Two big systems landed in the same pass — the enemy AI backbone and the card upgrade layer.

Enemy abilities

Enemies used to just attack or defend. Now every enemy kit is defined by a combination of:

  • Attack (base) — scales with distance multiplier + strength/weak stacks
  • Defend — gains block from their baseBlock value
  • Advance — move one slot closer to the player
  • Debuff — apply Weak / Vulnerable / Burn from a cooldown
  • Buff — self-apply Strength from a cooldown
  • Heal — heal self + all allies for a % of max HP (support enemies)
  • Summon — spawn a second enemy once HP drops below a threshold (Heavy Mech, Reality Breach, The Singularity)

Priority is evaluated per turn so the intent UI always shows what the enemy will actually do. Each enemy data asset configures its available abilities plus per-ability cooldowns; bosses mostly override with custom logic (phase transitions, etc.).

Card upgrades

Every non-unplayable card has an upgraded variant (denoted with +). Upgrades are:

  • Damage cards: +3 or +4 damage (cards with multiple effects get the smaller bump)
  • Block cards: +2 or +3 armor
  • Status cards: +1 stack applied
  • Draw cards: +1 card drawn
  • Energy cards: +1 energy gained
  • Stance bonus cards: +2 to their stance-specific bonus
  • Power cards: -1 cost OR “Essential” (starts in opening hand)

Rest nodes now offer a card-upgrade option in addition to the heal, and every Act 1 boss reward screen randomly upgrades one of the player’s starter cards as a bonus.

This is the foundation that the meta-progression system from the token-unlock update sits on top of. Upgrade is a run-scoped effect; meta-progression is a persistent unlock.