Friday, August 26, 2011

Version 2.1.6


Version 2.1.6
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- The current Free Heroes have changed. The current available list is:
* Forsaken Archer
* Arachna
* Soul Reaper
* Maliken
* Madman
* Legionnaire
* Amun-Ra
* Tundra
* Pyromancer
* Deadwood
* Slither
* Bubbles
* Glacius
* Jeraziah
* Keeper of the Forest

- Matchmaking groups are now persistent
* After a match or when a game fails to be made you will still be in the same group you were in before for easy requeueing
- Made some adjustments to the matchmaking algorithm that should match up groups with other groups much closer to their MMR value than before
- Groups of 5 solo players will no longer be matched against a full group of 5 under any circumstances
- Made several improvements to decrease the chances of players failing to load into a matchmaking games, especially for matchmaking groups with multiple players on one IP address that are behind overly strict routers/firewalls (causing grey circles)
- Adjusted how the PSR/MMR calculations work slightly and put a low end cap of 750 PSR/MMR
* Any players who are below this value will have their PSR/MMR adjusted up to 750 after the patch

- Over the weekend we plan to turn on and test a new feature we've been working on: match stat re-submissions
* If at any time a game server is unable to submit match stats properly at the end of the game, it will let players in game know that the match submission failed, and attempt to re-submit the stats from that match at a later time (normally within 15-30 minutes)
* To those that have experienced frustration due to matches not being recorded in the past, we apologize. Moving forward we are taking serious action to mitigate this sort of occurrence from happening and want to thank everybody for their patience with us

- When receiving an incoming whisper coming from ClanWhisper or BuddyWhisper the game client will no longer add the sender to the /reply history
* This is to stop players from having a conversation, getting a clan or buddy whisper, typing /r and then realizing they sent the message to a person they didn't intend to
- Fixed a crash with an unexpected format for JPEG custom account icons

- Fixed projectiles stopping mid-air if the touch active schemes were invalid
- Buildings in the bases now have 0 death time so they don't block movement after death
- Current Health and Mana Regen are now shown on the right side of the bars
- Touched up all of the Taunt voice responses in the game to be more clear and able to be heard well

- Wards
* Attacks will always hit wards now, no more uphill miss chance against them
* Now have 4 max health, each hit takes off 1 health

- Added a New EA Hero: Geomancer
* Based off the Intelligence Community Contest Winner
- Added a new Early Access Limited Edition Alt Avatar: Centipedalisk
- Added a new Alt Avatar: Sub Zero Accursed
- Added a new Taunt: Heavy Metal Taunt

- Monkey King fixed so auto leveling his abilities through a Guide will work properly

Hero Development Work-in-Progress: Druid

This is second in a series of pre-release development blogs for a hero in progress. In the previous edition, I commented on the initial design goals and challenges that were presented in designing such a hero, as well as the influences that transpired me to create it. In this installment, I will explore her initial ability set. Please note that this blog is being written for a one-week-old version of the hero, and that many abilities have changed since then. All art assets are temporary. Yes, that is a recolored Wretched Hottie with Martyr wings.
I decided to name the hero Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, following my typical mythology naming conventions. MsPudding and I recently watched the god-awful Clash of the Titans movie, so now I’m kind of interested in making a Perseus for our Andromeda too. Artemis seemed especially fitting given the mythos of shapeshifters within Savage lore as being wily, cunning huntresses. If you recall, the goal of the hero was to present a unique playstyle that featured form-switching between a ranged caster and melee DPS form. In typical Nome flair, I decided to name the two separate forms “Aspect of the Wych” and “Aspect of the Chimaera”. Switching between the two forms would be accomplished by leveling her Aspect Switch ability, which would also grant increasing passive bonuses tailored to each individual form. The abilities on each form would share levels and cooldowns:
  • Q: Leeching Seed/Galeforce
  • W: Sylph’s Embrace/Hades Charge
  • E: Aspect Switch
  • R: Gone with the Wind/Chimaera Strike

Hero Spotlight: Geomancer

Friday, August 19, 2011

2.1.4 Patch Notes

The current Free Heroes have changed. The current available list is:
* Soulstealer
* Silhouette
* Defiler
* Gladiator
* Tremble
* Devourer
* Pestilence
* Magmus
* Blacksmith
* Pebbles
* Rampage
* Pollywog Priest
* Nymphora
* Andromeda
* Vindicator

- Fixed a duplicate bug with Guides
- Ingame levelup effects now delayed slightly
- Added spectator chat ignore checkbox in the Spec UI
- Updated minimalist options for spec UI

- Healing radius of the Wells increased to better match the actual water
- Tree of Life and Sacrifical Shrine now have truesight


== NPCs ==



- Fixed sound bug with the bad range(warlocks) NPCS death sound not playing.
- Added death sounds to the good range(archers).
- Kongor
* Fixed the faction, non-player-controlled units giving the team 0 gold when they land the killing blow from Kongor.
* Now if a non-player controlled unit lands the killing blow on Kongor, then it gives 230 gold to the team (before it was giving 0)


== Items ==

- Re-ordered components for all recipe items so the most expensive items come first. This makes right clicking on an item in the store more useful and less dumb

- All teams now start with a basic Ground Courier by default
- Bottle is no longer refilled when held by a Courier
- Shieldbreaker: Increased damage by 10 per level from 30/45/60 to 40/55/70 and ignore's the target's Deflection when you attack them
* Deflection is the damage blocked by items like Helm of the Black Legion and Iron Shield
- Alchemist Bones' timer is now paused while the hero is dead


== Heroes ==

- Added a new Alt Avatar: Frost Rider

Arachna
- Movespeed from 290 to 295

Dark Lady
- Dark Blades cooldown from 22/18/14/10 to 16/14/12/10
- Charging Strikes cooldown from 21/17/13/9 to 15/13/11/9

Drunken Master
- Drink rescaled to channel for 2 seconds, gaining 2/4/6/8 charges per second. Upon enemy death in 500 AoE, he gains 2/4/6/8 charges
- Stagger deals 50% more damage to creeps

Gauntlet
- Infernal Instability now gives 50% mana back if you do not attack anything.

Keeper of the Forest
- Treant Dogs are now limited to 2/3/4/5 max. If you summon more than the max the oldest ones will automatically die
- Treant Dogs can no longer attack Towers if they are more than 800 units away from the Keeper
- Fixed scripting to be better

Magebane
- Master of Mantra aura increased from 600 to 800

Monkey King
- Starting Stength increased by 2
- Flying Nimbus activation removed. Is now a full passive with a 5 second cooldown that will automatically trigger when not taking damage


== Bugfixes ==


Andromeda
- Fixed Aurora affector speed & lifetime so it matches the visuals

Dampeer
- Fixed his Bloodthirst aura so it stacks with Harkon's Blade, Webbed Shot and Master's Incantation

Defiler
- Fixed a bug where she can super deny allies & herself

Demented Shaman
- Fixed scripting so Unbreakable is more robust against odd frame situations (healing 2 times in 1 frame, etc.)

Doctor Repulsor
- Fixed Opposite Charges so it plays the link
- Optimized Magnetic Contraption a bit
- Fixed Portal Key exploit

Drunken Master
- Fixed the double-activate bug on Lunge where it can deal 2x the push and 2x the damage
- Fixed Lunge bug where it was teleporting Drunken Master to (0,0)
- Fixed Lunge bug when you play animations after dead (again)
- Fixed Lunge's push affecting invulnerable units
- Fixed Untouchable's "HIC!" sound not playing at the correct times on levels 1 & 2

Emerald Warden
- Fixed a small visual bug where the large vine model was lingering too long at lower levels of Overgrowth
- Fixed Gawain using Diving Strikes when he's dead
- Fixed a super-duper rare bug where he gets glitched after respawn when Gawain attempts to use Forest's Touch on the same frame he dies

Empath
- Now doesn't follow her last queued action after she gets out of someone
- Fixed a visual bug where the wall visual was expiring 1 second before the real wall expired
- Fixed Essence Link so it does DOT damage now

Engineer
- Passing through the Energy Field will now automatically break channelling if it hits you
- Made Spider Mines have 0 cast time

Legionnaire
- Made Whirling Blade proc on fountain attacks
- Fixed a small animation bug where he would still be in charging animation if the skill cancels via the distance check

Magmus
- Fixed an issue with Eruption's idle animation and the effects

Moraxus
- Made More Axes blockable via Arcane Shield and Untouchable

Myrmidon
- Weed field now breaks Succubus' Mesmerize
- Fixed a bug where Carp would stun you if you were rooted or immobilized and had a movement order queued up

Parasite
- Fixed him teleporting to the target's location if the target dies before the Infest projectile impacts
- Fixed the Parasite- Gauntlet ult bug

Pharaoh
- Fixed a small spawn location bug with his Wrath of the Pharaoh if he turns 90 degrees; it now spawns in the correct position relative to Pharaoh & the target

Rhapsody
- Fixed a bug where the DoT from Disco Inferno wasn't being applied if an enemy was stunned inside

Sand Wraith
- Fixed his passive AOE triggering Nomad's ultimate and canceling Succubus' Mesmerize

Slither
- Fixed a small issue with Poison Spray target cursor not highlighting the correct targets

Wretched Hag
- Fixed an extremely rare bug with Bat Blast's cone visual