Salt 2 News

Today we wanted to give a quick overview of some of the features coming in the next update and when that update can be expected. We also wanted to let you know that we are currently working on cooperative multiplayer and it's coming along well. Implementing multiplayer is a big feature and as a small team it will take some time for us to get it fully polished and ready, but we'll have more news soon on that front. Rest assured though, it is coming.

Let's dive into some of the upcoming changes.

[h3]Main Quest - Act 1[/h3]


One of the major features coming in the next update is the first part of the main quest line. We'll be implementing the main quest split into three different updates so we can get other features out and push out patches more frequently. Some of our goals with the main story quest line is to take you to some unique points of interests you won't find anywhere else and to uncover the lore and mystery of the world.

As part of these features we've implemented some brand new physics based puzzles we're excited for you to try and of course these quests will come with unique rewards.

[h3]Difficulty Settings[/h3]


Another feature coming in the next update are difficulty settings. It can be hard to balance a game for all types of players. Some want a more relaxing experience and others want a more challenging experience. We've implemented four difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Legendary. If you're interested in a more challenging experience where preparing for battle with potions/meals and using gear with the perfect talent rolls is required, then you'll want to pick Hard or Legendary difficulty. If you want a more relaxing experience where combat is a minimal focus, then Easy is a good choice. The Normal difficulty setting leaves the game as it is currently as a balance between challenge and a relaxing adventure. You'll also be able to change the difficulty setting at any time during the game.

[h3]New Outpost Islands and Caves[/h3]


As with most updates we try to include new points of interest and this update is no different. We've added more variety to outpost islands so you can discover small islands with caves, buried treasure, and even a unique tavern. We've also added some small caves you can get into by finding hidden wells on islands.

[h3]Additional Changes[/h3]

We've also included some other highly requested features in the next update. One such feature are maps to loot caves. Sometimes loot caves were a bit harder to find than they should be. Now you can find map items to them which will make that process a little easier. We've also reworked fishing commission quests to take into account your fishing level so you're more likely to get fishing quests you can actually complete. Along with the fishing quest changes, we've added more lure types to make it easier to catch specific fish needed for quests. In addition to that we've fixed a lot of bugs and implemented some performance improvements.


We expect this update to be out on the beta branch probably in the next 3-4 weeks. Thanks for reading and we look forward to getting this update out for you soon!

Slashing, Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Archery skills now have an associated talent tree. You gain one skill point every five skill levels to place into the tree. To access this, go to the skills tab in your inventory and click on one of those skills.


Some new content has been added including outpost islands, merchant ships, quests, and dagger weapons.

• Added talent trees to slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, and archery skills. These can be found in the skills section of the inventory interface.
  
• Added outpost islands and merchant ships. Note that this will change some islands that were there previously.
  
• Added some new quests.
  
• Added dagger weapons.
  
• Blocking now mitigates 100% damage with most weapons if you have enough stamina.
  
• You can now only close the dialogue window when the choice menu is visible in order to prevent premature closing right before dialogues complete.
  
• The loot window no longer blocks using hot-keyed items while using keyboard/mouse. This is still blocked when using a gamepad because the bindings are used to navigate the loot window.
  
• Set the camera update speed to always update with the frame rate. This could potentially fix the issue some players were seeing where the camera would be very jerky while sailing a ship.
  
• Added a sound to when you retrieve arrows.
  
• Fixed bug where displayed weight value wouldn't update after transferring partial stacks to the ship storage.
  
• Lessened the leeway for a fishing bobber to be considered in the water, making it less likely that you can catch a fish when the bobber is on land.
  
• Learning multiple recipes in quick succession will now show the recipe learned message for each one.
  
• Damaged enemy health bars no longer remain slightly visible indefinitely.
  
• Fixed names and health bars four legged creatures bouncing around a lot.
  
• Added sound when entering building doors.
  
• The loot window now shows the name of the looted enemy.
  
• The crafting interface now shows how many of the selected item that you already have.
  
• Updated Engine Version.
  
• Adjusted collider on bear models to reduce the chance that they will push the player under the terrain when attacking.
  
• Fixed a light being right on a fisherman in one of the seaports.
  
• Stealth attack damage numbers are now colored differently than critical hits.
  
• Increased the chance for natural caves to spawn on pirate islands.
  
• Added pirate assassin enemy type.
  
• Books now show their title when you are reading them.
  
• Added a different sound when you land a critical hit.
  
• Ships can now rock slightly side-to-side. This can be disabled in the options.
  
• You no longer gain armor skill experience. This skill has been removed as it was originally implemented with the intent of there being multiple different armor types and associated skills.
  
• Fixed a large number of typos.
  
• Player's stamina regeneration now has a different in-combat and out-of-combat regeneration rate.
  
• Opening loot containers in your inventory now shows the received items in a new interface to make it easier to see what you received.
  
• You can now inspect items from the equipment interface.
  
• Fixed an underwater cave not spawning quest loot.
  
• Added gramophone item that can be placed on your ship and used to control when music plays.
  
• Increased drop rate of staves from cultists.
  
• Adjusted some combat animations.
  
• Increased the drop rate of strong plant fibers.
  
• Added point lights near some readable tombstones to make them more obvious at night.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Deepwater Spinner Lure having the wrong description text.
  
• Fixed some areas of caves you could get stuck in.
  
• Ectoplasm is now filtered into the "Junk" tab of your inventory.
  
• Increased herbalism experience when looting rare wood and plants.
  
• Npcs now stand more on the ground instead of floating slightly above it.
  
• Fixed camera impact being delayed if you block right before taking a hit.
  
• Fixed bug that could occur if you unequip fishing bait while fishing.
  
• You now get knocked backwards slightly when blocking an attack.
  
• Enemies are less prone to plow into you when they are running at you.
  
• Added a message when you don't have enough stamina to block.
  
• Fixed King's Galleon recipe indicating that it creates a ship with the Waveskipper model instead of a Large Ship.
  
• Moved loot window hotkey indicators to reticle.
  
• If you are in a named area, it now shows that name at the top left of the screen.
  
• Updated info on sneak related help and tutorial text that wrongly indicated you needed to be crouched to deal stealth damage.
  
• Added more visual variety to some islands.
  
• Fixed map sometimes getting stuck scrolling.
  
• Added footstep sounds to animals.
  
• Fixed blood splatters looking strange on materials with smoothness.
  
• Fall damage is now more dangerous when falling from high places.
  
• Improved wave dampening around sunken islands.
  
• Adjusted bow damage to bring them more in line with other weapons.
  
• Fixed rare issue where a point of interest on an island would not modify the terrain around it.
  
• Improved animals' ability to orient to the slope of the terrain they are standing on properly.
  
• Fixed a ladder in a cave having no interaction collider at the top.
  
• Fixed issue where a Trading Company Quest item would sometimes not spawn.
  
• Updated some map item icons.
  
• Fixed an issue where certain points of interest could spawn on top of each other.
  
• Fixed an issue where some map items weren't working.
  
• Fixed crafting items not showing an item obtained indicator.
  
• Fixed an issue with crafting stations on islands showing how many ingredients you have. They were including ingredients in your ship storage where they weren't supposed to. This allowed instances where it wouldn't allow you to craft items even though it said you had enough ingredients.
  
• The game now pauses in the settings window.
  
• Now only cooked food can spoil. Ingredients to cooked food can no longer spoil, and are now stackable. These items that were already in your inventory will not be stacked. You can transfer them to and from your ship storage to stack them if you wish.
  
• When a cooked food item spoils, it now turns into a new stackable rotten food item. You will be notified by a popup when you open your inventory or ship storage if food has become spoiled.
  
• You can no longer have effects applied to you while dead.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused combat skills to level much too quickly.
  
• Adjusted some tier 1 loot drop chances.
  
• Increased the amount of health potions in the home island cave chests.
  
• Minor adjustments to tier 1 enemy health.
  

Our new update is now available on the beta branch! This update includes combat skill trees, a new dagger weapon, new island types, merchant ships, combat improvements, new quests, island visual improvements, and more! You can read the full list of patch notes below.

This update is fully compatible with your save file and you'll earn skill points automatically for whatever level you've already completed in that skill. If you aren't part of the beta and want to join the beta branch and help us find bugs, we'd love your assistance.

To join the beta branch:

1. Right click Salt 2 in your Steam library and select "Properties".
2. In the window that pops up, select the Betas tab on the right, and then select the beta option from the dropdown.

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

• Added talent trees to slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, and archery skills. These can be found in the skills section of the inventory interface.
  
• Added outpost islands and merchant ships. Note that this will change some islands that were there previously.
  
• Added some new quests.
  
• Added dagger weapons.
  
• Blocking now mitigates 100% damage with most weapons if you have enough stamina.
  
• You can now only close the dialogue window when the choice menu is visible in order to prevent premature closing right before dialogues complete.
  
• The loot window no longer blocks using hotkeyed items while using keyboard/mouse. This is still blocked on the gamepad because the bindings are used to navigate the loot window.
  
• Set the camera update speed to always update with the frame rate. This could potentially fix the issue some players were seeing where the camera would be very jerky while sailing a ship.
  
• Added a sound to when you retrieve arrows.
  
• Fixed bug where displayed weight value wouldn't update after transferring partial stacks to the ship storage.
  
• lessened the leeway for a fishing bobber to be considered in the water, making it less likely that you can catch a fish when the bobber is on land.
  
• Learning multiple recipes in quick succession will now show the recipe learned message for each one.
  
• Damaged enemy health bars no longer remain slightly visible indefinitely.
  
• Fixed nametags on four legged creatures bouncing around a lot.
  
• Added sound when entering building doors.
  
• The loot window now shows the name of the looted enemy.
  
• The crafting UI now shows how many of the selected item that you already have.
  
• Updated Engine Version.
  
• Adjusted collider on bear models to reduce the chance that they will push the player under the terrain when attacking.
  
• Fixed a light being right on a fisherman in one of the seaports.
  
• Stealth attack damage numbers are now colored differently than crits.
  
• Increased the chance for natural caves to spawn on pirate islands.
  
• Added pirate assassin enemy type.
  
• Books now show their title when you are reading them.
  
• Added a different sound when you land a critical hit.
  
• Ships physics can now rock slightly side-to-side. This can be disabled in the options.
  
• You no longer gain armor skill experience. This skill has been removed as it was originally implemented with the intent of there being multiple different armor types and associated skills.
  
• Fixed a large number of typos.
  
• Player's stamina regen now has a different in-combat and out-of-combat regen rate.
  
• Opening loot containers in your inventory now shows the received items in a new interface to make it easier to see what you received.
  
• You can now inspect items from the equipment interface.
  
• Fixed an underwater cave not spawning quest loot.
  
• Added gramophone item that can be placed on your ship and used to control when music plays.
  
• Increased drop rate of staves from cultists.
  
• Adjusted some combat animations.
  
• Increased the drop rate of strong plant fibers.
  
• Added point lights near some readable tombstones to make them more obvious at night.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Deepwater Spinner Lure having the wrong description text.
  
• Fixed some areas of caves you could get stuck in.
  
• Ectoplasm is now filtered into the "Junk" tab of your inventory.
  
• Increased herbalism experience when looting rare wood and plants.
  
• Npcs now stand more on the ground instead of floating slightly above it.
  
• Fixed camera impact being delayed if you block right before taking a hit.
  
• Fixed bug that could occur if you unequip fishing bait while fishing.
  
• You now get knocked backwards slightly when blocking an attack.
  
• Enemies are less prone to plow into you when they are running at you.
  
• Added a message when you don't have enough stamina to block.
  
• Fixed King's Galleon recipe indicating that it creates a ship with the Waveskipper model instead of a Large Ship.
  
• Moved loot window hotkey indicators to reticle.
  
• Added area name indicator UI to show the name of the area that you are currently in, if you are in a named area.
  
• Updated info on sneak related help and tutorial text that indicated you needed to be sneaking to deal stealth damage.
  
• Added more visual variety to some islands.
  
• Fixed map sometimes getting stuck scrolling.
  
• Added footstep sounds to animals.
  
• Fixed blood splatters looking strange on materials with smoothness.
  
• Fall damage is now more dangerous when falling from high places.
  
• Improved wave dampening around sunken islands.
  
• Adjusted bow damage to bring them more in line with other weapons.
  
• Fixed rare issue where a point of interest on an island would not modify the terrain around it.
  
• Improved animals' ability to orient to the slope of the terrain they are standing on properly.
  

Today we wanted to give you a quick look at what you can expect in the next update. In short, the next update will include combat skill trees, merchant ships, outpost islands, daggers, quests, sailing physics improvements, and some combat changes. We expect this update to be on the beta branch within a couple of weeks.

Let's dive in!


[h2]Skill Trees[/h2]


Character progression is an importer part of Salt 2 and so we're finally happy to add skill trees for primary skills. You will now have access to 45 different talents spanning across your primary skill trees: slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, and archery. If you've already earned your levels in certain skill trees, you'll have the points available to spend when the update is live.

[h2]New Dagger Weapon[/h2]


Along with the new skill tree talents we wanted to include a new weapon type: the dagger. This is a piercing weapon and will have some beneficial talents in the piercing skill tree to go along with it. There will be a few different dagger models and items you can look for in the world. Some can found on certain enemies, and some can be gained by completing a quest.

[h2]Merchant Ships and Outpost Islands[/h2]


One point of feedback we've heard from you is that you want to see more variety in content when sailing the sea. We started this process in the last update by including underwater caves. In this update, we're continuing that process by including a merchant ship and outpost islands.



Now while exploring you'll be able to discover a merchant on a ship who's a member of the High Seas Trading Company. You'll be able to buy some unique items from him once you complete a few quests. You'll also be discover Outpost Islands. These are hand-crafted, rocky type islands that look very different from the typical islands you see. They will often contain puzzles and buried treasure for you to find.

Adding more variety to the game is an ongoing process and we plan on adding more unique discoverable places at sea in future updates.

[h2]Sailing Changes[/h2]


Another point of feedback we've been paying attention to is that sailing can feel a bit too rigid and simplistic. We have some ideas in the future to expand on sailing mechanics, but for now we've made adjustments to the boat physics to allow for a little bit of side-to-side tilt which will make sailing feel more realistic. This does have a slight potential to cause motion sickness so if you're prone to that, we've added an option in the settings menu to disable ship rocking which should help with that.

[h2]Combat Changes[/h2]

Improving combat is another ongoing process for us and something we'll continue to work on and refine. In the next update, we've made a few changes that we think are a step in the right direction. First, blocking now mitigates 100% damage for most weapons. Often times before with the damage ranges we had, blocking sometimes didn't feel like it was worth it or doing anything. Now you can block all damage but it will require a good bit of stamina so you'll need to pay attention to your agility stat or keep some stamina potions on hand.

We've also added more stun effects and enemies will now often react to your regular attacks. Before, enemies really only reacted to a parry, but now they can have a slight stun reaction from normal or heavy attacks. In addition to this we've also added more weight and impact to some weapon swing animations and adjusted their speed so they they don't feel too light.

And of course a lot of new the talents along with the skill trees will encourage different playstyles and mechanics.


This update will also include a slew of bug fixes and balancing changes. Thanks for reading and we can't wait to get this update out soon.

[h2]What's New[/h2]

Out latest update is now live! This update includes the long awaited underwater content, a new guild known as The Sea Diver's Guild, buried treasure, new weapons and armor, balancing changes, and bug fixes. You'll now be able to discover entire caves and dungeons completely underwater. You'll also be able to swim underwater near islands to look for pearls and perhaps even a sunken chest.

[h2]What's Coming[/h2]

The main focus for the next update are combat skill trees. This means you'll be able to put points in skill trees like slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, and archery. In the next update we'll also be including more things for you to discover at sea such as merchant ships and outposts.

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

• Added a "sunken" island type that can sometimes spawn in place of other islands. These are very small bits of land indicating where you can find an underwater cave.
  
• Added diving mechanic, allowing you to swim underwater to a certain depth.
  
• Added underwater caves, ruins, and other dungeon types.
  
• Added new Sea Diver's Guild and quests.
  
• Added buried treasure on some islands that you can dig up with a shovel.
  
• Adjusted some island spawn chances. This will change the types of some islands in the world compared to what they were previously.
  
• Skeletons are now resistant to piercing and slashing damage, but weak to bludgeoning.
  
• Added a few more map stamp options.
  
• You can now find and mine sandstone on desert islands.
  
• Increased the drop rate of oil.
  
• Reduced the resource requirements of some crafting commission quests.
  
• Lowered the vendor cost of some epic and rare weapons and recipes.
  
• The Sea Scholar Merchant and Marauder Guild Merchant now sell a Raider's Chest. These chests are guaranteed to drop a random piece of gear at your world tier.
  
• Fixed pirate battlemaster berserker death model not matching live model.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Trade Secrets quest having the wrong quest text.
  
• Fixed one of the points of interest on Redwood Islands still having the old tree model.
  
• Fixed an issue where the grave mound in the Hunt for the Heirloom Quest could sometimes not spawn.
  
• Added a parchment outside of the Sea Scholar's Guild indicating where to find a recruiter.
  
• Fixed an issue where pirates would sometimes kill an NPC you needed to talk to for a quest before you could talk to him.
  
• Updated map tutorial to mention adding stamps to islands.
  
• Fixed some out of bounds areas in caves.
  
• Fixed some areas of caves where you could get stuck.
  
• Fixed some visual issues in caves.
  
• Fixed an issue where you could get locked out of the residence room in the Sea Scholars Guild and not be able to continue the quest line.
  
• Fixed an area of a shipwreck where you could get stuck behind a table.
  
• Fixed an issue where grass would sometimes appear in some shacks at pirate camps.
  
• The guide that gives you a quest to find Mr. Bones Tavern will no longer spawn if you've already found Mr. Bones.
  
• Fixed a bug with the Undercover Quest not removing the weapon shipments supply chest on delivery.
  
• Fixed some typos.
  
• Fixed the guide NPC telling you some slightly misleading information.
  
• Fixed raw pearls not showing up in the appropriate inventory section.
  
• Reduced the chance for ships to get stuck on nearby geometry when deploying them.
  
• Added confirmation before selling quest and ship items.
  
• Can no longer sell ships with placed decorations.
  
• Fixed seaweed spawning inside points of interests rarely.
  
• Added some more foliage in shallow waters.
  
• Made it less likely for arrows to pass through enemies.
  
• The mark island button on the map now marks the island where your last known position marker is, rather than where you are.
  
• Fixed flame texture on candles wrapping.
  
• Made placing ship decorations on railings or other edges a little less finicky.