Archmage Rises News

Big thanks to you all for the feedback and bug reporting bugs with the Combat update.
We combed through over 160 bug reports + Discord + Steam Forum posts. This is what we able to address this week:

1. Fixed a lot of the lag issues in combat. It was a combination of factors: memory leak, logging, errors. It's much improved. We're still working on it.
   
2. Generally, the feedback is new combat is unfairly too hard. We have improved the Conclave graduation ring you begin the game with from protection 50->70. We also removed rings from sale in shops, that wasn't supposed to be there. One of the troubles of a data driven game is sometimes data gets read in and used in places we don't intend. There WILL be ways to get additional rings and improve upon the one you start with, but it's super valuable and core to the game so you aren't supposed to be able to go to a shop and just buy a second one for 200g.
   
3. Skeletons are back in the game! And their resurrection ability is super annoying! Skeletons will appear in existing worlds and saves.
   
   
   
4. Skeletons are a mid tier enemy created ages ago and left roaming the earth. If you are a young new mage straight outta school, and find yourself up against a skeleton: RUN! We made it so they don't appear around your starter town. Better distribution of monster lairs is coming in the Exploration #3 update.
   
5. We improved Character Creation to provide better rewards so you start with 3 spells instead of 1. Things are always obvious in hindsight. This should feel better now. This also affects some of spell progression.
   
6. Tuned down some weapon damage. Decreasing base damage per AP and the Quality-based damage multiplier. They weren't supposed to be much better than spells.
   
7. Character creation summary screen now shows spells learned rather than XP gained.
   
8. Protection now appears on the Character Sheet. We thought it was sufficient seeing in on the equipment, but clearly that was dumb.
   
9. Eating Foodstuff causing nausea. The first mistake we made is player's shouldn't start with foodstuff in inventory. Second is Foodstuff is a catch-all label for raw ingredients used in cooking. Like raw flour, a turnip, and bunches of Rosemary. If you ate a cup of raw flour and 6 sprigs of raw rosemary, you likely would have a tummy ache. Our bad for not properly explaining this resource designed for trading isn't intended for eating (you can in a pinch). So it still makes you nauseous but the tooltip explanation says why.
   

1. There were numerous issues leading to save file corruptions. We think we got them all.
   
2. We had a bad bug with quest quantities showing weird code. This was a problem with the highlight code, so we quickly hotfixed it by taking out the highlighting. It is now corrected and highlighting is back in.
   
3. Fixed an exploit where you could unequip your ring in combat, then re-equip it, and you'd be back to full protection. It's not THAT magical!
   
4. Fixed: players can't equip weapons they don't actually own. Sad, I know.
   
5. Swapping weapons no longer soft lock the game.
   
6. Magic progression screen no longer appears blank (thanks MIM_MC1, Fonz, and JAMESTHEANGRY07)
   
7. Sturdy and engraved pickaxes were wrecking game. Now they don't.
   
8. Healer no longer double charges. Healing is a far less lucrative field now.
   
9. Pyromaniac reported duplicated options in the Tumbleweed encounter. Fixed.
   
10. Combat soft-lock reported by Odynn after casting a spell
    
11. Lighting issue with dice in combat
    
12. Inventory issue in House Repair quest.
    
13. Missing combat backgrounds
    
14. Fixed an issue where sometimes players couldn't move on the map after combat
    
15. Fixed several other last minute bugs
    

1. We have multiple reports of "giant monster issue" where the monster sprite goes crazy large. We've invested significant time into investigating it and as of now we can't reproduce it. We finally think we may have found out what might be causing the issue, so it might be fixed, but might not...
   

[h2]NEW Combat Fixes[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

It is a huge relief to get the new combat and spell progression system out. We have something solid to build upon.

This week’s focus is fixing priority combat issues and letting the dust settle.

Here is what we are working on for a Thursday patch:

• We’ve read every bug reported, these are current priorities:
  
  
  • Clicking lag and other performance issues
    
  • Giant monster sprites taking up the whole battlefield
    
  • Weapons breaking combat
    
  • Equipment re-equipping bug/exploit
    
• Based on the feedback combat is too hard, we’re revisiting the tuning
  
  
• We’re revisiting Character Creation to get you more starting spells. This will address some of the “Combat too hard” issue.
  
  
• I made a bad call that led to errors in the quest quantities. Separate from the combat branch we made some fixes to the dialogue highlighting code. Then we merged it in last minute and it created problems. We got a hotfix out on Sat evening.
  
  
• We’re finishing off the Skeletons race to get them back into the game
  

- Temporarily disabled the highlighting of keywords in NPC conversations to resolve the issue of weird characters appearing in the middle of dialog. The highlighting will return in the next patch.

Today we are very proud to release our BIGGEST UPDATE EVER with a NEW Combat system. It changes almost every aspect of the game.

• All new combat with FIVE unique, full featured, spell schools, totaling 52 new spells!
  
• All new weapons, equipment, and protection system. Even magically charge your weapons!
  
• All new spell progression and learning system. Get learning bonuses and affinities.
  
• All monsters completely revamped, with all new abilities and AI
  
• New monster race: Crocodons
  

• Previous worlds and save files are not compatible. We tried really hard but couldn't do it. Sorry! Read more on how to switch to the Legacy branch to maintain your progress and update when you choose to here.
  
• Combat is intentionally challenging. Don't expect you can take on some monsters with the one spell you learn in school! Go to a chapter house and do some research. More info in this post.
• Skeletons are temporarily disabled until next week. It's complicated. :winter2019happyyul:
  
• We're still working on Combat. Testing, tuning, playing, reading your feedback. We feel this is a good first step.
  

More info on the thinking behind the Spell Schools:

• Introducing Storm Magic
• Introducing - Earth Magic
• Introducing - Fire Magic
• Introducing - Ice Magic

With changes this massive there are bound to be issues. We think we solved the major ones today with a short Beta. We appreciate your help and support!

Hey everyone!

We're getting really close to the launch of the new Combat Update we've been working hard at for the past little while. This is just a quick update to let you know that tomorrow we are planning to release a Beta version of combat earlier on in the day for those of you who want to jump in a little bit early and preview the new update before we launch it publicly later on in the day. We are doing this so that we can hopefully catch some more last might bugs that we may have missed, and would love your help in finding before we fully release the new combat to the wild.

If you'd like to get in on the beta release, be sure to switch your Archmage Rises' branch on Steam from "None" to "beta - External Beta Testing" so that you will be able to get the new update when it hits the beta branch.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I know you're going to ask us when to expect the update to release, and while I don't know 100% when it will get released, we're aiming for around a noon EST release for the beta and around 5pm EST for the public release. These are ballparks, so it's possible these timeframes may change...

As usual, I (Phil) will be available in Discord if you have any questions about the update or want to get more live updates on the progress of the release tomorrow :)

PS: If you do download the new combat update early, we'd love your bug reports! We'll be continuing to polish the update right up until the public release, so the more early feedback we can get, the better! Thanks for your help and patience :)