Episch
HIGHLIGHTS
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
[b]TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS & STABILITY
RENDERING AND PERFORMANCE
GAMEPLAY
GAME WORLD
CRAFTING, BUILDING & TERRAFORMING
USER INTERFACE / LOCALIZATION
That should be about it! We hope you enjoy this first update. Let us know what you think below!
The team at Keen Games
- Each biome has a new playable area called the “Hollow Halls”, with enemies and challenges corresponding to the level of the biome. These daunting new dungeons come with a multitude of new challenges and exciting rewards.
- New quests leading through the new content. Talk to the Alchemist to get started.
- New enemies await you in the depths.
- A new survivor can be discovered in the Hollow Halls.
- Unlock a new crafting station with new recipes.
- New weapons, building blocks, furniture, decorative props and more can be found.
- The 60hz issue has been solved, providing a smooth experience on higher framerates.
- Emily the farmer now offers potted plants to everyone who wants to add that little extra bit of color to the porch. Make sure that the base has access to a kiln to craft those pots!
- Cade the Carpenter now offers a new set of round doors and windows.
- The seedbed workstation now allows growing additional tree seedlings. Many trees received new growing stages.
- Player characters can now sit on furniture such as chairs, benches, thrones, toilets.
- The town of Willow Crush in the Revelwoods has been completely reworked. and some other areas have been improved.
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
- Improved support for stack splitting in the backpack and chests. The size of the split stacks can now be selected freely.
- Content of magical chests can now be used in crafting stations.
- The loot menu has been reworked to allow faster and more convenient collection of loot.
- Items can now be crafted in stacks.
- Sending items to other players now has a more convenient menu. There is now a warning message if the backpack of the receiver is already full.
- A new ping function on the world map allows pointing other players in a multiplayer session to a specific area.
- Servers can now be searched and favorited via IP in the server browser.
- The keys / buttons for jumping and gliding can now be mapped individually. By default, the gliding is still mapped to the same key / button as jumping. If a different key is preferred, we recommend for example [CTRL] on keyboard and /[?] on controller.
[b]TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS & STABILITY
- Updating the game on Steam has been reworked to allow faster updates in the future. Previously, every update, no matter how big, resulted in the patching of the complete 30 GB game data on the hard drive. Now only the affected areas will be patched. This change requires the complete download this one time and will only be noticeably faster for future updates.
- Save data stability has been improved further. As an additional security layer, the game now automatically creates backups of the save data in periodic intervals. Should a save file become unreadable for any reason, a previous version will be loaded.
RENDERING AND PERFORMANCE
- Performance has been improved further. As always, performance and stability will remain a main focus while moving forward.
- Support for Nvidia Reflex has been added. It can be switched on and off in the graphical settings if the used hardware supports the feature.
- Added a new setting to the graphical settings to control the sharpness of the image.
- Added a new setting to switch contact shadows on and off.
- Added an option to switch off optional micro spiders. The big spiders are still there though, piloted by tiny spiders inside their brain.
GAMEPLAY
- Added more shields into the progression.
- The Multishot skill is no longer triggered by special arrows (Stun, Explosive, Poison).
- Update the functionality of the leech-stat, e.g. on the “Ring of Endless Life”. It now has a chance to convert a percentage of the damage dealt to enemies into health for the player.
- The player skill Bloodletting is no longer triggered by Light Burst and Acid Cone.
- Fixed an issue that caused too high critical damage for the Acid Cone spell.
- An incorrect consumption of mana was fixed when using both skills Begone and Sun Aura. Similarly, Begone combined with traps no longer causes mana consumption.
- Fixed an issue with Blood Rage caused by traps.
- Fixed incorrect application of stun in multiplayer when using the Terror skill.
- The companion created by the Necromancer skill now follows the player around more actively.
- Fixed an issue where the Updraft skill could be triggered multiple times per glider flight. You're not supposed to be able to fly forever, no. You're not Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.
- The skill Breach is no longer triggered with arrows.
- Healing another player with Water Aura no longer backfires as damage when that player has Counterstrike.
- The skill Shell Shock now works as described, which we can all agree is probably for the best.
- Warden and Tower Aura no longer trigger while the player is down.
- When successfully overpowering enemies, the Merciless Attack can now be triggered faster.
- Small tweaks to durability of the various weapon types. Melee weapons lose durability slightly slower, wands slightly faster. Improved durability for rarer items.
- Reaching ledges at the intended jump height is slightly more forgiving.
- Fixed an issue where arrow and spell ammunition couldn't be cycled properly when using the [Q] or [LT] shortcut with certain items selected in the action bar.
- Fixed an issue where action bar and ammunition selection could skip slots on higher frame rates.
- Fixed an issue where eternal spells could be used up when simultaneously trying to throw explosive powder balls.
- Fixed instances where sounds caused by skills or enemies could be heard by everyone in the party regardless of distance.
- Fixed an issue with the Sicklescythe that sometimes got stuck in a wall after teleporting.
- Loot from flying enemies spawns correctly on the ground now.
- Enemies now better find their way through door frames and similar spaces.
- Enemies and wildlife now use a higher resolution grid for pathfinding.
- Improved steering behavior for enemies and wildlife.
- Improved player camera behavior so it behaves less erratic when interacting with enemies.
- Improved enemy jump behavior. You thought you were safe? Think again.
- Enemies can now block wand projectiles.
- Wand projectiles no longer auto-target bear traps.
- Using the wand to destroy props is easier now. Before, the homing feature of wand projectiles didn’t work correctly on non-enemy objects.
- Fixed some cases where hitting the heads of enemies with arrows resulted in too low damage values.
- The game now prohibits using the fast travel function while falling. You can't magic your way away from gravity.
- Fixed an issue where interaction prompts were shown even though the interaction wasn't available (e.g. when sleeping).
- Fixed an issue where players could sit and regenerate stamina while falling
- Improved the jumping behavior while sliding down mud slopes. The player has now stronger forward momentum.
- Fixed several issues where the glider would be triggered unintentionally when trying to jump.
- Fixed a glitch that allowed getting catapulted into the air at beds.
- Fixed a glitch where the player could gain altitude by entering and cancelling the glider. Not. A. Seagull!
- Fixed a stamina issue with the Hawk Boots.
- The game now shows correct numbers when the player gains mana or stamina.
- Being affected by damage-over-time doesn't cancel the grappling hook, climbing walls and the glider anymore--discrete hits still do. This will come in handy for dungeons, just saying.
- Fixed several clipping issues for armor pieces.
- Salvaging high rarity items in chests now works correctly.
GAME WORLD
- Ground fog is no longer appearing in the player base, as the area is protected by the flame.
- Fixed many minor issues with floating objects or other similar visual glitches in points of interest.
- Fixed the incorrect appearance and recipes for the “Desert Flower”.
- New music playlist for Pikesmead´s Reach.
- New music playlist for combat in Shroud areas.
- Several issues with ambient sounds have been fixed.
- Fixed an issue with the doors in Spires when teleporting away and returning while halfway through the progress.
- Flame shrines now have a small ambient flame to indicate that the flame will regrow over time when the spark has been collected.
- Fixed a quest marker near the Southern Caravan area that remained as question mark even after exploring the area.
CRAFTING, BUILDING & TERRAFORMING
- The visualization of the borders of the player base works now better with combined areas of several flame altars, and in cases where no-build areas are intersecting into the base.
- Fixed an issue that terrain voxel would sometimes become transparent when building too close to the upper limit of the playable area.
- Updated some fireplaces that didn’t offer the option for cooking or didn’t give warmth for the resting buff.
- Fixed another instance of incorrectly saved growth state of plants such as berry bushes in the player base.
- Added a quest for the “Spinning Wheel” to increase the visibility of the workstation.
- It is now possible to craft flower soil with Emily. Flower soil lets flowers grow faster than regular soil.
- Improved alignment of several double doors to better fit into the voxel grid.
- Fixed a rare issue where build building shapes could be placed in a way that made it impossible to dismantle them as a whole.
- Fixed an issue where it was possible to build in margins of certain no-build-and-no-save zones.
- Hard wood is now used in additional recipes.
- Fixed an issue where objects could be dismantled inadvertently through walls, while at the same time interfering with seedling placement. Gardening shouldn't be a home wrecker.
- Allow undo function while building hammer is selected but building menu is closed.
- Fixed a few instances where no-build-zones on beds were misaligned.
- Fixed an issue where terraforming VFX were missing in certain situations.
USER INTERFACE / LOCALIZATION
- The character details screen has been updated and many stats have been improved or renamed to add more clarity about gameplay effects.
- Reduced the visual clutter of enemy and player health bars. Player health bars only show up when players receive damage, damage numbers are only shown per player. Enemy stun bar is hidden when the value is 0. For “critter”-type enemies the health bar is hidden unless they receive damage.
- Damage numbers on enemies are now shown closer to the health bar.
- Mana gain is now shown as values similar to health. Stamina gain is always displayed even if the stamina is consumed right away, e.g. by sprinting.
- Fixed several typos or text inconsistencies brought up by the community. Thank you very much for bringing these to our attention!
- The current server load is now correctly showing when playing alone on a dedicated server.
- Tweaked the custom map marker menu.
- Fixed an issue with location icons vanishing on the world map. Previously affected save games will get fixed after saving and reloading once.
- Fixed cases where drop-down menus would exit the screen if opened too close to the screen border.
- Improved wording of several error messages.
- Disabled the “Please update graphics cards driver”-message for older AMD graphics cards.
- Restored the charging progress indicator for staff spells.
- Fixed an issue for very long passwords in multiplayer sessions.
- Fixed several items that did not lose the “New” marker after selecting them.
That should be about it! We hope you enjoy this first update. Let us know what you think below!
The team at Keen Games