Frontline only! Click here for Frontline instructions

Patch Info

Recommended Level: 23-25

Summary

Don't invite Rick Astley because this update will totally desert you!

This is one of those real Frontline updates! All the sounds are either placeholder or missing, and some effects aren't final etc, but the functionality should be enough for testing!

Details

About Dragonbone Dunes

Finally there's some new Story Mode stuff, and it's the next area: Dragonbone Dunes (aka the desert)!

The role of the desert in terms of pacing is a bit different than how we did for Seasonne and Mt Bloom. The reason why is that Tai Ming itself was so very different from the other temples!

For one, Tai Ming was very NPC-heavy. This put us in a situation where players who leave Tai Ming might feel that the next part of the game seems like a ghost town in comparison. Since this is the final non-temple area in the game, and is supposed to be this bustling trade hub, we really didn't want that! In the end, we made over 60 NPCs for the desert and its port town.

Another thing we felt was that Tai Ming pushed the story forward into a place where another forced mini-dungeon (like the Toy Factory or Lurifix quest line in Mt Bloom) would be weird pacing wise. Still, if the desert just had a lot of NPCs but no gameplay content, that would be bad as well.

Because of this, we decided we'd shift the main/side content balance a bit for the desert, with a slightly more streamlined main quest (still with a couple of bosses), but more side content to do instead. This way, people who felt Tai Ming left them yearning for a more traditional gameplay/story pace can go through it relatively quickly to get to the next temple, and people who want to spend more time in the desert area can do so with the side quests and secrets!

That means this Frontline update is a bit unusual, as well. For the other areas, we first released only the main quest and no side content, but since the side content is a more integral part of the experience, we decided to add a portion of the side content to the Frontline patch!

Of course, since this is the first Frontline patch of the area, we're going to polish things up a bit and also add more stuff to do in coming updates, before shipping it all in one big lump to Stable.

Hope you all have a good time in Dragonbone Dunes!

Patch Notes

Hotfix 0.820c

• Added some polish to NPC behaviors in Port Monnaie
  
• The Cacute aggressive state now reverses if you leave them alone for a while
  
• Perfect guarding the first tick of the Solem laser now interrupts the attack
  
• Perfect guarded Cacute projectiles now move faster and deal significantly more damage to enemies
  
• Fixed a number of multiplayer bugs in the desert
  
• Bees no longer spawn en masse outside of bounds in Pillar Mountains
  

Hotfix 0.820b

• Added some chat commands for desert reset: /desertreset (entire desert), /desertsidereset (all side quests), /desertmainreset (the main quest), /farmareset (only the Farmamera battle), /solgemreset (only Sol-Gem battle), /marino2reset (only Marino battle)
  
• You can no longer stand next to Sol-Gem during its shockwave attack
  
• You can no longer blink past the Marino cutscene trigger
  
• Candy should now accept that you completed her objective in the museum quest and move on
  
• The vegetable enemies should now keep spawning properly next to the farm after their quest has been finished
  

Additions

• The desert and its storyline are now accessible
  

Changes

• Balance: Chain Lightning's gold charge damage has been increased
  
• Balance: Earth Spike's damage has been slightly decreased
  
• Balance: Meteor's damage has been slightly increased on silver and gold
  
• Balance: Enemies now build up stun resistance a short period after being stunned, preventing chain stunning
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a skill-related underflow bug
  

More Insight

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!

What's next?

As always we'll be fixing bugs, and then we'll add a bunch more side content to the desert (including some obvious stuff like giving the cards art and effects, elite enemies, fishing and content for the shops). After that we'll put it all on the Stable branch and sail away to the next temple!