Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 Patch 1.3.0 Enhancements
In the latest update for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, patch 1.3.0 introduces significant adjustments aimed at enhancing gameplay. The revisions focus primarily on Story difficulty, resulting in more approachable battles. Notably, changes have been made to dodge and parry mechanics, giving players a larger reaction window, making combat more forgiving.
Improved Combat Mechanics
The adjustments to Story difficulty are specifically tailored for players who previously struggled with dodge and parry timings. With a 40% increase in response windows, players can now evade or counter enemy attacks more effectively. Moreover, the damage received from enemy strikes has been reduced; players will now endure only 50% of the typical damage, down from 60% on higher difficulty settings.
Advanced Challenge Options
Players looking for a greater challenge can take advantage of new settings available in Act 3. These include options to cap player damage or scale enemy health significantly. With two maximum damage thresholds—99, 999 or 999, 999—and six health variants for enemies that can increase their HP from twice to as much as 100 times the normal amount, customization for difficulty is better than ever.
Comprehensive Patch Notes
For those keen on the full scope of changes in patch 1.3.0, the complete notes can be found on Steam. Do note that the details contain potential spoilers for players who have not progressed beyond Act 3.
Notable Changes Highlighted:
- Simon Rematch: Players can rematch Simon after defeating him!
- Story Mode Balancing: The easiest difficulty setting sees notable changes:
- 40% larger parry and dodge windows
- Reduced incoming damage of 10% to 50%
- Challenge Modifiers (Act III and Beyond): Players can now adjust settings at flag checkpoints:
- Limit maximum player damage to 99, 999 or 999, 999
- Enemy HP can scale by factors of x2, x5, x10, x20, x50, or x100
Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements
A total of 297 bug fixes have been implemented, including important adjustments such as:
- Verso properly gains Perfection when in reserve.
- Lag issues associated with the Simoso weapon have been resolved.
- General enhancements related to collisions, terrain, and scripting have been applied.
- Cutscenes will now scale correctly on ultrawide and non-standard resolutions.
- Fixed a critical bug where a player might spawn at coordinate zero after loading a save.
- Placeholder textures near Chromatic Boucheclier in his battlearena have been removed.
- Performance drops from repeated resting on specific levels have been corrected.
- Crashes after dialogue sequences have been addressed.
- Stability during extended gameplay sessions has improved.
- French voiceover now functions correctly when selected.
Enhanced System Settings
The update also boosts system settings with key features such as:
- In-game audio can be muted or unmuted while running in the background.
- Improvements to mouse and joystick sensitivity for better control.
- Support for manual renaming of save files is now available (requires EXPEDITION_XX format, where XX is a value between 00 and 09).
Localization Updates
Players can look forward to enhancements in localization, which include:
- Updated credits including additional creature voiceovers and refined IOI sections.
- Font size adjustments for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages.
- New text strings added along with various minor corrections.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is currently available on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC. Stay tuned for additional updates and improvements!
