Content Update 8: “Power up”

Happy Halloweek, friends! This is Project Director Luke with your end-of-October update: Content Update 8—“Power Up”

As the name suggests, this update focuses on powering up your heroes by adding new abilities to their arsenal—namely the long-awaited 3rd set of ability upgrades to each of the heroes’ 3 special abilities, as well as a set of brand-new aerial abilities, each unique to their character.

Now, when you are mid-air and far enough off of the ground, each character has a unique ability: Rico gains the ability to double-jump, allowing him to reach higher spots and even hop over a hostile enemy’s head; Maggie gains the ability to magically slow her fall, Hawkins can magically propel himself through the air, dashing horizontally much like dodging on solid ground; and Victoria can charge up to target a spot on the ground to strike with extreme force.

You’d better spend some time practicing these new jump abilities, though. Now that they’re there, normal falls from a sufficient height will cause some damage.

Aside from the new jump abilities, we’re also rolling out the 3rd and final set of special ability upgrades, along with a slight increase to ability points, bringing your grand total up to 9 to spend across all abilities at Rank 10. There are too many special ability upgrades to detail in a blog entry, so I’ll let the bullet point list below speak for itself.

Improvements

• Jump Abilities:
  • Victoria gains Thunderstrike: While in mid-air, hold jump to target an area on the ground. Upon releasing jump, Victoria will surge to the targeted area, doing electric damage and staggering nearby enemies.
  • Rico gains Double jump: While in mid-air, press the jump key/button again to execute a second mid-air jump, gaining extra height but maintaining momentum.
  • Hawkins gains Spirit Dash: While in mid-air, hold a direction and press jump to dash in that direction horizontally.
  • Maggie gains Feather Fall: While in mid-air, hold the jump button to magically slow your fall, drifting to the ground while floating in any direction.
    
• Falling from a sufficient height now causes fall damage, which can be mitigated by using the new jump abilities.
  
• Ability upgrade set III:
  • Victoria gains the following upgrades to her abilities:
    • Vanguard III: Vanguard now stops as soon as it hits an enemy and knocks back all enemies around Victoria.
    • Sling Shield III: The shield now bounces to allies as well, granting a temporary magic barrier that absorbs incoming damage.
    • Lion’s Roar III: Lion’s roar loses its knockdown power but instead burns enemies with magical fire in a radius while active, and hits with Victoria’s enchanted mace also explode in fire.
  • Hawkins gains the following upgrades to his abilities:
    • Spectral Detour III: Upon exiting Spectral Detour, the next non-spell attack Hawkins does gains added Ice damage and applies Frozen to the next target hit.
    • Phantom Shot III: Hawkins’s phantom arrows travel faster but lose their homing ability. Corruption damage is replaced with Electric damage.
    • Rift Arrow III: While the rift is active, any allies that pass into its radius have their non-spellbook weapons temporarily enchanted with Arcane.
  • Maggie gains the following upgrades to her abilities:
    • Snap III: The cooldown of snap is decreased, as is distance traveled.
    • Familiar III: Familiar is permanently summoned, flying over Maggie’s shoulder. It attacks automatically but does reduced damage. Familiar can still be placed like a turret using the ability normally.
    • Barrier III: The barrier no longer provides defense against projectiles but instantly freezes a limited number of enemies that enter its threshold.
  • Rico gains the following upgrades to his abilities:
    • Pocket Sand III: All enemies affected by Pocket Sand become damage linked, so all enemies linked take damage when one is hit.
    • Deadly Thrust III: After using Deadly Thrust, Rico’s next attack is charged up with pure arcane energy and launches an arc projectile.
    • Backslash III: Backslash’s cooldown time is doubled, but upon using it, Pocket Sand and Deadly Thrust’s cooldowns are instantly refreshed.
      
• Maximum Ability Points at Rank 10 have been increased to 9 (Previously 6) to accommodate the new ability upgrades.
  
• The Divine Healer & Spare the Dying perks have been merged into a single Divine Healer perk, which now provides both a reduction in revive timer and higher HP on successful revive.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where, in multiplayer, the Clairvoyant perk behaves as though it is Tier 1 regardless of its actual tier for client players.
• Fixed an issue where the player could become stuck in third-person point-of-view when using an ability while emoting.
• Fixed an issue with the Forest Goliath’s ceasing to act when they are hit with certain attacks.
• Fixed an issue where the Forest Goliath could get stuck in a “take cover” state.
• Fixed an issue where the Forest Goliath would stop moving then vanish when defeated, instead of animating falling over and exploding into spores.
• Fixed an issue where Perfect Parrying a Goliath sometimes did not cause it to go into a staggered state.
• Fixed an issue where the comms wheel would become stuck permanently open if the player had it open when dying in a multiplayer session.
• Fixed an issue where some menu elements were not properly highlighting when navigating to them using a controller.
• Fixed an issue where in some cases Victoria’s Sling Shield ability would not fire when used by a Client player in a multiplayer session.
• Fixed an issue where on occasion melee weapons would miss an enemy or breakable even though the weapon collided with them.
• Fixed an issue where Daggers with the poison effect could have more total effects than their effect limit.
• Fixed an issue where Bows with elemental effects would not deal elemental damage.
• Fixed an issue where Greatsword Power Attacks would ricochet off of other players.
• Fixed an issue where, in a multiplayer session, two or more Hawkinses would begin to block one another’s movement after using Spectral Detour.
• Fixed an issue where, when within Maggie’s Barrier, the buff icon in the status bar is for Victoria’s Lion’s Roar instead of the correct icon.
• Fixed an issue where enemies using ice spells sometimes would show their targeting indicator elsewhere from where they were targeting the spell.
• Fixed an issue where the character arm would animate improperly when reviving another player while carrying a greatsword.
• Fixed an issue where blizzards appeared to stay even after the caster was defeated.
• Fixed a multiplayer issue that caused the host’s emotes to appear to be on cooldown whenever a client used an emote.
• Fixed an issue where Lizardman “Septic Shower” and other enemy bow-draw sounds could be heard by all players regardless of distance.
• Fixed an issue where cel shader outlines disappear when in front of the Skybox.
• Fixed an issue where the Necrolyte buff on other enemies in the room wouldn’t consistently appear for clients in multiplayer.
• Fixed an issue where, if a charge were interrupted, the charge speedlines could appear on the charging player character’s third-person model.
• Fixed an issue where Fireballs would sometimes deal damage twice on hit.
• Fixed an issue where the elite combat music would not play when the Necrolyte is in the first room of the 2nd/3rd floor.
• Fixed an issue where the elite combat music would not play when Necrolytes appear 2 rooms in a row.
• Fixed an audio issue where the sound of characters and enemies walking through water could be heard regardless of distance from the sound’s source.
• Fixed an issue where Rico’s arm could appear stuck in a backslash animation to other players when backslash is interrupted.

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

• 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.
• 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

• Beastor’s combat music may briefly start up again for clients while progressing to the next room after Beastor has been defeated.
• A number of cut additional voice line variant takes are playing in-game. Some voice lines when using special abilities, or receiving status effects like ignite, are now playing incorrectly.