Howdy folks! Welcome to Update #12!
We've been super busy between PAX and getting Episode 2 ready for release, but we definitely have some changes that we can bring to you immediately instead of forcing you to wait a few more weeks.
One of the major things we weren't quite happy with were skills and traps, so we've overhauled our trap system!
Now for environmental traps such as falling rocks, or crossbow traps, if you make your Scouting or Shrouding checks, you can actually see the trap area now. On top of that, many taps can be disarmed now (if you noticed them) via Thievery or Scholar checks, depending on the trap. And as per before, you can shrug the effects of a trap off with a good Acrobatics, Stamina, or Shrouding check.
You can see some of these new traps in action in The Portal Obstinate and The Wolf of Yriel, and in the upcoming Episode 2 content.
We've also heard you loud and clear about how frustrating Area of Effect attacks can be without a proper way to see where it will affect, so we've added the ability to preview your AoE attacks!
This is currently listed as an experimental feature, and can be turned on in your settings menu by enabling "Experimental AoE Preview". Once enabled, just press and hold an available AoE power and the preview will appear on the main screen. Of course, nothing prevents you from still just eyeballing it and "accidentally" clipping your friend with a warning fireball.
Some of the other notable changes are as follows:
- Steam saves will now have a user ID associated with the save, preventing saves from one user being seen by another user on the same machine in the game. Note that this won't affect existing saves; however, if another save occurs on a given file, the ID will be added and the file will be inaccessible in-game via other users.
- Enemies should no longer be able to shout through walls. This should make combats with complex terrain such as The Prologue Ramparts play much better (rather than an endless stream of enemies).
- Further optimizations around enemy and dead body performance.
- Tooltips added for Free actions and for Ranged attacks. Free actions do not consume an action in combat; Ranged attacks do 75% of Force in damage (note, this is not a nerf, this is merely a tooltip update; ranged attacks always did only 75% of total Force in damage).
- And more!
You can find the full update notes here.