Content Update 3: “Rebalancing the Scales”

Happy Wednesday, friends! It’s your friendly neighborhood MythForce Project Director, Luke, here again with content update number 3. This time, we’ve focused on taking care of a few quality-of-life features that the community has been asking for. We’re also giving you a new challenge in the form of the brand-new Elite monster, the Lizardman Warchief!

You can find a more comprehensive list of changes below, but here are some highlights.

One of the biggest things players have been asking for is the ability to share healing with their party during a run. With the scarcity of healing potions, it can be a drag when the only party members with health potions are already at or near full health, so we’ve added the ability to drop potions. Now you just have to scroll to the health potion on the hotbar (default mousewheel) and press the drop key (default X), and you’ll drop a potion at your feet for another member of the team to pick up.

Speaking of dropping things, do you find your inventory getting cluttered with gear as you progress deeper into the dungeon? Or do you find that you’re sometimes just a few gold short on a purchase at the Merchant? Well now you can make use of the brand-new “Kovina’s Crucible,” an artifact from the alchemist’s guild that transmutes items into gold. Just head up to the crucible, conveniently located near each merchant’s table, and drop unwanted items in front of the shrine. Then interact (default F) to turn those old swords and ice binary amulets into cash.

While you’re shopping, you’ll find that the merchant has increased their available stock from 3 items to 6. They’re also organized to give you a more predictable set of items to choose from. Consider trying out the brand-new “Fire Sale” artifact while perusing the merchant’s wares, an unlimited 30% off coupon—but be careful, those sales are hot. So hot, in fact, that making a purchase sets you on fire temporarily.

But it’s not all things to make your adventure easier. If you thought the lizardfolk were dangerous already, you haven’t yet met the Warchief! Joining the Necrolyte as part of the elite enemy roster, the Lizardman Warchief is bigger, meaner, and a little less “jumpy” than their smaller brethren. Warchief hits hard and does area damage attacks, providing a new challenge as you get deeper into the dungeon.

Take a look below for more information about the added improvements and bug fixes, and we’ll see you in the Cursed Lands!

New Enemies

• Introducing the new Lizardman Warchief Elite enemy—a massive lizardfolk warrior that hits like a freight train—that now appears as a new elite enemy in the Bastion of the Beastlord adventure.

New Artifacts

• Added a new Artifact that can be unlocked via Quests!
  • Fire Sale: Grants a 30% discount at the Merchant’s shop, but the sales are so hot you catch fire when you make a purchase.

Improvements

• It is now possible to drop healing potions. You can scroll to healing potions on your hotbar and drop them with the drop key (Default bound to ‘x’).
• The Merchant has more stock to sell. There are now 6 items available instead of 3 at every Merchant stall.
  • The stall has also been organized so that the left table always carries main hand weapons, 2 of the items on the right are offhand equipment or trinkets, and the slot on the far right is guaranteed to be a healing potion.
• Beside the Merchant’s shop now appears “Kovina’s Crucible,” a new shrine where you can transmute unwanted equipment into gold. Be careful, though. There’s no getting equipment back after you’ve activated it.
• Enemy AI has gotten a little smarter! Creatures now navigate around the level more efficiently.
• Reduced the lethality of poison: poison no longer can become permanently applied at max poison stacks, and only 3 total maximum stacks can be applied instead of 5.
• Menus have been updated to have a snazzy new “action figure cardback” visual style.
• Added new hero voice lines to help finding exits from completed rooms.
• Sporefolk casters can now cast ice spells. Watch out for hostile blizzards and ice spikes!
• Sporefolk casters using ice books can now drop ice books when defeated.
• Altered the ice spell VFX for higher performance.
• Added animation and sound to the “New Perk Available” level-up indicator to make it more noticeable.
• Victoria’s Vanguard ability now ramps up to full speed much more quickly.
• The auras created by upgraded Deadly Thrust and Lion’s Roar now follow the character that triggered them as they move.
• Maggie’s Familiar ability can now target enemies that are knocked down.
• Spore Pods are no longer triggered by non-damaging area-of-effect abilities, like the targeted area of Maggie’s Snap.
• Updated XP rewards and quest progress to be saved at the end of each floor, so if a player disconnects, rewards will only be lost for the current floor.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an exploit in which the “Ill-gotten Gains” artifact contributed to session Rank XP. Rank XP now counts only treasure picked up during the run and ignores starting treasure.
• Greatly reduced the chance of an enemy getting stuck on a ledge, refusing to jump down.
• Fixed a number of “holes” in the level that would allow players to escape to the outside of the playable area.
• Fixed an issue in which Light and Heavy weapon stamina costs were not receiving a decrease or increase of stamina cost.
• Fixed a minor visual issue in which Hawkins’s bowstring intersects with his body.
• Fixed a minor visual issue in which the text on the Early Retreat panel is slightly cut off.
• Fixed an issue where players would sometimes do their level-up bark while dead.
• Fixed an issue in which a single character could trigger a same-character banter line and have a conversation with themselves.
• Fixed an issue in which party banter would play multiple times when passing through treasure junction rooms.
• Fixed an issue in which the depleted state of Spirit Shrines would not be synchronized between players.
• Fixed an issue where monsters would sometimes instantly snap to facing the player character when hit from behind.
• Fixed an issue in which the audio for Spectral Detour would play at full volume without any audio attenuation for all players present.
• Fixed an issue in which Spore Pods can “miss” enemies and player characters within their explosion radius.
• Fixed an issue in which, in the keybind menu, the text for “Move Backward” and “Move Left” were erroneously listed as duplicates of “Move Forward” and “Move Right”

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 “Hit ‘Em Where it Hurts” and “That’ll Leave a Mark” quests do not track damage dealt to enemies by client players in multiplayer sessions. Currently those quests can be progressed only as the multiplayer host or in Solo mode.
• 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 occasion, Beastor will “activate” early in the room before his combat arena and will taunt players loudly from a room away.
• On rare occasions, after falling into a pit the player may permanently lose the ability to rotate left and right.
• In cases where some players have a slow network connection, it can appear during the Beastor boss battle that Beastor is “teleporting” from one location to another after certain attacks.
• Some creative platforming in specific room variants can allow players to exit the playable area.
• Rift Arrow can sometimes cause colliding creatures and players to be projected into the air and possibly out of the play area.
• Jumping on top of certain creatures can cause players to be projected into the air and possibly out of the play area.
• 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 the world geometry and be unable to return to the playable area.
• Clients will occasionally get kicked from the lobby while loading into the game.
• Immediately after taking the Perfectionist perk, for a short period of time the player is credited 2 stacks of Perfectionist instead of 1 per enemy defeated.

UI Issues

• 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

• Idle visual effects on spellbooks stop playing when swapping away from a spellbook and back.
• 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.
• Sporefolk 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

• Sound effects from the Select Your Character screen (Victoria polishing her shield, Maggie levitating, etc.) persist into other menus.