Hey there again folks,
It's time for the January Patch! This small update should work out most out the bugs released with December's Winter Update, as well as a few others that thrived in our game since our Early Access came out in October. This means... it's patch note time!
But before that, say hello to Newt! She's growing so fast!
Patch Download Size:
As we often see people complaining about the size of each update, I'd like to clarify once more why you're more or less re-downloading the entire game every time. Long story short, due to how Unity works (the engine Solasta is running on) we've had to make a choice between longer loading time, or bigger patch download size - and considering we're not too keen on making loading screens even longer than they already are, we've prefered to choose the latter. That's pretty much the short version of it :(
Spells / Powers:
- Spells will now require a passive Arcana Check to recognize them during combat.
- The Spell component system has been implemented (options are available in the settings if you want to disable it)
- Verbal:
- Full (Default): Silence now prevents you from casting spells with Verbal components.
- Somatic:
- Basic (Default): Restrained now prevents you from casting spells with Somatic components.
- Full: Same as Basic, but you also need a free hand. Two-handed weapons (i.e. Quarterstaff) count as having a free hand.
- Material:
- Basic: You must have a holy symbol, spellcasting focus or component pouch equipped to cast spells with Material components. Magic wands and magic staves are also considered as spellcasting foci. Note that spells with expensive components can also be cast in the same manner without any additional cost.
- Full (Default): Same as Basic, but spells needing specific components will require you to have them in your inventory (i.e. a pearl to cast Identify, a diamond for Revivify...)
- You should now be able to cast Sparkle as a Bonus Action even after casting a spell with your Main Action
- Finally swapped the Eat / Feed Goodberries buttons, so your wizard no longer "accidentally" gobbles all the berries on their own.
- Fixed spells no longer working on wall sconces / magic lamp and other interactable elements on occasions.
- Losing concentration while flying to a location (by an attack of opportunity for instance) will now make you fall as soon as you lose concentration instead of attempting to reach your destination.
- Fixed the animations when losing concentration after getting hit while flying.
- Fixed Conjure Animals VFX not playing properly.
- Fixed a rare bug when trying to summon creatures somewhere with limited space.
- Elves are no longer affected by Sleep at all (instead of being immune but still feeling a bit weak in the knees)
- Fixed a bug when casting Feather Fall after being shoved into a pit
- Updated VFX for Magic Arrow, Arcane Fury, Guiding Bolt, Doom Laughter and Shine
- Updated Icons for Arcane Fury, Animal Friendship, Indomitable Light, Soothing Hand, Aura of Protection and Word of Law
- AoE Spells info box should no longer re-appear every time your cursor moves to a different cell.
- Added a tooltip to Calm Emotions
- You should no longer be able to cast AoE spells further than their maximum range. No cheating!
- The various Creed feats no longer grant you Expertise in specific saving throws if you were already proficient. No, getting proficiency twice does not equate to Expertise, it doesn't work like that.
- Fixed Sparkle being selected when using Ready Action (Cantrip).
- Cancelling the cast of a concentration spell when you already concentrating on another spell will no longer make the combat grid disappear.
- Casting teleport spells like Misty Step now displays the movement grid to show where you can teleport
- Feats should now work properly. If there are still bugged feats, please specify which feat and we'll take another look at it.
- Aura of Protection tooltip should now display the proper Saving Throw modifiers.
- Fixed Sacred Weapon not working properly.
- Fixed Vampiric Touch not correctly consuming your main action, previously allowing you to spam it.
- Preserve Life now properly states in the Combat Log that it cannot heal characters above 50% HP.
Items:
- Updated the VFX when drinking some potions
- Characters should now wield two-handed swords properly
- Added new icons for some +1 armors
- Improved the Crown's tooltip when more gems are added
- Fixed Basic Poison acting like a Potion of Health. You should no longer drink poison unless that's your kink, and even then we heavily advise against it.
- Characters no longer hold both weapons in the same hand when trying to equip two non-light weapons. Also, it's completely useless. Don't do that.
- Bracers of Archery now only works for bows. I mean those are Bracers of Archery, not Bracers of Universal Bonus Damage.
- Identifying an item should now identify all items with the same name (example: +1 arrows, potions of healing...)
- Copying a spell into your spellbook will no longer consume the entire stack of scrolls
- Your entire party can now interact with Chests as long as they are close enough (without needing every character to open the chest on their own)
- Scroll of Fog Cloud now require you to know Fog Cloud and not Jump. Because logic.
- Magic items no longer display their properties when equipped in the utility slot while unidentified.
- Comparing weapons will now take into account the loadout you are currently using, instead of always comparing with first weapon loadout.
- Fixed some recipe having too many dots in the crafting interface.
- Fixed some crafting recipe requiring the wrong components (i.e. Battleaxe of Acuteness needing a Greataxe)
- Equipping multiple magic items with active components will now display each of them in the combat UI
- Wands no longer contain unlimited charges.
- Scrolls of Raise Dead are now correctly usable by Clerics and Paladins. Long story short, because Early Access limits you to level 3 spells Raise Dead (level 5 spell) wasn't considered a valid spell, so they couldn't cast it...
- Belt of Dwarvenkind now correctly increase max HP as a consequence of gaining additional constitution (current HP remains the same).
Scenario / Map
- Fixed the Dragon Cutscene triggering after killing four ghosts inside the Wizard Tower.
- You should no longer be able to go through a certain rock inside Caer Lem. The illusion magic ran out, we had to replace it with a real rock.
- Culling (how the game detect to make the decor transparent when your characters are behind a wall) should now be working better inside the Wizard's Tower.
- Fixed a cutscene in Coparran not using the correct music track
- Fixed footprints missing from a cutscene in front of Wizard's Tower
- Fixed the combat music not stopping during a cutscene in Wizard's Tower
- The bench in Monastery should no longer be usable during night time, since its sole purpose in life is for the party to wait until night time. Poor bench.
- Added some music transitions in most cutscenes in the Monastery Quest Line
- Fixed the Princess not having proper lip-sync in some cutscenes
- Fixed a bandit in the Prison Tutorial not having a face. Blasted Doppelgangers...
- Added water splashes when walking in the water.
- Razan should no longer be able to teleport outside the Dragon Room.
- Kythaela's body will no longer disappear if you save / load during the fight against Razan
- Pressing "Alt" to highlight interactable elements in front of the Wizard Tower will no longer destroy your retina because one foliage decided to roleplay as a miniature sun.
- Removed some destructible elements in front of the Wizard Tower which served no purpose.
- Fixed Hugo Requer's quest sometimes not completing properly.
- Fixed Angbi's Bones quest blocking dialog with the Antiquarians after completing it.
- Sir Sunblaze now properly holds and reads the Sorak scroll like he used to
- The Wizard's Tower doors no longer close if you long rest after completing the puzzle.
- Changed Coparran's lighting
- Fixed lighting issues in Tower of Magic Crown Room
- Skeletons in Dark Castle are now back to being hostile. Peace was never an option.
- There are no longer two Barons in Coparran's prison. We toid his twin brother that his services will no longer be needed.
- Fixed the Ruby Gem not being visible on the Crown after obtaining it.
- Fixed a rare crash happening when entering the Goblins Cave in Caer Lem
- Set the maximum amount of steps tracked by the quest tracker to 10 to avoid overflow
- Updated the cutscene with the sleepy dragon. Wish we could hibernate like that too, but we've got a game to make!
- Fixed a bug where the door to the dragon door in the Wizard Tower became would become impossible to open after saving / loading once inside the Tower.
- Fixed the travel journal no longer working after a certain time. This fix is unfortunately not retroactive, so old saves will still have a broken travel journal.
- Fixed Broods infinitely respawning in front of the Wizard Tower after a long rest.
- Updated some tavern cutscenes.
- Fixed being able to trap a character in a pit next to the Wizard Tower if they don't have enough strength to get out (and no teleportation spell).
- Certain quests will now automatically be tracked when started.
- Fixed the broken bridge cutscene in the Wolf Tutorial.
- Removed an invisible block in Dark Castle.
- Slightly lowered the difficulty of ability checks during the dialogs with Aksha and Mardracht
- Fixed a bug where random encounters would stop triggering if you traveled to Caer Lem straight right after getting the Crown in Tower of Magic.
Monsters
- Winter Wolves can no longer temporarily freeze time before using their Cold Breath power. They were growing too strong, too dangerous.
- Similarly, Talbut no longer temporarily freezes time after getting hit with non-magical weapons. There's just too many time lords in this game.
- Guess what? Yes, Minotaurs also did that. Time would freeze when you triggered a Ready Action during their charge. It's been fixed.
- Also, Minotaurs are no longer silent when attacking. We gave them some throat medicine and they're back in shape!
- Wolves now have a prone animation when shoved to the ground.
- Ghasts now have a ranged attack, with a new special attack animation.
- Razan now flies as intended instead of walking in the air like in Chinese kung fu movies.
- He now also has his proper skin color and clothing.
- His portrait has also been fixed.
- Updated some monster portraits.
- Orcs now have new run and idle animations
- Updated the Defiler's Misty Form VFX
- Broods should be targetable once more while they are scurrying on the walls. Their immunity to mouse cursors have been removed.
- Fixed Flying Snakes death animation not playing properly.
- The Wight now laughs during his idle animation.
- Monsters capable of spellcasting will now attempt to avoid areas targeted by Silence.
- Monsters capable of spellcasting will now avoid using spells like Sleep on healthy high HP adventurers. Me no stoopid!
Combat:
- Halflings should no longer take an attack of opportunity when going through an enemy in some rare cases . We'll blame that on the DM forgetting about their racial feature.
- Fixed the game sometimes freezing when casting a spell while flying
- Fixed crawling sometimes not working properly during combat, making some characters unable to crawl through small spaces.
- Attacking unconscious characters in melee range will now properly trigger a critical hit.
- Characters killed by Life Drain will no longer roll death saving throws
- Fixed Human & Dwarf Female death animation.
- The "Alt" Hotkey (highlight interactable) now works in combat like it used to
- Dead Characters will no longer take damage nor roll Saving Throws. Yes I know it's boring to be dead, just go make a Dice Tower or something.
Other fixes / changes:
- Fixed a potential memory leak related to particles attached to monsters. What does that mean? I have no idea. Don't attach particles to monsters folks, or do it carefully.
- Fixed the German translation which had reverted to a previous version by mistake.
- Modified the lighting in the Character Creator
- Fixed the size of the encumbrance panel in the merchant interface
- Fixed a rare crash that would happen when opening the inventory
- Fixed clothes clipping through skin in some cutscenes
- Fixed clothes clipping through skin when wearing Leather Armor
- Fixed a bug where characters could be stuck in their falling animation after getting shoved
- Fixed some instances where a character could instantly die by falling through the map
- Fixed a bug when trying to leave the map while the loot window is still open
- Fixed Halflings not holding certain weapons properly
- Added VFX to the level up screen! More power!
- Characters paralyzed by Ghouls will now properly roll Saving Throws after the combat ends instead of remaining paralyzed until the start of the next combat.
- You should now be able to resurrect characters that died after having their max HP drained to 0 by a Defiler.
- Spam clicking Hit Dice after a short rest will no longer teleport the Hit Dice outside the interface. And yes, that 1 still counts even if the dice landed on the floor.
- Item quantities will no longer appear twice on the Blueprint map when hovering containers.
Difficulty and you:
We haven't forgotten about you folks out there who would want an easier or harder experience that what Solasta is currently providing. You'll be happy to know that we've started working on difficulty settings! We've decided to offer a wide variety of options that you'll be able to customize on your own (on top of the preset you can choose from if you want to keep it simple), such as adding modifiers to attacks, saving throws and ability checks, harder AIs that use their powers more often (still limited by the tabletop rules) and target unconscious characters to finish them off, different encumbrance rules - we're even adding weighted dice for those who've prayed extra hard to the RNG gods. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, there will be more for you to play with once we're done with it!
Community Suggestions:
We've already gone through two rounds of Community Suggestions, you can read our answers in the following links:
Article by Tactical Myzzrym
Awesome update ... 16Gb download worth it ... great job TA!