Update 0.5.0.3: Arena mode, defense, protection and more!

Hi everyone!
The team has been busy developing and implementing many cool gameplay features during the last few weeks and some of those are now making their way into the game, trough update 0.5.0.3!

First, the arena mode has been added. You can test your skill in the arena in Dhur at any time, but we recommend starting with a level 15 character. Once in the arena lobby, you can choose from one of two arena modes: classic, which is a mix of specific challenges with various rules and completion goals, or infinite arenas, which consists of cycles of ten randomly generated waves of monsters.

The second major feature is player Defense and monster Protection. We’ve talk about those in a previous post, the only change being the name of the mechanic for monsters.

There are many other changes under the hood, including the player navmesh, which allows player characters to automatically navigate between monsters in a fluid manner. We also added a new music track that plays in Amarth and Dhur. Don’t forget to turn the music volume up!
We’re also introducing lens flares to the game. This features brings visual quality overall without affecting the performance. This is a first iteration of the feature, and it will be improved over time. We are pretty sure many of you will like it, but but for those who don’t, it can be disabled in the game settings.
You can now cancel points spent in the PST by re-clicking the nodes as long as you have not confirmed the attribution yet and it doesn’t create separate sub-trees. It addition to this, a few tweaks have been brought to the PST for a smoother experience and in prevision of future rings.
Loot text is now smoothly animated on-screen, for a more satisfying monster-splaying experience.

Finally, let’s not forget the screenshot of week, featuring a new set of armor that will soon be added to the game.

You can read the complete changelog below:

GENERAL:

• Arena system has been added to the game.
• Local navmesh has been, allowing for smooth player navigation between monsters.
• Fixed several random crashes.
• Game now save before exiting when hitting alt + F4
• The player does not abusively lean anymore when rotating
• Spell tomes can now only be read once, as giving a percentage of a spell's required XP was too powerful. We will soon add the archivist, an npc that buy your tomes and gives you xp for any spell you know.

VISUALS:

• Introducing lens flares to the game.
• Fixed a bug causing Infiltration to permanently cloak your weapons until unequipped.
• Fixed Frost Giant warcry particle not appearing anymore.
• Brutal Strike look.
• Fixed the fog bleeding in house caves.
• Fixed a bug causing some skill-bound weapon trails to remain on screen indefinitely.
• Current stacks number is now displayed on DOT icons, and all DOT icons have been reworked to better fit the new passive skills icons.
• New portal visuals
• New magic effect globe

UI:

• Umbra, Rage and Health values can now be permanently displayed in the gameplay options. Values are now displayed on top of each gauge.
• In game time of day is now displayed in the top right of the screen
• Active effect tooltip is not removed anymore when the effect expires, but lasts until you move your mouse.
• Defense Regeneration value is now shown in your character sheet.

QUESTS:

• The “Advanced tutorial : Weapons types” quest is now unlocked directly at the end of the “Getting Out” quest.

ENVIRONMENT:

• Fixed a bug that could prevent the ice traps in Hailstone Bay from hitting you.
• Increased the number of chests in the open-world and added new Unique chests locations.
• No more enemies popping when teleporting to Ravengard Fortress
• Fixed a bugging causing Amarth’s blacksmith to disappear.
• Optimization on the PST ring animation.
• Dhur is now bigger, with the Arena entrance at the north of the city.
• Two new Bounty architecture : A fully Corrupted Dungeon and an overgrowth version of the Oblivion Temple.
• Improved the Dungeon architecture “Oblivion Temple”.

CHARACTERS:

• Skeleton warriors have new walks animations.
• The Corrupted Juggernaut is now bigger.
• The giant skeleton boss, Halaku, has his death animation.
• The giant skeleton boss has a blow away animation.

LOCALIZATION:

• Added Chinese localization (Thank you very much wynick27)
• Hungarian, Spanish, German localization update
• Once again, thanks to our awesome community to update localization!

GAMEPLAY:

• The new Defense mechanic is now active for the player.
• Globally improved the responsiveness of the player’s movement
• Fixed a bug causing the Dual Wield Damage penalty to be applied permanently after some time.
• Practice targets (ex: strawmen in the Amarth arena) are now targetable like regular enemies.
• Fixed a bug causing props and static entities (ex: Corrupted Heart) targeting to fail in Melee depending on the weapons used.
• Zombies in the starting area have their intended health amount again.
• Increased the animation speed of the Greatsword weapon style by 33%.
• Decreased the animation speed of the two-handed dual wield weapon style by 15%.
• Fixed the female staff attack animation being slower than intended.
• Fixed a bug causing Rage Generation on received hits to be applied twice.
• Changes have been brought to Damage computation (Resistances, Frozen shatter, etc.), making things clear, simpler and more predictable.
• Fixed a Health computation bug, causing enemies to have incomplete health bars from time to time.
• Fixed an explosion radius calculation bug affecting several skills.
• The DOT Damage and effects computation has been totally reworked, and will lead to a better balancing in the future.
• Inflicting Frailty stacks to enemies slowly depletes all their Protections, at a rate that depends on your Frailty Efficiency.
• Frailty now cuts off your Defense regeneration and your enemies Protections regeneration.
• Weakness now reduces the efficiency of Defense Shattering / Protections Shattering (depending on the Weakness Efficiency).
• Rage-on-hits affixes may now get a chance to apply instead of being a 100% sure thing.
• Decreased the spell damage bonus given by mage staves.
• Teleport will not appear as a champion affix anymore until it is improved.

MONSTERS

• The health and damage values of every monster have been rebalanced.
• Halaku will now always drop its unique sword, in addition to the regular lootsplosion.
• Fixed Halaku having 220% more health than intended.
• Ogre’s ground pound will now slow and stun their targets, but its damage has been reduced.
• Undead vomitters will now only vomit a single toxic undead at a time.
• Toxic Undead do not emit a poisonous aura anymore, but their attacks can inflict poison.
• Skull Crusher and most orcs now have armor by default.
• Frost monsters from the tundra now have Frost Protection by default.
• Toxic undead and toxic pithuses now have poison resistance by default.
• Skull Crushers now regenerate armor by eating instead of health.
• Skull Crushers attacks now inflict stun.
• Increased the maximum number of zombies spawned by the Grave Digger, but increased the cooldown time of the charge. This should reduce cases of zombies dying in mid-air, and makes the fight slightly less hectic.
• The Grave Digger now stuns you with its shovel.
• Elemental auras will now only roll on champion rank 2 monsters and above.
• Champions now have a chance to spawn with a random protection instead of a resistance.

ITEMS

• All base stats of your weapons and armors have been rerolled.
• Fixed the Glass Sword damage not being appropriate for a level 20 weapon.
• Fixed a bug causing permanent potions effects to be cleared when sleeping at the inn.
• A new system allow 2H weapons position to be adjusted in hand when wielded in 1H (Titan’s Strength). This will result in less awkward stances when Dual Wielding.
• Fixed light arm armor pieces being inverted (left/right) on male characters.
• Spell Books may now have a required minimum level for being read.

AFFIXES:

• Rage on hit received affixes now has a chance to trigger when hit. This notably makes heavy armor less overpowered for melee-oriented characters, but less penalizing for caster-oriented characters if they only wear of few pieces.
• Decreased the amount of physical resistance given by items.

PASSIVE SKILLS:

• Glowing links between rings have been improved, and now better fit the path you are taking in the tree in the event of sections with multiple end-skills.
• You can now cancel a point spent in the PST by re-clicking the node, as long as you have not confirmed it yet and it doesn’t create irregular trees (like orphan nodes).
• The PST camera movement has been slightly tweaked in prevision of future rings accessibility at any zoom level possible.

  Legionary:

  • Confrontation Damage reduction has been doubled.

  Arcanist:

  • Umbra Pool Extended is now called Resourceful and now directly increases your Resource pool instead of tweaking your attributes.
  • Lethal Magic computation has been modified in prevision of the upcoming Attributes refactoring.

  Guardian:

  • Heavy Armor Mastery is now called Fencer.
  • Guard Mastery is now called Bumping Guard.

  Hunter:

  • Precise Shot bonus is no longer removed when you start moving.
  • Enhanced Reflex computation has been modified in prevision of the upcoming Attributes refactoring.

  Trickster:

  • Ranged Mastery is now called Gunslinger.

  Assassin:

  • Light Armor Mastery is now called Lightweight Gear.

  Gladiator:

  • Titan Strength now specifically states working for Melee weapons only.
  • Medium Armor Mastery is now called Chainmail.
  • The two skills that improve Killing Chain are now called Killing Spree and Carnage.

ACTIVE SKILLS:

The damage and cost values of every skill have been changed.

Lasceration

• Now inflicts bleed damage instead of physical damage.
• Increased base weapon damage percent.

Holy Dive

• Is now obtained by buying the tome from the templar merchant at level 14.

Ironguard:

• The semi-passive Blocking chance bonus is no longer implicit, but is now shown in the spell detail window and with an effect icon & tooltip.

Brutal Strike:

• Decreased both its base and upgraded radii. Brutal strike is intended to be used as a means to deliver high damage in small radius in front of the players, and not as the perfect answer to every melee fight.

Tremor:

• Fixed the reduced cooldown rune increasing cooldown.

Whirlwind:

• Now generates some Rage when hitting enemies.

MISC:

• Fixed a bug where the reviving button would not work upon death.
• Hit-particles have been optimized to prevent renderer crashes on huge explosions.
• Orcs are very rude, and will sometimes point their finger at the player when spotting him/her.
• Fixed the end of the two-handed dual wield combo animation.
• Improved the weather system code to prepare for thunderstorm & snowy weather.
• Improved the day/night cycle system code to display the in-game time of day.
• Fixed a bug that caused the player character to sleep indefinitely.