Our next stress tests are scheduled for:
What's new?
A good chunk of time this week was spent installing and configuring our new server. This includes setting up a new network and adjusting all the "things" to communicate with one another as expected. The most important thing left to do here is make adjustments to our server deployment pipeline to accommodate their new location; until this is done I will be manually deploying them (frown). Even with that giant distraction we were able to sneak in a good amount of content and QoL updates!
I also wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about how we as developers view our game. While it may have been true in the past that we touted our game as "hardcore" or focused on a very "old school" mentality, we have spent the better part of the last two years attempting to shed that stigma. Since our rebranding, the game has gone through significant changes in hopes of making the game more appealing to a wider audience while maintaining what we feel makes our game special. And yes, our "special sauce" clearly sticks us into the niche category of games - but don't mistake that for us being satisfied with a mediocre product. We want players of all experiences, new and old alike, to enjoy themselves while playing Embers Adrift. Keep your feedback coming!
REMINDER: the servers will be open for 4hrs Wednesday evening. The servers will open again on Friday @ 12pm central and close on Monday at 12pm central. See events in Discord for timezone translations.
Bug fixes / improvements:
New Server!
The new server has been installed and mostly configured. There are a few automation tasks that need to be rerouted (most of which revolve around server deployment) but so far things are working well. Hopefully this new server will yield improved NPC responsiveness and allow us to run more zones at once.
Purchasing with bank funds:
This week we are allowing you to purchase from the merchant or repair at the blacksmith using funds from your personal stash. At the bottom of both of these UIs we have added an "Available" panel which shows how much money you have available to spend, and where that money is coming from via the bag and bank icon. This currently applies to all merchants & blacksmiths in the game because all merchants and blacksmiths are near your personal stash. However, in the future you may encounter an isolated merchant or blacksmith that will only accept money from your bag. Money is drawn from your bag first followed by your stash.
A few things to notice in the above screenshots. First is the new available money panel on the merchant and blacksmith UI. Next is the new container type icon (upper left) on both your bag and personal stash; these correspond to the icons shown in the available panel of the merchant and blacksmith UI. Finally we have the vertical ellipsis to the right of your personal stash's currency panel. This can be left clicked to bring up the context menu for deposit/withdraw (in addition to the normal right clicking on the money itself).
Bag retrieval mechanic improvements
Sparked by some forum discussions, coupled with the above improvements to merchants & blacksmiths, we are making some improvements to what you can do while missing your belongings. We want to open things up a bit while having things still make sense contextually. The first step in this process is opening up what you can interact with while missing your belongings: mainly the bank, merchants, blacksmith, and loot.
Works in progress:
To see a full list of what is currently in progress head on over to this thread. I will do my best to update this list on a weekly basis and highlight the differences from the previous week with bold font. Below I will highlight some of the upcoming changes in more detail.
North Newhaven Dungeon (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
We promise this is coming soon! We got caught up with some crafting fixes, bag improvements, server installs, etc. which delayed us getting this zone ready for consumption.
New Weapon Visuals (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
We have a slew of new weapon visuals nearly ready to go. Right now there are some minor rotational issues that need to be resolved before we can move forward full boar with these. In addition I am setting up new prefab templates which will allow me to integrate new weapons into the game faster in the future.
Quests (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
The quest system rewrite is nearing an end. We have the current intro quest up and running with the new system and we are moving on to ironing out the smaller implementation details for different objective types. This tech should be wrapped up by the end of the week at which point we will shift our focus completely to implementing new quests.
Raw Component Bag (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
To help ease the pain of being an adventurer who also gathers, we are planning to introduce a new gathering-only bag. Similar to how your pouch can only hold consumables, this bag would only hold raw components. The moment that these components become refined they can no longer live here. This bag would likely not be lost on death - but would love to hear any feedback regarding this.
Expanding the action bar (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
We are likely to expand the action bar from 6 to 8 slots available for abilities. Any thoughts on this?
Experience re-evaluation (timeline: 1-3 weeks)
I think my post last week regarding experience re-evaluation was misinterpreted a bit. As mentioned above, we are in no way are we trying to impose a "hardcore" or an "old school" mentality. What I am trying to do is make the later levels (ones which you have likely not yet experienced) less painful by offloading some of that grind to the middle levels. In other words: my goal is to redistribute of the grind rather than simply increase it. The net result will mean LESS work is required at later levels compared to the current configuration at the cost of slightly more work for the current mid-levels.
Ashen Visuals & Tech (timeline: 2-3 weeks)
Ashen creatures are going to become crucial to collecting the oh so precious ember essence. These require some new tech for spawning along with allowing players to collect ember essence upon their death. After that we can move on to populating the world with this mechanism for testing.
Known Issues:
Wed. July 27th @ 8pm central
(Thurs. July 28th @ 1am UTC)
The developers will meet in Discord and test for approximately one hour. However, the servers will remain open for roughly 4 hours. The most up-to-date client can be retrieved via the patcher found on your account page.(Thurs. July 28th @ 1am UTC)
What's new?
A good chunk of time this week was spent installing and configuring our new server. This includes setting up a new network and adjusting all the "things" to communicate with one another as expected. The most important thing left to do here is make adjustments to our server deployment pipeline to accommodate their new location; until this is done I will be manually deploying them (frown). Even with that giant distraction we were able to sneak in a good amount of content and QoL updates!
I also wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about how we as developers view our game. While it may have been true in the past that we touted our game as "hardcore" or focused on a very "old school" mentality, we have spent the better part of the last two years attempting to shed that stigma. Since our rebranding, the game has gone through significant changes in hopes of making the game more appealing to a wider audience while maintaining what we feel makes our game special. And yes, our "special sauce" clearly sticks us into the niche category of games - but don't mistake that for us being satisfied with a mediocre product. We want players of all experiences, new and old alike, to enjoy themselves while playing Embers Adrift. Keep your feedback coming!
REMINDER: the servers will be open for 4hrs Wednesday evening. The servers will open again on Friday @ 12pm central and close on Monday at 12pm central. See events in Discord for timezone translations.
Bug fixes / improvements:
- Tech
- Updated Unity to the latest minor revision. This includes some minor bug and rendering fixes.
- Implemented: "Draw Bag" method for spawn controllers and loot tables. This tech is not yet employed - but will be in the coming weeks.
- Fixed: issue with dense nodes that were generating duplicate items instead of combining them
- Fixed: exposure slider now works without having to restart your client. This slider ONLY impacts the minimum exposure of the scene. In other words: it only changes the exposure levels at night. Note however, that these changes are not instant and it will take a second or so to adapt the scene exposure as you move the slider (toggling reflections can cause this to instantly "refresh"). Night time brightness should be consistent, if it is not, then that is an issue we need to solve. One of the main reasons for statically positioning the planet is to bring brightness consistency to the nights so that players can enjoy their time in the evenings.
- Exposure slider now goes to -0.5 for an even brighter night if you so choose.
- When acquiring ranged ammo via merchant, corpse, or loot roll it will now go directly to your equipment if you have the same ammo equipped, or an empty slot next to a compatible ranged weapon.
- Increasing the interaction collider size on Bats.
- Environment / Art
- Fixed: missing collider in that one dungeon room that got you stuck!
- Fixed: colliders in dungeon causing nameplates to fade
- Fixed: Fir trees should no longer bend over when you get near them.
- New dynamic music track added for Dryfoot & Dryfoot Stronghold.
- Rebaking nav mesh for Newhaven North, and Dryfoot Stronghold.
- UI:
- Added: vertical ellipsis next to coin display's that you can deposit/withdraw from (banks & trade). You can left click on these, or right click on the coins to invoke the context menu for deposit & withdraw.
- Text tooltips on the right side of the screen (most notably tooltips for the upper right menu) will no longer be offset from the mouse pointer.
- Replaced "?" on nameplates with no portrait to a more appropriate icon.
- Added container type icons to bag and bank UI.
- Overhead nameplates for NPCs now consider their scale when determining their height. This should result in better nameplate placement for smaller/larger creature variants but very well could break some stuff. Let me know if any creatures' nameplates have really bad heights above their heads.
- Design:
- AoE aggro from heals now only applies to NPCs that have current hostile targets.
- Moved the Ember Monolith in Meadowlands to a more central location.
- You can now select a third profession (crafting or gathering) when both of your previous professions meet or exceed level 12.
- Imbued prefix for flux crafted items will now vary depending on the level of flux used (lesser, greater, imbued etc)
- Refactored how stats from flux crafted gear are calculated. Differences between materials should be easier to identify.
- Fixed: crafted short swords no longer grant 2H and ranged damage.
- Crafted equipment will consistently use the highest level material to determine the level of the output item.
- Added prefixes for "Dense" plants and mushrooms which are a Patch (i.e. Cotton Patch, or Penny Bun Mushroom Patch). No visual differentiation is present at this time.
- Added prefixes for "Dense" logs which are Pile (i.e. Downed Outlands Cedar Log Pile. No visual differentiation is present at this time.
- Ability "Wind Up" will only be consumed by ability use.
- Slight increase to scale armor AC
- Refactored humanoid loot tables to reduce the abundance of outer armor items.
- Fixed: boars in Dryfoot are once again aggressive.
New Server!
The new server has been installed and mostly configured. There are a few automation tasks that need to be rerouted (most of which revolve around server deployment) but so far things are working well. Hopefully this new server will yield improved NPC responsiveness and allow us to run more zones at once.
Purchasing with bank funds:
This week we are allowing you to purchase from the merchant or repair at the blacksmith using funds from your personal stash. At the bottom of both of these UIs we have added an "Available" panel which shows how much money you have available to spend, and where that money is coming from via the bag and bank icon. This currently applies to all merchants & blacksmiths in the game because all merchants and blacksmiths are near your personal stash. However, in the future you may encounter an isolated merchant or blacksmith that will only accept money from your bag. Money is drawn from your bag first followed by your stash.
A few things to notice in the above screenshots. First is the new available money panel on the merchant and blacksmith UI. Next is the new container type icon (upper left) on both your bag and personal stash; these correspond to the icons shown in the available panel of the merchant and blacksmith UI. Finally we have the vertical ellipsis to the right of your personal stash's currency panel. This can be left clicked to bring up the context menu for deposit/withdraw (in addition to the normal right clicking on the money itself).
Bag retrieval mechanic improvements
Sparked by some forum discussions, coupled with the above improvements to merchants & blacksmiths, we are making some improvements to what you can do while missing your belongings. We want to open things up a bit while having things still make sense contextually. The first step in this process is opening up what you can interact with while missing your belongings: mainly the bank, merchants, blacksmith, and loot.
- Banks will now allow you to swap out equipment along with reloading your consumable and reagent pouches. Bank expansions can be purchased if your bank contains the currency required. While missing your belongings however, you cannot access the withdraw/deposit functionality since you do not have access to the funds in your missing bag.
- Blacksmiths will now allow you to repair worn equipment using any funds that are in your personal bank (NOT the shared bank for technical reasons). As you might expect, you cannot repair items in your bag.
- Merchants will allow you to purchase consumables and ranged ammo. Consumables can only be purchased if there is room in your pouch (an empty spot, or an already present stack). Ranged ammo will go directly to your equipment onto an already existing stack, or into an empty slot next to a compatible ranged weapon.
- LootingNPCs can now be done while missing your belongings with some restrictions.
- You do not gain coin from looting while solo or grouped situation because of your missing bag
- While solo you can see all items on the body and even equip items by dragging them directly to the corresponding equipment slot. If the slot is full you will first have to destroy the current item before equipping the new one.
- While in a group you are eligible for loot rolls on consumables, reagents, and ranged ammo. All other goods are automatically passed as they were previously. If you win a loot roll and do not have room for the item in your pouch the item will be unlocked and remain on the corpse for anyone to loot. The reason we auto-pass on gear is to prevent the situation where you win a roll for an item you want, we cannot equip it to you so it remains on the corpse, and someone else takes the loot before you get a chance to. This may change in the future, but right now this seems like the best option to prevent that possible strife. However, if everyone passes and the gear remains on the corpse you can loot the item and drag it directly to your equipment page.
Works in progress:
To see a full list of what is currently in progress head on over to this thread. I will do my best to update this list on a weekly basis and highlight the differences from the previous week with bold font. Below I will highlight some of the upcoming changes in more detail.
North Newhaven Dungeon (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
We promise this is coming soon! We got caught up with some crafting fixes, bag improvements, server installs, etc. which delayed us getting this zone ready for consumption.
New Weapon Visuals (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
We have a slew of new weapon visuals nearly ready to go. Right now there are some minor rotational issues that need to be resolved before we can move forward full boar with these. In addition I am setting up new prefab templates which will allow me to integrate new weapons into the game faster in the future.
Quests (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
The quest system rewrite is nearing an end. We have the current intro quest up and running with the new system and we are moving on to ironing out the smaller implementation details for different objective types. This tech should be wrapped up by the end of the week at which point we will shift our focus completely to implementing new quests.
Raw Component Bag (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
To help ease the pain of being an adventurer who also gathers, we are planning to introduce a new gathering-only bag. Similar to how your pouch can only hold consumables, this bag would only hold raw components. The moment that these components become refined they can no longer live here. This bag would likely not be lost on death - but would love to hear any feedback regarding this.
Expanding the action bar (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
We are likely to expand the action bar from 6 to 8 slots available for abilities. Any thoughts on this?
Experience re-evaluation (timeline: 1-3 weeks)
I think my post last week regarding experience re-evaluation was misinterpreted a bit. As mentioned above, we are in no way are we trying to impose a "hardcore" or an "old school" mentality. What I am trying to do is make the later levels (ones which you have likely not yet experienced) less painful by offloading some of that grind to the middle levels. In other words: my goal is to redistribute of the grind rather than simply increase it. The net result will mean LESS work is required at later levels compared to the current configuration at the cost of slightly more work for the current mid-levels.
Ashen Visuals & Tech (timeline: 2-3 weeks)
Ashen creatures are going to become crucial to collecting the oh so precious ember essence. These require some new tech for spawning along with allowing players to collect ember essence upon their death. After that we can move on to populating the world with this mechanism for testing.
Known Issues:
- Terrain textures have a bit too much tiling. This will be resolved shortly.
- Character creation & editing camera on Apple Silicon MacOS is bugged. I isolated the issue and submitted a bug report with Unity (still waiting to hear back).
- Not all ember rings and/or POIs are proper map discoveries. This is especially true in Dryfoot, Dryfoot Stronghold, and Redshore. Discoveries and map uncovering is a WIP and will be revisited soon.
- Zooming the camera while holding right mouse button on macOS can cause your chat window to scroll. This is not intended behavior.
- Deconstructing crafted items returns junk 100% of the time.
- cannot roll on loot while unconscious
- not all clothing/armor has visuals
- Dragging a group-nameplate in the group window will set the wrong pivot point for the group window and the whole thing will drag a bit weird.
- typing chat text may occasionally become invisible. unfocus your chat window and trying again a few times typically resolves this.
- Sometimes when you respawn you don't end up at the proper Ember Ring --> if this happens please report the position where you died via the "/report" command or "/debugposition" (if using debugposition you'll need to paste the value here)
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