Slay the Spire 2 redesigns the map and rescues the Regent in a new balance patch

Fresh Slay the Spire 2 patch notes have arrived, and Prepared is back. “You can lower your Shivs,” developer Mega Crit jokes. Game designer Anthony Giovannetti is here to walk us through the team’s thoughts and the design intent behind the new changes. They include some pretty heavy-handed Regent buffs, slightly more friendly map layouts, and yet another fresh approach for one of the roguelike’s climactic boss fights. Giovannetti notes that player feedback “has been instrumental in helping guide our process,” so keep it coming.

As with last week’s massive overhaul, a reminder that this Slay the Spire 2 update is still part of the ongoing testing on the beta branch, and so you’ll only see these changes if you opt in via the game properties menu through your Steam library. With that established, the dramatic ‘Prepared’ redesign is no more. Giovannetti still believes the discard synergies on the Sly tag are “too dominant,” but says, “Prepared is so integral to the Silent’s core identity that I will be looking for a different approach to bring Sly in line in the future.”

Also reverted are the changes to both ‘Capture Spirit’ and ‘Borrowed Time’ on the Necrobinder. The latter, which grants bonus energy at the cost of slowly ticking up your Doom counter, “is likely to receive a complete rework in the future,” but is staying in its launch form for the meantime so that it’s still “fun to play with in all decks.” The ‘Pendulum’ relic has been redesigned, now granting one card draw every three turns rather than each time you shuffle your draw pile.

After dramatically changing the Doormaker boss fight last patch, Mega Crit is continuing to experiment to find a happy medium. While eating random cards out of your deck was certainly more interesting, Giovannetti admits it felt a little too “random.” There are now different powers for each of the Doormaker’s visual forms, and he’ll rotate between them. The first causes your attacks and skills to exhaust when played, the second prevents all card draw, and the third increases the cost of the first card you use each turn by one.

The Regent, who has some impressive scaling potential but can easily fall flat in the early game, gets some significant buffs across the board. His ‘Arsenal’ power now grants strength each time you create a card (instead of when playing colorless cards), which will make it much more consistent for a wider range of decks. ‘Guiding Star’ now gives you the two cards that turn, rather than next, and the rather underwhelming ‘Spoils of Battle’ also draws two cards in its new form, with the Forge amount lowered to compensate. With several more small improvements to other cards, he could be quite the force to be reckoned with.

Map generation has been overhauled, with adjustments “to help limit the number of maps overflowing with early monster rooms and not much else.” Elites can no longer appear on floor six, putting them back in line with the first game; Giovannetti explains that this happened as a consequence of Neow being considered ‘floor one,’ and giving players that extra stage “should have a big impact on how tough fighting early Elites is.” The Gloom Ascension modifier will no longer reduce the frequency of question marks. “Although it did make the game more difficult, it was not in a satisfying or fun way.” Expect a full rework for that particular tier in the future.

Three enemy encounters have been nerfed: Waterfall Giant has less health, The Lost and Forgotten no longer scales its stat-stealing as you climb Ascensions, and Skulking Colony has less damage and no more ‘Dazed’ cards. Giovannetti says the last buff made Skulking Colony too strong, and decided the dazing “actually worked against the design goals of his power” of limiting your per-turn damage. Haunted Ship has apparently picked up that discarded Dazed status, and will use it on you in its fight instead.

The Ironclad’s ‘Cinder’ now exhausts a random card in your hand rather than the top of the deck, making it far less of a gamble. The vulnerable-inflicting ‘Tremble’ gains exhaust, which will actually make it more viable in most decks, as you rarely want it more than once per fight. The Silent’s ‘Serpent Form’ will deal more damage per card draw when upgraded, while the Defect’s ‘Voltaic’ (channel lightning equal to the amount already channeled this combat) has had its cost increased from two to three to better reflect its nature as a finisher.

Several relics have had their rarities switched, meaning you’ll see ‘Permafrost’ and ‘Bellows’ less often, but ‘Tiny Mailbox,’ ‘Bag of Marbles,’ ‘Red Mask,’ and ‘Lasting Candy’ more frequently. Keep in mind that this also affects shop cost. “The design goal is that commons are not necessarily weaker, but that they are often simple effects that could add value to most decks,” Giovannetti notes. “As rarity increases we allow higher complexity and more impact on drafting/play decisions.”

Relics that previously used the “costs zero energy” wording have been changed to “free to play,” which works out as another buff for the Regent as it’ll affect stars as well. This also applies to cards created during the ‘Tinker Time’ event. Rounding out the changes for today are some new art and animations, a wide range of bug fixes, and some more solutions to crashes and softlocks.

Slay the Spire 2 patch 0.101.0 is live now via the beta branch. Mega Crit has also dramatically enhanced the character limit on the feedback form (accessed by hitting the F2 key) from 500 to 8,000 characters. “In-game feedback from you the player is the best way we have of improving the game,” Giovannatti concludes. “I am eagerly looking forward to reading your effort posts.”