1.05 (Beta) Changelog Discussion

[Blovski]

X-posting from the Steam group. These are probably not final.

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NOTE: The 1.05 beta will be released later today if our initial tests come back positive.

This is a big one. Patch 1.05 features hundreds of bug fixes, balance changes, and new UI features. There are many minor fixes that are not listed in these notes.

Please Note: Save games in 1.05 are not compatible with 1.04 or earlier versions. The game will automatically back up your save games in a special folder in the save game directory after converting the saves to the new format.

Known Issues

• "Previous" button is disabled in character creation. This is currently being fixed and should be fine in the next beta that is released.

New Features

• You can now rename save games.
• You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.
• New Stash sorting. You can now sort stash by item type, enchant score, and sell value.
• Added a news feature on the main menu to keep you informed on patches and Kickstarter updates.
• Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.
• Added a new hotkey for switching weapon sets on selected characters.
• You can now bind extra mouse buttons to Ability hotkeys.
• There's a new option to reset newly recruited companions to level 1 (without losing the experience). This will allow you to level up companions to your liking.

Balance

• Reblanced XP rewards of some quests, particularly the bounty quests, to prevent parties from hitting max level before Twin Elms.
• Ciphers now start with 1/4 max Focus instead of 1/2.
• Wizard and Cipher's base endurance has been raised from 30 to 36, and per level from 10 to 12.
• Wizard and Priests health multipliers were raised from 3 to 4.
• Interdiction range has been reduced from 20 to 10.
• Tuned down damage on the Retaliation mod.
• Citzal's Spirit Lance will now do 50% more damage, is faster, and has an increased AoE.
• Sanguine Plate's Retaliate mod has been replaced with Spell Holding: Frenzy.
• Wind Blight's Returning Storm is now set to 1/encounter.
• Earth Blight's Teleport ability is now set to 2/encounter.
• Sturdy bonus is improved from +20 to +30 vs Prone.
• Hand and Key's Preservation has been replaced with Loyal.
• Aru Breaker's Preservation has been replaced with a +1 Speed.
• Angio's Gambeson's Reflex bonus is replaced with 1/day Deleterious Alacrity of Motion.
• Rebel's Call Preservation has been replaced with Wary.
• Lightning Strikes damage is increased by 25%.
• Fan of Flames damage is reduced by 25%.
• Minor Arcane Reflection base duration is changed to 60 seconds.
• Llengrath's Displaced Image gives 50% hit to graze conversion on Deflection and Reflex.
• Wizard's Double now grants +40 Deflection against a single attack.
• Mirrored Images now grants a base +30 Deflection. It decreases by 5 after each hit.
• Ilengrath's Safeguard's bonuses are now unified.
• Crucible of the Soul, Speaker to the Restless, and Steps to the Wheel ranges have been increased.
• Arcane Veil now grants +50 Deflection, with Hardened Veil adding +25, for a total of +75 Deflection.
• Scroll of Paralysis is now slightly weaker and has a higher skill requirement.
• All Spell Holdings are 2/encounter.
• Soul Shock radius reduced from 2.5 to 1.25.
• Blizzard damage reduced significantly and attack speed increased to from 0.2 to 0.8.
• Overwhelming Wave now uses a range of 30-40 and stun duration lowered from 10s to 8s.
• Noxious Burst trap damage now is in line with other player trap damage.
• Reduced the accuracy on higher level player traps.
• Unbroken is now a per encounter ability.
• Malignant Cloud damage increased.
• Ghost Blades set to foe only.
• Death Ring damage slightly raised, made foe only.
• Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar switched over to foe only.
• Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon set to foe only.
• Stag's Horn damaged lowered. Reflex and Deflection penalties cut in half, and reduced duration from 15 to 10.
• Bracers of Spiritual Power and Archer's Gloves reduced damage from +20% to +10%.
• Scroll of Revival AoE reduced, range slightly reduced, and restored endurance halved.
• Marked Prey and Sworn Enemy have been set to 0 recovery actions, so they can be used and the Ranger/Paladin can immediately act again.

Items, Spells, and Abilities

• Many spells and abilities will have more accurate and updated stat blocks and improved output in the combat log, tooltips, and character sheet.
• Modal abilities now have activation and deactivation timers.
• Fixed an issue where some AOE attacks were not displaying the extra Intellect bonus properly.
• Added new effect when petrified.
• Traps can now be passively detected at -4 Mechanics.
• Added an animation to the Fox and the Hunter ability and removed the damage effect.
• Second Chance will no longer trigger the defeat screen if the entire party goes down right before the effect fires.
• Fixed display of the cast UI for Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept.
• Tuning Wheel's effect is not hostile anymore.
• Painful Interdiction is now correctly marked as hostile.
• Escape should now always prevent disengagement attacks.
• Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept will no longer attack allies.
• Barbarian Threatening Presence will no longer spam the combat log when the Barbarian loses all endurance.
• NPC Chanters will now resume chanting once they use their invocations.
• Getting maimed will not clear fatigue.
• All wall spells should now disappear when combat ends.
• New Glossary entries for spellbind, spell holding, and spell striking.
• Switched the ingredients for Freezing and Shocking lashes.
• Druid's Wildstrike Belt is now working as intended.
• Marked Prey is now working at intended.
• Draining Whip is now working as intended.
• One Stands Alone is now working as intended.
• Interrupting Blows is now working as intended, and will correctly increase interrupt.
• Mortification of the Soul is now working as intended, and should only award 1 wound.
• Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay, Secrets of the Rime and Heart of the Storm should now correctly increase damage of all abilities.
• Driving Flight will now work properly with Blunderbuss type guns.
• The Retaliate mod should not strike allies after using Field Triage.
• Pet fatigue has been removed.
• About 30 item icons have been updated, including some backer items, such as the Hermit's Hat.

Quests and Companions

• Party member stats on the character sheet will now show properly if the companion is removed and re-added from the stronghold.
• Fixed issues where companions could lose their items when assigned to the stronghold.
• Grieving Mother's Perception and Intellect scores have been switched.
• The Man Who Waits: The citizens of the Sanitarium will no longer become hostile if you kill and loot Azo after the Sanitarium riot and then fight flesh golems. Fix is retroactive.
• Fixed issue with a reputation loss with Gilded Vale when entering Raedric's Hold.
• Removed disposition exploit with the Records Keeper.
• A few encounter placement changes.
• Fixed issues with stronghold hirelings becoming hostile.
• Retroactive fix to update Sanitarium quest stage to proper state if you already talked to Ethelmoer and then asked for Sanitarium directions from a city guard.
• Added retroactive fix if you've advanced Heritage Hill quest to Icantha but then asked a city guard for directions to Heritage Hill.
• Fixed a number of issues with the Winds of Steel quest. This should be a retroactive fix if the quest was already started before working on the second quest with the Dozens or Doemenels, or if the quest was acquired or completed in conjunction with Bronze Beneath the Lake or Changing of the Guard.
• Attacking any of the main three Defiance Bay factions after having secured their invitation to the hearing will now make Lady Webb give you an invite in the name of Dunryd Row.
• Fixed issues with the Hermit of Hadret House quest.
• If Sul or Oernos were defeated before speaking to Desthwn for the first time then The Old Queen and the New King quest will not revert to an earlier quest stage
• Hendyna's conversation is fixed up to be properly linked together.
• Fixed a case where one of Clyver's responses would not appear in conversation if you ask him twice about the hearing.
• Killing Alwah while she appears in Oldsong now prevents her from appearing alive in Galawain's Maw when you turn in the Prison of Ice quest
• Fixed an issue where the Hall of Revealed Mysteries would turn hostile after opening the door to the Elder Archives and then re-loading into the scene (while not in stealth).
• Rinatto will no longer appear in the Celestial Sapling if you convince him to leave Twin Elms as part of the Hard Bargain quest.)

UI

• Changed the display of most stat multipliers to be percentage based.
• Added Shift as a default control for multi-selection, in addition to Ctrl.
• Inverted the Stronghold log.
• Improved the output in the Bestiary and added beast abilities.
• Portraits now turn grey if Stamina is being capped by Health or Fatigue.
• Improved multi-selection.
• Stronghold adventures will now show the duration before you embark.
• Added apply button to resolution options screen.
• Default stealth key on Linux is now Ctrl.
• Weapon set buttons are now disabled when Spirit Shifted.
• Fixed several issues with containers and mouse cursor state on hover.
• Fixed an issue where the Lore requirement on scrolls was always displaying as red text.
• Fixed an issue where weapon sets were not visually unlocking.
• HUD does not upscale until 1920x1200.

General Fixes

• Removed exploit of being able to transition into a new area with a dead player character. 
  .
• Spells and abilities stuck in 'Already Activated' state will be fixed whenever a game is loaded.
• Now camping in a stronghold map when Brighthollow is unlocked uses Brighthollow instead.
• Party members will no longer switch weapon sets when charmed.
• Resolved a problem where misses on some secondary attacks were not being reported in the combat log.
• Camera should center on party members faster.
• Trial of Iron: Loading a game will now force a save to happen to prevent save scumming.
• Fixed many issues related to auto pause.
• Firearms will now reload when combat ends on alternate weapon sets.
• Poison and interrupted VO now has a cooldown.
• Allow quick-loading when UI windows, like dialogue, are up.

[Luckmann]

 

• Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.

 

Now we're even getting colour-coded for stupid?

 

And it's sad to see Grieving Mother going from being the perceptive woman she is in the narrative, to being a super-intellectual whateverist, instead of seeing them fix the Attributes. Seriously, what the hell? First the nonsense changes in 1.03, and now this?

Edited May 1, 2015 by Luckmann

[Raven Darkholme]

Good patch.

[TheisEjsing]

• You can now rename save games.
• You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.
• Many spells and abilities will have more accurate and updated stat blocks and improved output in the combat log, tooltips, and character sheet.
• Party members will no longer switch weapon sets when charmed.

   

  

[Eos]

 

 

• Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.

 

Now we're even getting colour-coded for stupid?

 

 

What does that have to do with 'stupid'? It's just convenience. Usually I had to mouse-over 3+ pages of items in my stash while selling after a big dungeon/longer time, because I didn't want to sell any unique items. Now this whole process is sped up a lot.

 

But how is Draining Whip now working as intended? Doesn't it apply on Blunderbuss projectiles anymore? Or what happened?

 

Great overall fixes/balance changes

[petrivanzyl]

 

Reduced the accuracy on higher level player traps.

 

[Blovski]

Fixes, Features, UI and Quest bits all great news.

Cipher balance changes are going to impact the meta positively, I think, and help differentiate them further. Ranger Animal Companion fix is very welcome indeed.

Bounty, Revival, Paralysis and retaliation fixes were needed.

Armour rebalancing seems great to me. Some new options.

I'm really hoping Llengrath's new effect is in addition to its other ones. The Wizard's Double/Mirror image ones look great. Hopefully a solution similar to Mirror Image can be found for Ironskin.

Sworn/Marked foe ability change is a great one.

Wind Blight change is very welcome indeed.

Wow Arcane Veil got a large buff...

[FlintlockJazz]

Fixes, Features, UI and Quest bits all great news.

 

Cipher balance changes are going to impact the meta positively, I think, and help differentiate them further. Ranger Animal Companion fix is very welcome indeed.

 

Bounty, Revival, Paralysis and retaliation fixes were needed.

 

Armour rebalancing seems great to me. Some new options.

 

I'm really hoping Llengrath's new effect is in addition to its other ones. The Wizard's Double/Mirror image ones look great. Hopefully a solution similar to Mirror Image can be found for Ironskin.

 

Sworn/Marked foe ability change is a great one.

 

Wind Blight change is very welcome indeed.

 

Wow Arcane Veil got a large buff...

Yeah, I'm now very very intrigued with Arcane Veil now and wondering how it compares now.

[Luckmann]

The only things that really stands out is the nerf to Cipher focus, the fact that we can name saves, and the utterly crazy way they keep dealing with attributes for CNPC:s. The rest is pretty meh overall. I was expecting some more meaningful balance changes and usability tweaks such as finally differentiating between allies and neutral NPC:s, and toggleable and addable mapnotes.

 

 

 

 

• Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.

 

Now we're even getting colour-coded for stupid?

 

 

What does that have to do with 'stupid'? It's just convenience. Usually I had to mouse-over 3+ pages of items in my stash while selling after a big dungeon/longer time, because I didn't want to sell any unique items. Now this whole process is sped up a lot.

 

But how is Draining Whip now working as intended? Doesn't it apply on Blunderbuss projectiles anymore? Or what happened?

 

Great overall fixes/balance changes

 

 

"It's just convenience" has been the argument for many of the baby-steps to mediocrity. Dividing things into sharp lines of "uniques" and "magicals" and "rares" is the tradition of immersionless games centred on lootwhoring, not RPG:s. PoE already suffers from itemization issues of gear not feeling special, and now the "uniques" gets lumped into a shared subgroup, that is colour-coded for stupid.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Luckmann

[Kel27]

Was hoping to see some sort of fix/workaround for cloaks not showing up in OS X. Looking forward to starting a new game when this patch is released however!

[Carados]

Bah focus nerf to cipher :/ And not liking that they nerfed the fans of flames. Hopefully someone mods these back to 1.04 values. And can someone explain this modal ability change? I hope it doesn't mean that player must reactive modals after every encounter or something.

 

Otherwise its a good patch.

 

ps. nerfing high level trap accuracy doesn't make any sense, because traps as they are now aren't very usefull. Why not allow us to deploy multiple traps ?

Edited May 1, 2015 by Carados

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Gaze of the Adragan has been nerfed but not mentioned in the patch. tsk tsk.

[gkathellar]

The hell are they changing Sanguine Plate for?

 

Bah focus nerf to cipher :/ And not liking that they nerfed the fans of flames. Hopefully someone mods these back to 1.04 values. And can someone explain this modal ability change? I hope it doesn't mean that player must reactive modals after every encounter or something.

 

Otherwise its a good patch.

 

ps. nerfing high level trap accuracy doesn't make any sense, because traps as they are now aren't very usefull. Why not allow us to deploy multiple traps ?

 

QFT.

[Raven Darkholme]

The hell are they changing Sanguine Plate for?

 

 

Bah focus nerf to cipher :/ And not liking that they nerfed the fans of flames. Hopefully someone mods these back to 1.04 values. And can someone explain this modal ability change? I hope it doesn't mean that player must reactive modals after every encounter or something.

 

Otherwise its a good patch.

 

ps. nerfing high level trap accuracy doesn't make any sense, because traps as they are now aren't very usefull. Why not allow us to deploy multiple traps ?

 

 

QFT.

Because Sanguine was too good?

[Ink Blot]

"It's just convenience" has been the argument for many of the baby-steps to mediocrity. Dividing things into sharp lines of "uniques" and "magicals" and "rares" is the tradition of immersionless games centred on lootwhoring, not RPG:s. PoE already suffers from itemization issues of gear not feeling special, and now the "uniques" gets lumped into a shared subgroup, that is colour-coded for stupid.

While the unique items do have different icons (so it's a matter of being able to recognize the non-magical and 'run-of-the-mill' enhanced item icons), I don't mind this one. For my 50 year old eyes, this doesn't seem so much a color-coding for stupid as it does a color coding for strained eyes. *shrug*

 

No mention of the godawful load times in the notes though (I admit to not having tested 1.04 yet to see if it made a difference to my game).

[VahnXIII]

Excellent patch. However, loading times are still an issue. Why is this still an issue?

 

Also, when does this go live?

Edited May 1, 2015 by VahnXIII

[MadDemiurg]

Copy pasting several posts from another thread here:

 

Ok, some first hand experience with the patch:

 

Cipher:

• Draining whip is now 33% more focus generation instead of +2 per hit. Bye blunder ciphers, hi arbalest ciphers. Carrow golan is still +4 per hit though. So maybe blunder for initial alpha to generate focus in hard fights (still easily pumps you up to ~100 with carrow), switching to pistol/sabers with usual ruffian focus. Quickswitch cipher with 4 firearms also looks much better now.
• Greater focus adds +10 to starting focus in this build, so it essentially doubles your starting focus at level 2. I still wouldn't pick it, but it became a more viable option. I'd like to see it being less powerful, but scaling better in the next patch. Smth like 2*level.
• Focus generation on allies doesn't work anymore . I think I was the only one who reported this, so I'm wondering whether devs found it themselves or it was my post that made them change it. Anyway this was broken.
• Tactical meld still works out of combat. With starting focus nerf I think it's actually fine this way though.
• Retaliation still works for focus generation and I think it is fine with draining whip changes and gives melee ciphers extra oomph. You can still supercharge it with carrow though.
• Amplified Thrust now actually works and is a solid single target fast spell, if a bit too random. Recommended! I think mind blades were nerfed too hard in the previous patch, at least for PotD as they're bloody useless needing to roll again for each jump. I'd give them +5-10 extra accuracy at least, they're trash compared to Thrust or even post nerf soul shock.

All in all good changes, I'd like to see some improvements to greater focus, psychic backlash (who in their own mind would pick it now?) and buffs to trash spells that no one picks (mainly 2nd and 3rd level) though. No nerf to amplified wave is a big surprise to me. I think it needs an aoe nerf for sure. 8m base is just crazy for this kind of spell. 5m would be good.

 

Wizard:

• Petrify changed to x3 (not x2 as some report) damage and half duration (10s base). It's still super strong.
• Displaced image adds 50% hit to graze ON TOP of 25 deflection and 20 reflex.
• Not sure how Safeguard bonuses have been unified but if it stacks with other defensive stuff now it's quite awesome.
• Both draining staff and spirit lance got MAJOR buffs. Not fully tested yet, but I think they got their base damage increased compared to their normal counterparts. You understand what that means, right?
• Both scroll and spell fan of flames got toned down. Scroll jolting touch is still the same though. Devs, if you're reading this please bring them in line. Somewhere in between would be good. Spell is useless (esp. with ghost blades being foe only now) and scroll is OP.
• Freezing pillar and Death ring as foe only are quite awesome.
• I think Wizard can be renamed into "Armageddon's blade" and is officially my favorite class now. Still hate grimmoire system though (and it makes no sense)

Things I don't like about the patch:

• Blizzard nerf - needed a nerf, but was nerfed too much.
• Stag horn nerf - simply unnecessary imo.

Edit: Safeguard bonuses DO stack with other defensive buffs. My glasscanon wizard has 170 deflection, ~130 all saves, 41-62 melee damage in 2.5m radius with good speed, 26 DT with exceptional fullplate, +110% action speed (50 aclaricity 60 dex) and 100 melee accuracy. Lol.  Most buffs last reasonably long too.

 

[Lightzy]

Instead of balancing all kinds of bull**** spells of which there are 6000, why don't you work on making the actual CLASSES balanced and interesting.

 

Ranger for example, which is freakin boring. Give it some special abilities/spells.

 

Cipher is EXTREMELY overpowered, even with 1/4 focus. It's like a better version of wizard that can keep casting better spells with no pause.

 

etc.

 

 

D&D is perhaps not the best system (although now it's very good), but at least they've had the experience of many years to discern that some classes are just ****ING BORING, and so ranger has druid spells, etc, many different feats for characters, etc. to make things more interesting

[Carados]

The concept of ranger is indeed boring.

 

I think the ranger in d&d was way more intresting. They had a favourite enemy, they could cast spells, they had to be "good alligned" and they got all kind of nice perks (free dual wield).

 

The ranger in PoE definitely needs something.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Carados

[Katarack21]

 

 

• Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.

 

Now we're even getting colour-coded for stupid?

Crickey, man! It's just a color-coding based on rarity! It's a *basic* convenience feature that took probably no time at all and hurts nobody in any way. How can you *possibly* bitch about that?!?

[Tigranes]

Great patch, most of the changes are excellent and address a lot of issues.

 

Arcane Veil is a huge deal now, since Hardened, it is +75; that's usually enough to make your wizard have more deflection than anybody's accuracy, for the duration of the spell. Definitely makes a big difference. 

 

Fan of Flames and Scrolls of Paralysis were basically I Win buttons. It's just a pity they didn't touch Adragan's Gaze. FoF is still the undisputed king of damage dealing spells for early level wizards, but now it no longer makes sense to stock up 10 FoFs to use on dragons and endgame bosses.

 

Ciphers were also Paralysis Machines, able to paralyse at least one enemy every couple rounds and, on later levels, basically able to paralyse entire groups of enemies permanently. Given that monks and chanters start with zero counters, they needed the rebalance.

[Urthor]

Ciphers were also Paralysis Machines, able to paralyse at least one enemy every couple rounds and, on later levels, basically able to paralyse entire groups of enemies permanently. Given that monks and chanters start with zero counters, they needed the rebalance.

 

If they haven't changed mental at all, Ciphers will STILL be Paralysis machines though, and therefore ahead of the pack.  Turn denial is by far the best strategy in any turn based game, and that extends to real time with pause.  

Ciphers will still be extremely good, it's just awk that Blunderbuss Cipher has bit the dust.  Islander quick switch build will probably grow in importance for increased burst focus gain.  

[View619]

They weren't kidding when it was stated that 1.05 would be huge. Well done, I'll be jumping on that beta today.

[dstender]

How to you access the option to re-level?  Not finding it.

[Bix Copperblast]

"It's just convenience" has been the argument for many of the baby-steps to mediocrity. Dividing things into sharp lines of "uniques" and "magicals" and "rares" is the tradition of immersionless games centred on lootwhoring, not RPG:s. PoE already suffers from itemization issues of gear not feeling special, and now the "uniques" gets lumped into a shared subgroup, that is colour-coded for stupid.

 

 

I think you're not being fair here. If a change attempts to bypass / improve something that is dull (ie. managing the inventory), then I think the game is better for it. If it provides a shortcut for something interesting (quest markers as opposed to NPC directions), then it's a questionable change.

 

edit: No changes to weapons? Didn't they mention they would be balancing certain weapon types? Or are these patch notes not final?

Edited May 1, 2015 by Bix Copperblast