Project: Gorgon News

This update sees some serious upgrades for Battle Chemists, improvements to pet and enemy AI, an XP system tweak, and - as always - a lot of bug fixes large and small.


We've heavily revised Battle Chemistry in this update. This will seem like an especially large change, because it is! Battle Chemistry was "skipped over" during the last round of skill rebalancing because we were considering splitting the skill into two separate skills. But after prototyping that split, it doesn't seem more fun than what we already had. So instead we're embracing the skill's quirky nature and refining the ways you can take advantage of its many tools.

While most of these changes should be good news to battle chemists, note that there's an effective nerf, too: we've fixed a bug that allowed you to take off your Mutation-buffing equipment but still keep the benefits of that equipment. The intended behavior is that taking off equipment disables all the buffs it provided. (This should be true for all skills, btw! If you find places where that isn't the case, please report it.)

Battle Chemistry has three key features: the programmable golem pet (also called a "minigolem"), Mutations, and chemical attacks and buffs. We'll give the details for each. To help you adjust your character to these changes, Battle Chemistry Transmutation costs will be much lower for the rest of August.

[h2]Mini-Golem[/h2]
Battle Chemistry features a programmable golem which is given a list of rules to follow in combat. Previously, it checked its rules once every 5 seconds, meaning that it only used an ability once every 5 seconds. To improve responsiveness, the golem now chooses an ability every 3 seconds. Golem abilities that previously had a 5-second reuse time now have a 3-second reuse time: Poison Bomb Toss, Taunting Punch, and Healing Injection. These abilities were revised based on this new reset time.

The "Trigger Golem" side-bar ability is no longer a toggled ability. It now has a 15-second reuse time. Using the ability will instruct the golem to immediately check its ruleset and choose an ability, rather than waiting until its regular 3-second timer is up. (You can use the golem conditional "Owner has triggered golem" to program a specific response to this ability.)

The golem was already a pretty good healing-bot, so it has comparatively minor buffs in that area. Its combat abilities, on the other hand, have been improved dramatically as there was much room for improvement. For historic reasons Battle Chemistry has a bunch of three-slot treasure effects for the golem -- meaning that the same power can show up on Chest, Legs, and Head gear, for instance -- and that seems interesting because it allows you to really hone in on a few specific golem abilities. But since "programmability" is the point of the golem, we don't want your gear to lock you out of using other abilities too much. So all those three-slot effects also boost the golem's overall damage or health.

Next is a list of all the changes. Before we begin, a note on syntax. Here's how we document a change to a treasure effect:

• (SlotsThisPowerCanShowUpOn): "This effect does blah blah blah at level 100" => changed behavior of the effect at level 100
  

With that out of the way, here's the golem-related changes:

• UI: fixed blank ability labels in golem programming UI window
  
• Fixed the ability icons of some of the mini-golem's abilities
  
• New golem conditional group: "Any group member is below X% Health"
  
• Minigolem abilities: all damaging abilities deal more damage
  
• Minigolem abilities: all abilities now scale to level 80. You can purchase the new ability tiers from the usual dude in Rahu
  
• Minigolem ability Rage Acid Toss: now aoe-splashes to hit all enemies within 20m of its target. (Primary target can still be up to 35m away)
  
• Minigolem Rage Mist abilities: reset time is now 5 seconds instead of 15. (But ability still requires a full Rage bar)
  
• Minigolem Rage Acid Toss abilities: reset time is now 5 seconds instead of 30. (But ability still requires a full Rage bar)
  
• Minigolem Self Destruct abilities: aoe range increased from 10m to 20m
  
• Minigolem Taunting Punch abilities: increased innate temp-taunt so that golem can briefly pull aggro more reliably
  
• (Head, Necklace): "Your golem minion's Taunting Punch deals +100 damage" => "Your golem minion has +25% Max Health and its attacks taunt +600"
  
• (Chest, Legs, Head): "Your golem minion's Poison Bomb deals +82 damage" => "Your golem minion's attacks deal +120 damage"
  
• (Hands, Feet, Ring): "Your golem minion's Self Destruct deals +360 damage" => "Your golem minion's attacks deal +25% Damage, and its Self Destruct deals +777 damage"
  
• (Head, OffHand, Necklace): "Your golem minion's Rage Acid Toss deals +243 damage" => "Your golem minion's attacks deal +25% Damage, and its Rage Acid Toss deals +357 damage"
  
• (Ring, MainHand, Feet): "Your golem minion's Doom Admixture deals +340 damage" => "Your golem minion's attacks deal +25% Damage, and its Doom Admixture deals +340 damage"
  
• (Legs, MainHand): "Your golem minion's Invigorating Mist heals 58 health" => "Your golem minion's Invigorating Mist restores +58 Power"
  
• New treasure effect: (OffHand): "Your golem minion's Fire Balm absorbs the first 198 Fire damage you suffer in the next 15 seconds"
  

[h2]Mutations[/h2]
Mutations are the Battle Chemist's signature buff. Mutation abilities go on your sidebar. You use these abilities on yourself and your allies, and they provide potent buffs that last an hour. There's only one small catch: you can only have one Mutation on you at a time. For that reason, all available Mutations need to be pretty good, or else you'd use a better one instead! We've whittled down the previous five Mutations into three: Extra Toes grants nimbleness and speed and makes your Kicks dramatically better. Extra Skin protects you from damage, and Extra Heart helps you regenerate Power and, to a lesser extent, Health.

Here's the details:

• The abilities "Mutation: Knee Spikes" and "Mutation: Extra Toes" have been combined, giving the benefits of both in one. For fiction reasons, the name Extra Toes makes more sense than Knee Spikes. But the old Knee Spikes ability had more tiers, which makes for smoother leveling. So we've dropped the old Extra Toes ability and renamed the old Knee Spikes ability to Extra Toes. If you're confused, we don't blame you, but long story short: if you were using Knee Spikes OR Extra Toes, you'll want to make sure that Extra Toes is on your ability bar.
  
• The ability "Mutation: Stretchy Spine" has been retired as being too niche. Its treasure effects were revised to apply to other mutations instead.
  
• Extra Heart abilities: instead of boosting Power Regeneration, now boosts Combat Refresh Power Restoration
  
• Treasure Effects that previously boosted Knee Spikes now boost Extra Toes
  
• Mutations: fixed bugs that caused treasure buffs to remain on targets even if the caster unequipped the treasure responsible for the buff
  
• (Chest): "Your Stretchy Spine mutation randomly repairs broken bones twice as often" => "Your Extra Heart mutation grants you -50% Indirect Poison Vulnerability and randomly repairs broken bones over time"
  
• (Head, Chest): "Your Knee Spikes mutation also causes kicks to restore 22 Health to the kicker" => "Your Extra Toes mutation also causes kicks to restore 44 Health to the kicker"
  
• (Legs): "Your Knee Spikes mutation causes kicks to deal an additional +24% damage" => Your Extra Toes mutation causes kicks to deal an additional +30% damage
  
• (Hands, MainHand): "Your Extra Skin mutation causes the target to heal 67 Health every 20 seconds" => 78 every 15 seconds
  
• (Necklace, OffHand): "Your Extra Skin mutation provides +22 mitigation from Slashing attacks" => +27 mitigation from Slashing and direct Acid damage
  
• (Legs, MainHand): "Your Extra Skin mutation provides +22 mitigation from Piercing attacks" => +27 mitigation from Piercing and direct Poison damage
  
• (Hands, OffHand): "Your Extra Heart and Stretchy Spine mutations grant the target +67 Max Health" => "Your Extra Heart and Extra Skin mutations grant the target +71 Max Health"
  
• (Necklace): "Your Extra Heart mutation causes the target to regain +74 Power every 6 seconds" => every 8 seconds
  
• New treasure effect: (Feet): "Your Extra Toes mutation grants the target +100% Knockback Resistance"
  
• New treasure effect: (Legs): "Your Extra Toes mutation grants the target +58% Slow/Root Resistance"
  
• New treasure effect: (Chest): "Your Extra Heart and Extra Toes mutations grant the target +67 Max Power"
  
• New treasure effect: (Head): "Your Extra Heart mutation grants the target +23% Max Power"
  
• New treasure effect: (Hands): "Your Extra Toes mutation grants the target +15.5% Ranged Evasion"
  

[h2]Splashin' Chemicals[/h2]
While Battle Chemistry isn't intended to be a damage powerhouse, it still had room for improvement in terms of synergizing with other combat skills. Each of the skill's three main bomb abilities now has a treasure effect that adds a corresponding damage-over-time (DoT) effect. Note that these DoTs are a little special: unlike most DoTs which tick every 2 or 3 seconds, these DoTs tick every second. As a result, flat indirect damage boosts are more potent for these specific DoTs.

Since Extra Toes is all about kicking, it seemed a shame that the Unarmed skill couldn't take full advantage of it for themselves (because they'd need to hold a beaker). So we've added new Alchemist's Claw craftable weapons specifically to enable this skill combination. (They're kind of a pain to craft, though -- not intended for beginners.) We've also added craftable staff-beakers so you aren't as reliant on the handful of random loot items that enabled that combination before.

There are also new crafted items that allow spiders, giant bats, and pigs to use Battle Chemistry! These recipes are rather difficult, though, and may require the assistance of an expert crafter (with hands).

Here's the change list:

• Kohan in Rahu now teaches recipes for Alchemist's Claw weapons, which are complex unarmed/battle chemistry hybrid weapons. Crafting requires Gadgeteering 50 and a high level of Toolcrafting.
  
• Ufkar in Rahu now teaches recipes for Chemistry Staff weapons, which allow all manner of staff-based skills as well as Battle Chemistry. Crafting requires Gadgeteerig 50 and a high level of Carpentry.
  
• Staff-Beaker combo weapons (such as the Beaker-Stick and the new Chemistry Staff) are now elligible to have Staff treasure effects on them. (And Fire Magic effects for fire-staff-beakers.)
  
• Yogzi in Sun Vale teaches recipes for Arachnid Mechaharnesses, which allow spiders to use Battle Chemistry. Crafting these intricate belts requires high levels of Toolcrafting skill.
  
• Yogzi in Sun Vale teaches recipes for Aerosolizing Bat Harnesses, which allow giant bats to use Battle Chemistry. Crafting these exotic belts requires high levels of Toolcrafting skill.
  
• Backfat in the Fae Realm teaches recipes for Porcine Blast Dispersers, which allow pigs to use Battle Chemistry. Crafting these bizarre bracelets requires high levels of JewelryCrafting skill.
  
• Toxin Bomb abilities: base damage increased
  
• Toxic Irritant abilities: no longer a melee attack; now a ranged projectile attack with a 10m range
  
• Mycotoxin Formula abilities: base damage increased
  
• Acid Bomb ability: ability now does both direct Health and direct Armor damage. Power cost and base damage increased
  
• Freezing Mist ability: reset time changed from 45s to 30s. Ability fully functions as a Bomb. (The fire DoT treasure effect previously didn't work on it). Damage revised upwards.
  
• (Chest, Feet): "Acid Bomb Damage +53%" => +59%
  
• (Feet, Ring): "You heal 26 health every other second while under the effect of Haste Concoction" => 36
  
• (Hands, Chest): "You regain 18 Power every other second while under the effect of Haste Concoction" => 34
  
• (Necklace, Legs): "Freezing Mist restores 165 Armor to you" => "Freezing Mist restores 165 Health (or Armor if Health is full) to you"
  
• New: (Head, Off-Hand): "Acid Bomb deals 198 Acid Damage to Health and Armor over 6 seconds"
  
• New: (Hands, Necklace): "Mycotoxin Formula deals 392 Nature Damage to Health over 8 seconds"
  
• New: (Chest, MainHand): "Toxin Bomb deals 385 Poison Damage to Health over 7 seconds"
  
• New: (Hands, Ring): "Freezing Mist Damage +195 and Reuse Time -7 seconds"
  
• New: (Hands): "Toxic Irritant deals +61 damage. If target has 5 or more Damage-over-Time effects, it also stuns them"
  
• New: (OffHand): "Toxic Irritant Damage +52 and Range +20"
  
• New: (Ring): "Toxic Irritant causes the target to suffer +15.5% from Acid Damage (including Toxic Irritant) for 15 seconds."
  

[h2]Pet Logic[/h2]

• Pets can now target Feared monsters. (They still cannot attack Mesmerized monsters.) This is an experiment; let us know if you like this change.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause pets to stop responding to Sic 'Em and/or Clever Trick instructions.
  
• Potential fix for pets returning home too quickly. We'll monitor this to see if more needs to be done.
  
• When an Animal Handling pet tries to determine a target for Sic 'Em or Clever Trick, it can now check its owner's target's target. This means that if you have the group tank selected and use Sic 'Em, the pet can lock on the group tank's target.
  
• Fixed several subtle bugs where monsters and pets wouldn't use the right ability at the right time.
  

[h2]New Experimental Gameplay System: Monster Gang Buffs[/h2]
Many monsters can now notice when they're ganging up on a target. When these monsters notice they're fighting alongside others, they will sometimes choose to stop fighting and buff themselves. This buff takes 5 seconds to cast, leaving them helpless during that time. Different types of monsters have different buffs; some are mild while others are pretty strong. The intention of this system is to add some variance to larger battles.

These buffs all have the same visual cue: the monster will be surrounded briefly in a green bubble with an up-arrow floating over it.


[h2]XP Dropoff Change[/h2]
A few months ago, we made some changes to how much XP you earn from enemies above and below your level. we asked for your feedback on how this affected you, and based on that feedback we've revised how killing higher-level monsters works. Previously if your combat skill was more than 25 levels above the monster's level, you earned 0 XP. Now the monster's XP will downscale up to 100 levels of difference, effectively letting players kill any monster in the game and get a level-appropriate amount of XP for doing so. Note that after downscaling, higher-level monsters will earn roughly the same amount of XP as same-level monsters. So there's no big incentive to hunt monsters that are dramatically higher-level than you... there's just no punishment for doing so.




[h2]VIP Challenge[/h2]
The VIP Challenge that ran during the Summer Sales didn't do as well as we had hoped. We really wanted to give you more stuff! But we understand that money is tight for a lot of us. As a consolation prize ... err, participation prize, anyone who was a VIP member during the VIP Challenge has a new redemption available. You can find your special redemptions by clicking on the Persona tab on the right-hand sidebar, and then clicking on the icon of a present on the bottom right of that panel.


[h2]Combat[/h2]

• Basic Attacks: many Basic Attacks deal slightly more damage at high level.
  
• Pig Frenzy ability: changes to the damage boost amount at each ability tier; highest tier changed from 60 to 118.
  
• Pig: (Legs, Ring) "Frenzy restores 30 power to all targets" => 76
  
• Pig: (Main Hand, Necklace) "Grunt of Abeyance restores 28 Power to all targets" => 52
  
• Pig: fixed some treasure effects that did not yet scale past level 80.
  
• Survival Instincts' Lend Grace ability: significantly increased Power regeneration. The stated +10% evasion buff is now actually applied.
  
• Rattail-Ring of Screeching: Nature Damage bonus reduced from +20% to +10%.
  
• The Sonic Burst Combo mod for bats will now do the correct damage on the final step.
  
• Toxic Flesh abilities: deal more damage to melee attackers.
  
• Hammer treasure effect: (Feet): "Rib Shatter dispels any roots or slows you are currently suffering. Power cost to sprint in combat is reduced -3 for 9 seconds" => "Rib Shatter dispels any roots or slows you are currently suffering. Sprint Speed is increased +3 and Power cost to sprint in combat is reduced -3 for 9 seconds"
  
• Droaches: high level Droach monsters deal more damage when their armor is depleted.
  
• Fixed a bug where monsters with special opening moves wouldn't always use them.
  
• Fixed an issue that might be the cause of reported "DoT persists for way too long" bugs. We'll monitor this to see if more needs to be done.
  
• Fixed bug that prevented earning auxiliary-combat-skill XP if you didn't earn XP in both of your main combat skills.
  

[h2]Other[/h2]

• Added work orders for all new angling fish. These can be found randomly at the work order sign in Sun Vale and the Red Wing Casino.
  
• Added new "bulk" work orders for fish. These bulk orders require 99 fish and have a higher payout rate than normal. These work orders can be found as Angling junk loot.
  
• Reverted changes to fish fillet icons that unintentionally broke match-3.
  
• Elite Training Dummies have been renamed to Healthy Training Dummies, and no longer give combat wisdom.
  
• Fixed a bug where learning teleportation from Elmetaph would break future crafting animations.
  
• "Prioritize Unlooted Corpses" setting will no longer cause tab-targeting to stick to unlooted corpses.
  
• Fixed a bug causing some ability tooltips to show the wrong damage type when the type is changed via an item mod.
  
• Fixed a bug causing Skill XP Tracker to change its position.
  
• Fixed a bug causing tooltips to blink in the wrong spot when Use Tooltip Animation is disabled.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the minimap to be invisible until you toggle its visibility in settings.
  
• Search golem item results will no longer have a "1" in the icon.
  
• The crafting error message for being in the wrong area is now more accurate. (It tells you you must be IN the required area instead of NEAR it.)
  
• The Create New Character UI now scales with the screen size properly.
  
• Fixed a couple instances in the UI where the waving flag is invisible at certain resolutions.
  
• Default enemy nameplate color is now red.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing you from turning left/right after crafting certain recipes.
  
• Replaced the animations of several crafting recipes to be more accurate, rather than just sitting.
  
• Fixed some graphical problems with elven faces and hair.
  
• Lowered volume of some sounds, including eating and drinking sound effects and the water-ball particle effect used by some monsters.
  
• Revised audio settings on fireworks.
  
• Reduced horse selection hitbox size.
  

This is a relatively small update with some relatively large changes. In brief: based on player feedback, we're reverting some of the recent balance changes we made to Power generation and consumption. In addition, we've also taken some time to optimize performance in some areas to improve framerate. And, of course, there are bug fixes.


We agree with the general feedback that the recent Power changes were too much too fast. We've reverted the Power costs to levels from before the June 28 update, with a few minor deviations. We'll continue to work on Power accessibility tools and may increase Power costs more slowly in the future.


There are some new Hammer effects related to Power consumption, as well as a tweak to a new Sword effect.

• Hammer: Slight changes to cost and potency of Reckless Slam and its treasure effects.
  
• New treasure effect: (Off-Hand, Necklace) "Core Attacks cause the next Look At My Hammer to restore +50 Power"
  
• New treasure effect: (Feet) "Rib Shatter dispels any roots or slows you are currently suffering, and Power cost to sprint in combat is reduced -3 for 9 seconds"
  
• Sword treasure effect tweak: (Hands, Feet) "All Sword abilities deal +13% damage to targets with less than 33% of their Max Rage." => +18%
  
• Known bug: the Fire Magic ability Flesh to Fuel currently costs Power (it should be free). This will be fixed in the next game update
  

This update includes a number of optimizations in specific problem areas that should improve graphics performance and framerate. Optimization is an ongoing process; it hasn't been a high priority while we are in Early Access, but as we move closer to launching it becomes more important. We made a start on some of the more notorious spots for bad performance in this update and we'll continue with other problem areas as time permits.

• Optimized lighting in Povus city to improve framerate, particularly at night.
  
• Fixed some LODs in Povus to reduce pop-in.
  
• Optimized Gazluk terrain, which should fix most framerate issues in that zone.
  
• Fixed framerate issues in Kur at one of the orc camps.
  
• Optimized UI updates of nameplates. This should have a significant performance boost when using the new UI in areas with a lot of entities.
  
• Persona and Mount cameras now turn off when those windows are not open; previously they were always on and wasting time being rendered.
  

As you may know, you can visit the Gorgon Shop to purchase an optional 'backer package' to help support Project: Gorgon. These packages have some nice benefits, from a free horse to spontaneous snack cakes. They also include VIP time, which comes with some of its own nice benefits, like extra inventory. (You can read more about the VIP program here.)

One of the problems with all of our old backer packages (what we now call Primary Packages) is that you can only apply one package to your account. Players who wanted to purchase another backer package to show their continued support couldn't do that -- until now.

We're now introducing our first Gorgon Shop Add-On Backer Package - the Summer 2023 Add-On! As the name implies, you can purchase an Add-On package in addition to a Primary package and get the benefits of both. But you don't have to use the Add-On as an add-on: you can purchase it even if you don't have to have a Primary Package yet, and you'll be able to add a Primary later if you wish. But note that you can only purchase one of each Add-On package! So the new rule is: You may have one Primary Package and one of each Add-On package per account.

The Summer 2023 Add-On package is very much intended as a way for players to support the game, with a planned price of $75 USD. Here are the planned benefits:

• Auto-unlock the advanced Orc character race for your account when they become available. (Orcs have not yet been implemented! Normally you would need to complete in-game quests to unlock the Orc race.)
  
• Receive a unique cosmetic mini-pet for all characters on your account.
  
• Be granted the special title "Summer's Fairest".
  
• Receive a unique new food to help level your Gourmand.
  
• 9 months VIP membership.
  

PLEASE NOTE: The Summer 2023 Add-On package will be available in a few days, and the details are still subject to change until then. In addition, please keep in mind that the Orc player race is not yet available; you won't actually be able to make an Orc until we finish developing them. You can claim the other rewards immediately.

If the new package is popular, we'll explore adding more of them in the future.

• Items can now be summoned from the Warden chest when in Kur.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused dropped items to appear above the character instead of on the ground; this was notably bad in the Red Wing Casino, where items would seemingly disappear into thin air (but were actually stuck in the walls).
  
• The events on the login page now auto-scroll.
  
• Some light polishing of the login screen.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the waving flag on the login screen to disappear at certain resolutions.
  
• Fixed a formatting error in the score in the golf UI.
  
• Fixed a bug with spring fairy gear that caused elves to have purple skin.
  
• Animal players should no longer "ping-pong" (rotate back and forth very quickly) when standing still in certain scenarios.
  
• Pigs & deer no longer rotate when strafing left & right.
  
• Polished "On Fire" particles.
  

• Update to fix problems with animation loops in yesterday's patch
  

A small update to fix some bugs:

• Drowning & dehydration put you in combat again, so that regeneration doesn't prevent dying.
  
• Fixed a bug that broke channeling as a bat almost-completely.
  
• Fixed a bug where an error that prevents channeling causes you to be stuck in the animation (E.G. trying to harvest wood without a saw).
  
• Fixed a bug causing NPCs to get stuck in dancing or instrument-playing animations.
  
• The new treasure effect that causes Heart Thorn to deal Acid armor damage over time did not show in the ability tooltip.
  
• The new treasure effect that causes Heart Thorn to deal Acid armor damage over time did health/armor damage, not armor damage as intended.
  
• Using Premeditated Doom showed the effect icon for mod-activated healing even if you didn't have appropriate mod.
  
• Treasure effect "Signature Debuffs deal +80 damage and restore 90 armor to you after a 10-second delay" could not show up on Uncommon crafted belts.
  
• Added more detailed instructions on how to find Elmetaph to the barrier wall in the newbie dungeon.
  
• Good Bait is now a level 30 recipe (instead of 45).
  
• The meals Venison Psi-Mantis Style and Chicken Psi-mantis Style are now properly marked as containing fish.
  
• Added a line to Words of Power 1 to make it more obvious that you have to manually jot them down.
  
• New setting that keeps your current target selected if you click away from it (without clicking on another target): GUI > Targeting > Mouse Selection > Clear Target on Click. Note that it's only supported in the new UI.
  
• Fixed a graphical issue with leather headgear.
  
• Decreased the SFX volume for some Weather Witching abilities.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the camera position to reset when zoning.
  
• Fixed a bug in the old UI where letting go of left-click while holding in right-click would un-hide the mouse.
  
• Set Near Clip Plane's minimum value to 0.1, to avoid occlusion issues (notably in the casino).
  
• New feature: 5% of all randomly-rolled Legendary loot items will be "Foretold in Prophecy", gaining 60 additional crafting points. It will have additional benefits in the future.
  

Another quick update:

• Rebalanced all abilities and treasure effects that generate/restore Power. We have a list of specific changes, but it's quite long so we'll save that for the discord-linked patch notes. The short version is that all such abilities and treasure effects are more potent to varying degrees. In many cases the Power restoration increase is pretty dramatic.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused gathering animations to not play.
  
• Skeletons now play the correct attack animations again.
  
• Fixed sit/nap animations for Nightshade's bed, a moldy bed in the Carpal Tunnels, and Utimak's chairs.
  
• Fixed an invisible boulder in Eltibule.
  
• Added an Elite Training Dummy with 100k hit points to Serbule.
  
• Lowered cost of Glamour Berries on Riston from 20 LEC to 5 LEC each (but they are now account-bound upon purchase)
  

This update primarily focuses on game balance issues and quality-of-life (QoL) issues. And it's time for summer... and the Steam summer sale!


Project: Gorgon will be on sale for most of July, from June 29 to July 27, at a big discount - 75% off! We know that the $10 price point is more feasible for some potential new players, so if you have any friends left who haven't tried PG, this may be the time!

If you don't have any friends to invite, you can still get involved -- we just want your scintillating presence! There are lots of ways you can participate in-game during the sales, including special events for newbies and existing players alike, free redemptions each week, rotating buffs, and another VIP Challenge.


This update has a lot of balance changes. We'll cover the systemic changes first. Then we'll break out individual skills that received multiple changes. If your favorite skill isn't listed here -- or if these changes aren't to your liking -- don't worry, there will be more changes to all skills in the future. In general we're trying to power up weaker skills while toning down the most problematic treasure effects. Please give us your feedback after you've played with these changes a while.

[h2]Transmutation Cost Changes[/h2]
We've been too stingy with Transmutation. Creating and experimenting with new builds is a big part of the game's fun, and it needs to be more accessible.

• Decomposing an item into Phlogiston now yields an average of +100% more Phlogiston. (But note that there's more randomness in the yield than before.)
  
• Durability costs for using Transmutation are now as follows:
  • Legendary: was 25%, is now 8%
    
  • Epic: was 20%, is now 6%
    
  • Exceptional: was 10%, is now 5%
    
  • Rare and Uncommon: unchanged. (Was 5%, is now 5%)
    
• Note that it no longer matters whether the transmuted slot is "generic" or not for purposes of durability cost. (But it still affects phlogiston cost.)
  

[h2]Power-Cost Changes[/h2]
The Power system isn't pulling its weight in terms of gameplay, so Power costs have been increased across the board. The magnitude of this change depends on the internal "cost tier" of the ability. For some abilities the change is modest (and a few even got cheaper), but for many abilities it's quite noticeable, especially at high level.

We're a little worried that this change will have unintended consequences in middle level ranges -- if you find this to be too big a squeeze, let us know.

And for low-level players, it's more important than ever to remember to eat both a meal and a snack! That's the best way to recover Power between battles. Another tip: while plentiful, raw fruit is a low-potency meal, so eat something better when you can.

[h2]Favor Rewards[/h2]

• Favor Quests now reward more Favor (averaging +50 Favor per quest).
  
• Hang Outs that reward Favor now reward significantly more Favor (about +90%).
  

[h2]Inventory Slots[/h2]
New players now have 8 more Inventory Slots than before. These slots were previously earned by leveling up Endurance. (Endurance previously gave out 30 Inventory Slots at level 100; it now gives out 22.) For existing players: If you've already gotten all the extra Inventory Slots from Endurance, you won't see a change. If you haven't, you will gain access to the Inventory Slots you hadn't earned yet.

[h2]Deer[/h2]
First a note about formatting. When a treasure effect has changed, the format we use is:

• (SlotsThisCanShowUpOn): "Old level 100 version of this effect" => changed level 100 version
  

Now the actual deer changes:

• (Head, Necklace): "Summoned Deer Rage Attack Damage +183" => "... In addition, if it deals Indirect Nature damage (such as via Insect Egg implantation), damage is +20 per tick"
  
• (Hands, Necklace): "Deer Kick implants insect eggs in the target. (Max 4 stacks.) Future Deer Kicks by any pet deer or player deer will cause target to take 390 Nature damage over 5 seconds" => This effect has been re-coded so that the attacking deer's indirect nature buffs are added to the damage dealt. It can also now be found on Ring (as well as Hands and Necklace)
  
• New treasure effect (Feet): "Bounding Escape dispels any active Slow or Root effects on you and grants you immunity to similar effects for 15 seconds"
  
• New treasure effect (Head): "Forest Challenge deals Psychic damage, and damage is +200"
  
• New treasure effect (Hands): "King of the Forest deals Psychic damage, and damage is +120"
  
• Summoned deer pets now periodically use an Antler-Slash move in between Deer Kick moves. This was done to somewhat reduce the number of Egg Infestation stacks per deer (when those mods are used)
  
• Pummeling Hooves: This ability is now considered a Kick (for purposes of buffs and combos).
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the "Forest Caller's" treasure effect to not show up for all item levels.
  

[h2]Druid[/h2]

• Removed treasure effect (Legs, Hands): "Fill With Bile heals 92 health and 92 armor" => This treasure mod has been replaced with the new effect below. The new effect can only be on Hands, not Legs, so if you previously had it on Legs, that piece of gear leg-gear is now Legacy (because the new effect will be on your pants and shouldn't be!). Use transmutation to remove the effect and it'll stop being Legacy.
  
• Replacement treasure effect (Hands): "Fill With Bile causes any Core attacks that deal direct Poison damage to deal +180 damage for 3 minutes. (This effect does not stack with itself.)" Note: this mod applies to Toxin Ball, Toxin Bomb, and Inject Venom.
  
• New treasure effect (Legs): "Fill With Bile causes any Nice attacks that deal direct Poison or Acid damage to deal +180 damage for 3 minutes. (This effect does not stack with itself.)" Note: this mod applies to Acid Bomb, Spit Acid, Delerium, and Venomstrike.
  
• (Chest, Legs) "Heart Thorn coats the target in stinging insects that deal 378 Nature damage over 12 seconds" => 480 damage over 8 seconds
  
• (Hands, Legs) "Heart Thorn deals Poison damage (instead of Nature) and also deals 330 Poison damage over 12 seconds" => 440 damage over 8 seconds
  
• New treasure effect (Necklace): "Heart Thorn causes target to suffer +19% damage from all Indirect Damage sources for 15 seconds"
  
• (Head, OffHand) "Heart Thorn restores 90 armor to you" => "Heart Thorn coats the target in acid that deals 580 armor damage over 8 seconds"
  
• (Hands, OffHand) "Pulse of Life restores 100 Health over 15 seconds" => 260 Health over 15 seconds
  
• (Head) "Pulse of Life gives +18 Fire, Cold, and Electricity Mitigation (direct and indirect) for 15 seconds" => 22
  
• (Hands, Feet) "Brambleskin deals +120 Nature damage to melee attackers" => This is now available on Main-Hand gear, as well as Hands and Feet
  
• New treasure effect (Chest, Head) => "Brambleskin deals +34% damage to melee attackers"
  
• New treasure effect (Legs): "Rotskin debuffs target's Indirect Nature Vulnerability -28% for 12 seconds"
  
• (Chest, MainHand) "Cloud Sight covers the target in insects that deal 312 Nature damage over 12 seconds" => "304 Nature damage over 8 seconds"
  
• Ability Toxinball: deals the damage over 8 seconds instead of 12
  
• (Hands, Legs) "Toxinball deals +234 Poison damage to health over 12 seconds" => 224 damage over 8 seconds
  

[h2]Rabbit[/h2]

• (Chest, Ring) "Bun-Fu Kick Delayed Trauma Damage +221" => +358. The delayed trauma damage happens after 5 seconds instead of 8.
  
• Long Ear ability: Removed the movement-speed debuff. Normalized buff duration to 15 seconds at all tiers.
  
• Hare Dash no longer cancels Long Ear.
  
• Love Tap ability: Revising to make this more interesting as a combat-opening "puller debuff". (Note that it already prevented help-shouting.) Ability no longer generates any Rage. Ability has bonus Accuracy. Hastened reset time of all tiers. In addition to increasing the target's rage-fill requirements, Love Tap now also Slows the target 45% for 10 seconds.
  
• (Head, Main Hand) "Love Tap deals 415 Trauma damage after an 8-second delay" => 505 Trauma damage after a 4-second delay.
  
• New treasure effect (OffHand): "Love Tap causes target to suffer +14% damage from future physical attacks (Slashing, Crushing, and Piercing) for 10 seconds"
  
• Love Tap and Bun-Fu strike are considered bodypart attacks (for purposes of certain buffs).
  
• New treasure effect (Feet, Necklace): "While Rabbit skill is active, all Kick abilities deal +25% damage, with a 15% chance to deal double damage"
  
• Fixed leftover attributes that referenced "Bun-Fu Blitz" (now renamed to Bun-Fu Kick).
  

[h2]Spider[/h2]

• Spider: Incubate ability: it now takes 10 seconds to incubate an egg, not 15
  
• (Hands, Main Hand) "For 12 seconds after using Infinite Legs, additional Infinite Legs attacks deal +28 damage" => "After using Infinite Legs, additional Infinite Legs attacks deal +58 damage" (The duration is now the same as the built-in buff for that tier of ability, i.e. 10 seconds at level 1 and 18 seconds and level 8.)
  
• (MainHand, Ring): "Premeditated Doom restores 128 health after a 10-second delay" => "Premeditated Doom restores 231 health (or armor, if health is full) after a 10-second delay"
  
• Removed Treasure effect (Head, Necklace): Premeditated Doom restores 200 armor after a 10-second delay => this treasure mod has been replaced with the one below. The new one can only be on necklaces, so if you had the old effect on Head gear, you now have the NEW effect on head gear... which is illegal, so your head gear has become Legacy. If you use transmutation to remove the effect it will stop being Legacy.
  
• (Necklace): "Premeditated Doom boosts your Crushing damage +80 for 20 seconds"
  
• (Head): "Premeditated Doom boosts your Direct Poison damage +97 for 20 seconds"
  
• (Legs, Hands): "Gripjaw deals +42% damage and hastens the current reset timer of Grappling Web by 5 seconds" => 41.2% and 6 seconds
  
• (Main Hand): "Spit Acid raises your Poison Damage +23% for 30 seconds (this effect does not stack with itself)" => "Spit Acid raises your Poison Damage +22% for 12 seconds"
  
• (Head, MainHand): "Terrifying Bite causes the target to take +16% damage from Poison attacks" => +24%
  
• (Hands): "While you are near your Web Trap, you recover 6 Power per second" => 10
  
• (Hands, OffHand): "While you are near your Web Trap, you recover 13 Health per second" => 18
  
• New treasure: (Head, MainHand): "Incubated Spiders' Rage attacks deal +1056 Poison damage over 12 seconds"
  
• (Legs, Necklace) "Gripjaw restores 78 Armor to you" => "Gripjaw deals +78 Armor damage and restores 78 Armor to you"
  

[h2]Sword[/h2]

• Ability Hacking Blade: Trauma damage from this ability is generated over 6 seconds instead of 12.
  
• Ability Many Cuts: This ability now deals Trauma damage to health (instead of dealing Slashing armor damage over time); amounts increased.
  
• (Head, Legs) "Precision Pierce deals +40 direct health damage and further reduces target's Rage by 300" => +63 damage; -350 rage
  
• (Feet, Main Hand) "Hacking Blade deals +240 Trauma damage over 12 seconds" => over 6 seconds
  
• (Necklace, Off Hand) "Hacking Blade and Debilitating Blow deal 162 Trauma damage over 12 seconds" => over 6 seconds
  
• (Head, Necklace) "Flashing Strike deals +269 damage to undead" => +580
  
• (Chest) "Flashing Strike deals +35% damage and gives you 50% resistance to Darkness damage for 4 seconds" => for 7 seconds
  
• (Main-Hand, Necklace): "Many Cuts and Debilitating Blow deal +166 damage to Arthropods (such as spiders, mantises, and beetles)" => "Many Cuts and Debilitating Blow deal +134% damage to Arthropods (such as spiders, mantises, and beetles)"=> Also, this effect can now only be found on Necklaces. (Main-hand weapons with this effect are now Legacy, until it's removed from them via Transmutation.)
  
• (Legs, Main Hand) "Many Cuts deals 236 armor damage" => "Many Cuts deals +228 Trauma damage over 6 seconds"
  
• (Feet) "Many Cuts deals +25% damage and stuns targets that have less than a third of their Armor remaining. However, Power cost is +33%" => "Many Cuts deals +12% damage and stuns targets that have less than a third of their Max Rage."
  
• (Head, Feet) "If target has less than a third of their Armor remaining, Many Cuts knocks them back and deals +40 damage" => "Many Cuts deals +86 damage and if target has less than a third of their Max Rage, also knocks them back."
  
• New treasure effect (MainHand): "Debilitating Blow deals +75 damage and causes target's Rage attacks to deal -20% damage for 10 seconds"
  
• (Chest, Off-Hand) "Finishing Blow restores 128 armor to you" => "Finishing Blow deals 530 Psychic damage after a 4 second delay"
  
• New treasure effect (Hands, Feet) : "All Sword abilities deal +13% damage to targets with less than 33% of their Max Rage."
  
• (Legs) "Decapitate deals +100 damage and terrifies the target for 4 seconds" => +255 damage and terrifies for 7 seconds
  
• (Chest, Off-Hand) "Decapitate restores 197 armor to you" => "Decapitate increases your Max Health +137 for 60 seconds (and heals 137)"
  

[h2]Other Skill & Ability Changes[/h2]

• Fire Magic: (Hands, Feet): "Indirect Fire Damage +48% when skill Fire Magic active" => +38%
  
• Necromancy: (Hands, Necklace): "Indirect Fire Damage +48% when skill Necromancy active" => +30%
  
• Shield: (Chest, Ring): "While Bulwark Mode is enabled you recover 34 Armor every second" => "... every 3 seconds"
  
• Shield: Elemental Ward ability: protective buffs last for 20 seconds instead of 30
  
• Warden: (Hands, Feet): "Indirect Fire Damage +77% when skill Warden active" => +42%
  
• Unarmed: Abilities Cobra Strike, Mamba Strike, and Slashing Strike have a new innate benefit: "Dispels the strongest Damage-over-Time effect you are currently suffering from"
  
• Hammer: removed artificial Power-cost increases for this skill, resulting in a 5-10% cost decrease. However, this decrease is completely overshadowed by the major Power-cost rescaling explained above. (But Hammer users can now rest easy knowing their skill no longer has artificially-high Power costs.)
  

[h2]Note on Legacy Gear[/h2]
Some gear for a few skills may now be marked as Legacy. This can happen when effects on the item are no longer allowed to show up on that type of gear. Legacy items become unusable after 30 days. But! You can fix these items (making them non-Legacy again) by using Transmutation to remove the now-invalid treasure effect. If you're unsure exactly why the item is Legacy, visit the Legacy Item Helper golem in Serbule. It can examine your item and give you more info.

To facilitate this, these skills will enjoy much cheaper Transmutation costs for the next month or so: Deer, Spider, and Druid. And Sword. (We're including Sword because of the significant gameplay changes it's seen this update.)

[h2]Monster Changes[/h2]

• The creatures variously known as "Garden Tenders", "Sand Dogs", and "Snow Leapers" (depending on their variety) are now immune to slow and root effects.
  
• Orcs: Sword-wielding orcs previously had a Parry move which drained a tiny amount of Power. This Parry move now reduces Core Attack damage by 75% for 10 seconds.
  
• Orcs: Melee-range orcs can now throw a knife up to 20 meters. They use this when slowed or rooted.
  
• Slimes are now immune to slow, root, fear, and mesmerize effects. (But notably not knockbacks.)
  
• Monster tornadoes are now immune to slow and root effects.
  

• Dramatically increased the amount of XP earned by catching high level fish. (All levels of fish are affected, but will be most noticeable after level 50.)
  
• Quest "Angling: Toxic Blooms": The toxic blooms only appeared during nighttime hours, but should appear at all hours.
  
• Adjusted the level & distribution of fishing zones in Povus.
  
• Added some more types of angling fish to Povus zones.
  
• Grapefish on the line are now purple.
  
• Fixed an Angling visual effect with transparency issues.
  
• Quest "Angling: Vicious Eels": Fixed the description; it had been "Angle Invasive Ice Fish".
  The fishing pool on the northeast side of the main Sun Vale island previously gave a quest that rewarded you with the "Angling (Advanced)" ability. This ability's level has been lowered to level 30, and is now given out by a lower-level pool: the one on the north end of the main island. (The northeast-side quest still exists, but now gives bait and XP as a reward.)
  
  • Note: the "Catch And Release (Advanced)" ability is still level 45; it will changed to 30 (and moved to a level 30 pool) in a future update
    
• Catching junk like crates and bottles now gives better XP at higher levels.
  

• You can now search for items with Ctrl+F! Note: This is a new keybind, located in Settings > Keys > Interface > "Search for Item".
  
• Adjusted vitals-change animation speed so larger changes will animate quicker.
  
• Fixed bug causing "Save Changes" popup to show erroneously due to some custom chat channel preferences.
  
• Settings tooltips now only show when you hover over the name of the setting.
  
• Closing the Settings window without saving changes will now properly update the window the next time it opens.
  
• Fixed bug preventing the settings "Save" button from enabling when modifying some graphics overrides.
  
• New setting to disable enemy AOE ranges from appearing: "GUI > Windows & HUD > Abilities & Items > Show Enemy AOE Areas". Defaults to true.
  
• Better handling of AOE Range opacity, and default the setting to 0.5 instead of 1 (resulting in dimmer AOEs).
  
• Renamed "Reset Camera Position" keybind to "Re-Align Camera to Character".
  
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused party-member nameplates to get stuck on the screen.
  
• Target of target's avatar portrait is now controlled via the "Avatar Portraits" setting.
  
• Right-clicking on your target to use it will no longer use the thing behind it.
  
• Fixed bug causing the cursor to not change properly when your hovered target disappears.
  
• Drastically decreased the time dropping & picking up items stops you for (especially for humanoids).
  

[h2]Defaults Changes[/h2]
In this update, we also changed a slew of default settings for the UI in order to make things a little more useful and familiar for new players. Note that these defaults only affect new players!

Keybinds:

• Open Inventory: I, B
  
• Open Skills & Abilities: K, Ctrl+D
  
• Open Social Window: O, Shift+Ctrl+S
  
• Open Crafting: C, Ctrl+R
  
• Open Quest Log: L
  
• Open Chat: Ctrl+C
  

Other:

• Chat no longer closes when pressing Esc.
  
• Ability Tooltips appear near the cursor, not in the top corner of the screen.
  
• Change tooltip font size from 11 -> 12.
  
• Skills, Abilities and the Quest Log start out as larger windows.
  
• The "Tip" window (that shows tutorial messages) is centered on the left of the screen.
  
• Channeling bar is centered above the character's head.
  

• Added an "Observation Golem" to Anagoge to help direct lost players.
  
• Added a "Training Golem" to Anagoge Records Facility to point out some hidden-but-useful game settings for new players.
  
• Demo players can no longer be sent pigeon mail. (This was a bug.)
  
• Golf: Fixed a number of bugs, refined the golf UI, and tweaked some functionality for a (hopefully) improved experience.
  
• Fixed bugs with fairy chimes not properly updating.
  
• Fixed the sometimes-broken nib barters on Shala.
  
• Adjusted minigolem hitboxes to be more exact.
  
• Improved handling of looping animations for most animals.
  
• Toned down some Battle Chemistry visual effects.
  
• Prevented particles from sticking around in certain conditions.
  
• An assortment of graphics touch-ups in the character select & create screens.
  
• Updated a number of icons.
  
• Damage from falling, dehydration, and drowning will no longer put you into combat.
  
• Fixed a bug causing playable animals to not rotate properly when strafing when ground alignment was turned off.
  

This is a small update to fix some of the bugs we introduced in the June 1 update. It also includes some other balance changes and bug fixes as well. (Sometimes bug fixes sprawl. One thing leads to another and so on, and suddenly you're making changes to Deer.)

[h3]Angling[/h3]
- Animals can no longer angle: you must have hands to angle.
- The ability Catch and Release now gives 25% _bonus_ xp rather than just 25% xp.
- Clicking on Fish Tacos recipe in chat can no longer crash the client. It was the sour cream: the Fish Tacos recipe incorrectly indicated that it consumed half of a sour cream. It now correctly requires 1 sour cream, with a 50% chance it'll be consumed.
- Canceling angling (by pressing the ability) no longer consumes another piece of bait.
- Fish should no longer be selectable when they are attached to a fishing line.
- Fixed broken Dorado fish. This should help complete the angling quest in Ilmari.
- Angling ability descriptions no longer say they are test animations.
- Lungfish now look like lungfish (more or less) while on a fishing line.
- The Perch Fillet in the Loot Master Game is no longer just a blank white square.
- Fixed the reversed east/west text of the angling quest in Serbule Hills.
- Fixed missing particles on several "non-fish" angling targets.

[h3]Changes to Deer[/h3]
After review, it seems like Deer has good bones and interesting potential, but it could use some buffing.
- "Deer Kick deals +X damage and grants you -10% Fire Vulnerability for 10 seconds" => for 60 seconds
- "Combo: Deer Bash+AnyMelee+Any Melee+Deer Kick: final step hits all enemies within 5 meters and deals +X damage." => combo is now Deer Bash+Any Melee+Deer Kick
- Ability "Deer Bash" base damage increased significantly (288 => 400)
- Revised correlated mod downward a bit: "Deer Bash Damage +72%" => "Deer Bash Damage +66%"
- "Forest Challenge damage is +158 and reuse time is -1 second" => "Forest Challenge and King of the Forest damage is +116 and reuse time is -1 second"
- "King of the Forest has a 90% chance to deal +200 damage" => "King of the Forest damage +100. There is a 22% chance to summon a deer ally for 30 seconds"
- Ability "Summon Deer" tiers 2-5: all tiers now have reset time of 30 seconds
- "Summoned Deer have +73 armor" => "Summoned Deer deal +61 damage and have a +10% chance to crit"
- "Pummeling Hooves has a 60% chance to deal +78% damage and taunt +500" => "Pummeling Hooves deals +60 damage and restores 80 Health over 8 seconds"
- "Deer Bash has a 60% chance to deal +134% damage" => "Deer Bash deals +100 damage and has a 24% chance to deal +134% more damage"
- New treasure effect: (Head): "Forest Challenge deals +100 damage and you take -15% damage from Elite attacks for 20 seconds"

[h3]UI & Graphics[/h3]
- AoE range indicators should work in all areas now.
- Doubled the speed at which vitals bars animate.
- Dying now enables the cursor in Action Mode.
- Skills now remember if they are expanded or collapsed when zoning.
- New setting: "AOE Area Opacity" located in GUI > Windows & HUD > Abilities & Items
- Fixed a bug causing Show/Hide durationless effects to cause a short framerate dip.
- Fixed a bug preventing players from booting up in the Old UI.
- Fixed broken combat numbers in the Old UI.
- Fixed a bug that caused animals to get stuck dancing.
- Channeling an ability while playing a bard song should no longer cancel the bard song animation.
- Acid Bomb & Freezing Mist effects now display even when nobody is hit by them.
- Added explode-y effects to Toxin Bomb & Mycotoxin Formula to make them feel more... explode-y.
- Removed some mud from pig dances until we can make it look better.

[h3]Other[/h3]
- Increased bonus XP earned for killing monsters in a group. The bonus depends on the number of group members that helped fight the monster. Bonuses for (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6) group members changed from (+0%, +25%, +33%, +50%, +66%, +75%) to (+0%, +33%, +66%, +100%, +133%, +166%). Note that this was actually in the June 1 update, we just forgot to tell you.
- The Warden mod "When privacy field deals damage, it also ignites the suspect, dealing 64 damage over 8 seconds" will no longer ignite the user of Privacy Field.
- Jesina's dialog did not change after you received the Nexus Adjunct Matter Aligner.
- Jesina can now give players a replacement Nexus Adjunct Matter Aligner if they have misplaced theirs.
- Percy Evans now refuses gifts of the Nexus Adjunct Matter Aligner.
- The lowest-tier versions of "Summon Sandstorm" and "Summon Doomstorm" now use the same cooldown timer as all other summoned storm abilities.
- Doomstorms did not make any ambient sound.
- Summon Doomstorm 2+ and Summon Sandstorm 2+ abilities were grouped with Summon Sandstorm abilities in the ability window. This has been fixed.
- When you had multiple stacks of ammo, ammo would be consumed from the largest stack, thereby slowly depleting all the stacks at an even rate. This felt weird; now ammo is consumed one stack at a time, starting with the first ("leftmost"?) stack in your inventory.
- Increased the chance of wolfsbane spawning in the Werewolf Forest in Kur Mountains.
- Mushroom boxes & box recipes were using a fishing pole icon. (They always have, but the old icon was too murky to make out.)
- Potion of Random Resistance and Potion of Universal Resistance incorrectly gave back an empty bottle after drinking.
- A handful of old icons have been updated.