Greetings fellow Captains! Can you believe it's already time for another weekly update? Time has certainly flown! This week has been centered on a lot of balance and trying to get combat and AI feeling better. While this balancing will be an ongoing thing as the game develops and is polished, we want to be sure there is an element of challenge, and a need to employ tactics to win a battle. Challenge level 13 has been added, as well as the ability to play as a pirate. Content has been fleshed out across the game, from the starting areas all the way through to the new level 13 late game additions. Here are Aren's notes for this week, and remember, you can follow daily notes on the google doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/134aQGWrGfiwQFpcmsk0IxLsfS8WcB9rrXez2XNJVnB8/edit **CHANGE LOG** **2014-10-31 - Now Live** * You can no longer give flags to other players. * You can no longer do business in towns where your reputation is too low. * Added a new Rumors page to towns showing the player’s reputation standing as well as any rumors available in the region related to trade. As the player’s reputation increases, the number of rumors will grow and their content will become more detailed. * Fixed a bug introduced in the last revision where you’d appear in a town after sailing to a new region instead of appearing on the edge of the map like before. * Pirates will no longer randomly spawn on the edges of the map unless the region is fully under player control. * Reduced respawn rate for pirates in low to mid challenge regions. * Being close to a pirate town now invalidates its ability to spawn ships for the next 5 seconds. * AI will now properly respect well-defended towns and will not try to siege them. This includes avoiding towns with high-ranked players near them. * AI will no longer be aware of towns that are being captured if there is no active sight on them. * AI will now again properly fear and avoid high-ranked players. * AI will no longer gang up on enemies from across the map in regions below ch9. * You can now right-click hire ships to follow you as an alternative to earning combat reputation. Hired help is more reliable than combat-gained followers. * Doubled all damage. It makes the combat faster and more fun. * First captured (or last remaining town) now creates 3 ships instead of just 2. * Each town now increases pirate respawn cooldown by 25%. This means AI will spawn less frequently the more towns they have, and when they do they will be more spread out. * Buildings that have been discovered by players (lighthouses, guard towers) will now mark all ships passing by as discovered as well, which will make them share their sight. * All towns in challenge regions 3 and higher will now sell guard tower and lighthouse building kits. * Reputation is now affected by the challenge level reward multiplier, going up with each challenge level. * Reputation wasn’t awarded on kills properly. Fixed. * Ships are now bright dots on the map. Buildings and towns are dark (reverse of how it used to be). * Inferno is now 250% stronger than it used to be. **2014-10-30** * Changed how world-related data gets stored. As a side effect, you will be able to choose a new faction when re-entering your previous worlds. Don’t worry, everything is still there. * Talent points were not affecting buff strength properly, as it turns out. * Players no longer drop generated floating items on death unless their kill count is 4+. * Crit above 100% now raises damage. * You can no longer challenge regions where you can’t capture anything. * I thought ch13 loot wasn’t in yet. I was wrong, but it had wrong stats. Fixed. * Added a reputation system to the game. Your questing, trading and pirate-fighting is now tracked. * Sinking pirates raises reputation with the region’s dominant faction. * Completing quests and trading resources raises reputation with the town’s faction. * Sinking ships belonging to the faction or capturing their towns lowers the reputation standing with that faction. * Added faction flags to the game that let you permanently switch your faction. Obtained by raising your reputation with other factions. * Reputation now affects the prices of ships sold in towns. * Most quests now have a reputation requirement before you can obtain them. * Delivery type quests can now choose non-hostile towns belonging to other factions. **2014-10-29** * Pirate towns no longer have production. Just demands. * Writ of Service quests (capture a pirate, defend, raid, etc) will now fail the quest if you take them to another region. * Added Challenge Level 13. Beware. No, really: Beware! * You can now find a tool that lets you build siege towers in challenge 13 areas. * Black Flag no longer functions in regions above challenge level 8. * Corrosive ammo coating now debuffs 15 defense instead of 10. * Fixed an issue with not being able to capture some things. * Boosted base stats on the Corvette to make it more inline with what I had in mind. * Fixed an issue with respawning in places you shouldn’t have been. **2014-10-27** * Black Flag will now drop from ch9+ areas (or ch7+ captains), rather than from any pirate ship. * Slash (/) should now activate chat and remain there. * In order to capture buildings and towns in regions, your faction must now own a neighbouring region first. * Players can no longer respawn just in any region. They must own at least one town in a neighbouring region first. Dying in a far-away region will fast-travel the player to the closest region with a town belonging to their faction. * If a player dies, and his faction no longer has any towns left, the player will now permanently switch his faction to that of the Pirates. * Ally ships created from having stars will no longer follow you into new regions unless you can actually respawn in this region. * Players belonging to the Pirate faction, whether permanently or with a Black Flag equipped can no longer use the Fast Travel map. * Building placement for towns was not getting validated properly when players revisited the region. This should now be fixed. * Pirate-controlled towns no longer give out quests. * You can no longer switch ships if your cargo hold’s items won’t fit. * Deflect now buffs Hull by 20%, 40% and 60%, respectively (instead of Defense) * AI will now use Inferno earlier than poison cloud (they swapped places). * AI has been taught to use Deflect. * AI has been taught to beware of AoEs. * Buffs no longer cause the skill bar to refresh. * Haste is now Hasty Repairs: regenerates up to 30% hull and 60% sails over 10 seconds, has a 60 second cooldown and is only usable below 70% health. * AI has been taught to use Hasty Repairs. * Damage from ramming other ships is now capped at 50%. * Ramming into a dead ship no longer does any damage. * Only ch11 and ch12 items will have the orange color now (ch 9 and 10 are purple). * AI has been taught to account for velocity, so all of their abilities will be much better aimed. * Added a new more powerful guard tower (Siege Tower). Watch out for it in higher challenge areas (will not show up in previously visited regions). * Improved the look of the lighthouse and guard tower by adding the missing AO and normal maps. * The ability to capture things wasn’t being validated properly. It should now be fixed. * Added a message that shows up on the player’s screen when they enter a region that can’t be captured by their faction. For the full notes, check the discussion link here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/326410/discussions/0/620695877245814837/