Note: We're still working on the upcoming city Statehelm; it's probably two major updates away. You may see new references to it in-game, but it's not accessible yet.
Unity Engine Upgrade
We've updated the game to use Unity 2022.3. This is a major version change, which usually causes some hiccups and weirdness -- we've tried to smooth everything out, but if you see new problems please let us know. In particular, Unity 2022.3 uses a new navigation system. If you find places where monsters or pets cannot traverse (when they could before), that's a bug we'd love to hear about!
This upgrade doesn't directly add a ton of new features, but it includes many subtle bug-fixes for various hardware configurations.
Lost Scapegoats Event Fixes
If you did the Lost Scapegoats event sub-quests before obtaining the main quest, the main quest will update properly the next time you talk to Miss Chievous. This applies to every sub-quest except for Miss Take - you'll have to go and talk to her again after obtaining the main quest.
UI Changes
- Adjust UI defaults to look better on a 1920x1080 screen. Namely:[list]
- GUI Scale defaults to 1.5, and has a new maximum value of 3
- Several window default sizes have been increased: Quest Log, Recipes, Item Info, Chat
- Note: These changes will only affect new installations!
Weather Witching Changes
Ability Changes
- Summon Doomstorm: chance to consume necromancy dust reduced from 33% to 10%
- Tsunami: Base Damage significantly increased (e.g. Tsunami 6 from 741 to 1007). Some treasure effects adjusted as a result of this formula change
- Deluge: Base Damage significantly increased (e.g. Deluge 9 from 578 to 882). Some treasure effects adjusted as a result of this formula change
- Summon Tornado: works in water
- At level 50, weather witches gain a lore recipe to determine the current weather in all outdoor areas
Treasure Changes
- "Tsunami Damage +116, Targets also take +20% damage from sentient weather phenomena for 30 seconds" => ... take +30% damage
- "Tsunami deals +469 Nature damage over 7 seconds" => +560
- "Tsunami Damage +179, Every other casting resets the timer on Summon Tornado (so it can be used again immediately)" => "Tsunami Damage +252, ..."
- "Deluge deals +102 damage on contact and increases the target's Poison Vulnerability and Electricity Vulnerability +15% for 30 seconds (non-stacking)" => +18%
- "Dampen deals Cold damage and debuffs the target so that it takes +90 damage from future Cold attacks for 10 seconds" => ...takes +12.5% damage from future Cold attacks
- "Dampen debuffs the target so that it takes +90 damage from future Nature attacks for 10 seconds" => ...takes +12.5% damage from future Nature attacks
- (Head, Chest) "Shocking Grasp Damage +114. Every other use has a 25% chance to stun the target" => "Shocking Grasp Damage +95. Shocking Grasp has a 100% chance to stun the target"
- this treasure effect is now only available on Head-slot equipment. Chest-slot items that have this effect have become Legacy Items. You can use Transmutation to remove this treasure effect and make the item "un-Legacy", or speak with the Legacy Item Helper golem in Serbule to get a randomized replacement item
- new: (Head): "When you use Summon Tornado 3 or higher, you summon a second tornado that is 2 ability-tiers weaker. In addition all summoned Tornadoes deal +15% Damage"
- new: (Main-Hand, Ring): "Using Dampen, Lightning Bolt, Shocking Grasp, or Hailstorm while simultaneously channeling a different Weather Witching ability boosts your next attack (which is typically the channeled ability, unless it's not an attack) damage +34%"
- new: (Chest) "Shocking Grasp Reuse Time -5.5 seconds"
Vampirism Changes
- Dominate ability: no longer has a casting time
- Sidebar ability "Giant Bat Form" no longer requires you to have the Vampirism skill active to cast it
- Fixed bug that prevented rakshasa enemies from dropping blood
- Treasure changes:
- (Feet) "Enthrall Range +15 and Damage +138" => "Enthrall and Dominate Range +25"
- (Feet, Necklace) "Dominate Reuse Time -10" => "Dominate Duration +10 and Reuse Time -10"
- new: (Off Hand) "If you abort Dominate before it naturally expires, or if you use it on an Elite target, the target is stunned for 6 secs and it suffers +25% damage from all Indirect Damage sources for 30 seconds"
- new: (Chest, Hands) "Dominate boosts its victim's Direct Damage +79% and Taunt +1000% while charmed"
- new: (Ring) "Dominate boosts its victim's non-Rage attack damage +162% while charmed"
Animal Handling Changes
Animal Handling saw changes both to the skill itself, and to the various pets you can tame.
Ability Changes
- Ability Clever Trick is now marked as a Survival Utility ability, which allows some buffs to apply to it
- Changed the level that you get "Sic 'Em" from 9 to 3. Changed the level that you get "Feed Pet" from 3 to 4. Since newly-trained Animal Handlers are automatically raised to level 3, this means Animal Handlers will always have an offensive combat ability they can put on their bar. (You need to use an Animal Handling ability at least once per minute to earn Animal Handling XP, but previously newbies only had "Feed Pet" available at level 3, and it wasn't intuitive that they needed to feed their pet before battle to earn XP.)
- Ability "That'll Do" no longer has a casting time. Reset time is 15s instead of 30s
- Added a new ability "Mark Target". This ability will eventually be trained by an NPC in Statehelm, but in the short term it can be learned from Crelpin in the Fae Realm.
Treasure Changes
- (Chest) "Direct Cold Damage +20% when Animal Handling skill active" => "Direct Cold Damage and Direct Darkness Damage +20% when Animal Handling skill active"
- (Head) "Direct Electricity Damage +20% when Animal Handling skill active" => "Direct Electricity Damage and Fire Damage +20% when Animal Handling skill active"
- (Hands) "Direct Piercing Damage +20% when Animal Handling skill active" => "Direct Piercing Damage and Direct Slashing Damage +20% when Animal Handling skill active"
- (Head, Main Hand) "Animal Handling pets' Sic 'Em abilities taunt +1500" => +2000
- (Legs, Main Hand) "Animal Handling pets deal +20% damage when they critically hit" => +50%
- (Legs, Necklace) "Animal Handling pets taunt as if they did +200% additional damage" => +400%
- (Chest, Ring) "Animal Handling pets taunt their opponents 40% less" => 57% less
- (Necklace, Ring) "Animal Handling pets' damage-over-time effects (if any) deal +162% damage per tick" => +200%
- (Legs, OffHand) "Animal Handling pets recover +21 Armor every five seconds (whether in combat or not)" => "Animal Handling pets have +11% Max Armor, and every second they recover Armor equal to 2% of their Max Armor"
- (Hands, MainHand) "Animal Handling pets' Clever Trick abilities deal +24% damage" => +27%
- (OffHand, Ring) "Animal Handling pets' basic attacks deal +15% damage" => +26%
- (Main Hand, Necklace, Legs) "For 19 seconds after using Clever Trick, pets' basic attacks have a 15% chance to deal double damage" => 30% chance. Also fixed bug that caused high tiers of this effect to only last as long as the lower tiers.
- (Legs, MainHand) "Animal Handling pets' healing abilities, if any, restore +53% health" => +73%
- new: (Chest, Ring) "Mark Weakness Damage +193"
- new: (Main Hand, Feet) "Mark Weakness Damage +75%"
- new: (Hands) "When Mark Weakness is used on a target that has less than 33% of their max Rage, it triggers again, targeting an enemy within 8 meters of the first (using Mark Weakness 9)"
- new (Off-Hand) "Mark Weakness further increases target's Pet Vulnerability +16%. Reuse time -4 seconds."
- new (Necklace, Legs) "Mark Weakness causes your next attack to deal +182 damage if it is a Psychic attack"
- new (Head) "Psychic Damage +18% while Animal Handling skill active; Crushing Damage +18% while Animal Handling skill active"
Dev Commentary
Notes on a weird treasure effect: "For X seconds after using Clever Trick, pets' basic attacks have a X% chance to deal double damage":
- Note that some pets have better inherent Basic Attack damage than others. Pets that aren't damage-focused, including most Bears and some Rats, have better Basic Attacks than damage-centric pets such as Cats. (This is because the cats' damage bonuses are applied elsewhere, usually to their Sic 'Em and/or Clever Trick attacks.) So Basic Attack-boosting treasure is a way to improve the damage of less damage-focused pets.
- If you equip multiple copies of this effect, the percentage-chances aren't added together; instead each is rolled separately. If you have two copies equipped and they both trigger on the same attack, the pet would deal 400% more damage than normal.
- If you use these treasure effects, it's recommended that you also use the effects that boost pets' Basic Attack Damage!
- Also consider the treasure effects that boost pets' Critical Hit Damage. Most pets have about a 10% Critical Hit Chance with all their attacks. (Chance is based on the pet's Enthusiasm.) When their Basic Attacks crit, the crit damage is also doubled, which can stack with this effect.
- Typical builds that use this effect only use one or two copies of it (because other treasure effects are more important). Three copies are available to provide build flexibility
Animal Handling Pet Ability Changes
Animal Handling pets have three abilities: a basic attack, a Sic 'Em attack, and a Clever Trick. (You can examine your pet to see what abilities it uses.) We've revised most of the Sic 'Em and Clever Trick abilities as follows:
- Bear Taunt: is now an 8m Burst attack. High-level versions of Bear Taunt have a percentage-based taunt bonus instead of a flat bonus
- Bear Stun: is now an 8m Burst attack
- Bear Ultra: is now an 8m Burst attack. Base damage is higher
- Bear Warmth: self-taunt buff is now percentage-based instead of a small flat amount
- Bear Self-Heal: restores same amount of health, plus restores even more armor
- Bee Inject: increased damage over time (by more than double at higher-level tiers)
- Bee Poison Vuln: lasts 30 seconds instead of 15; range increased to 40m
- Wasp Blast: damage increased; ranged increased to 40m
- Wasp Ranged Slow: damage significantly increased; range increased to 40m
- Wasp Ranged Debuff: damage increased; range increased to 40m
- Wasp Burst Pierce: damage increased
- Big Cat Kill: now an 8m Burst slashing attack
- Big Cat Ultra-Kill: deals more damage; deals its full damage directly to both Health and Armor (doubling effective damage and bypassing armor mitigation)
- Big Cat Root: now a Burst 8m effect
- Raking Claw (Slashing Debuff): now a Burst 8m effect; debuff lasts longer
- Big Cat Heal: retains its instant heal and also has a heal-over-time effect that restores twice as much (total) health over 10 seconds
- Grimalkin Puncture: bleed damage dramatically increased
- Grimalkin Flee: added massive built in taunt plus an increased temp-taunt to more reliably pull target away
- Rat De-Rage: base damage is higher
- Rat Heal: now is a 20m burst heal that targets the pet, owner, and any other allies
- Rat Poison Vuln: now a 8m burst attack
- Rat Burn: fire DoT damage dramatically increased
Other Pet Changes
Almost all Animal Handling pets had some changes to (hopefully) improve their utility in their intended role. The biggest changes are to their abilities as listed above. Pets also may have received Max Armor, Max Health, or damage changes. Those changes are too numerous and minor to be listed here (sorry), but below are changes that are more dramatic than just stat-changes:
- Bees with melee poison attacks now deal Poison damage-over-time with every basic attack (with shorter and weaker effect than their special move, but scaling at all levels)
- Chopjaw's regeneration has been reduced. Previously it regenerated 361 health per second at level 100. This was a bug; it was using monster-regen instead of pet-regen. Chopjaw now recovers 15% of its Max Health every second, which by default is 89 health/sec at level 100. This value can be buffed by using equipment or abilities that boost the pet's Max Health.
- Freeze Wasps' basic attack is now ranged
- Shooty wasps now have all ranged attacks (some had melee-range basic attacks)
- Grottofang has nature resistance instead of cold resistance
Everything Else
- revised pet AI logic for "Aggressive" and "Aggressive Seeker" pets so that they attack a nearby enemy immediately upon existing, even if their owner is not in combat. Previously they could not detect foes that weren't actively in combat with themselves or their owner.
- To help players adjust to the skill changes in this update, the following skills will have discounted Transmutation costs through April: Weather Witching, Animal Handling
- The Serbule Community Chest is now known as the Serbule Dynamic Safebox. The name has changed, but everything else is the same.
- Elven Lily, Red Rose, & Cedar Wood are now a bit more abundant, and each now spawns somewhere in the world
- Game now specifies that Denton Razor likes "Elvish" jewelry
- Upgrade fat dropped by Vidarian Hogs
- The footpath in Vidaria no longer counts as being in water
- Vidaria Orc Invasion event now shows up on the map
- Add a note to a strange panel in Vidaria to denote that it doesn't do anything yet
- more locations are accessible via teleportation coordinates
- Elite and Boss monsters have increased Critical-Hit Chance (from a flat 5% chance to up to 8% for some epic bosses)
- fix bug that allowed Battle Chemistry mutations to stay on pets even when the caster stopped using the Battle Chemistry skill
- fix bugs that caused you to lose/gain Body Heat, Flight Power, Breath, Radiation, Cleanliness, Peaceableness, and Hydration while the client was still loading a new area
- Fix Eltibule and Vidaria trees not providing shade for vampires
- Fix for Corey the Croaker not actually providing a hangout
- Fix Makara's dialogue not progressing
- you can now train Corpse Talking if you have either Necromancy 20 or Shamanic Infusion 20
- monsters who hunt by scent no longer track dead players
- fixed certain abilities such as Castigate that could not be used in water unless you were standing on the bottom of the lake or pool
