Content Update 7: “A dark and stormy night”

Happy spooky October everybody, this is Project Director Luke, and it’s time for another update to MythForce, this time focused around a couple new Halloween-adjacent updates, like a little thunder and lighting, and a few new costumes for your favorite heroes.

It may come as a shock, but the big centerpiece of Content Update 7 is the Electric element. Weapons with the Electric element electrify your enemies, causing them to discharge electricity around them, injuring both themselves and their nearby allies. You can apply it with weapons that have the Electric element, or by casting spells using the new Electric Spellbook, which allows you to throw lightning bolts like javelins from your hands, or tag up to 5 enemies, then call down massive bolts from the sky, doing high electric damage and knocking your enemies down.

What’s the Halloween season without a little dress-up? This content update also brings a 4th costume to each hero, which can be bought from the Eldryth Emporium using blood gems that you’ve gathered through adventuring. Go out adventuring in style, wearing costumes inspired by classic movie monsters. Just remember who’s in costume, so you don’t end up targeting Rico when a werewolf comes running your way.

Speaking of spooky season, how about a little necromantic update? We’ve taken the first step in improving our party reviving flow, by now pausing the timer when actively reviving your teammates? This, many updates to the game’s stability, and much more. Details below.

Improvements

• You can now find and use Electric Spellbooks
  • Electric Spellbooks can now be found throughout the dungeon as treasure.
  • Quick Cast:
    • Throw a lightning bolt like an electrified spear at a single enemy, doing Electric damage.
    • Applies Electrified to enemies that are hit.
  • Charged Cast:
    • Hold attack to target; while in targeting mode, apply up to 5 tags across any number of targets.
    • Release to call down lightning on all targeted enemies, doing Electric damage. More tags equals more damage.
• New status effects: Electrified
  • Can be applied to a single target.
  • Electrified enemies periodically discharge Electric damage in an area around them, hitting everything nearby.
• New Weapon element: “Electric”
  • The weapon now does Electric damage on hit.
  • Power attacks apply the Electrified status effect on hit.
  • Elemental weapons use their associated weapon’s damage stat (melee weapons use Melee Attack, Bows use Ranged Attack, Spellbooks use Magic Attack).
  • Elemental damage is reduced by Magic Defense.
• New weapon effects:
  • Trident: Fires 3 projectiles in a fan, each with reduced damage, instead of 1. Can be applied to Bows or Electric Spellbooks.
  • Splitting: When a fired projectile hits an enemy, the projectile splits into 2 more projectiles that fire off perpendicular to the direction of the hit. Mana or stamina cost is increased. Can be applied to Bows or Electric Spellbooks.
• The following new perks have been added to the perk pool:
  • Electric Attunement: Applies a bonus to Electric damage.
• Halloween Skins
  • Each of the 4 heroes now has a Halloween monster-themed skin
    • Victoria now has the “Frankentoria” skin available.
    • Hawkins now has the “Invisible Hunter” skin available.
    • Maggie now has the “Magula” skin available.
    • Rico now has the “Young Adult Wolf” skin available.
  • The new skins can be purchased from the Eldryth Emporium for 15 blood gems each.
• When a hero has fallen in combat, the death timer now pauses while the hero is actively being revived.
• MythForce now supports Cloud Saves if enabled in the Epic Games Launcher.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where the player could become stuck in third-person point-of-view when using an ability while emoting.
• Fixed an issue with the Forest Goliath’s ceasing to act when they are hit with certain attacks.
• Fixed an issue where the Forest Goliath could get stuck in a “take cover” state.
• Fixed an issue where the Forest Goliath would stop moving then vanish when defeated, instead of animating falling over and exploding into spores.
• Fixed an issue where Perfect Parrying a Goliath sometimes did not cause it to go into a staggered state.
• Fixed an issue where the comms wheel would become stuck permanently open if the player had it open when dying in a multiplayer session.
• Fixed an issue where some menu elements were not properly highlighting when navigating to them using a controller.
• Fixed an issue where in some cases Victoria’s Sling Shield ability would not fire when used by a Client player in a multiplayer session.
• Fixed an issue where on occasion melee weapons would miss an enemy or breakable even though the weapon collided with them.
• Fixed an issue where Daggers with the poison effect could have more total effects than their effect limit.
• Fixed an issue where Bows with elemental effects would not deal elemental damage.
• Fixed an issue where Greatsword Power Attacks would ricochet off of other players.
• Fixed an issue where, in a multiplayer session, two or more Hawkinses would begin to block one another’s movement after using Spectral Detour.
• Fixed an issue where, when within Maggie’s Barrier, the buff icon in the status bar is for Victoria’s Lion’s Roar, instead of the correct icon.
• Fixed an issue where enemies using ice spells sometimes would show their targeting indicator elsewhere from where they were targeting the spell.
• Fixed an issue where the character arm would animate improperly when reviving another player while carrying a greatsword.
• Fixed an issue where blizzards appeared to stay even after the caster was defeated.
• Fixed a multiplayer issue that caused the host’s emotes to appear to be on cooldown whenever a client used an emote.
• Fixed an issue where Lizardman “Septic Shower” and other enemy bow-draw sounds could be heard by all players regardless of distance.
• Fixed an issue where cel shader outlines disappear when in front of the Skybox.
• Fixed an issue where the Necrolyte buff on other enemies in the room wouldn’t consistently appear for clients in multiplayer.
• Fixed an issue where, if a charge were interrupted, the charge speedlines could appear on the charging player character’s third-person model.
• Fixed an issue where Fireballs would sometimes deal damage twice on hit.
• Fixed an issue where the elite combat music would not play when the Necrolyte is in the first room of the 2nd/3rd floor.
• Fixed an issue where the elite combat music would not play when Necrolytes appear 2 rooms in a row.
• Fixed an audio issue where the sound of characters and enemies walking through water could be heard regardless of distance from the sound’s source.
• Fixed an issue where Rico’s arm could appear stuck in a backslash animation to other players when backslash is interrupted.

Known Issues

Performance Issues

• As multiplayer in MythForce is peer-to-peer, you may experience lag or “choppiness” depending on your connection to the host and the power of their computer.
• On first launch, performance can be low on mechanical hard drives while building shaders in the background.

Gameplay Issues

• If the host player is disconnected from the internet when returning to the main menu, it is possible for the game to become stuck in an unresponsive state.
• The game can crash on rare occasions when playing the game with out-of-date device drivers. Please ensure that your drivers are up-to-date to play MythForce.
• The effects of Vitality Link do not properly award Max HP or party healing if rapidly drinking a potion while the effects of another potion are still being applied.
• In multiplayer, the Clairvoyant perk behaves as though it is Tier 1 regardless of its actual tier for client players.
• On occasion, rooms will open before all enemies have been defeated, allowing players to progress and leave enemies behind.
• On occasion, enemies will recover from a staggered state sooner than expected.
• Infrequently, Beastor’s animation at the beginning of the boss fight does not play for clients.
• On rare occasions, it’s possible to get stuck in a knocked-down state after being hit by Beastor or being caught in the explosion of a spore pod.
• It is possible to get temporarily stuck at “walk” speed after shield-bashing an enemy or breakable. Raising and lowering the Shield will fix this.
• On rare occasions, after falling into a pit, the player may permanently lose the ability to rotate left and right.
• Rift Arrow can sometimes cause colliding creatures and players to be launched into the air.
• Jumping on top of certain creatures can cause players to be launched into the air.
• It’s possible to exploit a “safe zone” at the entrance door to rooms, allowing you to shoot into a room without enemies’ being able to fight back.
• There are some rare instances in which players can become stuck in world geometry and be unable to return to the playable area.
• Clients will occasionally get kicked from the lobby while loading into the game.

UI & Text Issues

• The floor-depth indicator can sometimes misreport the number of total rooms on a floor, causing it to appear as if the player has traversed more or fewer rooms in a floor than actually exist.
• There is no confirmation dialogue on the Early Retreat menu, making it easy to select an undesired choice by mistake with no way to undo.
• Ping indicators persist to the end of their normal timeout even if the pinged object is removed.
• On rare occasions, the hotbar can appear empty after reviving. Picking up or dropping items repopulates the hotbar.

Visual Issues

• Some door frames and walls where door frames could appear do not appear properly lit, looking darker than expected.
• In certain rooms, it is possible for a group of spore pods to spawn in the same location hovering above a thorn vine pit.
• There are rare instances of sections of grass mounds, rocks, and foliage from outside the playable area appearing visible within the playable area.
• When viewing a higher area from below, it is possible to see enemy shadows on the ceiling above where they are standing.
• Some breakables and treasure boxes intersect with the environment, making them hard to see.
• Some environment geometry is larger than its collision, allowing smaller items to become hidden within environmental elements like stairs and raised flagstones.
• Sporefolk clouds that appear on death are opaque, making it difficult to see through.
• Some status effect particle systems can be difficult to see on Sporefolk.
• On occasion, after level transition, the “time of day” may appear inconsistent between players.
• Some seams are visible on ground textures, particularly in connecting corridors.
• Some enemies can appear to “jitter” back and forth when approaching in combat.
• There is no “key” to pick up when you defeat Beastor. You can just proceed to the final room and use the pedestal.

Audio Issues

• Beastor’s combat music may briefly start up again for clients while progressing to the next room after Beastor has been defeated.