Two full weeks of development
This Dev Log covers the work done between September 1 and September 15. These two weeks brought a wide spread of work: a top-to-bottom review of the Arena, a multi-part effort to bring the character window, the item tooltips and the maps in line with the original game, a long list of combat timing corrections measured directly against the original game, dramatically faster zone loading and a privacy pass on the client's log files.
VIP rewards for Client Alpha reports
As promised in the previous Dev Log, VIP will be added today to the accounts of the players who submitted eligible bug reports since the last distribution.
Each confirmed and unique bug grants at least 1 day of VIP, and the reward can go up to 7 days depending on the quality of the report and the complexity of the issue. When the same bug is reported more than once, only the first player who submitted a valid report receives the reward. Each account can accumulate a maximum of 30 days of VIP through this program.
The next distribution will happen when the next Dev Log is published.
More privacy in the client's log files
Following a player report, we reviewed everything the client writes to the log files stored on your computer, the ones in the Save folder that we sometimes ask for when looking into a problem.
We found and removed information that had no business being there, including account related entries that were supposed to be turned off in the version everyone actually plays. Instead of simply hiding those lines again, we deleted them for good, along with around fifty other internal messages that had no reason to exist in a public build.
The result is a much smaller, cleaner log file, and one that is safer to share with us whenever you need to.
A full review of the Arena
Losing a match in the Arena was being treated as a real death. You would lose durability on your gear and go through the normal death and revive cycle, including an issue where trying to revive simply did nothing at all.
Now, when you lose, you stay at 1 HP, with the same kneeling animation and the same gravestone used by the classic duel, and you are brought back to the stands automatically.
We also fixed enchant bonuses on PvP gear that could stay permanently reduced when a match was cancelled during its countdown, matches that occasionally swallowed the heal-up and start-of-fight signal, and a problem that prevented your win and loss record against other players from actually being saved.
On the matchmaking side, we found and fixed five significant issues. A group returning to the queue could be counted as one fighter against three instead of a full team, cancelling your queue entry while a match was already underway could tear down that match by mistake, and a stuck queue ticket could leave you permanently unable to queue again until the server was restarted.
Combat timing measured and corrected again
Continuing the combat timing work from the previous updates, we measured a long list of animation and input rules directly against the original game and corrected several of them.
A basic attack was being cut off by the wrong clock, which made some skills end early on your screen while the server had already applied their full effect. This affected a large share of the skills in the game and is one of the most important fixes in this update.
We also fixed a case where being hit while you were still recovering from an earlier knockdown or stun allowed you to move and act before the server actually released your character, a lowering-guard animation that was being cut down to almost nothing, and skill transitions that snapped from one pose to another instead of blending smoothly.
The Enable Skill Chaining option now truly disables skill chaining, instead of only hiding the indicator on screen. Repeatedly mashing a key the game refuses, because of cooldown or not enough stamina, now plays its warning only once instead of repeating it cut short. Character voice lines in situations such as refused skills and failed gathering are being played again, as they were completely disabled.
Finally, a chain of several skills could only be continued with the same key that started it. Now any key you have already used within the sequence keeps the chain going, the way it is supposed to work.
Escape, freeze and being grabbed
Using the Escape skill while frozen, by Yillis' ice effect for example, now plays its animation correctly instead of simply doing nothing.
A skill or action requested while a freeze effect held your character in place is now performed as soon as the effect ends, instead of getting lost or leaving you stuck repeating an old animation on the spot.
The skill bar now properly dims every skill while you are grappled or swallowed, and a player grabbed by a boss stays visually in its hand instead of slipping free early.
Character window, item tooltips and maps matching the original game
A five-part effort went into comparing our interface against the original client wherever it had drifted apart.
The Attribute Stats panel of the character window has been restored, and a rendering issue that made your HP, EN and Stamina numbers show behind the gauge bars instead of on top of them has been fixed.
When inspecting another player, their gear icons are now tinted to show wear and breakage the same way your own inventory does, instead of printing raw numbers.
Item tooltips were brought over from the original game, including gem effect details, the correct Glow Color display and the proper presentation of negative PvP stats. A glow color table that had to be maintained by hand for around 1900 items is now read directly from the item's own data.
The world map now opens already fitted to its window like the original game, instead of opening zoomed in and cut off with wobbling icons, and the mouse wheel zooms the field map again.
We also fixed a batch of menu options in the cash shop, crafting and market screens that simply did not respond when clicked, repaired the costume crafting potion from end to end, as it could be spent from the wrong slot or accept an item that was not a costume potion at all, and solved the problem that prevented your window layout and your character specific settings, such as collapsed journal categories and map zoom, from being saved and restored the way the original game does.
Dramatically faster zone loading
Loading a zone meant opening around 52,000 small individual files. We moved to a small number of large bundles instead, which cut load time from roughly 7.5 seconds down to about 1 second on a machine running antivirus software.
Entering a field is much snappier
We found that a player who had already completely finished loading into a new zone could still be left waiting nearly a second before the game actually let them in.
This happened because of a check performed only once per second, designed to protect the server when many players enter at the same time, and which was never meant to hold up a single player who is already ready. On some connections, that wait accounted for nearly half of all the time spent looking at the loading screen.
Entering now happens the moment you are actually ready.
Party fixes
A party member's dot on the map used to disappear once they got far enough away within the same field. It now stays visible at any distance, and party members have their own nameplate color.
We also closed a long-standing problem where a party could leak from one character to another on the same account. Logging out of one character and into another could show you in a party you had never actually joined, because parties were being tracked per account instead of per character.
Mounts and login
Dismounting and switching characters could hand your mount's skill bar and speed bonus to the next character you played. That has been fixed, along with a related issue where a costume shield was not recognized as a shield by the other players watching you fight.
The login process now correctly counts the mastery points of the build your character is actually using, instead of always checking the same one.
Visual features and fixes
We added a new option to outline your current enemy target in red, similar to what exists in games with a comparable interaction system.
We found and fixed an issue where an entire class of visual effects, such as spell auras and projectile trails, simply stopped being displayed past roughly 30 meters. This had been happening for months across dozens of different effects.
A weapon's enchant glow could anchor itself to empty space instead of the weapon itself in certain situations, and that has been fixed as well.
Accented characters now display correctly throughout the interface and the chat, instead of showing up as broken symbols, and we switched to a new, sharper font for interface text.
The Print Screen key works correctly again, and Shift+Print Screen takes a clean, high quality screenshot of the game scene alone, without the interface.
Quality of life
Opening a full stack of random boxes now happens all at once, instead of forcing you to click through each one with a two second wait in between.
We added an option to filter chat profanity to your own taste. Racist and homophobic slurs remain filtered at all times, regardless of that setting.
Chat messages can now optionally show the time they were sent.
Finally, we fixed a case where being healed by a stranger, or even healing yourself, could incorrectly mark you as another player's duel opponent, turning your name red and blocking interaction with NPCs for no reason.
Behind the scenes: new development tools
A large part of this period's work, invisible to players, went into building our own interface for the level editor we use internally, replacing the temporary interface it had used since the beginning of the project.
That includes a new model lab, used to compare characters and their materials against the original game's files. Like the tools mentioned in earlier updates, this does not change anything directly for players, but it is the foundation through which a good share of the fixes listed above were actually found and verified.
What comes next
Dev Log #13 brings our development record up to September 15. We will keep posting these updates in batches like this one, so you can follow what is changing without having to dig through technical details.
If you want to help test these improvements, download the Client Alpha, play normally using your current account and send detailed reports whenever you run into a problem.
The next set of VIP rewards will be delivered when the next Dev Log is published.