V0.9.7 - The Simplicity Update - much closer to the Swords and Sandals of old.

Alright, alright ... I know last week I said 0.9.6 was going to be the last big patch before Full Launch ( in just 4 days time! )

If you guys have been following me this last few years ( or if you've been with me my whole 20+ years of making games, you know I make things in an unorthodox way. I develop games intuitively and am often tweaking, changing and updating my games right up to the eleventh hour, the minute before midnight of a game's launch.

A triple A studio would tell you 'lock down features LONG before you launch', but I'm just not like that. If I see something that needs changing, something that could be better or I hear a fan suggestion that I know would improve the game, I just know I gotta try and add it. So here we are, this is *I hope* the last big patch, known as ...

The Simplicity Update.

A bit of background. Back when I was first designing Swords and Sandals Immortals, I wanted to try and put as much stat synergy in the game, so there were 'no useless stats' - and for a while there, I kind of achieved that, at the expense of the game just being super obtuse and hard to understand for players.

An example : Until now, Intellect increased magic damage, but charisma increased magic hit chance - the idea being you'd need both stats to make a well rounded mage. I've learned ( slowly ) that people don't like this. Many players want to min/max and not be forced to spend points on stats they would otherwise safely ignore.

Now... Intellect affects magic damage and magic hit chance. Charisma affects sonic hit chance and damage , and so on.

Check out the full patch notes below to see just what I've done to try and make things a bit easier to understand, but in a nutshell, with the introduction of character subclasses and so many talents and skill combos, there is no need for this extra layer of complexity, so I'm glad to be able to simplify things a bit.

Also in this patch, after a great fan suggestion, you can now tweak the difficulty of both arena champions or regular gladiators (instead of just 'one game difficulty setting') - you'll need to start a new gladiator for this, of course.

Oh yeah, and now NPC gladiators have smarter skill selection AI and can wear magic armour and wield magic weapons, so that'll boost the challenge a little!

Anyway, I've only got 4 days 'til launch but I'll be monitoring this update and patching where I can, both pre-and-post game launch, to continue to try and make Swords and Sandals Immortals the greatest in the series.

Cheers, Oliver Joyce
Whiskeybarrel Studios

Patch Notes V0.9.7.A

--- NEW FEATURES ---
• Game Difficulty has now been divided into "Gladiators Difficulty" and "Champions Difficulty". You can now independently set how hard you want a) regular fights and b) champion fights to be. ( New gladiators only ).
• New game difficulty level added - Hellscape. Play at your own peril, this is nigh impossible!
• Tough bosses remains on to 'boost' difficulty even more extremely and has now been boosted further for EXTRA challenge

--- MULTIPLAYER CHANGES ---
• Leaving the Multiplayer Lobby now quits the game to the desktop instead of back to the main menu. This is necessary as reconnecting to the server multiple times with multiple characters is problematic. I will restore this if I find a solution.

--- BALANCE CHANGES / STAT FIXES ---
• Defence vs hit chance reverted back to 1.0 ( was too powerful)
• Hit Chance
• Health per level is now 4 instead of 5 by default
• Agility / strength / intellect / charisma bonuses are all now 4 per point and 5 if your class has a bonus - all standard across the board
• Agility no longer increases hit chance with ranged weapons but increases ranged weapon damage
• Strength does not increase hit chance with melee weapons but increases Critical Hit Chance at 0.25 % per point in strength
• Vitality no longer increases hit chance for melee weapons but gives you more health than before
• Intellect now improves hit chance with magic and not sonic
• Charisma now improves hit chance with sonic and not magic
• Lowered sonic weapon base damage
• Respecced NPC gladiator base stat choices
• Respecced NPC AI logic to be more aggressive with skills
• Respecced Arena Champions to take into account how the new stats work
• Virtuoso Stat now does 25% health damage to your enemy in multiplayer (not an instant kill)
• Wake The Dead now does 10% damage vs undead, down from 20%
• All armour values increased by 50%
• Arcane Blast, Shadows & Dust, now scale with intellect
• Ghost Strike and Fire Blast now scale with agility

--- BATTLE CHANGES / FIXES ---
• NPCs now wear sometimes use magical armour and wield magical weapons
• Improved NPC skill selection to be less predictable in battle
• In battle, rolling over your character panel (or your enemies) now shows your skills the first time, your talents the next time and finally your consumables ( I couldn't fit both in that parchment box)
• Fixed a bug where Guitar God took precedence and overrode Virtuoso in some sequences
• Recalculated how some damage was taken and absorbed for more accuracy
• Class special skills Shadows and Dust and Wrath of Elitia can now be used with a bow
• Battle Poets now have their own Unwavering Cutscene (glows blue/gold instead of purple) when spirit broken and Unwavering effect triggers
• Rune enchanted items with 'Physical' and 'Sonic' damage will no longer 'proc' bonus effects because there is no bonus physical/sonic effects (unlike fire) - see below

--- SHOP FIXES CHANGES ---
• Removed description from Physical and Sonic Runes about 'bonus effect' as there is no special effects for these two ( unlike fire, lightning etc) - Physical and Sonic Runes just improve the weapon's base damage.
• Sonic runes now only work on sonic weapons and simply add bonus damage to them (melee + power chords)
• Fixed a bug where sometimes weapons would not unequip if alt hand weapon was equipped
• Much higher chance of enchanted weapons being runic rather than blueprint (eg more frost/fire enchants etc)

--- MISC FIXES AND CHANGES ---
Fixed a bug where starting a single player character and then abandoning before creating a multiplayer character would cause issues like permadeath in multiplayer