Hey Slayers! Today we are pushing out a bugfix patch that brings tons of bugfixes from the beta branch over to main.


General:

• Improved the reliability of saving your settings on startup
  
• Fixed a crash when applying powers to dying creatures
  
• Fixed a crash when opening the card pile screen while targeting an enemy on controller
  
• Fixed a crash on Linux during combat when UI elements were removed mid-frame
  
• Fixed a crash on Linux when ICU libraries are unavailable
  
• Fixed audio staying muted after pressing the volume keys or alt-tabbing on Linux
  
• Restored the default rendering backend to D3D12 for Intel 620 GPUs
  
• Fixed number keys not selecting cards when your mouse cursor was too low on the screen
  
• Fixed being able to open the card inspection screen and toggle View Upgrades with the same button press
  
• Fixed being unable to use the View Upgrades hotkey in the card inspection screen
  
• Fixed the card inspection button blocking the "accept" hotkey on the Pandora's Box card view screen
  
• Fixed playing the Wish card on controller immediately selecting a card in the grid on the same button press
  
• Fixed broken controller navigation from your relics to the reward screen after clearing the top reward option
  
• Fixed the game rapidly switching between "Controller Detected" and "Mouse Detected" while playing on a controller
  
• Fixed being able to target dead enemies on controller
  
• Fixed being unable to navigate off of the top bar in the shop
  
• Fixed controller navigation in the shop after buying out all relics and colorless cards
  
• Fixed being unable to navigate rest site options on controller when you have two rows of relics
  
• Fixed being able to start a single-player run on controller while the Ascension tutorial was open
  
• Fixed errors in the input settings for new keybindings added after your settings were saved
  
• Fixed an error when unfocusing a potion slot during potion removal
  
• Fixed an error caused by an offscreen epoch indicator on the Timeline screen
  
• Fixed separator lines appearing on the Daily Leaderboard screen when no scores had been submitted, or while scores were still loading or had failed to load
  
• Fixed replayed cards not displaying the correct damage when powers wore off between replays
  
• Fixed the Night Terrors modifier being able to kill you
  
• Fixed loading a save file with a deprecated boss being able to roll the same boss twice in a double-boss fight
  
• Fixed not removing all Spoils Map cards when you complete the quest and somehow have more than one
  
• Fixed a rare softlock related to writing debug files
  
• Fixed an issue where your odds of receiving another potion reward could sometimes increase instead of decrease after winning an elite combat and receiving a potion

Ironclad:

• Fixed being able to select an already-upgraded card with Armaments when it was added to your hand by Largesse+

Silent:

• Fixed being able to skip the Survivor card's discard selection using the peek button

Defect:

• Fixed the Scrape card discarding cards that cost zero Energy but have a Star cost
  
• Fixed a spacing issue in the Consuming Shadow power's hovertip

Regent:

• Fixed the Summon Forth card so it now puts your existing Sovereign Blades into your hand before Forging instead of after

Potions & Relics:

• Fixed The Boot dealing 5 damage instead of 1 to you from the Bad Luck curse while you have Intangible
  
• Fixed the Self-Forming Clay relic being triggered by the Terminal modifier's max HP loss
  
• Fixed the Whispering Earring relic replaying Stardust for 0 Stars instead of the correct amount

Enemies:

• Fixed Lagavulin Matriarch's "zzz" sleep particles not going away in the bestiary when she is no longer sleeping
  
• Fixed a VFX glitch when Snapping Jaxfruit dies to the Reflect power
  
• Fixed the Zapbot's High Voltage power hovertip to correctly state it gains Strength at the end of its turn instead of the start
  
• Fixed Living Fog missing its smoke
  
• Fixed the Ceremonial Beast's music transition not lining up with when it gets stunned
  
• Fixed the Enfeebling Touch power causing the Ceremonial Beast to gain Strength after you stun it
  
• Fixed a softlock with the Thieving Hopper when you have no cards for it to steal
  
• Fixed the Parafright illusion keeping its negative Strength from Dark Shackles when you kill it for the turn

Events:

• Fixed cards from other characters appearing in the Infested Automaton event
  
• Fixed being unable to discard potions in the Punch Off event
  
• Fixed being unable to give the foul potion to the Merchant

Ancients:

• Fixed a crash when selecting Ancient relic options
  
• Fixed being able to navigate back to Neow's options while viewing the card library
  
• Fixed being able to slightly see the top of the next dialogue bubble before it animates in at the Ancients
  
• Fixed the Leafy Poultice relic transforming the upgraded Strikes and Defends granted by Neow's Talisman when you get both from Neow's Bones
  
• Fixed the Nutritious Soup option appearing in the Tezcatara screen when you have no Strikes

Multiplayer:

• Fixed the Pael's Legion and Vambrace relics not triggering when their owner applies Block to other players
  
• Fixed the Dense Vegetation event being able to appear when any player has 8 HP or less
  
• Fixed being able to start a loaded multiplayer game with only one player
  
• Fixed other players' HP bars going offscreen when resizing the window while in settings
  
• Fixed errors when players had square brackets in their name
  
• Fixed the "Show Multiplayer Drawings" checkbox not using its localized text
  
• Now showing the correct error message for a Steam multiplayer connection timeout (error 5008)
  
• Improved error reporting for a specific rare connection error
  
• Fixed a softlock related to using the Driftwood relic on your first run

Hey, Slayers! Demi the CM here with this month's Neowsletter!


We wanted to start off with an update from last month's roadmap, especially for those who only play StS2's main branch. The first big update is that we have moved from a weekly to a bi-weekly cadence for the beta patches. Though we stuck with the weekly cadence during StS1's Early Access period, it was a hard pace to keep up and--this time around--hasn't been giving enough time as we'd like for our now much bigger base of beta branch testers to absorb the changes. This also means that main branch updates will be a bit more infrequent by extension, but hopefully this gives players on both branches more time to provide feedback on the updates.

In terms of our progress on the list of promised features, we've now added the Bestiary to the Compendium on the beta branch! It currently acts as a full list of enemies in the game along with their move animations, though it will eventually include more detailed information about them as well.

Otherwise our recent beta patches have mostly been focused on stability and performance along with some balance changes, the most notable of which was the removal of The Doormaker. The long and short of the reasoning behind this is that, while this boss provided some interesting micro-decision-making situations in his fight, he was a bit more complex than what we want. He's now been replaced on the beta branch with a new boss, Aeonglass, so if you're a Doormaker lover: appreciate him on the main branch while you still can! In honor of his legacy, we wanted to share a little peek at what his earliest iteration looked like...

Lovely early dev art courtesy of one of our programmers, Jose.

For those still waiting for Steam Workshop support and Twitch integrations, rest assured that they are still coming in the near future--apologies that they've taken a bit longer to implement than we initially estimated! The multi-fronted mission to make StS2 as good as it can be continues.


And now it's time for a look behind the curtain at some Slay the Spire 2 metrics! At the time of writing this, the community has reached a whopping 240,000,000 runs, 60.5 million of which have been wins vs 179.5 million losses. That's a win-rate of 25% overall, which is much better than it sounds. Broken down by Ascension, the average win-rate on A0 is 16%, compared to 9% in StS1. At the highest, A10, the win-rate is about 17%, compared to a very small 3% at A20 in StS1.

In the last issue we broke down the different choices players made in a few select events. This time we wanted to quickly show off the popularity of each character, i.e. what percentage of the total runs each character accounts for...

As you can see right away, the community has been playing the characters almost the same amount, with the stats leaning just a bit in favor of the first couple of characters that are available to players: Ironclad and Silent. We're glad to see all our children getting roughly equal amounts of love!

On the topic of stats...

We also wanted to take the opportunity to highlight a couple of community projects that collect their own stats and provide data, tools, guides, etc. for players: Spiracle[spiracle.gg] and Spire Codex[spire-codex.com]. Be sure to check them out!!


The first big community-led StS2 tournament, Devour the Tower, is coming in just a few days on May 25! Featuring 34 streamers, this 4-player co-op competition will be co-casted by FrostPrime[www.twitch.tv] and Otzdarva[www.twitch.tv] so it's sure to be a good time. The winners of the tournament may even get a special gift, courtesy of Mega Crit. ;) Check out FrostPrime's Twitch for more details!


Make a Dramatic Entrance with our first ever piece of Makeship x Slay the Spire apparel[www.makeship.com]! Now you too can don the iconic garb of The Silent--in hoodie form! Available to pre-order until May 29 at 5AM PST, so Pounce on this opportunity soon!


Another Neowsletter, another Slay the Spire Connections Puzzle![custom-connections-game.vercel.app]


As usual, let's check out some of the incredible in-game map creations from our community!

This incredibly adorable drawing of the Regent by AplphaE[x.com]!

This stunningly detailed illustration of the Necrobinder and Osty by 白板红中碰發财[www.xiaoheihe.cn]!

These adorably pathetic doodles from salty final boss!

Lastly, this funny drawing involving the Doormaker (RIP) by SnakeFangz!


Thank you to doshiBAP for this month’s gorgeous cover image featuring everyone's favorite Mother of Resurrection! (It was actually a late submission from April but we thought it fit this month's theme too!)

Next month's theme is: Slay the Summer! If you'd like to submit your art for consideration, reminder that it must be submitted to us via [email protected] or in our Discord's[discord.gg] fanart channel, have dimensions of 800x450px, feature no text, and leave room for a title!

Now on with some more community highlights:

This series of beautiful illustrations by dk000484[x.com]!

This super clever graduation cap from lizard--congradulations!!

Last but not least, if you are craving more ways to test your StS2 knowledge than just our monthly Connections puzzle, check out Spiredle!

That's it for this month's issue of the Neowsletter, see you again in June!