Windward Weekly Update - 10/31/14

Greetings fellow Captains! Can you believe it's already time for another weekly update? Time has certainly flown! This week has been centered on a lot of balance and trying to get combat and AI feeling better. While this balancing will be an ongoing thing as the game develops and is polished, we want to be sure there is an element of challenge, and a need to employ tactics to win a battle. Challenge level 13 has been added, as well as the ability to play as a pirate. Content has been fleshed out across the game, from the starting areas all the way through to the new level 13 late game additions. Here are Aren's notes for this week, and remember, you can follow daily notes on the google doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/134aQGWrGfiwQFpcmsk0IxLsfS8WcB9rrXez2XNJVnB8/edit **CHANGE LOG** **2014-10-31 - Now Live** * You can no longer give flags to other players. * You can no longer do business in towns where your reputation is too low. * Added a new Rumors page to towns showing the player’s reputation standing as well as any rumors available in the region related to trade. As the player’s reputation increases, the number of rumors will grow and their content will become more detailed. * Fixed a bug introduced in the last revision where you’d appear in a town after sailing to a new region instead of appearing on the edge of the map like before. * Pirates will no longer randomly spawn on the edges of the map unless the region is fully under player control. * Reduced respawn rate for pirates in low to mid challenge regions. * Being close to a pirate town now invalidates its ability to spawn ships for the next 5 seconds. * AI will now properly respect well-defended towns and will not try to siege them. This includes avoiding towns with high-ranked players near them. * AI will no longer be aware of towns that are being captured if there is no active sight on them. * AI will now again properly fear and avoid high-ranked players. * AI will no longer gang up on enemies from across the map in regions below ch9. * You can now right-click hire ships to follow you as an alternative to earning combat reputation. Hired help is more reliable than combat-gained followers. * Doubled all damage. It makes the combat faster and more fun. * First captured (or last remaining town) now creates 3 ships instead of just 2. * Each town now increases pirate respawn cooldown by 25%. This means AI will spawn less frequently the more towns they have, and when they do they will be more spread out. * Buildings that have been discovered by players (lighthouses, guard towers) will now mark all ships passing by as discovered as well, which will make them share their sight. * All towns in challenge regions 3 and higher will now sell guard tower and lighthouse building kits. * Reputation is now affected by the challenge level reward multiplier, going up with each challenge level. * Reputation wasn’t awarded on kills properly. Fixed. * Ships are now bright dots on the map. Buildings and towns are dark (reverse of how it used to be). * Inferno is now 250% stronger than it used to be. **2014-10-30** * Changed how world-related data gets stored. As a side effect, you will be able to choose a new faction when re-entering your previous worlds. Don’t worry, everything is still there. * Talent points were not affecting buff strength