Performance, balancing, and some nice-to-haves

Happy New Year! We'll be posting a lot over the next few days regarding our plans for Phobos in 2021. But for now, here's our first patch of 2021.

A SMALL THANK-YOU TO OUR OLDEST PLAYERS

• Some of you have been with us for over a decade. Many of you also supported us early on with donations, and this enabled us to keep a server online. We wouldn't be where we are now without you. So, for those of you who donated to us or actively contributed to our closed beta development, we've dropped a very small thank you into the bank/storage: a pair of Boots of Patience. THis gift is once-per email, so please check the bank of your highest level character.

  • NOTE: This was done by checking for in-game accounts associated with supporter and closed beta email addresses. There was no level restrictions for supporters, but closed beta accounts had to have a level 10 or above on the account to qualify. If you were part of the closed beta, and think that you've been missed out. Please DM Rob in Discord.

PERFORMANCE

• Reduced the heal spam of various monsters when they have no target. Previously this could occur as much as 20 times a second. Now monsters only heal like this once a second, but at a higher rate. This shouldn't change their behaviour, but will slightly improve performance.

BUGS

• Fixed bug in Arian feather quest that caused him to repeatedly ask for feathers even after the players brought him some

COIN PRIORITY

• Lower value coins are now taken first when trading/exchanging (copper > silver > gold)

STAIRS

• Stairs now specifically reject teleporting players onto other stairs or stairholes

• Adjusted offset of ladders slightly to allow for outline to surround it completely

MONSTERS

• Several more monsters now self heal when they have no target:

  • Archenaid

  • Giant

  • Grorus

  • Lucenfly (because they weren't annoying enough already)

  • Orc Savage

  • Sal Cotton

  • Wiralof

• Giant (Tomb of Vril)

  • Giants in the Tomb of Vril no longer give any loot

• Shrachlor

  • AoE damage to heal ability now also affects players (previously it only affected other monsters)

  • Ranged missile attack damage reduced by -20%

• Mordrir

  • Reduced the cooldown reduction when taking damage from 1s/damage => 0.5s/damage

  • Increased fireball damage by +7%

• Blowbug

  • Experience reduced from 225 => 110 (level unchanged)

• Idle animations re-added to certain monsters

  • Wirathistle

  • Quagwyrm

  • Lucenfly

MAP

• Short bridge added between Timari and Greenwood to prevent luring of higher-level creatures into town

ITEMS: WAND STAT REDUCTIONS

• All wand stats have been reduced significantly. Historically, giving newly-promoted mages a single item that increases their magical damage by between 10-20% made sense, because magical skills increased much more slowly than physical combat stats, and there were as many items with magical stats. However, we now have more magical items (e.g. Boots of Nieanah, Magician's Gloves, Dragonskull Shield, Dragontooth Ring, Stormwitch Ring, Stormwitch Talisman, etc.), and magic skill learning rates have been increased considerably since then, and it is clear that the high stats on wands are a significant factor that contribute to the overpowered damage of low-level mages. Overall, this will mean a real-world damage reduction of 10-20% for low-level mages (who initially rely on the wand for almost all their damage buffs), and a reduction of 5-10% for higher levels (who have access to better gear with other magic stats).

• Base stats