Hey Dungeoneers, after two weeks I've just released the first patch for Shattered Pixel Dungeon v3.0!

v3.0 ended up not needing any urgent changes so I've taken my time with it. I'm planning one more smaller patch a bit later, and then it'll be on to v3.1!

Here's the full list of changes in v3.0.1:

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So far the Cleric is doing surprisingly well balance-wise! There are definitely some things to adjust, but nothing that's serious enough to need doing in a patch. I'm just making one change to put a limit on ring of energy shenanigans for the Paladin:
- Holy Weapon and Ward can now be extended to a max of 100 turns at a time.

After v3.0's nerf to the Mossy Clump, I'm going to experiment with scaling back its absurd upgrade cost. Hopefully it's at a power level now where it doesn't need to cost massively more than other trinkets:
- Mossy Clump upgrade energy cost reduced to 10/15/20 from 20/25/30. This is now the same as other 'higher cost' trinkets.

Firstly, two trinket changes that are meant as QoL, but are effectively mild buffs:
- Salt Cube's regen reduction now automatically disables itself during boss fights, the trinket doesn't need to be dropped.
- Waterskin drinking now more intelligently handles the extra healing from vial of blood, no longer consuming excess dew.

And some other things:
- Updated Translations
- Cursed wand pitfall effect no longer drops items if triggered via wondrous resin
- Feint armor ability no longer autotargets
- Removed support for runs in progress from prior to v2.3.2
- Removed internal code for old blacksmith quest from prior to v2.2

Fixed the following bugs:
Caused by v3.0:
- Enemies getting many actions after recovering from transmogrification
- Save/load errors with sniper's mark buff
- Incorrect shielding amount shown when using Warrior's remains item
- Various uncommon crash bugs

Existed Prior to v3.0:
- Exploit involving unidentified crossbow and curse infusion
- Exploit involving placing wards on a necromancer's summoning position
- Shocking enchantment missing valid targets in some cases
- Rare cases where bees would refuse to attack near enemies vs. far ones
- quick-using an item from a bag not using that item's autotarget properties
- Alchemy guide items being greyed out in main menu
- Various rare crash bugs
- Various minor visual & textual errors

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

To celebrate v3.0.0's release, Shattered is also 40% off on Steam for the next while! v3.0.0 includes new title art and hero splash art, so I'll be taking the opportunity to refresh the game's description and image assets in all the various places over the next little while.

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v3.0 includes Shattered's second new playable character! The Cleric is a divine spellcaster who learns and upgrades spells via the talent system! They're releasing with 2 subclasses, 3 armor abilities, and over 30 different spells! There are also visual improvements, a new title graphic, and loads of smaller changes!

I talked about this update in two previous blog posts:

• Status Update: v3.0 Coming Soon![shatteredpixel.com]
  
• Coming Soon to Shattered: The Cleric![shatteredpixel.com]
  
• Coming Soon to Shattered: A Sixth Hero![shatteredpixel.com]

Here's the full changelog for v3.0.0! 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:

• Developer Commentary [expand]
  - Released February 27th, 2025
  - 197 days after Shattered v2.5.0
  - 548 days after Shattered v2.0.0
  
  Dev commentary will be added here in the future.[/expand]
  
• The Cleric! [expand]
  Shattered Pixel Dungeon has another new hero, making for six total!!
  
  The Cleric is an entire new hero class with a variety of unique spells that they learn via talents! They can be unlocked by removing the curse on any piece of equipment, but existing players who already have a win will automatically unlock them!
  
  Much like how the Duelist can use a bunch of weapon abilities, I want the Cleric to be an ability-centric hero focused on Magic. Unlike the Duelist, these abilities are tied into the hero and their talents, instead of equipment items.[/expand]
  
• Cleric Subclasses [expand]
  The Cleric has two subclasses, each with their own emphasis!
  
  The Priest is focused on ranged spell combat, effects that synergize with magical items like wands and artifacts.
  
  The Paladin is focused on melee spell combat and defensive power. Their effects most strongly synergize with weapons and armor.[/expand]
  
• Cleric Armor Abilities [expand]
  The Cleric has three lategame armor abilities as well!
  
  Ascended Form grants the Cleric access to new spells, extra attack ranged, and shielding whenever they cast spells.
  
  Trinity lets the Cleric access the effects of items they've previously identified in their run without the items themselves.
  
  Power of Many empowers or creates an ally for the Cleric, and grants them new spells to cast with that ally.[/expand]

Changes:

• Visual & Interface Changes [expand]
  Shattered's title graphic has been totally redrawn! The new title graphic, by Aleksandar Komitov, improves on text quality and style while trying to stay true to the original title. There is now a landscape and portrait variant of this title as well.
  
  The game's Hero Splash Arts have been improved as well! After so many years, Aleksandar has revised some of the game's hero splash arts to bring them up to his current standards:
  - The Huntress and Rogue have recieved major changes
  - The Mage has recieved moderate changes
  - The Duelist has received only tiny tweaks to some face details.
  - The Warrior's splash remains unchanged for the moment, but improvements to it are coming soon as well!
  
  The Games in Progress screen has been expanded too, with up to 6 runs at once, info about recency, and sorting options.[/expand]
  
• 15+ Misc. Changes [expand]
  Highlights:
  - Turned off auto-targeting in cases where it was almost always wrong (Bless spell, Wand of Warding, etc.)
  - Enemies are now more willing to switch targets if their target is retreating and they are being attacked by something else
  - Enemies are now more consistently drawn to the hero's position if they are attacked from out of visible range
  - Internal adjustments to hunger and regeneration effects, they should now be more responsive when hunger or regen rate changes.
  - Fixed Reclaim trap spell exploits, and allowed it to be dropped while charged
  - Traps triggered by time freeze ending now always resolve after other effects/actions (e.g. teleportation, item pickup)
  - Improved visual contrast for symbols on runestones
  
  Characters:
  - Crazed bandits now have their own description
  
  Effects:
  - Blast Wave no longer knocks back characters if they are killed over a pit
  - Cloak of Shadows (and new Holy Tome) can no longer be transmuted.
  
  Misc.:
  - Adjusted icons for Sucker Punch and Followup Strike
  - Camera no longer re-centers on hero when adding custom notes
  - Camera panning to enemies now respects the 'camera follow intensity' setting.
  - Improved the game's monochrome Android icon
  - Added developer commentary for v2.0.0
  - Improved text clarity in a few cases
  - Updated internal code libraries[/expand]
  
• 35+ Bugfixes [expand]
  Fixed the following bugs:
  
  Highlights:
  - Various issues with system gestures registering as game inputs on Android and iOS
  - Various cases where closing the game inside of the alchemy scene could result in lost progress
  - Rare cases where multiple ascension wins could be recorded for one run
  - Runestones working while hero is magic immune
  - Unstable spell never triggering scroll effects that could apply either in or out of combat
  - Exotic crystals trinket not applying to monster drops in many cases
  
  Items:
  - Rare cases where bomb AOE could be influenced by nearby potions shattering
  - Exploits involving juggling salt cube to get slower hunger with full regen
  - Cursed armband not updating player gold display on desktop after stealing gold
  - Very specific cases where disarming traps could make items unattainable
  - Icecap incorrectly being blocked by high grass
  - Stone of detect magic incorrectly being usable on thrown weapons
  - Artifact uniqueness being affected by runs from prior game versions
  - Crashes when aqua brew is dropped down chasms
  - Rare errors when cancelling scroll of enchantment on armor
  - Multiplicity glyph not working correctly with ghouls in some cases
  - Corrosion gas from chaotic censer always starting at 1 damage
  
  Effects:
  - Monk abilities which ignore armor using the incorrect damage icon
  - Damage type not showing when hitting downed crystal guardians
  - Very rare cases where spawned high grass could interfere with the floor 20 shop
  - Certain effects not having on-death or rankings messages
  - Specific cases where cursed wand effects would forget they were spawned by wondrous resin
  - Duration of greater haste not being preserved on save/load
  - Disarming traps not teleporting the hero's weapon in some cases where they should
  - Cursed wand effects potentially applying levitation to immovable characters
  - Geomancer rockfall attack being cleared on save/load
  - Duelist's block ability not working properly with save/load
  
  Misc.:
  - Rat King's description sometimes being incorrect in journal
  - Pacifist badge unlocking when it shouldn't in rare cases
  - Retreating characters failing to retreat through crowded area in some cases
  - Various minor UI errors when holding down inventory buttons just before moving
  - Rare cases where game win scene wouldn't trigger immediately
  - Ripper demons sometimes losing their target early
  - Various minor textual errors
  - Various rare crash errors[/expand]

Buffs:

• Trinket Buffs [expand]
  Overall trinket balance is in a much better place since v2.5, but there are still some that can do with being more powerful or fun to use:
  
  - Chaotic Censer now only spawns gasses when enemies are present, and gives a warning one moment before the gas is spewed.
  - 13 Leaf Clover slightly redesigned, now has a 15% chance to set damage to max and 10% chance to set damage to min per level. This results in ~10% more average damage at +3.
  - Mimic Tooth ebony mimics now have normal mimic stats, down from +25%, but still deal full damage on surprise attack.
  - Trap Mechanism now also makes 10% of a level's traps spawn visible per level.
  - Shard of Oblivion now prevents ID effects such as scroll of ID and wells of knowledge. Items are instead set to be ready to be IDed by the shard.[/expand]
  
• Weapon Ability Buffs [expand]
  The Duelist continues to do better following all the changes in v2.X updates. A couple of weapon abilities are still lagging behind though, and so I'm giving them a little help:
  
  - Combo Strike ability damage boost buffed by 25% for Gauntlets. 33% for Sai, 50% for Gloves.
  - Charged Shot knockback +1, base bonus damage on untipped darts +1.[/expand]

Nerfs:

• Trinket Nerfs [expand]
  Despite nerfs in v2.5 the Mossy Clump is still far and away the strongest trinket. For now I'm going to experiment with adjusting the ratios on the floors it grants.
  
  - Mossy Clump now generates grassy floors 1/3 of the time and water floors 2/3 of the time, instead of 1/2 each. This will usually result in one fewer grassy floor over a whole run.[/expand]
  
• Shared Upgrades Nerf [expand]
  Thrown weapons aren't an especially popular category of item to upgrade, and I would like to make more extensive changes to them in the future, but for the moment I'm making a targeted adjustment to the Shared Upgrades talent. The bonus damage it provided wasn't tied to the tier of thrown weapon used, which made T2 thrown weapons disproportionally powerful for the Sniper.
  
  - Shared Upgrades now grants 2.5%/5%/7.5% bonus damage per upgrade per tier, instead of a flat 10%/20%/30% bonus damage per upgrade. Functionally, this means -50% bonus dmg for T2 thrown weapons, -25% for T3, no changes for T4, and +25% for T5.[/expand]

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• The next major update to Shattered will be v3.1, which will mainly focus on followup to v3.0 and some changes to the Warrior!
  
• For a long while now the Warrior has been the least appreciated class among experienced players. This is partly intended because he is meant to be the most simple, but I do think there are some changes that can be made so that the Warrior's class ability is a bit more visible and interactive. This is not going to be a hero rework, but rather some targeted changes to improve the Warrior's game feel without making him much harder for new players to use.
  
• I'm more confident that the Cleric is releasing in a better initial state than the Duelist, but there will always be needed changes to balance or mechanics, and fixes for bugs. I expect to make those changes in v3.1 after taking a little time to gather feedback and gameplay data from v3.1.
  
• I want v3.1 to be a fairly lightweight update, so that it can come out quickly in response to v3.0, but there should be room for a few smaller changes too. In addition to the usual bugfixes and smaller QoL tweaks, I might add a couple of smaller content additions such as new trinkets and other items, a new rare enemy, etc.
  
• Unfortunately I will have to make some changes in 2025 that will remove support for very old devices from the game's iOS, Android, and plain Java versions. iOS 11 support is being dropped after this update, and Android 4.0-4.4 and Java 8-10 support will be dropped closer to the end of the year.

I expect v3.1 to be a relatively lightweight update, much like v2.1 was after the Duelist. v2.1 took almost 3 months, and while I'd like to do better than that I also don't want to end up overpromising. Hopefully you'll hear from me with progress on v3.1 sometime in mid April to mid May.

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!

In the meantime, if you're 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]