Overview

Mage Levels and XP

• Mages gain XP by casting spells, performing Rituals, and winning battles.
• XP helps mages Level Up and fills Learning Needs.
• "When Mages level up, they get a boost to their stats: HP, Mana, Power, and Speed."
• The rate of boost is determined by a Grade for each stat. Different Factions have different base Grades.
• Mages can boost their Level Cap by upgrading their wand.
• Promoting Mages to new Roles adds a Multiplier to their Level Cap.

Mage Roles

Initiate

• All summoned Students arrive as Initiates, using a Tier I wand.
• Tier 2 and Tier 3 wands are no longer used to Summon.
• Initiates can Graduate, be Hired as Staff, Expelled, or can become Apprentices.
• Initiates cannot use Advanced Teaching Stations.

Apprentice

• Once an Initiate has attained full Skill and Level, they can specialize in the Magic Skill of an Advanced Teaching Station.
• Apprentices can dual-class by choosing an Apprenticeship Magic Skill other than their Wand Magic Skill. In this case, the Mage has access to both sets of combat spells, based on Skill level.
• Becoming an Apprentice boosts Level Cap and Max Skill caps. Which Max Skill caps are boosted depending on the combination of an Apprentice's Wand Skill and their Apprenticeship Skill.
• Apprentices are the only Mages who can Paint or Carve.
• Apprentices can only learn at Advanced Teaching Stations.
• Apprentices may Graduate, be Hired, or be Expelled.

Staff

• Staff can no longer do Carving or Painting Tasks.
• Schools with significantly more Students than Staff can become Understaffed, resulting in a global Conviction penalty called Staffing.
• The more Staff your school has, the greater the Discordance, resulting in a global Conviction penalty.

Hiring and Summoning Costs

• They both now have a much slower cost ramp that never becomes prohibitive. Instead Discordance and Understaffed effects push against your ability to have unlimited Mages.

Wands and Skills

• Mages now upgrade their Wands by one Tier at a time using Wand Transfigurators, which are found in the Underschool.
• You still gain new wands by crafting them.
• All non-Ghost Mages may upgrade their Wands up to Tier III, including Staff.
• Upgrading Wands boosts Max Level Cap and Max Skill Caps.

Trials

• Trials now grant large amounts of XP as their reward.
• The more Trials a Mage has completed, the higher level of Relic they leave behind after Graduation or Retirement.
• Medallions have been removed. The powers that Medallions used to grant have been moved onto Relics.

Relics

• Relics are gifted by departing Mages at Graduate and Retire rituals, as well as being dropped as loot.
• Relics have a variety of powers, similar to what Medallions used to grant. In order to use these powers, Mages may Attune to Relics.
• Attune is a new Task Type performed at an Attunement Bench, a new furniture item.
• Relics have Affinities and Mages have Relic Slots that accept only a specific Affinity. If a Mage has a Relic Slot that matches the Affinity of a Relic and the Mage has a high enough Level, the Mage may Attune to the Relic.
• After Attuning, the Mage will have the Relic bound to them in the chosen Relic Slot, gaining its power. The power will last permanently unless a new Relic is attuned to that Relic Slot.
• Relics may also be pulverized at a Pulverizer, creating Gnosis Shards. Gnosis Shards are an ingredient required for some rituals.

Gnosis Shards

• Gnosis Shards are required for the Hire, Summon Gifted Initiate, and Apprentice rituals.
• Adept Scrolls and Savant Scrolls are replaced with Gnosis Shards.
• The Scrivener's Desk is removed, as is the Scrivening Task.

Quirks

• Mages develop Quirks over time as they discover tasks they Love or Hate. Positive Quirks will raise Conviction while negative Quirks will lower it.
• Most Mages will gain a positive Quirk as their first Quirk.
• Raven Cultists no longer have Doom and Gloom and, instead, will gain a negative Quirk as their first Quirk.
• Mages that upgrade to a Tier II wand will gain one positive and one negative Quirk.
• Mages may also develop social Quirks related to other Mages.

Croa Changes

• The first Croa to spawn from a nest will spawn much faster.
• Croa Nests display their spawn timers.
• The time between subsequent Croa spawns has been lowered.

Other Balance Changes

• Death's Door expires much faster at higher difficulty levels.
• Guaranteed Mana Crystals drop from all battle crystals.
• Graduate Rituals only allow for one Graduate at a time.
• Respawning dungeon rooms give different loot from every battle.
• Combat Skull ratings are replaced with a Level which roughly equates to expected average Mage Level.
• Runaways now always have T1 Wands and are Gifted.
• Increased number of Bookshelves required in Advanced classrooms to distinguish them a little more.
• Bookshelves are available one step earlier on the tech tree.
• Hallowlilies removed from the game entirely.
• Removed the Graduate With Honors ritual.
• The Advanced Classroom can now be created with a Learning Station OR a skill-specific teaching station.

Fixes and Improvements

• Added Level Cap Reached and Level Range Group conditionals.
• Change Revive logic to take Mage at Death's Door to the bed closest to the downed Mage, not the Mage recovering the KOed Mage.
• The head and body visuals for Mages are more consistent as they progress from Initiate to Apprentice to Staff.
• Added more types of Fog Crystal art.
• Pathing should be more accurate, particularly since the addition of Broom Racks.
• Hallway Runner description now mentions speed boost.
• Fixed an issue where changing Translations would not immediately change the search in research to match.
• Additional information shown on Trials mouse hover.
• Added Luxury to research search keywords.
• "'Days required' trials are now evaluated as you do them rather than once per day."
• Sleep-based trials are now tracked during sleep instead of just at the end.
• Now showing Mage stats during combat setup.
• Fix name on Founder grave not changing with a Founder rename.
• Mages walking between rooms no longer get the In Outdoors status incorrectly.
• Changed save hotkey to generate a quicksave that is overwritten into a single slot.
• No longer reporting items as 'not reachable' when they're being put into storage or moved by some other worker.
• Eating/Sleeping/Recreating added to group rules.
• At Death's Door status enabled for group rules, so players can make the needed Groups for Medical Bed prioritization.
• Add Conviction change on tooltip for Meals.
• Fix to Mage potentially getting stuck while creating a Painting.
• Task priority hud window shows little love/hate/fast icons.
• Fix for not being able to click on research nodes atop the Lightning image.
• Fix for zero Mana cost spells when Mana is sufficiently low in combat.
• Added 2 interact points Medical Bed to reduce the chance of unreachable Revive rituals.
• Performance improvements that could benefit large schools.
• Fix Mages wrongly speeding up on placemarker hallway runners or broken hallway runners.
• Fixes for some Assemble VFX.
• Fixed the name for the setting for pausing when a Mage is At Death's Door and made the setting actually work.
• Add option to disable world camera shake (fog, lightning, etc).
• Fix wand selection greyed out state on Ritual Window and Wand Picker not always reflecting available wands.
• For Skills at max level 0, show a 0 instead of a dash.
• Remove Unlock Underschool from the Book of Rituals.
• Handle overflow text on main Mage selection with scroll when needed.
• More accurate hit detection for Mage portraits to avoid conflicts when stacked on the main UI.