Game updates/2015-04-12

April 12 Update

As you might guess from the number of delays this update has had, there are a lot of fiddly details in this update. Hopefully everything is fine, but if it isn't, use the report button to tell me about it! I expect there will need to be a patch to fix missed details.

Performance Skills

- The /music command has been removed. There are now three skills related to musical performance: Strings, Percussion, and Wind Performance. To learn these skills, just equip an appropriate instrument and you'll immediately be given the first ability (which is equivalent to the old "/music 1" for that instrument).

- Every few seconds that you're performing, there's a chance you'll earn a small amount of XP. It's very random, so for some people it will be quick and for others it will be very slow. This models the natural skill plateaus that real performers people run into while learning an instrument... haha just kidding, this was just the easiest way to code it.

- These new skills only go to level 10 for now. That's high enough to unlock all six existing tracks for the instrument.

Performance Appreciation

- People who listen to a performance (including the performers) gain a minor buff called Performance Appreciation, which boosts earned XP and out-of-combat armor regeneration. The effect is highly dependent on the number of performers, their skill level, and the diversity of the performance (more instrument types = very beneficial!). It can vary from +1% XP to +14% XP, and from +4 to +56 armor regen.

- The longer you listen to the performance, the longer the buff lasts. (Again, the formula is based on the number of performers, their skill levels, and the instrument diversity.)

- The maximum buff duration is capped by the number of performers. No matter how long you listen, the duration won't go higher than 1 hour per performer.

NPC Dancing

- Most (humanoid) NPCs can now tell when you are playing music, and will dance when they are sufficiently entertained. (If you're playing solo it will take a few minutes, but if you have a group performance it will be much quicker.)

- If you put an item up for consignment with an NPC shopkeeper that is currently dancing, they will waive most of the up-front stocking fee. (Just because.)

Serenading Vegetables

- Growing vegetables (and flowers, cotton, etc.) are now receptive to music. There is a small chance that exposure to music will yield double items when harvested.

- This chance is based on the amount of time they are exposed to music, the number of musical performers, their musical skill level, and the diversity of the ensemble (number of performance skills in use).

- This feature is kind of iffy... I think it's cute, but I worry that it will become "mandatory" for players who are gardening, turning it from something cute into something that will get really old. So... we'll see how it goes.

- [Reference info for testing: a single musician with skill maxed at 10 has about a 12% chance of getting double cotton from a growing cotton plant (if they play the whole time it's growing). A trio of musicians playing different instruments, with their respective skills each at level 10, have about a 30% chance. Additional musicians have diminishing returns; a gaggle of 12 max-skilled musicians would cap out the chance at 57%.]

Imbue Oils

There are four new skills that let you add an additional treasure effect to an existing piece of equipment. It's a two-stage process: you first create an oil with the desired effect, then you apply the oil to the equipment. This is so that crafters can sell the oils directly.

It's pretty easy to learn to apply these oils: there's an NPC in Kur Mountains (in the building next to the inn) who will train you. It just costs a lot of money. You can lower the price by raising favor with the NPC.

That NPC will also send you off to find four other NPCs, each with an oil-creation skill to teach. These skills are not intended for newbies. They all require level 25 Alchemy, plus level 25 of some other skill (such as Carpentry or Blacksmithing). So it's expected that only higher-level players will undertake these skills. (But you can always raise favor with the NPCs earlier, if you wish. They all have custom Favor quests.)

Each piece of equipment can only have one oil applied to it. The oils come in level 30, level 40, and level 50. (The level 30 ones are more to help you train than to be really useful.)

One of my goals for this system was to let you "fix" an otherwise-great piece of equipment that's just missing some common must-have power. For instance, a sword that's missing the +Sword Boost enchantment is probably going to be a dud even if its other effects are amazing. So these oils cover these "must-have" enchantments, like +Base Damage, or +Damage to a heavy-hitter skill, or +Healing for healing skills. They don't cover every possible magic effect: just the most important ones.

Some skills don't have very many "must-have" enchantments... some have almost no useful loot. I still made oils for every skill, but obviously they won't be as useful as other skills' oils. For some skills, like Sword and Mentalism, I chose two or three oils for every slot. For others, I struggled to even find one useful oil for each slot, and had to invent new powers. But whatever it took, there's always at least one oil for every skill and every slot.

I may have missed an effect that lots of people consider "must-have" ... if so, let me know and I can swap it out with an existing oil.

I expect the selection of oils will change a lot as we go forward. (When this happens, existing oils and recipes will magically be changed over to the new selection. If you've already used such an oil on an item, the item won't change: it will keep the effect you applied to it originally.) Also, I expect the recipes to get fixed up in the future. This system underwent MANY different iterations this month, and there's probably some baggage hanging around from previous versions.

Borghild

Made a bunch of improvements to Borghild (a/k/a "Deathtrap Dungeon", the one with the gigantic door in a hill in Serbule). The dungeon is now intended for a group of four level 40-ish players.

- the monster loot tables have been scaled up from level 30-ish loot to level 40-ish loot

- the monster density has been lowered a bit

- the big loot chests can now be looted by each party member (not just the first person to open each chest)

- due to the especially lethal nature of the wandering monsters in Borghild, there are now markers on the ground that show where random Faces of Death might spawn. They no longer spawn right in the hallway. (Watch for pentagrams on the floor, in out-of-the-way corners. Don't stand too close to them.)

- Note: some Faces of Death appear due to traps or other player-driven events. These can still appear in the hallway or wherever. Only the random-spawn faces appear on the pentagrams.

- There is a small additional wing added to the dungeon

- There are several new sub-bosses with unique drops

- The first "real boss" (i.e., a boss with a Curse and a warning screen) has been added. There's been no play testing of him, so please report your experience! (Keeping in mind the intended group size.)

- Most of the caskets in the dungeon had gotten bugged so that they could only be selected with tab-selection. They can now once again be selected with the mouse.

- A few bits of the dungeon's lore are now in place. (NOTE: if you see references to "elf blood" or blood in general, that's for an upcoming puzzle that is not yet in the game.)

- There is an NPC in a tent outside of Borghild that offers a couple of quests related to the dungeon. That outdoor area will eventually have more NPCs and quests.

The website version of these patch notes will also have some tips for newer players on how to approach the Borghild dungeon.

Kur Tower

Sadly, we didn't get the new Kur Tower experience ready in time -- it's still under construction. Most of the "construction" is behind a wall, so the old part of the tower is still fine. A sign in the entrance will lead you to a new quest, but you can't actually complete the quest yet, so don't bother trying. There is a new elite monster that happens to be in an accessible part of the dungeon, though, and you're welcome to kill it if you like.

"Filler" Blacksmithing Recipes

Blacksmithing is a middle-man skill. It's not Weaponsmithing or Armorsmithing... those will be separate. But it creates important metal bits for all kinds of stuff! Or at least... it will eventually. Right now there aren't enough of those other skills in the game, so leveling Blacksmithing is very painful.

To fix this temporarily (until the other skills are added), there are some new "statuary" recipes to find. These statues will eventually be part of the Sculpting skill, but for now, we'll just say they're made of metal instead of rock.

The point is to help you level Blacksmithing, so these recipes give an especially large bonus for first-time completion. The actual statues don't do very much at the moment. (But the high-end statues can give long-term XP boosts to large groups, so there are specialized uses for them.)

The basic "statuary recipes" can be found deep in the Borghild dungeon. The advanced ones don't fit in the dungeon yet because it's not finished, so for now I threw those recipes into four big tomes that can be found in the loot of monsters that tend to drop recipes. (E.g. bosses like Tidal and Tremor, skeleton mages, goblin mages.)

Werewolf Cave

Since many players consider the werewolf cave to be a 40-50's solo dungeon, I've stopped trying to make it a group dungeon and made it more soloable. (It doesn't make a good group dungeon anyway because it's too short.) It remains the only place to find certain recipes and items for werewolf players.

- The respawn rate of wandering wolves has been dropped a bit

- Insane Matriarchs are no longer Elites; they're just kinda-tough solo monsters (with better-than-average, but not Elite, loot)

- Timothy Elerimon has been toned down a bit, but like all of the bosses that have warning screens, he isn't meant to be soloable. (He is now "duoable" though, I'm fairly confident.)

- Added two loot chests on 3 hour reset timers. Their contents are skewed towards werewolf-centric items, but can contain general items as well

- Added a few more types of random stuff that can be found lying around in the cave

- A new NPC lives in the cave (part of the new crafting skills mentioned above)

Misc (many bug fixes didn't get correctly documented, so this is just a smattering)</b>

- Fixed a bug with Rage-to-Damage abilities (like sword ability Heart Piercer, and some treasure effects). It did the right amount of damage, but didn't correctly take the Rage from the monster. (A monster without any Rage would actually gain Rage from the attack! But monsters with lots of Rage would lose more Rage than intended.)

- fixed bug: spider harnesses stopped providing druid capabilities

- tsys bugs: many effects were not working right. They are ALL fixed now! Just kidding. I fixed a lot. I'm sure there are many more still broken.

- Yasinda claimed to love Onyx, but actually loved Tourmaline

- Fixed a bunch of rocks and trees that you could walk through in Kur Mountains

- Fixed a bug where clients would slow down when looking at a rat or cat that was previously charmed by a player (that has since logged out). Thanks to Lyramis for helping me track it down!

- Fixed a bug where sometimes pets were not considered allies, which meant they could block the doors to buildings.