Patch notes: Wrapping up the launch week
Ahoy, Captains!
Here are a few more days of patch notes that wrap up the launch week's progress with many changes based on your feedback! Some of the notable changes include the addition of challenge setting to world creation, allowing you to switch to a challenge scaling more suitable for solo gameplay, a change to cannons so that they harmlessly pass through allies, an in-game friend system for party-style adventures, and much more. In the coming weeks I will continue making changes based on your feedback, focusing on server stability, bug fixes, accessibility and quality of life features.
[h3]2025-05-30.0[/h3]
- Added the world creation options dialog. Currently only two options to start with: world size and difficulty (challenge).
- Quests accepted upon entering instances will no longer contribute towards bonus quests of influence gain in the nearby province.
- Fixed a case of when an item level-up was borking certain item stats when the player was in full artifact gear.
- Added a visible timer to the UI when a conversation with an individual is possible, but is waiting on a timer to expire.
- More changes to networking back-end.
- World map target ping will now work while the game is paused.
- Water barrel's HoT effect should no longer get applied to enemies again.
- Added two missing buttons to the Virtual Keyboard.
[h3]2025-05-28.0[/h3]
- Added a "prio self" option to the water barrel for those using auto-targeting with it (but why would you!)
- Fixed a case of where the server can get locked up after a player disconnects.
- Changed many instances of time polling to be unaffected by game pause state, which should address some oddities, like two music tracks playing at once at times.
- Added 'listen ' and 'close' commands to the stand-alone server. The 'close' option stops listening for incoming connections and removes the server from the public list, but doesn't shut it down.
- Tweaked who controls traders on the world map to reduce the number of packets.
- Added a way to explode yourself so you can respawn, in cases you get stuck (type /die in chat)
- SotL now has the ramming damage multiplier of 1.5 (was 1.0).
- SotL now is now slightly faster.
- Heal-over-time effect of specializing in Support is now 25% (was 10%).
- Failing Rowdy's quest after certain conversation choices will no longer block progression.
- Grog's periodic damage was not correct, both in tooltips and on the actual applied buff.
- Grog's damage over time effect can no longer inflict backstab type damage.
- Water barrel's healing amount was not visualized correctly, and its heal-over-time effect was only healing half the intended amount. I reduced its HoT's duration down to 4 (from 8), keeping the healed amount the same.
- Added a /get command that you can use to check your profile states, such as story flags. For example "/get romSonya" would check her romance status.
[h3]2025-05-26.0[/h3]
- Fixed a bug that was saving players that join others via Steam's friends list under the wrong name (Guest), making it seem like the progress was not being saved. The game will rename the file for you automatically if it can.
- Fixed the Galleon. Its mortar multiplier and cooldown was incorrect. It was erroneously set to 400% haste while doing 100% damage. It's now correctly set to double haste, half damage, which brings it in line with other ships in the game, rather than an overpowered god with magical unicorn powers.
- Turned off HP and damage scaling of ships outside of instances. This was causing power balance to be completely out of whack in some regions on the server.
- Once a player pings the map, the ping audio from that player will now be muted for 10 seconds, and the name of the player will appear in chat.
- You can no longer swap ships while you have an active bounty quest.
- Ships can no longer sell for more than the amount you've paid for them in the first place.
- Added an in-game way of adding friends via /friends . Both players have to add each other to friends before they get the perks: see each other's sight on the world map, see each other's private instances, and a unique color on the minimap to help them stand out.
- Added a /help command to chat listing available commands and what they do.
- Added /limit and /scaling info to chat upon entering an instance in multiplayer.
- Fixed the "primary stat" indicator not marking the stats properly when the player multi-classed and had more than one primary stat as the result.
- Pirates spawned to attack the player (for quests and such) will now always be of the spec that's vulnerable to the player's current spec to make it more fun.
- The chance for pirate attacks will now fall off more rapidly as the province's security goes up.
- Removed code that was making pirates stronger as the player's item level was going up.
- Fixed the combat power indicator being stuck around 1630.
[h3]2025-05-25.0[/h3]
- Cannon projectiles will now harmlessly pass through allies. This should help in crowded instances.
- Added a context menu option to Volley, Mortar, Rampage and Grog skills to always show their radius/firing arc.
- The game will no longer pause on the world map if your ship has a destination set.
- Ship customization screen needs the game to be unpaused for the preview to function properly, so the game will not be pausing while the your customization window is open.
- FPS counter is no longer affected by paused time.
- Fixed UI scaling not persisting after switching regions.
- Whether the game will pause while in the inventory/town screen is now an option in the menu.
- Setting /limit now works while already inside an instance.
- Auto-shrinking windows on 1080p screens now work while the game is paused.
- Made the game show a warning about steam cloud not being enabled.
- Fixed one of Alvana's paths allowing you to skip a step.
- Instance bosses will now always drop loot for players, even if the player is dead or far away.
- Commodities dropped by ships will now always be something that the closest province wants.
- Variety of network back-end tweaks.
- Fixed explosion AOE damage not applying adequate damage.
- Water barrel can now also be right-clicked to show its range.
- Added new defensive type captains and mates.
- Improved the Bilander's layout.
- Fixed the power rating indicator's value and associated power calculations/logic.
- Fixed one path where Alvana's story could get stuck, unable to progress.
- Increased the chance of 3 and 4-skull challenge quests.
-Aren
Here are a few more days of patch notes that wrap up the launch week's progress with many changes based on your feedback! Some of the notable changes include the addition of challenge setting to world creation, allowing you to switch to a challenge scaling more suitable for solo gameplay, a change to cannons so that they harmlessly pass through allies, an in-game friend system for party-style adventures, and much more. In the coming weeks I will continue making changes based on your feedback, focusing on server stability, bug fixes, accessibility and quality of life features.
[h3]2025-05-30.0[/h3]
- Added the world creation options dialog. Currently only two options to start with: world size and difficulty (challenge).
- Quests accepted upon entering instances will no longer contribute towards bonus quests of influence gain in the nearby province.
- Fixed a case of when an item level-up was borking certain item stats when the player was in full artifact gear.
- Added a visible timer to the UI when a conversation with an individual is possible, but is waiting on a timer to expire.
- More changes to networking back-end.
- World map target ping will now work while the game is paused.
- Water barrel's HoT effect should no longer get applied to enemies again.
- Added two missing buttons to the Virtual Keyboard.
[h3]2025-05-28.0[/h3]
- Added a "prio self" option to the water barrel for those using auto-targeting with it (but why would you!)
- Fixed a case of where the server can get locked up after a player disconnects.
- Changed many instances of time polling to be unaffected by game pause state, which should address some oddities, like two music tracks playing at once at times.
- Added 'listen ' and 'close' commands to the stand-alone server. The 'close' option stops listening for incoming connections and removes the server from the public list, but doesn't shut it down.
- Tweaked who controls traders on the world map to reduce the number of packets.
- Added a way to explode yourself so you can respawn, in cases you get stuck (type /die in chat)
- SotL now has the ramming damage multiplier of 1.5 (was 1.0).
- SotL now is now slightly faster.
- Heal-over-time effect of specializing in Support is now 25% (was 10%).
- Failing Rowdy's quest after certain conversation choices will no longer block progression.
- Grog's periodic damage was not correct, both in tooltips and on the actual applied buff.
- Grog's damage over time effect can no longer inflict backstab type damage.
- Water barrel's healing amount was not visualized correctly, and its heal-over-time effect was only healing half the intended amount. I reduced its HoT's duration down to 4 (from 8), keeping the healed amount the same.
- Added a /get command that you can use to check your profile states, such as story flags. For example "/get romSonya" would check her romance status.
[h3]2025-05-26.0[/h3]
- Fixed a bug that was saving players that join others via Steam's friends list under the wrong name (Guest), making it seem like the progress was not being saved. The game will rename the file for you automatically if it can.
- Fixed the Galleon. Its mortar multiplier and cooldown was incorrect. It was erroneously set to 400% haste while doing 100% damage. It's now correctly set to double haste, half damage, which brings it in line with other ships in the game, rather than an overpowered god with magical unicorn powers.
- Turned off HP and damage scaling of ships outside of instances. This was causing power balance to be completely out of whack in some regions on the server.
- Once a player pings the map, the ping audio from that player will now be muted for 10 seconds, and the name of the player will appear in chat.
- You can no longer swap ships while you have an active bounty quest.
- Ships can no longer sell for more than the amount you've paid for them in the first place.
- Added an in-game way of adding friends via /friends . Both players have to add each other to friends before they get the perks: see each other's sight on the world map, see each other's private instances, and a unique color on the minimap to help them stand out.
- Added a /help command to chat listing available commands and what they do.
- Added /limit and /scaling info to chat upon entering an instance in multiplayer.
- Fixed the "primary stat" indicator not marking the stats properly when the player multi-classed and had more than one primary stat as the result.
- Pirates spawned to attack the player (for quests and such) will now always be of the spec that's vulnerable to the player's current spec to make it more fun.
- The chance for pirate attacks will now fall off more rapidly as the province's security goes up.
- Removed code that was making pirates stronger as the player's item level was going up.
- Fixed the combat power indicator being stuck around 1630.
[h3]2025-05-25.0[/h3]
- Cannon projectiles will now harmlessly pass through allies. This should help in crowded instances.
- Added a context menu option to Volley, Mortar, Rampage and Grog skills to always show their radius/firing arc.
- The game will no longer pause on the world map if your ship has a destination set.
- Ship customization screen needs the game to be unpaused for the preview to function properly, so the game will not be pausing while the your customization window is open.
- FPS counter is no longer affected by paused time.
- Fixed UI scaling not persisting after switching regions.
- Whether the game will pause while in the inventory/town screen is now an option in the menu.
- Setting /limit now works while already inside an instance.
- Auto-shrinking windows on 1080p screens now work while the game is paused.
- Made the game show a warning about steam cloud not being enabled.
- Fixed one of Alvana's paths allowing you to skip a step.
- Instance bosses will now always drop loot for players, even if the player is dead or far away.
- Commodities dropped by ships will now always be something that the closest province wants.
- Variety of network back-end tweaks.
- Fixed explosion AOE damage not applying adequate damage.
- Water barrel can now also be right-clicked to show its range.
- Added new defensive type captains and mates.
- Improved the Bilander's layout.
- Fixed the power rating indicator's value and associated power calculations/logic.
- Fixed one path where Alvana's story could get stuck, unable to progress.
- Increased the chance of 3 and 4-skull challenge quests.
-Aren