed a bug where killing the Undone Sacrifice with a critical riposte caused issues.
- Left stick aiming will no longer override right stick aiming.
- Fixed a bug where players could not climb certain stairs when aiming, blocking, or attacking.
- Fixed mouse aiming when the game resolution and game window size didn’t match.
- Fixed a bug that could get the game into an improper aspect ratio causing the game to stretch or squish and some UI elements to become off-center.
- Fixed UI scale settings causing the skill tree to render outside the screen bounds.

Notes
- Networked multiplayer is limited to players with the same patch.
- We will add to the list as new things are done and everything is subject to change.

Hotfix 2.0.0.0_a

- Fixed bug preventing bosses from initializing properly in Heart of Altarstone.
- Fixed bug preventing players from vanquishing Shirenna.
- Fixed improper text appearing in holding cells Crimson Pillar.
- Fixed Steam controller detection to show correct controller icons.
- Fixed keyboard triggering mouse to show again.
- Fixed the “drink” prompt when using a keyboard.
- Fixed several game crashes.
- Other fixes.

We're pleased to announce our debut on Steam will be launching with the an all-new content update: The Traitor's Tomb. Details follow:


[h4]New Content[/h4]

• New zone - Descend into the mysterious Heart of Altarstone, an expansive new dungeon hiding the Marked Inquisition’s darkest secrets.
  
• New NPCs.
  
• New monsters.
  
• New bosses.
  
• PVE boss gauntlet.
  
• PVP arena.
  
• Added a variety of range, timing, and visual effects to all weapon buffs.
  
• A new beacon type has been added to zones that allow fast traveling within a zone.

[h4]Networking[/h4]

• Cross-play multiplayer between all platforms.

[h4]Fixes / Improvements[/h4]

• Skill tree window improvements - larger window and colors.
  
• Buy/Sell count wraps to easily go from 1 to max.
  
• Preventing camera zooming on remote players during some sequences.
  
• Rings and amulet items properly show if they’ve been crafted before.
  
• Plunge attack no longer completely drains stamina with scythe weapons.
  
• Fixed displaying some negative values in the UI.
  
• Mundane weapons will generate rage for offhand weapons.
  
• Tokens from fated hunts are guaranteed.
  
• Made a particularly hard jump in the swamp a bit easier.
  
• Dying from damage over time on a ladder is handled better.
  
• Added a hazeburnt commoner in Nowhere for off-line bestiary unlock.
  
• Fixed infinite “Obliterated” screen in some coop instances.
  
• Fixed some weapon swapping causing characters to lock up.
  
• Additional fixes.