Zorbus News

• Changes to the Morbid Fascination of Undeath talent:
  
  • Stats of your undead companions get automatically boosted everytime you descend to the next dungeon level.
    
  • You can not use any weapons or ammunition that does holy-damage.
    
• You can now trigger detected suspicious furniture to reveal themselves by firing at them from afar with a reach / ranged attack. The attack itself does not do damage. Worst quality of ammunition is automatically used. (Detected suspicious furniture is mostly mimics, living statues, and such, and is marked with a red "!" on the furniture)
  
• You can spring detected traps by firing at them from afar with a reach / ranged attack.
  
  • Worst quality of ammunition is automatically used.
    
  • Traps that affect a single creature do nothing when sprung from afar, but Animate, Confusion, Dismiss, and Summon traps are very usable.
    
  • Expert Trapper gives a +4 bonus to hit the trap. The Seeker Shots talent can not be used to shoot at traps.
    
• Weapon changes:
  
  • New property: shafted. Shafted weapons deal 50% more damage on hit when Charge talent is used. Polearms, spears, hoopaks, and urgroshs are shafted weapons, but staves are not.
    
  • Urgrosh: removed great-property. Added reach- and shafted- properties.
    
  • Hoopak: Added shafted-property.
    
• Charge talent description updated:
  
  • "You take one step towards a target creature, and make a melee attack with +3 modifier. You will cause 50% more damage on hit if you are wielding a weapon with the shafted-property. The talent's action cost is used instead of the weapon's action cost. Polearms (bardiche, glaive, halberd, ranseur), spears (spear, shortspear, trident), hoopaks, and urgroshs are shafted weapons, but staves are not."
    
• You now get experience points from killing creatures while possessing someone.
  
• Companions now correctly use flasks (of poison, slime, etc.) when in regroup-behaviour.
  
• If the player leveled up before all of his companions had arrived on the map, then the companions not yet on the map didn't get the level up. Now after everyone has arrived on the level, a check is made to level up all companions up to the player's experience level.
  
• Some new pages to the game over / win menu:
  
  • A kill count page with randomly positioned images of all killed monsters, a list of fallen companions, and a list of ascended companions. Only shown if applicable. Obituary files also have the fallen / ascended companions listed.
    
• Replaced the menu click sound effect file. It was an OGG file that mysteriously every now and then sounded a bit distorted, something you could hear with headphones at least. Replaced it with the same effect but in uncompressed WAV format.
  
• Some typos fixed.
  

• Tweaked some dungeon content generation parameters and edge cases. For example, previously you could come across a dungeon level where there were several hidden areas which were completely empty.
  
• Filtering the game log wasn't possible when keybindings that had letter keys as movement keys were used (mainly the VI keybindings). You can now write a filter keyword in the log screen when SHIFT is pressed. (thanks to Zhuo for mentioning)
  

• Hopefully fixed a bug where the player could level up at the same time as getting a low health warning dialog, making the game stuck on the dialog. I couldn't reproduce the situation, but tried to ensure that it won't happen. (thanks to OldMan for reporting)
  
• When a player slots an item in companion's equipment, the slot is reserved, and the companion won't automatically change the item to an another one. To better indicate player slotted items, a letter "R" is now displayed on the right side of the equipment row, and when the selector is on the slot, a note is displayed in the item info box: "This item was slotted by the player. The slot is reserved, the companion won't automatically change this item to an another one.".
  
• Fixed a bug related to the "Multikill" achievement.
  
• Some recruitable creatures do not level up. To avoid confusion, "-" is displayed as level on their character sheet instead of "1".
  

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Tournament results

The tournament is over, results can be seen at tournament.zorbus.net.

Congratulations to Isen, who won all the main categories!

Weekly wildcard winners from weeks 48 and 49, I've tried to reach you via email and friend invites, but no luck. If you want the $10 Steam gfit card, please contact me somehow. Your character names were Corinel and Creakshaw, Steam names are t***** and d***********.

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Scoring system woes

The scoring system needs needs a revision. I'm thinking of dropping the real time speed factor from the score, but don't know yet how to differentiate two similar runs from each other. Turn count isn't really working either. Any ideas on this are very welcome!

[h2]Tournament[/h2]

If you win a prize in the tournament, check the email that you set in the settings or accept a Steam friend invite from me, otherwise I can not send you the gift card. You can remove me after you've got the card. Alternative to the Steam gift card is an Amazon gift card.

Week 48 winner, character name "Corinel", Steam name "t*****", check your mail...

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Fix: Potion of Martyrdom does not heal withered companions.
  
  
• Fix: Ring of Bonding does not heal / restore a withered companion.
  
  
• Fix: tiefling clones no longer spam the Fire Ray talent.
  
  
• If you have the Morbid Fascination of Undeath talent, you'll get full experience from kills made by your undead companions. Currently kills made from non-undead followers too, as I didn't want to break save file compatibility just for this. Will eventually be changed at next full release.
  
  
• A red notification in item descriptions of disallowed items when you have the Morbid Fascination or Soothing Solitude talent. Now on your items when trading in shops, too.
  
  
• You can now change companion behavior / tactics in examine mode with the controller:
  
  
  
  • Press B when the cursor is on yourself to change behavior of all companions.
    
  • Move the cursor over wanted companion to change its behavior with B.
    
  • Select a target creature or an empty map tile and press B to set an attack target or a travel destination for all companions.
    
  • Press Y to change tactics. If the cursor is on yourself or an empty tile, tactics of all companions are changed.
    
  • Press right bumper to command only expendable creatures.
    
  • You can not set a target creature or a travel destination for just one companion with the controller.
    
• You can set a travel destination for companions in the map / autopilot screen with the controller. On the autopilot screen, select a destination with the cursor, press left trigger (all companions) or right trigger (expendables only).
  
  
• Clarification to the Holy Warrior talent: holy-damage bonus applies only when a weapon is used, not on unarmed / gore attacks.
  
  
• Added skill point formula and talent progression chart to descriptions of the Great Mind I & II talents.
  
  
• Notes for Soothing Solitude, Morbid Fascination, etc. added to local leaderboard too.
  

In this tournament anyone can win!

• $50 Steam / Amazon eGift Card for the ascended Overgod with the highest score.
  
• $25 Steam / Amazon eGift Card for the ascended God with the highest score.
  
• $25 Steam / Amazon eGift Card for the fastest ascension.
  
• $10 Steam / Amazon eGift Card for a wildcard winner each week.
  

The weekly wildcard winner is chosen randomly from all players who have played that week.

To make a wildcard entry, your character needs to level up to at least experience level 3, and have a higher score or more experience points than any of your previous characters during the tournament. Characters that reach the endgame are always included in the wildcard draw.

Wildcard prize can be won only once per player.

Rules and leaderboard here: tournament.zorbus.net