We're back after a little "break" in patches! This patch has a lot of things in a bunch of different areas, so settle in for a bit of a read. Content soon we promise! We've been hard grinding away at content but it isn't ready yet for release in this patch.

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For information on upcoming changes, check our public roadmap

[PvE] Content

General/Systems

Helping teach new players to PRESS THEIR REBUFF BUTTON since TKN
  • Autobuffer now checks which base classes are present in the party and will not buff class buffs that exist in the party (e.g. if there's a warrior and cleric in the party, you will not automatically receive the warrior and cleric buffs but you will receive the rest (harmonize, CDR, etc))
  • Boss HP is now numerically consistent (e.g. 1.5 trillion Golem is actually 1.5 trillion HP now instead of 1.499999- trillion)

Rune Dragon Nest

  • Rune Dragon boss 1 and 2 should now have consistent spawn (and un-iframe) timings
  • Boss 1 barmech mobs now count towards DPS meter
  • Boss 1 flame orbs now count towards DPS meter
  • Dragon 30 men mech no longer counts towards DPS meter
  • Adjusted Rune Dragon's hitbox a bit while its airborne to be more consistent
  • RuDN 8-man normal drops increased: Reinforced Plates 1x --> 3x

Arashi Trials

We've gotten a lot of requests to be able to challenge the Arashi trials again even after unlocking the classes, so here you go!

Kiwi now gives the option to Rais and Jotunns to re-run the challenges that you've already cleared

If you've unlocked both classes, you'll be able to do both challenges with both classes (e.g. challenge the Rai challenge using Jotunn)

Lost Ducklings

Lost Duckling Shop: Item cost increased 20 --> 25 Lost Ducklings

Lost Duckling drops reduced:

  • Rune Dragon 8-man Normal: 3 --> 2
  • Black Dragon Nest Time Attack: 5 --> 3
  • Rune Dragon 8-man Hardcore: 7 --> 4

[PvE] Class Balancing

Lately we've been holding off on making balancing (or even dynamic balance) changes due to several factors:

  • Turns out the DPS meter is not correctly calculating DPS in some situations
  • The stage clear DPS result is affected by load timing and AFKing between bosses
  • The stage clear DPS result doesn't properly ignore padded damage (e.g. while the gate DPS meter correctly ignores the mobs during RuDN dragon phase 1, the stage DPS meter will count them)
  • Players are able to "game" the DPS meter by manipulating the meter settings mid-run
  • Some of the anti-padding settings didn't make sense (e.g. RuDN boss 1 barmech didn't count towards DPS but RuDN dragon 30 men mechanic men did count)
  • We just released Rai and Jotunn so they get to have their fun in the sun and it'd be weird if we balanced everything else besides them (even though its our standard practice to release reworks (and now new classes) stronger than other classes for various reasons)
  • There's no relevant or competitive content currently where we'd have concerns about excessively strong classes
  • We made the decision to focus on developing new content, fixing core game issues and bugs, building a new server-side DPS meter, building backend systems for upcoming work, and brainstorming changes to core game systems like gearing, stat building, stat calculations, party interactions, and more.

This patch, we're only making balancing changes that are a result of dealing with certain class systems and dealing with the extreme outlier classes. Once we've rolled out the new DPS meter (probably patch v827) we'll collect DPS data for a while and then do a proper balancing pass.

/\c24\Lunar Knight

Making the class a little easier for new players to learn and giving it a bonk.
The bonk isn't as big since this class's DPS gets inflated significantly by the DPS meter issues noted above

[Ascension] skills now glow purple, and [Exit Ascension] now glows red so people that go "ooo enhanced skill" no longer slap it and instantly leave ascension
Adjusted [Class Mastery II] implementation to allow you to use regular [Crescent Cleave] earlier after using the instant instead of having to wait for the enhancement timer to expire
[Remove Ascension] Lunaris consumed reduced: 30x --> 15x, Twilight consumed reduced: 30x --> 20x
[Ascended Moon Blade Dance] damage decreased: 979% --> 930%
[Class Mastery III] buff icon changed to a mini-halfmoon slash icon

/\c26\Destroyer

Same modernization change that's been made to other classes

Adjusted [Class Mastery III] implementation to allow you to use regular [Flying Swing] earlier after using the instant instead of having to wait for the enhancement timer to expire

/\c70\Mystic Knight

On classes where their main skill is the majority of their damage (or that we'd want to be their main damage) comes from a skill that does one or very few big hits, not critting feels really bad. We're introducing an experimental change that reduces the damage variance when you crit or don't crit to see if it feels good and works well.
This change is currently only on Overline but we may roll it out to certain other skills depending on the results.
In the future, we're looking to make some changes to the crit system to address this in a more holistic fashion

Not critting with [Overline] (at full charge only) now deals the same damage as if you had crit but had 200% crit damage (effectively, the damage range of the skill changed from 1x-3x to 2x-3x)

/\c71\Grandmaster

Grandmaster has been topping DPS charts by a large margin (well, in the same group as certain other overtuned classes) mostly in part to being able to use Mystic Knight skills. We generally aren't a fan of classes crossing over (hah) to the other tree to use their key skills, so this is going away.
Technically this is a nerf to base Knight but this change doesn't affect Mystic Knight and only nerfs Grandmaster

Failing to charge [Vision Blow] or [Celestial Wave] (which is to say, always) now deals 100% --> 25% board damage

/\c35\Pyromancer

Currently, Pyromancer is sitting a weird position where there isn't too much of a use for the class in DPS situations when Ice Witch is so close to its damage output. We're adding some more damage into some of its channeled abilities to incentivize proper play and boost their "casteriness"

[Inferno EX] flamethrower damage coefficient per hit increased: 12.5% --> 15%
[CM3 Hotrod] riding damage coefficient per hit increased: 60% --> 70%

/\c38\Chaos Mage

Reducing [Focus Gravity]'s cooldown because it likes to break randomly and not move your balls, and the skill doesn't do anything without balls out anyway, so this change should make dealing with ED's shitty code tolerable
Oh and a tiny nerf too because the class is still ridiculous even after last nerf and this fix is just going to make that number go up again (imagine being DPS gated because your main skill breaks some of the time)

[Focus Gravity] cooldown reduced 5s --> 1s
[Gravity Rush] damage decreased: 5267% --> 5099%

/\c65\Jotunn

Now that players have figured out how to really play the class, we're pulling the class down a bit to be in line with the other DPS classes (when it's playing as DPS)

[Class Mastery I] Passive PATK reduced from 25% --> 20%

/\c66\Rai

Now that players have figured out how to really play the class, we're pulling the class down a bit to be in line with the other DPS classes
Nerfing its sustain too since as a result of players getting good you're able to [Overload] more often than expected and we have a systemic issue with too much sustain in the game anyway

[Charged Overload] Healing on cast reduced from 5% --> 2%
[Class Mastery II] Passive PATK reduced from 20% --> 10%

/\c78\Defensio

Changed to backload most of the damage. It didn't make sense that the damage came out so quickly for the first two strikes where the last two hits of the animation look/feel the most powerful. The range has also been increased to more accurately match the skill effects.

The fact that Defensio can be played in two ways depending on whether or not you take an awakening is really annoying to balance around. It has been talked about to death on Discord already but we're just going to reiterate it again here for those who missed that conversation. We will NOT be adding support for this kind of "hybrid" rework scenario in the future.

[Awakened Beatdown] range increased, adjusted hit coefficient spread to favor the last two hits as opposed to even across the first and second half

[PvP] Class Balancing

Roeyframe
Roey is literally the worst at patch notes.

/\c26\Destroyer

[Destructive Swing] is now disabled if [Class Mastery III] is learned due to having infinite SA.

/\c22\Priest

[Blessing of Strikes] Self damage increase nerfed from 10.5% to 5.5%.

/\c43\Saint

[Class Mastery I] INT increase nerfed from 15% to 10%.

/\c44\Inquisitor

[Class Mastery I] INT increase nerfed from 15% to 10%.

/\c41\Guardian

[Stance of Faith EX] Fixed ability to remain in stance infinitely. Fixed parry attacks doing light damage.

/\c45\Arashi

[Frigid Shards] Damage at levels 15-17 fixed. (Damage increase at those levels was ~130% higher than intended).

/\c89\Oracle Elder

This class exists?

[Power Boost (B)] Final damage increase reduced from 5% --> 1%

Miscellaneous

Skill Crests updated to effect the following skills:
[Awakened Heavy Slash]
[Awakened Pierching Shot]
[Awakened Struck by Lightning]
[Cyclone Slash]
[Forward Thrust]

Cash Shop

Cotton Candy Wings + Tail
Cotton Candy Decal
Cerberos Greatsword
Purple Fashionista Rabbit Set
Red Veteran Sheriff Set
Black Assassin Formal Package
White Assassin Formal Package
Orange Assassin Formal Package
Festive Herald Bluebird Package
Sky Herald Bluebird Package
Floral Herald Bluebird Package

Recolors

Flowery Sakura Blossom Wings
Freaky Formal Suit
Stylish Rajuul Top
Navy Cerberos Sword
Ghostly Cerberos Sword
Black and White Petal Package
Black Awakened Rocker Package
Purple Lordly Knight Package
Black Lordly Knight Package
Brown Soul Bloom Fan
Glowing Panda Hook
Green Electric Fragment Hook
Purple Medic Chevalier
Flaming Red Melanook Knuckle

User Interface

  • You can now hide details about your current in-game status from Discord Rich Presence
  • Added informational tooltips to the GameConfig settings page
  • Increased how far you can zoom in on character previews (e.g. Cash Shop, NPC Shop Preview)
  • Increased how far you can pan around on character previews
  • Guild member list now shows account nickname; level replaced with class icon
  • Ping meter turns red if your packet queue grows too large
  • Added more quick-unequip buttons: Armor/Weapons/Accessories, Crests, and Talismans

Language/Translations

As part of making Project Duck more accessible to players, especially since we're now a worldwide server, we're introducing support for interface localization. Initially these translations will be very basic, but we'll be updating these frequently

Added a language selector to GameConfig settings.

The currently supported languages are:

  • Chinese (Traditional)
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Portugese (BR)
  • Russian

As mentioned, these translations are very basic and currently only handle basic UI text, class names, and common error messages. We'll be translating more over time.

🛑
Chinese translation may have some issues with our current game font (missing characters). We'll be hotfixing in a new font file that supports a large majority of Chinese characters a day or two after patch.

Shoutouts to our community localization gang for their translation work!

  • Alex529
  • Byaku
  • Emsixz
  • Koshiro
  • Kurea
  • Mikret
  • RickyTW
  • Sario

Misc

  • %HP mechs now count towards damage taken
  • Game room performance should affect other game rooms less often (meaning, if one game room happens to lag because of someone running 8 saints in BTG and they all relic react at the same time, other rooms are less likely to lag)
  • Disconnecting from the server while in field now says if it was a TCP or RUDP disconnect (mostly helpful for us devs investigating networking)
  • Added support for true rectangular damage hitboxes (instead of approximated by using truncated rings)
  • Re-worded the "You have earned an achievement" popup that appears whenever we add a new achievement to "A new achievement has been unlocked"
  • Did another sweep to remove useless items from F11 Cash Shop packages
  • Added a few costumes to Alter Roy's Player Request Shop

Graphics

  • Characters now have subtle rim lighting
  • Attempt to recover from Device cannot be reset error more aggressively

Classes

  • Oracle Elder bubbles added to autobubbler
  • Oracle Elder bubbles now have an energy bar
  • Clarified on Barbarian [Awakened Stomp] tooltips that you can press and hold down the skill key or right click to chain cast automatically (no change in behavior, just improving tooltip)

Bugfixes

  • Fixed an issue where server tick rate dipped when a player dies
  • Fixed IDNVC Balapa fatemark mechanic not wiping the party if the fatemarked player dies
  • Fixed several projectiles in IDNVC failing to hit due to incorrectly set distance checks
  • Fixed several costumes not being able to be added to cart in F11 Cash Shop
  • Attempted to fix an issue where projectiles spawned by another projectile that's spawned from a monster would go invisible if the monster desyncs
  • Fixed Black Dragon Nest Time Attack achievement granting unsplittable Sinister Dragon Gems
  • Fixed an issue where certain % HP mechanics deal the incorrect amount of damage due to numerical accuracy issues
  • Attempt to fix UI locking up sometimes (forcing you to restart the game)
  • Attempt to fix certain boss mechanics breaking under specific circumstances (e.g. Ricardo's bar mech)
  • Fixed Offensive Omega Dragon Gems costing 2 High-Grade Reinforced Plates instead of 1
  • Fixed inspection of 8/8 parties
  • Fixed a crash related to cash shop previewing
  • Fixed an issue where very short system messages would have random numbers after them sometimes

Classes

  • Attempted to fix Vena Plaga [Manic] and [Grudge] hitboxes
  • Fixed Ruina [Awakened Passive Overclock]'s description not mentioning the 15% PATK buff you get
  • Fixed Lunar Knight [Ascended Moonlight Splitter] and [Ascended Sword Flurry] skill descriptions to say that they generate Twilight as opposed to Lunaris
  • Fixed a bug where Defensio could use non awakened [Beatdown] when [Awakened Beatdown] is on cooldown
  • Fixed an issue where Jotunn's [Frozen Domain] floor projectile wouldn't properly get wiped clientside
  • Fixed a bug with [Ascended Crescent Cleave Instant] where pressing left click inconsistently shows the  cooldown in the passive bar
  • Fixed a bug with [Ascended Crescent Cleave Instant] where pressing the skill key to use the instant used the non-ascension version
  • Fixed an issue where Jotunn [Avalanche] would miss due to weird hitbox interaction
  • Fixed an issue where Abyss Walker [Rubicon] didn't hit except at point-blank range even though the projectiles visually hit
  • Fixed [Cure Relic EX] being unusable if you were using skill page 2