Game updates/2015-12-06

December 6 Update

The new newbie experience is the big thing in this update. Also note that Necromancy and Shield go to level 60 now. New high level content coming in the next update!

New Newbie Experience!

Please take a little while and create a new character to try out the newbie experience. You now start in a new outdoor area. Please report bugs, confusing things, really just any first impressions or feedback.

The newbie experience now ties into a few Serbule dungeons. It will lead you to the “under the crystal” dungeon as well as to the brain bug cave, before sending you to Eltibule. The stages past Eltibule aren’t done yet, so you’ll just get a message saying you reached the end of the newbie experience so far. (Soon it will tie in other quests and areas all the way up to 60, so you always have a directed quest to undertake if you want to.)

If you were in the old tutorial cave, you’ll find yourself shunted to the new island, because the old cave no longer exists!

Monsters are tougher!

The monster health and armor curves have been tweaked, mostly upward. Expect solo monsters to be 25% to 40% tougher overall. They do not do more damage.

Boss monsters were bulk upgraded based on their bossiness level. Elites and upwards have a lot more health (33% to 50% more). Epic Bosses and upward (which includes things like Manticores) now also have a bunch more Armor. Again, they do not do additional damage.

Because of how pets are implemented, these changes will also make pets tougher. This is probably not what we want, and we’ll fix it later if this has made the pets invincible.

Belt Changes

- Belts no longer determine the skills used by random loot. This is now determined by the skills you have active when the monster dies.

- Instead, belts give you a small bonus chance to find uncommon (green-label) loot if you are using their specific skills.

- The chance of finding uncommon loot has been increased somewhat to offset this new bonus, which means that the belt isn’t actually helping you much over the pre-patch values – the belt mostly just keeps you in the same ballpark. (It’s a little bit better than before, but not a lot.)

- There are a few new craftable utility belts that have no effect on treasure, but instead have other benefits. Some players may find these belts more useful than the Lucky Belts. (Other types of utility belt options will no doubt be added in the future.)

- Specialized animal belts (spider harnesses and bat combat belts) no longer have any effect on loot – they just have their main benefit of unlocking certain skill combinations for animal forms

- Harry the Wolf no longer sells the belts that the Suspicious Cow also sells

Other Changes

- In the last update, treasure effects that restored Armor were restoring too much Armor due to a formula bug. They now restore 25% to 33% less

- Some desert NPCs now have hang-out activities: Arlan, Firaki, Makara, Selaxi

- Slowed down the XP curve on Transmutation. It now takes about twice as much XP to level. (Your existing skill levels are unchanged.)

- Players now have a base of 100 Power instead of 125. (The +25 bonus was added a while back to make being a newbie easier, but I don’t think newbies need it anymore.)

- The Spore Bomb ability is now taught by the same people that teach you the Spore Bomb recipe. (Previously you got the ability from leveling up, but then had to find the recipe trainer, which is weird.)

- You now lose Metabolism when you’re fully submerged in water. When you run out of Metabolism you will take Health damage until you die

- Loot changes: lots of items and effects that could reset ability timers have been changed or nerfed

- Riposte is more distinct from Parry. It has a slower reset and hits a bit harder

- Hoplology is slightly more effective at restoring armor (at max level its +20 per attack instead of +15)

- Some new and replaced effects for Sword

- To make it more useful, Giant Bat's "Bat Stability" illusion now lasts longer and has a slower reset time. Gear potency increased to compensate for longer reset time

- Bug fix: Shields can now be decomposed and extracted from (via Weapon Augmenting)

- Crafted snail armor has less cold vulnerability at high level

- You can now raise Shield to 60 via a (unfinished) trainer that is (temporarily) in Amulna. There is also a new gear combo for shield

- Mindreave now generates a Combat Refresh like other basic attacks do

- Electrify now costs more Power to use

- Blitz Shot has been revamped to make it a more interesting alternative to Basic Shot. It now can generate a combat refresh like Basic Shot can. It does more damage and is slightly faster than Basic Shot. But it costs a small amount of Power (not Metabolism) to use.

- Necromancy's Provoke Undead has been turned into an area-effect ability. (Untested)

- Necromancy can be raised to 60 via a (unfinished) trainer that is (temporarily) in Amulna

- Furlak in the winter nexus now stands right near the entrance, not in the back of the group dungeon. (He is destined to move to Rahu when it opens anyway.)

- Tyler Green (the shield NPC from the old tutorial cave) has been temporarily relocated to Hogan’s Keep. The special shield item he needs for his one quest is propped up on the castle wall behind him. None of the dialog or quests will make a lick of contextual sense but they should all be completable

- You can no longer craft while sitting (to prevent chair-teleport-stand up exploits). This is a quick hack. There are still some ways to abuse chair standing, e.g. with a teleport stone, which will be fixed in the future with a more comprehensive fix. In the meantime, don’t exploit it!

Thanks guys! Next update should be along next weekend, but we'll do a quick patch if there's big bugs in this one. So please report bugs right away!