Game updates/2015-01-27

January 27 Update #2

Quick reboot to fix some ability targeting bugs and bugs with the Battle Chemistry vendor. Known issue: the weapons and shields on skeleton monsters are missing textures. No need to report that one, it'll be fixed in the next client-side update!

Jan 27 Update

(Note: if you were in game before the update and didn't close your client, please close it before logging in!) This update addresses issues with Mac players being unable to play. It's due to a bug in the latest Unity engine; the temporary workaround is to use a 64-bit version of the game. 99% of our Mac players can run 64-bit versions, although it may have a bit less performance in some cases. Other stuff in this update:

Non-Skill-Related

- Hogan now lets you complete the staff quest if you've become an animal since the time you got the quest. (But he still doesn't give it out to animals in the first place, because animals can't use staves and that's just misleading.)

- If you heal others that are in combat, that puts you into combat also.

- On the other hand, *being healed* by others that are in combat no longer puts you into combat

- If someone (or some thing) heals or buffs you, you no longer auto-target the healer

- The NPCs no longer give out new years' gifts

- The mushroom spitter monsters in the Myconian Cave had become invisible, but are back

- Various potion changes that were supposed to be in the last update didn't make it in until this update. In general potions cost less Metabolism and have bigger effects (except Power potions)

- Winter Nexus key was still being consumed when it no longer should be

- Somehow the recipe to craft newbie arrowheads once again gave 10 XP, allowing XP spamming exploits. This is again fixed. The beginner's arrowhead recipe is only supposed to give XP the first time. (Since the components can be purchased for pennies.)

Battle Chemistry

I spent a good while making the mini-golem more fun and fixing a lot of bugs there. There are now a bunch of new ways to program the minigolem. I'd previously tried to keep it super simple, but it needed more complexity to make it interesting. So now there are many new golem abilities. Some are on longer reset timers -- which means sometimes when the golem tries to use them, they won't be ready yet, and the golem will just go on to the next rule.

There are also Rage abilities you can plug into the golem now, if you like, as well as Rage-related conditionals. If the golem tries to use a Rage ability but its rage meter isn't full yet, it will just go on to the next rule.

There's also a new Battle Chemistry ability, "Trigger Golem", which can be on your sidebar or main bar. It does absolutely nothing on its own, it just turns on and off as you use it. But there are new golem conditionals that can check the state of this ability, so you can use it to create overrides.

- I also added a few "convenience conditionals" to make some common scenarios easier to set up.

- Golem programming is still pretty simple, but it has some interesting possibilities now, and it's in a better place to add more stuff for the levels above 50. Please give it some testing time and send feedback!

- Summon Minigolem 5 is now available at level 51

- Something got broken somewhere and you were unable to easily use mutations on allies. This is fixed (again).

- Golem pets no longer keep you in combat by healing you or restoring power

- Revised old minigolem abilities:

- Bomb Toss has more range and damage

- Healing Mist is more effective, but is on a slower (15 second) cooldown

- Self Destruct is more potent

- New abilities for the minigolem:

- Healing Injection: heals only the golem's owner, but on a faster cooldown

- Doom Admixture: a potent Darkness attack, on a slow (30 second) cooldown

- Self Sacrifice: golem dies but heals nearby allies

- Taunting Punch: a crappy melee attack that taunts the enemy. (No, the golem isn't very sturdy, but nevertheless...)

- Haste Concoction: this is exactly the same as the Battle Chemists' ability by the same name, a short speed boost with a long cooldown

- Fire Balm: apply a protective coating to the golem's owner, insulating them from fire damage (mainly effective against DoT burning)

- Rage Mist: big AoE healing when golem's Rage meter is full

- Rage Acid Toss: heavy acid damage when golem's Rage meter is full

- The reset time of Summon Golem has been increased to 90 seconds instead of 5 seconds (to avoid self-destruct spamming)

- You can now see the stats of the golems' abilities by hovering over the ability buttons in the Program Golem window

- IMPORTANT if you've already bought golem abilities: the abilities previously had random nonsensical level requirements. The level requirements have all been changed. So you still have all the golem abilities you bought before, but the golem can't use any ability whose new level is higher than your Battle Chemistry skill. (It will let you assign them to the golem, but then show an error message when it tries to use them.)

- There are 10 new golem programming conditionals for sale. In order to help veteran players find them without going insane, they are all listed at the bottom of the conditionals list (after "Never") for now.

- There is a new toggle ability that works in conjunction with golem conditionals, Trigger Golem, for sale from the NPC in Serbule.

- Lowered the cost of Battle Chemistry abilities for sale from the vendor

- Obsolete training books: the Battle Chemistry NPC now trains you in battle chemistry abilities via the Training system, which means many of the old skill books he sold are obsolete. If you still have one of those books for some reason, you have only a week or two to sell it (or use it) before it disappears from your inventory! These skill books are labeled "OBSOLETE" in all caps, so it shouldn't be hard to spot them.

- A bunch of new treasure effects were added for Battle Chemistry, mostly ways to buff the minigolem's abilities

- Lowered the costs on the various golem-related recipes, although the top-level ones are still pretty expensive (intentionally).

Other Skills

- Some new treasure effects for Shield to let it capture aggro better

- Some new treasure effects for Hammer to let it capture aggro better

- Fixed missing Hoplology tutorial book in the back of the wolf cave in Kur Mountains

- Reduced the Power cost of Punch back to 0. (It's not overpowered at level 50, but I worry that it will become problematic at higher level... but we'll see. For now it'll be considered a "signature feature" of unarmed, and I'll try to balance around issues that come up.)

- Added a bunch of treasure effects for sword ability "Hacking Blade", which had none

- Added a few treasure effects for Sword abilities like Debilitating Blow and Flashing Strike, which were underrepresented. (And some still are, but we're getting there.)

- Ghosts are now marked as Undead for the purposes of Flashing Strike working on them. (And for any treasure modifiers that apply to Undead.)

- The staff ability Suppress could not be learned. Now it can be learned from The Wombat in Sun Vale

- Added a dozen or so treasure effects to beef up the damage and suppression of Staff abilities

- Also boosted some existing staff treasure effects slightly; equip and unequip them to get their new stats

- Nerfed the insane Staff and Sword treasure effect that boosted Fire or Nature damage by 50% (down to a still-pretty-crazy 25%)

- The Mentalism treasure effects that boost slashing, electricity, or crushing can now only be found on weapons. (Previously they could also be found on pants. Pre-existing pants will be marked as Legacy Items, but will retain the effect.)