V0.9.6 - Paladins! Ninjas! Inquisitors! Character Subclasses arrive in the game.

Hey gladiators!

Well, we are almost there. Full Launch is slated for March 9th, roughly a week's time. With multiplayer finally stable and working well, this week I've been able to turn my attention to the one final thing I had wanted to add to the game before launch. In a word, subclasses.

I always like the idea of character subclasses in RPGs, for example a knight who specialises in two handed weapons becomes a cavalier, or a wizard who specialises in elemental magic becomes a sorcerer and so on.

Originally I had thought of making these 'full classes' but I figured they were better served as subclasses for the 6 main character classes ( Warrior / Rogue / Bard etc). There are now 18 subclasses to choose from, your previous saved gladiators will be automatically assigned on when you load the game, but new gladiators will be able to choose from the character creation screen.

There are a bunch of new talents associated with these subclasses, bringing the total number of classes and skills each class has to 4 and 2 respectively.

Now of course these are not fully tested or balanced, so I'll be looking at your feedback closely over the next week to see what I need to buff / nerf, and this will go on during Full Launch as more players come to the game.

There's also a ton of bugfixes and other balances in this patch, I hope you enjoy it and get ready for Full Launch - the end of the journey is almost upon us!

Cheers, Oliver Joyce
Whiskeybarrel Studios

Patch Notes V 0.9.6.A (Mar 03 2023)

--- NEW FEATURES ---
• Subclasses! Each character Class now has three subclasses- so a Warrior can now be a Fighter, a Barbarian or a Man At Arms, for instance. Each Sub Class has its own unique talent.
• All Arena Champions now have subclasses too.
• Each character class now has 4 talents and 2 skills. When you load an old character, a subclass will be assigned to it, but when you select a new character, you can also select a new subclass.

--- MULTIPLAYER CHANGES ---
• Throw Weapon has now been restored in multiplayer battles ( confirmed not a cause of desync )
• Leaderboards now sort by ELO Score ranking.
• Bots now have slightly less armour than they did previously in multiplayer only
• Add temperature ranges to preferred arena picture so you can see how cold to hot these arenas generally range. Extreme weather is listed in the Before Battle panel as either Heat Wave or Freezing ( in Celcius -40C or colder or 40C or hotter , in Fahrenheit -4F or colder or 104F or hotter) and causes penalties (check the Head To Head Crest for more info).
• Remember, if you have the Weather Expert talent, you now do not suffer the normal penalties of extreme heat and cold (essence reduction and lowered health regen). You also of course get a hit chance bonus in these extreme conditions as per usual.
• You now gain 1 star even when losing PVP battles in multiplayer
• Potential bug fix for fatalities not counting towards win/loss record

--- BALANCE CHANGES / STAT FIXES ---
• Essence Cost for any one single spell now maxxes out at 999
• Imperial Armour is no longer listed as "Unique" so it can be enchanted now.
• Bhaargle's Apprentice now correctly reduces damage from elemental debuffs
• Fixed some misc bugs in calculating skill effects across the board - enemy AI was sometimes using the players skill levels to calculate their own skill amounts etc.
• Weather Expert hit chance bonus now 7% per point
• Removed 100% immunity bonus to Sonic for Haxxapods ( was a relic from an earlier version ), now they have 75% damage reduction.
• Altered how damage reduction is calculated for more accuracy (in the favour of the defender)
• Charisma now increases damage by 5 per point
• Increased the damage of the power chord, now takes into account the guitar's base weapon damage
• Guitar melee damage has been halved
• Renamed Man At Arms talent to Weapons Master
• Renamed Troubadour to Balladeer
• Increased damage of Meaty Burp
• Some skills hit chances have been altered
• Fleet Foot now scales with agility
• Greatly reduced the Essence cost of Reaper's Bargain
• Some Arena Champion classes and weapons have changed
• Other misc balancing and tinkering

-- BATTLE CHANGES / FIXES ---
• First Blood Arenas now disallow the use of Special Skills
• Extreme Weather penalties now show up in the little 'rules' text in the main battle screen.
• In the final battle against the Starbound Gladiator, players on NORMAL or EASY difficulty now regain their armour / health between rounds. This does not happen on higher difficulties.

--- SHOP FIXES CHANGES ---
• Added an 'exit shops' button on the Switch Shops button panel

--- MISC FIXES AND CHANGES ---
• Redesigned Character Select Screen
• Fixed a bug where the Doomsday 'days remaining' panel appeared in multiplayer mode
• Cycladians with pure good or pure evil alignment now show a singular glowing eye