New Dark and Darker Update Reverts Merchant Changes, Patch Notes Revealed

Dark and Darker got a new update this week for the early access extraction game that included a number of noteworthy changes. Aside from the expected bugfixes and general improvements customary in these sorts of updates, the patch notes released for Early Access Hotfix #14 also buffed a couple of different classes' abilities including the Bard's Warsong and Story Teller as well as some of the Rogue's damage outputs. In one of the biggest changes to account for in the update, Ironmace reverted some of the changes implemented in Early Access Patch #1 related to the wares sold by the merchants.

In a bit of context provided for the patch notes for this hotfix, Ironmace said it'd looked to establish a "clean baseline" with the release of the last big update so that it could make changes from there based on what needed adjusting. After a "run with the nerfhammer," Ironmace made the changes below:

Dark and Darker Early Access Hotfix #14 Patch Notes

• Fixed a rollback issue where players would revert to a previous state when exiting a dungeon.
• Fixed Occultist Boots movement speed.
• Fixed an issue where Curse of Pain's instant damage would not occur when the Warlock uses Curse Mastery.
• Fixed an issue where Power of Sacrifice could not deal damage when the Warlock uses Curse Mastery.
• Lantern/Torch additional movement speed has been adjusted to 0.
• Lanterns can now appear with random modifiers at the higher rarities.
• Damage for all daggers has been slightly increased.
• Rogue's Trap Detection range has been increased from 400 → 450.
• Rogue's Jokester range has been increased from 350 → 450.
• Rogue's Ambush physical damage bonus changed from 30% → 50%.
• Rogue's Weak Point attack armor rating reduction has been changed from 25% → 30%, and the duration has been changed from 3s → 4s.
• Ranger's Chase range has been increased from 400 → 450.
• Bard's Warsong range has been increased from 350 → 450.
• Bard's Story Teller range has been increased from 350 → 450.
• Jack-O-Lantern has returned.
• Regular merchants no longer sell Epic items.
• The random modifier properties that appear on the colored rarity items have been reverted to give the much larger value range and larger variety including the +all attributes from before the previous patch. This means that checking the rolls for your items means just as much or more than just the color grade of the item.
• Sub-bosses and Special Chests such as the Lion's Head, Golden Chests, Marvelous, and Royal Coffins will always give colored grade loot now.
• Soulreaper name changed to Soulscraper.

Dark and Darker Merchant Changes Reverted

The last big update made is so that merchants would sell a "much larger amount and variety of items," but change was apparently a bit much and has since ben recalled.

"We also realized that although the changes to the Merchants had the intended effect of reducing the stress of gearing up, we may have made it a little too easy, thus dis-incentivizing the value of loot more than we wanted," Ironmace said. "In order to put more value into the higher grades of loot we have decided to revert to the more dynamic random modifiers from before EA Patch #1. We have also slightly tuned these modifiers so some of the more desirable stats are even better than before. We have also removed the epic items from the Merchants so that the higher grade items are even more valuable. However as an alternate means to still attain some of these high grade items outside the dungeons, we have reintroduced Jack O Lantern. Finally, we want to motivate players to still obtain these loots from inside the dungeons and have made the SubBosses and special chests as special POIs that will always drop guaranteed higher quality loot."

Dark and Darker's latest update is now live following a release on Thursday.