Alpha 11 Release Notes

We deployed Alpha 11 on Saturday November 1st.  These are the release notes.

Known Issues

• The Paper Doll does not update correctly when slotting some Feats. The Feats are slotted but will not appear until you close and reopen the Paper Doll
• Expendables (Spells, etc.) do not appear in the Auction House
• Company Search still does not list all Companies when searching with an empty string
• Settlement trainers do not improve based on number of captured Towers

Achievements

• Added settlement achievements that you get by going to the keep of a player settlement template. There is one per player settlement template, so you get it for going to the first of a given template you visit. They all reward two achievement points of various categories useful to the players of that settlement.

Advancement

• Increased ability score bonuses for feats at the low end and decreased them at the high end.
• Removed some non-functional skills like Fly from the system. We will return them once we have functionality for them.

AI

• AI logic has been updated for NPCs to only share hate with members of their team (2 teams currently: Guards, and all other hostile NPCs). Also, aside from sharing hate with members of their team, they will actively engage members of different teams (i.e. Guards will attack hostile NPCs that come within range).

Animation

• Substantial improvements to many formerly broken attack animations.
• Improvements to idle and base movement animations, including minor differentiation based on gender.

Art

• Added bloom to game camera to add to overall game look and feel
• Unified weapon placement in character hands
• The Pathdinder Online Application has a more asthetic icon
• Fixes to a number of visual effects for spells to use a more appropriate placeholder 
• Some adjustments to elf heads (still in progress)

Audio

• Audio added to the vast majority of feats
• Improvements to many sounds

Character Creation

• Made visual improvements to the starter cloth armor. Your leg wounds have been healed by the Power of the Gods!
• Additional and improved hair styles for character creation.

Combat

• Effects with 'Beneficial' no longer autotarget the caster. In additional, 'Beneficial' effects no longer make attack rolls.
• Modified the 'Beneficial' effect as follows:
  • If an action is Beneficial, it can be used without any target selected. In this case, it automatically acts as if the user was the target (without changing the actual target).
  • If an action is Beneficial, and it is used with a hostile target selected, it automatically acts as if the user was the target instead (i.e., you cannot use Beneficial actions on a hostile target, even if it is a ""to target"" action, but you can cast a to target heal/buff on yourself while targeting an enemy).
  • In both of these cases, range is not an issue (since the target is you and within melee range), so the action should be available even if the selected hostile target is out of range or there is no target. If a non-hostile target is selected, it uses the normal range limitations.
• Restored the Distressed and Unbalanced states which were temporarily combined down into Flat-Footed and Opportunity. The combination was to get players comfortable with using conditional states, so, now that players seem to be comfortable with them, we're restoring the original conditions and balance of the attacks. Feats that had an applied or conditional state affected are are:
  • Physical Attacks
    • Opportunity to Unbalanced: Balestra, Clustered Shots, Gore, Hoist, Impact Critical Shot, Ruin, Shield Charge, Shiv, Shove, Slam, Wrathful Strike
    • Flat-Footed to Distressed: Compound, Cross Blow, Distant Shot, False Edge, Footwork, Forehand, Hack, Mangle, Overdraw, Parting Shot, Shield Slam, Shillelagh, Skewer, Sorrow's Release, Stab, Thousand Cuts, Thrust, Understrike, Wind-Up
  • Cantrips
    • Opportunity to Unbalanced: Break, Deadly Proximity, Ghostly Grasp, Remove Energy, Telekinetic Fist,
    • Flat-Footed to Distressed: Binding Web, Eel's Touch, Explosive Rune, Flare, Frost Ray, Hellflume, Instant Inferno, Killing Joke, Nightmarish Foe, Shard Spray, Shard Storm, Winter's Caress
  • Orisons
    • Opportunity to Unbalanced: Bleeding Touch, Lightning Arc
    • Flat-Footed to Distressed: Destructive Smite, Icicle
  • Trophy Charm
    • Opportunity to Unbalanced: Fluster, Trouble, Imperil, Disturb, Scare, Jeopardize, Halt, 
    • Flat-Footed to Distressed: Jeopardize
  • Rogue Kit
    • Opportunity to Unbalanced: Adamantine Bolos
    • Flat-Footed to Distressed: Ripping Shears, Adamantine Shears
  • Spellbook
    • Opportunity to Unbalanced: Hydraulic Push, Scorching Ray, Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball, Sunburst, Meteor Swarm
    • Flat-Footed to Distressed: Force Missile, Acid Arrow, Boil Blood, Biting Gaze, Death's Shadow, Greater Shout, Death's Wail
  • Holy Symbol
    • Opportunity to Unbalanced: Darkness, Midnight
    • Flat-Footed to Distressed: N/A

Companies

• The Apply to Join feature now works properly - application requests now show up in a company admin's Applicant's list as expected.
• The search feature in the Company UI now works as expected, and is no longer case sensitive.
• A company can no longer be created with the same name as another company.
• Company membership now updates when new players join.

Crafting

• Reduced crafting, refining. and gathering XP costs by 16.66%
• Fixed the Crafting recipe scroll bar, so that it no longer hides recipes in other crafting buildings.
• Lowered the base rank and quality of most refining recipes and set all refining recipes to increase by one rank per plus. For example, if something requires rank 1 for +0, it now requires rank 2 for +1, rank 3 for +2, and rank 4 for +3. Overall, this should make the +0 and +1 versions of most recipes available earlier, the +2 and +3 versions available about the same time for recipes that were previously toward the end of a tier, and the +2 and +3 versions available slightly later for recipes that were previously toward the beginning of a tier.
• Dramatically increased the components required for higher plus versions of refining recipes. This often includes adding magical essences at the highest upgrades (as they're so good they're slightly magical even before you craft them into a finished good). Previously, higher plus items were far too little of a component increase over the +0 versions, creating little reason to not always refine at +3 as soon as possible.

Environment

• Increased copper in the Northern Thorncrags with a equal drop in iron.
• Fixed mislabeled settlement hex for Hammerfall.
• Hell hounds are now considered Outsiders, with a new achievement available for killing them.
• Changed many resource ratings.
• Thornguards are now targetable only by clicking.
• Bank doors now close automatically upon leaving the bank.
• Fixed a bug that left a character floating in the sky.
• Moloch Cultists are now fireproof.

Feats

• Moved several conditional effects for AoEs that would be hard to judge (on Distressed, Dazed, and Unbalanced) to be lesser effects that do not require a condition or other conditionals like Opportunity (since it's hard to tell whether the condition is on all the AoE's targets.
• Corrected armor proficiency requirements to better mesh with armor feat requirements.
• Reactive feats now only apply their effects on the target.
• Global cooldown on Expendables now applies only to Expendables.

Items

• Removed non-yet-working expendables from the market listings.
• Set Lesser Token of Mind Blanking to the correct quality level (it will no longer look like it's Tier 2).
• Missing icons added for Tokens, Recipes, Expendables, and Implements.
• Made improvements to self-healing. Among other things, tokens of curing now actually cure.
• Boots now show up when the Embroidered Silk Robes are equipped.
• Items now have weight which will be applied to the character's encumbrance in a future update. We know that some of the weights of some of the items are not correct and they will be fixed before encumbrance is turned on.
• Consumables (like Tokens) can be slotted to the "Wond Item" (Wondrous Item) slots on the Paper Doll in a stack up to 9 units.

PvP

• War of Towers PvP windows now operate correctly, opening and closing as expected.

Recipes

• Moved Oak Pole refining recipes down in rank so Wizards can get Staves earlier in Tier 2.

UI

• Active Feat icons were updated, following a scheme by which the background and border provide consistent information about the feat.
• Many new icons added, including implements, upgrade feats, weapon types, and multiple items including learnable spells, recipes and tokens
• Company management system icon is now a castle
• Quest management system icon is now a hand
• Removed the center area of the Paper Doll to allow viewing of character (experimental implementation)
• Tutorial and Company UI updated, including improvements to scroll bar functionality.
• The bag system icon for Inventory changes colors as your character's load changes. It turns yellow when your character is lightly encumbered and red when the character is fully encumbered.
• You will see your encumbrance as two bars in the Inventory window. The bottom bar fills first and represents being lightly encumbered. As the top bar fills your speed will be reduced and when the top bar is completely filled you are fully encumbered and cannot move. (Note: Move penalties are not yet turned on.)

• ← Early Enrollment "Hold"
• Closing the Gap to Early Enrollment →