- Title: The Black Pool
- Release Date:
- Developer:
- Publisher:
Information about The Black Pool is still incomplete. Please help us fill the details of the game using this contact form.
✅ Source verified via Steam Community
- Patch Title: PATCH 0.9.0 – NOW FEATURING 80 ABILITIES
- Patch Release Date: April 18, 2024
The developer of The Black Pool has released a new update for the game on April 18, 2024. Here are the new things that you should expect to see or change on this new update. This information was curated directly from the official announcement on Steam.
STRONG AND AREA ATTACK AUGMENTS
The Entity now offers augments for strong and area attacks! In total, this patch introduces 16 new augments, and 2 new base abilities. There are now 80 unique abilities and augments in the game, ensuring endless build combinations!
NEW HEAVY MECH: BEETLE
NEW CHARACTER ANIMATIONS
Improved character animations for Levitate, Grapple, Fire Thrust, and Nether Pull.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS
- The introductory text at the start of the game has been replaced with a short cinematic sequence.
- New Legendary Flux Event — It happens rarely, but it is very exciting when it does!
- Added a pair of destructible statues to the Temple that can be used for trying out abilities, and target practice. The hitpoints of the two statues are constant, acting as a baseline of comparison within and across playthroughs.
- Two new levels (Maroon Fields and Obsidian).
- Improved the look of targeting decals.
- Added a target indicator for vulnerable projectiles and weapons, such as pulse disks, and the Shattered Crater boss missiles.
- Improved level selection to be more varied (while still randomized) across playthroughs.
- Various Temple visual improvements. Puddles now form below The Device when it rains.
- Player models are now automatically updated upon joining a multiplayer game with the same player model, preventing duplicates.
- Reworked element descriptions to be more concise, and easier to understand.
BALANCE UPDATES
- Replaced Stone Wall (Terra Area) with a new ability: Stone Turret. Stone Wall was just too limited in its usefulness.
- Replaced Boulder Toss (Terra Strong) with a new, easier to use ability: Rock Strikes. Boulder Toss, being a more advanced ability to execute, has had its damage increased, and is now offered as an augment to Rock Strikes. Boulder redirects have also been made more predictable in certain situations.
- Reworked Hover (Terra Jump), and it has been renamed to: Levitate. Overall feeling and maneuverability has been improved, and a bug has been fixed which sometimes sent the player in a vertical trajectory.
- Removed the velocity requirement for dashing. If a standing player dashes, they will dash forward.
- Implemented diminishing returns to the effects for Fire, Decay and Void. Newly applied Fire will be reduced as the total damage per second reaches 300. Likewise, applied Decay and Void will diminish as they approach 300% amplification.
- Flash, now renamed to Focused Light: Added a preview of the focused light beam while charging. Updated starting cone angle from 30 to 45, replaced max charge range upgrade with overcharge upgrade, added a 2X max range extension when fully charged, reduced max charge multiplier from 4 to 3.
- Lightning Effect: Rather than creating 0.1 second micro stuns, it now stuns for 0.4 seconds, making stuns more noticeable for non-strong lightning abilities.
- Lightning: Global upgrade changed from increasing stun time, to increasing lightning applied, resulting in more frequent stuns.
- Shocking Current: Replaced “Increase rate of fire” upgrade with “Increase channeling time”.
- Arc Lightning: Replaced “Increase damage and effect” upgrade to “Increase damage”.
- Ice Shield: Reduced cooldown from 12 to 10 seconds, but cooldown now begins upon shield destruction.
- Ice Mine: Now detonates when arming if proximity was breached prior to arming.
- Crystallize: Max range increased by 66%.
- Incinerate: Reduced base fire amount from 17 to 15 dps.
- Radiate: Replaced upgrade that increased effect to instead increase damage.
- Tornado: Replaced upgrade that increased projectile speed to instead increase the tornado size.
- Mantis (Obsidian Boss): Scaled down boss attacks based on the world and number of players. Made the creeping energy ring slightly lower, resulting in it being easier to jump over.
- Pulse Disk Launcher: Slightly lowered pulse disk damage rings, making them a bit easier to jump over.
- Ball Drop Flux Event: Updated to scale less dramatically with player count.
- Defend Flux Event: Increased defend tower hit points against triwings.
- Elemental Rings: Increased attack range by 25%, increased damage by 200%. Updated attacks to not redirect boulders.
- Time Trial: Rebalanced target times for each level based on playthrough data. Special thanks to those who have enabled sending game stats in the options menu!
BUG FIXES
- Shattered Crater, Gamma Sector: Fixed a rare condition which could prevent upgrades from spawning, killing a run. (Sorry if you encountered this one!)
- Fixed issue where glitchy spikes could form in the black pool.
- Shattered Crater: Fixed a performance issue, resulting in a significant performance increase for some CPUs.
- Ice Platform Jump: Fixed a performance issue, resulting in a significant performance increase for some CPUs.
- Rallies: Updated to not land on enemies, which could cause the rally to be floating in the air when the enemy moved away. Fixed issue where aiming down while casting a rally on a flat surface could have it penetrate through the ground.
- Drops: Fixed display of stacking drop effects. For example, two movement speed buffs will now show +100% movement speed for the period when they overlap.
- Fire Thrust: Fixed issue where upward momentum would be lost when activated at certain times, such as when using a jump pad.
- Jagged Peaks: Fixed rare placement issues with Pyramid Missile launchers.
- Multiplayer: Fixed issue where clients could not see other players charging dashes or jumps.
- Multiplayer: Fixed issue where if a player entered the temple dead, they would not receive heals when revived.
- Multiplayer: Fixed issue where high rank hex blockers were double spawning for clients.
- Magnus boss: Fixed issue where all Underlords in the first stage could all focus fire at the same time.
- Skylands, Beta sector: Added an intermediate step where players could get caught, forcing them to backtrack.
- Moten Pillars: Fixed collision issue where it was possible for players to fall behind rock walls and get stuck.
- Moten Pillars, Gamma Sector: Fixed issue where Flux Ball Drop event could spawn partially outside the level boundary.
- Moten Pillars Boss: Updated top rotating platform to be easier to jump onto.
Many more smaller tweaks and bug fixes.
This is a huge patch. Check it out and let us know what you think of all the new updates!
To learn more about this new update, check the official source mentioned above.