New Balance, Smoother Mechanics, and Fixing the Little Things

Today’s update brings a mix of subtle but impactful improvements across the game, all live on the shard without requiring a restart. The biggest change is the rollout of Live Tunables, letting us adjust balance numbers in real time—starting with Vigor—from a dev page. This means we can fine-tune gameplay on the fly, keeping things fresh and responsive.

We fixed a long-standing issue with the character sheet showing inaccurate blocking stats. Now, Block and Parry percentages reflect the actual chance the game rolls, not a hard cap at 75%. This means shield builds are now truly rewarding as they scale.

Prison doors in The Clink now behave consistently—no more weird discrepancies where two players saw different doors open. We also fixed a timing issue where late-arriving objects were being ignored; now, everything has a chance to arrive and be recognized.

Shields just got smarter: they now block magic too! With Arcane Defense, up to 70.7% of your blocking power (at skill 100) helps absorb spells, and it scales fully at skill 200. Plus, Shield school has been refined—Deflect now recharges in 15 seconds (not 30), and its specialization is no longer all-or-nothing, with clearer, working effects from the first point.

Capes are back in action! A Unity 6.5 mesh import glitch had twisted cloth physics, but we’ve fixed the particle constraints—now capes drape naturally, trail behind, and don’t sink through legs anymore.

Ranged Defense now stops rocks and other thrown projectiles, not just arrows and bolts. It checks how an attack moves, not just what it’s labeled, and still ignores spells.

When a shield breaks, you’ll now know what you’ve lost—a warning in the top-right corner names all affected skills, and buffs stop silently, preventing confusion.

We also fixed a bug where gear wouldn’t drag properly—this wasn’t a UI issue, but a problem with the game’s spatial logic when trying to place items. Now, gear moves where you expect it to.

Two specialization slots now boost Vigor: Focus Specialization maintains focus regeneration, and Tactics Specialization keeps health regeneration (0.5% per level, scaling to 100% at 200).

Control point waves now scale by actual progress—beating a wave, not just time elapsed—so the challenge stays fair. Leaderboards are now visible in-game.

Finally, PvP scenes can be toggled on or off live: turning one off affects everyone in it within a minute, while turning one on waits for a player to enter—so no one gets caught mid-fight.

Summarized from Chris "Atos" Spears' work log at Catnip Games.