Despite our road map being for combat we are trying our best to make good on our promise to spill over as much into the other areas of the game as we can while still maintaining our focus on the current 'broken system' at hand. This month we feel we made a significant amount of changes including many new items and skills. Because of this, we've not had as much time to test it all as we would like, so the patch notes will be thorough enough that we hope you will be able to more easily tell us if anything is not working correctly: typos, numbers that look wrong, foragables not appearing where they should, can't find something that we said we added, etc.
Also, to remind all of you. We considered Salem a masterpiece at point of purchase. Not one without need of restoration and attention, but certainly a unique and incredible gaming experience standalone. Because of this fact, we place an equal emphasis on improving, balancing, and refining the systems in play as much as we do adding more content. We originally felt that a large blow to Salem was the adding of new content on new content before the previous systems were fully fleshed out and complete. We are doing our best to eliminate that trend but hope you see it for what it is and not just some laziness on our part to make hundreds if not thousands of changes by simply balancing existing content. We take careful note to only balance things we felt needed it. But in the end, we felt the vast majority of the game could use just a little more emphasis on the direct values given.
New Content:
Artifact / Artifice
The artifact / artifice system has been completely reworked! We expect this new system to be both easier to understand and easier for us to expand, meaning you can expect even more content in this area in the future.
This does mean that all of the artifacts have changed and most of your clothes are going to be somewhat obsolete, but we believe that with the combat changes listed a bit further on, you would have wanted to try new builds anyway. You should also now have a greater choice of what sort of outfit you wear while carving a murderous furrow through Salem.
From now on, all clothing will be a base difficulty of 25; your Thread & Needle proficiency level has the chance to reduce this all the way to 0 if you build it high enough.
Additionally, proficiencies no longer 'match', but will reduce the difficulty of slotting an artifact based on how your skills compare to the difficulty and proficiency of the artifact itself.
To kick off this new system, we have added three new artifice types, Mining, Weaving, and Productivity, which adds to all civilian abilities. We have also added 24 new Artifact items listed below, some of which have other uses. With these new items, old items which have been given new Artifact status, and the Artifacts we already had, you should find a staggering 20 civilian, 43 combat, and 6 other Artifacts to mix and match.
There have been a huge number of adjustments to existing Artifacts. All Artifacts now have a primary category. In the case of Combat, an artifact will give a large amount of defense of one type with smaller amounts of defense for two other types of attack, or a large amount of power for one type with smaller amounts of power for two other types of attack. There will be bonus Feral Defense on some combat Artifacts. In the case of Civilian, an Artifact will give a large amount of bonus to one type of civilian Artifice, with a small bonus to overall Productivity and a small bonus to Common Combat Defense. This is so that civilians need not go into the wild defenseless, yet they will not want to fight with civilian slotted clothing. Some civilian Artifacts also give Feral Defense.
The following is a more detailed list of changes to Artifacts:
Note that there will no longer be artifacts for Concussive. That is because we don't consider those attacks to be 'damage' attacks, but Common Combat bonuses will still apply to that damage type.
New Clothing Items and Changes
Clothing difficulty is now related to the Thread and Needle of the Tailor who crafted it.
Pilgrims Robes may no longer be used to make rags.
Many of the items that were previously only purchasable in the Store can now be crafted if you have the right Skills.
Several new sewing skills have been added, some skills have been altered, and some item unlocks have been changed:
Hudson Bay Trading Company now sells Wool (until Sheep are available).
New Craftable Cloth: Silk Cloth
Both Wool and Silk are used in some of the adjusted clothing recipes (wool sweaters made of wool, anyone?).
Many clothing recipes and slot numbers have been adjusted to provide a more 'tiered' structure which we hope will encourage a smoother transition from rags slotted with more rags up to high fashion, gold studded fancy-pants. See spoiler for details.
Combat
Combat has been extensively rebalanced, added to, and adjusted.
The function and effects of several combat moves have been changed and the tooltips have been altered or added accordingly.
You can now damage your opponent's Phlegm with certain moves. This will appear over their head as Blue damage rather than the Red of Blood damage.
The range at which you stay in combat has been increased.
Tiny Pocketwatches are now more rare and will increase your movement speed for several seconds when used.
Jump is now an effective combat move for dodging:
Punch should now be more useful in PvP combat:
Thrust is slightly rebalanced:
Stomp is slightly rebalanced and is much easier to land in combat.
Bullrun is slightly rebalanced and is now the longest lasting stun in the game should you land it.
The way you will use Roundhouse Kick has changed, it should be more useful now when fighting multiple enemies.
Leg Sweep can now be used to keep your enemy from escaping!:
Leap At has been readjusted:
Uppercut should now be useful in combat when your opponent is Reeling:
Guns have been slightly rebalanced and can now be used to keep your victims from escaping!:
Regain Composure has been rebalanced:
NEW COMBAT MOVE: Club
Primitive Clubs may now be crafted. Using the combat move Club requires the user to be wielding a club.
Clubbing provides a short duration stun while increasing reel.
NEW COMBAT MOVE: Cleave
Halberds may now be crafted. Using the combat move Cleave requires the user to be holding a polearm.
Cleave does AoE damage and should be useful in uneven group fights.
Alchemy
We have slightly altered the Refresher Potions, hopefully making them worth the expense of crafting them. Refreshing potions now get a bonus based on your Natural Philosophy. Fishrot Refresher materials increased but now provide 60k Inspiration over 3 uses, Mescaline materials increased but now provide 150k Inspiration over 3 uses, and Sweet & Thorny materials now provide 750k Inspiration over 3 uses.
New Alchemy Skill: Steam Distillery allows you to craft a Steam Distiller and Glass Vials.
A new way of making leather requires the services of an Alchemist. New Item Glass Vial can hold some Alchemical Substances. Place a Glass Vial in the new Steam Distiller along with a fresh Red Rose, and in a few hours, you will find a bit of Rose Otto in your vial, and an inspirational Dehydrated Rose.
Mixing Rose Otto with any vegetable oil will give you a rose tinted tanning solution which those who have learned Fine Leathercrafting can use to attempt to make Fine Leather. Your chance of getting Fine Leather rather than ordinary Leather increases with concentration of the Otto.
Hunting / Animals
New Meats: Raw Bear Slab, Raw Deer Slab, Raw Argo Cut, Roasted Argo Cut.
We hope you like the new Slab meat type which will allow you to bring more meat home while still being able to forgo a sled.
Deer now drop an Inspirational Deer Hooves, which can be boiled into Animal Glue.
The new Animal Glue is now used in crafting Cuboards, Sheds, Simple Chair, and Simple Table.
March Hares now drop bones, Beavers drop Lard, and Argopelters can be butchered for meat.
Hides now dry faster on average:
New Hunting Skills:
Butcher tables of all animals have been altered such that Rabbit yields are greatly altered, Beaver and March Hare yields are slightly altered, Deer and Bear drop significantly more meat. All animals, including turkeys and snakes, drop more meat with better Butchery skills, which was not always the case before.
Butchering has been changes so that Brains now drop first, followed by largest meats and continuing down to shreds.
Some 'bonus' item loot tables have been adjusted.
Butchery Skills have been adjusted:
New Skill: Viscera and Bits will increase the chances of getting interesting items from various animals:
Animal health and attack values have been adjusted to match the new loot tables.
Turkeys now do slightly more damage.
Timber Rattlers have slightly fewer hitpoints.
Deer now do much more damage and have significantly more health.
Bears have had their Stomp radius increased, their hitpoints Drastically increased, and their damage Drastically increased. By very careful when hunting Bears now. It's dangerous to go alone, take a friend.
Tempo
As promised, Salem the Walking Simulator is no more!
Increased player base walk speed, wander speed, run speed, swim speed, rowboat speed, and canoe speed.
Other Shinys
New Inspirational: Broken Bough.
Argopelter Beaks and Amber Resin are now Inspirationals.
New Inspirational: Painted Feathers
Benjamin Bryberry will now take a small donation of silver to sneak a peak at the official Town Records.
New Crafting Items: Wooden Handle, Sword Blade, and Sword Hilt for all your Tool crafting needs.
New Skill: Ambitious Excavation speeds up the quarrying of various boulders.
New Skill: Granite Excavation allows you to sometimes pull a Granite Boulder from a Stone Quarry.
Beauty and the Balance:
Inspirationals will no longer add cost to the proficiency when studying multiple ones in a study session. Instead, they simply cost more Inspiration than they would normally.
Several Inspirationals have had recipes or Inspiration amounts adjusted:
Several item unlocks and recipe locations have changed:
Several Skills have had their proficiency and/or prereqs adjusted:
Rowboat Max Health increased.
Those Rarefied Thornbush Flowers are now slightly more common, but still very rare.
Thorn Bushes are now more difficult to destroy.
Higher tier Cereal Ears now add more to Haystacks.
Sweet & Thorny, and FishRot ToolTips now correctly display Inspiration.
Shoot ToolTip no longer says you are required to use Gunpowder for slingshots.
Clay Trough speeds has been increased and its use now costs Phlegm.
Executioner Axe buffed.
You may also now chop trees with your Halberd if you so desire.
Metal Axes, Metal Shovels, Halberds, and Pickaxes now all require the new 'Wooden Handle' to craft. Swords require both the new 'Sword Hilt' and the new 'Sword Blade' to craft.
You may fuel your fires with Wooden Plugs and Wooden Handles.
A new loot table has been added to digging. You should get more than just Worms and Traces.
Speaking of digging, shovels no longer add to digging artifice, but instead modify your base digging speed as axes do. This actually means that because artifice is a diminishing return, your Digging artifacts will now be more effective in increasing your digging speed.
Sheds have had their material cost lowered.
Metal Chests have had their material costs increased significantly. They are now smaller in what they can hold and liftable when full. They also take significantly more time to destroy and will not decay when left off claim.
Gelatinous Lard can now be seen when dropped on the ground.
Tanning Tubs should now display a tooltip on what type of tanning fluid is inside of them.
Several alterations have been made to the Menu structure:
Spawn rates of various items and animals have been significantly readjusted as have the biomes in which they spawn:
Newbie Nice Things:
The tinder drill has been adjusted to be less deadly, doing only 1.5 Blood damage for a failure, the amount of Phlegm used has been decreased, and the speed has been increased.
Flint and Steel now has a better chance to drop Precious Sootflake.
Slingshot damage is now normalized with lower humor characters doing more damage than they used to.
Slingshot fibre requirements have been reduced.
Timber Rattlers will now spawn less often when lifting a Hollow Log.
Bark now dries much more quickly.
'Forage' now decreases speed only slightly and increases herbs found significantly.
'Wander' now increases the chance to find herbs (it actually didn't before).
Wild Garlic is now an Inspirational and gives more Phlegm and Black Bile regen.
Honeysuckle Kudzu is now an Inspirational.
Hickory Trees now spawn 3 extra nuts when picking them with the Nuts & Seeds skill.
Hickory nuts can now be eaten as food.
Hickory Nuts and Roasted Chestnuts now make good Black Bile gluttony foods for new players.
Huckleberries now provide more regen.
Blackberries now provide a smaller Gluttony timer and have been adjusted to be a good 'finishing' food to round out a point in any Humor.
Crown of Thorns now only draws .2 Blood per tick.
Trial Members can now light Stoves.
Jackalope Antlers now drop more often.
Perfect Autumn Leaf may now spawn when picking Maple Leaves.
Players now animate when picking leaves.
Fibers may now drop when using a loom.
All education skills now provide significant upgrades to Inspiration regen.
Some low level skills have been adjusted:
Tears:
Canoes now take time to mount.
Yellow Bile drain while Foraging increased.
Tiny Pocketwatch drop rate significantly reduced.
Gathering Branches, Maple Leaves, Bark, Acorns, Myrtle Oak Leaves, Blackberries, Cranberries, and Hickory Nuts is now slower.
Planing Boards and all crafting at Whittler's Bench is now slower.
Gathering Hay from your Haystacks is also slower.
Elusive Last Bone and Rainbow Scales are now more rare.
Wild Oats are now more rare.
Materials for Windmill and Church have been significantly increased.
Stone Boulders now have only 40 Stone.
Players will now appear back home when KOing on claims. The more crimes you have against a claim, the longer you will stay if you KO on it.
Build signs will now decay on or off claim. Only unbuilt objects will disappear, so build your materials into your signs and you will be fine. (Mass storage will be added in the future)
Drying Racks can now be picked up and stolen.
Haystacks may also be lifted when they are empty.
Off claim fields will now decay.
Salt can be used to destroy a field, and Humus prepping will repair it.
Makeshift Walls are now splashable.
Makeshift Walls now have less HP.
Makeshift fence cornerposts now take fibres.
All fences have had their material costs increased.
Beaming Proud Sunflowers are now much more rare.
Material costs for Cupboards have been increased, but their inventory size has also been increased to 8x9 to make them worth building instead of Sheds.
Woodworking affects Whittler's Bench, Carpenter's Bench, and Tree Chopping, but not Sawbucks.
Size of Alchemy Tables has been decreased.
Characters off the Docks now only spawn with Priestly Robes.
Townbells, Boundary Stones, Crosses of St George, all Houses, Churches, and Windmills must be built on Pavement. All other structures may now be built on most other terrain types. An error message will now tell you when you need pavement to build.
Lifting Chairs or other player housed items will cause the players location to be dropped from the object. Please note that I like Trojan Horses, and a piece of me died inside when having this done. This was to combat players loading up chairs and boats full of their friends, as well as another very major bug that could result from this. I plan on finding a way to get Trojan Horses back into Salem.
Turning the Violin Player on and off 10 times in a single minute will cause the heirs to his estate to be happier.
There you have it folks. Month Two down. Still a LONG LONG road ahead of us. This next month we hope to get more content on the store. Updates the default client, and we will most likely be attacking the issue of Purity for the month of September. Enjoy!