Update 0.5.0.1: New Targeting System, new elemental storms and more!

Hi everyone!

Since the release of update 0.5, the team has continued working on story content and gameplay features. While we aim to deliver high-quality story and world content, we also need to improve our core gameplay mechanics and ensure player experience is as smooth as possible.

Update 0.5.0.1 will improve many aspects of the game, including a new targeting and player input system.
You can now lock onto enemies, easily move through hordes and more. The game should feel more responsive now!
With the new input system, auto-attack when holding the mouse button and switching targets is now deactivated by default, but you can still turn it on in the game settings.

Elemental storms have been redesigned too, for a result that is far closer to the initial idea of elemental interaction. The old elemental storms will be turned into powerful area-of-effect spells that will add to the arsenal of elemental mages. ;)

Those areas on the ground will help you deal Elemental Damage by spreading Lightning, Flames, and by sustaining Freezing effects. The chance of spread will increase each time you hit an enemy in the same Storm, and by overlaping multiple Storms you can create small areas that will prove deadly to all enemies caught in their viscinity.

In addition to that, we drastically reduced the size and complexity of the pithus caves. Going through them should be a far more pleasant experience (when it comes to exploring spider-infested caves at least).

A brand new set of weapons is also coming to the party: the Hand-forged set (8 new weapons).

Finally, many bugs and crashes have been fixed. We are also aware of performance issues, and are actively working on improvements.

New features and spell are coming soon, like semi-passive signature spells that use charges. Stay tuned for more!

Here is the changelog for the update:

KNOWN ISSUE:

Your characters may not appear at first, but they have not been deleted. ;)

GENERAL:

• Targeting system improvement and new input buffering system.
• Camera rotation is now also bound to keyboard left/right keys.
• Force move has been reworked to work as a direct button, not a button to hold in addition to the move button anymore.
• Some AI related systems are now multithreaded.

VISUALS:

• More calibrated brightness, especially at night.
• Improved fog at night, for a better reading of distance.
• Improved the templar and wooden crossbow icons.
• Improved rendering in the main menu.

UI:

• New option “Auto attack” in game settings.
• 3rd skill slot cooldown is now properly displayed.
• Inventory slot highlight is now properly cleared when dropping an item.
• Enlarged PST details window.
• Death screen’s “Exit Wolcen” option has been replaced by “Return to main menu”.
• Fixed the merchant reclaim menu not removing the right items when full.

QUESTS:

• The Pithus cave is now shorter and more linear, which makes going through it a smoother experience.
• Fixed a bug that happened when resetting the weather in the first quest after being killed by the SkullCrusher, and caused visual errors.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent you to cross the bridge to Ravengarde Fortress after achieving the two Locks quests.
• Fixed a bug causing your last Quest checkpoint to be invalidated when loading your save file, forcing you to start at Amarth.

AUDIO:

• Optimized audio streaming.
• Fixed a bug where multiple music tracks could overlap.

ENVIRONMENT:

• Fixed invisible walls in dungeons.
• New dungeon architecture during Ravengarde quest.
• Various improvements in the open world.
• Improved preloading.
• Various fixes in the weather system.
• Weather now has a chance to change when sleeping at the Inn.
• Fixed a white screen bug in the tutorial (fog bug).
• Improved color grading in Thornwood.
• Particles optimization.
• Navmesh size optimization.
• New waypoint in Ravengarde Fortress.

GAMEPLAY:

• Fixed a bug causing skill cost to be consumed when casting when knocked down.
• Templars should not be targetable in Melee anymore.
• Shield hits now incur a 50% main weapon damage penalty.
• Default shield angle is now 60°.
• Shock Damage bonus per level has been slightly decreased.
• Conflagration, Lightning Strike and Whirlwind now have a minimum cast duration.
• The bug where DoTs could become permanent has finally been crushed. That should not happen anymore.
• Fixed a bug preventing Flames to spread on the ground with Sacred Damage converted to Fire.
• Fixed the crossbow fire bug where the character wouldn’t orient in the direction you were firing.
• Fixed a bug that caused the passive block to work against attacks coming from behind.
• Fixed a bug in the ROS causing the Umbra regeneration to decelerate with time near the end of the bar.
• Umbra regeneration won’t trigger if there are only Umbra costs being transferred, to prevent weird auto-feeding cases with Umbra-only gameplays. This small change to the ROS allows better defined transfers and improved readability of the resource bars.
• Fixed some gameplay values wrongly displayed in the Character Sheet.
• Fixed a bug that caused Whirlwind to attract enemies to you.
• Fixed a bug with Umbra & Rage globes, preventing them to refill potions.
• Fixed the globes drop chance calculation.

MONSTERS

• Monster density has been reduced in the tutorial area.
• Decreased the spawn frequency of Undead vomitters in the open world.
• The undead in the starting area now give experience points upon death.
• Increase the ogre’s ground pound cooldown time.
• Decreased the amount of health healed by ogres and skull crushers.
• Decreased the health bonus of the “Tough” elite modifier.
• Grave Diggers now have less chances to dig out strong monsters like butchers.
• Ice monsters are now very resistant to freezing.
• Monster spawns in dungeons have been updated and improved.
• Fixed a bug in the elites enemies health formula.
• Some monster don’t appear anymore in the open-world until you’ve met them in the story for the first time.
• Decreased Halaku’s health points.
• Zombies now have a lower rotation speed.

ITEMS

• A brand new set of weapons : the Hand-forged set (8 new weapons).
• New weapons : Orcish Club and Smith’s Hammer.
• Gold values have been slightly reworked and adjusted, for a better perception of a “better” item from another. Old items in your inventories will still have their old gold value, so the comparison with freshly looted items could be a little unsure.
• Decreased weapon damage on staves.
• Merchants items are now rerolled each time you gain a level.

PASSIVE SKILLS:

Trickster:

• Offensive Roll and Defensive Roll stacks limit is now 10 instead of your max Stamina level.

Hunter:

• Evasion Trap was not always launched when rolling.

Elementalist:

• The whole tree has been reorganized in order to have Storm passives separated from the rest, and the possibility to take only one element between Fire, Frost and Lightning and still take all the generic passives.
• New Skills : Elemental Affinity (Fire / Frost / Lightning), which increase your raw Damage with one of the three Elements.
• Elemental Storms have been reworked : it is now a single passive node instead of three, and does not perform Damage itself anymore : it is an elemental combo zone that allow you to spread lightning and flames on the ground with your elemental attacks and that improves the freeze effect inside it. You can always stack Storms on the same spot, increasing the bonus they give you, and place as many as you want at the same time. This should really help rebalance the Elementalist tree.
• Ardent stack burn chance has been reduced.
• Frostbite duration is now 12 seconds instead of 4 and its Damage has been increased.
• Hardened Ice bonus went up from 15% to 50%.
• Pyromancer propagation chance has been increased.

ACTIVE SKILLS:

• Modified transfer times of several skills.
• Burn Damage description in AST and skill tooltips now correctly display stacks number.
• Fixed a display bug in the Details list of skills.

  Bladeslinger

  • Now increases the player’s critical chance instead of adding critical chance on top of it.

  Arrows Rain

  • Tooltips now display the skill’s weapon damage percent per second.

  Poison Ammo

  • Cooldown is now 0 sec instead of 3, for consistency with other ammunition skills.

  Conflagration

  • Now has a default 30% chance to inflict 1 burning stack per hit.
  • Burn duration has been increased to 5 seconds.
  • Elemental Storms are not triggered by this skill when it does not hit anymore, and the position of the Storm will now be the target’s position instead of the player’s position.
  • Targeting has been improved.
  • Hit angle is now 50°.

  Fire Rain

  • Increased Cooldown Time to reinforce the “kill everything on screen” aspect of the spell.
  • Increased the Cooldown reduction of the “Cooldown Reduced” rune.

MISC:

• Several random crashes have been fixed.
• Fixed a bug that caused the game options not to be saved in certain conditions.

Useful links :
Wolcen's Roadmap
Wolcen's Feedback tracker
Wolcen's Official Website
Wolcen's Official Facebook Page
Wolcen's Official Discord
Wolcen's Twitter page
Wolcen's FAQ
Help us us fix crashes here

Community websites:
German Fan Site : wolcen-game.de
French Fan Site : Wolcen France