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BUG FIXES
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Combat & Watch board
Hex Battles now work on multiplayer quest results, matching raids and single-player.
A hero who falls to an off-battle mishap on a clean victory now gets a real death line in the log and a "SLAIN — fell at N HP lost" badge on the live Watch board, with a stated cause, instead of vanishing with no explanation.
Guilds, trade & leagues
Your Guild Block per-guild filter — including "All Guilds" — now sticks across tab visits and reloads instead of snapping back to your top rival every time.
In multiplayer, when a rival outbids you for a free agent, the recruit now leaves your pool immediately and the loss report says so — no more phantom re-bids that quietly fail.
In leagues, the Academy enrollment claim now tells you what happened — "Academy Full," "Premium Unaffordable," or "Enrollment Claim Expired" — instead of doing nothing; Esc or clicking away cancels a claim without charging you.
Season & standings
End-of-season division and Nemesis results are now decided on the season that just finished, not the new season's opening week. The guild that finishes first in its division is paid the champion reward (2,000g, 50 renown, and +50 standing with the division's patron faction) instead of second place's.
Standings no longer drift after the Crown Cup — renown stops accruing once the Cup is decided, so the final table matches the one that set the bracket.
Division brackets and mid-season wildcard opponents are now drawn from a stable seed, so reloading at the year boundary can't re-roll you into an easier group.
Crafting & interface
The Experimental crafting technique no longer pushes the Quality Forecast past 100%; its quality shift now moves real probability mass and genuinely helps at high skill instead of overflowing the bar.
The "Compare Staff" overlay no longer leaks an unscouted or expired-intel candidate's real stats — the column is fogged (silhouette, ??? tier / skill / potential), matching the hire panel. This now also covers the Signing screen.
Saving a formation with an empty board no longer wipes your stored line and blanks every party using it.
The High Contrast Text setting now survives a reload.
The Quartermaster bulk-ops toolbar wraps instead of squashing its buttons after "Optimize All," and long guild names on weekly scouting rows no longer overlap the OVR column.
The gambit rule editor's number fields no longer stutter on every keystroke — they commit when you leave the field.
A gathering haul on the final week of the year is now booked into the correct (ending) year.
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BALANCE
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Bosses hunt your backline. Floor bosses and quest apex monsters now pick targets by preference instead of grinding the front rank: your healer pulls the boss two hexes harder than distance alone, archers one, and wounded fighters draw focus fire. Your tank carries a taunt that forces the boss off them — while an active taunt covers the target, the boss must turn. A challenge ring marks the taunting tank.
Harder difficulty presets no longer carry a hidden "death floor" — at the higher preset tiers a full-strength hero can no longer die on a flawless win. Ambient casualty risk stays opt-in through the difficulty slider and Lethal Mode.
More Boss mechanics arrive in this patch: the dragon's breath leaves its targets burning, the ancient golem's slam mires survivors, and the ancient horror's grasp withers healing. The flame elemental erupts in a room-wide flashover, the phoenix's fire feeds on already-burning targets, and two deeper-tower/fiend bosses gain telegraphed binds and withering strikes.
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FEATURES
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New elemental foes. Face the Tide Elemental and Earth Elemental on quests, and their apex, The Confluence — a new boss that stands as a Giant-Slayer target, each with its own elemental strengths and weaknesses.
Champion's Challenge returns. A Vanguard-specialized guild can send its best fighter against a rival's champion in a once-per-season 1v1 duel.
Adventurer Compare. Put up to four units side by side — stats, OVR, and per-category differences — launched from the roster or a unit's dossier, with comparison against filtered guild-average baselines by role and potential tier.
Saved formations. Save your own party formations as named, one-click presets beside the built-in ones, with controls to re-issue a saved line to every attached party or keep a private copy.
Sortable trade offers. Sort your incoming offers and the cross-guild All-Offers Ledger by value, expiry, guild, or direction.
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QUALITY OF LIFE
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The tower Muster board now shows each placed unit's OVR badge, any formation token reveals an OVR / potential / level / age tooltip on hover, and every adventurer's dossier gains a Career Timeline.
A gatherer's panel now shows "Gathered This Year" beside the lifetime total, and the weekly report shows a year-to-date materials line.
The staff comparison overlay now shows each candidate's potential-rank ceiling and their work/social characteristics (scouting fog respected).
Party roster rows now show the full ambition cue — Proving-ready, at a Crossroads, or worth bringing along — with a "Needs Action" sort that floats those heroes to the top.
The ascension cinematic gains a per-stat before→after growth graph; a new "On a Path" tag and one-click roster filter surfaces heroes mid-Calling; Compare columns are roomier; the treasurer price-floor shows the resolved gold-per-unit as you type; and a gambit "Take a quest" now inherits your Commander Order's length and faction preferences.
Accessibility: a new "High Contrast Text" toggle in Display settings brightens the dimmest text across every theme, inactive building tabs are easier to read, and the faintest gray text is lifted a step for everyone.
Themes
The CleanOS theme now recolors the entire interface consistently (the classic look is unchanged, to the pixel).
PVP and league screens are retinted to the rivalry accent for a consistent visual identity.