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old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Dec 2006
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Hello everybody,
It's only been 12 days since our last big update, but we're in overdrive at Larian so there's lots to share already.
The big ones
-AI Personalities part 1 is there. If you feel up to the challenge, you can give your main protagonists a will of their own, and they'll make their own choices, just like another player would in multiplayer. Currently only random personalities are activated, but it makes for a very different game. Do try it out, it's a lot of fun. -Primary stats now affect your skill values. This is the next step in the changes we decided to do to improve the amount of class free builds you can make. The tooltips contain all you need to know. -The system powering the treasure generation has been refined. Loot balancing has been further improved. Disarm trap kits for instance now actually drop.
The other features you'll notice right away
-We did several modifications to the tutorial dungeon, including a new encounter. -Surfaces & clouds now have their own level -The hint system is now operational -The credits screen now works -You can now differentiate between stacking items or wanting to craft quantities of items -Weapons that do elemental damage now have fancy fx -We Added rotate buttons to character creation screen -Surfaces have sound now -You can now select your starting skills during character creation (still a few issues) -Projectiles have an offset above the ground causing less terrain/projectile interference -We added the Stabbey waypoint in Cyseal -A lot of effort was done on improving the tooltips (ongoing)
Some fixes have been done explicitly for the Mac version
[Mac] To rotate camera on trackpad use Apple built-in rotation gesture [Mac] Crashes on game exiting (free() issue mentioned in crash log) are fixed [Mac] All physics related crashes (when dragging items around) are fixed [Mac] 善ink issue is fixed for good. Users of GT120/130/8600 and other cards that previously saw only pink background will be able to play. Most of them however are targets of shadows bug. See below. [Mac] Shadows lockups are fixed but for now are on manual apply. See below [Mac] Multiple video cards in same Mac are handled more correctly now [Mac] Exploding 素ire effect has been fixed [Mac] International symbols input won稚 cause issues in the game [Mac] Mac and Windows are now fully save game compatible
And here are the fixes and balancing changes that you may not notice but which will improve your gameplay
Dragging of items to equipmentslots (from world or inventory) fixed to correctly use AP in combat Fix for NPC's not being able to pick up items Fix for invisible character being visible on minimap/worldmap Tooltips are cleared now when opening journal Stop using chairs will not place you behind walls anymore Fix for not being able to drag containers into an inventory when opening inventory first. Fix for joining multiplayer in combat, resulting in an empty skillbar Fixed orientation and scale of target hit effect Fixed mouse cursor being trapped in the window in windowed mode when changing display settings Fixed window always being topmost window after switching from fullscreen to windowed/fake fullscreen Possible fix for having no resolution options in the dropdown (and always starting in 800x600) Fix for skilltree not updating correctly when switching characters Change for hearing range and sight range affecting the minimap Fixed previews for queued paths Fixed animation jitter for moving NPCs Fixed healing effect not being destroyed when finished Invisible characters can be hovered now Don't show attitude changes for enemies in combatlog/overhead Objects will react to surface changes underneath them without moving first Fixed Pathfinding for stairs - can't reach Fixed Visiting the church before Evelyn's lair -> Jake doesnt appear -> stuck in questline Fixed In the specified places there is a long delay during the change of turn which blocks gameplay Fixed Game crashed during exit Fixed Multiple Summon when using pyramids while summoning Fixed Issue when using teleporter pyramid from inventory while not having character selected Fixed Tombstone has no icon (Cyseal) Fixed Teller of Secrets (Homestead) has the same model & portrait as Evelyn, a antagonist in Cyseal Fixed Short (Orc) Sword = oversized when worn - found in Dark Forest Fixed Char Cust Screen - If a lot of times "turn around" button is pressed, then model is distorted; sometimes model twitches slightly Fixed [gameplay] attitude going down for no reason Fixed In stat's/ability's tooltips, where value of base was written, now says "Blinded!" Fixed Can't reach bookcase in Cyseal Fixed The secret tab doesn't show any secret description Fixed Region border in Homestead, 1st room unlock (Astarte room) has no bounds Fixed Encourage\Inspire have same effect, but different description Fixed Large Perception Potion no tooltip\can't be used Fixed summon was at 0 0 0 after clicking on skill icon a lot - player char started doing animation without a target Fixed Multiplayer - Player1 doesn't see player2's answer in dual dialog Fixed Can see invisible enemies (friendlies) on the mini-map Fixed Summons their timer does not count down during real-time gameplay Fixed overwriting existing dual dialog between players , plays the teleport effect on player - not clear Fixed Poison from item's "Inflict poison on contact" is permanent Fixed Using torches set off "theft" dialog, they probably should not? Fixed Hasted enemies visual bug Fixed Winterblast does not leave behind an ice surface, it should Fixed (balance) Farseer skill does nothing Fixed Divine Light is useless right now (balance) Fixed Winterblast spell book has an air icon, rather than water Fixed Cant reach Thelyron's bookcase, Cyseal Fixed Can't reach balista west exit cysel Fixed Squares are observed during "Nullify Resistances" and "Lower Resistances" animation Fixed The weaver of time animation Fixed Shield Specialist still uses its old values (+5% block per level, instead of +10% as mentioned in tooltip) Fixed When lying on matrasses the visual shows player lying with feet at the head resting area Fixed Reputation value doesn't update to reflect the +20 from the "Altruistic" Talent Fixed Cannot read Treasure Maps, no option given in contextmenu Fixed Dug up a "Voodoo Doll Level 3" item in Cyseal Fixed Currently Equipped tooltip is closer to the item, than actual item's tooltip Fixed Leadership is incorrectly called "character" in the "Damage" tooltip (e.g. "From character: +10%") Fixed Can walk into Jake's coffin at Cyseal graveyard Fixed Zombie Jake has standard sheathe mechanic dialog (Cyseal) Fixed Formations behaviour at the start of the fight Fixed Character who was second in char cust screen becomes the first in the game Fixed Cyseal: Burning Ship trigger happens too soon Fixed When you enter the Cyseal graveyard, the AD about "The dog is trying to tell us something?" should appear Fixed Cyseal_Tutorial area - Fragments of chest are not on floor, and hang in air Fixed In the specified place if the character goes through it, animation of water appears though there is no water Fixed The 3 guys you can possibly save in the Sparkmaster 5000 quest (Cyseal) are nowhere to be seen in town afterwards Potion colour fixes on 3D visuals Potion colour fixes on Stat objects Luck table improved Exploration bonus xp improved Exploration bonus xp triggers fixed Tweaked position of hatch in Mirror Players' lairs Removed to 1H 2H thing under title of item, should not be here, we will do it in description Lowered Daggers damage penalty Junius and Bibius now have drunk status Fixes to Item Descriptions, Stacking, Stats Fixed Ranger trainer offering Rogue skillbooks improved the Cyseal burning boat's texture More vitality for vitality boosts Updated the perception distance of the mines Added a check to make sure Dietmar isn't CHARMED when he calls for help Witchcraft Skilltrainers now sell vampiric touch Some characters may loot potions from the battlefield Remove trade for evelyn in vault Updated the Voodoo Doll names Fixed scrolls for ranger and warrior that did not have stats Rearranged Bickies in garden scene, equipped & gave spells to Gardener Changed requirements on Talents Gave preset chars new Talents Removed the "AP bonus on daggers" talent and all daggers are now 2AP by default All presets that have something magical in them, such as the wayfarer and shadowblade, now have staff of magus & have a staff in their inventory when they start Removed APDagger talent because all daggers will autom. cost 2AP Flanking talent removes ALL flanking penalty now Gave starting dagger another visual that looks more like a dagger instead of a butterknife Rogue now starts with razorsedge instead of venomous strike because Cyseal is full of undead Changed some projectile skills so that they take surfaces and AoE into account Description for backpack Disarm kit in trader Immunity skills are now available before Shield skills because it makes a lot more sense that way All zombie creatures have the zombie talent, ie. they now heal from poison and take damage from normal healing Made zombies slower because they're zombies... West Gate near beach is now called South West Gate Updated some TUT messages and changed some timings Skillbooks now mention what stat improves the skill Fixed some arrow combinations that gave you the wrong arrow Updated willpower and bodybuilding values for characters Updated the player comments regarding the furnace and the whetstone wheel Fixed icon and visual of winterbreath skillbook Divine Light decreases Willpower AND Bodybuilding now, and costs only 3 AP Farsight gives CTH bonus now Earth skill poison arrow and poison dart have new and different icons now Food stuff gives more healing now Mass Weakness skill has new icon Fixed all buffs, debuffs, potions and effects that should give an armour boost or penalty Fixed tooltips of Skill that would show Bodybuilding +0 instead of actual effect If anyone is hit with silver arrow, status icon is shown Traders ignore level diff when generating items All sizes of Poison flasks now work with combos Changed the treasures of the TUT chests to RewardTiny Shorter skilldata tooltips Arrow seller sells arrows again Loot for Traders Less drops from chests Orc sword has a name, stats and is no longer oversized Being wet gives you 10% fire resistance Changed targeting snap of AoE spells Tweaked damages dealt by burning, bleeding, poisoned and surfaces and clouds Shovel is no longer a weapon, only for digging Chars only loot potions in combat in turn Fixed inspire vs encourage (inspire did not do what it said it did) Updated the WPShrine location at the blacksmith house
Have fun and as always, thank you for all the feedback! We still do read it all.
Last edited by Lar_q; 28/05/14 11:37 PM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
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AI Personalities! Yes! Selectable starting skills! Also yes! -We added the Stabbey waypoint in Cyseal :p Yes, I know I was rather vocal about it. I won't apologize. These look great.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2014
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The barter skill (for one update period) used to display exactly how much money it saved a character on each item at a vendor. But the next update removed it and it's been gone ever since. Is there any chance of it making a return? I thought it was a handy little feature that really made me consider the value of investing in barter.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2014
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Fixed Using torches set off "theft" dialog, they probably should not?
Actually, it should, shouldn't it? I'm assuming you're talking about the "Would you mind not touching that, I like things as they are" (paraphrasing) dialogue that pops up when you turn off a light source, correct? I feel that is a perfectly acceptable reaction. Since light hampers sneaking, and sneaking allows easy stealing, I would hope the NPCs would object to someone walking around their house turning off all the light sources to make sneaking easier. "Well, that's odd.. you're turning off all the lights. And now you're slipping into that shadow and hiding. How peculiar, and yet not at all worrisome. Has anyone seen where my silverware ran off to?"
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2014
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Being wet gives you 10% fire resistance
Tweaked damages dealt by burning, bleeding, poisoned and surfaces and clouds Very nice, things should be much smoother now and my fire thread can sink into abyss. All zombie creatures have the zombie talent, ie. they now heal from poison and take damage from normal healing. Awesome. Some offensive abilities for our healing spells. -We did several modifications to the tutorial dungeon, including a new encounter. Interesting. -Projectiles have an offset above the ground causing less terrain/projectile interference
Excellent. Plus loot rearrangements and less of it. And many more, all great.
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Elverils/Larian Studios
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Elverils/Larian Studios
Joined: Jan 2014
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[Mac]
Shadows issue:
On a number of video cards your game might lock up on start with barely visible background. Examples of such cards are:
GeForce 320/330 GeForce 8600/8800/9600/120/130/Quadro FX 5600
If you experience such lockup, please open Terminal and type exactly this line:
defaults write com.larian.dos EnableBrokenShadows -bool true
this will enable workaround for shadows rendering. All shadows options are still valid and correctly working.
We will provide auto-detection of shadows issue in next builds.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: May 2014
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Since the new update, I have been unable to load any of my save games. Any ideas on a solution to this? I'd hate to start a new game.
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apprentice
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apprentice
Joined: Jan 2014
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Since the new update, I have been unable to load any of my save games. Any ideas on a solution to this? I'd hate to start a new game. The game is still in beta with new things being added, so the patches always break saves.
Last edited by randir14; 29/05/14 12:41 AM.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2011
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The little I've played, Character Creation options looking good. Damage #'s down, seems better.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
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I- love the changes to the tutorial, very good stuff. The boss fight is especially awesome. It looks great and plays great.
- Nice new healing animation.
- I like that the burning ship looks suitably charred.
- Ooh, the telescope works, neat. That's definitely some kind of sight.
That said, some issues:
(I'll probably cross-post these to another thread later on)
- Right now, your partner answers randomly to the Companion recruitment question, because they have a random personality. When they have fixed personalities, they will presumably answer the same way each time, yes? Does this mean that if you give your partner certain personalities, certain Companions will never be recruitable?
- You can injure your companions and they will get annoyed and lose disposition with you. That痴 fine, but is there any way to restore disposition?
- Currently, points into attributes make spells more effective. Points into abilities just give more slots. Okay it is early so I may change my mind later, but right now I am not entirely sold on this, because it means that a Wizard who gets Fire 5 and an Enchanter who picks up Fire 1 (assuming equal levels and points into INT) can use the highest quality fire spells equally well.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: May 2014
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I- love the changes to the tutorial, very good stuff. The boss fight is especially awesome. It looks great and plays great.
- Nice new healing animation.
- I like that the burning ship looks suitably charred.
- Ooh, the telescope works, neat. That's definitely some kind of sight.
That said, some issues:
(I'll probably cross-post these to another thread later on)
- Right now, your partner answers randomly to the Companion recruitment question, because they have a random personality. When they have fixed personalities, they will presumably answer the same way each time, yes? Does this mean that if you give your partner certain personalities, certain Companions will never be recruitable?
- You can injure your companions and they will get annoyed and lose disposition with you. That痴 fine, but is there any way to restore disposition?
- Currently, points into attributes make spells more effective. Points into abilities just give more slots. Okay it is early so I may change my mind later, but right now I am not entirely sold on this, because it means that a Wizard who gets Fire 5 and an Enchanter who picks up Fire 1 (assuming equal levels and points into INT) can use the highest quality fire spells equally well. Ya sad to see the skill system the same but loving chosing my starting skills lol
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: May 2003
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Nice surprise, but being a work night... can't do much with it. Staying up until 2a.m. is rough enough on the weekend let alone when I gotta go and work.
I did run into some bugs though...
Initial cut-scene lags quite a bit now. Before there was one pause very early on, now there are quite a few pauses.
Wasn't able to rotate the characters during char creation.
Wasn't able to select what skill for them to learn (no such interface ever came up). I chose a Battle Mage and Witch.
Accidentally got my male character burned to death, resurrected him, ate some food I found and he mysteriously died. I had water all over the place so I know it wasn't fire.
Tutorial Dungeon still doesn't auto-save making someone have to go threw the initial cut-scene if they don't survive the tutorial.
Instead of "dungeon" call it a Tutorial Crypt as it really isn't a dungeon. Dungeon is so over-used in RPGs these days that some games even call caves dungeons.
Last edited by LightningLockey; 29/05/14 07:39 AM.
Every time there I run into trouble on the road, there is always a dwarf at the bottom of it. Don't they know how to drive above ground?
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apprentice
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apprentice
Joined: Apr 2014
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Shovel is no longer a weapon, only for digging
But... but... I wanted to play my warrior with a bucket as helmet and a shovel as weapon ![frown frown](/images/graemlins/default_dark/frown.gif) Just kidding, everything is great. We can choose skills !
Last edited by oXis; 29/05/14 07:23 AM.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2014
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Wasn't able to rotate the characters during char creation.
There are two new icons on each side of the character legs now - approximately. Try using those. Wasn't able to select what skill for them to learn (no such interface ever came up). I chose a Battle Mage and Witch.
Click on the + to the right of the skills. Accidentally got my male character burned to death, resurrected him, ate some food I found and he mysteriously died. I had water all over the place so I know it wasn't fire.
It was fire. Water from barrels doesnt entirely extinguish fire surface, for some reason. Instead of "dungeon" call it a Tutorial Crypt as it really isn't a dungeon. Dungeon is so over-used in RPGs these days that some games even call caves dungeons.
Its an old generic term for basically any internal space in RPGs that contains any sort of enemy or tasks, puzzles, obstacles or problems to solve. Leftover from the days of yore, PnP sessions of adventuring. Just learn to live with it.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: May 2014
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I'm so confused... Somehow each beta patch seems to make the game WORSE for me. Tried to actually play the game and hope that the hanging on saves problem was fixed (its not by the way) and now it took me 3 attempts to even get the game to start after the character creation. This game is supposed to be coming out in like a month right? IMO that doesn't feel like enough time if I've been having the same game breaking bug for the last 2 patches.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2011
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- Currently, points into attributes make spells more effective. Points into abilities just give more slots. Okay it is early so I may change my mind later, but right now I am not entirely sold on this, because it means that a Wizard who gets Fire 5 and an Enchanter who picks up Fire 1 (assuming equal levels and points into INT) can use the highest quality fire spells equally well. I've read a bit about this, about cherry picking the best spells. What I've found is almost all spells are situational to some point. What may be the biggest damage dealer may not always be what is needed. Since we also have elementals, a big fireball spell now heals fire based enemies. Another reason not to go big is space. The single hitters have all been comparable, so then you take the best situational one at the time if you have those. Then there are buffs/debuffs/CC's which all have a place. Not sure this is as big an issue as talked about.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: May 2014
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I've read a bit about this, about cherry picking the best spells. What I've found is almost all spells are situational to some point. What may be the biggest damage dealer may not always be what is needed. Since we also have elementals, a big fireball spell now heals fire based enemies. Another reason not to go big is space. The single hitters have all been comparable, so then you take the best situational one at the time if you have those. Then there are buffs/debuffs/CC's which all have a place. Not sure this is as big an issue as talked about. A mage with 3 spells out of ervery single element will be way mor versatile than any mage that just focuses on 1 or 2 element with no real drawback. This just does not feel right. 1 rank each in fire. water, wind, earth and witchcraft = 5 ability points for 15 spell slots. Just for 5 points, thats almost free when compared what is required to get a single element to level 5 (which does not even give more effective spell slots unless there are more that 15 available spells for a given element).
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2003
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Another important change that seems to have missed the changelog: the skillbooks used to require level 1, level 2, level 3, and so forth. We have now grouped the skills together more. So at level 1, you can now choose from A LOT of different skillbooks, and that level is the only requirement. Skillbooks are grouped into the following groups: Require level 1: 34 skills Require level 4: 22 skills Require level 7: 26 skills Require level 10: 23 skills Require level 13: 11 skills Require level 16: 12 skills Require level 18: 6 skills Everyone can learn these, as long as you have at least one ability point in the corresponding "discipline". So your mage can learn Whirlwind, and your warrior can learn Fireball, like a real classless system. It is however so that wizard skills are improved by higher INT scores and warrior skillsl are improved by higher STR. Skills you can learn early on in the game, do not expect very high values in these stats, so the more points you put in for instance INT, the better these early spells get. Skills you learn later on in the game, expect a bit of investment in these stats. So even if your warrior can learn Fireball (a "Requires Level 4" skill), if his INT is only 5, he will take penalties on its damage and its chance to inflict burning, but he is still able to actually learn it and cast it. The same goes for your wizard learning whirlwind. He will be able to learn and execute that skill, but his damage output will be less than a warrior with high STR. So when you go skill-shopping or ability-point-spending, don't think in classes. Don't just look at warrior skills if you are a warrior. I do think this opens up possibilities and insane "character builds" ![smile smile](/images/graemlins/default_dark/smile.gif)
Tweeting @forktong
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2014
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Ive noticed that level requirements for several skills were lowered from the previous version, which is a good decision for those specific skills and spells. They were rated too high previously at 9 or 10 levels. Now most of those are available at around level 7 which is much better.
As for whirlwind example, i am running a sort of very edited shadowblade, which is based around dexterity weapons, man at arms, ranger and air magic skills.
I took the whirlwind and i am using a dexterity based weapon - the damege seems really low. I am at level 3 only so that may be the reason for it.
Im not complaining abut it either, its fine - But i do wonder is the fact that im using dexterity based weapons properly calculated in? (i do put points into dexterity - though the points are spread between that, Int and Speed, of course)
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2013
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Another important change that seems to have missed the changelog ... I do think this opens up possibilities and insane "character builds" Ah, that looks like a nice refinement of the previous system. I like it on paper, and look forward to trying it!
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