Update Notes: March 20, 2020

This update had a short timetable because we wanted to release these fairy bug-fixes ASAP. Even so, we were able to fit in a few other changes and rebalances. We'll be back soon with more content for fairies and non-fairies alike!

Fairy Bug Fixes and Changes

• Revised the newbie fairy quest lines to be a little more intuitive. New fairy players will have an overarching quest that directs you to other NPCs you need to help, and some of the quests have been revised to be less annoying. If you were currently working on fairy quests when you last logged out, you may need to speak with the relevant NPC to re-get the quest.
• Limited the number of Troll Honeytenders that spawn in the fae realm.
• Increased number of deer that spawn in Sun Vale -- there's an area on the large island where they like to congregate
• The "Stuff to Do" tab for fairies no longer includes tasks that are irrelevant for fairies (like "Learn Mentalism from Echur").
• Fixed fairy animations when strafing and swimming.
• Fairy Soul Anchors could not be used; they can now.
• Fairy Magic abilities could be used from the sidebar; they can't now.
• Fairy Magic abilities on your bar now correctly get replaced by higher-level versions of those abilities (when you unlock them).
• Marrowchomp doesn't attack fairies.
• Fairies now learn Sword abilities like other races do.
• Resuscitating a dead pet with fae energy now actually consumes the energy. Cost is lowered from 30 to 20 fae energy.
• Treasure effect "Astral Strike deals +85 damage and resets the timer on Pixie Flare (so it can be used again immediately)" did not reset the timer on Pixie Flare.
• Recipes for Fairy Cake and Fairy Stew consumed 10 more fae energy than listed.
• When large stacks of Crystal Ice melted, too much of the stack melted at once. The number of items melted at once has been reduced by half (to a minimum of 1).
• Pixie Flare's sound was playing in 2D instead of 3D.
• Reduced the volume of a particularly loud fairy light.
• Fixed exploit that let fairies respawn outside of the fae realm if they closed the game client at the right moment.
• Fairies gain a fae-only version of Recall Beginnings when they reach Fae Racial 24. It's like the level 20 Teleportation recipe except that it costs a Fairy Dust and doesn't need an amethyst.
• Added a few more hangouts to fae-realm NPCs, with more to come!

We're working on more fairy content, as well as more fairy-specific NPC text, for the next update.

General Fixes

• Prevented "empty" augments from dropping in loot.
• Phoenixes remembered they have wings!
• When taming a Fae Ocelot, it turned into a fae panther in your stable. (It was named "Fae Ocelot" by default, but was otherwise a panther.) This has been fixed so that newly tamed ocelots are ocelots. For now the only difference is their size, but they may have stat differences in the future. Already-tamed pets are unchanged; they will permanently remain fae panthers.
• Improved animations for butterflies.
• Fixed selection box sizes for some monsters.
• Improved performance of floaty damage numbers when there are an insane amount of them (more than 30) on-screen at once.

Diminishing Returns for Stuns
When a monster (or player) is stunned multiple times in rapid succession, the latter stuns have a shorter duration than normal. (In MMO jargon, this general concept is referred to as "crowd-control diminishing returns.") Project: Gorgon already had diminishing returns for stuns, but in this update, we've made 'em diminish faster and more predictably.

Previously, a stun couldn't be shortened to less than about 2 seconds duration. Now if you get stunned enough, the duration can go all the way to 0 seconds.

Monsters have a faster rate of stun-reduction than players do, but both players and monsters have significantly faster stun-reduction than in the previous update.

Elite/boss monsters with stun attacks are special: their stuns are never reduced below 2 seconds duration, no matter how often their target has been stunned.

Flat-Footed Debuff Duration: Stuns also apply the "Flat-Footed" debuff, which disables all Evasion. Previously this debuff lasted for 8 seconds and now lasts for 6 seconds. (Note: it lasts 6 seconds regardless of the length of the actual stun; even a 0-second stun leaves you Flat-Footed for 6 seconds. We may scale the duration in the future.)

Physics-Exploit Fixes
We've rewritten the system that determines if a monster is being "perched", meaning that it can't possibly reach you due to geometry or pathing issues, while you sit back and safely whale away on it.

We've also revised how monsters react when this happens. Previously, the monsters would either try to run away, or some monsters could use special ranged attacks they normally don't get to use. But that's much too complicated and error prone. For now, the monster response is very simple: if a monster is being exploited to death, it just magically heals to full, with a chat message indicating what happened.

The code should be more reliable now, but this sort of system usually needs some fine-tuning. So if you get false positives, don't take it personally! Just let us know so we can tune the code.

Other Balance Changes

• Fire magic treasure: "Super Fireball deals +40% damage and reuse timer is -1 second, but generates 50% more total Rage" => "Super Fireball deals +90 damage and reuse timer is -1 second"
• Fire Magic treasure: "Ring of Fire Damage +32%" => "Ring of Fire Damage +152"
• Fire Magic treasure: "Indirect Fire Damage +57% when Fire Magic skill active" => +40%
• Druid treasure: "Cosmic Strike deals +51% damage and reuse timer is -5 seconds" => "Cosmic Strike deals +115 damage and reuse timer is -5 seconds"
• Poetry Podium: earn less Oratory XP when reciting poetry to large groups.
• Bard: "Song of Discord" no longer affects targets that can't see you.

There was some complex code involved in fixing Song of Discord, as well as the related perching fixes. And with fancy code comes fancy bugs. Please be on the lookout for monster AI problems that may have been introduced in this update. We're a tiny team and your bug reports are very valuable to us! Thanks!