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Ephemeral Tale 1.6.5 Changelog -- Major Update #3

• When choosing to distribute stats, all possible options will now show
• Fixed an issue where save files could show party members being in the party that weren’t in the party (FINALLY)
• Fixed an issue where status effects could show their indication text repeatedly
• Fixed an issue where the turn order windows would stutter like mad (thanks, fmoo!)
• Added Options menu to the main menu per user request
• Performance improvements in CPU bound situations (thanks, fmoo!)
• Significant improvements in save file load/save times (thanks, fmoo!)
• Due to the above change, save files on this version will NOT be backwards compatible to versions prior to 1.6.x
• Further changes to the battle HUD, specifically in the turn window
• Changes to the main menu and how gauges are drawn/represented
• Fixed an issue where players using Fragile Recall Runes while on a staircase or ladder would be slower elsewhere
• Additional fixes to collision issues
• Additional fixes for bloom blow-out scenarios
• Merlin’s skill costs will ramp to be more aggressive as he levels up now to better co-exist with his ever-increasing crit rate
• Various corrections to the layout of the main menu
• New, less annoying overlay in the Great Palace
• Changes and updates to the “weather” system to allow for future updates
• Adjustments to how Hit, Critical Rate, and Evade work
• Critical Rate is now capped at 75%, and more Luck is required in order to cap it out (from ~200 to ~350)
• Due to this, the Luck bonus for crit damage scaling has been increased (from 230% criticals at 200 Luck to 240%)
• Hit rate is now capped at 150%
• Hit rate now scales based on a combination of agility and level, and requires more agility to cap it out (from 100 Agility to hit 100% at any level in previous versions to 480 at Level 50 to hit 150% in current version)
• Reminder: Misses are calculated based on the hit rate of the user versus the evade rate of the target. Due to this, there is a reason to have over 100% hit!
• Evade is now capped at 75%, and more Agility is required in order to cap it out (~25% more)
• More changes regarding percentage stats (Hit/Crit/Evade) are currently planned to improve their functionality and “fun factor”
• New mouse cursor for the mouse fans in the house
• Globe Scatterer is now significantly more rare
• New Game+ is now properly implemented:
• Enemies in NG+ have more mechanics and are significantly tougher
• Enemies will aggressively scale up as more playthroughs are completed
• Additionally, the “level cap” for gear is raised in NG+, and continues to rise as players go through various playthroughs
• Two new, hidden bosses are available for players to search for
• Two new pieces of gear have been added
• Additionally, a ton of bugs had to be ironed out for NG+, as the original implementation had a bunch of fundamental flaws

Alright, y’all-- it’s here! Major Update #3 is now available for players to enjoy! This has been in the works for a while, and has required a lot of back-end changes to get to this point. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished as a community since Major Update #2-- the battle HUD has improved dramatically, the options menu was reborn from the ashes, tons of small dialogue tweaks/changes/additions, balance changes, bug fixes (really, a stupid amount of those), changes to existing content (like the Great Palace and the Jelly Rooms), and some stuff I’m sure I’ve forgotten! As always, if you encounter any issues, please let me know! This update had a bunch of last minute additions and changes, so there may be lingering issues that didn’t get caught in time.

The pillars of Major Update #3 are three-fold: changes to the Great Palace, New Game+, and a performance sweep. Next week, we’ll go into some of the technical hurdles Major Update #3 faced, let’s go over these pillars, and see what that entails, shall we?

The Great Palace

One of the staples of “Major Updates” is generally some fundamental shift in the gameplay experience, one way or another. Major Update #1 did this through the overhaul of how leveling worked, how gear worked, and how things scaled (not to mention the sandbox changing with the addition of loot that didn’t have any abilities). Major Update #2 accomplished this by expanding on the gameplay with an entirely new zone, new enemies, loot, etc. The Great Palace had severe issues in terms of flow, general bugginess, and visual cohesion. While it still may not be perfect, a handful of changes have been thrown at this dungeon near every week to slowly improve it. Normally, pillars of Major Updates are held until the update actually releases, but for both logistical reasons and because it’s not fair to make you guys suffer through a poo-poo dungeon, these changes were pushed to live every week as they were ready.

New Game+

New Game+ is a staple of not only the RPG genre, but the replayable sector as well. It ticks a huge box for some folks, and for good reason! I’m much more likely, personally, to replay a shorter title like Shadows of Adam than I am an epic like Witcher 3. And that’s not a diss on either of those titles, either! In Ephemeral Tale, New Game+ serves two purposes: 1) allow the player to keep improving their builds, and 2), challenge the player. I continue to get feedback from both players that feel the game is too challenging, and players that feel the game is too easy. It’s a tough line to walk, and I believe that the best solution is multifaceted. Last month, I patched in a difficulty menu with a few modifiers that players could change to customize their experience. This ideally allows both parties to find a sweet spot for themselves that best suits the needs of the individual behind the controller, but isn’t a perfect solution. It being hidden in a menu means that some players will simply never know it exists in the first place, even if they regularly interact with it.

Scrolls of Power were originally envisioned as “the solution” to the above issue, should it arise-- if players were getting walloped, they could never get themselves into a spot that was irrecoverable simply due to the existence of Scrolls of Power. For power hungry players, they would serve as a happy cherry on top of their desert. New Game+ allows me another avenue for helping players find that sweet spot, and serves as the antithesis of Scrolls of Power-- if Scrolls were meant to bring up the weakest players, and help them, New Game+ is meant to bring down the strongest players, and whack the stuffing out of their ego. By scaling beyond the original bounds of the game, and adding new mechanics to existing encounters, New Game+ is aimed at players who want an extra layer of thought put into their daily dose of Ephemeral Tale. And due to the ever-increasing nature of it, even the most GDLK of builds will eventually feel the wrath of New Game+, given enough times through the game.

Performance Sweep

Ephemeral Tale runs pretty well for most folks! For example, I can run it at 144FPS on my personal rig, and one of my go-to test benches is a friend’s laptop running integrated graphics and an Intel i3 (which also manages to run the game at 60fps). But, unfortunately, these anecdotes don't intrinsically speak for everyone, nor their hardware. I had mentioned a couple weeks ago that I’d had concerns that the performance sweep may not make it into the update (we’ll go into that more next week). TL;DR: It’s here! The big difference is that the issue with save files taking progressively longer to load/save as time went on has been resolved, reducing save times in extreme cases from 13 seconds to 1.2 seconds, and reducing file sizes by almost 30% as well. Additionally, a metric ton of optimizations have been made to various combat components to increase average framerate in combat as well. In the most extreme scenario I was able to personally put it through (can’t talk about it more specifically yet, sorry!), frame rate increased from 9FPS at its lowest to 23 at its lowest. This optimization pass is all thanks to a friend of ours giving me a hand with this (as I’ve said before, I can sometimes program in a pinch, but nothing like this).

So here we are: Major Update #3 is now live, and we’ve talked about all of the pillars it brings to the table. Next week, we’ll talk about some of the technical challenges involved with bringing this update to you guys, and the first sweep of inevitable bug fixes for whatever you guys manage to break!

Until then, have fun, and may your loot be juicy!
-- Ryan