Nexus Improvements: Crafting, Ease of Use, and Bugsweeping

[Kandarin]

While the development team continues working on the next Breath, we have also continued building many needed improvements to the current Breath. These improvements have once again reached a critical mass of change, so we are pleased to announce another major patch to the game that we all know and love.

Behind the scenes, we have made significant design progress toward delivery of the new Breath around the end of this year or start of next year. We are currently working though core and Tier 2 design concepts before moving on to Tier 3 and other endgame topics. Substantial progress has also been made on development of maps and planes to make the next Nexus world come alive. Because of our greater emphasis on the new Breath, coding is also shifting gears to focus on the changes needed to implement the team's design of the new Breath. There may possibly be a few more changes to B3.5 (and we can certainly resolve serious show-stopping bugs regardless of timeline) but as we go into autumn, we plan to fully focus 100% of development and coding attention on the new Breath.

The latest round of changes are:

Mechanics:
● With the ascendancy of Marquai the Constructor, whose portfolio includes craftsmanship and ingenuity, some changes have occurred to item crafting. These changes mean that it is now more efficient to craft an item at its desired quality level than to craft it as a destroyed item and repair it:
- Crafting an item with the 20 CP crafting skills (Bowyer, Smithing, Gunsmith) now costs (Base item AP) + (6 AP * quality level). This was reduced from (Base item AP) + (10 AP * quality level).
- Crafting an item with the 30 CP crafting skills (Master Bowyer, Mastersmith, Master Gunsmith) now costs (Base item AP) + (4 AP * quality level). This was reduced from (Base item AP) + (10 AP * quality level) + (20 AP if the quality is Good or Pristine).
● The AP costs of movement for pets are now tied to the AP movement costs of the petmaster rather than being 1 AP for all tiles. If the petmaster's AP costs of travel are reduced by a travel skill or status effect, or are increased by a terrain obstacle, the cost paid by pets will be reduced or increased accordingly.
● XP gained by a petmaster when their pets deal damage is no longer halved. XP gain for attacks directed against pets remains halved.
● For purposes of XP gain for killing pets, pets are now considered to be the same level as their masters. Previously, a fixed level number was used for this calculation, which significantly underestimated the average level of petmasters.
● Reduced weight of Surgeon's Kit from 10 to 4. This actually happened some time ago but is mentioned here for the sake of documentation.

Interface and Quality of Life:
● AP, MP and HP scores are now displayed as a pie-chart display that shows what proportion of your maximum you have remaining.
● If you have the First Aid skill, you will now be able to view the remaining minutes of Sorcerers Might on characters who are present in your location. Previously this only displayed whether the Sorcerers Might effect was present or not.
● Buttons to open and close interface panes (Skills, combat, etc) are now on the right side of the pane, rather than the left, to reduce the chance that the buttons will be clicked on by accident.
● Interacting with a character via combat, healing, giving or other forms of non-speech interaction will no longer make speech default to a whisper to them. The Speech pulldown now defaults to Everyone Here unless you deliberately whisper to a character, in which case it will default to that character until the next AP tick. Similarly, whispering to a character will not make attacks, heals, etc. default to them.
● Clicking on the name of a pet now selects it as your target in the pet combat dropdown. If you attack a pet, they will remain selected as your target in the pet combat dropdown until you either kill the pet, attack a different pet, or the next AP tick occurs.

Bugs:
● Fixed a bug where Forges and Gunbenches did not allow fixing items at Worn and below.
● Fixed a bug where Medbays did not help self-healing performed with First Aid Kits, Healing Herbs and Stygian Bone Leeches.
● Fixed a bug where Plagued With Doubt did not alter the damage floor.
● Clarified enchant decay messages to remove references to out-of-date content.
● Factionless users of AoE attacks may now attack other factionless characters.
● Fixed some misplaced aura flavor text.
● Fixed a series of bugs where attacks that autofailed vs flying characters still triggered Corruptor enchant draining and other negative side effects.
● Fixed a bug where the interface to purchase safe upgrades was not displaying the correct upgrade amounts.
● Fixed a bug where Word of Recall allowed Archons to teleport home alive even if they were killed (e.g. by a glyph, poison, etc.) in the process.
● Infernal Jets now correctly does not work if the Fallen is not of Evil morality.
● Fixed a bug in which Divine Herald Harbinger damage type changes were overridden by enchants when attacking a ward.
● Fixed a bug where Strength of Darkness health regeneration did not factor in permanent day in Elysium.
● Fixed a bug that caused Tattoo of Spell Projection to not apply damage type and total changes if the target was a ward, door, fortification or glyph.
● Ether Stepping now correctly halves indoor movement if the movement is within a large building and thus not a Corner Step action.
● Killing pets with Acid Blood or Cloak of Magma auras now correctly counts toward the Pets Killed stat, as other auras do.
● Infernal Combat now correctly grants its accuracy bonus with Heavy Weapons.
● Fixed a bug that kept skills that improve accuracy with Heavy Weapons from working against wards, fortifications, doors or glyphs.
● Corrected a bug that caused the Hide skill to grant a 10% improved chance to hide instead of 20%.
● Fixed a bug that kept angelic pets whose masters possess Hand of Zealotry from attacking Sect of Maevel zombies and other Neutral-aligned pets.
● Damage for setting a stronghold with the wrong morality is now correctly processed as a round number.
● Cut the Silver Cord and failed Touch of Corrupted Loyalty actions no longer incorrectly count as two Pets Killed stats.
● Touch of Corrupted Loyalty no longer incorrectly counts towards Damage Dealt.

[Rincewind]

These changes are now live.

[SkullFace]

Thank you for the efforts. I see a couple fixes in there from which my characters will benefit.


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Cheers,

Skull Face

[Fremen]

Is there any way I can default to no pie charts on my characters? My slow internet is making my screen jump every time they reload the new numbers.
My MP chart disappears for a split second.
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Clara Barton | Bizarro Superman |
The Green Arrow | Tommy Lee Bones |
Katana | Dr. Strange |

[Badziew]

[RaelCleap]

My Patient Barry today, mmmm, I don't think that XP is balanced.

[Tathers]

Been gone for awhile, and just came back.

I agree with the pie charts, they are just way too big and in your face.

I also don't understand why that needed a change.