This is a rather large update as it contains a completely new feature: Perks!
From level 3, every level-up gives a perk pick at the campfire. There's quite a lot of perks which means there's a lot of room to shape your character.
It goes like this: Each level-up gives you one pick from any of the six categories of perks. There are three randomized selections from each category and a wild card from any category. Picks from the same category will build momentum. Sticking with one category will make rarer perks start showing up. Common perks are available from the start and Uncommon, Rare, and Legendary perks only appear as momentum grows. Switching categories resets momentum, so there's a tradeoff between specializing and spreading out.
Hitting enough total picks in a category (7, 15, and 20) unlocks milestone abilities - powerful passives like guaranteed crits after a perfect parry, surviving a killing blow once every two minutes, or crafting anywhere without a station. You get one free respec after that it costs coin. If we do larger changes on the perks, we'll also bump the perks version and you get a free respec.
We'll also keep polishing the perk selection and functionality according to player feedback - we've done a couple of update rounds on them already, but there's still some work to be done!
The six categories:
Offense - melee damage, crits, bleed, lifesteal, cleave
Defense - armor, HP, blocking, evasion, etc
Stamina - stamina pool, regen, movement speed, dodge cost, horse speed
Gather - extra resources, fishing speed, minimap tracking for animals/ores/herbs/insects
Artisan - build limits, smelting, farming, crafting output, potion duration
Survival - temperature resist, healing, stealth, XP bonuses, elemental resists
Some random picks from the perks list:
Blood Drinker (Legendary) - lifesteal on melee hits
Soulburst (Milestone) - dying enemies explode, dealing magical damage to those nearby
Field Workshop (Milestone) - craft anywhere, no station needed
Immortal (Milestone) - survive a killing blow with 1 HP, once every 2 minutes
Ghost (Legendary) - reduced enemy detection range
Timber! (Legendary) - throwable weapons deal bonus damage to trees
Other changes in 0.7.9:
Optimized ground rendering - more fps for everyone
Ancient pottery drops money
Showing discovered cave/teleport destinations on map hover
Showing consumable modifiers for potions
Worn items count as owned in crafting screen
Fixed bow and throw aim bugs
Fixed material drop modifier bug in multiplayer
Armor and damage reduction no longer affect fall damage
Various crash, memory leak, and UI fixes
What's next: We continue working hard on the next island! No exact date yet, but we're quite close to having it in broader testing.