PTS Patch Notes - Delves - 3/20/2020 - Delves PTS Patch Notes page

Created by Etaew

Delves

A Note on Delve Balance

The Delve system attempts to match groups of random players with appropriate challenges. But to do this successfully it needs lots of data about just how difficult those challenges are. Thus, especially in the early days, the challenges you face in a Delve may be way too easy, or way too hard. This is why we need players not just giving feedback, but also actively trying to get as deep as they can, giving the Delve system as much data as we can so that it can make a more balanced experience

• Delves are a new type of gameplay, combining the gameplay of the Geode caves with procedurally generated endless combat! Run through a delve, complete the objectives, and then defeat the boss quickly for rewards and the opportunity to keep going deeper! As the depth increases, so do the challenges and the rewards.
• There are 3 kinds of delves – public delves, private delves, and challenge delves. Currently only public and private delves are available.
• Once queued for a delve of any type, the player will stay queued even after going to another world (there will be a bright delve “idea” glowing overhead as a reminder.)
• Players who log out while queued will be unqueued.
• Up to eight players can enter any delve. Note that this is not eight players at a time – each delve is locked to those eight unique players.
• Delves allow players to use their modules from the geode caves as well as engaging in combat – unlike adventure worlds where players switch between combat and build mode, in delves players switch between combat and discovery mode.
• Delves are a dangerous place. If the player dies, allies will be able to resurrect them in four seconds.
• Each death will increase the time it takes to release by five seconds – i.e. the first death will take five seconds, the second death ten seconds, the third death fifteen, etc. (This accumulated time is reset when the lair boss is available and on advancing to the next depth.) Ressurrection by allies always only takes four seconds.
• Releasing in a delve will return the player to the beginning of that delve tier, but there is an intra-Delve Transport that will teleport the player forward to the farthest fully cleared room.
• Whenever all creatures in a room are defeated, that room will be “checkpointed” and be made available for fast travel from the entrance. A checkpointed room will have a blue glow appear somewhere in the room, and the room’s box in the tier progress bar will be highlighted.
• When a boss is activated, any players still working their way through the path to the lair will be offered a teleport to the lair room to join in the fight. If the prompt is missed (possibly due to food delivery!), the player might miss out on the loot but will still teleport you to the group in deeper depths.
• Delves have modifiers signified by Deltaliths, visible in the first room and in the lair room. There are many of these modifiers, including ones that make enemies only take damage in melee range, have reduced health and take extra damage, increased or reduced Darkness, and many more.
• Delves are themed around existing biomes with a few surprises – initially on PTS brave the depths of The Hive, the Saurian Swamp, or rarely a special surprise biome.
• The hive delves introduce a new liquid, honey! Honey increases health regen for players who stand in it, but will also dismount and slow down movement. (There are no fish that can survive in honey – it’s the birds and the bees, not the fish and the bees.)
• Delve objectives are also variable – some delves will ask players to defeat any enemies or specific enemies, while others will ask for crystals or ore to be gathered.
• One new objective type called Monoliths asks players to hunt down a number of Monoliths, engage them, and defeat all of the spawned enemies.
• A boss trophy appears before every boss room to give a quick indication of what boss players will be facing. The lair will also have Deltaliths indicating what challenges will accompany the boss.
• If the boss is reached and defeated fast enough, a Ready Station will appear. Interact with it and stay close by to speed up how fast the portal to the next level will appear!
• If the team took too long to reach or defeat the boss, a sign will appear and not allow access to the next delve level. Don’t worry – the next delve is always just a queue away.
• A personal chest, a shadow key mold, and more might appear after the boss is defeated. Flasks should automatically refill once the boss is initially summoned and again once the Ready Station is created.
• Pell is available after the lair boss is defeated to allow players to switch between modules.
• Expert delvers may learn to spot signs in the delve path that will indicate which way leads to the lair – it can be easy to get turned around in the middle of combat. Note that while these indicators are useful, some harder delves may have this indicator removed.

Public Delves

• To enter a public delve, find the delve entrance in the hub where the Bomber Royale building used to be located, then just interact with the portal to enter the queue. The maximum amount of time spent in the queue should be no more than 10 minutes. Interact with the portal again at any time to unqueue from the public delve.
• When queuing for a public delve, be aware that only the class active when queuing will be allowed. Private delves allow switching between classes at any time.
• The Bomber Royale portal is still available in the hub – look for it and the merchants in a small tent near where they used to be located.
• Mounts and wings can be used in public delves. (Ganda’s special ability will not work in Delves.)
• /joinme can be used to reinvite players who may have disconnected, but cannot be used to invite players for the first time in to a public delve.

Private Delves

• A private delve matchmaker can be placed anywhere, but once placed anyone can use it to register for that delve.
• A single matchmaker can be placed while in build mode. Placing the matchmaker will automatically queue the player for the private delve. Up to seven more players can use the placed matchmaker to be queued with the owner.
• The owner of a private delve matchmaker can interact with the matchmaker – the first interaction will send a message to all queued players to get ready, and the second interaction will rush the queue and send everyone in to the delve. If at any time a full set of eight players are queued, the matchmaker will immediately trigger and force everyone in to the delve.
• If a private delve matchmaker is broken using the mining laser, it will return to the owner’s inventory and unqueue all queued players. If every nearby player instead runs away from it, it will unqueue everyone and destroy itself.
• Private delves allow players to change their class at will.
• The /joinme command can be used to invite more players (up to a maximum of eight unique players in to a delve).
• Note that private delves are much stricter on what items and mounts can be used. Only delve mounts and wings may be used in private delves.

Delve Rewards

• After defeating the boss, a chest will appear! (Different kinds of chests?)
• A new type of collectible can be found in Delves – Mementos. Each Memento grants mastery and is based on the enemies experienced in the delve.
• Shadow Shards are now available from picking up the crystals inside of delves after a certain depth.
• A new currency – Inert Geodes – can be acquired inside the Delves. Only a certain amount of this currency can be obtained at any given time, so make sure to use it before hitting the cap!
• The currency cap for Inert Geodes can be increased by obtaining an Inert Geode Wallet.
• Inert Geodes can be used to purchase mounts and wings that will work in private delves, along with private delve gateways and a new set of allies.
• Delve allies can be found in appropriate biomes or crafted at the Delve Workbench.
• Some of the Shadow Tower bosses have crept in to Delves and in the process have picked up some new mounts! Hydrakken has been unable to move his wall underground, but the others can occasionally be found. Daughter of the Moon has acquired 3 new mounts, while Pinata God, Spikewalker, and Weeping Prophet have all acquired 1 new mount.
• In addition to Crystal gear, Delves is the only place where Crystal 4 is available, but only for the most intrepid and hardened of explorers!
• Delves also give 6 badges for completion of Public, Private, and Challenge delves.

Vaca-matic Module

• The Vaca-Matic, a new module, is now craftable at the Module Workbench. The Vaca-matic sucks in nearby crystals.
• Crystals now have a small internal cooldown on giving back energy and reducing grappling hook cost.

Delve Day

• Shadow Day is now known as Delve Day!
• The bonuses for Delve Day are:
  • Non-Patrons:
    • Double Crystal Drops
    • Double Shadow Shard Drops
    • Double Inert Geode Drops
  • Patrons:
    • Triple Crystal Drops
    • Triple Shadow Shard Drops
    • Triple Inert Geode Drops

Shadow Tower Changes

• Shadow Towers have had titan and lunar soul drops removed. These can now be obtained through Delves.
• The Shadow Tower purple name has been retired, but will likely appear in Delves as a later reward.
• Binding Darkness & Starfire Dragon Egg Fragments no longer drop in Shadow Towers and now occasionally come from the chests found when completing delve floors. Starfire dragon fragments can now be found on world bosses outside of shadow towers.
• Shadow, Moon, and Eclipse Key Fragments are no longer obtainable
• Shadow, Moon and Eclipse Keys and Fragments can be crafted into delve fragments for a limited time, and then will be removed from the game (currently planned for Jan 1, 2021)
• Shadow and Moon Gems will also be removed from the game with the keys and fragments.
• Delve Key Fragments now drop instead of Shadow, Moon, and Eclipse Key fragments.
• Fixtures no longer affect key fragment drops.
• The Monday Adventure offered during events is now to find a delve key fragment - this is subject to change, if you have ideas let us know!
• The ST adventure has been replaced with a delve adventure in clubs.
• Chests at the end of shadow towers no longer require a key to open. Delve chests do require a key to open.
• The Shadow Escalation golden thread is no longer available.
• The Giant Shadow Panda that previously came from this thread can now be crafted at the Shadowy Market.
• The Eclipse Key tome now is the delve key tome and gives delve keys instead of eclipse keys

Mastery Changes

• Mastery Stat rewards have been retuned! While stats are now granted only by the initial levels, they will lead to more power for all players.
• Mastery now gives stat rewards for the first 200 levels. Each level gives:
  • 1.5% health
  • 0.5% damage
  • 10 Power Rank
• Geode Mastery now also gives stat rewards for the first 100 levels. Each level gives:
  • 10 Light
  • 5 Power Rank
• Mastery has been increased for the following items:
  • Avalon, the Happy Accident now grants 100 mastery.
  • Afterburn now grants 100 mastery.
  • The Magic Trove Carpet now grants 100 mastery.
  • Princess Prancey Prance and Princey McEvilface now both grant 100 mastery.
  • The War Plane now grants 100 mastery.
  • The Spaceosaurus mount now gives 50 mastery.
  • The Glory of Victory Aura now grants 50 mastery.
  • The Sorrow of Defeat Aura now grants 50 mastery.
  • The Shamrockin’ Slinger costume for Gunslinger now grants 70 mastery.
  • The Tricksie Pixie costume for the Fae Trickster now grants 70 mastery.
  • The Trovian Guard costume for the Knight now grants 70 mastery.

Tomb Raiser Changes

• Tomb Raiser’s passive now summons a Skellittle and grants a restless soul with each tick.
• Skellittles do not passively spawn in hub & club worlds.
• The primary attack (m1) now has a wider hit radius that more accurately matches the vfx.
• Bonetorage (m2) now does the following:
  • Consumes all restless souls on use, not just one.
  • Summons a Skellittle for each soul consumed.
  • If 6 Skellittles are already active, extra souls possess active Skellittles, causing them to take and deal extra damage.
• Banshee’s Boon (1) now does the following:
  • Costs 20 energy to use, both with and without the class gem equipped.
  • Has a 10 second cooldown.
  • Clarified what the ability does after the gem is equipped (it still activates ghost mode).
  • Class Gem banshee now lasts 5 seconds.
• Grave Goliath (2) now does the following:
  • Base level Grave Goliath is now as strong as the Grave Goliath used to be.
  • Using this ability now triggers off how many Skellittles are possessed.
  • Using the ability no longer kills Skellittles and instead removes their possessed state.

Magic Find Changes

• The magic find bonus given from defeating enemies has been dramatically improved, after 150 magic find the bonus is multiplicative!
• Using /respawn now decreases magic find when used in combat worlds.

Tome Changes

• Legendary Tomes now nag the player once every 30 seconds if they are still equipped after being fully charged.
• Tomes now gain experience whenever reliquaries do.
• Picking up plants in Geode Caves now gives tome experience (and reliquary experience.)
• Bomber Royale and Team Deathmatch no longer give tome experience.
• Tome descriptions have been reformatted to be more readable.
• Information has been added about where to acquire all tomes.
• Filling tomes is now called “charging” for consistency.

New Player Login Bonuses

• The login bonus screen now automagically opens on changing worlds after logging in if the player has a reward to claim.
• Activating Patron no longer gives all of the New Player Login Bonus rewards and instead only give rewards for the current day.
• If the player activates Patron after already claiming the daily reward they will still be able to claim the Patron reward for that specific day.
• If Patron is activated for the first time after the player fully completes the New Player Login Bonuses then no Patron rewards are given. Use it or lose it!
• The New Player Login Bonuses are now correctly progressed at the normal daily reset time (11 AM UTC).
• The New Player Login Bonuses only progresses one day at a time. Players can no longer claim all the rewards at the same time by only opening the bonus screen on the last day.
• Players are now able to open the New Player Login Bonuses screen at any time during their first week, even if they have already claimed the reward for the day.
• Login bonuses are no longer autoclaimed from the claims window.
• The messaging for the final day of logging in has been updated for clarity in the claims window.
• The messaging for claiming Patron rewards has been updated for clarity in the claims window.
• In celebration of the new player login bonus changes, all players can once again claim all of the rewards!

Framework Changes

• Frameworks that are small enough to fit in cornerstones can now be placed in cornerstones.
• Frameworks now all state where they can be placed (either cornerstones and Club Worlds or just Club Worlds).
• Placing frameworks will no longer return destroyed blocks to players.
• Many frameworks have had their default placement rotated to be clearer.
• Corrected the glow on newly placed Centennial Chalcedarny Tree frameworks (and the ones that can be found in the wild).
• The "Wooden bridge" framework has been renamed to the Grassy Bridge because it isn't wooden.
• The "Growers Greenhouse" has been corrected to Grower's Greenhouse.
• The "Cornerstone Shrine" framework provided by the builders expertise thread has been renamed "Basic Cornerstone Shrine" as it isn't the same framework that is craftable at the Forbidden workbench.

Store

• Daily deals have been added to the store! There are 5 possible deals and a random one will be offered for 4 hours out of every 24 hours. Don’t let these pass by!

New Dungeons

• Added a new 1 star dungeon to the Cursed Vale by Thor!
• Added a new 1 star dungeon to the Cerise Sandsea by Evilagician!
• Added a new 1 star dungeon to the Dragonfire Peaks by onigiry!

New Styles

• “Gamma Ray” – a new Neon City Staff Style by onigiry!
• “Ship in One Hand” – a new Treasure Isles Staff Style by Nezz!
• “Scream of Dark Flame” – a new Shadow Staff Style by TFMHisztike!
• “Shaman’s Shell” – a new Treasure Isles Spear Style by Never7iamond5!
• “Glaive of the Spire” – a new Forbidden Spires Spear Style by thatsea251!
• “Monk’s Light” – a new Forbidden Spires Spear Style by Vadosk!
• “Night Piercer” – a new Shadow Spear Style by TFMHisztike!
• “Red Dra-Gun Whelp” – a new Dragonfire Peaks Gun Style by thatsea251!
• “Triloblaster” – a new Jurassic Jungle Gun Style by Shmebulock666!
• “Blade of the Abyss” – a new Shadow Melee Style by ncati!
• “Devoided Radiance” – a new Sky Realm Melee Style by seedyman!
• “Flame On” = a new Dragonfire Peaks melee Style by Nezz!
• “Hair Bun” – a new Medieval Highlands Hat Style by OscarLaom!

Additional Updates

• Colorblindness improvements to collectable tooltips. Collections that can still be unlocked now have blue text in all places. Collections that are already unlocked have orange text in all places, the orange is brighter than the old red to improve visibility for all.
• Fall damage has now been removed from everywhere but geode caves.
• Reduced the time to resurrect other players to 4 seconds rather than 8 seconds.
• Pinatas can now exclusively be used in club and hub worlds.
• Club Phones can now only be used in clubs by club members.
• Name Changers can only be used in hubs and clubs.
• Fixtures will now better check their placement before rebuilding after an upgrade. If they cannot rebuild successfully, they will refund their placement price and need to be placed down again.
• Players can now donate clubits to clubs they are not members of. In order to enable this for your club please remove your Trovian Clubit Union and place it back into the world.
• Using /stuck now gives a more helpful message.
• The command "/freeze_companion" is now available for use in club worlds. This can be used to freeze your ally in place in order to take good photographs with it!
• The currencies from Snowfest 2019 have now melted.
• The Bomber Royale Bombs thrown metric no longer increments from Fae Trickster glitter bombs.
• The Gunslinger subclass buff will no longer persist after changing classes.
• Plants in Geode now give reliquary experience.
• There is no longer a cooldown associated with changing your primary club.
• All hairstyles are now usable by all head types. The Lady and guy head types have been renamed to Clean and Stubble.
• Fixed a crash that could occur if interacting with a portal immediately after opening a personal chest.
• The cost to craft Geodian Style Stashes has been significantly reduced. 250 Crystals, 250 Veridium, 25 Nitroglitterine, 100 Builderite, and 15 Crystaline Cores are now required, down from 1000, 500, 50, 100, and 50, respectively.
• Promotional collections that don't give mastery are now hidden unless they are unlocked.
• Removed the "Special Blocks", "Luminopolis", "Blockchain" recipes from showing in collections as they are always unlocked and don't provide mastery. The recipes can still be crafted as normal.
• Players should no longer mysteriously get bonus chaos chests when nearby players open chests with keys.
• New players should now be offered the entire first set of golden thread steps before events start auto tracking.
• The prompt to join bomber royale is no longer provided to new players.
• New players are now allowed to jump and dodge in the tutorial before they are taught how.
• Extras of the following items can now all be deconstructed:
  • Dormant Worldspring Dragon Egg
  • Dormant Lightning Dragon Egg
  • Dormant Valiant Dragon Egg
  • Prism of Light
• Clarified the Credit Pouch description that can be seen in the marketplace
• Added some spacing to the Explosive Epilogue tooltip description.
• Renamed the Neon Nemesis Stellar Aura to Vibrant Vibe. There are no longer two unique auras with the same name.
• Lowered the head on the shadow hydrakken costume for the Lunar Lancer.
• Geode Biome Terraformers are now available on the Worldspring bench.
• Terraformers now have more noticeable warnings.
• The Peaceful Field Terraform is now called the Peaceful Field Terraformer.
• Slightly modified the 1 Star dungeon spawn rules in the Cursed Vale biome.
• Corrected a typo on the “Collect a Chaos Chest” adventure.
• Chaos Cores is now correctly capitalized in the Chaos Chest description.
• Fixed the description for Lesser Crystal Caches to be more accurate.
• The "BOMBER ROYALE PORTAL" has taken a chill pill and is now known as the "Bomber Royale Portal".
• The following abilities should not have any visible changes, but have been touched:
  • Candy Barbarian candy
  • Dinotamer meat
  • Pirate Captain Doubloons
  • Boomeranger Health and Energy Potions
• VFX have been added to the Afterburn mount.
• The Musical Mat tassels should now all be individually modifiable.
• Corrected tooltips for Gumball Gunner and Demonic Inferno costumes.
• Temporary name title changes no longer last forever. When a name expires players are set to the default color until they pick a new name color.
• Corrected typo with diggsly's shadow's shadow.
• Chaos Cores now correctly refer to the Chaos Core Crafter instead of the (made up?) "Chaos Crafting bench."

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