Version 1.20 released

Finally, the big rebalance version is out! In the last months I was gathering feedback, drawing proposals and discussing implications of various balance changes with many people. Here is the result of this long work. First, a lot of rules were adjusted. Hit/Evade formula was redone, difficulty level effects adjusted, Arcane, talents and so on. Next, many classes and some races got significant rebalance. The premise being that specialized classes should get their special bonus for free or almost free and instead focus on a more generic perks and that hybrid classes should be stronger. Arcane bonuses availability was increased, including special musical instruments for Bards, more items with Arcane and Knowledge bonus to Arcane adjusted. Spells got rebalance as well. Monsters were adjusted in many cases, in a logical way, for example Dragons got better armor. The mid/late game areas difficulty was increased accompanied by environmental zones damage increase (Frost and Lava). In addition barrels were redesigned, now those grant gold, vials (rare) or just flavor text. The are also smaller changes like prices rebalance in the Magic Shop, griffin travel time, etc. And the last thing, there is now a new location on Eastern Swamps (some players raised a concern this area is empty and I found this complain valid).

OId saves (pre v1.20) will be automatically converted to the new rules (very minor things will be not, like attributes adjustments for classes, but those are very minor, so it’s perfectly fine to play the adjusted version using your old saves).

Overall, the goal of the big rebalance was to introduce the much needed changes, especially regarding classes balance, without upsetting the state of existing games in progress. But if you prefer to finish your existing game in progress using the old rules, you can always access the “Pre BigRebalance version v1.1x” which will be permanently available on the Steam Beta branch.

– [feature] New item type Musical instruments which grants “Music” (Arcane bonus usable for Bards and Troubadours only).
– [feature] Barrels redone. Now instead of experience those have a chance to give gold or drop a vial (savescumming protected, as usual).

– [balance] Elves have no longer Endurance penalty.
– [balance] Elves got +10 Sorcery resistance.
– [balance] Wood Elf extra attributes changed to DEX & TOU (to allow a viable elf warrior option).
– [balance] Archer second attribute boost upon level up changed from STR to TOU (since Strength is useless when using bows).
– [balance] Champions extra damage vs Sorcerers & Warlocks +30% instead +10%.
– [balance] Champions got Sorcery resistance +15 and Fire/Cold/Lightning resistances +5.
– [balance] Troll Slayers got Fear resistance +50.
– [balance] Wizards and Healers (plus derived classes) talent changed to “Magical Resistance” (+1 Fire/Cold/Lightning resistance per 3 points of Knowledge).
– [balance] All classes got double Arcane gain from knowledge (like Wizards and Healers previously). Which makes Knowledge equally efficient for all classes in regard of extra Arcane.
– [balance] Experience required to level up from Difficulty level flattened (Hard and Insane now have a much smaller experience penalty).
– [balance] Insane difficulty now has all prices like on Hard.
– [balance] Reduced monsters’ damage on Insane difficulty level.
– [balance] Armor maximum damage reduction increased by x0.5 (minimum damage reduction not changed). This means that armor can potentially reduce more damage (and reduces more on average) but has a higher variation.
– [balance] Actually a fix, attacks vs ALL party members were never causing status effects as those intended to. But since it was never mentioned it should work this way and it was playtested without this and therefore the difference here of being classified as a bug or a feature is my original intention, it was propagated from a bug to a feature… Yup, that’s the most logical approach. I know, life is strange.

Everything from Experimental Rebalance moved to regular ruleset:
– [balance] New hit chance formula (taking Dexterity into account more).
– [balance] Monsters got Dexterity attribute (Dexterity value depends on level, also Trolls got it significantly lower), which affect hit and evade.
– [balance] Offensive spells power +20%, level 1-29 offensive spells power +50%.
– [balance] Whirling item ability chance increased significantly (to 25%).
– [balance] Reduced griffin travel time (from 4h to 2h).
– [balance] Lava environmental damage x3, Extremely cold environmental damage x2 (lower grades of frost damage not changed).
– [balance] Troll Slayers got extra +2x HP multiplier (to a total of 9x HP), making the class the highest HP in the game (to compare: Warrior has 6x HP and Knight 7x HP).
– [balance] Archers got +x1 Damage multiplier and +20% Critical Hit Chance (previously +10%) when using bows.
– [balance] Bards (and Troubadours) got +1x MP multiplier.
– [balance] Mage Knights got +1x HP multiplier and +1x Arcane multiplier (on par with Wizard) also access to Resist Elements spell.
– [balance] Dragons got better armor.
– [balance] Snow/Ice/Great Ice Lizards got significant level up.
– [balance] Barbarians got level up (from 15/20 to 20/25).
– [balance] Trolls got Fear attack.
– [balance] Green Beetles level increased.
– [balance] Mantis level increased and more deadly attack types added.

– [content] Magic shop adjustments: prices reduced significantly (almost halved), new items available (weapons, arcane sources, etc).
– [content] New item: Ring of Arcane (common).
– [content] New location on East Marshes with high level enemies (to explore in the late game).
– [content] Removed some Barbarians and added some Grey Snakes in the beyond Bardacia region (there were too many identical monsters).

– [interface] Hit/Evade tooltip lists chance to hit table vs example values.
– [interface] Shows Critical Hit Chance on the Character/Hit tooltip.
– [interface] Added Overburdened and Ranged wrong position on status list (on the Characters stats screen).

– [fix] Incorrectly enabled quick exit DEV mode hotkey, disabled now.

Reminders
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