Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem Update #59

The latest Kickstarter update for SolarFall Games’ open world RPG Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem introduces the changes and improvements coming to the game in the 0.5.0.1 update. The standouts there are the changes to Elemental Storms and the new targeting system that should make auto-attacking smoother. A bit on that:

Update 0.5.0.1 will improve many aspects of the game, including a new targeting and player input system. You can now lock onto enemies, easily move through hordes and more. The game should feel more responsive now! With the new input system, auto-attack when holding the mouse button ans switching targets is now deactivated by default, but you can still turn it on in the game settings.

Elemental storms have been redesigned too, for a result that is far closer to the initial idea of elemental interaction. The old elemental storms will be turned into powerful area-of-effect spells that will add to the arsenal of elemental mages. 😉

Those areas on the ground will help you deal Elemental Damage by spreading Lightning, Flames, and by sustaining Freezing effects. The chance of spread will increase each time you hit an enemy in the same Storm, and by overlaping multiple Storms you can create small areas that will prove deadly to all enemies caught in their viscinity.

In addition to that, we drastically reduced the size and complexity of the pithus caves. Going through them should be a far more pleasant experience (when it comes to exploring spider-infested caves at least).

A brand new set of weapons is also coming to the party: the Hand-forged set (8 new weapons).

Finally, many bugs and crashes have been fixed. We are also aware of performance issues, and are actively working on improvements.

The game’s official website also offers the complete changelog for 0.5.0.1. An excerpt:

KNOWN ISSUE:

• Your characters may not appear at first, but they have not been deleted. ?

GENERAL:

• Targeting system improvement and new input buffering system.
• Camera rotation is now also bound to keyboard left/right keys.
• Force move has been reworked to work as a direct button, not a button to hold in addition to the move button anymore.
• Some AI related systems are now multithreaded.

VISUALS:

• More calibrated brightness, especially at night.
• Improved fog at night, for a better reading of distance.
• Improved the templar and wooden crossbow icons.
• Improved rendering in the main menu.

UI:

• New option “Auto attack” in game settings.
• 3rd skill slot cooldown is now properly displayed.
• Inventory slot highlight is now properly cleared when dropping an item.
• Enlarged PST details window.
• Death screen’s “Exit Wolcen” option has been replaced by “Return to main menu”.
• Fixed the merchant reclaim menu not removing the right items when full.

QUESTS:

• The Pithus cave is now shorter and more linear, which makes going through it a smoother experience.
• Fixed a bug that happened when resetting the weather in the first quest after being killed by the SkullCrusher, and caused visual errors.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent you to cross the bridge to Ravengarde Fortress after achieving the two Locks quests.
• Fixed a bug causing your last Quest checkpoint to be invalidated when loading your save file, forcing you to start at Amarth.

AUDIO:

• Optimized audio streaming.
• Fixed a bug where multiple music tracks could overlap.

ENVIRONMENT:

• Fixed invisible walls in dungeons.
• New dungeon architecture during Ravengarde quest.
• Various improvements in the open world.
• Improved preloading.
• Various fixes in the weather system.
• Weather now has a chance to change when sleeping at the Inn.
• Fixed a white screen bug in the tutorial (fog bug).
• Improved color grading in Thornwood.
• Particles optimization.
• Navmesh size optimization.
• New waypoint in Ravengarde Fortress.

GAMEPLAY:

• Fixed a bug causing skill cost to be consumed when casting when knocked down.
• Templars should not be targetable in Melee anymore.
• Shield hits now incur a 50% main weapon damage penalty.
• Default shield angle is now 60°.
• Shock Damage bonus per level has been slightly decreased.
• Conflagration, Lightning Strike and Whirlwind now have a minimum cast duration.
• The bug where DoTs could become permanent has finally been crushed. That should not happen anymore.
• Fixed a bug preventing Flames to spread on the ground with Sacred Damage converted to Fire.
• Fixed the crossbow fire bug where the character wouldn’t orient in the direction you were firing.
• Fixed a bug that caused the passive block to work against attacks coming from behind.
• Fixed a bug in the ROS causing the Umbra regeneration to decelerate with time near the end of the bar.
• Umbra regeneration won’t trigger if there are only Umbra costs being transferred, to prevent weird auto-feeding cases with Umbra-only gameplays. This small change to the ROS allows better defined transfers and improved readability of the resource bars.
• Fixed some gameplay values wrongly displayed in the Character Sheet.
• Fixed a bug that caused Whirlwind to attract enemies to you.
• Fixed a bug with Umbra & Rage globes, preventing them to refill potions.
• Fixed the globes drop chance calculation.