Sorcerer King Beta 5.1 Patch Notes (v0.885)

–RELEASED 04/28/2015–

Sorcerer King Beta 5.1 is now live, bringing introductory quests, tutorials, the Tower of Mastery win condition, and more to the game. Read on for the lengthy patch notes.

Added since opt-in:

• Fixed bug with Maul where it'd never miss if the defender had 0 dodge. 'Maul Buff' now applied to defender unit that raises their dodge as Maul continues

• If no spells are available then the Turn Button will not prompt you to pick a spell to research.

• Fixed bug where player could bypass the Shadow Fortress gates without the Key

Sorcerer King Beta 5.1 Patch Notes

Gameplay Features & Content Additions

• Sovereign Intro Quests - At the start of each game, recall how you prepared for the coming conflict to determine additional starting bonuses

• Tutorials

• Tile Info Display - Displays terrain type, movement bonuses/penalties, and whether cities or outposts can be built

• Tower of Mastery win condition - Each sovereign can unlock the ability to build this wonder. When you do, be prepared for an onslaught!

• Secondary quest location visuals

• Keplin’s Cave

• Graveyard

• Merchant City

• Prison Palace

• Rockslide

• Hermit Hut

• Burning Circle

• Burning Tower

• Cave of Bones

• Crummy Inn

• Dwarven Camp

• Dwarven Mine

• Fire Cave

• Ice Lords Camp

• Paridenian Archive

• Sinister Circle

• Swamp Outpost

• Yeti Breeding Circle

• Eternal Flame

• Sacred Circle

• Bandit Black Market

• Sinister Tower

• Perilous Dungeon

• New City Wonders

• Order of the Forge: +1 to crafting ability

• Order of the Quill: +1 to all unit movement

• Order of the Blade: +1 to army size

• Order of the Shield: +1 to all City ZOC

• New tactical battle maps

• Blue Fissure x 3

• Swamp x 3

• Burning Lands x 3

• Beach

UI Improvements & Additions

 Spell book icon visuals

• New warning prompt for the first time you attack the Sorcerer King’s forces

• New unit portraits

• Frozen Champion

• Imperial Champion

• Swamp Champion

• Ice Champion

• Pariden Champion

• Ogre Warrior

• Blue Mage

• Dwarf Warrior

• Dwarf Berserker

• Ice Dragon

• Fire Dragon

• Ice Mage

• Fire Mage

• Bandit Elite

• Barbarian Elite

• Sharpshooter

• Raider

• Logistician

• Better background art for unit skill trees

• Loading screen updated visuals

• New paintings for ‘intangible’ resources

• Dishonor

• Intimidating

• Persuasive

• Wisdom

• Misc

• New alignment loot icons

• Hooked up the selected Unit's context window to show the unit's faction display name

• Fixed clipped city hud text and refined the customize sov screen

• Updated spellbook and diplomacy banner images

• Resized some text/buttons on the champ level-up screen.

• Sped up the filling of various animated status bars (most noticeable on high HP units, such as the SK LTs, it'll no longer take 5 seconds to animate the filling of their hp bar)

• Polished existing unit portrait art

• Changed destiny's favor icon

• New Enchantment Book icons for enchanting screen
  
  

Balance & Tweaks

• Difficulty

• AI now properly paths to attack shards and found Strongholds...difficulty issues (too easy) with few Shard attacks, low Doomsday, few Strongholds founded is much improved

• Starting companions for your champion generally more powerful

• Starting bandit lairs should a bit weaker (and more difficult lairs pushed away from starting city)

• Wolves have lower health

• Upped champion level for all Minor Faction capital battles (to make them more difficult)

• Remnant Factions

• Display ZoC

• Have several resources inside their ZoC (a benefit to going to war)

• Leave a fertile tile if their city is destroyed (a benefit to going to war)

• City improvement tree adjusted to avoid overload of choices at start

• New Starting Spells

• Bountiful Harvest

• Enchanted Supplies

• Quests

• Added 10 new Ancient Tomb quests

• Added 10 new Mysterious Cave quests

• Added 6 new Unearthed Dungeon quests

• Revised Champion quests for length,spelling, lore, and to make them "retreatable"

• Revised Quests to handle battle failure more gracefully (Displays message, fails the quests, enemies remain on the map)

• Revised Minor Faction "post-alliance" quests to give different rewards

• Removed treasure chests and map resources (metal, crystals). Replaced with loot/lore/etc...

• Minor factions now have a quest display when they ally with the player

• Tweaked Quest Recipes to remove the ultra rare ingredients (Diamonds)

• Miscellaneous Quest bugfixes and text polishing

• Revised Minor Quest Destinations to update description text

• Made secondary quest locations spawn farther away from the player’s capital

• Clarified choices for a Warlock's hut quest

• Misc

• Galor now starts with 100 mana

• SK fortress should always be far from player on random maps

• When you first enter SK ZOC you'll unhide his tower and gates

• adjusted Harvest Forest ingredients to always spawn some Cedar Oil

• Revised Sovereign Descriptions (on Sovereign Select screen)

• Revised Unit descriptions for length and completeness

• Revised Item Descriptions to remove some placeholders.

• Updated Food tooltip to make it clear that it effected city level up speed

• Updated Help menu text to better group city topics

• Updated Help menu text to fix out of date Champion mechanic explanation

• “Marginal Land” renamed to “Rugged Land” ... sounds better

• Changed name of Swamp Giant champion to Sloughbog

• 'Battlements' improvement now raises your ZOC attack by +3, not +1

• Removed Mana costs from Tandis' abilities

• Commander Sov: Removed 'Clumsy Chance' from Berserk ability

• Made the "Arcane Monolith" spell harder to get and most costly to cast

• Graphical updates

• Unique idle variations added for more units

• Polish Dwarf Champion texture

• Particle for the Wraithling unit

• Added new particle effects for dwarf champion

• Wolf Awaken and Bite animation added

• Fixed Juggernaut’s texture to now show the chains on his back.

• Added animated flags to the Frozen Fortress

• Sound updates

• Increased volumes on all unit movement sounds

• New ambient sounds on strategic map

• Polished Cleric sound effects

• New Hergon sound effects

• New Shadow Warg howl sound

• Polished holy charge sound

• New Torax select sound

• New Ship sound effects
  
  

Bug Fixes

• Major annoyances

• Units no longer move to share the same tile during tactical battles

• Spell research no longer stops working mid game

• Popup windows should be ordered in proper sequence (ex. quest screen no longer interrupts tactical battle results)

• Fixed bug where units ran in place on main map

• Fix Dodge Calculation so dodge doesn’t happen so frequently

• Necromancer - Fatal Embrace: Changed this to cut current HP of both target and caster by 1/2

• Reduced Crippling shot to be -25% Initiative instead of -50%

• Archon Hero - Angel of War: Now does a solid -3 CurHealth per shard (was using the Defendable Damage tag).

• Tinkerer Sov: "Master Craftsmen" now unlocks high level enchantments from the various spellbooks

• Changing "Arcane Monolith" to "Conjure Outpost" (name more clear to functionality)

• Changed "Obstruct Tile" to "Obstruction" to sound a bit more thematic

• Changed "Call Sovereign" to "Sovereign Cast" ...was out of character since you are the sovereign

• Swamp Giant hero now uses his Killing Blow animation when attacking with 'Smite'

• Images for the report screen for MF Quests

• Fixed data issues causing "Invulnerability" spell not to work. Similar issues also found and fixed in "Diamondskin", "Diamondskin_Self" spells, then in "Undead", "Ghost" and "Spirit" abilities, as well as the "Ring of Nullification"

• Added unit tooltips to stationed units on the CityDetailsWnd

• "Enchanted Forge" now unlocks 2 crafting slots

• Added fullscreen background image instead of background bink to several wnds (CreditsWnd, LoadWnd, OptionsWnd, WorkshopWnd)

• Harvest Shadow Lands Spell - A Cheap Way to get into SK Lair

• (now can only be cast on neutral ground)

• Fixed description of "Enhance Land" ...now properly states that it turns Shadowlands to fertile terrain

• Fixed XML issues causing "Summon Iron Golem" and "Summon Assassin Demon" to not actually summon their unit

• Fixed bug where tactical summons could be cast on blocked tiles (tree stumps, logs, trees, obstacles, etc..)

• Tactical summons are now bound to the sov, instead of the tactical spell caster.

• Updated sov select thumbnails to reflect updated paintings

• Fixed issue where "Give that Donkey a Raise" achievement would unlock for units besides the "donkey with cart" pioneer unit.

• Fixed issue with selection state for the unit entries on the Choose Spell Caster/Target prompts

• Raise and Lower Land now given via "Geomancy" ability. Moved "Lower Land" into the editor to fix strange "Double listing" bug in spellbook.

• "Explosive Shot" - Fixed bug where the explosion wouldn't happen if the attack killed the unit

• "Fire Arrow" now properly hits with the "Fire" attack type

• "Ice Mage" now has some nifty Icy abilities

• Necromancer Hero given the ability to equip her staff after un-equipping it

• Champions found through quests no longer include their ‘starting party’ companion units

• Wreath gfx added to current and rollover unit context areas, to be displayed when subject unit is a Champ, hidden otherwise

• When prompting for a caster, it no longer lists Sovereign units and Boat units

• Fixed "Cloud Walking", "Call of the Titans", and other teleportation spells to work nice with units in boats

• Revisions to Minor Faction quests to make all quest related battles launch from the Quest Dialog window (rather than place enemy units on a lair to be killed)

• Missing tooltip (added tooltips to all intangible resources)

• Fixed bug that allowed healing shards to more than their max hp

• Player can no longer cast overworld summons in SK territory, fixing some 'bypass the SK gates' cheese

• "Nature Guardian": Outpost ZOC now properly attacks overworld enemies within its expanded radius

• Revised Champion Quests to better handle battle fail (Quest ends, champion disappears forever)

• Also repaired some problems with entering and leaving the quests. All Champion quests should allow you to retreat at the initial entry and still be returnable

• Archon Hero: Skill Tree overhauled, tested, and checked in

• Archer Heroes: "Freezing Shot" fixed to properly immobilize targets

• Archer Heroes: "Legendary Quiver" now upgrades abilities

• Dwarf Lord Hero: Fixed some weirdnesses with "Cold Snap"

• Spell "Arcane Monolith" now can be cast on most terrains (was giving "Cannot Cast on _____" errors)

• "Dark Candle" item fixed - now summons a Fire Elemental into battle

• "Ice Elemental" spell now has a possibility of freezing all enemy units for a turn

• Fixed "Gilden" map to not have a rotated Sorcerer King location

• Fixed "Vulnerable to Fire/Lightning/Cold" abilities to properly double the damage effect of these elemental types (was only boosting it 50%)

• Fixed bug that showed all players as “Cheaters” after they won

• Summoned Wisp: Can now be cast on any empty tile on the battlefield

• Winter's Wrath: No longer costs a sovereign cast.

• Naphaz - Drain Life: Now works as described, draining 2 HP per caster level from the target

• Naphaz - Shadowheart: Fixed to give +5 HP Base +2 HP per 50 Doomsday.

• Naphaz - Doombringer: Fixed to give +1 Moves, +2 Initative, and +4 Attack per 100 Doomsday.

• Naphaz - Death Lash: Tooltip displaying correctly and now boosts Accuracy too.

• Naphaz - Shadowsoul: Changed from giving a Max Health bonus to giving him +1 Mana-From-Kills for every 100 Doomsday.

• Wizard: Scholarship Abilities cleaned up, give you a % bonus to incoming Lore that is properly conveyed in the various UI elements.

• Call of the Titans: You can no longer cast this spell in SK Territory (fixing cheese tactic of zapping in past the SK Gate)

• Touch Of Entropy: Lurk that appears is now a Darkling Leader (not a group of Darklings)

• Updated select caster window

• Fixed bug that allowed enchanting quest items

• Added proper image scaling to quest screen (no longer stretches quest images)

• Recall Scroll now works

• Fixed "Eternal Supply" and "Enchanted Supply" to properly use an essence slot and supply the intended Logistics

• "Drain Shard" now lists the proper Doomsday Cost (50)

• Commander Sovereign: "Healers Guild" now gives a flat +6 HP to trained units (the [CALC] tag wasn't working here for some reason)

• Fire Hero: Fixed "Into the Fire" text and values

• AI now obeys Cooldown and Charge Time rules for Summoning Abilities

• Fixed issue with repetitive Sorcerer King dialogue events

• Fixed gfx bugs with destroying claimed shards

• SK can no longer be killed by the KILL spell

• Removed unused HP upgrades for outposts

• Fixed bug that would leave claimed tile gfx on your first city, if you toggled to the second city and closed the window

• Fix for Crossbowman unable to equip his original bow after un-equipping it

• Typo fixes for skill descriptions

• Unit can get stuck in location and can't move

• Cursor icon should match its proper context more frequently (ex. no longer clicking through quests with an attack)

• Fixed bug where QuestCompleteWnd would unhide twice in a row with the same data, if you fail a quest

• Revised Core Resources to change "Spell of Dominion" to "Spell of Making"

• Fixed bug where the (!) would show up on the [REPORT] button to indicate that a minor race will talk to you, even though they were allied with the SK

• Can now properly complete "Break a Champion's Curse" starting quest

• Fire Mage and Cleric particles hooked up to proper locators

• Put in Quest Failure triggers for losing battle

• "Crippling Shot" no longer bugged to deduct ALL Combat Speed (caused by a faulty "PerTurn" modifier tag)

• Bastion (special guardian Building that unlocks snipers) now requires an 'Archery Range" before it can be built

• Fixed "Markman's Boon" spell to give proper accuracy Bonus

• Dragons are now multi-tile to prevent unit clipping confusion

• Rain of Arrows skill has inaccurate description

• Revised Core Quest Items to make Boots of Ice/Fire equippable.

• Naphaz champion starting with a level 3 weapon (couldn’t requip)

• Crash Fix: addressed a player-relations crash