Game updates/2022-02-02

Patch Notes: Feb 2, 2022

This update introduces mounts! There are also a LOT of new user-interface features. Read the "UI Improvements" section carefully, it's full of useful stuff!

Mounts

In this update, you can learn to ride a horse. This mount is useful for traveling and can also serve as extra storage. All the horses in this first version look and behave exactly the same. In the future there will be multiple breeds of horse that use the genetics system to allow a huge variety of mounts, but first we need your help testing the basics! We'll continue to polish and improve the basic functionality for a few updates, and when things seem good, we'll start introducing more mount types.

We don't want to explain all the ins and outs of how mounts work because we're hoping it's understandable enough that you can figure it out in-game. If it isn't, we'll need to make things more obvious! But here are some basics you should know:

- You can purchase a horse from a trainer in Hogan's Keep, Eltibule. The total cost is 6000 councils. You'll also need an empty stable slot to store the horse.

- All players who log in this month can redeem a pack of basic horse tack. Click the redemptions button at the bottom of the Persona window.

- There is also a new crafting skill that lets you create better tack. The trainer is in Amulna and the skill requires Leatherworking 50 to learn.

- Players in an animal form can't ride horses. However, they can access the saddlebag even when not on the mount, so there's still some benefit. (Animal forms will eventually have a travel mode, but we haven't decided how it will work yet.)

- We've talked in the past about revising how "sprint gear" works, and we still intend to do that, but not until mounts are more thoroughly tested. For now, there are no changes to how gear works.

- You can access your saddlebag while on your mount, and you can also access it while NOT on your mount, as long as you're in an area where you could theoretically ride the mount. (In other words, you can't access your saddlebag in dungeons.) The Red Wing Casino is a special case: even though you can't ride a mount there, you can still access your saddlebag.

- If you have a backer package that includes a horse, basic riding skill, and a saddlebag, you can now redeem that feature. Click the redemptions button at the bottom of the Persona window. NOTE: after redeeming, you need to log out and log back in to access your horse. (That's a bug, we'll fix it soon!) NOTE ALSO: horses require a stable slot. If you don't see the redemption, make sure you have an open stable slot!

- If you have the "Thoroughbred Breeder" package, those horses are not yet available -- they'll be added when horse genetics are in. You can safely redeem the free horse+riding skill+saddlebag now; you'll get the two "breeder" horses at a later date.

UI Improvements

- Added a new window for cosmetic pets, accessible via a button in the Persona window. Pets are summonable from the window directly or can be placed on the sidebar like before. All cosmetic pets have been moved here from the Skills & Abilities window.

- Added a "Hotbar Layout" option for attaching the sidebar to the main hotbar, which turns it horizontal and places it underneath the active skills hotbar. You can access this in Settings, under GUI/Features, or by right-click the sidebar and selecting "Attach to Hotbar", or "Detach from Hotbar" when attached.

- Added the setting "Camera Vertical Smoothing" under Controls in the Settings window. This causes the camera to smoothly follow the player vertically instead of being directly tied to them. Enabled by default.

- Added options to individually lock most HUD elements, either by right-clicking on the window's titlebar or by clicking a lock icon. To enable the lock icons, go to Settings->GUI->Features and check the "Show GUI Locks?" option.

- Added confirmation to stable slot purchasing.

- The Transmutaion window has been redesigned. Due to its complexity, we'd like your help testing it! When you use an item workbench, you can choose between the old and new interface. Please try out the new interface first. We're leaving the old one available in case there are bugs. (Both interfaces use the same server-side transmutation code "under the hood"; only the interfaces are different.)

- The "Hide Known Recipes" toggle is no longer displayed when the Sell tab is selected.

- Added a hotkey in Settings, under Keys, that bypasses players and pets when clicking, titled "Hold to Bypass Clicking Players & Pets". For example, while holding this key you can click on a player who is blocking your view of a corpse and select the corpse, not the player.

- When a party member dies, the party status window should now display the text "DEAD" in all of the attribute rows, rather than 0's or, worse, incorrect non-0 values.

- Added a search bar to Special Abilities in Skills & Abilities window.

- Added a news ticker of player activity to the login screen.

- The skills window now lists previously-earned skill rewards under the list of upcoming rewards.

- There's a new hotkeys to summon your mount. It defaults to Shift+NumLock. (The Auto-Run key defaults to NumLock, so you can press Shift+NumLock, then NumLock, to start traveling.)

- There's a new hotkey to view your saddlebag. (It doesn't have a key by default.)

<color=#ffcc00>Animations & Graphics</color>

- We now take animations into account when attempting to queue an ability. E.G. When summoning a pet and then queueing up another ability, the summoned pet animation will finish (thus actually summoning the pet) before firing the queued ability.

- Polished all Necromancy animations and particle effects.

- Sped up animation and removed the movement slowdown for Dig Deep & Push Onward.

- Slightly sped up animations for First Aid and Patch Armor.

- Improved Fae Bee attack animations.

- Fixed a bug with players not standing back up after dying.

- When initiating flying mid-jump, the jump will properly be canceled and the character can no longer fly sideways/diagonally.

- We now delay shooting of some archery projectiles until the proper moment; they were shooting right away.

- Fixed LOD issues with buildings and some terrain objects in Rahu.

- Adjusted camera settings and draw distances in Eltibule to reduce the horrendous pop-in. This change may impact performance for some users on low-end machines, but hopefully not too badly!

VIP Changes

- We've cleaned up the half-assed VIP panel in the settings window. It now explains what VIP is, and has a link to the Steam store page for non-VIPs that may want VIP.

- Most of the features under the VIP section now actually require VIP. The exception is basic chat logging, which will remain permanently available to everyone. The option is still in the VIP section, labeled as a "VIP preview feature". Note that combat logging does require VIP.

- Added new combat logging options, including ways to log indirect damage and healing amounts. (These options show the raw damage/healing amounts, but it's not always easy to tell which ability caused which indirect damage/healing. This is something we want to show in the logs, but it will require some rearchitecting. So this is an incremental improvement.)

- VIP members who log in during Jan 25 - Feb 28 can redeem a February VIP gift package: a Sturdy Music Box.

- New permanent VIP benefit: VIP players gain +15 saddlebag slots.

Favor Fixes

We realized that many NPCs did not have their target level set in data, effectively making them level 0 NPCs. This made them more receptive to gifts than intended. We've fixed these NPCs, and as a result they will give somewhat less favor for gifts. (This is a bug-fix, not an overall balance change. We're fixing bugs in preparation for balance work.) Affected NPCs include:

• Gorvessa in Hogan's Basement
• Yalox in the Goblin Dungeon
• Glajur in Kur Tower
• Percy in Eltibule
• Sem in Snowblood Shadow Cave
• Rubi and Cassie in the Warden Cave
• Laura Neth in Kur Mountains
• Ratuk the Thinker in Kur Mountains
• Mope in Povus
• Hirochi in Rahu
• Ichin in Rahu
• Wintria Irasca in Rahu
• Silvia in Sun Vale

Several NPCs who said they liked "Magical Equipment with Skill X prereq" actually liked anything with that skill prereq, including textbooks. Now they only like actual magical (i.e. loot and crafted) equipment. Those NPCs are:

• Alravesa in Ilmari(Archery)
• Falkrin Overstrike in Ilmari (Hammer)
• Sand Seer in Ilmari (Fire Magic)
• Sugar in the Warden Cave (Deer)
• Leah Bowman in Povus (Animal Handling)
• Ashk in Rahu (Mentalism)
• Lady Windsong in Rahu (Druid)
• Jumper in Sun Vale (Deer)
• Raul in Sun Vale (Cow)
• Silvia in Sun Vale (Druid)

- Crafted belts and buckles now count as 'magical equipment' for favor gifting.

- For the purpose of gifting favor only, textbooks now cap how much an NPC will value them. This does not affect their actual Council value, just how much favor an NPC will give for the gift.

Mount-Related AI Changes

We've made some small changes to how monsters react to players when they are on a horse. We'll be refining these ideas in the future.

- While you are mounted, melee-centric monsters have 33% reduced player-detection radius. (They still respond to help shouts at the same distance, however.)

- While you are mounted and not in-combat, melee-centric monsters ignore your out-of-combat pets. (But ranged attackers will still shoot at pets, which will bring the pets into combat. And then melee monsters will notice it! So best not to rely on this overmuch.)

Other Changes

- When mining in Povus, there was a chance to receive the message "You didn't find anything valuable that time, but you can still try again." This seemed like a failed skill-check to players, but it was actually just random. We've replaced this with an equivalent change to mine very-low-value items (such as Pebbles and Flint). This way it's clear that you haven't failed at anything, you just have more mining to do. (The total number of high-value items in each node is unchanged.)

- Items with shamanic infusions on them should now be transmutable. The infusions also show up differently in the UI with the new transmute window.

- Crosswbows mods will no longer appear on non-crossbow off-hand items.

- We now prevent right-click movement when dead.

- Bulwark Mode is now fully dispelled on death. (Previously a few side effects of it would stick around.)

- Chat logs now include timezone offset when you login to the game (to aid automated tools).

- Fixed Amutasa's broken "Install Augment" option when your favor level is too low to augment.

- You no longer stop auto-running when using an ability without a channeling time. This functionality can be re-enabled via the "Always Stop Auto-Moving when Using an Ability" option in the Settings window under Controls. Note: You WILL stop auto-running if you use an ability outside of its range and have Auto-Move to Attack turned on.

- Added collision to the gates in Rahu.

- Fixed the MacHack3 special setting so that it works more reliably: you no longer have to re-apply it whenever switching areas.

- Removed MacHack1 and MacHack2 special settings because they didn't actually help Mac users fix the visual problem. You can now just type MacHack instead of MacHack3 in the special settings. (Although MacHack3 continues to work.)

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