Since release, the game has seen many improvements through various small content updates. This one shall rule them all. I've been hard at work on this every day for a few weeks, and I feel the time is right.
There are many things to address, so when possible I'll post some screenshots to go along with them to get a better.. ah, PICTURE of what it's all about.
ADDITIONS
- New class- the Monk! Specializes in punching things to death though he can use most any staff, stick, or one-handed club weapons. For armor he can wear most robes and shirts, and almost every ring and amulet too. No shields though, none at all (not even the lowly turtle shell the wizard can).
As a dude fresh off some mountain monastery he has given up all his worldly possessions- that means no starting gold or items. Because of this he has a special penalty the others don't that replaces "Start with No Items" called "Left for Dead". Choose this and you'll start with only 1 HP and stamina, being severely injured. In practice this is extremely temporary and probably a good choice to make.
A monk is also different than the others as he gains a special bonus to ATK while no weapon is equipped (offhand is OK, but take note that the Myagi headband only gets its bonus while barehanded in both hands!) It starts off at +1 at level 1 but goes up to +10 from level 8 and up. Couple this with the highest strength growth rate of all classes, he's your veritable glass cannon no doubt.
Monk skills are: Ox (+5 physical DEF), Monkey (+15% Block) / Snake (+35% poison strike), Tiger (+15% critical chance) / Dragon (regen 2 HP per round). Though his skills don't consume a ton of stamina, he'll have to rely on them more often than the others due to his overall lack of equippable gear.
The Monk has a new unique battle action while unarmed: One-Inch Punch. Costing 10 stamina, this will deal +50% damage to an enemy. There is also a (player level +2%) chance to instantly kill the target, regardless of enemy type, i.e. boss and etc
One last thing- The Book of change event will not work on the Monk. There's some new dialogue in the event to reflect this.
- New event: Chintzy Zoo
- If you're plagued, the picture of your class at the upper right hand corner of the screen now turns green along with your character's sprite
- Three new Runic powers: (MA) Magic Attack Power +50%, (CR) Critical Damage +50%, and (US) Usable weapon. A (US) runic has the menu option of "Runic Use", which will consume the weapon but give you either +2 to a random stat permanently, +15% permanent gold found, or +10% permanent XP earned. Very helpful if this lands on a weapon your class can't already equip!
- New Item: Head Cheese. Acts like the previous inedible fruit items in that keeping it in your pack provides the bonus, which is +30% XP. Unlike the others though, holding it makes you unpopular and unable to enter any shop, guild, cultist den, or casino.
- New Item: Weirdulet (unique amulet). Special amulet that provides rare bonuses not usually seen in the game, like lowered Hit Streak threshold, protection vs critical hits, and immunity to poison. The catch is that unlike every other item the effect is different depending on upgrade level. So a regular Weirdulet provides -1 to Hit Streak threshold, a +1 version loses that bonus and gains the protection vs. crits, a +2 version loses that and gives +20% fire strike chance, and lastly a +3 Weirdulet loses the fire strike and gains immunity to poison.
- New item: Ninja Ring (rare ring). This is a monk-only item that raises unarmed attack damage by +1 / +2 / +3 / +5 points
- New item: Snapper Guts (enemy drop necklace). VERY good necklace if you can get and max upgrade it, no points in guessing what this drops off of
- New enemy: Klucka-Kaze, a holdover from the first Equin game returns! Do not be fooled by his BOYISH CHARMS, this is a deadly little bastard!
- New enemy: Doom Snapper. Can appear in the Wizard Forest water (both deep and shallow, like a moccasin can). They are submerged so are harder to see- be careful! Can also rarely be fished up in the Temple Area, oh noes!
- Steel Plate is now a possible shop option for Warriors
- Shops can now offer 'Manager's Choice' on occasion. These are always unique items, and therefore pretty expensive ($300-$500). What's cool is if these appear while a sale's going on you can get some great items for 50% off alongside everything else in the store. Many uniques may appear in this way.
- More level variation for the Wizard's Forest, including more opportunities for shops to appear there
- There's a new graphic for after you search through a haystack in the Prison area to show that you've searched it already
- When searching a prisoner's haystack, you can find a Froggy Shiv possibly (chance is 0.5%)
- New item: Soap. You can sometimes find these under a prisoner's haystack. It provides a small 2% evade bonus and like the plastic fruit works while in your backpack (Chance is 0.3%)
- New enemy: Snow Devil. These little spear-holding demons live in the Subterranean Prison and can be hard to hit. Though you'll see them walking around, they can also live inside the blue vases you smash open
- New item: Devil's Tail (enemy drop offhand). Provides a small max STM boost but way more importantly it protects vs. getting frozen as long as it's equipped
- New item: Fireworks! Equip this in your offhand and you'll get the option to throw them at monsters, dealing 24-26 base damage that counts as magic (damage doesn't scale off your MAG stat, so this is good for low-MAG guys like warriors too). Using it in battle consumes it of course. You can sometimes find these in shops or crates.
- New item: Starfish. You can rarely fish these up. Eating one increases your max stamina by 2 and gives you a stamina regeneration buff for a short while. Way more common in the desert, but you can catch them anywhere if you're lucky.
CHANGES
- Super dangerous enemies in the Temple Area now have a little flashing skull over them on the map. This is to warn new players that some enemies in the game are very powerful for when they can be encountered. After the first area's warning, all bets are off!
- Item change: Myagi is now a Monk-only headpiece
- Spawns of 2 x 2 gravestones were scaled back a bit
- Shield Block% now capped at 50% (though practically impossible to get this high, better safe than sorry!)
- Changed the "enemy pissed" buff at a flat boost of +5 ATK and +2% critical chance. This is going to be pretty huge, as the old formula was (enemy level x 2). For late game foes this meant one of them getting pissed would likely one shot you if you had low defense or HP.
- The new hood graphics are now displayed on the Death Certificate screen if necessary
- Increased chances of teleporters spawning in all areas a bit
- Chicken Stones now require 0 STM to use and attempt to retreat battle (was 5 before)
- All 0 STM battle actions no longer display "STM 0", that spot is just blank now
- You can inspect the sword wall displays in the desert area now. There is a 5% chance to get a sword from these, but most of the time it'll be useless junk
- Made underwater shadows easier to see (good for Doom Snappers and Octopi). Snappers are easy to spot as they will blow bubbles. In the above screenshot, the Doom Snapper is above the hero while the Octopus is on the left.
- Increased Gaboosh's base sack drop rate to 9% (was 5%). These always carry great stuff.
- Improved the equipped graphic for the regular red Headband
- Increased the chances to find gold pieces from barrels (+2%), single crates (+5%), and triple crates (+10%). This should help players get more money to afford all the new and expensive items at the shop
- Ice-Hole's XP value increased to 190 (was 90)
- Master Splinter's (unique staff) evade bonus mod was changed to critical hit chance. This makes more sense considering its special power
FIXES
- Fixed a type-o where the merchant selling $300 uniques says she's selling it for $500 instead (the choice still says buy for $300, but still)
- Fixed it so that you won't gain the resist plague benefit of the Cross Shield if you are currently equipped with a two-handed weapon (makes sense, eh?)
- Fixed a bug where the poison immunity off a brown potion could carry over into the next game if you quickstarted the same character
- Fixed a bug where the Hit Streak flashy doo didn't display when you were blessed with the attack vs undead boon from Streakyama
- Related, the above bug was granting the damage bonus vs ALL enemy types (not just undead). This has been fixed too.
- Fixed a bug where stealing an item from a shop didn't update / add to the item log
- Waiting a turn without moving while under the effects of either HP or Stamina regen will now add 1 to either (before it only worked while you were moving around)
I believe that sums it all up. I think this content update will have to suffice for a while, I'm all pooped out for now this was a ton of work ZZZzzzzz......
Thanks, and happy weekending and etc
-Dave / Del_Duio