AoD v1.2.4 Major Patch
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But no, as it turns out it's rather difficult to keep a ragtag team of developers all motivated and focused on a single vision. Seeing as there is no particular payoff to making the game beyond just seeing people enjoy it, incremental change is much easier. So a few months ago I poured over what Darksaber had made over the past few years and did some more v1.2 development of my own. After confirming that people would prefer an update sooner rather than later via the community poll, we have put together this update for you all. Read on to see what has been cooking.
Player Class Changes
Mage
Thanks to some fundamental fixes, the Mage class has had its identity repaired and is now ready to be the glass cannon class it always deserved to be. We've buffed spells and magic gear across the board to help recoup the damage potential it lost due to prior balance-related setbacks.
‣ The /autocast command has been superseded by the new /bind command for the sake of naming convention. You can still use /autocast and /ac, they will do the same thing.
‣ You now bind spells to individual staff items rather than elements. This means you can have multiple of the same type of staff with distinct bound spells.
‣ Only spells that are bound to a staff can benefit from the staff's mana cost reduction.
‣ Staffs have been mechanically redesigned to integrate more strongly with their bound spells.
—▷ You can no longer switch items or unequip while casting a spell via a staff.
Quote from: Developer Commentary
This addresses a major unintended use of magic where players could swap to other items while casting in order to achieve more simultaneous actions than intended. Previously we have had to nerf magic in general quite significantly to rein in this behavior, but in doing so we made the intended experience of magic very underwhelming. Read on from here for the various buffs it'll now get...
—▷ You can now simply hold down the primary trigger to cast your bound spell as fast as possible. There is no need (or benefit) for spam clicking.
—▷ Your bound spell is now displayed when you equip the staff.
‣ Major buffs to many combat spells' base damage values and major reductions to cooldown times across the board.
—▷ Aurorahealing: Cooldown time reduced from 7 seconds to 3.5 seconds.
—▷ Bloodbombs: Cooldown time reduced from 2.85 seconds to 2.3 seconds. (Darksaber) Also fixed a bug that caused them to deal no damage
—▷ Bloodspray: Cooldown time reduced from 2 seconds to 0.65 seconds. Base damage increased from 20 to 27 damage per projectile. Reduced projectile count from 20 to 10.
—▷ Bloodstrike
——▷ Cooldown time reduced from 2.85 seconds to 2.3 seconds.
——▷ Targeting logic revised to work more consistently in rooms where there are fewer targets.
——▷ Struck enemies are now afflicted with a lightning debuff that causes them to take 2% more damage from all sources for two seconds.
—▷ Cauterize: Cooldown time reduced from 3 seconds to 1.25 seconds.
—▷ Dash: Cooldown time reduced from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
—▷ Earthstrike: Cooldown time reduced from 1.2 seconds to 0.9 seconds. Base radius damage increased from 70 to 85.
—▷ Flashfire: Cooldown time reduced from 0.8 seconds to 0.6 seconds.
—▷ Frostshards: Cooldown time reduced from 2 seconds to 1.2 seconds. Base damage decreased from 25 to 23.
—▷ Manastitches: Cooldown time reduced from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
—▷ Shadowbolt: Cooldown time reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0.35 seconds.
—▷ Shadowbomb: Cooldown time reduced from 1.5 seconds to 1.2 seconds. Base damage increased from 100 to 150. Base radius damage decreased from 100 to 75. Projectile speed decreased from 20tu to 18tu.
‣ Changes to mage armor balance
—▷ Apprentice Robes: Increased mana regeneration stat from +20% to +80%. Increased spell damage stat from +15% to +30%.
—▷ Mage Robes: Increased mana regeneration stat from +50% to +120%. Increased spell damage stat from +30% to +60%.
—▷ Magister Robes: Increased mana regeneration stat from +100% to +200%. Increased spell damage stat from +75% to +100%. Reduced armor stat from -30% to -40%.
Quote from: Developer Commentary
With great power comes great likelihood of being blown to smithereens...
—▷ Holy Knight Armor: Increased spell damage stat from -50% to +20%.
‣ (Darksaber) There are a few new legendary single-use spell scrolls.
Melee
Melee has felt in a pretty good spot feature-wise, but mostly suffers from a lack of meaningful choices to make in their impressive arsenal of legendary weapons. In addition to redesigning the existing BIS weapons, we also focused a bit on beefing up the older legendary melee weapons to make their existence more meaningful.
‣ All legendary melee swords have been revamped to some degree:
—▷ (Darksaber) Wraithcutter has been redesigned and rebalanced.
—▷ (Darksaber & Conan) Gram has had its V2 rendition backported and has new VFX.
—▷ All the double-bladed swords have reworked a bit:
——▷ They have been buffed to strike twice each swing in line with their (still somewhat awkward) animation.
——▷ Previously, there was a flat 20% chance for each strike to trigger a special sword ability. This chance has been reduced to 10%, but is now boosted to 30% instead if you have melee class armor equipped.
——▷ Previously, the odds of rolling the ultimate special ability of these swords varied between 10% to 2% depending on the sword. This has been normalized to 4% for all of them. (So 48% chance of the first primary effect, 48% chance of the second primary effect, and a 4% chance for ultimate effect)
——▷ Fire & Ice: Burning effect duration is no longer randomized, is always 90 damage over 3 seconds. Burning effect now plays a sound cue. Replaced unique 10 second per-enemy cooldown on freeze effect with a shared 15 second per-enemy cooldown (currently only shared with Light & Shadow). Added VFX to ultimate special ability.
——▷ Light & Shadow: Replaced the prior primary effect that dealt 100 damage to your target with a new primary effect that grants you a 30 damage shield that lasts 10 seconds. Second primary effect is unchanged (Heals you 30 HP). Ultimate effect now applies a 3-second fear to your target (Shares a 15 second per-enemy cooldown with Fire & Ice's freeze effect).
——▷ War & Peace: Burning effect duration is no longer randomized, is always 90 damage over 3 seconds. Burning effect now plays a sound cue. Replaced the prior ultimate effect with a new effect that grants you a 200 damage shield that lasts 30 seconds.
—▷ The Dragon Dagger (p++) special attack power usage has been reduced from 50% to 30%.
‣ (Darksaber) A few new legendary melee weapons have been added.
Ranged
Not much going on in ranger land these days. As ranger remained the strongest class at the time of development, most attention went elsewhere.
‣ (Darksaber) Added new ranged/melee hybrid armor which can be created via crafting.
Dungeon Monster/Boss Changes
FrostFire Mage
‣ (APX) All-new ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
‣ Reworked fire cone attack:
—▷ It now has a narrower angle, but much longer range and a longer duration.
—▷ The boss also now picks a direction to spin with this attack at random, instead of lamely attempting to face towards a specific target.
—▷ The boss also turns a bit faster with this attack than before.
‣ Replaced VFX for the flame teleport ability.
‣ Added a subtle sound cue to the boss's teleport abilities.
‣ Reduced damage radius of flame teleport explosion.
‣ Reduced the volume of some SFX in the encounter.
‣ Spirits summoned during the second to last phase now retaliate when attacked by players. They still get subdued by the boss.
‣ Increased spirit HP from 8.3% of total boss HP to 10% of total boss HP.
‣ (Magus) Updated dialog.
Oathbreaker
‣ (Darksaber) Oathbreaker boss changes:
—▷ Updated a few VFX.
—▷ Updated AI to be a little smarter in some cases.
—▷ Added sound cues to a couple of attacks.
—▷ Changed a few attack patterns.
—▷ Bugfixes
—▷ Added a new (actual) challenge mode version.
Other Bosses
‣ Implemented mitigations for a couple cheese strategies on the Cursed Knight and Excavator bosses.
New Standard Enemies
‣ (Darksaber) Rōnin!
—▷ New floor 6 melee enemy.
—▷ Armed with a Katana and a Wakizashi, this enemy starts out attempting to charge at their target
—▷ During the charge, projectiles are deflected with the Wakizashi
—▷ Then attacks with the Katana
‣ Skeleton mages!
—▷ New enemy that appears mostly on floor 5 & floor 6, but can occur with diminishing frequency up to floor 2.
—▷ Has randomized equipment that scales with the floor they spawn in.
—▷ Each mage uses their own preferred spell!
—▷ Don't let them get away, they've got a heal spell too!
—▷ Generally not very flammable. (Although their robes can still catch fire)
‣ (Darksaber?) ¿¿sharks??
‣ Bunny :)
‣ (Darksaber & Magus) Lizard people!
—▷ They breathe fire!
Other Enemy Changes
‣ (Darksaber) Flying enemies' contact damage logic has been fixed so they are much less likely to get stuck on your head.
‣ (Darksaber) Wasps have been scaled up a bit more to be easier to hit.
‣ (Darksaber) Wasps have had their attack damage reduced from 25 to 20.
‣ (Darksaber) Wraiths have been reworked to be more threatening.
‣ (Darksaber) Added a new miniboss (or two)...
General System Changes
Prayer
‣ Lawful prayer cooldown reduced from 60 seconds to 20 seconds.
‣ Neutral prayer cooldown reduced from 120 seconds to 40 seconds.
‣ Chaotic prayer cooldown reduced from 300 seconds to 120 seconds.
‣ Divine crafting prayers now only use 25% of your connection instead of 100%.
General Content
‣ (Darksaber & Magus) Added 4 new potions with unique and powerful effects. These can be rarely found as loot, or can be crafted with appropriate ingredients.
‣ (Darksaber & Magus) Added some new secrets to be found deep in the dungeon.
‣ (Darksaber) Added some new donor hats by Avem.
‣ Added new music tracks for floor 6.
‣ Added a couple new achievements.
‣ Portals now charge a tax for repetitive usage.
QoL
‣ (Darksaber) Floor 5’s floor collision has been smoothed out. Hopefully, this reduces the incidence of greenscreen crashes.
‣ (Darksaber) Bank system changes:
—▷ Most non-curse soulbound items are now bankable (you still aren't allowed to trade or drop them).
—▷ You can now withdraw items by name. Supports partial name matching (ex. /withdraw arch withdraws a stored Archangel’s Staff).
‣ (Darksaber) Added /swapItemUp and /swapItemDown commands. Now, you can organize your inventory in-place without having to push items to the very top or bottom.
‣ Doubled the rate at which you can gain large chunks of EXP.
As a reminder, this update will go live on June 21st at [b]18:00 PDT[b] (6pm). We hope to see lots of people enjoying the new content this coming weekend!