- Defensive Stance (Guardian/Warrior) has had its buff and debuff ratios tweaked to give them a higher initial bonus, and a larger bonus per skill rank. The ratio also improves in efficiency with each rank. At full skill it will give a +140% defense bonus, at the cost of a -34% damage penalty.
- Berserk(Berserker/Warrior) has had its buff and debuff ratios tweaked to give them a higher initial bonus, and a larger bonus per skill rank. The ratio also improves in efficiency with each rank. At full skill it will give a +140% damage bonus, at the cost of a -34% defense penalty.
- Improved the Frost Winds aura (Wizard/Mage) so that it now does more initially, and per level. It now maxes out at a -53% penalty to movement speed and attack speed to nearby targets.
- Frost Blast (Wizard/Mage) has had it's movement speed and attack speed debuff doubled per level, with an additional -3% as a starting bonus.
- Fixed a bug with some pieces of equipment acting as occluders, with odd results in some cases.
- Fixed a pet pathing issue.
The Hopebringer
v1.3.3 Build Notes
v1.3.2 Build Notes
- Introduced new ambushes. These are uncommon, but will result in some particles and sound, followed immediately by an ambush of NPCs appropriate to the current scenario settings.
- All companions, as well as healer or werewolf pets, will now gain a short regeneration buff when the owning character goes into resting mode (15 seconds after exiting combat).
- Treasure chests will now drop more items, where previously they were primarily dropping gold. The gold has not been reduced, but items have been made more common.
- Tweaked player stats, to reduce the overall amount of power that players have at higher levels.
- Mages can now kill worms with PBAoE spells.
- Increased the cooldown on cleric companion's smite spells.
- Fixed an issue with Fiend aggro.
v1.3.1 Build Notes
- Introduced a new Wizard (Mage) spell: Lightning. This spell can be trained at level 7, and will launch streams of lightning in front of the character. It begins at 3 streams of lightning, and each additional skill rank adds an additional stream.
- Introduced a new Conjurer (Mage) spell: Heal Pet. This is an area of effect healing spell that will only heal summoned pets owned by the caster. It will not heal scenario based companions, only pets. You gain this spell at level 3. Additional ranks will increase the amount of damage healed and the radius healed inside of.
- Added a thin plane underneath the terrain in each scenario. This is not visible, and shouldn't affect gameplay at all, but is an effort to resolve an issue where in some rare cases, NPCs would spawn partially underneath terrain.
- Barbarian Witch-Doctors bosses have new spells at their disposal.
- Cleric companions can now Smite.
- Fixed a bug that caused cleric companions AI to malfunction and stop attacking for stretches.
- Healing Wave now properly adjusts its radius based on skill level, as was originally intended.
- Fixed an issue with the Cleanse spell and companions, or healer NPCs. Sometimes they would get stuck trying to move into range when they intended to cleanse a specific target.
v1.3.0 Build Notes
- Added a compass with quest marker support. This will mark some quest waypoints on your compass to make them easier to locate. Not all waypoints will support markers, some things are best hidden. It can be enabled or disabled on a case by case basis. It also supports variable range. Meaning that some markers will appear when you are within a certain distance, and be invisible when you are beyond that distance.
- Updated many scenarios to display quest markers at various parts of the mission.
- Corrected some font related issues which opened the door to some additional localizations.
- The game now supports Simplified Chinese and Japanese localizations. As with other localizations, translations should be considered in a beta phase, and you may run into some un-localized strings.
- Giving a health potion to a companion or pet will now heal them.
- NPC healers will now heal allies a bit earlier than was previously the case. i didnt get htat working in time
Early Access: Week 4 Report
Highlights of the week included new NPC companions who will accompany you in most scenarios, along with four new summoned pets. It also saw the game get localized in 10 new languages.
Companions
- Introduced three new companion NPCs. These are allies who will accompany you on your on adventures. There is one of each class: A warrior, mage, and cleric. It will assign you with companions of a different class than your character on missions that support them. If one of your companions dies, they are dead for the duration of the scenario.
- Improved our spawner system to allow for greater variety in ranges based on companion or player counts, and scenario.
- Introduced four new summoned pets. More details on them can be found in the Skills and Abilities section.
- Companion networking optimizations.
Dungeons/Scenarios
- Improved our spawner system to allow for greater variety in ranges based on companion or player counts, and scenario.
- Increased the number of enemies required in the Trimming Their Numbers quest.
- Made tweaks to spawn counts in numerous scenarios, to compensate for the new companions.
Items and Loot
- Shaman and Witch-Doctor NPC variations now have a small chance to drop Lycanthrope Fangs.
- Increased the drop rates of Orc Blood.
- You can now buy Orc Blood in small quantities from shopkeepers or magic vendors.
- Turned down the loot ratio of Health and Power potions, as well as portal scrolls.
NPCs
- Spiders now have hit reactions.
Skills and Abilities
- Introduced a new Conjurer spell: Summon Orc. This spell requires Orcs Blood. It will summon an Orc pet. Orc pets have slightly less hit points than the skeleton pets from Witches, but deal greater damage. They can be differntiated from standard orcs by their blueish skin and unique appearance. Increased skill ranks increase the damage and health of these pets, as well as increasing the maximum number that can be summoned at a time.
- Added a new Conjurer spell: Summon Spider. It uses Spider Venom to summon a Spider pet, and is a child ability of Summon Orc, which unlocks at level 7. These pets have a spider leaping special ability, as well as a chance to poison their victims. They have less hit points, but deal more damage than Orc pets. They receive a small bonus to their hit points for each rank you have in Summon Orc. These spiders have a yellow skin texture to make them easy to differentiate from other spiders.
- Implemented a new Conjurer spell: Summon Werewolf. This summon spell requires a Lycanthrope Fang as a component. It is on the same line that begins with Summon Orc, and requires you to be level 15 or higher to gain access. Werewolf pets are fast, powerful, and have a high number of hit points. They are currently by far the strongest pets in the game. The downside to them of course, is that they require an uncommon component. Summoned werewolves have white fur, to make them stand apart from the NPC varieties. They have a retaliation ability which will often make them return incoming attacks with a free response action. Werewolf pets receive a bonus to their health for every skill rank in Summon Orc, and a bonus to their max damage for every 2 skill ranks in Summon Spider.
- Integrated a new Witch spell: Summon Healer. This spell requires bone chips, and will summon a Spectral Healer. It is a child of the Summon Skeleton and Hold Undead line. And requires you to be level 15+ to train it. These have a greenish tint and are less transparent, to differentiate them from the NPC variations. Unlike other pet types you can only have one healer active at a time. Summoning a second one will destroy the first. Healers will receive a health bonus for each skill rank of Summon Skeleton which has been trained, and a bonus to their casting speed for each skill rank in Hold Undead.
- Made adjustments to the power costs of many spells and abilities. This included: Healing Wave, Leaping Strike, Shield Smash, Leg Slice, Buckle Down, Overpower, Sanctifying Shock, Cleanse, Hold Undead, Ward, Strength, and Meteor Strike.
- The Strength skill (Protector/Cleric) now starts with 2 additional strength baseline.
- The healing component of Siphon Life (Witch/Mage) now starts with 5% additional lifetap.
- Despite the tooltip reading the intended 20 power cost for Summon Skeleton, it was only actually removing 5 power. That has been fixed.
- Taunt now properly displays the Attack Rating bonus buff you receive from it. That bonus was always being given but it wasn't being displayed in tooltips.
Sound
- Added new unique companion sound effects.
- Werewolves have new sound effects.
- Added new voice overs for rescued prisoners.
- Added additional sound effects to Ghosts.
User Interface
- Made some adjustments to UI layouts and underlying code, to try to compensate for some text being larger in non-english languages. This included some rather large underneath the hood changes. Please report any bugs you find on the forums.
- Changed the Hold Undead icon.
- Font adjustments to better accommodate localization.
Miscellaneous
- The game has been localized in French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. If you run into any isues with the localization, please let us know on the forums. This should be considered a first pass.
- General performance improvements.
- Quite a few texture optimizations.
- Fixed a bug that had some Fire Staffs causing Lightning damage.
v1.2.9 Build Notes
- The game has been localized in French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. If you run into any isues with the localization, please let us know on the forums. This should be considered a first pass.
- Made some adjustments to UI layouts and underlying code, to try to compensate for some text being larger in non-english languages. This included some rather large underneath the hood changes. Please report any bugs you find on the forums.
- Taunt now properly displays the Attack Rating bonus buff you receive from it. That bonus was always being given but it wasn't being displayed in tooltips.
- Font adjustments to better accommodate localization.
v1.2.8 Build Notes
- Introduced three new companion NPCs. These are allies who will accompany you on your on adventures. There is one of each class: A warrior, mage, and cleric. It will assign you with companions of a different class than your character on missions that support them. If one of your companions dies, they are dead for the duration of the scenario.
- Improved our spawner system to allow for greater variety in ranges based on companion or player counts, and scenario.
- Made adjustments to the power costs of many spells and abilities. This included: Healing Wave, Leaping Strike, Shield Smash, Leg Slice, Buckle Down, Overpower, Sanctifying Shock, Cleanse, Hold Undead, Ward, Strength, and Meteor Strike.
- General performance improvements.
- Made tweaks to spawn counts in numerous scenarios, to compensate for the new companions.
- The Strength skill (Protector/Cleric) now starts with 2 additional strength baseline.
- The healing component of Siphon Life (Witch/Mage) now starts with 5% additional lifetap.
- Added new unique companion sound effects.
- Quite a few texture optimizations.
- Increased the number of enemies required in the Trimming Their Numbers quest.
- Fixed a bug that had some Fire Staffs causing Lightning damage.
- Companion networking optimizations.
v1.2.7 Build Notes
- Introduced a new Conjurer spell: Summon Orc. This spell requires Orcs Blood. It will summon an Orc pet. Orc pets have slightly less hit points than the skeleton pets from Witches, but deal greater damage. They can be differntiated from standard orcs by their blueish skin and unique appearance. Increased skill ranks increase the damage and health of these pets, as well as increasing the maximum number that can be summoned at a time.
- Added a new Conjurer spell: Summon Spider. It uses Spider Venom to summon a Spider pet, and is a child ability of Summon Orc, which unlocks at level 7. These pets have a spider leaping special ability, as well as a chance to poison their victims. They have less hit points, but deal more damage than Orc pets. They receive a small bonus to their hit points for each rank you have in Summon Orc. These spiders have a yellow skin texture to make them easy to differentiate from other spiders.
- Implemented a new Conjurer spell: Summon Werewolf. This summon spell requires a Lycanthrope Fang as a component. It is on the same line that begins with Summon Orc, and requires you to be level 15 or higher to gain access. Werewolf pets are fast, powerful, and have a high number of hit points. They are currently by far the strongest pets in the game. The downside to them of course, is that they require an uncommon component. Summoned werewolves have white fur, to make them stand apart from the NPC varieties. They have a retaliation ability which will often make them return incoming attacks with a free response action. Werewolf pets receive a bonus to their health for every skill rank in Summon Orc, and a bonus to their max damage for every 2 skill ranks in Summon Spider.
- Integrated a new Witch spell: Summon Healer. This spell requires bone chips, and will summon a Spectral Healer. It is a child of the Summon Skeleton and Hold Undead line. And requires you to be level 15+ to train it. These have a greenish tint and are less transparent, to differentiate them from the NPC variations. Unlike other pet types you can only have one healer active at a time. Summoning a second one will destroy the first. Healers will receive a health bonus for each skill rank of Summon Skeleton which has been trained, and a bonus to their casting speed for each skill rank in Hold Undead.
- Spiders now have hit reactions.
- Increased the drop rates of Orc Blood.
- You can now buy Orc Blood in small quantities from shopkeepers or magic vendors.
- Turned down the ratio of Health and Power potions, as well as portal scrolls.
- Despite the tooltip reading the intended 20 power cost for Summon Skeleton, it was only actually removing 5 power. That has been fixed.
- Werewolves have new sound effects.
- Shaman and Witch-Doctor NPC variations now have a small chance to drop Lycanthrope Fangs.
- Changed the Hold Undead icon.
- Added new voice overs for rescued prisoners.
- Added additional sound effects to Ghosts.
Early Access Week 3 Progress Report
Companions
- Added a companion system. Companions come in two varieties. The first are summoned pets. Witches, and in the near future conjurers, will be able to summon pets. The second type are NPC companions, who will fight alongside you until they die. NPC companions are a part of the scenario, and can not be summoned via spell.
- Added a companion version of the Commander, who will aid you in protecting the artifact. He wields a large flaming sword, and will assist you in battle, as well as verbally taunting enemies.
- Witches now have the ability to summon skeletal pets. This ability requires bones as a component. Those can be purchased from vendors in limited quantities. They also drop from skeletons and shamans. Their pets will be stronger based on how many ranks they have trained the pet skill in. You also will gain additional active skeletal pets at a time based on the skill rank, maxing out at 4 pets at a time. If you try to summon more pets than your skill rank allows, it will replace the oldest pet with the newly summoned one.
Dungeons and Scenarios
- Introduced a new system to support protecting objects from being destroyed. This is used in the Protect the Artifact scenario, on the artifact itself. It was designed to be reusable, for additional future scenarios.
- Implemented a new wave spawner system, which can be reused in diferent scenarios. This system allows for scaling numbers of NPCs, modified also by difficulty settings, for scenarios such as the newly added one today.
- Added a new scenario: Protect the Artifact. This scenario opens up after you complete Raiding Camp or Retrieve the Artifact. It sees the Hideout fall under enemy attack. The players will need to protect the artifact being housed there until the enemy retreats. This will involve enemy encounters of escalating difficulty. You can unlock this scenario by completing the Retrieve the Artifact scenario.
- Completing Raid Camp or Retrieving the Artifact will now unlock the Protect the Artifact scenario.
- Completing the Protect the Artifact scenario has become an alternate way to unlock the Sealing the Rift scenario. You must be level 35+ to unlock Sealing the Rift.
- Added a Stash to the scenarios where the Commander spawns at the end. That includes the Cutting off the Head, Raid Camp, and Showdown scenarios.
- You will now only lose 1% experience from deaths in the following scenarios: Cutting Off the Head, Showdown, and the soon to be released Protect the Artifact. You will still lose 2% in other scenarios, but in these three scenarios in particular, death is expected to be more common. And we don't want to punish players more than necessary for attempting the more difficult encounters.
- Players should now start most scenarios near the commander, solving the need to locate them before getting started. The exception to this rule are cases where the Commander is spawned after the encounter.
- Revamped the Show Scenario screen. You now see a small map and location drawn on it, and a description of each scenario. This allows you to receive details on the quest that you unlocked previously. Where previously you only had the name of the quest to remind you of it's goal beforehand. The new scenario screen will now automatically pick a random mission as the first highlighted quest when it pops up. Allowing you to simply accept the quest and get a random one from those you qualify for without any decision making, if you so choose.
- Optimized The Hideout.
- Improved generated stash placement.
- Werewolves will no longer spawn in the daytime scenarios. They will fall back to a different NPC type in those scenarios.
- Fixed a bug which was preventing the Rift implosion effects from playing for online clients.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the Retrieve the Artifact quest to show up as "Unknown" when browsing multiplayer sessions.
Items and Loot
- Increased Fire Staff damage radius.
- Bones can now be purchased from shopkeepers and magic vendors, in limited quantities.
- Skeletons, mages, and shaman now drop bones sometimes. Those can be used to summon skeletons using a new Witch/Mage ability which allows you to summon skeletal pets.
- Socketed items now drop more commonly than was previously the case from destructible props, and treasure chests.
NPCs
- ]Some NPCs have a random chance to be stubborn when it comes to pursuing the player. These NPCs will continue to chase for much longer distances than others.
- NPCs now have a way to override special cases to allow them to define more strict rules about when they spawn. The werewolf implementation below is an example of this.
- Introduced a new Demon Raid Boss. This boss scales down lower than most demons, allowing it to be seen earlier on. He has a variety of special abilities, will taunt players, and can command reinforcements.
- Introduced two new Werewolf NPCs. Werewolves are the first lycanthrope monster type. This is the first NPC type which can outrun players. They are more susceptible to magical or fire based damage, than physical damage. Their offense includes combination attacks and retaliations. You will begin to see Werewolves at level 7, with a stronger rank of them beginning at level 15. Both variations have multiple color variations.
- Introduced new Barbarian Spearmen NPCs. These NPCs have a sword and shield. Heavy defensively, but slow moving. You'll begin to see them at level 5.
- Fixed an issue with the Spider Leap timeline.
- Fixed a bug which was causing some NPC armors or weapons to float in the air for a few seconds after they died.
- Fixed a bug which was allowing Orc Legion to spawn when the group level was below level 5. They were intended to have been restricted to level 5+.
Skills and Abilities
- Witches now have the ability to summon skeletal pets. This ability requires bones as a component. Those can be purchased from vendors in limited quantities. They also drop from skeletons and shamans. Their pets will be stronger based on how many ranks they have trained the pet skill in. You also will gain additional active skeletal pets at a time based on the skill rank, maxing out at 4 pets at a time. If you try to summon more pets than your skill rank allows, it will replace the oldest pet with the newly summoned one.
- Hold Undead (Witch/Mage) is now a child of the Summon Skeleton ability in its tree.
- Hold Undead (Witch/Mage) now receive +1 to it's damage bonus for every 2 ranks of Summon Skeleton trained.
- Defensive Stance (Warrior/Guardian) is now a wispy full body effect that allows you to continue to see your characters body more easily, without being obscured by the barrier.
- Flame Shield (Mage/Conjuration) no longer has the bubble around your character. This is replaced with a full body flaming appearance.
- Berserk (Warior/Berserker) also received an aura appearance update. It removed the bubble effect in place of a glittery full body particle.
- Continuing that same theme, Vampiric Draw (Mage/Witch) has a new dripping blood appearance when active, in place of the old bubble based aura.
- Last but not least, Frost Winds (Mage/Wizard) got the aura improvement pass. It now has a full body frost effect in place of the old bubble method. Making it easier to see your character's features.
- Increased Fireball (Wizard/Mage) damage radius.
- Added new particle effects for stun, dizziness, or knockdowns.
Sounds
- Added additional voice overs for the Commander. This includes quest dialogs, and combat taunts.
- Added new NPC Taunt sounds.
Transmuting
- Introduced a new crafting ingredient: Lycanthrope Fangs. These can drop from Werewolves, or in the future other lycanthropes. They are used in transmuting.
- Introduced 17 new transmuting recipes which can upgrade some types of gear from magical to rare using lycanthrope fangs.
User Interface
- Revamped the Show Scenario screen. You now see a small map and location drawn on it, and a description of each scenario. This allows you to receive details on the quest that you unlocked previously. Where previously you only had the name of the quest to remind you of it's goal beforehand. The new scenario screen will now automatically pick a random mission as the first highlighted quest when it pops up. Allowing you to simply accept the quest and get a random one from those you qualify for without any decision making, if you so choose.
- You can now zoom the camera out to a further distance than was previously possible.
- You can also now zoom in closer than before.
- If you zoom in significantly, the camera will tilt forward.
Miscellaneous
- You can now zoom the camera out to a further distance than was previously possible.
- You can also now zoom in closer than before.
- If you zoom in significantly, the camera will tilt forward.
- Improved aggro switching system.
- Networking optimizations.
- Added an animation to when players are knocked back.
- Animation optimizations.
- Made some dwarf sizing and grounding adjustments.
- Fixed a ragdoll related issue that could cause issues when destructible objects were destroyed.
v1.2.6 Build Notes
- Introduced a new system to support protecting objects from being destroyed. This is used in the Protect the Artifact scenario, on the artifact itself. It was designed to be reusable, for additional future scenarios.
- Added a new scenario: Protect the Artifact. This scenario opens up after you complete Raiding Camp or Retrieve the Artifact. It sees the Hideout fall under enemy attack. The players will need to protect the artifact being housed there until the enemy retreats. This will involve enemy encounters of escalating difficulty. You can unlock this scenario by completing the Retrieve the Artifact scenario.
- Added a companion system. Companions come in two varieties. The first are summoned pets. Witches, and in the near future conjurers, will be able to summon pets. The second type are NPC companions, who will fight alongside you until they die. NPC companions are a part of the scenario, and can not be summoned via spell.
- Added a companion version of the Commander, who will aid you in protecting the artifact. He wields a large flaming sword, and will assist you in battle, as well as verbally taunting enemies.
- Witches now have the ability to summon skeletal pets. This ability requires bones as a component. Those can be purchased from vendors in limited quantities. They also drop from skeletons and shamans. Their pets will be stronger based on how many ranks they have trained the pet skill in. You also will gain additional active skeletal pets at a time based on the skill rank, maxing out at 4 pets at a time. If you try to summon more pets than your skill rank allows, it will replace the oldest pet with the newly summoned one.
- Implemented a new wave spawner system, which can be reused in diferent scenarios. This system allows for scaling numbers of NPCs, modified also by difficulty settings, for scenarios such as the newly added one today.
- You can now zoom the camera out to a further distance than was previously possible.
- You can also now zoom in closer than before.
- If you zoom in significantly, the camera will tilt forward.
- Added additional voice overs for the Commander. This includes quest dialogs, and combat taunts.
- Completing Raid Camp or Retrieving the Artifact will now unlock the Protect the Artifact scenario.
- Completing the Protect the Artifact scenario has become an alternate way to unlock the Sealing the Rift scenario. You must be level 35+ to unlock Sealing the Rift.
- Added a Stash to the scenarios where the Commander spawns at the end. That includes the Cutting off the Head, Raid Camp, and Showdown scenarios.
- Added an animation to when players are knocked back.
- Skeletons, mages, and shaman now drop bones sometimes. Those can be used to summon skeletons using a new Witch/Mage ability which allows you to summon skeletal pets.
- Bones can now be purchased from shopkeepers and magic vendors, in limited quantities.
- Increased Fireball (Wizard/Mage) damage radius.
- Some NPCs have a random chance to be stubborn when it comes to pursuing the player. These NPCs will continue to chase for much longer distances than others.
- Hold Undead (Witch/Mage) now receive +1 to it's damage bonus for every 2 ranks of Summon Skeleton trained.
- Hold Undead (Witch/Mage) is now a child of the Summon Skeleton ability in its tree.
- Animation optimizations.
- Improved generated stash placement.
- Increased Fire Staff damage radius.
- Fixed an issue with the Spider Leap timeline.
- Fixed a bug which was causing some NPC armors or weapons to float in the air for a few seconds after they died.