What's new, pups? Before you start reading this, you may want to start to download the updated Ephemeral Tale file in case this weeks patch notes get you goin'!

Another week, another Pupdate

This week, I want to talk about some upcoming changes that are coming down the pipe before we hop into the patch notes. First off, if you're someone who has been impacted by the "game zooms into the upper left portion of the screen" bug, that's been narrowed down to be a Windows 7 specific issue. If you're experiencing this on Windows 10, please let me know. There's now a new branch accessible from the betas tab (right click Ephemeral Tale in Steam -> Properties, then upper right) called "no_filters." That branch should resolve the zooming issue for anyone suffering from it, at the cost of some visual prettiness. Next up, there's been a lot of communication back and forth with me recently on the place of Magic in the game, and how those skills have been integrated. There are, I believe, areas where we've succeeded with magic in Ephemeral Tale, but also a fair amount of misses. So, let's talk about it.

Magic builds are kinda rough?

Wow, he just said it? That clearly? Yup! I'm here to make a game for you guys, not defend my pride. Magic builds are definitely in the "weak-sauce" department as of this moment. There are a few ways that I'm looking to address this, but the short version is: magic changes are coming, it will get better. Truth be told, you could say that about any of the areas where the game may be weak at the moment. Let me know if there's something you don't like! I love working on this game for you all, and your feedback lets me know what your expectations are for it, versus mine. Anywho, here's the dealio-- physical damage has a *lot* of ways of exploiting various systems right now (intentionally, mind you). You wanna run a crit build? Bows are dope, there's armor that works for that, there's accessories that play well with that strategy, and so on. Tanky build? Sure! Slimecoated Slime Coat, Florynthy Ring, and a couple other items and you got yourself a build! Evasive striker? Wallaboots, baby. I could go on, but the point is that there's a ton of build options for physical damage, but if you want to do something like magical glass cannon? You really can't. You want a magic AOE build? Not possible. Super less than ideal situation.

So I'm gonna work on that. There's a list of things I want to start to address over the next month or so, including some bug fixes I've let slide (looking at you, boulder that likes to bug out during the cavern escape sequence), some UI improvements, these magic changes, and the next major update. Right now, the plan is for the next major update to hit on either March 3rd, or March 10th. With that said, plans can change, and this date isn't set in stone. There's a lot of work going into that update, and we'll talk more about it in the coming weeks. The magic changes I want to make are pretty much as follows:

1. Enable more build variety for magic users
2. Include a default spell that isn't double strike to encourage stat variation for new players
3. Improve the variety of spells available
4. Look into potentially allowing players to permanently acquire the signature spells of comrades (Fire, Cleave, and Heal)

I'm hoping to address most of this list in next weeks patch (2/18), but it might roll out over a couple of patches. Depends on what else gets done, how things feel-- that sort of thing. With that said, this Pupdate has gotten rather long, so let's wrap it up, shall we?

Patch #10 Changelog

• Scrolls of Power now ask if you would like to use another one if one is available
• Potions, Magic Waters, and Stimulants all show percentages now in the item description
• Added dialogue text to the Faeries in the Forgotten Forest
• Added a teeny-tiny secret to the Forgotten Forest
• Fixed a bug where Jellies could be slammed back, multiple in a row
• Changed the graphic for the camp fires
• Various UI improvements
• Doubled the player damage output of Spark
• Changed the item use sound to be more distinct
• Fixed an oversight where a ladder in the Time-Lost variant of the Respite could cause a tileset switch (Note: deployed earlier this week)
• Fixed an issue where players that engaged in the v.99 beta could get their progress with Florence reset (Note: deployed earlier this week)
• Fixed a typo where Bunnet's were getting set to level "X" instead of a number, causing them to be God-like beings (Note: deployed earlier this week)
• Fixed a bug where the title screen would generate a junk save file
• Additionally, added a Start Game/Exit Game option to title screen

NOTE: It would be easy enough to add an Options selector to the title screen, but is that something you guys would want? Let me know, I can throw it into next weeks patch if so.

I didn't want to bother you guys with patch notes for all the minor patches this week, so I threw their notes into the changelog for record keeping purposes. Still, here we are! We're at patch #10 already. I hope that you guys are enjoying the new gameplay experience that v.99 brought!
Before we leave for the week, I wanted to give a huge thanks to all of you for your patience with me as I worked on the v.99 patch, and a thanks to everyone who has purchased the game so far. I know that Early Access can be a wild ride with of expectations all over the place, so thank you for taking a chance on Ephemeral Tale, and bringing your passion to this project. As always, if you guys have any comments, concerns, or feedback (positive or negative), feel free to get a hold of me or leave it in the discussion forums. I'm curious to see how you guys feel about the balance changes as a community, and if there are any further tweaks needed.

Until next week, have fun, and have a great week :)

-- Ryan