Windward Horizon News

[p]I've been posting some tidbits on discord about the coming raid update, including what kinds of items to expect from the coming top tier challenges, but I know a lot of you aren't in there so I figured I'd share some here as well!

In short, raids are being designed for groups: with specific roles that must be filled in order for the raid to succeed (tank, healer, DPS). There are certain mechanics in the raid that have to be countered, or players will start dying. With the inherently long respawn timer, if everyone is dead, the raid fails and has to be started over.

I don't expect anyone to complete the raids successfully on their first try, but failing is a part of the design: you don't need to win to start getting the rewards. Like uncommon drops from any ship you sink elsewhere, you will find random items in raids that don't exist anywhere else that may alter the way you play. As you fail and acquire these items, you will become stronger, and the challenge presented by raid encounters will become easier to deal with, until eventually -- you will win.

While the drops from actual victory aren't set in stone at this time (aside from cosmetics), the drops you can find from participating in the raids have been shown in discord.gg/tasharen. Here are some examples for effects you may be able to find on crews or mortars:[/p][p][/p][p]

There is a lot of variety, and as of this update, all of this is fully moddable. You can set your own rules by defining what's possible via the text-based configuration files.

The raid mechanics testing is scheduled to start soon, but the actual update release is still undecided. You may have noticed that Q3 and Q4 this year are extremely packed with various game updates and releases. Unfortunately, Windward Horizon got no press coverage for its launch, and this update will be the game's last chance to get noticed -- and I'd rather not rush it or launch it when it will have an all-but-guaranteed chance of getting buried once more.[/p][p][/p][p]And now, for the patch notes leading up to (and including) this small update:[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Added an XP bar to arfifact items that have stats that haven't yet been maxed out.[/p]
• [p]Added a variation of an offense crew that buffs haste, hull and damage.[/p]
• [p]Added support for cannons having variable firing rate. Adjusting this value increases the delay between shots, but also increases the damage of each shot.[/p]
• [p]Tweaked the observer's code a bit to ensure that it applies the correct buff/debuff even in duels.[/p]
• [p]Added support for combo buffs: buffs that improve skills. If a buff that improves some skill is present, the associated skill will be highlighted.[/p]
• [p]It's now possible to add effects that trigger on skill use. For example: using Volley applies a buff that improves the next Water Barrel.[/p]
• [p]Added support for instant proc effects that don't apply a buff/debuff. For example, water barrel cleansing negative effects on hit.[/p]
• [p]Added a Limited Immunity effect that prevents debuffs from being applied (ideally going on crews and triggered from Walk It Off).[/p]
• [p]Added a new type of a buff for raid items that records damage taken, and then automatically launches a mortar dealing a portion of it back to the enemy.[/p]
• [p]You can now bind multiple target-able skills (such as mortar and chain shot) to the same key and they won't conflict.[/p]
• [p]Kraken's swirl now does anywhere from 75% to 150% of ship's hull in damage over its duration, determined by the Defense specialization.[/p]
• [p]Tentacle attacks now have a visible 0.75 sec preparation animation, and the damage can be mitigated by physical resistance.[/p]
• [p]Tentacles now do 200% of the ship's hull as base damage, reduced down to 100% with 50 points in Defense, and further mitigated by physical resistance.[/p]
• [p]Items that have skills on them will no longer hide events on the item combine screen.[/p]
• [p]Added a chase camera option (right-click your ship with the mouse or hold (X) on controller with the virtual cursor over your ship).[/p]
• [p]Added seasonal pumpkins to halloween.[/p]
• [p]Made mortar hits trigger useful debris.[/p]
• [p]Hovering over a stat now shows a properly halved value over first mates on the Caravel and SotL.[/p]
• [p]Choosing the "quit to desktop" option now force-saves immediately before shutting down the application.[/p]
• [p]Item names are no longer saved with their localized version, and are now instead localized only when examined.[/p]
• [p]Province gossip entries such as trader transactions are no longer saved in their localized state, and will instead be localized on each client.[/p]
• [p]The "Edit Provinces" world option now also allows choosing the next workshop in NPC-established provinces.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the swirly red mortar attack bypassing resistance. This was not intended. Resistance skills and buffs (such as Brace for Impact) will now mitigate its damage properly.[/p]
• [p]Pirate kings should no longer spawn as temporary mobs (which was causing them to disappear when the player disconnected). This will likely also resolve the issue with them despawning.[/p]
• [p]Added /export and /import to export/import specific player data from one world to another.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the ship control key binding buttons showing "Any+Key" instead of just "Key".[/p]

- You can now place basic decorations in your own provinces (various rocks for now). It's a new skill on your bar visible in your own regions. Right-click it/hold (X) on the controller for more options, such as the drop-down list of possible rocks. You can fine-tune your rock placement/options by right-clicking them (or (X) on controller). This is purely cosmetic, so don't be surprised if your town buildings start growing into rocks.
- Main menu now has a button allowing you to easily restore player saves from a backup.
- Firework type effect with lights (like taunt) will now be slightly more performant.
- One shot protection was apparently being used incorrectly for quite a while. It will now correctly stop working as your hull gets low enough.
- The ship's gunner crews should now take advantage of non-standard cannon layouts much better (for example when all cannons are on one side, or when cannons have multiple crews servicing them), resulting in noticeably higher auto-attack DPS, particularly on ships like the SotL.
- Fixed towns not generating enough items even though their inventory size was increased.
- The tentacle sightings have started to attract attention.

- Created an optimized way of the water shader rendering up to 64 lights with one draw call, so explosions will no longer drastically affect performance.
- Day/night transition performance optimizations.
- Lighthouses will now have a slightly lower performance cost during the day.
- Fixed provincial town inventory size not being based on the size of the town.
- Added 12 more sail patterns.
- Various changes related to raid support, such as the ability to set the respawn timer and the new cultist faction.
- Fog now affects sight range by default, matching the night time sight range.
- It's now dangerous to use grog on tentacles.
- If faction rep ranks aren't specified explicitly, they will now have reduced rep requirements for solo challenge campaigns (1000 rep for rank 3 instead of 2500, for example).
- Ship (Ship Names.txt) and town names (Town Names.txt), as well as pirate phrase translator files (Pirate Phrases.txt) can now be included in mods.
- Fixed the missing resolution choices on macbook devices above M1 by adding them manually.
- The resolution size selection will now persist properly on macbooks.

[p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

- Player ship will no longer save until after it successfully spawns. So if some odd issue occurs where player fails to spawn, game will no longer save at all.
- Province names will now generate with 2 syllables first before falling back to 3.
- Made the screen shake much more subtle and less jarring.
- Reverted the change that made explosion sounds too quiet.
- Fixed one dialog branch in the Alvana/Rowdy conversation that was blocking the ability to confront Alvana, thus always leading to a bad outcome.
- Fixed the night sight value not saving properly in world options.
- Fixed the erroneous tower/lighthouse placement bug.