Content Update 9: “Elements”

Greetings, friends, Project Director Luke here. Hopefully most of you will have already noticed the PTR and have had a chance to play a little bit, and give us some feedback on our feature experiments there. If you haven’t, I recommend giving it a look! It’s chock-full of in-progress features that we’d love to share with you in the “safety” of the unstable PTR branch - separate from the main branch. If you already have MythForce, you’ll automatically have access to the PTR, so give it a try! Please have a look at http://bit.ly/mythforceptr for more details on the PTR and what it contains.

PTR talk aside, that doesn’t mean we’ve completely pumped the brakes on content updates for the main-line game. It’s not huge as we’re focused heavily on prototyping, but we’ve got a small but fun update to the main branch of MythForce as well.

This time around, we’ve focused on a couple quality-of-life and immersion features, as well as fixing some run-ender bugs that cause players to lose the ability to fight under certain conditions. The addition you’re going to notice right away is a brand new navigation ping that tells you where the exit door is after a room has been cleared - we know folks could get a little turned around in the dungeon, so this should hopefully keep you moving in the right direction.

Additionally, we’ve added a few minor environmental interactions so that standing in ambient fire and water now have special effects. No more walking through the campfire without singing your breeches, and now you can extinguish yourself in water - but beware lightning bolts, as getting wet means you’ll take extra damage from electricity type damage.

Have a look down below for a detailed list of changes in Content Update 9.

Improvements

• Added a navigation ping for players when a room has been cleared, showing the location of the exit door.
  

• Altered the Ice Book charged attack (blizzard) to do AoE damage within its circle.
  

• Some environmental elements now affect the player
  

• • Standing in fire, such as a campfire or brazier, will now cause fire damage
  • While in water, players & enemies gain resistance to fire elemental damage
  • While in water, players & enemies gain vulnerability to electric elemental damage
  • Resistance & vulnerability are do not stack upon, or negate effects from trinkets
• Improved the VFX for the Cleaving and Blasting weapon enchantments

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where client players could become unable to interact with their inventory after ricocheting off of a hard surface with a greatsword.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes a player would be unable to attack after blocking with a shield.
• Fixed an issue where players could become unable to attack or interact with their inventory after a perfect block or entering exhaustion.
• Fixed an issue where Barrier III could fail to protect from certain enemy spells.
• Fixed an issue where the barrier effect from Sling Shield III could become permanently stuck on characters.
• Fixed an issue where Hawkins’s Spirit Dash would visibly “jitter” when dodging left
• Fixed an issue where lizardman rogues could become stuck in their charging animation when performing their special attack.
• Fixed an issue where Hawkins’s Spirit Dash could fail to mitigate fall damage at certain height differences.
• Fixed an issue where the hotbar dividers were not appearing
• Fixed an issue where some incorrect voice lines and barks could play instead of the correct audio.
• Fixed an issue where an enemy could become unresponsive if blinded again while already afflicted with blind status.
• Fixed an issue where Maggie’s Feather Fall VFX could become permanently stuck in 3rd person.
• Fixed an issue where the player could fail to return to a neutral state after performing a charge attack with a greatsword.
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash for clients if the host quits a multiplayer game while a Necrolyte is present.
• Fixed an issue where enemies would appear to jitter when moving toward players.
• Fixed an issue that caused movement to stutter after being revived.
• Fixed an issue where some enemy animations would begin stuttering after being knocked down by a client player in a multiplayer game.
• Fixed an issue where the host player would see client player dodge animations appear to bounce or jitter while in motion.
• Fixed an issue where the hit sound would still play when a player successfully mitigates incoming damage with a dodge.

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

• Infrequently Victoria can become stuck in her “Thunderstrike” animation, losing the ability to attack temporarily. This can be reset by performing Thunderstrike again.
• When selected as an infusion in Victoria’s infusion tree, Divine Healer only grants a reduction in revive time and does not properly grant additional healing on revive.
• If the host player is disconnected from the internet when returning to the main menu, it is possible for the game to become stuck in an unresponsive state.
• 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.
• 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.

Visual Issues

• 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 above 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.
• 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.
• 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

• Beastor’s combat music may briefly start up again for clients while progressing to the next room after Beastor has been defeated.