BellHop StudiosReception devlog · Part 6 of 6
The roster and its rules
The last stretch was about making the heroes feel like characters, and making every card tell the truth.
Portraits and lore
On 8 October, 24 heroes got our own anime portraits, replacing photoreal placeholders that were the wrong style. With them came the DawnStar Church and backstories for the cast.
Cards that tell the truth
Some ability cards promised effects the game didn't actually have. So every one of the 73 cards was rewritten to state its exact numbers, and an automated test now fails if a card's text and the game's numbers ever drift apart.
A few heroes changed too: Ulric moved up to SSR, Jace went up a rarity with the Lab Rat Mettle, Rook became a warrior, and big hits started scaling on different stats. We also set a target roster for launch: 36 heroes, with 12 Common, 12 Rare, 8 SR and 4 SSR.
Tiers and quality of life
- Dungeon tiers. Tiers 1 to 3 as separate doors. Tier 2 adds a room and 30% more monster Gear Score, and Tier 3 another 30% on top.
- Rest that makes sense. Fatigue now fully rests in 8 hours instead of 24, with a live timer. Rank points are drafted and then applied, upgrades show a yellow "!" that testers actually notice, and Writs can be used in bulk.
Coming in the next update
These are built and waiting for the next push to the alpha:
- Warrior orders. Each warrior leader gives a personal targeting order, such as On My Mark or Spellbreaker, in PvP too.
- Real healers. Light Tap and Radiant Wave become heals, and healer Mettles set the health line a healer heals at, so heals aren't wasted on a full-health party.
- Quilted gear. An HP-heavy Light line, with gear HP that stays spent for the whole run, and gear shown in hero stats.
- Fairer losses. Defeat and PvP take only gear found during the run, never the kit a hero walked in with.
- New monsters. 50 named concepts for future fields, with the eight Outskirts monsters already given stats.
What's next
The roster grows toward 36. Higher dungeon tiers should pay more than Tier 1 (right now they don't). The Cellar needs real decisions, and the first floor needs a way to fail. Then menu music and a player market. Follow along on Bluesky or X.