(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

To celebrate v3.1.0's release, Shattered is also 40% off on Steam for the next while!

You can discuss this Blog Post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community[lemmy.world].

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v3.1 includes a mini Warrior Rework, new terrain/rooms, a new trinket, and a bunch of other smaller changes and additions!

I talked about this update in one previous blog post:

• Coming Soon to Shattered: Warrior Mini Rework and More![shatteredpixel.com]

One notable new addition that I didn't share in that earlier post is a re-done splash art for the Warrior to go along with his gameplay mini rework! This new splash is once again done by Aleksandar Komitov[akomitov.artstation.com]. The original Warrior splash was the first one Aleks did, and so this remake is the most significant of the hero splash art changes. Aleks was keen to make corrections to armor design and proportions to bring the splash up to his current standards.

Here's the full changelog for v3.1.0! Click or tap on each entry to read more. Note that this changelog will become slightly outdated as patches are released and dev commentary is added, so check the changes screen in-game for the most up to date version.

(This sections contains expandable text boxes, you may need to view the post directly in order to see them properly.)

New Content:

• Dev Commentary [expand]
  - Released June 2nd, 2025
  - 95 days after v3.0.0
  
  Dev commentary will be added here in the future[/expand]
  
• Warrior Mini Rework [expand]
  The Warrior has had a mini overhaul to his broken seal ability, and new visuals for his splash art and broken seal!
  
  The seal's shielding now triggers in bursts with a cooldown, when the Warrior is below 50% HP. It should feel more impactful and interactive while still being easy to use for new players.
  
  The Warrior's new splash art is once again done by Aleksandar Komitov. The original Warrior splash was the first one Aleks did, and so this remake is the most significant of the hero splash art changes. Aleks was keen to make corrections to armor design and proportions to bring the splash up to his current standards.
  
  Here are the detailed changes to the broken seal shielding mechanics:
  - Broken Seal shield no longer passively builds, it now triggers all at once just before the Warrior gets damaged to 50% health or lower.
  - Max shield is now based on armor tier, scaling from 5-13 (max of 15 with iron will talent).
  - This shielding does not decay, but ends shortly after combat
  - This shielding has a 150 turn cooldown, unused shield refunds up to 50% cooldown.
  - The broken seal can now be applied to known-uncursed armor.
  - When swapping armor, the Warrior now gets a prompt to swap his seal too.
  
  Various other Warrior mechanics have been adjusted to compensate for the seal changes:
  - Provoked Anger talent now triggers when any shield buff breaks, and grants +3/+5 bonus damage, up from +2/+3.
  - Iron Will talent unchanged, still grants 1 or 2 max shield.
  - Liquid Willpower talent now grants regular barrier equal to 6.5%/10% of max HP, instead of recharging 50%/75% of max seal shield.
  - Lethal Defence talent now reduces seal cooldown, instead of recharging seal shield.
  - Gladiator will retain any active shielding from his broken seal as long as he has combo.
  - Berserker enrage shield is now its own separate shielding buff, and has its own scaling separate from the seal's max shield.[/expand]
  
• New Rooms and Terrain Types [expand]
  This update includes an expansion to the dungeon's standard rooms!
  
  - New decorative terrain has been added to each region, largely inspired by details from the region splash arts.
  - 5 new standard rooms have been added that use these new terrain objects, one per region.
  - 8 existing standard rooms have been modified to use the new terrain objects.
  - 10 new entrance/exit variants of standard rooms have been added as well. two per region.
  - Boss Arenas also use these new terrain types in a few places
  - Plain empty rooms no longer spawn normally.[/expand]
  
• Ferret Tuft [expand]
  A new trinket has been added to the game!
  
  The Ferret Tuft is a simpler evasion-boosting trinket with more of a cute aesthetic. It's a little reference to a favourite lime ferret.
  
  Choosing and upgrading the trinket will cause all characters to gain evasion, including enemies! That might sound like a mixed bag, but keep in mind that there are lots of ways to counter enemy evasion.[/expand]
  
• New Badges [expand]
  v3.1 also includes four new badges, each themed around a specific challenge:
  
  - Safety Hazard is a gold-tier badge that requires using terrain against enemies
  - So Many Colors is a platinum-tier badge that requires having a bunch of buffs/debuffs at once
  - Pacifist Ascent is a diamond-tier badge that require surviving an ascension without any enemy kills.
  - Taking the Mick is a diamond-tier badge that requires defeating the final boss with a VERY high level pickaxe
  
  I've also reduced the difficulty of the Big Game Hunter badge. It now requires discovering 10 types of rare enemies, down from all of them.[/expand]
  
• New Rare Enemies [expand]
  Two new rare enemies have been added to the sewers:
  
  Gnoll Exiles are exceptionally strong, but also wary of combat. They won't attack unprovoked, so you can just let them pass, but maybe you'll be interested in the loot they carry...
  
  Hermit Crabs are sturdy but slow crabs that use a broken barrel for extra support. They're a bit tough to fight, but much easier to run away from, and have a good chance to drop some armor for you.[/expand]

Changes:

• Exploration and Quest Score [expand]
  I've made adjustments to how score is calculated to balance the difficulty of the various score categories a little better:
  
  Exploration Score is no longer all-or-nothing for each floor. It is now based on how many rooms were not fully explored. For each floor, score is reduced to 50%/20%/0% for 1/2/3+ missed rooms. The criteria for whether something is 'fully explored' is unchanged.
  
  Quest Score can now be reduced in a similar manner to boss score. Make sure to position well to avoid penalties! This reduction includes telegraphed attacks/effects (e.g. crystal spire, gnoll geomancer), and regular attacks that you should be able to always avoid (e.g. rot lashers, fetid rat's ooze). Cases where attacks are sometimes unavoidable (e.g. corpse dust wraiths, gnoll trickster) have some leeway before penalties apply.[/expand]
  
• 20+ Misc. Changes [expand]
  Highlights:
  - Various small color tweaks to health bars, inventory buttons, and flare vfx to improve the experience for colorblind players
  - Custom notes for items can now be created or edited from the item's info window
  - Hero renaming can now be done in the hero info window while a run is in progress
  - All potions now refresh the duration of their specific effects. Previously the duration of some potion effects could stack on themselves
  - Added discovery hints for all catalog entries
  - Added landmark entries for lost backpack and beacon of returning
  
  Items:
  - Slightly reduced telekinetic grab's sale/energy value, so that it can't be used to effectively turn high-tier thrown weapons into energy
  - Unidentified wands can now be imbued in the mage's staff
  - Partially IDed items can now be used with the dried rose
  
  Characters:
  - Improved Tengu's AI, he can now switch targets if he is unable to attack the hero
  - Defeating Dwarf King now cleanses the player of the degraded debuff
  
  Effects:
  - Smaller shorter-term shielding buffs are now consumed before larger longer-term ones
  - The gravity chaos cursed wand effect now has its own debuff icon
  - When using metamorph, food talents that grant the same type of recharging can now stack
  - Improved VFX for activating or deactivating brawler's stance
  - Guiding Light's spell icon is now brightened when it is free to cast
  
  Misc:
  - The inventory button gold indicator on mobile now shows when buying items
  - Rooms with a chasm in the center must now be at least 3x3, up from 2x2
  - Increased the minimum supported iOS version to 12, from 11
  - Moved the notification position to the top-left on the Steam version. It should no longer obscure UI elements[/expand]
  
• 30+ Bugfixes [expand]
  Fixed the following bugs:
  
  Highlights:
  - Thrown weapons gaining or losing more accuracy than intended based on enemy adjacency
  - Shocking enchantment triggering its damage twice in many cases since v3.0
  - Runs in progress older than 2 months showing 'NO TEXT FOUND'
  - Allies not waking from magical sleep after it has healed them
  - Desktop versions downloaded via github not properly notifying when updates are available
  
  Characters:
  - Swapping places with allies not being counted as movement for shuriken's instant attack
  - Exploits where sheep could last forever if game was frequently saved/loaded
  - Mirror images not benefitting from body form or holy weapon if the Cleric was unarmed
  - Light Ally and Shadow Clone having very slightly more accuracy/evasion than the hero at base
  
  Effects:
  - Hallowed ground producing furrowed grass more often than intended in some cases
  - Ascended form ending early if its shielding was reduced to 0
  - Metamorphed cleanse clearing lost inventory debuff
  - Metamorphed aggressive barrier using incorrect logic
  - Lay on Hands sometimes applying 0 barrier to allies
  - Death via the Cleric's life link not being recorded in rankings
  - Targeting traps having very slightly less range than intended
  - Duelist being able to stack invisibility using the sneak weapon ability
  - Metamorphed holy intuition deleting armor in rare cases
  
  Items:
  - Players being able to take smith rewards multiple times in specific cases
  - Stone glyph not considering some evasion/accuracy buffs
  - Brimstone glyph not properly scaling past +50% glyph power
  - Boomerangs disappearing if the game was closed during their circle back animation
  - Crystal path rooms sometimes sorting items incorrectly when player had exotic crystals
  - Cursed wand of warding not using autotargeting
  
  Misc:
  - Shattered locking to 60fps on 120hz iOS devices
  - Custom notes not properly applying to specific rings, wands, & trinkets
  - Paralysis vfx on enemies sometimes cancelling animations as it ends
  - Rare cases of wonky display scaling on Linux systems
  - Various minor visual & textual errors
  - Various rare crash errors[/expand]

Buffs:

• Cleric Buffs [expand]
  Overall the Cleric is doing well following their initial release. Their winrate is low currently, but they are also very popular so I expect some of that is people still figuring them out. For the moment I'm focusing on multiple targeted buffs to specific Cleric mechanics that are weaker vs. others.
  
  Base class:
  - Guiding light base damage up to 2-8 from 2-6
  - Holy Weapon & Ward are now cast instantly
  - Shield of Light duration up to 5 from 4
  - Divine Sense is now cast instantly
  
  Paladin:
  - Lay on Hands healing up to 15/20/25 from 10/15/20
  - Aura of Protection dmg resist up to 20%/30%/40% from 15%/23%/30%
  
  Priest:
  - Illuminate bonus damage up to 5+lvl from lvl
  - Radiance now triggers and applies illuminate
  - Holy Lance cooldown down to 30 from 50
  - Hallowed Ground heal up to 15 from 10
  - Hallowed Ground root up to 2 turns from 1
  - Mnemonic Prayer is now cast instantly
  
  Ascended Form:
  - Divine Intervention duration extension up to 3/4/5/6 from 1/2/3/4
  - Judgement extra dmg increased to +33% per spell from 5-10 per spell
  
  Power of Many:
  - Life Link duration up to 10/13/17/20 from 6/8/10/12[/expand]

Nerfs:

• Cleric Nerfs [expand]
  A few Cleric mechanics are standouts in terms of power though, so I am scaling some of those back:
  
  - Searing Light dmg down to +3/+5 from +4/+6
  - Enlightening Meal charge gain down to +0.67/+1 from +1/+1.5
  - Cleanse is no longer cast instantly
  - Hallowed Ground barrier now caps at 30
  - Flash starting charge cost up to 2 from 1
  - Stasis charge cost up to 2 from 1, but duration +50%[/expand]

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• Overview and ETA [expand]
  The next major update to Shattered will be v3.2, which will include an overhaul to thrown weapons!
  
  Due to deadlines relating to supporting old versions of Android, v3.2 has to release relatively quickly. Expect to hear more from me about it sometime probably toward mid or late July.
  
  Please keep in mind that while I always try to keep to the ETAs I provide, they are just estimates. If you don't hear from me by the ETA, it means I'm still busy with the update![/expand]
  
• Thrown Weapon Overhaul [expand]
  The biggest content change I have planned for v3.2 is something I didn't originally plan for 2025, an overhaul to thrown weapons! I've settled on a design I like, and want v3.2 to be fairly quick, which is why this has taken priority for the moment.
  
  The plan is to make thrown weapons behave a bit more like wands, by having them drop in 'sets' that have a fixed quantity, but which can be upgraded as a unit. This should make investing upgrades in thrown weapons much more appealing, as you'll no longer be limited to upgrading one at a time.[/expand]
  
• Misc and Behind the Scenes Changes [expand]
  As always, v3.2 will include some smaller misc. changes and balance tweaks, but I expect it will be lighter on them than usual as I'm working on a deadline in order to ensure old Android and Java users will still get v3.2.
  
  If there's time, I would also like to make some internal changes in prep for a new city quest toward the end of the year.[/expand]
  
• Older Android and Java Support [expand]
  Unfortunately, due to changes to code libraries and build tools that Shattered depends on, I will have to make some changes in the next few months that will remove support for Android 4.0-4.4 and Java 8-10.
  
  Devices with these platform versions should still receive v3.2 and any immediate patches, but will not receive updates after that. These devices will be able to continue playing v3.2 indefinitely.
  
  Android 4.4 was succeeded by Android 5.0 in 2014, ~1% of Android Shattered players are using Android 4.4-. Java 10 was succeeded by Java 11 in 2018, but can run on computers from 2010 and earlier.
  
  Note that the Java requirement only applies to the plain .JAR desktop builds of Shattered, which require a separate Java install. If you're unsure which desktop build you're using, it probably isn't the Java one.[/expand]

If you'd like more frequent incremental updates, you can:
- Subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com]
- Follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]
- Follow me on Bluesky[bsky.app]

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

Hey Dungeoneers, v3.1 is ready for beta, just in time to meet the estimate I gave (for once)!

In this blog post I'm going to go over what's coming in v3.1! This update has a a mini Warrior rework, some new rooms in the dungeon, and an assortment of miscellaneous changes and additions.

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As a quick recap, the Warrior currently has an ability that gives him one passive shielding every 30 turns, which is effectively +33% health regen that works even when hungry. This power is hard to notice and impossible to interact with, but also easy to use and very impactful over the course of a run. This results in the Warrior feeling a lot weaker than he actually is, and I'd like to make the seal's power easier to notice and interact with without making it outright stronger or harder for new players to use.

Here's how that's happening: When the Warrior is about to take damage that would reduce him to 50% health or lower, he will now instantly gain a shield that scales with his armor's tier, with a cooldown of 100 turns. This up-front shield boost is way easier to notice compared to a passive shield that just takes 1 or 2 off most attacks. To start out you'll get 5 shield, and this can go as high as 15 with T5 armor and the iron will talent. Here's how that looks in action:

This means that in theory the Warrior is going from 30 turns per shield to 20 at the start, going as low as 6. That's a huge buff on paper, but it also assumes that the player is constantly fighting at 50% HP or lower. This creates a nice little point of interaction for experienced players, who'll want to try and maximize shield uptime. Newer players don't have to do anything in particular to just use the ability though, as it still triggers automatically whenever the Warrior needs it.

Other Warrior mechanics are getting smaller changes to compensate for this. Several talents are getting shuffled around a bit, and the Berserkser subclass is getting its own separate shield buff instead of piggybacking on the seal's shielding buff. The Berserker's shield still scales with armor level as well, so players who want to dump their upgrades into armor will still have a mechanic that scales with that.

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(Note that the new visuals shown here are placeholders and will be improved)

v3.1 is going to include a new terrain type in each region and some standard room changes to make use of them! I ended up getting a little carried away with this, and in the end each region is getting a new room type, changes/expansions to some existing rooms, and two new entrance/exit variants!

Firstly, here are some of the entirely new rooms that take advantage of the new terrain:

Next, here are some existing rooms that have been changed around a bit to include new terrain types:

Finally, here are some of the new entrance/exit variants. Some are similar to old ones, but I’ve added a few new ones focused on enclosed starting spaces.

Overall I ended up taking longer making these changes than I initially expected (at first it was just going to be the new terrain), but I'm pretty happy with the result. In particular, with these additions the typical empty rooms that were near universal a few years ago are now entirely gone!

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The Warrior changes and levelgen expansion are the biggest parts of v3.1, but there's a nice assortment of smaller things too:

v3.1 includes one new item: the Ferret Tuft! The tuft is a simpler evasion-boosting trinket with more of a cute aesthetic. It boosts evasion for you and for enemies, but there are lots of ways to counter enemy evasion, so use wands or go for those surprise attacks! The tuft is a little reference to a favorite ferret.

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I expect this beta to last for about one to one and a half weeks. If you'd like more frequent incremental updates on Shattered's development, you can:
- Subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com]
- Follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]
- Follow me on Bluesky[bsky.app]

You can discuss this Blog Post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community[lemmy.world].