Content Update 5: “Big sword, big spore”

Hello, friends! It’s Project Director Luke here, once again, with our latest update to MythForce, the Big Sword, Big Spore update. As the name implies, this time around, you’re going to be seeing some big swords, and a really big sporefolk showing up in the game, with the addition of Greatswords, and a new Elite monster: The Spore Goliath.

As our first brand new player-usable weapon, the Greatsword is a 2-handed melee weapon that has both good damage output, and some decent tanking potential, thanks to its sweeping, powerful cleaving attacks, and the ability to raise the sword in defense. It doesn’t have the speed of a sword, the stun and stagger of a mace, the reach of a bow, the AoE of a spell, or the solid defense of a shield, but gives you a little bit of everything in one massive, bladed package. It’s a bit of a “hack (& slash) of all trades.” We really hope you have as much fun with it as we have.

But we couldn’t just drop a big new weapon without also giving you something new to hit with it, so we’re also introducing the top of the Sporefolk food chain, the Elite Spore Goliath. It moves slowly but packs a heck of a wallop in close range, and can rapidly close the distance with a leaping attack and stunning ranged attack. When you hear the squelchy thud of those big mushy footsteps, get ready for a fight.

That’s not all, though - we’re also adding to our communication wheel with emotes and triggerable voice lines. Now you can play Rochambeau, have a hearty laugh, show off, or quip to your teammates.

All this and more! Read on below for other improvements, new features, and a healthy sprinkling of bug fixes as well.

Improvements

• Introducing Greatswords
  • Greatswords are a 2-handed melee weapon with extra reach, high damage output, and the capability to hit multiple enemies per-swing, but has slower swings than other melee weapons, and has a high stamina cost to use.
  • Greatswords feature a normal attack, power attack, and a block.
  • Block is similar to shields, but with less stamina efficiency.
  • Greatswords can be found in chests and at the merchant.
  • Greatswords can be used and dropped by the following enemies:
    • Skeleton Berserkers
    • Lizardman Berserkers
• Introducing the Spore Goliath
  • The Spore Goliath is a new Elite-class enemy that can appear in Bastion of the Beastlord on the 2nd floor and beyond.
  • It moves very slowly, but has a suite of powerful mid-range attacks that have high control, including a stretchy punch that has high knockback, and a series of spore rockets that knockback and daze on hit.
  • The Goliath has a weakness to having its abilities parried or perfect-blocked.
• Introducing Emotes & Voice Lines!
  • Emotes and Voice LInes can be triggered from the Communications Wheel.
  • Emotes & Voice Lines can be assigned to their respective sections of the Communications Wheel from the Loadout screen via the Customization panel.
  • Emotes & Voice Lines have been added to the Eldryth Emporium and can be purchased with Blood Gems
  • The following emotes can be purchased for each hero for 10 Blood Gems each:
    • Laugh
    • Rock, Paper, Scissors
    • One unique character emote per hero
  • Each hero also has a set of 9 available voice lines (5 Blood Gems each)
  • Note: Emotes & Voice Lines have a brief cooldown after use to prevent spamming.
• New Perks have been added to the common pool to support the addition of greatswords
  • Momentum: Adds a temporary damage boost after hitting multiple enemies with a single attack.
  • Brazen Charge: Power attacks deal additional damage per meter traveled while charging
• New modifiers have been added to the pool that can generate on weapons:
  • Forceful: Increases the intensity of weapon hits, causing more stagger
  • Relentless: Refunds some stamina on kill
• The following perks have been improved:
  • Sword mastery: Now also applies bleed on crit
  • Mace mastery: Power attacks with maces now inflict daze
  • Spellbook mastery: Increases the power of status effects applied by spells
  • Bow mastery: Increases zoom on draw
  • Ruffian: Tier 1 now has increased daze duration, and the effect now is also applied while dodging.
  • Swashbuckler: Increases bleed damage instead of duration, and the effect now is also applied while dodging.
• Enemy weapons now have a red flash that appears briefly when an enemy begins an uninterruptable attack. During an uninterruptable attack, enemies are immune to normal stagger effects, but can still be knocked down with special abilities that have a knockdown component (Note: Only if the enemy can be knocked down normally. Elite enemies like The Necrolyte, Warchief, and Spore Goliath remain immune to knockdown).
• Updated spore pod explosion visual effects to be less opaque and more consistent with other new fire effects.
• Updated some visual effects for the Mystic Forge & Greed Altar.
• Updated the audio for the Greed Altar and Healing Fountain.
• Did a complete overhaul of the music during the Beastor boss battle.
• Added some text to the Perk equip button in the Select Your Hero screen when no class perk is selected.
• Updated the audio for perfect block and perfect parry.
• Clarified mouse acceleration settings. There is now a toggle to turn mouse acceleration on/off and an update to the text on the slider to further clarify.
• Added back buttons to all panels in the Select Your Hero screen.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where players could fall into and become stuck in a crack in the floor in one of the rooms in Bastion of the Beastlord.
• Fixed an issue where Spellbook VFX would sometimes not appear.
• Fixed an issue where Lizardman archers could enter an unresponsive state when hit.
• Fixed an issue where Hawkins’s magic bow would stay equipped in his hand if using Phantom Shot or Rift Arrow while both hands are empty.
• Fixed an issue where the alarm sound from the final encounter in Bastion of the Beast Lord could persist into the main menu if quitting before the Victory/Defeat screen is shown.
• Fixed an issue where some enemies with elemental vulnerabilities would not have any UI indicator to communicate that to the player.
• Fixed an issue where strafe speed could become greatly reduced after using a charge attack.
• Fixed an issue where Maggie could appear to other players as stuck in a floating animation after using her Snap ability.
• Fixed an issue where the Spellbook Mastery perk would not apply its damage bonus properly.
• Fixed an issue where Deadly Thrust could fall short of hitting an enemy that is in its range.
• Fixed a rare issue where stamina regeneration could be significantly slowed when hitting breakables in the level while near exhaustion.
• Fixed an issue where the Chill effect would wear off of enemies while they are still within the area of effect of an active charged ice spell’s blizzard.
• Fixed an issue where Beastor could appear to aggro on players before they enter his arena, targeting them with abilities while still sitting on his throne.
• Fixed an audio issue where sound effects from the Select Your Character screen (for example, Victoria’s polishing her shield or Maggie’s levitating) persisted into other menus.

Known Issues

Performance Issues

• As multiplayer in MythForce is peer-to-peer, you may experience lag or “choppiness” depending on your connection to the host and the power of their computer.
• On first launch, performance can be low on mechanical hard drives while building shaders in the background.

Gameplay Issues

• The game can crash on rare occasions when playing the game with out-of-date device drivers. Please ensure that your drivers are up-to-date to play MythForce.
• The effects of Vitality Link do not properly award Max HP or party healing if rapidly drinking a potion while the effects of another potion are still being applied.
• In multiplayer, The Clairvoyant perk behaves as though it is Tier 1 regardless of its actual tier for client players.
• On occasion, rooms will open before all enemies have been defeated, allowing players to progress and leave enemies behind.
• On occasion, enemies will recover from a staggered state sooner than expected.
• Infrequently, Beastor’s animation at the beginning of the boss fight does not play for clients.
• On rare occasions, it’s possible to get stuck in a knocked-down state after being hit by Beastor or being caught in the explosion of a spore pod.
• It is possible to get temporarily stuck at “walk” speed after shield bashing an enemy or breakable. Raising and lowering the shield will fix this.
• On rare occasions, after falling into a pit the player may permanently lose the ability to rotate left and right.
• Rift Arrow can sometimes cause colliding creatures and players to be launched into the air
• Jumping on top of certain creatures can cause players to be launched into the air.
• It’s possible to exploit a “safe zone” at the entrance door to rooms, allowing you to shoot into a room without enemies being able to fight back.
• There are some rare instances in which players can become stuck in world geometry and be unable to return to the playable area.
• Clients will occasionally get kicked from the lobby while loading into the game.

UI & Text Issues

• The Floor depth indicator can sometimes misreport the number of total rooms on a floor, causing it to appear as if the player has traversed more or fewer rooms in a floor than actually exist.
• There is no confirmation dialogue on the Early Retreat menu, making it easy to select an undesired choice by mistake with no way to undo.
• Ping indicators persist to the end of their normal timeout even if the pinged object is removed.
• On rare occasions, the hotbar can appear empty after reviving. Picking up or dropping items repopulates the hotbar.
• The item comparison hotbar popup when looking at an item in the world does not compare “like for like,” reducing its usefulness.

Visual Issues

• If a player is wielding a greatsword, their left arm will not animate properly in 3rd person while reviving fallen party members.
• Some door frames, and walls where door frames could appear, do not appear properly lit, looking darker than expected.
• In certain rooms, it is possible for a group of spore pods to spawn in the same location hovering above a thorn vine pit.
• There are rare instances of sections of grass mounds, rocks, and foliage from outside the playable area appearing visible within the playable area.
• When viewing a higher area from below, it is possible to see enemy shadows on the ceiling below where they are standing.
• Some breakables and treasure boxes intersect with the environment, making them hard to see.
• Some environment geometry is larger than its collision, allowing smaller items to become hidden within environmental elements like stairs and raised flagstones.
• Sporefolk clouds that appear on death are opaque, making it difficult to see through.
• Some status effect particle systems can be difficult to see on Sporefolk.
• Some water is “solid,” allowing players and monsters to walk on the surface and items to sit on top of the surface.
• On occasion, after level transition, the “time of day” may appear inconsistent between players.
• Some seams are visible on ground textures, particularly in connecting corridors.
• Some enemies can appear to “jitter” back and forth when approaching in combat.
• There is no “key” to pick up when you defeat Beastor. You can just proceed to the final room and use the pedestal.

Audio Issues

• Lizardman “Septic Shower” and other enemy bow draw sounds can be heard by all players regardless of distance
• Beastor’s combat music may briefly start up again for clients while progressing to the next room after Beastor has been defeated.