Dear warriors! We've received a lot of new feedback recently. Thank you again! The game is still in the process of continuously adding new items and making adjustments, so it's inevitable that there will be some balance and numerical issues. This is a long - term process that requires your help. We'll continue to collect your suggestions and opinions. Feel free to share your thoughts and complaints!

1. Game Mechanism Adjustments
Post - Hit Blocking Time: Reduce the time available to block after being hit from 2 seconds to 1.75 seconds.
Counter - Attack Value Acquisition Efficiency: Decrease the efficiency of all characters' counter - attack value acquisition while blocking.
Counter - Attack Value Decrease Speed: Lower the speed at which all characters' counter - attack values decrease.
Posture - Break Skill Damage: When a posture - break skill hits an enemy with super armor, increase the posture damage from 2 times to 3 times.
2. Item Adjustments
Frozen Ice Block: Reduce the attached Ice elemental anomaly value from 35% to 30% of the base damage.
Red Pearl: Decrease the attached Fire elemental anomaly value from 90% to 50% of the base damage.
Flame Circlet: Lower the attached Fire elemental anomaly value from 35% to 30% of the base damage.
Icy Core: Reduce the attached Ice elemental anomaly value from 100% to 60% of the base damage.
Burning Embers: Decrease the attached Fire elemental anomaly value from 100% to 60% of the base damage.
Frozen Metal: Lower the attached Ice elemental anomaly value from 90% to 50% of the base damage.
Lightning - Attracting Spike: Reduce the attached Thunder elemental anomaly value from 35% to 30% of the base damage.
Grounding Boots: Decrease the attached Thunder elemental anomaly value from 100% to 50% of the base damage.
Cloud - Splitting Needle: Lower the attached Thunder elemental anomaly value from 65% to 40% of the base damage.
Fire Rune Fragment: Reduce the attached Fire elemental anomaly value from 24% to 8% of the base damage.
Fire Rune: Decrease the attached Fire elemental anomaly value from 35% to 12% of the base damage.
Small Ice Rune: Lower the attached Ice elemental anomaly value from 30% to 10% of the base damage.
Ice Rune: Reduce the attached Fire elemental anomaly value from 35% to 12% of the base damage.
Small Thunder Rune: Decrease the attached Thunder elemental anomaly value from 30% to 10% of the base damage.
Thunder Rune: Lower the attached Thunder elemental anomaly value from 35% to 12% of the base damage.
Lion Shield: Decrease the damage increase from 40% to 15%.
Dark Moon Emblem: Change the price from 7 gold coins to 4 gold coins.
3. Bug Fixes
Counter - Attack Value Accumulation: Fix the issue where some skills do not accumulate counter - attack values.
Small Shield Fortitude Addition: Fix the problem where the small shield fails to add fortitude.
Anatomical Manuscript Critical Hit: Fix the issue where a critical hit with the Anatomical Manuscript does not add bleeding.
Decapitation Combo Description: Fix the inconsistent description of the Decapitation Combo effect.

The update this week brings new features for damage numbers and display. There are also numerous other adjustments and balancing changes. We look forward to more feedback from you all!

### New Features
#### 1. Damage Numbers and Combo Counts
- Display is enabled by default and can be turned off on the settings page.

### Adjustments and Optimizations
#### 1. Skill Fusion Adjustments
- Standardize the skill types before and after fusion.
- Adjust the fusion formulas for Samurai skills.
- Each item can only be used for fusion once per round.
#### 2. Character Adjustments
- **Knight**: Reduce the initial defense from 20 to 15.
- **Assassin**: Increase the initial defense from 5 to 10.
#### 3. Skill Adjustments
- Balance the numerical values of some skills.
- Adjust the algorithm for the efficiency of counter - attack accumulation in skills:
- Reduce the counter - attack values caused by most high - level skills.
- Increase the counter - attack values caused by Posture - break and Super Armor skills.
- Adjust the action speed of some Samurai skills.
#### 4. Item Adjustments
- **Conversion Armor**: Reduce the added "Mighty" stacks from 6 to 5.
- **Sharp Fang Bracelet**: Decrease the number of link points from 3 to 2.
- **Self - Sacrifice Potion**: Lower the added "Mighty" stacks from 18 to 15.
- **Arrogant Helmet**: Decrease the added HP from 50 points to 40 points.
- **One - Breath Potion**: Reduce the price from 8 gold coins to 6 gold coins.
- **Crimson Gauntlets**: Decrease the number of "Bleeding" stacks applied to enemies on hit from 2 to 1.
- **Small Shield**: Now increase the posture damage of linked skills by 1% for every 5 points of posture.
- **Resilient Gauntlets**: Now increase damage at low HP, but with a reduced increase value.
- **Ritual Armor**: Decrease the added HP from 75 to 60 and no longer provide "Sturdy".
- **Blood Dagger**: Change the applied "Bleeding" stacks from 3 to 2 when activating a skill.
- **Doomed Resolution**: Reduce the additional damage dealt to the enemy per skill hit from 10 points to 8 points, and reduce the additional damage received when our character is hit from 5 points to 4 points.
- **Jealous Flame Coat**: Decrease the added "Fortitude" stacks from 20 to 18, reduce the "Sturdy" stacks provided by each inlaid rune from 3 to 2, and increase the "Valor" stacks provided to the enemy from 3 to 4.

### Bug Fixes
#### 1. Item Effects
- **Power Shard**: Fix the issue of additional removal of skill damage bonus effects.
- Fix the numerical errors in all effects that increase the posture limit.
#### 2. Skills
- Standardize the described number of damage segments and the actual number of damage segments for Assassin skills.

Hello everyone. No new content was created this week. The main focus was on adjusting the existing content. Regarding the character strength, we believe that the overall strength of the Knight and the Assassin is still slightly on the high side, so we made some minor adjustments and will observe the subsequent impact. (Is it time for the Samurai to rise?)

Bug Fixes
Fixed the description issue of the Arrogant Helmet's effect.
Fixed the effects of the Obscure Ring, the Jealousy Flame Coat, and the Mixed Flask.
Added Broken Bones to the shop pool.

Adjustments
Character - related adjustments
Knight: Reduced the base defense from 25 to 20.
Assassin: Reduced the critical - hit rate from 30% to 20%. Reduced the critical - hit multiplier from 150% to 135%.

Move mechanism adjustments
Breaking Force Move: After hitting a move with Super Armor, the damage and stance damage multiplier was reduced from 3 times to 2 times.
Item adjustments
Thorn Cross: Increased the price from 14 gold coins to 18 gold coins.
Cross Statue: Increased the price from 6 gold coins to 7 gold coins.
Transformation Armor: Reduced the "Strength" bonus from 7 times the number of connected armors to 6 times.
Sacrificial Bone: Reduced the health bonus from 140 to 125.

Dear brave warriors,

Greetings! Since the major update in April, we've received a wealth of suggestions and feedback from you all. Your insights have been invaluable in enhancing the game experience, and we'd like to express our sincere gratitude to every player who has offered criticism and advice.

Many players have expressed a desire to continue playing after achieving ten consecutive victories, and some have also suggested the ability to battle friends. In response, we've introduced a new feature called the "Hall of Honor." Alongside this new addition, we've also included 12 brand - new items in this version, aiming to provide you with more diverse build options. Additionally, we've made adjustments to certain game mechanics, item effects, and the leaderboard function. Here are the detailed update notes:

### New Features
#### 1. Hall of Honor
- Players can save the character data of their 10 - win runs in the Trial Mode.
- View detailed information of the saved character data in the "Hall of Honor":
- Inventory status and total item value.
- Saving time.
- Win - loss record.
- Each character saved in the Hall of Honor has a corresponding "Character Code".
- Players can enter each other's "Character Codes" in the Hall of Honor to initiate a battle (Internet connection is required to retrieve character data).
#### 2. Live - streaming Mode
- Can be enabled in the settings. Once enabled, the names of opponents will no longer be directly displayed during battles.

### New Items
#### 1. Resilient Gauntlets
- Can only be linked to skills.
- The linked skill deals additional posture damage based on the player's HP status (15% additional when HP is below 75%, 25% when below 50%, and 50% when below 25%).
#### 2. Reinforced Armor Plates
- Can only be linked to armor.
- At the start of the battle: For each linked armor piece, increase the player's maximum posture value by 10 points and add 1 stack of "Fatigue".
#### 3. Power Shard
- Can only be linked to skills.
- At the start of the battle: The linked skill's damage increases by 1% per second. The damage - increasing effect resets and restacks after the skill hits.
#### 4. Bone Breaker
- Can only be linked to skills.
- The linked skill deals additional damage to enemies with over 50% HP (50% additional when the enemy's HP is full, 25% when at 50% HP).
#### 5. Filthy Armor
- At the start of the battle: Randomly add 20 stacks of a negative effect. For each linked item, add an additional 10 stacks.
- 10 seconds after the start of the battle: Convert all negative effects on the player into twice the number of corresponding positive effects.
#### 6. Wrestler's Belt
- Can only be linked to skills.
- For every 10 stacks of "Mighty" the player has, the linked skill consumes 1 less point of stamina.
#### 7. Reckless Shield
- Each stack of "Sturdy" increases counter - attack damage by 3%.
#### 8. Stone Scale Barrier
- Increase the player's block damage reduction rate by 99% within the first 5 seconds of the battle.
- Whenever the player blocks: The higher the player's HP percentage, the more stamina is consumed, with a maximum additional consumption of 40 points.
#### 9. Poisonous Bee Tail Ring
- For every 1% of stamina lost, increase counter - attack damage by 4%.
#### 10. Fingerless Gloves
- Can only be linked to skills.
- The linked skill consumes 3 less points of stamina.
- If the linked skill is a posture - break skill, it consumes an additional 3 less points of stamina, but the damage is reduced by 15%.
#### 11. Boxer's Chestplate
- Each time the player activates a posture - break skill, add 8 stacks of "Mighty" to themselves.
- Each time the player's posture - break skill is interrupted, add 5 stacks of "Mighty".
#### 12. Cloud - Splitting Needle (Replaces the Grounding Boots as a fusion result. Grounding Boots are added to the shop pool)
- Can only be linked to skills.
- The linked skill consumes 2 less points of stamina.
- When the linked skill hits: Apply a Thunder elemental anomaly value equal to 65% of the base damage to the enemy.

### Adjustments and Optimizations
#### 1. Character - related Adjustments
- **Knight**: Decrease HP, increase defense. Increase skill damage.
- **Samurai**: Slightly reduce early - game posture damage.
- Reduce the damage of all characters' Super Armor Skills and Posture - break Skills. Increase the stamina consumption of Samurai and Assassin's Super Armor Skills.
- Increase all characters' late - game HP.
- Slightly increase all characters' posture recovery speed.
- Significantly reduce the efficiency of all characters' counter - attack progress accumulation while in the hit state.
- Increase all characters' base block damage reduction rate from 20% to 25%.
- Delay the timing of all characters' counter - attack progress decrease, but increase the decrease speed.
#### 2. Interruption Mechanism Adjustment
- Super Armor Skills cannot interrupt Posture - break Skills.
- When a Posture - break Skill hits a Super Armor Skill, it no longer directly puts the user into a vulnerable state, but deals 3 times the damage and posture damage.
#### 3. Block - related Adjustments
- A character can block when hit again after being in the hit state for 2 seconds.
- If a counter - attack is interrupted, part of the counter - attack progress will now be refunded.
#### 4. Shop Mechanism Adjustment
- The maximum number of identical skills that can be purchased from the shop is 2.
#### 5. Element - related Mechanism Adjustments
- The elemental anomaly value added by items is now calculated only based on the base damage of skills.
- Strengthen the negative effects during the abnormal state.
- The abnormal state ends 3 seconds after entering. Using an attack of the corresponding abnormal state during this period will slightly extend the duration of the abnormal state.
- Adjust the effects of element - related items.
#### 6. Item Effect Adjustments
- Adjust the prices of some skills.
- Add elemental attribute classifications to some items.
- **Arrogant Helmet**: Change the added "Sturdy" from 6 stacks to 4 stacks, and the "Sturdy" added for each linked armor piece from 4 stacks to 2 stacks.
- **Steady Ring**: Increase the counter - attack progress increase when blocking from 4% to 8%.
- **Dexterous Pendant**: Now add 2 stacks of "Fortitude" for each linked item, but reduce the added "Sturdy" to 1 stack.
- **Hybrid Flask**: At the start of the battle, gain 6 stacks of random buffs. Change the number of random buff stacks gained when using the potion from 6 to 4.
- **Dark Moon Emblem**: Change the price from 10 gold to 7 gold.
- **One - Breath Potion**: Change the recovered stamina from 50 points to 75 points.
- **Small Shield**: New effect: At the start of the battle, for each stack of "Sturdy", gain 1 stack of "Fortitude", up to a maximum of 15 stacks.
- **Killing Intent Bell**: Change the price from 6 gold to 3 gold.
- **Obsidian Armor**: When HP is below 50%, directly gain 16 stacks of "Fortitude", and an additional number of stacks equal to 8 times the number of linked armor pieces.
- **Energy Beetle**: Change the recovered stamina for the player and the stamina lost by the enemy from 4 points to 6 points.
- **Giant Boots**: Instead of clearing all "Fortitude", only clear the "Fortitude" added by the Giant Boots.
- **Ritual Armor**: At the start of the battle, increase the player's maximum HP by 75 points and gain 5 stacks of "Sturdy".
- **Shining Ring**: At the start of the battle, add 4 stacks each of "Valor", "Fortitude", and "Mighty". For each linked light - attribute item, add an additional stack of each.
- **Reverse the Tide Potion**: Temporarily remove this item.
- **Patient Incense**: Recover an additional 50 posture when counter - attacking.
- **Frost Iron Shield**: Increase the counter - attack damage increase from 30% to 50%, and the counter - attack progress increase when blocking from 5% to 15%. Increase the counter - attack damage increase when blocking from 3% to 5%.
- **Obscure Ring**: New effect: At the start of the battle, apply 3 stacks each of "Fatigue", "Vulnerable", "Weakness", and "Retreat" to the enemy.
- **Frosty Claw**: Change the HP threshold for triggering from below 50% to below 85%.
- **Energetic Greaves**: Change the recovered stamina from 3 times to 5 times.
- **Impact Shield**: Change the gained "Weakness" from 5 stacks to 2 stacks, and the posture damage increase for each linked skill from 12% to 14%.
- **Blessing Potion**: Change the gained buff stacks from 15 to 22.
- **Candle Flame**: Change the damage bonus per stack of "Fortitude" from 0.6% to 0.8%.
- **Tourniquet**: Change the provided "Fortitude" at the start of the battle from 10 stacks to 35 stacks.
- **Imbalance Relief Potion**: Change to increase the posture limit by 30.
- **Danger Cleansing Potion**: New effect: Recover 1 HP for each stack of buffs.
- **Hunting Impulse**: New effect: The linked skill deals 15% additional damage to bleeding enemies, and the damage of the linked skill increases by 0.3% for each stack of bleeding on the enemy.
- **Thorn Cross**: Change the "Bleeding" added to the enemy when attacking from 4 stacks to 3 stacks, and from 4 stacks to 2 stacks when being hit. When hitting or being hit, change the "Bleeding" added for each linked blood - type item from 2 stacks to 1 stack.
- **Champion Helmet**: New effect: Each linked armor piece increases posture and HP by 15 points.
- **Bulky Armor**: Instead of clearing all "Fortitude", only remove the "Fortitude" added by the Bulky Armor.
- **Profane Cross**: The linked skill now deals + 30% damage. However, reduce the life - steal from 60% to 45% and decrease the number of link points.
- **Expert Shoes**: Increase the stamina limit increase at the start of the battle from 30 to 60. And for every 5 points of consumed stamina, the linked skill's damage increases by 1%.
- **Raptor Statue**: Redesign the item effect. Now it triggers different effects based on the type of linked item.
#### 7. Leaderboard Display Adjustment
- The leaderboard will now be displayed in two calculation dimensions: weekly and monthly.

Hello, everyone! The version updated today has adjusted the combat rhythm and numerical values to provide a smoother experience.

Combat rhythm adjustment: Lengthen the duration of each battle.
Adjusted the attributes and skill numerical values of all characters.
All characters can perform parries more easily.
The natural stamina recovery rate of all characters has been increased by 50%, and the stamina recovered from parries has also been increased.
Significantly reduced the damage caused by the "Vulnerable" state.
The shop now requires 1 more gold coin for every 4 refreshes, with a maximum increase to 3 gold coins.
Fixed the issue where the passive effect of Imperial Judgment did not take effect.
Fixed the issue where the stacking of Crimson Gauntlets did not match the description.
Fixed the issue where the Dark Moon Emblem did not take effect correctly when a critical hit occurred.
Fixed the issue where the character would perform a counter - attack instead of entering the "Vulnerable" state when the parry progress was full and the posture was depleted simultaneously.
Fixed the issue where the multi - select boxes might not disappear.

Impact Gauntlets: Removed extra stamina cost (fixed inconsistency between effect and description). 2. Mixing Bottle: Fixed incorrect weight configuration for random buffs.
Sacred Feather Emblem: Removed the chance to apply the "Recovery" buff.
Assassin Skill – Quick Shadow Combo: Fixed an issue where incorrect buffs ("Recovery" and "Strong") might be applied.
Assassin Skill – Flurry of Blows: Fixed an issue where the incorrect "Shield Break" buff might be applied.
Samurai Skill – Lianzhe: Fixed incorrect stamina consumption.
Fixed an issue where characters in the Flaw state could still use skills.
Corrected the effect description for entering the Flaw state in the battle details panel.
Reduced background memory usage for data updates.

Dear Adventurers,
Today marks exactly one week since the launch of the latest demo for Wretch: Divine Ascent.
We never expected this demo to attract so many players — we’ve received the amount of feedback and suggestions (in the best way)! 🙌
Here’s a quick update on what we’ve achieved in just one week:

1.Our Steam wishlists have surpassed 10,000! (Before the demo, we were around 2,000.)
2.We were featured at the top of Steam’s official Free Demos section, alongside games like FC 25 and Shape Of Dream
3.We ranked in the top 3 trending free demos on Steam!
4.Our Ranking List server received over 600,000 data uploads from in-game activity.
5.Our Bilibili followers have nearly doubled, and our Heybox followers have grown nearly 6x!

And now, a look at what’s coming next — based on all the feedback we've seen so far, here are some of the key features we’re planning to adjust in future updates. The demo will stay online with regular updates to improve and refine the experience:

1.Overwhelming move counter mechanics: We don’t plan to remove counter relationships between moves, but we will adjust the counter effect to reduce the feeling of helplessness caused by bad luck.
2.Low survivability with only 3 HP bars: There is a healing mechanic in place, but the UI doesn’t show it clearly yet — that’ll be fixed. We’re also continuing to explore better failure tolerance.
3.Limited viable builds: We’re actively working on this — beyond number tweaks, we’ll also add new items to support more varied playstyles.
4.Can’t preview item crafting results: This is already in the works! It involves UI and system updates, so it’ll take a little more time.
5.Cluttered backpack UI, unclear combo and cooldown displays: Yes, we’re well aware of the UI issues — we’re planning a major visual update to address these.
6.Lack of guidance for new players: We're brainstorming solutions now. Once confirmed, we’ll work on building a proper tutorial/guide system.
7.Potion sometimes doesn’t work, combo input issues: Potions may behave counterintuitively right now — we’ll optimize both the mechanics and fix related bugs/UI issues.
8.Crashes, freezes, FPS drops: These are performance-related problems. Since we currently only have one programmer, our focus is still on core features first. That said, performance optimizations will come before full release.
9.Request for an economy system (e.g. rewards from battles): Something we’d love to add, but it’ll have to wait until after the core systems are in place.
10.Want to keep playing after 10 wins: We’re designing a new system that allows you to continue using your “10-win” character — something to look forward to!
11.Other suggestions like Pre-battle combo previews, storage box improvement, better filter/memory functions in the codex, more informative tooltips, super Overload level indicators, and fixes to various bugs...All of these are on our to-do list — they’ll take time, but we’re working on them step by step.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who’s sent feedback, streamed the game, or made content ❤️
Also, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to player Adam Cook for the invaluable help with the English translation of the game. We truly appreciate your love and support of the game. ❤️

Game development is a long journey, but your support gives us so much motivation. Let’s keep making Wretch: Divine Ascent better together!

Ongopogo
April 24, 2025