Hello everyone, Gronkins here with patch 0.0.8 for the Legends of Azamar demo! This patch includes a lot of changes, such as an entire rework of Act 1, with entirely new tilesets and enemies (and revamped lore and dialogue). Additionally, there have been reworks to the ability system, balance changes, many bug fixes, general UI and gameplay improvements, and even a new tier of socketable items. So with all that out of the way, let’s get into the patch notes!
New Act 1
In patch 0.0.8, you will no longer start in the dwarven mining town of Tag Lodahn. Instead, you will be directly chasing the legend of Bar-Ulduun and begin in the Expedition Camp, which is a forward camp located in the upper levels of the lost dwarven city.
This also means that the tilesets for Act 1 no longer have you fighting your way through goblin-infused mining tunnels. Instead, you will be exploring ancient dwarven halls and fighting against undead enemies for a more classic dungeon-crawler experience.
Many of the NPCs have been changed and revamped, and this includes Oghrim, who has been upgraded from a simple foreman to the head of the Expedition Camp.
Abilities
In the current version of LoA, players were able to hit max rank on their abilities too easily. Many players were able to have one fully ranked ability before even reaching Act 2. So, I wanted to slow that down to give ability progression more room to breathe.
The maximum rank of most abilities has been increased from 10 to 20. Additionally, ability growth per level has been reduced from 10% to 5%. So at max rank, the power of abilities should be roughly the same, it just takes longer to reach it.
To compensate for these changes, enemy health and damage have been reduced across the board. Additionally, enemy damage growth has been reduced by roughly 20%.
Additionally, some abilities have received a balance pass to be more consistent with other abilities, such as Shield Wall.
Shield Wall no longer has a static +1% improvement per rank. Instead, each Rank now grants +1.75% Attack and Spell Block, and +0.75% to Damage Blocked.
Items
I’ve done a balance pass of gems (socketables) to better reflect item modifiers of a similar level. Additionally, Tier 2 Gems have been added, and they can start dropping at monster level 11.
Elemental Gems (such as Fire Opals, Emeralds, etc), starting at Tier 2, now spawn with damage conversion modifiers, in addition to their flat elemental damage.
Jades no longer grant a chance to Dodge Attacks. Instead, they now grant increased Accuracy Rating.
Enemies
The behaviour of ranged enemies has been improved. Ranged enemies now have a longer attack wind-up, but projectiles travel faster. The end result is that it should be easier to dodge ranged attacks while in close range.
Animations for enemies have also been slightly improved.
Defence
The Armour formula has been buffed. Armour now provides roughly 10% more Damage Reduction.
General Changes/Improvements
The maximum viewing distance of the camera has been slightly increased.
The maximum viewing distance of the minimap has been slightly reduced.
The default keybinds for Health and Mana Potions have been moved to 2 and 3, respectively. (Note: Eventually, I hope to add rebindable controls.)
The order of Skill Trees has been adjusted. The Sentinel is now first, the Anvil is now second, and the Tower is third. All other Skill Trees are unchanged.
The Jeweller now automatically opens your inventory when speaking to him.
Various animation improvements.
Various UI improvements.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that caused the incorrect running animation to play.
Fixed a bug that caused certain UI elements to not scale properly on widescreen resolutions.
Fixed a bug that caused the tooltips for the merchant menu to display incorrectly.
Fixed a bug that caused NPC chatter to not display correctly.
Fixed a bug that caused ranged enemies to slide across the ground while attacking.
Fixed a bug that caused dialogue options to not display.
Fixed a bug where NPCs wouldn’t rotate to face the player.
Closing Words
I hope everyone had a nice holiday season, and let's look forward to the new year! If you check out patch 0.0.8 and have any thoughts, please feel free to let me know!
Have fun!