Most of this patch comes from watching people play: terrain effects nobody noticed, a boss that was too much for a full party, and a wall of text whenever a controller player tried to read a creature.
Reading the battlefield
- A cell info card sits left of the minimap. Rest the cursor or mouse on any cell and it shows the movement cost to get there (or Occupied, or Unreachable), the terrain with what it does, your eternal's affinity bonus on that terrain in green, and any orb lying there with who can take it and what it does. With nothing under the cursor it shows the cell you stand on. If you would rather it stayed put, turn off Settings: Show Cell Info on Hover; it then shows your own cell and follows the cursor only while you hold Ctrl (rebindable). On a pad it always follows the cursor.
- The first time you end a move on a new kind of terrain in a level, a short toast tells you what it does. Close it with B, Esc or a click, or let it fade. You can turn these off under Settings: Show Terrain Tips.
- Terrain icons are redrawn to match the rest of the interface, and terrain and affinity texts use the same icons as everything else.
- The minimap now turns with the camera, so forward on the screen is up on the map. A small marker on the frame points north. Creature icons stay upright.
- Turn starts and objective announcements use a compact toast instead of the large banner across the screen. Your Turn! comes first, then the objective, once.
One panel per creature
- Select a creature (click, or cursor and A on a pad) and press E, or D-pad right on a pad, and its plate on the right expands into a full panel: health, actions and movement, attributes, affinity, defence dice, abilities with their tooltips, and every condition with turns or stacks left and its full text. Press E again, B or Esc to close it.
- With nothing selected the same button opens your own panel, so you can read your own buffs and conditions at any time.
- On a pad, the D-pad walks the panel: up and down between rows, left and right along attributes, dice and abilities. Resting on the eye shows that creature's vision range and marks your cell red if it can reach you.
- The old hold-to-inspect (Ctrl or L3) is gone, and so is the hover tooltip on the plate portrait; the panel replaces both. Holding L3 still scrolls the combat log. The key is rebindable under Controls.
- The tutorial and the Help tab teach the new flow.
Level 3 and Vexaroth
- Vexaroth has 3 base actions instead of 4, in every mode.
- When he calls his two Zombie Hounds, he drains half their life into himself. They arrive weakened.
- The checkpoint before him is one row further back, so you can regroup out of his sight.
Empowers and orbs
- In solo play and Solo Party, attack and defence empower prompts no longer have a timer. Online, and during the AI turn, you still have 5 seconds, and the tutorial now says so.
- Shimmer, Healing and Swiftness orbs show what they are, who can take them and what they do, in the cell info card.
Fixes
- You can target an ally hidden in stealth, such as Synn in her Mist, with Blight, heals, buffs and items.
- Walking toward a cell held by an enemy you cannot see no longer says "Unreachable". The walk starts and stops when you run into them, as it used to.
- The camera no longer ends up inside the ice cliffs on Level 2 when following your eternal near them.
- When Synn is spotted, the log names who spotted her, or says a hidden enemy did.
- Morrathil's Blight hivemind links no longer flash and rebuild when one member moves, and they come back after Continue.
- Synn's mind-control psychic bolt shows again on every level, not just the first one after launch.
- Creatures no longer disappear when you zoom out on Very Low or Low graphics.
- Trees and bushes on every map keep their full model much further out, and switching between detail levels fades instead of popping.
- Solo Party: a monster making several attacks in a row is no longer cut off mid-turn.
- Melee monsters no longer chase enemies they have no walkable route to.
- Fixed a crash that could happen when the camera was still moving as a level unloaded.