Game updates/2020-01-09
Contents
Update Notes: January 9, 2020
This is a smallish update with bug fixes and design iterations. We've also added Treasure Cartography to Sun Vale.
Sun Vale Treasure Cartography
Preta in Sun Vale teaches the recipes for creating Sun Vale treasure maps from found clue items. As for finding the clue items, that's for you to figure out... but if you've unlocked Treasure Cartography in Eltibule you'll have a pretty good idea of where to look.
A tip: we had the new selection-box changes (explained below) in mind when creating this content. If you're finding it difficult to click on massive things, turn on the experimental option!
Swimming Tweaks
Previously, players were slightly buoyant underwater, meaning they slowly floated to the surface. This was intended to be helpful, but it's annoying to float out of range while fighting or interacting with things underwater, so it's been removed.
Buoyancy was originally added for one specific reason: it helped make jumping from the water's surface more intuitive. If you jump out of the water and splash back in, you might end up underwater, at which point you start losing breath until you get back to the surface. This can be very surprising for new players who don't expect to drown by pressing the jump key.
We've replaced buoyancy with a more subtle technique. Now when you jump out of the water and splash back in, the game automatically simulates pressing the "Up" movement key for a fraction of a second to push you back to the surface. (Unless you're pressing the "Down" key at the time.)
This new solution is supposed to be unnoticeable, so it doesn't last very long. If your character's jump-speed is magically enhanced, you may land too far underwater and will need to press the Up key manually to reach the surface. This is annoying, but it's the best compromise solution so far.
Experimental UI Tweaks to Selection Box Logic
We've tweaked how the selection-box works when you've selected something very large, very close to the camera, or partially off-screen. The box size is more accurate and should move more predictably when you turn the camera around. This is a small iterative improvement, not a massive change. The only time it will be really noticeable is when you've selected massive entities such as giants, statues, or dungeon doors.
For just this update, the change is disabled by default. To enable this change, open the Settings window. In the Graphics screen, check the box labeled "Experimental Optimizations", then press Save. You can turn it off again later by unchecking that box. (If you had previously checked this checkbox for the last experiment, it's been unchecked automatically so that you aren't accidentally opted in to this new experiment. And no, this experiment isn't actually an "optimization", that's just a handy checkbox that we're reusing for this purpose.)
If these changes cause new problems, please let us know! It's easiest for us to keep track of opinion-type feedback if you post it on the forum, but please use the in-game bug reporter for bugs like "the new selection-box goes insane when I select this portal" or similar problems. In-game bug reports automatically include your game coordinates so we can quickly locate the problem.
Removal of Channeling for "Pre-Combat" Abilities
A few abilities have a channeling time specifically because they're intended for use pre-fight, and they're supposed to be more dangerous to use in the middle of combat. That's a reasonable goal, but it's annoying to have to wait for the channeling time between every fight. So in this update, the relevant abilities no longer have a casting time when used out of combat (but still channel when used during combat). Affected abilities are:
- Shield: Rapid Recovery
- Shield: Strategic Preparation. (Casting time in-combat went from 1.5 to 2 seconds)
- Spider: Premeditated Doom
- Warden: Stun Trap
Sushi Changes
Following up on the previous update notes, we're going to try the "nigiri is basically like potions" approach and see how that feels. Nigiri changes:
- Nigiri items have lower item levels than before, so they heal less health and power when eaten
- Nigiri items no longer have a usage delay, allowing them to be eaten in combat
- Nigiri recipes now require an herb or lettuce of various types (e.g. dill, swamp weed, oregano... you know, classic sushi ingredients)
- Nigiri recipes now require less vinegar
In an attempt to make sushi recipes more predictable, we've changed Sushi Roll recipes to use the same herb needed by the corresponding nigiri recipe. For instance, Eel Nigiri now requires Oregano, so Eel Sushi Roll also requires Oregano (instead of Seaweed).
Also, Cavefish Sushi Roll became level 40 food instead of level 35.
Other Instant-Snack Changes
It seems best to be consistent with the idea that instant-snack foods have no usage delay. (In fact, loot items like Rattus Root and Raw Oyster were supposed to be instant already.) The following instant-snack foods are now truly instant:
- Raw Oyster
- Cleaned Shrimp
- Shark Chew
- Cavefish Sticks
- House Cat
- All Candy Canes
- Fried Potato Sticks
- Laura Neth's Famous Tart
- Pepper Venison
- Fairy Honey
- Rattus Root
- Cactus Juice
- Bottle of Sugar Water
- Large Strawberry
We expect there will be further changes to instant-snack food as we continue to iterate on the design.
Other Changes
- Kelp armor has a new appearance
- Kelp armor can now be dyed (with the Organic 1-Color Dye recipe)
- Live Event boss kraken "George" now has a boss curse
- Certain (non-event) Kraken now deal less damage with their rage attacks... but they still deal more than 1,000 damage per rage attack, so for most players the change is irrelevant
- Squidlips has a few new recipes for amberjack
- Animal Town inhabitants are now able to differentiate between players killing their guardians vs. killing actual enemies of Animal Town
- Fixed the Cotton Gin in Sun Vale
- A bug in Khryulek's crystal communication device prevented her from correctly talking about weird items you presented to her
- Gazluk plate leggings were unintentionally dyeable; this has been fixed. (The armor material isn't set up for dyes yet, so it looks extra-special terrible when dyed. It'll become dyeable eventually.)
- Fixed bug in treasure effect "Armor Received from Patch Armor +X" : it incorrectly restored bonus health instead of armor
- Fixed bug that prevented Norbert from finishing the Warden intro sub-quest "The External Resource Coordinator"
- Improved equipment rarity in various loot chests, most notably high-end chests dug up with treasure cartography
- For technical reasons the game previously allowed you to unearth treasure maps and surveys while swimming at the surface of water, even though it explained that you must be "standing on solid ground" to use a map. Now you must actually be standing on solid ground as intended. In some cases this means you'll need to swim to the bottom of a body of water to reach the ground.
