Project: Gorgon News

This update brings some changes and experiments to the game. There's new Fall foods, changes to swimming, and changes to the stats of food.


In this update we're experimenting with new kinds of seasonal content. Here we're using "Fall foods" as the experimental base, but we might expand this idea to many other types of crafting (and other "seasons") in the future. Or we may change this design dramatically, or even throw it all out, depending on your feedback. After you've had a few weeks to play with this, please let us know what you think!

• There are two new seasonal ingredients available for a limited time. Cranberries and turkeys can be found in Serbule, Serbule Hills, and Eltibule, among other places.
  
• In addition, the pumpkin seedlings (which dropped from undead during Halloween) continue to drop from a wide range of herbivorous and omnivorous animals in the 25-55 level range. This includes ferocious boars, many types of slime, most rhinos, polar bears, tundra deer, mountain sheep, Gaz-Uraks, and many others. (And even a few sentient creatures such as trolls.)
  
• There are 21 new food recipes that involve the new seasonal ingredients. These recipes can be found on a broad range of animals (with the best chances being from herbivorous/omnivorous animals).
  
• In addition to the new recipes, the handful of pumpkin recipes from Halloween can also still be found in loot, although the chances are much lower than during Halloween. (And the other Halloween items no longer drop.)
  
• There are also new Work Orders for all of the new foods (and the Halloween pumpkin foods). These work orders will only show up during this "season", and they have a much larger cash reward than normal work orders of their level. They can also be completed every 5 days instead of every 30 days. You can find these work orders at the work-order signs in Serbule, Redwing Casino, and the Fae Realm. (They won't always show up, but when they do, they will be at the bottom of the work-order list.)
  
• A few of the Halloween pumpkin foods already had work orders (such as Basic Pumpkin Pie). They've been turned into "seasonal" work orders
  

In preparation for upcoming content we've made improvements/changes to how swimming works. Please play with these changes and give us feedback and bug reports!

• Changed how we emulate gravity underwater. Previously you would instantly sink in deep water, but now you are slightly buoyant: you'll very slowly float upwards toward the surface. This means that if you wish to reach the bottom of a deep body of water you will need to use the Down movement key (default F) to swim down. To swim up for breath use the Up key (default R) -- or you can use the jump button underwater as a "swim up" button.
  
• You now recover your breath automatically when you are swimming on the surface of the water, and breath recovers much more quickly than via the old "hopping in and out of the water" technique. (But still not as fast as when standing on solid ground.)
  
• "Breath" meter is more granular while losing breath
  
• Fixed various problems, bugs, and glitches in the swimming system
  
• Fixed problems with indoor water pools
  
• Note: the river in Kur continues to behave oddly; this is a known issue that will be addressed when the final art for Kur is ready. All OTHER water should behave reasonably sanely now
  

We've rebalanced food a bit to make Meals more useful. This mainly involved moving some of the power of Snacks into Meals.

Snacks once lasted only 15 minutes, and so were much more potent than meals. But in a previous update we changed Snacks to last as long as Meals (and even receive the Gourmand bonuses that Meals receive), and we're pretty happy with that change. And the total potency of Meals+Snacks combined was in the right ballpark -- it's just that most of that potency was coming from the Snack, and the Meal was largely irrelevant. This is obviously dumb and needed fixing.

We've also made other small rebalances to food stats, including some changes to Cheese stats. Cheese received both minor nerfs and minor buffs. (And since eating a Cheese Meal plus a Cheese Snack was already often over-healing while out of combat, nerfing those numbers isn't as noticeable as buffing the in-combat regen. But the in-combat regen buff was small... so... basically it's a wash.)

Explaining the overall changes is tricky. The changes affect food at all levels, but we'll use some hypothetical level 80 food as an example. That will show the changes the most dramatically.

Tldr: For players that already ate both a meal and a snack, the changes will probably not be very noticeable. If you only ate Snacks before, though, you will definitely notice how empty your stomach is now.

Level 80 (Non-Cheese) Meal: (arrows indicate changes in this update; no arrow means no change)

• Out-of-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 273
  
• Out-of-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 222
  
• In-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 48
  
• In-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 32
  
• Metabolism Regen (per tick): 5 -> 6
  
• Max-Health Boost: 0 -> 160
  
• Max-Power Boost: 0
  

Level 80 (Non-Cheese) Snack:

• Out-of-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 273 -> 193
  
• Out-of-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 160
  
• In-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 32
  
• In-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 32 -> 48
  
• Metabolism Regen (per tick): 0 -> 2
  
• Max-Health Boost: 160 -> 0
  
• Max-Power Boost: 80
  

Level 80 Cheese Meal:

• Out-of-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 273
  
• Out-of-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 222
  
• In-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 48 -> 80
  
• In-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 48
  
• Metabolism Regen (per tick): 5 -> 3
  
• Max-Health Boost: 113 -> 220
  
• Max-Power Boost: 0
  

Level 80 Cheese Snack:

• Out-of-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 273 -> 193
  
• Out-of-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 268 -> 160
  
• In-Combat Health Regen (per tick): 32
  
• In-Combat Power Regen (per tick): 48 -> 64
  
• Metabolism Regen (per tick): 0
  
• Max-Health Boost: 160 -> 80
  
• Max-Power Boost: 160
  

Other Changes:

• Items removed from storage vaults now auto-stack with compatible items in your inventory
  
• Fixed bug that prevented carrots from receiving garden bonuses during carrot-specific events
  
• Fixed a Deer combat particle that played at full volume no matter how far away you were from the Deer player
  
• Spriggan Nuts now stack (to 99)
  
• Treasure effect "Stun Trap reuse timer is N seconds faster" was bugged (it actually lowered Power cost by N instead of reset time)
  
• Treasure effect "Lethal Force deals +N damage and reuse time is -3 seconds" was also bugged in the same way (it lowered Power cost instead of reset time)
  
• Treasure effect "Stun Trap deals +N damage, and there's a 50% chance you'll place an extra trap" was bugged and never generated an extra trap
  
• Iceheart Sustenance Oil counts as a Max-Health potion for gifting purposes
  
• The Sacred Grotto is now marked as a cave for craft purposes
  
• Meat-eaters in the Sacred Grotto are now a little more aware of what's being stored by their fellow Wardens
  

This is a minor bug-fix patch:

• Fixed bug that prevented the "fireworks" particles from playing when you level up a skill
  
• Fixed a bug in the favor quest "Checking in on Trekker"; the quest incorrectly had you checking in on a different NPC. The quest's version has changed, so if you were on the quest, you will need to re-get it from Tangle. (If you already completed it, you don't need to complete it again.)
  
• Some tiers of Masquerade Masks and Bat Hats were misnamed, using the wrong descriptive adjective. (In most cases, they skipped over the adjective "Quality".) So the "Decent Masquerade Mask" became "Nice Masquerade Mask", "Great Masquerade Mask" became "Quality Masquerade Mask", etc. This was a naming fix only, the stats on all the items are unaffected.
  
• Warden ability "Privacy Field" did not cause as much damage as indicated. (The ability's base reflect damage was not included, although treasure bonuses worked.)
  
• Certain skeletons in the fae realm didn't count toward the Halloween quest "Kill Skeletons in the Fae Realm"
  
• Fixed erroneous error messages when using Giant Bat's Confusing Double or Warden's Stun Trap
  
• Milton only liked green peppers; he now also likes red peppers
  
• Tangle didn't show a Favor progress bar
  
• Added a level-80 Event Loot Chest (it's behind the Serbule inn, with the other Event Loot Chests)
  
• Fixed some exploitable scenarios involving flight
  
• When a Rakshasa who is under the influence of Telka's Teeth turns into an animal, the positive benefits of the drug are immediately aborted (loophole fix)
  
• The "Dye Placeholder" NPC is now completely gone, and Larsan in Serbule has graciously volunteered to be the Dye Making trainer for now. He teaches the skill at Comfortable favor level (still requiring Gardening 25). He also trains various dye recipes when you reach higher favor levels with him.
  
• Fixed bugs in the chat window where the chat-channel indicator could show the wrong channel. This bug mainly showed up when deleting partially-typed chat commands. For instance, if you typed a command like "/r hi" (to reply to someone) but then deleted that text without actually sending it, the chat-channel indicator would keep showing the Tell channel, but the next message you typed could be sent to some other chat channel. We've fixed this bug and some related bugs. If you run into any other situations where the chat-channel indicator is wrong, please let us know!
  
• Fixed name of Calligraphy recipe "Goblin+" to "Mangle+"
  
• Various typos and small issues addressed
  

Happy Halloween! The Halloween event has begun! You will receive a quest when you log in to get you started.

There's also some fun new stuff for animals in this update. Animals, if you're friends with the Suspicious Cow in Eltibule, Norbert in Sun Vale, or Red in Kur Mountains you should pay them a visit. Plus, the Giant Bat skill has gotten a major makeover.

• The Serbule work order sign has been moved from the docks to Serbule Keep itself, near the player work-order sign. (You still turn in completed work orders on the docks)
  
• The "Dye Placeholder" in Eltibule has sailed off to the east. (His clone, also named "Dye Placeholder", continues to live in Serbule.)
  
• For new players, Lawara's chest has a few partially-random items in it when first opened. (Bug fix.) (This is not retroactive; if you've already opened the chest, its contents are unchanged!)
  
• When you right-click an inventory item and choose "More Info", there is new information shown. The "Find" tab now lists vendors who sell the item in their "Buy New" tab, and barterers who trade for the item in their "Barter" area. This only lists permanent ways to obtain the item, so it can't search the "Used" tab of vendors, nor does it search player-hired vendors, etc. But if you've ever wondered "which vendor in town sells nails?" you can now check under More Info.
  
• Jesina the Fairy no longer sells strawberries. (Once strawberries could only be found in loot, so Jesina was an expensive alternative... but now that strawberry bushes exist, this is no longer needed.)
  
• Missing level 74 Deer ability "Cuteness Overload 5" can now be learned from Noita the Green
  
• Missing level 75 Necromancy ability "Raise Skeleton Mage 6" can now be learned from Bendith the Banished
  
• AI tweak: pets summoned during combat now figure out what's going on slightly faster. (Previously they would sometimes need a few seconds before joining a fight already in progress.)
  
• Fixed erroneous message "Error: you can only use that ability on yourself!" that was sometimes shown when a Combat Refresh triggered
  
• Some modest changes to spawn locations in Kur (more monsters in the northeast corner, and more yetis east of the Yeti cave entrance)
  
• Giant Beetles now have a small chance to drop food Beetles as bonus loot. (There are other ways to obtain beetles during Halloween, but this is a permanent way to obtain a small number of them year-round)
  
• New Rabbit treasure effect (Hands and Main-Hand Weapons): "While Rabbit skill is active, any Kick ability boosts Melee Evasion +6.5% for 10 seconds"
  
• Recipe "Amazing First Aid Kit (Combo Method)" no longer has a prerequisite to know "Amazing First Aid Kit", as they are for different skills
  
• Recipe "Astounding First Aid Kit (Combo Method)" now has a prerequisite of " Amazing First Aid Kit (Combo Method)", not "Amazing First Aid Kit", as they are for different skills
  
• Sour Cream now stacks to 5
  
• Bottles of Sugar Water now stack to 5
  
• The "Icy Feet" debuff used by Battle Chemistry's Toxin Bomb was intended to reduce movement speed by 75% (as indicated in effect description), but actually reduced it by 100%. "Icy Feet" is also used by various monsters and traps, so the fix applies there as well
  

This skill had a lot of abilities with different damage types (piercing, slashing, darkness, nature, electricity), and treasure that involved yet more damage types (mostly trauma). This wide spread of damage types meant Giant Bat could take advantage of a lot of different monster weaknesses, but made it difficult to "stack" damage-type buffs. We think the "sweet spot" is a little smaller, so we've consolidated some of these, and also added a bit more treasure that can change damage types.

Ability category changes:
We've also had to reorganize the skill's ability tags (e.g. Core Attack, Nice Attack, etc.) This has several effects -- most obviously, things that affect a certain category will benefit different abilities. But these changes also change the "treasure budget" for these abilities. For example, Smouldering Gaze switched from a Nice Attack to an Epic Attack, allowing the loot to be more powerful. (This also has down sides, notably Power cost increases.)

• Tear: Core Attack. (Was nothing special)
  
• Screech: Was a Core Attack; now a Nice Attack.
  
• Virulent Bite: Wasn't in a category before; now a Signature Debuff
  
• Smouldering Gaze: Was a Nice attack; now an Epic Attack. In addition, this ability has been renamed. (See below.)
  

Ability Changes

• Drink Blood now deals a moderate amount of direct-health damage, in addition to draining health. (The bite is Piercing damage, and the health-drain effect is still a Darkness attack, meaning that undead are immune to that part.)
  
• Drink Blood 8 now steals 84 health instead of 68 health. (Bug fix.)
  
• Screech became a Nice Attack, which involved stat-changes: reset time is now 10s instead of 9s; base damage is increased (e.g. 289 damage is now 401 damage); Power cost is increased (e.g. 47 instead of 33); all treasure rebalanced.
  
• Smouldering Gaze became an Epic Attack named Deathscream, which involved stat-changes: base damage is increased (827 instead of 588); Power cost is increased (87 instead of 68); all treasure rebalanced. Damage type is now Nature instead of Electricity.
  

Treasure Changes

• "Drink Blood deals 96 damage over 12 seconds, and 50% of the damage becomes health for you" => all of the damage becomes health for you. This is now Darkness damage (not Trauma).
  
• "Drink Blood restores 19 Power and 19 Armor" => "Drink Blood costs -27 Power"
  
• "Screech Deals 127 armor damage" => "Screech Damage +122"
  
• "Screech Damage +47%" => +41%
  
• "Screech has a 60% chance to deal +108% damage" => 60% damage to deal +90% damage
  
• "Tear deals +70 damage and restores 20 Armor to you" => "Tear and Virulent Boost deal +85 damage"
  
• "Rip damage +27" => "Rip deals +34 damage and restores 11 Power"
  
• "Rip has a 50% chance to deal +68 damage" => " Rip has a 50% chance to restore
  
• "Rip has a 50% chance to restore 20 Power" => "Rip restores 20 Armor"
  
• "Bat Stability restores 100 Armor and 16 Power" => "Bat Stability restores 145 Armor"
  
• "Confusing Double Reset Time -11 seconds" -> -13 seconds, and is available on a second slot (necklace).
  
• "Confusing Double restores 71 Power after a 10-second delay" => 112 Power after a 10-second delay
  
• "Confusing Double restores 90 Health" => 123 Health
  
• "Smouldering Gaze damage type is changed to Nature. 7 seconds after use, it deals 384 additional damage" => "Deathscream deals an additional 594 Trauma damage over 12 seconds"
  
• "Sonic Burst has a 60% chance to deal +60% damage to all targets" => "60% chance to deal +100% damage"
  
• "Combo: Rip+Tear+Any Melee+Rip: final step hits all targets within 5 meters and deals +85 damage" => Combo is now Rip+Any Melee+Any Giant Bat Attack+Tear. Also, this effect was previously found on both Feet and Necklace gear. It is now only found on Feet gear; necklaces with this effect have become Legacy.
  
• "Combo: Screech+Any Melee+Any Melee+Virulent Bite: final step stuns the target and deals +100 damage" => Combo is now Screech+Any Giant Bat Attack+Any Melee+Virulent Bite.
  

New Treasure

• Legs, Ring: "Your Confusing Double deals +55% damage with each attack"
  
• Main-Hand, Necklace: "Confusing Double summons an additional figment. Each figment deals +61 damage with each attack"
  
• Hands: "Rip and Tear deal +33 damage and hasten the current reuse timer of Drink Blood by 1 second"
  
• Chest: "Deathscream deals +45% damage and Power cost is -32, but the ability's range is reduced to 12m"
  
• Main-Hand, Off-Hand: "Screech, Sonic Burst, and Deathscream deal 256 Nature damage over 8 seconds"
  
• Off-Hand, Ring: "Sonic Burst deals 210 Trauma damage over 12 seconds"
  
• Main-Hand, Off-Hand: "Screech deals 240 Trauma damage over 12 seconds"
  
• Chest, Necklace: "Indirect Trauma Damage +57% when Giant Bat skill active"
  
• Off-Hand: "If Screech, Sonic Burst, or Deathscream deal Trauma damage, that damage is boosted +75% per tick"
  

This update brings a smorgasbord of new mechanics, new content, tweaks and fixes. The Fae Realm gets some more polish, there are new recipes and new treasure effects to check out, armor sets are a thing (sort of), and lots more. So let's get to it!


In this update we focused on providing players with more survivability options, and one part of the game that wasn't pulling its weight (in terms of importance to players) is the Combat Refresh.

Every 15 seconds, your Basic Attack triggers a "Combat Refresh" that restores extra health, armor, and/or power. The amount you recover is partially based on the level of your Basic Attack, but the biggest increases come from your armor: every piece of armor increases the health, armor, and/or power recovered from a Combat Refresh. The amounts are based on the material the armor's made of: cloth, leather, metal, or organic. In this update, we've boosted these numbers quite a lot.

For purposes of comparing old to new values, we'll imagine a hypothetical set of level 80 armor of each material. First we list how much this hypothetical set added to your Combat Refresh before this update, then we list the new amounts for this update.
Cloth:

• Old: 96 health, 144 power
  
• New: 320 health, 280 power
  

Leather:

• Old: 160 health, 48 power
  
• New: 240 health, 240 armor, 96 power
  

Plate:

• Old: 60 armor
  
• New: 320 armor
  

Organic:

• Old: 36 health, 36 armor, 36 power
  
• New: 96 health, 96 armor, 96 power
  

Just to make sure it's clear: your armor doesn't need to all be made of the same material to get Combat Refresh bonuses! We're just using the "full suit" numbers to make it easier to understand what's changed. Each individual piece of armor adds a portion of the above numbers to your Combat Refresh, so if you're wearing a mixture of different materials, your total Combat Refresh bonus will be a mixture of the numbers shown above.

But what if you ARE wearing a full suit made of the same material? In that case, see below...


In this update, we're experimenting with bonuses for players who wear all (or mostly all) of the same type of armor. There are five main armor slots: head, chest, legs, feet, and hands. If at least three of these are made of the same material (cloth, leather, metal, or organic), your Basic Attack has a special bonus:

• 3+ Cloth Items: If your power is below 20% of max, your Basic Attack restores Power equal to 20% of your Max Power. (Max once per minute.)
  
• 3+ Leather Items: If your health is below 33% of max, your Basic Attack restores Health equal to 33% of your Max Health, plus your Combat Refresh Healing amount. (Max once per minute.)
  
• 3+ Plate Items: If you are out of armor (below 10% of max), your Basic Attack restores Armor equal to Combat Refresh Armor amount. (Max once per minute.)
  
• 3+ Organic Items: Your Combat Refresh happens every 12 seconds (instead of every 15 seconds).
  

The game doesn't tell you about these set bonuses anywhere at the moment -- so it's a good thing you read these patch notes! Once you have enough pieces for the bonus, the bonus shows up on the ability description for your Basic Attack like normal, but nothing in the game tells you that wearing 3 pieces of same-material gear will give you that bonus. This reflects the fact that this system is extremely experimental and may be removed or dramatically altered. Keep that in mind as you try it out, and tell us what you think about it!


In this update we worked to improve skill-agnostic (a/k/a "generic") treasure effects. We've added new treasure effects, mostly focusing on defensive and support options that can be easily worked into existing skill builds.

It may be worthwhile to check the ability tags on the skills you use, because sometimes the categorization can be surprising. For instance, the Deer skill's Minor Heal is also an attack; Battle Chemistry's Major Heal is an area-effect group heal; the sidebar ability First Aid is a Major Heal; almost all combat skills have a Signature Debuff, even if they're not particularly debuffy; etc. Due to the diverse nature of these abilities, in a few cases the treasure won't be useful to a particular skill -- for instance, Mentalism's Signature Debuff deals no direct damage, so the treasure that boosts Signature Debuff damage by +25% isn't helpful. (But the armor-damage still applies.)

The numbers shown below are for the level 80 version of each effect:

• Main-Hand: "Core Attacks deal +32 damage and hasten your current Combat Refresh delay by 1 second"
  
• Main-Hand: "Basic Attacks restore 12 Power"
  
• Off-Hand: " Nice Attacks deal +64 damage and hasten your current Combat Refresh delay by 1 second"
  
• Head: "Nice Attacks deal +40 damage and cause the target's next Rage Attack to deal -25% damage (debuff cannot stack with itself)"
  
• Head: "Major Healing abilities also restore 112 Armor"
  
• Hands: "Signature Support abilities restore 80 Armor to all allies within 20 meters"
  
• Chest: "Major Healing abilities restore +78 Health"
  
• Chest, Waist: " Signature Debuffs deal +80 damage and restore 96 Armor to you after a 10-second delay"
  
• Legs, Off-Hand: "Minor Heals restore 71 Armor"
  
• Legs, Feet: "Major Healing abilities have a 65% chance to restore an additional 152 Health"
  
• Feet: "Core Attacks deal +41 damage and reduce the Power cost of your next Minor Heal ability by -22"
  
• Necklace: "Signature Debuffs deal +25% damage and also deal 108 Armor damage"
  
• Ring: "Minor Heals restore +33 Health and reduce the damage of the next attack that hits the target by 20%"
  
• Ring: "Signature Support abilities restore 32 Power to all allies within 20 meters"
  

In addition, we tweaked the potency of some existing generic treasure effects and added level 80 versions of some effects that didn't have any. Notable changes include:

• "Patch Armor restores +77 Armor" => +110 Armor
  
• "First Aid restores +55 Health" => +74 Health
  

Mentalism didn't receive the full "revamp" treatment in this update: we experimented with some new ideas, but they haven't panned out so far. But there were a number of buffs and revisions.
Abilities:

• Electrify is no longer taught by Mu. Instead, mentalists automatically learn the first two tiers (at levels 22 and 36), and the next tiers are trained by Rohina in Sun Vale, with the highest tier (Electrify 5) trained by Raina in the Fae Realm.
  
• Armor Wave now restores armor every 3 seconds (instead of every 4 seconds), effectively boosting armor restoration by 25%.
  
• Power Wave now restores power every 8 seconds (instead of every 10 seconds), effectively boosting power restoration by 20%.
  
• "Psi Armor Wave 6" now restores 18 armor/tick instead of 15 armor/tick. (This effect was bugged and used the value for Armor Wave 5.)
  

Treasure effects:

• "Psi Armor Wave and Psi Adrenaline Wave restore 90 armor to all targets after a 25 second delay" => 158 armor
  
• "Psi Health Wave and Psi Armor Wave instantly restore 76 armor to you" => 84 armor
  
• "Psi Power Wave and Psi Adrenaline Wave restore 34 power to all targets after a 25 second delay" => 54 power
  
• "Psi Power Wave and Psi Armor Wave cause all targets' melee attacks to cost -6 Power for 20 seconds" => -8 power. (This effect was bugged and the level 60 variant was used for levels 70 and 80 as well.)
  
• "Psi Health Wave, Armor Wave, and Power Wave grant all targets +6 Psychic Damage for 60 seconds" => +42 psychic damage
  
• "Psi Power Wave instantly restores 28 power to all targets" => 31 power
  
• "Psi Power Wave and Psi Adrenaline Wave instantly restore 26 power to you" => 32 power
  
• "Revitalize restores +20 Health and removes ongoing Trauma effects (up to 22 dmg/sec)" => (up to 26 dmg/sec)
  

One thing that the in-game text doesn't do a good job of explaining is that most of Mentalism's heals, including the health/armor/power waves, are subject to phrenological "critical heals". This works similarly to phrenological "critical hits" for damage: if you're healing an elven player and your Elf Phrenology skill is 50, you have an 8% chance to "critically heal" that player. (Note that this applies to Psychology's heals as well!)

By default a critical heal increases the healing by 25%, but treasure effects can boost this number very dramatically. Since every "tick" has a separate chance to critically-heal, high-level Mentalists who use stacked Healing Waves (for instance) will see a big improvement to their total group healing by using gear with "Psychology/Mentalism Critical Hit Damage +X% when skill Mentalism active". (And, of course, by raising their phrenology skills to 50.)

We're considering replacing this system with something that's more intuitive... and a little easier to balance. The current system doesn't do anything at low level, when you probably haven't even discovered Phrenology, and yet by very high level, it starts to become too powerful. (In fact, this is one of the reasons we've held off on raising Phrenology skills above level 50.) So it's possible this entire system will change, but that's how it works right now!


We've fixed a bunch of bugs and made some tweaks to content in the Fae Realm. We have more content in the works for the area in future updates, and we're still actively evaluating and tweaking the combat and training details, so please keep sending in the feedback and bug reports!

• Lethargy Puck's warning screen was not reliably activating.
  
• Fixed recipes for "Dinobites" and "Rustic Meatsterpiece" to use the type of dinosaur meat found in the Fae Realm.
  
• Changed pear and peach trees to drop higher-tier wood; this also increases the level requirements to chop the wood.
  
• Increased the number of special lootable items that spawn only during the day or only during the night (such as certain butterflies, flowers, and mushrooms). There are now 300% to 400% as many of these items in existence at any given moment. This is largely a "bulk" change, and more individual tweaking is likely needed. Play with it for a while and if something seems excessively common or extremely rare, please let us know!
  
• Dramatically increased the chance to find rare level 80 recipe scrolls. (They're still pretty rare, but this fixes a bug that made them INSANELY rare.)
  
• Trolls' auto-healing has been nerfed a bit. (This applies to trolls in all areas.)
  

In addition, there is a new work order board near Solgribue's work station. The NPC who accepts completed orders is not in town, however -- he appears during nighttime at the second mushroom circle.

Carpentry:

• Solgribue now trains Carpentry levels 71-80, along with recipes for various carpentry items.
  
• Jara in Serbule no longer trains recipes for chairs. (They were already also trained by Paul Vaughn in Serbule Hills.)
  
• A couple of high-level Carpentry recipes that were taught by Jara and Paul Vaughn are now taught by Amutasa in Rahu.
  

Mining:

• Urzab now raises the level cap for Surveying and Mining to 70, and has new recipes for motherlodes in Gazluk.
  
• The new resource "Semi-Real Hassium" can be found as a rarely-occurring resource all throughout Gazluk, and can also be bartered for with Fluffikins.
  
• Fluffikins now has identical barters for both glowy yellow crystals AND safety-coated glowy yellow crystals.
  
• Awesome Metal Slabs are now called Superb Metal Slabs. (We are renaming "Awesome" items to "Superb" because we have too many other descriptors that start with "A"!)
  
• Superb Metal Slabs can now be located outdoors in Gazluk or in various Gazluk caves (albeit quite rarely).
  
• Removed physics from motherlodes so that you cannot get stuck inside them when they spawn.
  
• "Expert Metal Nodes" can no longer be found randomly spawning in Gazluk or associated caves. (They are junk metal at that level, and there's already enough junk spawning.)
  

Other: More recipe-book cash values have been normalized (in this case, generally making rare recipe books more valuable).
Added right-click shortcuts to turn animal skins into leather rolls (assuming you know the appropriate Tanning recipe).
A new rare-drop recipe allows you to combine gold nuggets into gold ore.
Solgribue has a new blacksmithing recipe to melt golden acorns.
Solgribue has a new ring-crafting recipe available.
Solgribue has new blacksmithing recipes to add pockets to metal and organic armor.
Added new code to prevent items that enable Necromancy from randomly having Priest treasure effects, or vice versa.
UI: When you right-click the sidebar and choose "Choose Special Abilities", the ability list previously only showed abilities that can ONLY be on the sidebar (such as, say, Dig Deep). But there are other abilities that can OPTIONALLY be on the sidebar, such as Raise Skeletal Archer or Hunter's Stride. Now when you right-click the sidebar and choose "Choose Special Abilities", these abilities are now listed, too. (These abilities are also listed under their specific skill, as before.)
Nightshade now trains a new recipe to augment wands. This recipe can augment the only two wands in the game, "The Galvanizer" and the Fairy Wand of Cold. (We're still in the process of figuring out how wands will work and how they differ from the staves; these wands are prototypes.) Previously neither of them could be augmented.
Added "acidic shield-wax" recipes to Armor Patching trainers: Tyler Green, Arlan, and Pegast. These were intended to be added last update, but weren't, so now they are.

A new explorable area has been added to the game! It's for those hardy adventurers who can already survive the dangers of Gazluk. Being another plane of existence, it's not especially easy to reach. There is an entry method via the Winter Nexus dungeon, and there is also a way in via one of the caves in Gazluk.

This area is a work in progress -- it will eventually also be the starting location for the playable fairy race, so you'll notice a few empty shop stalls, some suspiciously empty ruins, etc., which will be filled in later.

(There's other things to discover, but we've stayed deliberately vague in these update notes to avoid spoilers for those of you who want to explore the new area fresh.)

IMPORTANT: Given the sheer number of things added in this update, the odds of bugs are pretty high. Please report bugs ASAP so that we can triage and fix them quickly! If serious issues arise, we'll do another update within a day or two. Thank you for helping to beta-test Project: Gorgon!

We also need your feedback about the new area's difficulty, both in terms of soloing and group content. We've experimented with different monster densities, monster-listening ranges, and monster varieties. It could be we got it just right on our very first try... but we probably didn't. Your feedback will be very important!


We try to revise a combat skill in each major update, and this time around it's Shield. Normally we'd use this time to refine the balance of the skill, but Shield was in a relatively good place balance-wise. Instead, we're trying to inject more fun. The Shield skill was already extremely good at keeping players alive, but much of the treasure felt dull. Shield has a lot more potential to be exciting and engaging!

So in this update, we've experimented with a bunch of new treasure effects, just to see how they play. Most of the new effects replace existing treasure that's been underused by players.

Since these changes are more experimental than usual, they run a higher-than-normal risk of needing to be nerfed later if we overshot the mark, or being replaced entirely if they just don't work out. Your feedback is important in helping us shape the skill! Seriously! We don't hear a lot about the Shield skill, and when we don't hear from you then there's always the danger that something you love could get scrapped. If you play with this stuff and find something to be really fun or really annoying, let us know on the forums or in-game feedback.


Armor Repair is the Shield skill's "auxiliary skill", much like Calligraphy is for Sword, or Meditation for Unarmed. There are new Armor Repair recipes that allow you to enhance your shield in a few ways. Tyler Green teaches the basic shield wax recipes. (And if you're wondering why there's a bunch of Acid-buffing gear, it's because of the new acid-based Shield Wax recipes.)

• "Vigorous Defense restores 85 Health" => "Vigorous Defense restores +48 Power"
  
• "Infuriating Bash deals +40% damage and taunts +330" => +36% damage (This was a spreadsheet error; the low-level versions are stronger but the high level is a little lower.)
  
• "Fight Me You Fools and Finish It boost Core Attack Damage +146 for 6 seconds" => +200 Core Attack Damage
  
• "Shield Team causes all targets' Survival Utility abilities to restore 64 Armor to them. Lasts 20 seconds" => 100 Armor
  
• Replaced (Hands): "Reinforce Power Cost -32" => "When you are hit by an attack, all Shield abilities taunt +182 for 20 seconds (stacks up to 15 times)"
  
• Replaced (Chest, Off Hand): "Stunning Bash restores 35 Health" => "When you are hit by a monster's Rage Attack, the current reuse timer of Stunning Bash is reduced by 1 sec and your next Stunning Bash deals +80 damage (stacks up to 10 times)"
  
• Replaced (Ring): " Fight Me You Fools grants you 33% damage reflection for 10 seconds" => "All Shield Bash Abilities deal +50 damage and hasten the current reuse timer of Fight Me You Fools by 2 seconds"
  
• Replaced (Chest, Off Hand): "Fire Shield and Elemental Ward restore 57 Armor" => "Elemental Ward boosts your direct and indirect Electricity damage +40 for 30 seconds"
  
• Replaced (Legs): "Strategic Preparation hastens the current reset timer of Emergency Bash by 10 seconds" => "Strategic Preparation boosts your Indirect Acid Damage +25% for 20 seconds"
  
• Replaced (Off Hand, Ring): "Strategic Preparation boosts your in-combat Health regeneration +18 for 20 seconds" => "Strategic Preparation causes your next attack to deal +130 damage if it is a Crushing, Slashing, or Piercing attack"
  
• New (Main Hand): "When you are hit by an attack, Finish It damage is +64 for 20 seconds (stacks up to 10 times)"
  
• New (Hands): "All Shield Bash Abilities deal +50 damage and hasten the current reuse timer of Finish It by 2 seconds"
  
• New (Head, Legs): "When you are hit by a monster's Rage Attack, Reinforce restores +42 Armor for 60 seconds (stacks up to 10 times)"
  
• New (Off Hand, Necklace): "Infuriating Bash deals +48 damage and boosts your Indirect Acid Damage +54 for 7 seconds"
  

In addition, there is one Shield ability change:

• Elemental Ward: Power cost has increased, and the first tier of the ability lasts 9 seconds (instead of 10). Second tier lasts 10 seconds (unchanged); there is a new third tier of the ability taught by Gorvessa that requires level 55 and lasts 11 seconds.
  

All combat skills can now be raised to level 80 (plus bonus levels). Additionally, many auxiliary-combat skills and non-combat skills have higher level caps. Most of these caps can be raised by training with the fairies of the Fae Realm.

Fae Realm trainers require a substance called Royal Jelly in addition to cash. For the most expensive training, this pricing works in players' benefit: e.g. instead of charging 500,000 Councils to raise a combat skill level-cap, they charge 400,000 Councils and 3 Royal Jelly -- and 3 Royal Jelly is easier to come by than 100k councils. However, in other cases the fairies have simply added a Royal Jelly cost without significantly reducing the cash cost.

We have explained to the fae that this is not how prices are expected to work, but fairies are ancient, stubborn creatures who are immune to Haggling. They insist that "mortals will be fine" and "this Royal Jelly is really important" and "you need to stop being so greedy, human".

We will continue to monitor the cost issues, but our advice for high-level players is to carefully choose your training priorities. Of course, you were doing that already.

Some NPC trainers already taught abilities in the mid-70s level range. These abilities are now learned via new 70-80 trainers in the fae realm. The NPCs continue to train them also, but the favor requirement is Soul Mates, which is extremely difficult to achieve. The design intent is that any ability training that requires Soul Mates can also be learned from some other method.

Other level cap increases:

• Foraging level cap can now be raised to 70 by Jesina in Eltibule.
  
• Ashk in Rahu can now raise the level cap of Pathology to 70.
  
• Nishika and Rugen in Rahu can now raise the level cap of Skinning to 70.
  
• Nishika and Rugen in Rahu can now raise the level cap of Butchering to 70.
  
• Jake the Buckler in Sun Vale can now raise the level cap of Buckle Artistry to 60.
  

• You earn a bonus level of Lycanthropy when reaching Howling level 25.
  
• You earn a bonus level of Spider when reaching Animal Handling 50, Arthropod Anatomy 41, or Survival Instincts 37.
  
• Fire Magic now grants bonus Fire Mitigation into higher levels. (Previously the final bonus point was at level 45.)
  
• You now gain bonus levels of Sushi Preparation at Fishing 55 and Knife 60.
  
• You now gain bonus levels of Armor Patching when reaching Blacksmithing 50, First Aid 25, Endurance 20, Anatomy 20, Anatomy 40, and Toolcrafting 35. (This is in addition to the previously-existing bonus level at Blacksmithing 35.)
  
• Players earn an additional bonus level of Leatherworking when reaching Tanning 60.
  

• Fletching: Some fletching recipes have new requirements. You learn the recipe for Precision Fletchings automatically at level 50 Fletching. (If you are already that level, it will be in your recipe list when you log in.) This recipe creates the feathery bits for Amazing and Astonishing arrows; some of the types of Amazing arrows already existed and those have had their recipe changed accordingly.
  
• Mittens now teaches Toxic Flesh 8 at Soul Mates; it can also be learned in the Fae Realm.
  
• Some of the very-high-level cheese recipes that Braigon previously taught have been moved to a different trainer.
  
• The level 66 hammer ability Rib Shatter 5 was missing from the game; it is now trained by Falkrin Overstrike.
  
• Furlak no longer trains Knee Kick 5 or 6. (Knee Kick and Jab are alternate powers that are only learnable from loot scrolls.)
  

Previously, you received +1 Max Power for each level above 50 in your active combat skills. You now receive a point every other level in the 50s, then receive no further Max Power increases after level 60. For a player with two level 70 combat skills, this amounts to a change of -30 Max Power in total, counting both skills.
Most animal-form skills (except werewolf and bat) are a special case: they use a different power advancement curve, and their Max Power starts dropping off in the 60s instead of the 50s.

• Lycanthropy now grants bonus Max Health into higher levels. (At low levels it gives an average of 2.5 Max Health per level, but previously it changed to 2-per-level after level 60. It now gives an average of 2.5 at all levels.)
  
• Previously, the Pig, Spider, and Rabbit skills gave slightly more Max Health and less Max Power than normal combat skills (following the "tanky" pattern of the Lycanthropy skill), but this doesn't really fit the nature of those skills very well, so they now gain max health and max power at the regular rate. (Total change is +10 power and -15 health at level 50.)
  
• The Cow and Deer skills now give slightly more Max Health than before (a total of +15 Max Health at level 50).
  

When you complete a recipe that is significantly lower than your skill level, you will now earn less than the full XP for that recipe. This is a pretty gradual process: for most recipes, the XP doesn't drop to 0 until your skill level is more than 50 levels above the recipe's level.

The Recipe window now shows you how much XP you'll earn for repeat completions. (Note that this number doesn't include weird one-off XP awards, such as the Teleportation XP bonus for binding to a new teleport spot -- it just shows the basic XP earned from the recipe.)

Not all recipes work this way because it just doesn't make sense in some cases. And a few recipes have slightly different drop-off rates. The intent isn't to make it super-hard to level up, just to push players away from using way-too-easy recipes at very high levels. If you feel a skill is now much too hard to level up (perhaps because of a lack of recipes in a particular level range), please let us know so we can address it!

This doesn't apply to the first-time use of a recipe, which intentionally awards a large bonus. That large bonus is always the same regardless of your skill level.

• Most abilities cost a bit more Power at very high level. A typical level 70 ability costs 1-4 more Power than before. The most dramatic change can be seen in the Epic Attacks; for example, Decapitate 5 (the level 72 Sword Epic Attack) previously cost 72 Power, and now costs 80 Power.
  
• Animal Handling: "Sic 'Em" ability boosts the pet's speed and damage for a few seconds, but the in-game description was bugged and the damage bonus wasn't shown.
  
• Animal Handling: Feed Pet/That'll Do: minor reduction to heal amounts at high level. (formula fix)
  
• Archery: Multishot 5 consumes 5x Amazing Arrows (instead of 5x Masterwork Arrows).
  
• Archery: Blitz Shot 3, 4, and 5 each consumed an arrow that was one tier lower than intended for that level.
  
• Armor Patching: Levels 2-6 restored more armor than they said they would. This has been fixed to match ability description.
  
• Battle Chemistry: Several tiers of Summon Minigolem summoned a golem with lower-than-intended health/armor/rage stats.
  
• Cold Magic: The description of Ice Armor indicated that it reduced movement speed by 33%, but actually reduced by 25%. The ability description was incorrect and has been fixed.
  
• Druid: Healing Sanctuary 5 restores 55 per tick instead of 60 per tick. (data fix)
  
• Druid: Energize 2 and 3 restored 20 Health more than indicated in the ability description. (data fix)
  
• Fletching: Recipe for Amazing Snare Arrows now consumes Expert Wood Glue instead of Advanced Wood Glue.
  
• Fletching: Recipe for Precision Fletching now consumes Expert Wood Glue instead of Advanced Wood Glue.
  
• Hammer: Way of the Hammer 2 and 3 did not buff crushing damage by as much as listed in the ability description.
  
• Knife: The description of Hamstring Throw indicated that it lasted 5 seconds at all levels, but high-level versions last up to 10 seconds. The ability description was incorrect and has been fixed.
  
• Pig: "Grunt of Abeyance" ability has a stronger innate heal. (formula change)
  
• Rabbit: Carrot Power indicated that it consumes 1 carrot, but actually there is only a 33% chance of consumption. The ability description was incorrect and has been fixed.
  
• Staff: Blocking Stance 3 now mitigates 35% of all damage (reduced from 40%).
  
• Staff: Phoenix Strike now causes melee attackers to suffer significantly more fire damage (more than double the previous values).
  
• Survival Instincts: All tiers of Toxic Flesh are now more potent (dealing about 2x more damage to melee damagers). Ability has been changed slightly: it now harms "melee damagers" instead of "melee attackers". This means the attacker must do at least 1 point of damage to you in order to qualify. (This is not normally a problem.)
  

Trade Window

• Fixed errant gold icon floating in middle of window.
  
• Made the green "accepted" overlay click-through-able; this has the important benefit of letting you mouse over the items and see their tooltips. (Previously the green overlay prevented the tooltips from showing up.)
  
• Fixed race-conditions that could cause the trade window to get out of sync, making the trade incompletable and requiring players to start the trade over.
  

Monster Vulnerabilities
Note that only changes are listed here, not full vulnerability/resistance lists.

• Summer and Autumn fairies are now vulnerable to darkness but not psychic.
  
• Giant scorpions are now vulnerable to darkness.
  
• Hippogriffs are now vulnerable to darkness.
  
• Gargoyles are now vulnerable to acid.
  
• Hippos are now vulnerable to acid.
  
• Treants are now resistant to trauma and psychic, but vulnerable to darkness and acid.
  

Misc

• Pet AI tweak: Pets in Assist and Defend mode ignore 75% of the aggro they would normally generate due to attackers hitting them. This is to ensure that pets continue to assist/defend you even when being attacked by other foes. (This also applies to mini-golem AI.)
  
• Notoriety: raising Notoriety above level 50 now has stat rewards.
  
• The previous update notes said that some orcs now have bonus Accuracy, but due to an error this change didn't actually make it into the game until now.
  
• The chance for monsters to drop "Telka's Teeth" items has been lowered dramatically. (The chance is approx. 1/4th of its previous chances in desert rakshasa junk loot, and approx. 1/10th of previous drop rate in war caches specifically focused on Telka's Teeth.)
  
• Fixed bugs with the guild quest "Fox Outpost (25-person)". If your guild was actively on this quest, you will need to re-obtain it.
  
• Borghild: Fixed some spawn-positions for loot items and acid sigils; they spawned on shelves where they could not be interacted with.
  
• The cash value of recipe books (found in loot) now follows a simple formula instead of being completely arbitrary. Some scrolls are worth more than before, some less.
  
• NPCs who like "artwork" (Sir Coth, Lawara, Eveline Rastin) considered poetry books to be about twice as nice a gift as intended. This has been fixed.
  
• Lemon shaved ice requires 1 fewer lemons; banana shaved ice requires 1 fewer bananas.
  
• You cannot read Timothy Elerimon's hoplology book while in combat.
  
• With the advent of more fae creatures in the game, Hiral no longer sells Pixie Sugar. (He sold it at an astronomical +2,000% markup anyway.)
  
• Several recipes that incorporated venison were not marked as containing deer meat in the final dish.
  
• Fixed texture problems with Spring Fairy Boots.
  
• Lakrea's Holistic Wellness quests now give better rewards, thanks to a grant from the Redwing Fund for Biped Wellness.