v0.65.4 - Countdown
A player-experience update focused on the early game and on making character progression something you can actually see coming. Plus the biggest companion-writing addition in a long while: every companion now has a story that starts early and builds the whole way down.
Your First Fight
New characters used to get plenty of guidance in town, then walk into the dungeon and find an empty entrance room with four unlabeled exits and no idea where to go. That gap is closed.
- The dungeon points you at your first fight. A fresh character now gets a single in-world line showing which way the nearest monster is, until the first kill lands.
- Your first kill always makes level 2. Kill number one now tops you up to the next level, so the whole loop (fight, level, unlock) demonstrates itself immediately.
- Level-ups announce what you gained and what is next. New abilities used to appear silently. Now every level-up tells you the ability you just unlocked and names the next one and its level.
The Path Ahead
The mid-game could feel like a long wait for nothing, especially for martial classes that go many levels between new abilities. Progression is now visible so every wait becomes a countdown.
- New "The Path Ahead" screen via /path, /roadmap, or Path at the Level Master: your level, XP to next level, your next three ability or spell unlocks, and the next story milestone (Old God or seal floor).
- Live XP in the dungeon status line so every fight visibly moves the bar.
- A next-step reminder at login so returning players are not dropped into the news feed with no idea what they were doing.
Player Specializations
Companion NPCs have had class specializations for a while. Now your own character can specialize too. From level 25, Specialize at the Level Master lets you commit to one of your class's two paths (Arms or Protection, Retribution or Holy, and so on). A specialization adds extra stat growth on future level-ups and turns on that path's combat bonuses, such as extra damage reduction and shield-scaling for tank paths or increased healing output for healer paths. Your first pick is free; changing it later costs gold. Landing the choice at level 25, right after the first Old God, is meant to ask: you survived the first god, so who are you now?
Companion Quest Chains: The Long Road
This is the big one, and it comes straight from player feedback that the companions felt hollow between recruitment and their one late quest. Now every companion (Aldric, Vex, Lyris, Mira, Melodia) has a three-part personal story: two new earlier chapters that play out in the dungeon and lead into their existing final quest.
Each chapter is a real scene. Some open with a fight. All of them peel back another layer: the name Aldric refuses to say, the truth about Vex's illness and the list he has kept since childhood, what really drained Lyris's forest, the doctrine that turned Mira's old order into something monstrous, and the fact that Melodia's lost song was never lost, only unfinished. Every chapter ends with a choice in how you respond, and your answer shapes their loyalty and where their story goes.
- The story travels with them. Between chapters, companions drop idle lines that reference what happened, hint when the next chapter is near, and post a town notice so you know their arc moved even if they are waiting for you.
- You cannot miss it. Chapters fire in order on any floor at or past their point, so out-leveling never skips them, and only one plays per companion per dungeon run.
- Vex's final quest is fixed. His bucket-list quest now opens the moment his second chapter finishes, instead of forcing you deep into the dungeon or waiting on a timer. Most players will finally see it.
- Real rewards. Loyalty, plus small one-time gifts (a gold trick from Vex, herbs from Lyris, a full heal from Mira, a battle song from Melodia) and modest companion stat gains.
Progression Tuning
- Barbarian gets a level-1 ability, Wild Swing. It was the only class with nothing to do at level 1, and it died the most. Wild Swing pairs with the heal-on-kill it gained last patch.
- Two new Warrior abilities fill its worst ability droughts: Crushing Blow at level 34 and Bulwark, a defensive stance, at level 62.
- Bard's Song of Rest moves from level 12 to 18 so Bard is not fully stocked before other classes have found their feet.
- Honest training screen. Training now shows what a point actually buys, the effect multiplier, hit bonus, and fizzle chance, for your current and next tier, so investing in abilities versus auto-attack is a clear choice instead of a guess.
Smaller Wins
- Combat ability info. Type ?3 in combat to read what quickbar slot 3 does without spending your turn.
- The Outskirts explains itself. The settlement now tells you, on your first visit, what it is and that donations unlock services you can use, plus a line showing exactly what the building you are funding will give you.
- Onboarding on all terminals. The next-step guidance now shows for BBS and compact-mode players too, not just the full graphical view.
- One fewer wall in the opening for new characters: the generic intro screen no longer stacks in front of the tutorial quest screen.
As always, thank you for playing and for the feedback that drives these updates. See you in the dungeon.