Feb 10, 2019

Barony V3.2.3 - The Alchemy Update OPEN BETA!

Barony - WALL OF JUSTICE

Hi All,

I'm making a open-beta branch available now on Steam for our V3.2.3 update! This update has been the culmination of 5 months of rewrites and additions to support our upcoming DLC. If you'd like to get your hands on the new features, then select the V3.2.3 beta branch from Barony properties menu in Steam.

Make sure you backup your savefiles and scores when updating, as you may experience crashes when downgrading to the old V3.2.2 branch. We've been using this build for our Developer Livestreams and it has been fairly stable, so you should be safe to stick to this beta version.

We're still finalising some store page business on the DLC front, but getting this base update out now will allow our DLC launch to go smoother when it's ready.

Let's mix things up with Alchemy!

Combine potions to suit your needs, experiment and learn the secrets of Alchemy! In this V3.2.3 update we've added the Alchemy mechanic with it's own proficiency available for all players!

Getting Started With Alchemy

Alchemy requires 2 potions and a new item to get started - the 'Alembic'. You'll be able to experiment out of the gate using the new Brewer class in our upcoming DLC! Otherwise you might be fortunate enough to find one of these inside a potion chest or sold at your local Apothecary shop.

Alembics are reusable but have small chances of degrading, so it's best advised to keep a spare or two handy. Brewing acidic potions increases the chance your alembic may break.

Once you get your hands on an Alembic, you'll have the option to 'brew' or 'experiment'.

Amateur alchemists learn by drinking potions or combining potions using the 'experiment' option to build up their knowledge of ingredients.

Note: Cursed Alembics will produce cursed brews, and blessed Alembics give you sweet blessed potions. But a cursed Alembic does have uses! A cursed potion may give you the same effect benefits of a blessed potion. The blessing/curse interaction potion changes are shown later on. Also if you have a +0 Alembic, the resultant brew will be the minimum curse level of the two ingredients you mixed.

You'll soon learn a select few 'base' and 'secondary' ingredients

Mix a 'base' ingredient with a 'secondary' ingredient and voila! You've discovered a new recipe. Which ones are which? Well you'll figure it out! No chemistry degree necessary!
You'll learn that certain 'base' ingredients tend to produce certain potions with similar characteristics.
- Water can be used to dilute other potions, but be careful to not overdo it or you'll ruin the batch!
- The sweet citrus notes of dungeon juice create potions that make you feel great!
- Booze makes you feel bad enough on it's own, but what kind of other effects can you make out of it?
To keep track of what you have learned so far, mouse over the Alchemy proficiency in the in-game skills page.

Here our budding Alchemist can make use of water, juice and blindness potions using the 'brew' command.

Some potions have no special effects in Alchemy, and using them will always result in a potion of sickness.
Using the 'brew' command instead of 'experiment' will show you known "good" combinations that don't dissolve into potions of sickness. That being said, a potion of sickness might just be the ingredient or offense you want!
Potion recipes are fixed, so carry your knowledge through each playthrough!

How can I keep up a stock of potions? When you're not assaulting enemies with concoctions, maybe you'd like to stop and have a little taste. The higher your Alchemy proficiency, the greater chance you'll be able to recover an 'Empty Bottle' when drinking potions. Combining potions will also allow you to recover some extra bottles for later use.

Apothecary shops or potion chests also have a chance to carry empty bottles.

Equip an Empty Bottle in hand, and use it on a fountain or sink to tap a potion into your bottle. Keep an eye out for slimes or succubi!

Ways to level Alchemy

Drinking a potion you've never consumed before will always result in an Alchemy skill point. If the potion is a 'base' or 'secondary' ingredient it'll be added to your Alchemy tooltip.
Brewing a potion you've never tried mixing before will add to your knowledge and result in an Alchemy skill point. Otherwise brewing will level your Alchemy skill with a 50% chance.
Throwing potions has a 20% on impact to level your Alchemy skill.

Alchemy Skill Bonuses

Alchemy modifies your potion impact and effect damage by [100%/110%/125%/150%/250%/400%] for each proficiency tier
Increases chance of duplicating potions with water [50%-100%]
Increases chance of recovering empty bottles when consuming potions [60-80%]
Increases chance of recovering empty bottles when brewing potions [50-75%]
At Legendary Alchemy, your alembics will never degrade, and all potions you create have a +2 blessing!

Potion Changes

Thrown potions that heal or provide positive effects (strength, cure ailment, healing, juice) no longer deals impact damage to allies or draws aggro to the player.
Added an Apothecary shop to the Hamlet map, replacing a general store.
Added particle effects for healing effects of potions (booze, healing, juice)
Added 4 new brewable-only potions:
- Potion of Strength: Grants +5 STR and -5 PER for 1 minute. Each blessing increases the duration by 30 seconds. Cursed Potions of Strength will result in blindness.
- 'Unstable Potions'
  - These explosive potions deal 10 additional impact damage that is multiplied by your Alchemy skill damage bonus
  - Potion of Firestorm: Razes a target with 3 orbiting fireballs that deal low magic damage and ignite foes. Breaks down walls.
  - Potion of Icestorm: Chills a target with 3 orbiting cold spells that deal medium magic damage and inflict slow status
  - Potion of Thunderstorm: Strikes a target with 3 orbiting lightning spells that deal heavy magic damage
  - Each magic projectile from these potions is able to hit up to 3 other targets nearby
  - Impact damage is increased by 5 for each blessing/curse on the potion
Potion of Acid: Deals (10 + (5 * blessing or curse) * Alchemy damage bonus) additional impact damage. (Previously dealt 8-10 fixed damage)
Potion of Sickness: Deals (5 + (3 * blessing or curse) * Alchemy damage bonus) additional impact damage and poisons a target. (Previously dealt 2 damage)
Bottle of Water: Heals (5 * blessing) health if +1 or above. Cursed bottles of water now randomly curse a non-cursed equipped item when consumed. If no held items are eligible, then randomly curse any non-cursed inventory item.
Bottle of Booze: Heals 5 + (5 * blessing) health. Cursed potions reduce the heal by 5 HP per curse level
Cure Ailment: Blessed potions will provide (4 * blessing) seconds of increased HP/MP regen
Potion of Invisibility: Blessed potions provide (12 * blessing) extra seconds of invisibility. Consuming a Potion of Invisibility breaks monster aggro if the player is greater than 3 tiles away from hostile monsters.
Potion of Levitation: Blessed potions provide (12 * blessing) extra seconds of levitation
Potion of Speed: Blessed potions provide (12 * blessing) extra seconds of speed
Potion of Paralysis: Blessed or cursed potions provide (2 * blessing or curse) extra seconds of paralysis per level

That about wraps up the Alchemy portion of this update, let's move on to the other changes and goodies:

General

Added two new game/server flags (found under settings->misc)
- +1 Life: Every player spawns with an amulet of lifesaving. Steam Achievements are disabled while this mode is enabled.
- Keep Inventory On Death: Multiplayer only. Players no longer drop items when they die. On respawn, will revive with all items equipped as they were. Does not disable achievements, but reduces your final multiplayer score by 50%.
Added active status effect icons next to the sustained spells UI
- Icon blinks when the effect has less than 5 seconds duration remaining
- Option to disabled this UI element is found in video settings
Cockatrice Lair secret level now prevents sources of levitation due to soft-locking possibility
Insectoids now have 2 animated wings/antennae on their model

Items

Added 'Backpack' item
- Provides 1 more row of inventory if not cursed
- Equipped in the player's cloak slot
- Does not burn like cloaks
- Items get sorted into the last row only if all other slots have been filled
- Autosort does not modify any items in this additional row
- Backpacks can be found rarely in hardware shops or chests
Added 'Potion of Polymorph' item
- If consumed by a player, transforms the player into a random humanoid monster
- If player starts as a monster race, the polymorph effect transforms the player into a human
- Polymorph duration lasts 4-6 minutes
- Polymorph effects dissipate when swimming in water, or drinking from sinks
- When thrown at a monster, the monster will polymorph into a random creature
- If the new creature can not wield the same equipment, the old equipment will drop on the floor
- The new creature will copy the stats of the original polymorphed target (Crystal Golem to a rat anyone?)
- Polymorphing a monster is permanent
- If a flying creature is polymorphed and there is no floor to stand on nearby, polymorphing will instantly kill the creature

Scroll of Enchant Weapon now targets 'melee gloves' if no weapon is held in hand. (Applies to brass knuckles, iron knuckles, and spiked gauntlets)
Scroll of Repair now has a GUI (like identify), no longer targets random equipped items
- Can target any item in your inventory (does not have to be equipped, or unbroken!)
- Raises status +2 levels if the item is not broken
- Raises status +1 level if the item is broken
Cursed Scrolls of Enchant Weapon/Armor/Remove Curse now reverse the blessing of an item (e.g +2 to -2) or take a +0 item to -1 curse.
Reduced crystal weapon breakage chance (now slightly less durable than other equipment types)
Crystal weapons now have 2x chance to level combat proficiencies
Halved item breakage chances in Hardcore mode
'Melee gloves' (brass knuckles, iron knuckles, spiked gauntlets) now have chance to degrade on use

Magic

Added tooltips for magic spells, showing damage, effects and sustain costs
Spray Acid spell now deals 10 damage per projectile (from 7)
Bloodletting spell now deals 30 damage (from 25)
Charm monster spell now only can charm 1 monster at a time into your service. The Charmed monster must die in order to be able to take control of another.
Invisibility spell now breaks monster aggro if the player is greater than 3 tiles away from hostile monsters.

Proficiency Changes

Added tooltips to show all gameplay interactions with proficiencies. Mouse over each entry in the skills panel to see details.
Added 'Unarmed' proficiency
- Monk, Warrior, Barbarian and Wanderer classes start with some Unarmed proficiency.
- Provides +1 unarmed ATK every proficiency tier (+0 to +5)
- If 'melee gloves' are worn, applies scaling knockback effect on a fully charged strike
- Knockback distance is increased with higher proficiency tiers
- Knocking a monster into furniture or doors deals 5-10 damage and breaks the object
- Unarmed skill provides additional furniture/door damage each tier
- Unarmed damage from players has it's own damage type when applied to monsters. Damage effectiveness shown below:
  1.f // human 1.1 // ghoul 1.2 // rat 1.1 // skeleton 0.8 // goblin 1.2 // scorpion 0.5 // slime 1.f // imp 0.8 // troll 1.f // gnome 1.1 // spider 0.8 // demon 1.f // succubus 1.f // lich 1.f // minotaur 1.f // devil 1.f // shopkeeper 0.8 // kobold 1.4 // scarab 0.6 // crystal golem 1.f // incubus 1.f // vampire 0.5 // shadow 0.8 // cockatrice 0.8 // insectoid 1.f // goatman 0.7 // automaton
Added new capstone effects for the following melee weapon proficiencies (to trigger the capstone effects, you must strike with a fully charged attack - holding the attack key until the strike):
- Sword: +5 ATK and inflict 5s bleeding status
- Mace: +5 ATK and 25% chance inflict 1.5s paralyze status
- Axe: +10 ATK and inflict 3s slow status
- Polearm: +5 ATK and inflict knockback status
- Unarmed: +5 ATK and inflict paralyze status on a backstab strike
Other capstone effects added:
- Shield: Your shields never degrade when blocking (excludes mirror shield)
- Ranged: Your ranged weapons never degrade on use
All melee/ranged/shield proficiencies now provide improved durability on your equipment as the proficiency is skilled up
Melee proficiencies: Killing a monster has an increased chance to level your proficiency
Ranged:
- Reworked several damage formulas. Thrown weapon ranged damage is now a multiplier [100%/110%/125%/150%/200%/300%] instead of a static value 0-20 ATK. This enables thrown weapons to scale lategame.
- Potions are no longer influenced by ranged proficiency.
- Potion damage is
  (base thrown ATK * Alchemy potion multiplier) + potion effect
- Thrown weapons are now
  (base thrown ATK + weapon ATK + DEX / 4) * (Ranged damage multiplier) - (target AC * 0.25)
- Gemstones/Rock damage are now
  (base thrown ATK + DEX / 4 + Ranged proficiency / 10) - (target AC * 0.5)
Leadership:
- Followers now gain +1 DEX every proficiency tier (influences movespeed)
- Capstone changed to Goatmen, Insectoids and Goblins being recruitable
- Capstone no longer allows unlimited allies
- Followers now revert their color palettes back to normal if their leader died (A monster previously always reset it's allegiances if their leader died, but this was not obvious)
- Followers no longer hunt enemies out of sight if told to wait in place
- Followers now choose a random spot around their leader to walk to, instead of the same one over and over again
- Followers scan for enemies more frequently instead of waiting for the player to get hit
- Players accidentally damaging followers now results in a single attack in return instead of normal aggro
- Added particle effect on successful leadership recruitment
Appraisal:
- Added message to indicate if your appraisal skill was not high enough when attempting to identify an item
Sneaking:
- Improved sneaking effectiveness (blocking without a shield), player concealment changed from 2 tile distance to 3 tiles
- Improved assassination/backstab mechanic to be more reliable if the target was moving or otherwise not stationary
Locks:
- Doubled base unlocking chances (previously was 1 in 400 at 0 proficiency, now 1 in 200)
- Catching a target in a beartrap now always levels your locks proficiency
- Monsters walking into bear traps now properly update their HP bar to the player
- Capstone bonus gold on unlocking chests changed from 25 to 100 gold
- Successfully lockpicking an automaton now always increases lockpicking skill
- Hardware shops now have increased chance to sell lockpicks
Swimming:
- Waterwalking capstone now does not disable your shield

Performance

Slight improvements for non-multithreaded networking
Improved sound effect processing to reduce frame drops

Bugfixes

Fixed 'use previous character' button overwriting the oldest savefile always
Fixed rare crash that could happen when an insectoid changed weapon
Fixed gates causing players/monsters to get stuck when closing. Now are passable until the colliding entity moves out of the way.
Fixed followers not pathing through the player when issuing movement commands
Fixed boulders spawning over doorways for the 5th time. Added new hat to eat if I'm wrong.
Fixed furniture having status effect colored health bars
Fixed hunger icon appearing if hunger was disabled mid-game
Fixed player arms occasionally animating in the same direction
Fixed cursed enchant weapon/armor scrolls not syncing between server and clients
Fixed human arm/footwear equipment not showing correctly in multiplayer
Fixed incorrect hunger message that could sometimes appear after vomiting
Fixed teleporting not updating player position correctly (affected Cockatrice Lair secret level trigger)
Fixed wall traps building a wall ontop of monsters and players
Fixed forcebolt spell tooltip not displaying 0 manacost when legendary spellcasting is reached
Fixed some modded content disabling Steam Achievements when it shouldn't. (Cosmetic mods e.g sounds/models/music do not disable Steam Achievements)
Fixed some items wrongly stacking when bought from shopkeepers
Fixed issue where identifying an item via appraisal would close your identify
GUI from a scroll
Fixed issue where multiplayer clients did not get notified of secret level blurbs ("you hear the sound of pickaxes")
Fixed crash when throwing a potion of cure ailment
'Greasy' status effect now lasts 1-2 minutes rather than indefinitely to prevent soft-lock at Herx

Please use the new V3.2.3 Bug Report/Feedback thread to give us feedback on any issues or crashes you might encounter.

Thanks everyone!

Ben