Hello Tamers!

You may have seen our recent post here, in which a very large polishing update, was set live on the beta branch for testing:
https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/news/app/830370/view/4545912721048424996

Turns out this update is quite solid, and so we're now ready to set it live for all players to enjoy. Many longstanding issues have been addressed, which you can read about below, and there's a small special surprise for players as well.

The Philosopher Kings, the grand finale bosses of the post-game have received brand new art that shows much more character and distinction than what they had previously!

These awesome designs are thanks to Bennybotabota on our discord, who also has a tumblr you can visit to see more of their work here: https://www.tumblr.com/goliathgastropod

Benny did a great job of understanding the spirit of each of these characters, I think we'll be working with Benny again on future Monster Crown titles, so we can continue to bring variety and awesome designs for players to encounter.

This patch brings with it a rewriting or significant restructuring of the battle system, battle math, monster level up stat-gain, collision system, menus, stat orbs and game resolution along with tweaks to monster balancing, movesets, etc.

• Monster stat generation math and Battle math has been completely rewritten.
  
• Collision system has been completely rewritten. Monsters will no longer spawn out of bounds and many long-standing collision issues have been fixed.
  
• Minor graphical changes have been applied in various instances including overworld sprites for the Duchess and Rodney
  
• Menu behavior is now more clear and responsive
  
• Stat Orbs now raise your base stats by 0.1 instead of your derived stats which means you can now get a lot more granular with building a team
  
• Complete rebalancing for many monsters who were previously undertuned or overtuned, including movesets
  
• Various graphical tweaks/adjustments
  
• Improved state management

The battle math and stat gain systems are actually back-ported versions of the code developed for Monster Crown 2: Sin Eater, big thanks to Kyle and Ahab who are programming and design respectively on the new in-development game. If you'd like to see more about that title be sure to check out our twitter for screenshots/gifs:
https://twitter.com/crowns_dev

One thing I wanted to clarify as there seems to have been a bit of confusion around "Code Monsters". Code Monsters that were offered during Early Access that are no longer available are not truly new monsters. One example is holiday Echelk, which was made available via code before players could reach the Frost Province, this was our way of sharing some monsters early before those areas were opened up for players to explore. All of those monsters can be easily obtained since the game reached full release in 2021. Another example is "SENTINEL" who was merely a Taupsy bred with a Malicious monster to obtain that crossbreed, so you're not missing out on anything.

Next mission is to bring these updates to consoles
Discord: https://discord.gg/WwRvm9B

Hello everyone,

I've been hard at work on a new patch for Monster Crown to address some longstanding issues, and improve some systems that could use some quality improvements.

A 90% complete version of v1.2.4 is available on Monster Crown's ea-beta branch.

Full details are below on the patch and how to access it if you'd like to opt-in. Because the patch touches so many systems in the game we thought it was important to allow people to give it a whirl before we finalize it and make it the new default stream.

The battle math AND stat calculation system has been totally rewritten. The team working on Monster Crown 2: Sin Eater developed a much better implementation and it's now been back-ported to Monster Crown because it's simply better in every way. The implementation here isn't 100% exact, because the new game factors in a lot of additional new factors/systems but it's very close. It's a lot more fun to play and much more consistent, reducing the feel of a "grindy" experience as well. You can feel your monsters strength grow in a much more tangible way.

Monster spawns have had their code completely rewritten as well, it's no longer possible to have a monster spawn out of bounds, no more brilliants that remain out of reach!

Menus have had their underlying code for switching revamped, in particular the main menu and the options within it. The changes also improve various other systems like the move learning menu, the shop menu, etc. Because there are so many damn menus and features, let us know if you encounter anything odd that we missed, but the game has had 3-4 full playthroughs by the MC2 team and a lot of play from me, so I don't think there'll be much if any.

Feel free to join us on discord if you'd prefer to share your experiences or anything you'd like to report there:
https://discord.gg/WwRvm9B

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To access the branch, right click on the game in your Steam library, go to Properties then Betas. On the top dropdown menu for Beta Participation, select ea-beta - ea-beta and the game will reinstall itself as such.

A list of general changes:

• Monster stat generation math and Battle math has been completely rewritten. Your monster stats will regenerate on save load. This cannot be reversed. Do not load save files that you don't want stats to be regenerated on in the ea-beta branch.
  
• Collision system has been completely rewritten. Monsters will no longer spawn out of bounds and many long-standing collision issues have been fixed.
  
• Minor graphical changes have been applied in various instances including overworld sprites for the Duchess and Rodney
  
• Menus are (we really hope this time) now completely anchored and will never do the weird misalignment thing. PLEASE TELL US IF THIS PROBLEM PERSISTS: TELL US THE RESOLUTION YOU PLAY ON!
  
• Menu behavior is now more clear and responsive
  
• Stat Orbs now raise your base stats by 0.1 instead of your derived stats which means you can now get a lot more granular with building a team
  
• Complete rebalancing for many monsters who were previously undertuned or overtuned.
  
• Just a million trillion smaller annoyances have been quashed

Things that aren't in this version but will come in the full patch release:
Facade stat rebalance
A special surprise with the Philosopher Kings

Please let us know what you think and please tell us about any bugs you might encounter.
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Thanks Tamers!