Well the big day is finally here dredgers! I've been working on this update for about 4-5 months and it's been, phew, quite a workload. I ended up touching on just about every part of the game while doing this, and since I was rewriting an integral system of the game, pretty much everything kept breaking, the last 2-4 weeks were delayed due to an infinite loop bug which was being a pain to track down, since it left no error message. But that's all past and gone, that update is ready for release more or less! This post has a lot to read through and digest, so prepare yourself. The first 3 headlines should be enough to get an idea of the update if you don't want to read the whole thing. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/51729a6c8826dc651da72374c57c4b23dc11d6a8.png[/img] [h2]Projectiles [/h2] Arrow modifiers now stack, so each fletcher skill (and the starting arrow modifiers) now uses a different layer. So for example you can create a fire-bomb-splinter arrow! Not only that, but as the picture above demonstrates, many biological projectiles can now use this system! Currently the trunkits, slimes and visic projectiles use this system. So if you ever wanted to use multishot or ricochet with slime balls, now you can! Majority, if not all, arrow skills should apply to the biological projectiles :D [h2]Items[/h2] Items have been rewritten from the bottom up! However, I must stress, crafting [b]hasn't[/b] been improved, that's planned for 1-3 versions away, depending how I prioritise things. Items are obviously the big ticket item on the new feature list. Items can now have multiple prefixes, and the tooltips for them are far more organised. On top of being easier to read, having multiple prefixes gives items quite a bit more variety than before, making choosing between items somewhat more interesting! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/08bcd49e3b05e8a7602704d976e423f666bce010.png[/img] You can also now inspect items lying around the floor, in case you ever wanted to for whatever reason. A somewhat annoying change has been made that you'll need to get used to: You now need to right click items in order to read the tooltip, it'll make sense once you're in-game, but it can be confusing to work with at first. If you want to quick use an item, you can shift+RMB it. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/8c6c788ed2ee2e34465cb3be2d3042a036fba08b.png[/img] Alternatively, you can open the tooltip and choose an action, for items with multiple actions. In terms of new items or prefixes, there aren't many I regret to say, that was something I planned to leave for the crafting update, since this update was intended mostly as a rewrite rather than an expansion of content. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/c5d41f044001c43b129a0d4a61fe747e2fd72163.png[/img] [i]Books now display their incantations far more clearly.[/i] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/ba22b011db1920e862a965770d2bc5fa2028d3c9.png[/img] [i]Shoes and Charms now give stats per level, so they're useful late game and less powerful early.[/i] [h2]Wands and Energy Armour[/h2] Wands have received [strike]a large nerf[/strike] some love during the item update. Previous they used to scale with INT, could be swung, and all had the same swing speed. This had the side effect of making ice wand the best melee weapon in the game at a whopping 400% INT scaling per hit. Wands now scale off ENG, and cost energy to deal damage. So while wands still hit hard, they actually have a use cost, to bring them more in line. On that note, any weapon that gains an INT, CHM or ENG scaling will use energy to deal the damage from those scalings. Wand mastery(now called expertise to avoid confusion) has been changed to make incantations scale off ENG, and also allows you to apply a 100% ENG scaling to any melee weapon that doesn't have an ENG scaling already. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/11f55bda277d289eeaf6c330cd7c4c1924976520.png[/img] [i]Wands and Swords have also received a glow effect if they use energy when attacking.[/i] In terms of armour, any armour with an INT, ENG or CHM scaling will block with energy. So if you have 10 ENG, and armour with 100% ENG scaling, you can block 10 damage per attack by consuming energy equal to the amount blocked. [h2]New Class: Merchant[/h2] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/ed923c031401bdd26367e9a0ed1d22eb4c43f63f.png[/img] I've planned the merchant class even before the first steam release, even hinting at it in the identify description, and honestly now seemed like the best time to add it. The class isn't anything special itself, but it fills some gaps the game had in terms of skills. [h2]Changelog[/h2] As per usual, changelog is just a compilation of my #dev_logs on the discord, so it will not contain every single change unfortunately, but most of the major ones at least: [list] [*]Armour can now block acid, but takes 5 armour to block 1 acid damage. [*]Shields can now block acid regularly like other damage types. [*]Crabmen now halve armour instead of destroying it completely. [*]Torches now set items above them in the inventory on fire if they are flammable. (because pain) [*]Animated items now move around the inv. (for more pain) [*]Selling items now gives 10% (5% for Quooz, 50% for merchants) of the items worth, +1% per CHM. Capped at 100% selling. [*]Right clicking to cancel using a scroll no longer consumes the scroll. [*]There are now two types of flames beyond regular fire. They range from useless to catastrophically bad for you, so avoid em if you somehow find em. [*]Cannibalism should be fixed. [strike]Ninth lol[/strike] [*]Bleed and Poisoned have been changed but it's complicated and I don't wanna get into it. [*]Poisoned now stacks higher, dealing damage slower to high CON targets [*]Bleed deals damage faster to high CON targets [*]Crafting classes are now 3 levels long, and their 'craft' skills are masteries. [*]Majority of crafting recipes are pretty jank right now, only requiring 1 of each material. [*]All furniture has a 20% chance to drop material, 100% if you use scavenge as a skill. [*]Materials and Torches are classed as 'trash' so the peddler refuses to buy them, this is to allow players to not feel the need to strip down the dungeon for cash. [*]Slimes are now enemies with everything and everyone. [*]Boots actually change your characters texture if you're not wearing something with a dress. [*]Boots now give stats scaling on level, rather than a flat bonus. [*]Food now restores percentages of health and energy, rather than a flat amount. [*]Eggs can sometimes be found. Careful they can shatter. [*]Rotting meat can sometimes be found (because more pain) [*]Books now offer a minor stat per level reflecting their non-incantation knowledge. [*]You'll actually become fluxed upon miscasting, rather than being able to cast infinitely until you achieve a proper cast. [*]Books can be cast from inventory rather than limb if you want. [*]Bodies are automatically butchered and trophy collected if destroyed by damage. [*]Potions now let you get the application effect without requiring you to toss it at the wall near yourself. [*]Potions now change to a colour that's consistent between runs once discovered. [*]Some melee weapons use pushback instead of knockback. Pushback doesn't prevent enemies moving, but will constantly push them away while the weapon is swinging through them. [*]Collect trophy can now be used to get the King's third sword. [*]Various item sprites have been updated. [*]Weapons make a very fancy scrape effect upon hitting walls. [*]Bows now have drastically reduced crit rate, but crits now deal 100 damage by default rather than 10. Careful of enemy archers since they have a habit of deleting you with 5% chance somehow. [*]Fire coating (previously fire arrow tip) requires some form of flame on your person to activate. [*]Explosions are now raycasted, so firebomb no longer wipes the map. [*]Arrow coatings (previous arrow tips in Archer), can now all be accessed at rank 1(fire, poison, glue) and don't conflict with the other skills from fletcher. Rank 2 simply increases their effects. [*]Arrow fletching can now all be accessed at rank 1. Rank 2 and 3 increase the effects. [*]Heavy tips (bomb, sand, water)can now all be accessed at rank 1. They prevent arrows piercing unless you have rank 3. [*]Arrow mods(hook, serrated, splinter) can now all be accessed at rank 1. [*]Bows that previously edited arrows now edit arrow tips, and therefore are incompatible with heavy tips. [*]Explosion knockback has been given a cap so obscene damage doesn't make enemies fly across the melt. [*]Elves no longer have nightvision, instead they get every primary mastery. It's funner than it sounds! [*]Arrow modifications now work for biological projectiles. [*]Trunkit's thorn shot is now cone shaped. The one that activates upon being hit is still circle shaped. [*]Trunkit's defensive thorn burst now works even if only your armour took damage. [*]Scoped bow has been renamed sniper bow, and heavily emphasises crits even more. [*]Dark Steel Weapons have been renamed to Wrought weapons. [*]Putting points into DEX now only increases melee swing speed if it's under STR, having more DEX than STR won't help. Additionally this increase affects the exhaustion you get from using melee weapons, so your DPS will actually be higher by putting points in DEX. [*]Same for bows but reversed STR and DEX obviously. [*]Pick(axe) is now an item rather than a skill, which functions much nicer. [*]Rapiers now deal DEX damage. [*]Deathly pale will no longer kill you (directly at least). [*]Staff Mastery(now called expertise) has had rank 1 and 2 combined. Rank 2 now allows the damage to ramp up over time the longer you use it. [*]Charms now give 1 stat per level. As a result, players using CHM are assumed to have double CHM than other stats, so CHM has been balanced around this. Prime example is that bard songs now give only 25% of CHM rather than 50%. [*]Any item that gives stats per level cannot give more stats than what your current base is. This is to prevent every build from grabbing any stat they need but don't wanna build. [*]Leader's mantle has been nerfed to 1 DEF per follower, rather than the followers DEF. Not 100% happy with this so subject to change. [*]Legionnaire's helmet has been changed, it now increases your effective level for each follower you have. Aka it makes charms and shoes stronger if you have more followers. [*]Hotstalks are now DEX and STR, rather than SPD and STR, since we already have a herb that gives SPD but no DEX herb. [*]Animate now consumes all your energy and uses that to imbue the item. [*]Rage prefix now makes you gain berserk upon taking damage rather than randomly. [*]Leich don't lose food while resting (unless healing ofc) [*]Materials autopickup only if you have the material already in your inventory. [*]You can actually see what spells you heard now with Scribe's copy ability. [*]Skulltists can't kill themselves with wands, instead they will always be left at 1 energy. [*]Similarly, Cure and Regenerate always leave you at 1 energy. [*]Crabmen now gain 1 DEF and SPD per level since they can't wear boots. It's a shame they still suck. [*]Sprites (the little yellow ranged summon) now uses homing missiles. [*]Sandin now gain 3 points per level, since getting 4 sort of negated their weakness by level 5. [*]Bloodfallen now get 2(up from 1) points per level until I figure out what to do with them. [*]Scilits will probably take over the world oneday. [*]Enemy caster no longer get warper abilities since it was annoying as hell and not very effective. [*]Jar slimes occasionally spawn as pot slimes. [i]These actually scale with floor and hurt like hell.[/i] [*]Enemy stats have been more or less completely reworked, hopefully they should feel a little more consistent now rather than level 10 enemies on floor 5 handing your backside to you. [*]Fire Cape now reduces fire damage by half, and gives energy while on fire. [*]EXP orbs are now based on realworld time rather than game time, so they won't be super slow if you have high SPD. [*]Songs now disable if you're knocked out to prevent bloodlords getting stunlocked by song of healing. [*]Enemies now have shoes. [*]Smite now requires line of sight to your enemies. [*]Chant no longer reduces the stats of enemies by 100%, rather 25% now, same as bard songs. [*]Quooz-made prefix now affects cooking. [*]I can't believe you actually read through this entire changelog, you beast. Honestly you deserve a reward for this. [*]Stardust now gives 1 CHM per dust, capped on your base CHM. It also lets you double your light damage if you have more dust than your cap. [*]Skull collection is similar. Skull collection now caps at 100%, but lets you deal double damage by using skull stacks. [/list] That was a lot to get through, but thanks for even reading this far, I'm glad some players even love the game enough to do that! So as for future updates. This has become a topic I'm not a fan of talking about, since it sort of straps me down into a line of work. Even if I claim my future plans are only plans and may change, I feel it still creates expectation. Currently I have 3 plans from the the 'post-holiday plans' news post, that being translation system, saves and crafting. I'm still going to look into translations and such, though chances are I may leave it for later. Saving is somewhat up in the air too, it might turn out to be super easy or super hard, so I'll see. Crafting is something I am [b]incredibly[/b] excited for, so hopefully I'll start work on that sometime soon. I did originally plan it for v43 but I'm thinking of doing one or two smaller patches just to have a bit of space between these huge releases. I also may just do the crafting update in parts, since I have quite a bit planned for it. Minor Note: Buggy beta branch will be disabled until I get started on a bigger patch. Once again, thanks for reading and playing the game, means a lot to have players who enjoy and look forward to updates! And thanks for the patience, sorry it's taken a while to get to this point Have fun and be blessed! After all, you wouldn't want to accidentally become [b]cursed [/b]would you? [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35821711/c4bc941bdfe198cd0c355d81907f7a31e4fc376b.png[/img]