Servers will be down for 5-10 minutes while they update and restart.

First off, I want to give a big welcome to all the new players. It is really great to see so many people having fun with the game and the feedback has been excellent. Also, a HUGE thank you to everyone who has purchased classes. This goes a long way towards helping us pay the bills and it is very much appreciated. I’ll have a DevBlog coming out soon with my short-term plans for the game and the upcoming changes including at least 2 new maps.

This week we have a small patch with some more optimization and balancing. I’ve also gotten the invisible wall problem fixed on Conquest Slums as well as Conquest and FFA Market. This was an extremely annoying bug to fix as I had to do full game builds just to test out my fixes. Anyways, that is now fixed and I’ve gotten a good workflow for fixing this in the future.

Most of the performance tweaks this week are map based and I still haven’t decided if it’s worth it to remove the character lights but I am almost certainly going to include it in next week’s build. Please send in feedback on your FPS changes (or lack of changes) with these last two patches so I can better gauge how well this is working.

If you want more information on the game’s spells you can view the complete list here[docs.google.com] or join our small but friendly community on Discord[discord.gg]. Big thanks to everyone for all the feedback and help! You can support us directly by visiting our website[omniconnection.net] to buy concept art prints, classes, or make a donation.

This week Nether is being switched out with Ice as the 2nd free class.

Balance
Lightning 1A Chain Lightning - Reduce the number of bounces from 3 -> 1 and buffed the damage dealt from 11-13 -> 20-22.
Earth 2A Cluster Bomb - Fixed the bounce on this spell which was accidently changed last patch.
Lightning 3 Energy Well - Increased healing radius 300 -> 400.

Maps
FFA and Conquest Market - Tweaked the falling snow to be more efficient, fixed some materials that were causing FPS drops in some areas, consolidated and improved collision in many areas especially around the forge and the central point.
Conquest Slums - Improved collision in many many areas, fixed the invisible wall bugs, and tweaked some of the particle effects to be more efficient.
FFA Sanctuary - Huge amount of collision tweaks which should boost FPS by quite a lot for lower-end PC players.
FFA Futhark - Fixed some layout issues where paths were accidently blocked.
FFA Ruins - Fixed pathing issues, bots should now be properly patrolling the map.

Misc
Player icon on Conquest minimap should now be easier to see.

Servers will be down for 5-10 minutes while they update and restart.

This week’s patch is focused on optimization and balance. While most people didn’t have a big problem there are some who have been experiencing framerate drops and especially while in combat on servers with 10+ people. I was able to narrow down the problem to three main areas: overly complex collision and mesh count in some maps, unnecessary collision on many projectile spells, and the dynamic light in each player’s hand.

Fixing these problems should help a lot with stabilizing and increasing framerates so this will be a major focus over the next few weeks. In this patch I’ve optimized the dynamic player lights, consolidated collision in many maps, and removed the collision on all projectiles that didn’t need it. With these changes I’ve seen 30-50% FPS increases on my lower-end test laptop as well as a stabilization of FPS on the main machine.

There are still many optimizations to come but please keep sending in feedback. I especially want to hear if you were previously having major problems with less than 60 FPS while having at least the minimum PC specs. (2.4+ GHz processor, 4+ GB Memory, 512MB VRAM. ATI Radeon 3850 or higher, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 or higher.)

If you want more information on the game’s spells you can view the complete list here[docs.google.com] or join our small but friendly community on Discord[discord.gg]. Big thanks to everyone for all the feedback and help! You can support us directly by visiting our website[omniconnection.net] to buy concept art prints, classes, or make a donation.

Misc
Removed collision component from most projectiles.
Disabled dynamic lighting on all static meshes on all maps. Each character carries a dynamic light around with them which helps illuminate the character and show class colors. However, this seems to be the #1 cause for low framerates, especially in high population servers. In this patch I have kept the light but it will only light up the characters and not anything in the world.
Consolidated collision on the Market and Quarry maps. Slightly done on Slums. More to come in later patches.
Tweaked map based particle effects to be less demanding and on some maps removed effects that were causing large issues.
Switched back in some old Fire spell effects that were falsely suspected to be causing performance problems.
Conquest Slums - Minor layout changes, lighting changes, removed drifting fog, and various performance tweaks.
Conquest spawn time - Reduced from 20s -> 15s waves. 

Balance
Nature 1A Anima Spores - Increased projectile speed from 1200 -> 1600.
Nature 2A Anima Blast - Lower lifetime of spell particle effect.
Nature 4A Four Ancients - Added a new sound for when the ancients are triggered.
Nature 3 Wisp - Fixed the retrigger icon.

Fire 1 Flames - Reduced the size of the spell effect so that it is easier to see your target.
Fire 1A Barrage - Increased projectile speed from 2000 -> 2500.
Fire 1B Ignite - Reduced cooldown from 3s -> 2s. Reduced initial damage from 130-110 -> 110-100. Reduced Damage over time from 3s -> 2s.
Fire 2A Conflagration - Reduced the damage over time from 3s -> 2s.
Fire 4A Focus Fire - Buff damage radius and damage but slow the projectile speed. Increased cooldown from 25s -> 35s. Reduced damage from 55-45 -> 45. Increased damage radius from 300 -> 400. Reduced projectile speed from 800 -> 600. Changed animation.

Earth 2A Cluster Bomb - Reduced fuse time on all charge levels to 1s. Charging this spell will now increase its size and damage radius and when fully charged the fuse time is 3s..
Earth 2B Tremor - Increased the damage radius from 196 -> 256.
Earth 3B Rolling Boulder - Fixed a but that was causing this to do double damage in some cases.
Earth 4B Bedrock - Reduced the fuse time from 2-5s -> 3s. Fixed a bug where this spell was doing double damage on direct hit. Reduced initial damage from 45-55 -> 45-46. Reduced the fuse damage from 35 -> 25 and damage radius from 500 -> 386. Added a rumbling sound to warn of the coming explosion. Changed animation.

Ice 1A Gust - Reduced cooldown from 3s -> 2s. Reduced damage from 22-25 -> 20-22.
Ice 1B Frigid - Changed the spell’s hit effect and sound effect.

Nether 1A Leech - Reduced the lifesteal by 50% and increased the speed to 2500. Decreased damage from 10-15 -> 10-13.

Lightning 3 Lightning Strike - Reduced delay from 1s -> 0.5s.

https://youtu.be/OC2MTghby0w
Today, Grimoire: Manastorm has officially transitioned from an Early Access title to Omniconnection’s first full release! Speaking for our small team, we are incredibly excited to reach this point and can’t wait to see what you all think of all the changes.

We love online shooters, but we also feel there’s a lack of variety from major studios. As a small indie studio, we can take risks and we saw the opportunity to create a game that may not be AAA in scope, but one that offers players a unique experience motivated by creative passion.

Grimoire originally started out as a much larger project and was eventually refined to something more manageable as development went on and team members came and left. However, at it’s core the game has always been about delivering a unique and engaging multiplayer experience.

What we have today represents the work of six people and a handful of contractors but we could have never done it without our small but wonderful community. A huge thanks to all of you for everything and especially those who spent so much time helping us with bugs and balancing.

This has been a crazy journey for all of us and although we are proud to be releasing our first game we are going to focus on continuing to make impactful updates as long as possible. For now, please enjoy the game and as always we would love to hear what you think!

https://youtu.be/L0P8c27CRUE
https://youtu.be/0lZjtMjdJXg
https://youtu.be/45pknQzbSI4
https://youtu.be/2VY1z_CCJlg
https://youtu.be/Nt_8ugLbzn0
https://youtu.be/VRSi1vYm1lo

Servers will be down for 5-10 minutes while they update and restart.

This will most likely be the last patch before the final release on Thursday Oct 26th. We still haven’t gotten all of the larger bugs finished yet (known bug list coming soon) but just because we are releasing on Thursday doesn’t mean development will completely stop.

Today’s patch isn’t a big one but with it we finally have real spawn rooms for Conquest and some much needed bug fixes. We also got in a fix for the sound bug that was causing some issues with certain effects not playing when the volume slider was below 25%. Also, Earth took a nerf this week with his passive damage resistance being reduced. We have some nice trailers coming soon so stay tuned and see you all on Thursday!

House Validus
House Magnus
Balance

Reduced the speed buff duration from 3s -> 1s on Galvanize.
Nature 1 Thorns - Reduced damage from 5-6 -> 4-5.
Nature 2B Fly Swarm - Reduced the seeking range by 50%.
Earth Passive - Reduced from 30%/20%/10% to 25%/15%/10% damage reduced based on mana. 100 mana = 25% damage reduction.
Lightning 3B Thunderstorm - Reduced damage of each strike from 21-23 -> 20-21.

Misc

Changed the effect on various spells.
Changed the Conquest respawn timer from 20s -> 10s.
Replaced the long mid-game music with shorter tracks.
Added spawn rooms on Conquest maps for each team.
Added a frontend background scene.
Reduced volume of some SFX that were ~50% too loud such as hit, death sounds, and ambience.
Fixed a bug with the volume slider bar sometimes removing some sounds when below 25%.
Performance tweaks to Quarry maps and Market maps.

Servers will be down for 5-10 minutes while they update and restart.

Update: v1.0.9.5 - There was a bug that basically broke Survival Normal mode but it should now be working as intended (Thanks to bladedbelial for the tip).

Today we have big updates to survival mode including much needed bug fixes and a whole new map called Shadows. Survival Shadows is the new ‘hard’ difficulty map and is inspired by extremely difficult games like Devil Daggers and is not meant for new players. Survival mode has also gone from a 10 minute victory timer to about 5 minutes so that it’s easier to try out multiple classes.

We also have added in music in various places and made some changes to the on hit enemy health bar so that it gives better information. Last of the notable changes are bug fixes and nerfs to Nature’s passive spell that allows her to turn into a rabbit. This passive should now be more balanced with the other classes spells.

Survival Mode
Replaced the old hard difficulty map with a new one called Shadows. It is based on a new scenario and has a much higher difficulty level. This new map is for more experienced players looking for a challenge.
Added a Victory/Defeat screen to Survival mode with restart and other buttons.
Fixed a bug where the character select menu was coming up a 2nd time.
Added a music track.
Added opening screens which include some backstory and objectives.
Fixed hit effects on the golems.
Updated the help overlays.
Survival Normal (Orinfell): Removed cinematic. Reduced time to start from 30s -> 10s. Fixed a bug with the enemy mage not spawning. Reduced victory time from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. Fixed a bug where the golems were getting stuck on houses.
Maps
Updated opening screens for FFA and Conquest.
Added ambient sounds to Quarry and Futhark maps.
Added ambient sounds to FFA_Futhark.
Added music that plays after each FFA and Conquest game.
Added game start music for FFA and Conquest. (Might not be working right)
Added mid-game music for FFA and Conquest. (Can be muted by pressing ‘M’)

Balance
Ice 4 Blizzard - Reduced damage rate from 5-6 every 0.5s to 4 every 0.5s.
Nature Passive - The rabbit form will now start with 25% health instead of 50%. Rabbit is now 425 speed instead of 450 (Player characters are 375).
Bugs
Fixed a bug where some sounds weren’t affected by the volume slider.
Nature Passive: Fixed multiple bugs related to the rabbit including spell casting during the change, the health bar not working, and possibly fixes to some of the collision issues that sometimes happened.

Misc
Changed the way the on-hit enemy health bars are displayed to be more readable and user friendly.
Added a warning about the map reset to the victory/defeat text in Conquest.
Increased the speed of some of the new animations.
Fixed the color on some of the first person hand lights and fixed some performance problems.
Added “long descriptions” for each class’s unlock screen on the character select menu.

Starting this week players will be able to take advantage of a 25% Arcane Point boost in the weeks leading up to the final release date of October 26th. We weren’t able to add everything we wanted but the game is the best it's ever been (plus you can’t beat the price) and it's almost time to leave Early Access.

Leading up to release we have a new playtest schedule:
Tuesdays - 6pm PDT / 3am CEST (Wednesday)
Wednesdays - 6pm PDT / 3am CEST (Thursday)
Thursdays - 12pm PDT / 9pm CEST
Saturdays - 12pm PDT / 9pm CEST

The post-F2P patches have added many bug fixes, greatly improved balance, and improved performance on all maps. In addition to these basic improvements we have also added some much needed features like objective indicators, better animations, new spells, multiple class reworks, and many gameplay improvements.

There is more to come over the next few weeks but now is a great time to jump in and play if you haven’t before. Spells and classes will be much easier to unlock and now is the perfect chance to learn the game before the big launch.

If you want to connect with the community we have a growing Discord[discord.gg] that is great for arranging games or just chatting about the game. As always a huge thanks to the community for supporting us over the years. We hope that you all enjoy the game and can’t wait to see what class loadouts everyone comes up with!

Sorry for the long delay but we have a big patch this week with many balance changes, performance tweaks, a new spell, bug fixes, and more. There will be a major announcement tomorrow and over the next few weeks we will have an expanded playtest schedule as we hunt down remaining bugs and prepare for final release.

If you want more information on the game’s spells you can view the complete list here[docs.google.com] or join our small but friendly community on Discord[discord.gg]. Big thanks to everyone for all the feedback and help! You can support us directly by visiting our website[omniconnection.net] to buy concept art prints, classes, or make a donation.

Misc

• Updated the minimaps for all Conquest maps to be more useful.
• Added a global cooldown of 0.25s. Spells can no longer be spammed every 0.1s and there will now be a more noticeable delay between spells. This was done for balancing time to kill as well as to fix multiple bugs related to cooldowns and spell switching.
• Reduced volume of footsteps by 50%.
• Reduced volume of on-hit player sounds by 25%.
• Character materials changed for all classes from team color to class colors. This was done to make it easier to tell what class you are fighting at a distance and to work with the new on hit health indicators for enemies. Green name and Health Bar = Friendly. Red name and Red Health Bar on hit = Enemy.
• Changed first person animation on the following spells: Lightning 1A, 1B, 2, 2A, 3, 3B, 4B. Fire 1A, 1B, 2A, 3, 4, 4A. Ice 1, 1A, 2A, 3B 4. Nature 3A, 4, 4A, 4B. Earth 2
• Changed hit effect on Lightning 2A Energize.
• Changed the lightning passive particle effect to better match the spell effect style.
• Increased the lifespan of the Teleport spell effects so it’s more obvious when used.
• Ice 4B Whirlwind: Changed the spell effect to be more transparent.
• Updated tooltips to reflect recent changes.

Bugs

• Player hit sounds bug fixed and changed cooldown from 3s -> 0.75s. Players will once again hear a sound cue after they take damage.
• Fixed a major bug that was causing performance problems on most maps for players with laptops and nvidia cards.
• Fixed bug where the tutorial wasn’t launching.
• Fixed a bug with the Store button on the main menu. It will now minimize and take players to the game’s Steam store page through the client.
• Fixed the “got milk” bug on the Single player menu.
• Fixed a bug where Juxtapose was useable longer than the effect was displayed.

Balance

• Replaced Fire 4B Meteor Shower with a new spell called Helios to give Fire an ultimate that can be used more effectively indoors. Description: Quickly cast a massive fireball which gains in power the longer it flies at any time you can trigger the spell again to send the fireball rushing towards your targeted location. 25s cooldown. Base damage 320-480. Lasts for 5s.
• Buffed Juxtapose by reducing the cooldown from 15s to 12s and reduced the collision size of the projectile so that it is less likely to get caught up on nearby objects.
• Movement Spell Celerity: Reduced cooldown from 15s -> 12s.
• Lightning 3B Thunderstorm - Reduced damage from 23-25 per hit to 21-23 per hit.
• Lightning 2B Ball Lightning - Reduced damage radius on fully charged projectile from 256 -> 196.
• Nether 1 Chakram - Reduced the momentum transfer by 50%.
• Nether 3A - Reduced cooldown from 20s -> 10s.
• Nether 4A Voidstrike - Increased min damage from 45 -> 52 making damage range 52 - 55.
• Nature 3A Groundskeeper - Adjusted the position of the spell so it can be seen by the caster.
• Nature 4A Ancients - Added orbiting particles that show the range at which each Ancient will be triggered to attack.
• Lightning 2A Chain Lightning - Changed spell effect. Reduced from 4 bounces to 3. Increased range to bounce from 768 -> 1500
• Lightning 3A Energy Well - Increased radius from 256 -> 300.
• Lightning 4B Static Cloud - Reduced cooldown from 60s -> 45s. Reduced duration from 10s -> 7s.
• Earth 1 Pebbles - Increased projectile speeds from 3000 -> 3500.

Maps

• FFA Futhark - Reduced total objects and other performance tweaks. Changed layout and pathing in some places. Added more cover in areas that were too open.
• FFA Quarry - Performance fixes, removed unnecessary objects and clutter, bots should now be pathing correctly, refined boundary collision.
• FFA Temple - Fixed some collision issues where players were getting stuck and various performance tweaks.
• FFA Market - Performance fixes and reduced the amount of snow by 20%.
• FFA Ruins - Adjusted lighting and some minor layout fixes.
• FFA Sanctuary - Performance tweaks and minor layout changes.

This week we are testing out some big changes so please check out this patch and let us know what you think! First up, we have a increase in the movement speeds of all classes from 300 to 375. This may or may not be a temporary change and there are a few other speeds that we have in mind so please send feedback. Next up there is now a health bar that will pop-up above enemy players when you hit them. With this change we are also considering removing the floating damage numbers and changing each classes model from a team specific color to a color that is based on their class element.

Also with this patch are some changes to this week’s focused class: Lightning. This class is overall pretty well balanced and so there weren’t many changes needed but they can be found below and include a few nerfs.

Balance
Reduced cooldowns of the following primary spells so that they will always more readily available to use.
Fire 1 Flames - Reduced DPS from 40-50 -> 40. Changed cooldown from 0.3 -> 0.1s. Reduced the size of the spell effect by 25% so it's easier to aim.
Fire 1A Barrage - Changed cooldown from 1s -> 0.33s.
Ice 1 Ice Lance - Changed cooldown from 0.5s -> 0.33s.
Ice 1B Frigid - Changed cooldown from 0.5s -> 0.33s.
Lightning 1 Electricity - Changed cooldown from 0.2s -> 0.1s.

Lightning 1B Defibrilate - Changed effect so that it disappears quickly. Increased range from 512 -> 768.
Lightning 2B Ball Lightning - Reduced the hit size of the spell’s fully charged version.
Lightning 3B Thunderstorm - Reduced AoE from 512 -> 386. Increased damage from 20-25 -> 23-25. Reduced size of the spell effects and decreased the vision blocking aspects. Increased cooldown from 15 -> 20. Increased number of bolts per second from 2 to 3.

Nature 2A Anima Blast - Changed spell effect so it will disappear more quickly. Reduced max charge time from 2s -> 1s. Max damage reduced to from 40+ to 33.
Nature 2B Fly Swarm - Increased mana cost from 10 -> 20.

Ice 3A Cold Snap - Changed particle effect to better warn enemy players. Changed movement slow from 80% to 50%.

Nether 1 Chakram - Added momentum transfer which will pop-up a enemy if they are hit at the feet.
Movement Speeds changed from 300 -> 375 for each class.

If you want more information on the game’s spells you can view the complete list here or join our small but friendly community on Discord. Big thanks to everyone for all the feedback and help! Especially the new volunteer Devs who contributed directly to this patch.

If you want more information on the game’s spells you can view the complete list here[docs.google.com] or join our small but friendly community on Discord[discord.gg]. Big thanks to everyone for all the feedback and help! You can support us directly by visiting our website[omniconnection.net] to buy concept art prints, classes, or make a donation.

This week’s patch should be called the Ice patch. Besides fixing the server bugs the main focus right now is finalizing the spells and classes. Right now there are some spells that are weak or don’t fit well with their class. Over the next 5 weeks there will be changes coming to all classes. Most will be minor tweaks but others will be major changes. One of the later is with Ice and was our focus for this week. Some excellent feedback from the community confirmed a lot of my own problems with the class and I have decided to make some big changes. There is even one new spell, Cold Snap which is replacing Glacial’s special spell slot.

Cold Snap - Throw down a projectile of packed ice that lasts for 10 seconds and deals minor area damage on impact. This spell can be retriggered to explode the ice sending shards into nearby enemies dealing 20 damage and slowing their movement speed by 80% for 2s.

Triggerable Projectile Cooldown: 10s Max Range: 1024

Cold snap can be used as a player triggered movement trap. Toss out the projectile on a likely path and wait for an enemy to walk by it. Once they are close by hit the spell button again and it will damage them drastically slowing their movement speed for 2 seconds. It can also be used as a quick cast in the middle of a fight as it can be triggered again as soon as you cast it.

There have also been other Ice spell changes. Icicles has been replaced by Glacial which has been buffed significantly. Ice Lance is now a channeled spell which can be rapidly fired. Gust has gained a knock back effect but be aware it now has a smaller hitbox and must be aimed much more precisely. Hypothermia has also gotten a buff and is now much easier and more effective to use.

If you want more information on the game’s spells you can view the complete list here[docs.google.com] or join our small but friendly community on Discord[discord.gg]. Big thanks to everyone for all the feedback and help! Especially the new volunteer Devs who contributed directly to this patch.

You can support us directly by visiting our website[omniconnection.net] to buy concept art prints, classes, or make a donation. Thanks!

Balance
Ice 1 Ice Lance - This spell can now be channeled to fire every 0.33s dealing 8-10 damage. Fixed effect so that it doesn’t last longer than the shots.
Ice 1A Gust - Added knockback, decreased cone of effect, changed sound, increased range to 768, and increased damage to 25-28.
Ice 1B Frigid - Increase projectile speed from 3800 -> 4000. Decreased duration from 1s -> 0.5s>. Changed spell range from X -> 2000. Added 32 damage radius. Fires projectiles every 0.33s that deal 10-11 damage.

Ice 2A Icicles - Replaced with Glacial: Deals 5 damage and drains 5 mana every 0.25. Lasts for 4 seconds. Cooldown 3s.
Ice 2B Penetrating Cold - Buffed max speed of base projectile from 2800 -> 3000. Made this spell slightly easier to hit with.
Ice 3 Permafrost - Fix the bug where sometimes this spell does not damage players when it it used on some surfaces.

Ice 3A Glacial - Replaced with Cold Snap: Throw down a projectile of packed ice that lasts for 10 seconds and deals minor area damage on impact. This spell can be retriggered to explode the ice sending shards into nearby enemies dealing 20 damage and slowing their movement speed by 80% for 2s.

Ice 4A Stormfront - Reduced damage from 12-14 every 0.25s to 8-9.

Nature 2A Anima Blast: Changed the size of the beam and reduced its lifetime slightly.

Lightning 4B Static Cloud: Reduced damage from 10-13 -> 10-11.

Misc
Ice First Person Model: Fixed the positioning to correct some visual problems when some animations were used.
Updated tooltips to include the actual max range of each spell.
Updated some tooltips to be more concise and changed a few spell names.
Removed the Kill Announcer from Survival mode.