Alpha Testing Week of July 17th 2014

Alpha Test Update

We are prepping Zog for this week's Alpha Test.  The server will open at 3pm (Pacific) today (Thursday) and close at 6am (Pacific) on Saturday morning, unless we decide to operate with extended hours.  If extended hours are greenlit we'll notify all the Alpha players directly.

This week we are continuing to fine tune various parameters in the Achievements and the Crafting system.  A lot of work is being done by the art team including work on animations but those changes will likely be brought into the game near the end of Alpha Testing rather than being staged in incrementally.

You can join Alpha Testing!  Alpha Access is available for purchase in the Goblinworks Store!

Release Notes:

Crafting

• Crafting Achievements are now in.
• Each plus for each tier for each skill has it's own Achievement, and getting a higher +X Achievement gets you all the lower plus Achievements at the same time. So, making a +0 item with Alchemy gets you one Achievement, making a +1 item with Alchemy gets you both the +0 and +1 Achievement.
• There are separate achievement paths for Common recipes, which you get automatically, and Uncommon recipes, obtained from drops.
• Crafting skills require both Crafting points, gained through crafting Achievements, and specific crafting Achievements for that skill.

Advancement

• Added a new category of Achievement points, Subterfuge, required for rogue related skills. Killing things with rogue kits, shortbows, rapiers, shortswords, and daggers earns Subterfuge Achievement points, as do stealth-related escalation event interactions (such as stealing things).
• Killing things with longbows and shortbows now advances two different Achievements, Longbow Expert and Shortbow Expert depending on which weapon was used. Longbow Expert yields Martial Achievement points; Shortbow Expert yields Subterfuge Achievement points.
• The rate at which you gain Achievements has been slowed and the number of Achievement points required for various skills have been modified to create a flatter advancement curve.
• Some skills now require specific related Achievements, i.e., Ranged Combat Bonus requires levels of Longbow or Shortbow Expert. This is in addition to the Achievement point requirements.

Gathering

• Resource ratings have been tweaked to concentrate resources to have higher ratings in a smaller number of hexes so they are more predictable. This will be an ongoing process over the entirety of Alpha.

Feats

• Added the following Attack and Utility feats. This list has the following format: <name of feat> (<weapon it's associated with> - <trainer of feat>)
  • Mage's Resistance (Wand - Occultist)
  • Figment Foes (Wand - Occultist)
  • Strength Surge (Focus - Seminary)
  • Agile Feet (Focus - Seminary)
  • Resistance (Focus - Seminary)
  • Guidance (Focus - Seminary)
  • Virtue (Focus - Seminary)
  • Augur (Focus - Seminary)
  • Combat Expertise (Utility - Skirmisher)
  • Resiliency (Utility - Rogue)
  • Tumble (Utility - Rogue)
  • True Strike (Utility - Wizard)
  • Shield of Faith (Utility - Cleric)
  • Divine Favor (Utility - Cleric)

• Added new effects to the following passive feats:
  • Archer Armor (Fighter): Now also improves Speed
  • Unbreakable Armor (Fighter): Now improves Reflex and all Resistances
  • Binder Armor (Wizard): Now also improves all Energy Resistances
  • Mage Armor (Wizard): Now also improves Physical Resistance
  • Scholar Armor (Wizard): Now also improves all Knowledge skills
  • Evangelist Armor (Cleric): Now also improves Speed
  • Healer Armor (Cleric): Now improves Reflex defense and Regeneration
  • Transmuter (Wizard): Now also improves Recovery
  • Fire Domain (Cleric): Now improves Fire Resistance
  • Protection Domain (Cleric): Now improves All Resistances
  • Travel Domain (Cleric): Now improves Speed
  • Water Domain (Cleric): Now improves Cold Resistance
  • Weather Domain (Cleric): Now improves Electric Resistance"

• Changed Distant Shot from a Longbow to Shortbow attack.
• Added Sorrow's Release as a Longbow attack.

Combat

• Increased Margin of Failure damage penalty factor (results in small decrease in damage for a near-miss, and a larger decrease for substantial misses).

Loot

• Loot now drops a percentage chance per kill, rather than 100% of the loot table with each kill.

Art

• Fixed floating characters
• Fixed texture and collision issues with some buildings

Escalation Party!

Community Manager Bonny is planning an Escalation Party on July 18th (Friday) at 10:00pm (Pacific).  We are going to get a lot of Alpha Testers gathered together to work on testing the effects of interfering with an Escalation Cycle.

Parties should try to form about 10 minutes before the start of the event.  The gathering point will be at the Auction House in Sotterhill.  

There will be lots of Twitch streams from this event.  Check this thread in the forums for more info!

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• Alpha Testing Week of July 30 2014 →