Classes Adjustments #
Monk #
- Flurry of Blows is now restored at Monk level 1 (was level 10).
- The Wisdom-to-AC cap is raised to 4 AC per monk level (was 1 per level). In practice the cap now only bites on very light monk dips – a single monk level allows up to +4 Wisdom AC, and from roughly four monk levels upward it no longer limits anything.
Weapon Master #
- Increased Multiplier is now restored at Weapon Master level 5 (was 7).
- Ki Critical is now restored at Weapon Master level 7 (was 15).
Cleric #
- Divine Power is now an attack-bonus effect only. It substitutes your Wisdom for Strength or Dexterity on melee attack rolls, and no longer adds Wisdom to damage. Unarmed attacks still count as melee.
- The old damage half of the spell had a bug in the opposite direction – it was handing Wisdom to ranged damage while ranged attack was correctly excluded. That inconsistency is gone. Ranged characters still reach Wisdom through Zen Archery.
Northern Templar #
- Crystal increased hit points: 300 + 2 x (Northern Templar level x Strength modifier), plus a further 300 for a pure level 30 Northern Templar.
- Pulse damage increased: 1d6 per 5 Northern Templar levels + (Northern Templar level x 2) each round.
- Death explosion damage increased: double the pulse dice, plus Northern Templar level x 3.
- The pulse no longer checks spell resistance and now uses a proper caster level.
Skills Adjustments #
Animal Empathy #
Animal Empathy was in need of some adjustments. The base game formula did not scale well in our world, and so we came up with these custom rules:
- The DC is now based on the target’s Challenge Rating instead of its Hit Dice:
- Animals: DC 15 + CR
- Beasts and Magical Beasts: DC 19 + CR
- Capped at 100 either way.
Duration is now 2 turns per combined Druid + Ranger + Shifter level (was 1 turn per character Hit Die). A pure class gains from every level; a heavy dip no longer buys full duration.
The Animal Empathy bonus on purple items is raised to +10.
Hide #
- You can now attempt to hide without HIPS even while in combat. The hard block is gone; in-combat hiding is instead rate-limited to roughly one attempt every 9 seconds.
- The cooldown was removed while hiding outside of combat.
Systems Updates and Additions #
Spells Book Store/Restore #
Reworked the Spells book system to host up to 10 different slots. Click a slot to open that slot custom UI, where you’ll be able to compare your current setup against that slot setup, rename it, etc. Also added metamagic and Domain spells specific icons where necessary. You can find this feature on your Player Menu.
Quickbar Store/Restore #
Here we come with a long waited system for you: Quickslots store/restore system. You can store up to 10 different Quickbar setups for your characters (per character!). Click on a slot to open that slot custom UI, where you’ll be able to compare your current quickbar setup against that slot setup, rename it, etc. You can find this feature on your Player Menu.
Character Sheet, Improved #
- Attack bonus on the custom character sheet is more accurate. A torch in the off hand is no longer treated as a weapon (no phantom extra attacks, no two-weapon penalty, matching how shields already behaved), and the Arcane Archer Enchant Arrow bonus is no longer folded into the attack bonus of crossbows, slings and thrown weapons.
- Clicking a spell in the effects list now tells you whether it can be dispelled – a “Dispellable: Yes / No” line under the caster level. Supernatural, extraordinary and unyielding effects read No.
- Unique creature buffs now appear as their own entry, including the bonus hit points the creature was given, which previously could not be seen anywhere.
- Your XP bar shows your XP debt instead of your progress while you have any.
Effects Export HUD #
- Hostile spells are shown on a separate top row, above your beneficial effects.
- The “Movable” and “Load at login” checkboxes are greyed out while the HUD is closed, since they only do anything to a live window.
- Dominated creatures now show a “Dominated” effect icon on your effects list as well, to better keep track of your currently dominated creature duration left.
Socket Window UI, Improved #
- Examining a socketable item now shows its socket count and how many sockets are still free – green when there is room, red when full – plus a line reminding you to use the item’s own property to open the socketing window.
- Gem search actually works now. Previously a gem that failed the filter still took up a row, so the list looked broken. The old :in / :dmg / :slot tags are replaced by a plain name search, and both the socket window and “My Gems” filter as you type.
- VFX and XP gems are now shown visually – on the radial centre panel.
- New per-gem quantity buttons (minus, plus, 0, M) and a Remove All button. Buttons and gem rows were enlarged so the labels are more legible.
- The “Immersive” checkbox is replaced by an examine button that opens a how-it-works panel, and the screen no longer fades to black when the socket window opens.
- Socketing now respects the item level requirement – you cannot socket an item above your ILR, and the button tells you why it refused.
- The Epic Token cost for socketing is gone entirely (Hurray!)
Battlegrounds System #
The Battleground system is now available for anyone, directly on your Player Menu. For now only 1 battleground is available: Battleroyale (more will come!)
Battelgrounds do not reward anything to the winners (yet). The system needs to be tuned properly before we can implement automatic rewards for them.
Battleroyale #
- Battleroyale rules have been tuned to be less restricting and require less machinery from players willing to play it (those that helped testing it will remember!)
- Allowed gear is any item with an item level requirement of 16 or lower.
- Items looted inside the arena are usable inside regardless of their ILR, and are destroyed when you leave. (Full heal, harm and spell-restoring potions are blocked inside a Battle Royale)
- Equipping or activating disallowed gear inside the arena is blocked, with a message telling you why.
- Anything disallowed that is still equipped at launch is force-unequipped with a notice.
- Minimum level raised to 35, and the level cap is removed (it was exactly level 30 before).
- Polymorphed players are refused at queue and at confirmation, and are dropped at launch if they shift during the 60-second confirmation window.
Death, Corpses and Graveyards #
- If you are alone in an instanced dungeon and die (rip), your character’s corpse will appear at your faction graveyard, instead of being stranded in an area you often cannot get back into.
- If you are not alone and you die inside of an instanced dungeon, the corpse is correctly placed inside of the dungeon, but when the last party member leaves the instance, any corpse still inside is moved out to its owner’s faction graveyard.
- Corpse portraits have been fixed. Picking up a corpse never copied the portrait onto the item, and characters using a custom portrait could not be represented at all. Corpses now carry the correct face through being picked up, dropped and moved.
Unique Creatures Rebalanced #
The Unique system was very very old, one of the first I introduced back in long distant 2019. When I started to look at it, I’ve found more bugs than features, so this was definitely the time for it to be properly reworked and balanced.
The hand-written bonus table for UNIQUE (silver-named) creatures has been replaced by a curve driven by Challenge Rating.
- Non-Boss creatures scale the Unique Buffs up to CR 40. Boss creatures with CR <= 40 get a +5CR per dungeon level (if any), to their CR when checking for Unique Buffs to apply. Boss creatures with CR > 40 properly scale their Unique buffs up to CR 60.
- Magnitudes and rare-perk odds now move together instead of one stat being multiplied into an absurd value (buggy). Boss hit points scale with boss grade on top of that.
- Roughly a fifth to a quarter of all uniques used to roll a big hit point bonus and then silently receive nothing else (buggy)
- Buff spells could cast Acid Fog on the creature itself (buggy). An empty buff slot read back as a real spell row.
- The low-CR buff set could never fire (buggy) – it was only ever assigned to creatures below the CR gate that allows casting in the first place. The sets were rebanded and the gate lowered.
- Every bonus chance was one point short due to a rounding error, and two CR bands (39-40 and 59-60) matched no tier at all and received nothing (buggy)
- All the bonuses are now applied as a single package, which is what lets the character sheet show them, and a unique that is buffed twice no longer stacks its hit points on top of itself (buggy).
- Unique creatures grow into their size smoothly instead of snapping to it, and the random size spread is tighter.
Where the curve now tops out, ordinary UNIQUE first, top-grade boss second:
- Maximum hit points: +598 / +2700
- Attack bonus: +4 / +6
- Armour class: +3 / +5
- Regeneration: +4 per round (was +3) / +6 per round (was +5)
- Damage reduction: 10/+5 (was 10/+4) / 15/+8 (was 15/+7)
- Spell resistance: 36 (was 29) / 50 (was 40)
An ordinary unique is evaluated as CR 40 at most; only bosses reach the upper band. Summoned uniques run at half magnitude as before.
Sloth Mechanics Adjusted (Gnarled Fist Dungeon) #
Sloth now marks the spot it is about to move to with a visible effect, so you can see where not to stand, and it does not pick the same destination twice in a row.
If he spots you, instead of attacking, it throws a spell at you that banishes you from that zone temporarily: the player is cleansed of harmful effects, fully healed, paralysed for a round and teleported at the beginning of the trial.
Black Market Adjustments #
The Black Market is now quarterly instead of monthly – four rotating stocks replace the twelve monthly ones. Stock has been reformatted and repriced, some items removed, some more added and some are available across the entire year.
New Quests #
The Sewer King chain – Benzor Main Sewer System #
- Sewer King’s Throne – Sewer Fish Merchant
- Sewer King’s Favour – King Bori Baba
- Sewer King’s Favour: Fire Enchantments – Arcanist Rosengold
- Sewer King’s Favour: Air Manipulation – The Dread Witch
- Discount Shopping (weekly, Black Market tickets) – Sewer Fish Merchant
The Fish Merchant trades the secret of the Sewer King for a Dark Metal Invitation Card. The King asks you to deal with the Sewer Behemoth lairing in the rubble, and his two arcanists repay the favour afterwards: Rosengold upgrades a Flameweaver’s Lantern with a Colossal Tempulos Core, and the Dread Witch upgrades a Stealthboy with a Colossal Tumulos Crystal – more uses per day and longer spell durations.
New items #
- King Dragomir’s Mantle – purple loot, Jorng table
- Ring of Saint Joselyn’s Vigil – purple loot, Alura table
- Thundering Berserker’s Belt – purple loot, Goth table
- Devil’s Skull (helmet) – purple loot, Isnar table
- [BRILLIANT] Ring of the Restless – Glondar the Restless
- [BRILLIANT] Frost King’s Fist – King Dragomir, Frost Giant Lodge
- [BRILLIANT] Staff of the Tyrant – Gundar, Dread Castle
- Flameweaver’s Lantern (upgraded) and Stealthboy (upgraded) – Sewer King quest chain
Underdark – Veldrin’Zha #
The community has spoken, and the old Underdark Central area has now been renamed into Underdark – Veldrin’Zha, the new capital for the Drow faction.
Underdark – Central has been renamed into Underdark – Veldrin’Zha” everywhere, with a Veldrin’Zha lore book added to the Hebedzi library and a dragon statue placed in the area itself.
Summons Adjustments #
- The Epic Dragon Knight Epic spell has been reworked to summon Draconic Warriors instead or Dragons. This was made necessary since the dragon appearance was too big to be used inside of small areas and crowded raid zones, and so the spell was rarely picked. The only dragons you’ll see now will be enemies, or polymorphed players!
- All summons received some AC and AB buffs, plus some items with added Deflection AC and resistances where necessary.
- Most summons HPs have been reduced (some by just a bit, some something more), to better scale summons HPs across the levels and with the world content.
Misc #
- Player Menu quickbar button added automatically to players F1 button on a character’s first login
- Clicking a spell in the Custom Character Sheet effects list now tells you whether it can be dispelled – a “Dispellable: Yes / No” line under the caster level. Supernatural, extraordinary and unyielding effects read “No”.
- Henchmen dying in an instance can be resurrected after 5 minutes, and a dead henchman is automatically brought out if the instance is destroyed.
- The XP bank deposit fee is halved: 50% down to 25%.
- The wallet at the bottom of a merchant window ui now shows the currencies that the listed items actually use, rather than four fixed cells.
- The donor store description now makes clear that nearly everything in it is also obtainable in-game through quests, dungeons and the Black Market.
- Some of the tougher Garbalogs now spawn as unique in that spawn (means only 1 per spawn)
- Benzor: a new NPC points newcomers at the Rural Business quest, and the sewer guard faction was corrected.
- The Hall of Fame was updated with the recent tournaments results and statues.
- Henchman command chatter no longer goes through your chat channel – the “Attacking X!”, “Guarding X!”, “Bashing X!” spam is silenced, leaving only the summary notice.
- Deleting a character that still carries items now asks twice. If anything is left in your inventory or equipped, a second window tells you how many items are about to be destroyed and asks you to type DELETE WITH ITEMS to go through with it.
- The level 5 requirement for mounts now counts ECL, so level adjustment is taken into account.
Fixes #
- Rapid Shot no longer fails to switch off custom combat modes in one edge case.
- Fixed an issue with UI markets that was generating items with a wrong stack size
- Fixed tickets supply at the Duergar Trade Enclave
- Tobaro: Father Merrin now has a male voice.
- Various NPCs were corrected so they actually meet the class requirement of the robes they wear.