It's been a long time since the last build, so there's lots of new stuff here. Most importantly, this build includes the new prices and rewards that we blogged about as well as lots of new friend/chat functionality. And, if you're a new player, the campaign has been tweaked and balanced a ton too. Also: Halloween items and figures are back! Halloween Add back the Halloween store. Make Halloween figures available. Multiplayer Improved the MP reward schedule. Added Block button to casual game invite panel Adventures/Campaign Quests reward with loot equal to loot fairy. Early campaign guarantees some treasure. There are no longer adventure specific loot tables. Battle specific loot tables always apply when present. Removed the coffee stain from Card Hunt 2 module cover (it's new!) Award Jewel of Alet Zhav (new) for first completion of that adventure. Removed some redundant adventure prerequisite flags. Temple of Scales only unlocks after Tomb of Tvericus is done. Changed some guaranteed first time adventure loot. Allowing replay of exhausted adventures, but for diminished rewards. (1/2 XP, standard battle loot) Removed old loot tables that should have been deleted from server data. Fixed only getting 1/2 XP for unprimed adventures (and vice-versa). Fixed White Star module cover typo. Added the hidden bandit. Fixed loot fairy prompt appearing when replaying adventures. Kobold adventures are removed from campaign map when player completes a level 3/4 adventure. Patch to fix players who are in tutorial kobold adventures when they are closed. Deleted unused adventure description text. Battles Added Icy ambients to Wyvern battles. Tweaked monster counts and board layouts in Black Forest, War Monkeys, Yellow Dragon and Swamp King. Tuned battles in Astral Shrine, Citrine Portal and Gnome adventures. Board resizing in Astral Shrine, Ogre Pass, Tomb of Tvericus and Temple of Scales. Rebalanced various Geomancer battles. Rebalanced Against the Roaches battles. Redesigned the Descent to the Core boards. Redesigned the Against the Roaches boards. Bunch of revisions to various boards and monster spawns in Forest of Souls and Sinister Wood. Tweaked difficulty on some trog battles. Board layout changes to Beneath Frozen Earth battles, Melvelous battles, Stafford battles and Prison Warden. Re-corrected Stafford Treasure VPs. Fixed player victory count in War Monkey Clearing and Woodhome River to reflect actual number of monsters. Board Editor Fixed some Melvelous tile terrain types. Story A major revision to the campaign story including GM dialog and module text. Fixed a couple of prompts that weren't auto-dismissing. Chests Chest prices reduced. Gold Pizza to gold conversion rate increased. Cards Simian Reflexes restores action points as well as drawing a card. Simian Reflexes draws on a 4+, not 5. Fixed wording of Corrosive Breath. Fixed overflowing flavor text on Clubbing Branch and Escaping Run. Fixed missing illustration for Long Branch. Tidied up rule text on various cards. Removed redundant explanatory text for Frenzy Cards. Added some missing card rule punctuation. Reclassified Cave In and Rockfall as harmful, not harmful terrain (makes Geomancers smarter). Removed references to "creatures" in card rules. Teleport Other is described as Push, not Move. Increased radius of Death Meld from 1 to 3. Cards can have a minimum range. The range 2+ tree attacks now have a minimum range of 1. Taunt detaches on death of monster group that played it. Energize has a longer range (8 from 4). Clarified Taunt rules. Clarified Energize rules. Added a septic bite card for Monster Hunt Chupacabras. Fixed armor value on Brittle Flight Aura. Fixed a potential null pointer error when moving with Unstable Bolt. Added Short Blast and Blast arcane attack cards for monsters. Fixed overflowing flavor text for Blind Rage. Fixed a bunch of overflowing card names. Removed the pointless Stealthy keyword for Ooze Maze. Mystical wyrmhide will now reflect attachments back for multi-target cards (e.g. cones). Swap won't affect enemies with Stone Feet attached. Renamed Berzerk Spin to Berserk Spin. Made use of Burst keyword consistent on terrain creating Cards. Cleaned up a lot of use of commas/full stops in card rule text. Reworded Immovable to make it clear that you can't be moved or placed in a new location. Items Added Manhunter Epic weapon. Added Jewel of Alet Zhav treasure. Patch to award Jewel of Alet Zhav to anyone who has completed Alet Zhav. Renamed Berzerker's Bones to Berserker's Bones. UI Fixed a possible null pointer in currency display. Replaced Menu button text with an icon, tidied up its code a little Made generic alert backgrounds black, to match other popup background effects Ensure that valid party status is shown in front of currency. Show adventure name in screen title. Fixed bug displaying "Victory location contested" when unoccupied. Show the drag hand cursor over any part of a draggable table. Take all and sell all buttons are shown/hidden not added/removed. Should fix an error when they seem to be added twice. Monsters Made the Hell Mantis more powerful. Changed the names of some tree monsters to be more descriptive of their function. Added a maple tree variant color. Made the Oak Tree King the right color for oak trees. Tweaked Guardian motes and shadow decks. Added "big" rook and bishop blasts. Made gnome inciter a bit more useful. Added audio for fungus warrior. Major re-tune of all Astral Guardian decks. Brother Arun draws more cards. Chef Garcotto is tougher. Kazhak goblin shaman has better cards. Added a variant roach colour. Added a single Apprentice Geomancer. Fixed Brother Arum's name. Fixed Arcane Sprite figure. Renamed some roaches. Bunch of revisions to maple and beech tree decks. Reworked the servant deck a bunch. Reworked the kobold avenger deck and renamed it to Kobold Lunger. Added Blind Rage and Charge to the Orc deck. Reduced the number of Combustible cards in the Trapling deck. Added a Dropped Guard card to trog spearman deck. Added Young Chupacabras for Monster Hunt league. Fixed desired ranges for Amirault Catt, Carolinia and Gethen Deathzap. Added an alternate skin for the third armored skeleton. Reduced desired range for servants (and the dog boy) from 10 to 8. Reduced lord stafford's health and increased his desired range. Fixed Melvelous' desired range. Added Orc guard suffix ("guard"). Fixed Stout Maple Tree desired range. Fixed Trapling race. Added a colour variant Trog Scuttler. Added a colour varant figure for Warden Gorald. Replaced sparks with arcane attacks for acid imp, arcane imp, kobold priest, trog wizard, strench, Lumbrezz the Mad, novice geomancer and ogre magicker. Standardised Nom Gravy's name. AI Added some new AI tuning flags (use charge freely, try to get on axes for attacks). Made AI aware of opponents holding team-based victory terrain AI won't play Energize on a target that belongs to a group with no cards or is in the same group. Set default AI brain parameters for AI when not controlling fixed parties (eg in Quick Draw), so it should make better movement decisions now. Chat/Log Added popup chat button to deckbuilder, world screen, board editor Fixed some private message bugs regarding players you haven't seen in a room yet Added chat window popup on private and team messages Bumped max room users for mp lobby and world room, just in case Added ability to access chat from draggable popup window, test with chatpopout console command Added private messaging. Fixed duplicate chat panels after reconnect bug Chat box no longer plays any sound when it isn't visible (eg in deckbuilder or campaign map) Moved all players into World chat room, kept Lobby concept for MP player lists but removed lobby chat Made titlebar close button more visible, removed drag affordance lines. I guess there's a reason both Amiga Workbench and OS X stopped using them back in the nineties. Added delivery failure notification when sending a message to a user who is offline. Removed chatpopout console command Added world entry/exit messages to private chat tabs Tweaked private message not received notification Friends Added search functionality for friends list. Added online status info to friends list Added world entry notifications for friends Added friend world exit message Reconnection Reconnect dialog now prompts you to click OK rather than refresh the page Archives Allow store/retrieve archive mid adventure so long as the party doesn't change. Campaign Map Moved Songsword Tavern. Custom Scenarios Added noNonMinionKillPoints scenario tag Added noMinionKillPoints scenario tag Added player-specific victory terrain, and overlays Added respawn waves (scenario tag: respawnWaves), revives all dead characters using a triangular number schedule Added option for no VPs from kills (scenario tag: noKillPoints) Added option to shuffle monster groups before spawn (scenario tag: shuffleMonsters) Battles Fixed client crash bug on resurrect of dead character after reconnect Added a little more resurrect phase audio Added battle log line for resurrection phase Moved respawn phase to round start, after attachments. Client ignores instructions after battle is over. Should fix client crash when resigning while instructions are being processed. Only apply auto-pass rule if all characters are dead and character count > 0 Warn on lose battle fail (server logs). Battle UI Filter out characters when selecting a facing so they don't get in the way. Filter out invalid target characters when selecting a target so they don't get in the way. Make the group glow a bit bigger. Fix a problem with highlighting potential targets of square affecting cards. Tutorial Don't show a warning when you re-drop an unpurchased item into the shop while in the state where selling usable items isn't allowed. Hints Fixed/added a bunch of Hints. Reconnection Failure to rejoin battle from landing screen should leave landing screen in proper state. Metrics Log adventure revives. Stores Fixed the premade parties screen name. Fixed the shop IDs for randimar's and daily deal (not used, but good to have them right). Fixed a warning about Skarl's Seconds in MP shops. Rearrange the chest shop display to prevent unwanted purchases by mis-clicking after reset. Deck Builder Allowing removal of last party member, to make party reordering easier. Destination test for treasure item transfers to multiplayer chests should work now (doesn't check battle state). Don't scroll to inactive character sheet stack when you have an empty party but there's nothing there. Leagues Added gold versions of monkey magic, astral tourney, golden shrine and triple duel leagues. Premade Parties Premade party store uses the optimized inventory loading system. Should speed up that screen for users with large collections. Options Catch errors in options saving. Remove pointless saving of item filter that isn't used. Spelling fix in options.
Yes, we're aware that the Halloween store hasn't been restocked since last year! We'll be fixing that shortly.
Found a display error when selling excess items - counter sometimes increases when an item is sold e.g. counter shows 10 items owned, then Ctrl + click sells one and counter shows 11 items owned. Moving the mouse pointer fixes the count.
Could we get a hint on how to hunt for the loot bandit? Is it in a different spot everyday? Does he move when the adventures reset? Or did you intend for us to figure this out on our own.
Wow guys this release is a major upgrade for SP ! my first impressions: I love the improved AI, the deck changes and the map adjustments. It seems you guys may have succeeded in forcing people to play the maps more the way they were meant to be played. I see more diversity, and my need for extra save slots just skyrocketed. Very well done ! I hope you bring a nostalgia pack someday with all the removed content though. I also like the color changes to some enemies, which greatly reduces the need for mouse-over checking. Can the same be done for all maps, especially now that some guys are suddenly wearing armor (thinking kobolds here)?
In re: increased MP gold rewards, is it an issue that leagues will now allow you to almost immediately win the entry fee back, assuming you can win 1-2 games? Not that 50 gold is anything but a nominal fee for all but the newest players.
Wow. I get the nerfs to the tree attacks: trees did seem a bit OP in general, and this should make it a good deal easier to take them out with a tank. At the same time, this is gonna make the first map of MM#4 (which has been one of my favorite MM battles since its release) a lot harder. Trees already had low mobility there, and now they won't be able to either escape or attack the ornithopters that run right up to them. In particular, they won't be able to attack around corners: they'll need to hang out on the corners of the VS zones for a decent line of sight, which in most cases will put them at risk of being trapped by ZoC. Also, the nerf of Long Branch from 4 damage to 3 (not mentioned in the changelog?) means that they'll need to be buffed with both types of frenzy to be able to take out the servants from range. I'm going to give it a couple more tries, but while this battle used to be almost perfectly balanced—well, maybe that golem did start off just a little too close to my guys—my guess is that the nerfs have pretty much killed it for now.
Yeah, Mauve Manticore has suffered a lot from these changes. I'll be trying to make sure we can restore all the maps that used to be balanced to their previous state of balance...
Wow, that was a lot. Many thanks to you folks for putting so much effort into this game! I look forward to playing all the adjusted content. Ah ha! But have you considered that for the Trog Gouger? I'd argue that it's more helpful there instead.
Heyyyy . . . did you add "Halloween colors" to the N&N bowl? Orange and black? Or were they always there?
In adventure modules, quests still say "complete these to win a rare item!". This should probably be changed to "a gold chest" or something.
Why is "a golden chest" better than "a rare item"? Quite same meaning IMO. Maybe just "... to win some rare items." since we are getting 3 rare+ items now with club membership.
Rereplying after playing MM#4 a bunch of times. It definitely feels a little different, but all 3 maps feel intact to me. Map 1 was always the hardest for me, and it remains such, but doable. Maybe I'm getting lucky. I encourage everyone to play all the MM modules as much as they like and to report back on their findings in terms of things changing.
May I ask how exactly will it work with the quest reset? Here are some unclarities (is that even a correct word? ) for me: 1) Only those quests finished before this build will be reset? 1a) If the answer is "no", can I play quests that I haven't played before and THEN ask for reset (thus be able to complete the non-yet-played quests twice for the new reward)? 2) Is there any deadline until which the offer to reset quests has to be sent? You may call me greedy asking those questions. And you would be right I am trying to hunt for cards! Anyway, clear rules would be good for everyone I guess.
Fair enough. I'd agree that Map 1 was always the hardest, though also the most interesting in terms of possible tactics (and my favorite for that reason). Maybe I just need some new ones. The buff of Bludgeoning Branch from range 2 to 3 helps somewhat. That card can now be used to attack between VS zones, which saved my (side of) bacon in one battle, so I'll probably end up splitting my trees between zones more often. OTOH, I just lost another battle that I definitely would have won previously, due to having killing blows in my hand that I had no way to play due to the minimum range. Being able to see that coming a mile away and saving my walk card to get to range 2 didn't help, since the ornithopters immediately closed the gap. One thing that might help to rebalance this battle without changes to the map itself would be to increase the VP for the AI by at least one. That way you could better afford to lose one or even both trees, and/or to sacrifice a point by stepping off the VS to satisfy the new range requirements.
