Project: Gorgon News

Welcome to update #383! Today we have some more tweaks and additions that expand upon the major changes we made in the last update. Plus, as usual, a bunch of bug fixes. Let's get to it!

[h2]Changes to Uncommon and Rare Equipment[/h2]

We've made an experimental change to the lowest-rarity magic loot:

• Uncommon (green) items now have two additional generic powers (for a total of 3 powers, but only 1 is specific to a skill).
  
• Rare (blue) items now have one additional generic power (for a total of 3 powers, but only 2 are specific to skills).
  
• In addition, we've created new generic treasure effects aimed at improving low- and mid-level player capabilities.
  

[h2]Mastercrafted Items[/h2]
In the last major update, we temporarily removed the concept of "over-maximized" gear -- that is, Legendary max-enchanted items which were effectively "Legendary+". In this update, we've brought this concept back (but at a much lower power level). We've also set up the groundwork to allow us to improve these items in the future when overall high-level balance is in better shape.

These "max-enchanted-beyond-Legendary" items are now called "Mastercrafted" items, and have the following benefits over regular Legendary items:

• Mastercrafted items have 40 more Crafting Points than non-Mastercrafted items.
  
• There is a new recipe that lets you restore a Mastercrafted item's transmutation durability as often as desired (for a hefty cost in prisms). The recipe can be learned from Sona in Gazluk.
  

Newly-crafted Mastercrafted items will have these benefits. (This replaces the "get a second free Legendary" reward used in the last update.)

Pre-existing (legacy) Mastercrafted items also have these benefits, but they still have the OLD benefit too (of an extra treasure effect). The Legacy Item Helper can remove that extra power, and then the pre-existing items won't be legacy anymore -- they'll be just like newly-crafted items.

[h2]Legacy Item Helper[/h2]
Pre-existing Mastercrafted items still have one too many treasure effects on them, and in this patch they're marked as Legacy items. This means that you can continue to use them for 30 days, after which they stop being wearable. (NOTE: they will not *be deleted* after 30 days -- they just *stop being wearable* until you have the item repaired.)

We've beefed up the old "Legacy Item Replacer" golem in Serbule -- giving it a new name, the "Legacy Item Helper". Hand your Legacy item to this golem and it will explain why the item is Legacy and offer ways to fix it:

• If the item can be fixed by removing a power from it (because it's got more than the prescribed number of powers), the golem prompts the user for which power they want to remove, and removes that power.
  
• If the item can be fixed by just transmuting a power off of the item, the golem tells the player this. The player can choose to go and transmute the item, or just get a replacement from the golem (like before).
  
• For any other causes of Legacyness, the golem can only replace the item with a new one as before (for now). Hopefully, though, the new wording and warnings will make this less scary and error-prone!
  

Remember: The golem can work with broken items, so even if you don't get a chance to fix your legacy item before it breaks - **don't** throw it away!

[h2]Other Crafting Tweaks/Fixes[/h2]

• There are new recipes that let you reset a piece of armor's crafting points by wiping the item's enhancements, pockets, augments, etc. These are difficult high-level recipes. For now they can be trained from Felmer in the Fae Realm.
  
• Revised some "rubywall" generic treasure mods to be less terrible. (They still don't scale very well, by intention. They're just less terrible than before.)
  
• Fixed a bug where an item could have the same skill for both chosen skills, resulting in an item with bonuses for only one skill, causing it to immediately become a Legacy item.
  
• Drima, Sir Johnson's assistant, has raised the price on all equipment from 2 "Sir Johnson Bucks" to 3. The items are now guaranteed to be Epic+ rarity (instead of Exceptional+).
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented you from taking off equipment when your skills were temporarily down-ranked to the point that you no longer met the equip reqs of the item. (This could also generate errors when trying to use loadouts.)
  

[h2]Ability UI Improvements[/h2]

Abilities now automatically change their rank when skills change, when either entering or exiting a skill level disparity. For example:

• If you change from Necro 60/Bard 60 to Necro 60/Shield 10, all Necro abilities on your hotbar will de-rank to level 35 abilities.
  
• If you change from Necro 60/Shield 10 to Necro 60/Staff 55, all Necro abilities on your hotbar will up-rank to level 60 abilities.
  
• If you change from Necro 60/Bard 60 to Necro 60/Staff 55, Necro abilities on your hotbar will not change ranks.
  

This new auto-reranking of abilities can be disabled quickly by right-clicking the Ability hotbar and choosing Settings > Disable Ability Auto Re-Rank. It can also be toggled in the Settings panel, under GUI > Features > Abilities & Items > Auto Re-Rank Abilities.

In addition:

• Individual abilities on your hotbar can now be changed quickly by right-clicking an ability and selecting "Change Ability".
  
• You can now disable the display of the hotkey assigned to that hotbar slot.
  
• The rank of an ability is now displayed on its ability icon.
  

You can toggle all of these options by right-clicking the ability hotbar and choosing Settings > Show Ability Ranks or Settings > Show Hotbar Hotkeys. These options can also be accessed in the Settings panel, under the GUI > Features > Abilities & Items submenu.

[h2]More UI Fixes[/h2]

• Pressing alt will now show any currently-hidden overhead labels in the new UI.
  
• Changed the names of some ability groups in the Skills and Abilities window so they are more generic, such as "Tame Rat" -> "Tame Animal".
  
• Polished lots of ability tooltips to rearrange how some data is presented on them, mostly the Special effects.
  
• Many abilities cannot be used in the air. Attempting to do so will now behave like any other cannot-use-ability case: the icon will gray out and the error will display in the tooltip.
  
• The "Search Corpse" button on pets now properly updates to "Check" when the pet is revived.
  
• Combat Info no longer shows Player levels (which were always showing as 0 anyway).
  
• Fixed a UI bug that would cause all items to display as sellable if the vendor reset timer somehow goes negative.
  
• Fixed a bug causing items to sometimes not float to the correct location when the inventory is open and any bag besides the first one is selected.
  
• Added a new beta command,
• */reloadchar**, that will reload your character's appearance. This should fix many animation issues that arise because it re-initializes the whole character, including their animations. (You should still report any bugs you run into, but this command is a quick way to fix yourself - after you send in a report!)
  

[h2]Other Fixes & Tweaks[/h2]

• Fixed issue that could cause players to fall through the world when using the new selection system.
  
• Fixed a rare bug when switching areas that could cause a player character to effectively "roll back" to a version of their character that is about 1 minute in the past, losing any progress from the previous minute.
  
• The mod "Reconstruct causes the target to take X less damage from attacks for 30 seconds" now correctly states 10 seconds.
  
• Butchering an Ice Runner now gives the player a Raw Paralytic Chicken instead of a plain Raw Chicken. Note that the butchering requirement has been raised from 10 to 35 (to match Ice Runners' target level). In addition, Ice Runners have a small chance of dropping Raw Paralytic Chicken as loot.
  
• Tyler Green in Serbule Hills will now install low-level augments at Neutral favor. (Before it required Friends.)
  
• Moved the Council Proclamation Form to its own fancy little table on the other side of the room so it won't be in Hulon's way.
  
• Animal illusion forms can no longer milk cows.
  
• Bulwark Mode now turns off when you change form.
  
• Summoning recipe ingredients now takes your saddlebag into account.
  
• Fixed a bug causing HP to sometimes get out of sync when hit by projectiles.
  
• The special teleportation scroll "Teleportation: Recall Gazluk Animal Camp", which can now be found rarely in loot, was teaching the special teleport destination "Recall Serbule Docks" instead. This has been fixed.
  
• Ukorga's tanning rack can be selected. This fix also fixes items falling through the floors in the houses in Kur Mountains.
  
• It's no longer freezing inside Ukorga's house.
  
• The quest "Cleo's Lost Books" from Cleo Conyers now tells the player to go east, not west.
  
• Newbie players can find a free butcher knife at the top of Elmetaph's tower. (Previously there was a small chance to find a butcher knife in Lawara's chest; this has been removed)
  
• There has been a small change to the flow in the Anagoge Records Facility (the dungeon on the newbie island). There's a new barrier between the second and third floors that requires the player to talk to Elmetaph. This should not affect existing players who have already made it to Serbule Hills.
  
• Added a new emote! /kneel
  
• Added new dance animations for Cow, Pig, and Wolf dance variants. Cows speed up or slow down depending on the variant. Pig dances now involve a lot more mud. And some Wolf variants now come with glowy eyes!
  
• Polished Cow, Pig, and Wolf animations in general, adding some new ones and making them flow together more smoothly.
  
• Fixed grass pop-in issues in several zones.
  
• Fixed a bug where channeling while jumping breaks your character.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the Unarmed combat stance to sometimes show up when it shouldn't (for example, while playing a Bard song).
  
• Failure to revive a pet no longer plays the kick animation.
  

In this bug-fixing update:

• Items should no longer erroneously report stack sizes of 1.
  
• Fixed alcohol becoming Legacy. (Any booze that went Legacy is un-Legacied.)
  
• Fixed crafted Uncommon belts having three treasure effects -- belts are still only supposed to have 1. (Any existing 3-effect crafted belts have become Legacy.)
  
• Remove text from cosmetic pet icons.
  
• Cows now use a subtler animation for many non-cow abilities.
  
• Added rank numbers to spontaneous fireballs.
  

Known Bugs:
Some items are being shown as Legacy when they shouldn't:

• We're investigating reports that shield wax can make a shield become Legacy -- but only until the wax wears off
  
• Max-enchanted non-Legendaries are being reported as Legacy because they have more effects than they're supposed to. In the next update, we'll improve the Legacy Item Helper golem so that it can fix these items by increasing their rarity. (e.g. the fix for a max-enchanted purple is to turn it into a normal yellow.) Hold on to those items for now.
  

If you run into another situation where an item unexpectedly becomes Legacy, please report it in-game, and include the item in your bug report. (Including the item is very important!) We'll fix these issues before the 30 day Legacy timer winds down, so after reporting the bug, you can just continue using the item like normal.

This minor update fixes bugs and refines the new systems from last week's update. We'd also like to use these patch notes to give extra behind-the-scenes info for long time players about why the recent gameplay changes are happening, and where we're headed.

You can skip all the "Background Info" sections if you just want to read about the changes in this update!


[h2]Background Info: Goals of the XP Changes[/h2]
The recent XP changes had two different goals. The first goal is to prevent players from staying in the same hunting area for too long. Previously, since XP amounts was relatively flat across levels, players could stay in one spot (such as the goblin dungeon in Eltibule) for many, many levels because it was easy and effective. This left players weak because they were only finding level 30 equipment all that time. And farming the same dungeon for 30 levels is boring game design.

The other goal is to require players to actually use a skill to level it. Previously, experienced players would level one pair of combat skills to 80, and then they could level literally ALL other combat skills in a fraction of the time it was supposed to take. They just paired a new level 1 skill with one of their level 80 skills. They never needed to find gear for those lower levels, or visit lower-level dungeons at all. That's awful game design because it obsoletes almost all of the game's content.

Ideally, if a level 80 player switched to using two new level 1 combat skills, they'd effectively be a combat newbie -- aside from the cheaty powers on their sidebar. Thus they would need to return to Serbule or somewhere similar to level up a bit, then head to appropriate level 20 areas, then 30, then 40, etc. That's our eventual goal after more iterations. It doesn't really work yet because not everything scales yet. For instance, Max Armor doesn't scale yet, so your gear still gives you all the armor of a level 80 player even if your combat skills are level 1. Finding good solutions to all these scaling issues will take time.

[h2]Background Info: Leveling Speed[/h2]
The intent with the last update was to keep the relative XP value of monsters the same, so that a level N player killing a level N monster would give the same relative advancement as it did before the update. However, there were many bugs (and "surprise game-system interactions") which made that not work. We've fixed those issues, but we've also abandoned that goal! After reviewing the old XP curve more carefully, it had problems that made leveling happen too fast.

Even though there have been a lot of fixes in this update, leveling should feel somewhat slower than before. Leveling needed to slow down so that players are more likely to find level-appropriate gear before they level up too far.

Now that we've fixed a bunch of bugs, we'd like more feedback on how the curve works! We'll keep refining things as needed.

[h2]In this update: Revised XP Dropoff Rate (When Killing Higher-Level Monsters)[/h2]
In the last big update, we added a new rule that if you kill monsters higher than your level, you get reduced XP. In this update, we've refined the rates at which XP drops off.

In the last update, if you killed a monster 5 levels above you (or less), you got 100% of the XP. This was a big problem because monster XP rates now increase VERY dramatically: about 10% per monster level! An average level 50 monster is worth 1373 XP, while a level 55 monster is worth 2249 XP. By killing monsters exactly 5 levels above their level, players could advance at almost double speed.

On the other hand, after 10 levels, the old curve dropped off very quickly, such that you got essentially 0 XP for monsters more than 15 levels above you. This seemed a bit too punitive, at least given the current content landscape.

Now, the XP dropoff is 10% per level, which approximates the 10% monster XP increase per level. So no matter what level you are, you get about the same amount of XP for that higher-level monster, up to 25 levels above it. Here are some examples:

Suppose you are level 49 and are fighting a level 50 monster worth 1373 XP. Since the monster is 1 level higher than you, the penalty would be 10%, and you would receive 1236 XP. (This is approximately how much a level 49 monster would be worth.)

Suppose you're level 45 and are fighting that level 50 monster worth 1373 XP. Since the monster is 5 levels higher than you, the penalty would be 10%, then 10% of THAT value, then 10% of THAT value, then 10% of that value, then 10% of that value. The level 50 monster worth 1373 XP becomes 811 XP when killed by a level 45 player. (A typical level 45 monster would be worth 861 XP, so you can see the math isn't perfect, but it stays in the same ballpark.)

Now we'll go to the extreme end: suppose you're level 45 and you've managed to solo a level 70 monster worth 12,498 XP. Since you are 25 levels below the monster, we apply the 10% penalty 25 times, and the level 70 monster ends up being worth 897 XP when killed by a level 45 player. (The final cutoff is still 25 levels -- if the monster had been level 71 instead of level 70, you would receive 0 XP because it's more than 25 levels above you.)

This revision means that you can hunt in places up to 25 levels above you and get appropriate XP, without giving overmuch XP to players who can kill those higher-level monsters (such a by being in a group with higher-level players).

These XP curves and ideas are still in heavy development, so expect more changes as we refine our goals and implementation.

PS - remember that monster XP is split between your two active combat skills! Half of the XP goes into each skill, and the penalty is calculated per-skill. So if you kill a a level 50 monster worth 1000 XP, half of that 1000 is given to your first active combat skill (and possibly reduced as explained above, if that skill is higher than the monster's level). The other half is given to your other active combat skill (and is reduced if it's higher).


I (Citan, head dev) want to apologize to the long-time players who have max-enchanted legendaries. This is definitely a nerf, and it's intentional, because I can't balance the game when the power disparity is as large as it is at high levels. Mod potency is multiplicative, and those 9 extra mods really are a big deal in terms of overall power scaling. (Even when treasure mods aren't literally multiplicative they still have a pseudo-multiplicative effect on your character's potency -- for instance, by making characters much more versatile than they should be.)

We made this change now, months BEFORE launching new levels, because the expectation is that you will need new gear at higher level. We're not marking those items as Legacy yet because we don't need to do that yet -- you can keep using them for now and we'll mark them as Legacy before we raise the level cap. The change was made now to give you time to prepare for the change, and to stop crafters from making more gear that would ultimately get nerfed.

To answer questions that players have asked:

• We'll provide a way to pick one mod to remove from you max-enchanted legendaries, making them non-Legacy so you can keep using them.
  
• Mega-raffle gear that's max-enchanted legendary will be treated like other max-enchanted legendaries.
  
• We're not going to "grandfather" existing level 80 max-enchanted legacies. In many cases, that one extra treasure mod on a level 80 item makes it better than a level 100 item with one fewer mod. That would mean players with these grandfathered items don't need to replace them until we launch level 100+ content! That is problematic for balancing in many ways.
  

[h2]Background Info: Crafting vs. Looting[/h2]
The old max-enchanting system existed for too long, and we should have changed it long ago. I'm sorry about that. I don't apologize for most nerfs -- this is beta, and there will be lots more nerfs -- but I apologize for this being such a surprise. The old max-enchanting system made it seem like we wanted crafted gear to always be better than looted gear. But that is definitely not the case.

I want crafted gear to be the best choice for some builds, but looted gear should be the best choice for at least half of the game's builds. I want Project: Gorgon to have exciting loot! I want to find a legendary item in a high level dungeon and be super excited. I do not want to be in a high-level dungeon only to farm "mats" (materials) so that a crafter can craft my gear at some future date. I know some games do that, but It's not what I want for my game.

However, I do expect crafting to play a big role in max-level play. (And yes, farming mats to play a role as well.)

The existing armor-crafting recipes are mainly there to help you level and create something useful. (And in some cases, to create the best possible gear for certain builds.) At max level, these skills will also offer repeatable buff recipes -- e.g. armorsmiths can "reinforce" a piece of armor for a time, giving it a buff. Weapon crafters can "sharpen" the weapons, etc. This will give max-level players a repeating reason to visit crafters (or be one themselves). The potency of these buffs will be similar to a "generic" treasure mod, but it will wear off after enough use. The intent is for those buffs to last for quite a while, but eventually to need reapplying.

It doesn't really make sense to implement these buffs until we've implemented level 100+ content. But that's where we're headed.

• Weather Witching + Warden equipment is now a valid combination that can be found in loot and treasure. (Although note that only butterflies can use such equipment!)
  
• The following Weather Witching treasure buffs were bugged such that they disappeared as soon as you used an ability:
  • "While Wind Ward is active, you gain +N% Melee Evasion"
    
  • "While Wind Ward is active, you gain +N% Burst Evasion"
    
• The following Weather Witching treasure debuffs were similarly bugged, and disappeared as soon as the monster used an ability:
  • "Dampen deals Cold damage and debuffs the target so that it takes +N damage from future Cold attacks for 10 seconds"
    
  • "Dampen debuffs the target so that it takes +N damage from future Nature attacks for 10 seconds"
    
  • "Deluge deals +N damage on contact and increases the target's Poison Vulnerability +15% for 30 seconds (non-stacking)"
    
  • "Deluge deals an additional N nature damage over 7 seconds. For 7 seconds, target has a 15% chance to Miss with any Melee attack."
    
• The following abilities can now be used underwater or in shallow water: Dampen, Deluge, Tsunami, and Hailstorm.
  
• Hailstorm is now a Signature Debuff ability.
  
• The effect "Summoned Tornadoes move much faster and their attacks deal +N% damage": tornado speed is buffed +6 instead of +9.
  
• The effect "Summoned Tornado attacks deal +N damage and cause the target to take 15% more damage from Electricity for 10 seconds (non-stacking)": this debuff was stacking incorrectly. Is now non-stacking as intended.
  
• The treasure mod "Shocking Grasp Damage +N. Every other use has a 25% chance to stun the target" will no longer generate extraneous error messages.
  
• Corrected recipe text for level 80 Weather Witching research: there are four level 80 spells, not five.
  

• Nameplates of entities that update (such as growing garden plants) will no longer get stuck on the screen.
  
• When the thing you have selected updates, the button will update too when applicable (such as trees/bushes running out of fruit).
  
• Nameplates no longer get in the way of dragging to move the camera.
  
• Fixed selection problems with the following: Beer Barrels, some Chests, Writing Benches, Firefly Boxes, Zombie Hands, Urns, & Jack-o-Lantern turrets.
  
• The Animal Town transfer chest, grapevines in Serbule Hills, and the New Prestonbule portcullis are selectable with the new UI.
  
• Fixed mouse-cursor-changing logic so the mouse should no longer disappear.
  
• The escape key no longer sends chat messages.
  
• When the party leader changes, the new leader's party frame will jump to the top of the list.
  
• New UI now respects the "Use Floaty Numbers" and "Auto-Move to Interactors" settings.
  
• Modified the logic of looping animations. This should fix bugs where the character gets stuck in an infinite looping animation.
  
• Added missing water bubble icon. This affected multiple items, including Kraken Potions and Water-Breathing Potions.
  
• Grass Draw Distance setting is now properly clamped between 50 and 500.
  
• Fixed visibility of some graphics dropdowns.
  
• Ability tooltips now use proper number formatting for any "special" numbers, such as Cur Tempest Energy or the amount that Blast of Defiance Reaps.
  
• Fixed the Damage Over Time calculation in ability tooltips, so it now matches the actual damage done.
  
• Portrait combat numbers will no longer get stuck when zoning.
  
• Effect stack text now scales with effect icon size.
  
• Fixed bug causing text overflow for some ability tooltips.
  
• Changed color of highlight around items that are usable in the current-selected recipe to orange.
  

• Fixed bug that broke storage switching if certain crafting recipes were open.
  
• Fixed bug preventing "That'll Do" from activating properly, leaving the character in a weird, very slow condition.
  
• Fixed bug that caused alcohol toxins to not wear off if you moved to a different area or logged out drunk.
  
• Fixed more logic bugs that could cause a piece of equipment's instant effects to be re-applied at inappropriate times. (a/k/a "Sometimes when my instrument is equipped, my skill bar changes to Performance".)
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing armor set buffs to wear off when zoning.
  
• Illusive Guise and Insidious Illusion sidebar abilities don't need to be kept on the sidebar to maintain the buffs.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Fairy Magic abilities to bypass the 25-level skill disparity cap.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Crossbow and Endurance sidebar abilities to bypass the 25-level skill disparity cap. For now, the other sidebar abilities (such as Stake the Heart and Spade Assault) are usable regardless of combat level disparity. We'll revisit this after a while to see if it's a good idea.
  
• Comfortable Bed in Serbule and Rustic Bedroll in Serbule Hills are now slept in properly. In addition, the Rustic Bedroll no longer shoots the camera through the ground.
  
• Adjusted the colliders on humanoids. This might help prevent Velkort from getting stuck on his flame buddy.
  
• Foxes won't get stuck in certain areas as easily anymore.
  
• Sir Arif now lets animals turn in delivery quests to him.
  
• Endurance previously used a placeholder XP table. It now uses an XP table tailored to modern monster damage output. This makes it dramatically easier to level Endurance compared to a few patches ago.
  
• Repeatable kill-quests that reward Combat XP now scale the same way monsters do. In other words, completing a level 80 kill quest now scales down the XP reward if you're lower than level 80, the same way higher-level monster XP is scaled
  
• Fixed some monster-pets (monsters spawned by other monsters) that were worth XP.
  

This patch fixes bugs in yesterday's patch:

• Fixed gift-giving window & related windows not working.
  
• Spiders can use non-spider abilities again.
  
• Fixed the "sometimes while my horn is equipped my skill bar changes to stringed instruments" bug.
  
• Player Work Orders will no longer immediately expire.
  
• Creature levels now display at anatomy level 5 instead of 50. (This is a temporary hack -- we have other ideas on how to display level disparity in the future)
  
• Certain First-Aid abilities are now exceptions to the new rule that you must keep the ability on your bar to maintain a buff. Affected abilities are: "Soberize", "Emergency Alcohol Treatment", and "Field Prophylactic".
  
• Fixed bug preventing humanoids from playing music.
  
• Saving settings will no longer cause nameplates to get stuck on the screen.
  
• Fixed bug causing nameplates to multiply infinitely.
  
• "Use New Selection UI" setting should be properly respected when restarting the game.
  
• Cursors on linux should no longer be gigantic.
  
• There is a new setting for disabling cursor changes when hovering over things: Settings > GUI > Mouse Selection > Change Cursor on Hover
  
• Fixed bug where Animal Handling pets couldn't follow your commands because they had -1 Power
  
• added Shock Dust to level 20 powders loot table (it is also in the level 30 and 40 powder tables)
  
• reset version of Drunkenness effects (which may help users suffering from infinite drunkenness)
  

Thanks for your reports! We're still investigating some issues with the XP curve (seems slower than intended), as well as working to repro a few minor bugs. But if you're experiencing a new BIG bug and it wasn't fixed here, please let us know ASAP!

As winter winds its way towards spring, we have another exciting update full of bug fixes, improvements, and big changes. The experimental selection UI is finally becoming a real boy, XP curves are getting lots of work done, and there's a brand new combat skill to learn.


We already know about several bugs and are working on a fix for them:

• the Give Gift menu option doesn't work for most NPCs. We will fix this within 24 hours.
  
• nameplates in the new UI get "stuck" when you switch on/off the new UI system. We will fix this within 24 hours -- in the short term you can fix it by restarting the game.
  
• new beds in Serbule Hills look weird when you sleep in them. We will fix this in a future update.
  

We've made lots of improvements to how combat XP is earned. We'll discuss the changes and the reasons for them next.

[h2]XP Curve Rework[/h2]
We've adjusted the combat XP level-curve so that you need a LOT more XP to level up each level, and monsters are worth dramatically more XP with each level, too. The goal here is to encourage players to fight monsters closer to their level. The number of same-level monsters you need to kill hasn't changed (much). In other words, when you're level 80, killing a hundred level 80 monsters will advance the XP bar just as much (or more likely, more) towards level 81 as before.

So what's changed? Previously, instead of killing those 100 level 80 monsters, you could kill 250 level 40 monsters to get the same amount of XP. Players often found this to be much easier and faster than fighting monsters of your same level, so players tended to stay in the same low-level hunting areas for way too long. This causes lots of problems: your gear doesn't keep up with your level, for one thing. And it's super boring to grind the same dungeon for 40 levels, too!

NOTE: Your existing skill levels are unchanged. This affects earning XP going forward and is not retroactive.

[h2]Monster XP Values Rework[/h2]
We've also done lots of work to make monster XP awards more logical and fair. The XP amounts for monsters were pretty arbitrary before, mostly focusing on the amount of Health the monster has. This caused "glass cannon" monsters, which are some of the deadliest, to be worth pitiful amounts of XP, while damage-sponge monsters were worth 200% to 300% more. All monster XP values have been revised to take health, armor, damage, and special features (such as evasion) into account.

[h2]XP Scaling Changes[/h2]
Now that monster XP scales non-linearly, we also need a cutoff for earning XP above your level. Why? Consider the case of a high-level player grouping with a newbie: high level monsters are now worth so much XP that the newbie would insta-level by 10+ levels per monster defeated! We don't think it's bad for high level players to "carry" newbies, but there need to be reasonable limits.

Now, if the monster you defeat is more than 5 levels higher than one (or both) of your active combat skills, the amount of XP you earn in that skill is reduced. If the monster is 25+ levels above your skill level, you earn 0 XP in that skill.

[h2]Treasure-Effect Scaling Changes[/h2]
We've also re-enabled a feature we implemented last year. (It was buggy so we had to turn it off.) If your two active combat skills are more than 25 levels apart, your equipment's random treasure effects will now downscale automatically. For instance, if your active skills are level 50 and level 1, that's more than 25 levels apart. Your "effective gear level" is your lower skill plus 25, so in this case any treasure effects that have level requirements above 26 will be reduced to lower-level versions where available.

This does not yet affect "white-label" effects, that is, the innate features of your gear. So in the previous example, your treasure effects would downscale to level 26, but you would still have all the Max Armor of a level 50 player. This makes you functionally invincible against level 26 creatures, of course, so it's something we'll be slowly working on over additional updates.

[h2]Feedback Needed[/h2]
With this many changes, we expect there to be problems. Bugs with some XP tables, perhaps, or special scenarios we haven't thought of. Please let us know what you run into and we'll get things fixed up. In the short term if you are unsure of whether an XP-curve issue is a bug or a feature, you can communicate with the devs via the discord channel. (Normally we ask that you submit bugs via the in-game bug-report button... and we STILL want you to do that! But if you aren't sure if something is a bug, feel free to ask.)

We also realize that this change will push players to find new hunting grounds, and some level ranges may not have adequate dungeons available. That's a good thing! We need to know where those problem areas are so we can fix them.


With all these combat-XP changes, it seemed like a good time for a new combat skill. Weather Witching was planned long ago, then was scrapped, but now it's back! This is a chaotic magical skill that requires a bit of finesse to use optimally. But most importantly, it's a lot of fun. To get started, find a pair of elves in Serbule Hills -- they're camping in an old hunting lodge.

For animal players, first the bad news: Weather Witching is unavailable to most animals. But the good news: several animals saw improvements this update, including Spirit Fox and Werewolf. (See below.) Butterflies are the special case: they can use weather witching via a magical item that can be purchased from Yavazek in Animal Town.


If a buff or debuff effect is applied due to an ability, that effect will now be dispelled if you take that ability off your ability bar. The goal is to prevent players from gaining the benefits of too many abilities at the same time (by switching load-outs between fights). This restriction does not apply when you are on a mount.


The meaning of "Max Enchanted" recipes has changed. Previously, these recipes increased the number of powers on the item by 1. Now, they increase the Rarity of the item by one tier. Since each rarity level increases the number of powers by 1, this is effectively the same thing, except for when the item is naturally a Legendary item.

Since a Legendary item can't have its rarity increased, we give an alternative reward: the crafter creates two Legendary items instead of one. (We're working on something more exciting for the future, possibly giving the max-enchanted Legendary an additional 20 crafting points, or something like that.)

Existing Max-Enchanted Legendary items, meaning items that have 1 power more than is now possible to obtain, will eventually be obsoleted -- you can think of them as Legacy items. However, we haven't yet marked them as Legacy items because that would start a 30-day countdown before the items break, and that's sooner than we need them gone. Before we mark them as "officially Legacy", we'll add a way to let players "demote" these overpowered items (by removing a power) so that they can still use them.

(We will also auto-upgrade existing max-enchanted non-Legendary items so that the have a higher rarity in the future, normalizing things so that 1 rarity tier = 1 ability mod.)


In the past, the Priest skill's channeled abilities had a weird unintended side-effect: you could cast another ability while you were channeling the first ability, so long as the other ability was fast and didn't require movement. This was unintentional, and that "feature" was mostly lost when animations changed.

However, it does seem like a fun idea and we want to try it officially! Since Weather Witching also has some channeled abilities, this seemed like the right time to try this mechanic out.

So now if you use a channeled ability, and you time it right, you can perform another ability while the channeling is happening. The second ability can't require movement, and not all abilities can work this way, but most can.

This is an experiment where we're looking for fun gameplay, not balance per se. It's likely that this change makes Priest overpowered, and also makes some Priest treasure-effects pretty useless. We can revise that kind of stuff if the idea seems worth keeping.

• Power Glyph: this is now correctly marked as a Survival Utility ability (bug fix).
  
• New treasure effect: (Chest) "Galvanize Reuse Timer -10.5 secs"
  
• New treasure effect: (Necklace, Legs) "Galvanize boosts targeted pets' non-Rage attacks +X for 45 seconds"
  
• New ability: Infectious Instincts: usable only on an allied pet, this boost's the damage of the pet's next attack. Learnable from a Completely Normal Fox deep beneath Kur.
  
• New treasure effect: (Head, Ring) Infectious Instincts boosts target pet's next attack +160
  
• New treasure effect: (Chest, OffHand) Infectious Instincts boosts target pet's non-Rage Attack damage +58 for 12 seconds
  
• New treasure effect: (Hands, Feet) Infectious Instincts grants target pet +43 Mitigation vs. elemental (fire, cold, and electricity) damage for 20 seconds
  
• New treasure effect: (Legs, Necklace) Infectious Instincts grants target pet +29 Mitigation vs. physical (slashing, crushing, and piercing) damage for 20 seconds
  
• New treasure effect: (Necklace): "Galvanize grants pets Health (or Armor if Health is full) equal to the amount of Power generated +105"
  
• After one too many complaints from stablemasters, we've decided that Spirit Foxes are no longer allowed to ride horses. Instead, they should seek out Mittens in Kur to learn how to fast-travel directly as a spirit fox. (Requires Spirit Fox 25, Friends, 1000g)
  

• Getting stunned should no longer interrupt an attack that's usable while stunned.
  
• Fire Magic: There are only two "Flare Fireball" abilities, but they were numbered "Flare Fireball 2" and "Flare Fireball 4". Renumbered to 1 and 2, respectively.
  
• Fire Magic: The ability "Flare Fireball 4" (now renamed to "Flare Fireball 2") was a level 50 ability learned at level 55. Ability is now level 55 (with slightly higher base damage).
  
• Ice Magic: Cold Spheres now have a small amount of Armor.
  
• Lycanthropy: New treasure effect (Necklace): "If you are reduced to 0 health while Shadow Feint is active, it automatically triggers and cancels the damage. In addition, Shadow Feint boosts your accuracy +N until triggered."
  
• Lycanthropy: New Altar of Norala options: "+1 Non-Combat Sprint Speed" (costs 3). Purchasing this unlocks the second tier version "+1 Non-Combat Sprint Speed & +1 Movement Speed" (costs 3).
  
• Lycanthropy Pro Tip: Stat boosts from the Altar of Norala work in any form, not just in wolf form
  
• Removed ability-usage delay for butterflies.
  
• Added contextual hotkey for Analyze Genes.
  

[h2]Selection UI[/h2]
After months of gathering feedback and making changes, we have officially promoted the new selection UI - it's no longer experimental! The setting to use the new UI is enabled by default, but you can change this in the Settings panel, under GUI > Mouse Selection > Use New Selection UI. (In a future patch, after we're certain we have any major bugs dealt with, this setting (and the old UI) will be removed completely.)

[h2]Target of Target[/h2]

Another exciting change in this update: You can now see your target's target!

• At Anatomy level 25 (for each sub-anatomy, E.G. "Fae Anatomy"), you'll be able to see your target's current target, as well as their current health, armor, and if they are enraged. Clicking on the target will select it.
  
• The existing Target UI has been adjusted a bit to fit the new target-of-target UI. Most notably, Real-Time Effects and the Combat Info button have been moved.
  
• Seeing Real-Time Effects on a target has been moved from sub-Anatomy level 25 to 35.
  

[h2]Chat Commands[/h2]

We have slightly revamped how custom chatroom chatting works:

• '/c ' no longer exists.
  
• '/c ' sets your current chatroom to .
  
• '/c ' sets current chatroom to and sends to it.
  
• '/cc ' sends to without setting it to the current chatroom.
  
• 'global', 'nearby', and 'guild' can now all be used with the /c commands.
  

We've also added a help button to the chat window - a little question mark in the upper right - which shows the same info as typing /help.


[h2]Other UI Stuff[/h2]

• The strength of the highlight when hovering over an entity can now be controlled via GUI > Mouse Selection > Overlays > Hover Highlight Strength.
  
• New selection UI now shows distance to current target when you hold in alt.
  
• New selection UI now handles the "Hold to Bypass Clicking Players & Pets" key.
  
• New Selection UI now respects all of the "Overhead Info" settings.
  
• Improved the new click-selection algorithm, so entities should be easier to click on.
  
• Updated selection hitboxes & facecam avatars for a long, long list of creatures.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the cursor graphic to get stuck if a nameplate disappears while you're hovering over it.
  
• Added "Show/Hide Hotbar Globes" to hotbar & player stats right-click menus.
  
• Added "Show/Hide Metabolism Bar" to player stats right-click menu.
  
• Organized Graphics settings and changed several sliders to dropdowns.
  
• Right-clicking on the active-skill hotbar is now easier; if you click the space between ability icons it will still show the full context menu.
  
• Ability Tooltips now show multiple "Other" effects in a more concise format.
  
• Fixed bugs that prevented some Privacy Field mods from showing up in the Ability Tooltip.
  
• When you use an ability on a party member, that ability's icon will once again appear on their party frame to indicate that it went through.
  
• Party frames can now be resized and re-padded, under "Settings/GUI/Features/Party Frames", "Party Frame Scale" and "Party Frame Spacing".
  
• Fixed bug that prevented right-clicking on a party member who is not in the same area as you.
  
• Added outlines to party names.
  
• Added max-use info to recipe window.
  
• Right-clicking a craftable item in a quest objective now shows the "Jump to Recipe" option for Enchanted recipes.
  
• Moved the settings "Scale Names with Distance" and "Overhead Name Fade Distance" under a new section, "Old Selection UI", which is only visible when using the old selection UI.
  
• Added button to GUI Settings that resets all window positions & sizes to their default, in case a window goes off-screen or any other GUI weirdness happens.
  

[h2]Graphics & Such[/h2]

• Fixed several instances of armor being invisible on one side (such as being able to "see through" the inside of a helmet, or spring fairy leggings).
  
• Fixed some helmets that would allow the wearer's scalp to poke through.
  
• Fixed bug that caused some particles to appear on invisible creatures.
  
• Personal Rainstorm effect is now easier on the eyes.
  
• Added mount trails to Cow & Pig.
  
• Fixed bug with fae feet when chopping wood.
  
• Added turning-while-standing-still animation to humanoids (out of combat only).
  
• Added smoke VFX to hags.
  
• Revamped Fire Rat visual; they now glow and have a flame at the end of their tail.
  
• New visuals for Fire Sheep.
  
• Fixed Biting Vines death animation.
  
• Fixed graphical glitch with Drakeworms.
  
• Faces of Death now stop animating when they die.
  
• NPC hares should no longer sink into the ground.
  
• Wolves no longer float above the ground.
  
• Fixed bug causing dead players to stand back up.
  

[h2]Other[/h2]

• Bottled items in stacks now have a right-click option to "Empty All Bottles" (if their stack size is greater than 1).
  
• When crafting, fillable ingredients are now highlighted in your inventory.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented work order cancels from returning councils.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing level 0-10 Industry and Foraging textbooks from being read when you don't have those skills yet.
  
• Gifts of equipment to NPCs are now worth notably less Favor.
  
• You can now deploy ice fishing gear properly on the lake near the Necromancer's Tower in Kur Mountains.
  
• Ice fishing lakes in Kur Mountains once again give a variety of fish, including some species that weren't available there before.
  
• Campfires in Kur are a little safer now to cut down on campfire murders. (Does not include the orc camp fires.)
  
• Northern, Pure, & Augmented Bounceweed now affect foxes.
  
• Lowered council value of fairy starter gear.
  
• Removed coin purses from Fae Newbie Chest and moved them to a reward for completing the Fae starter arc.
  
• Fire Sheep are more deadly when they explode.
  
• Fixed bug that prevented players from seeing a notification message when an item gets used up in combat.
  
• The JSON file npcs.json has a bit of new information in it: item preferences now have a "Desire" field which will be "Love", "Like", "Neutral", "Dislike", or "Hate". This information corresponds to what is displayed in-game when you learn an NPC's likes and dislikes. (You could kinda-sorta figure this out before from the "Pref" value, but that's becoming less and less accurate -- in fact, the "Pref" field will eventually be removed from npcs.json when the client stops referencing it. If you're using that field, please switch to using the "Desire" field where possible.)
  
• A number of JSON files have had changes to their format: sources_items.json, sources_recipes.json, sources_abilities.json. They now include additional information, some of which is not yet used by the client (but will be in the future)
  
• The JSON file sources_items.json is now documented in the CDN's help page. (The file format is now reasonably stable. Yay!)
  

This fixes some issues in yesterday's update.

• Fix bug preventing abilities from being queued
  
• Fix swim-jump-skating
  
• Fix bug that causes nameplate to get stuck when you select a party member from their party frame
  
• You can no longer select things through walls
  
• Promoting or kicking party member will now show their name instead of "PartyFrame(Clone)"
  
• Fix broken floaties & speech bubbles for default selection UI