Update notes: November 3 to November 4

Hand-to-Hand now works the way it does in FFXI, and Monks no longer steamroll the early game. Levels 1 to 8 take longer, enemies give up the chase and walk home, and a compass now sits on the minimap. Each of the six job necklaces now has a boss that stands from the moment you take the quest. Mages can buy every level 1 to 8 spell scroll in the starting zones, and the Guild Stewards craft level 8 gear. Almost all of this comes from the third and fourth playtests of the starting zones.

Highlights

• Hand-to-Hand reworked: a round of punches now waits the way FFXI's does, and Martial Arts cuts the wait instead of adding hits.
• Slower early levels: levels 1 to 8 now need more experience, so you reach the Grove and Silkfallen at a more natural level.
• Enemies leash properly: run away and they give up and walk home. Kite them while they're being hit and they keep chasing.
• A compass on the minimap: fixed N, E, S and W markers, with a gold arrow showing which way your camera faces.
• Two new options: Auto Loot Containers and Automatically Target Next Enemy.
• Mage scrolls: every Black, White and Red Mage spell scroll from level 1 to 8 is on sale in the starting zones.
• Stewards craft level 8 gear: and can register you for a craft on the spot.
• Necklace bosses wait for you: each one stands from the quest step on, and returns after you've turned the quest in.
• Weapons are job-locked again: a Black Mage can no longer pick up a Great Axe.
• Trusts count for loot: the best Treasure Hunter in your party sets your drops, and Trusts take longer to call.
• New Marksmanship animations: all six skills now use proper rifle and crossbow shots.
• A cleaner parchment map: water is now blue, with an inked shoreline, and the terrain is less busy.

Combat

• Hand-to-Hand: a round of punches lands two hits, but it used to wait only as long as one weapon swing. A round now takes 480 minus your Martial Arts (never below 96), plus the weapon's "+X". The weapon tooltip shows that "+X" (or "−X"). Monks hit much less hard early on, though Combo is still a strong opener. Daggers are unchanged, so Thieves will be looked at again after more play.
• Martial Arts reduces delay: it no longer adds extra hits. Martial Arts I (level 15) takes 80 off the round, Focus 40 and Martial Flurry 160 (15 seconds). Kingdom Gages and Demonclaw Mantle take 10, Ascended gear 14 and Ascended +1 gear 16.
• All 24 Hand-to-Hand weapons were moved to the new "+X" scale, as were the enemies and Trusts that fight with their fists.
• Archery: the arrow now leaves the bow when the skill fires. Before, Flaming Arrow looked like it shot two arrows, one from the animation and one a moment later. Release timings are earlier on all six archery skills, and the held draw is shorter on Flaming Arrow and Piercing Arrow.
• Marksmanship: the old spin-kick animation is gone. All six skills now use rifle and crossbow shots, and the arrow or bolt prop leaves the weapon cleanly.
• Fixed a Marksmanship skill that moved your character about 1.3 m forward, so the camera and collider drifted away from the model.
• Enemy melee effects now appear on the target's body, facing the attacker. Before, a Miram Drift bear's effect popped up above you and nearly off screen.
• The sonic rings from wolf howls and bat screeches now face forward instead of sideways.
• The combat target marker is half its old size.
• Steal: when a Trust steals for you, the attempt uses the Trust's own Steal bonus. The item still goes to you.
• Rimefreeze from Ice Elementals now lasts 15 seconds, down from 60.
• The Ice Elemental's front shard no longer stays stuck pointing out after it uses an ability.

Enemies

• Leashing: enemies now drop their target and head home once you get away. An enemy as fast as you are used to chase you forever, and now it gives up at about 30 m from its starting area.
• Kiting: the leash is paused while an enemy is being hit, for about 8 seconds after each hit. Stand and shoot a chasing enemy and it keeps coming.
• Enemies now recover 20% of their health every three seconds while out of combat. Training dummies are unchanged.
• The Bat's hit area now sits on its body, not a metre below it.
• Honey Cubs in Silvercrest Enclave are a third smaller. The Grey Warden keeps its size.
• The Grove Spine-Cat has its own coat again: dark fur with blue glowing stripes. It had been using the plain Tiger look.
• The Ancestral Nightmares in Silvercrest Grove now fight as the jobs they look like: the spear carrier as a Dragoon, the archer as a Ranger, and the swordsman as a Paladin. The Ranger now hits harder than before.
• The Elemental Spirits (Earth, Ice, Lava, Thunder, Water and Wind) no longer hover a metre off the ground. Bats, wyverns, octopi and stingrays still float, on purpose.

Experience & Levelling

• Experience needed per level for levels 1 to 8 is now 900, 1,000, 1,100, 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, 1,500 and 1,500. Reaching level 6 takes 5,500 experience in total (it was 3,500) and level 8 takes 8,400 (it was 5,700). Levels 9 to 20 are unchanged.
• Early story missions now pay 150 experience, down from 250 (Dwarven 1-1 to 1-6, Elven and Human 1-1 to 1-7).
• Starting-zone side quests pay at most 150 experience, and simple fetch quests pay 100. Several used to pay 300 to 1,000.

Job Necklaces

• The six necklace bosses (The Bogfather, Harlan Quill, Stillclaw, the Grove Spine-Cat, Rimehide and Galeheel) now stand from the quest step that asks for them on, including after you've turned the quest in. You no longer need to kill them "first" to make them appear.
• Each one comes back about ten minutes after a kill, once you've visited two other zones.
• The Grove Spine-Cat is now a Boss. It is up only while you have Shock Spikes accepted, and it drops the Quillcharge Torque on any kill.

Quests

• Job Beginner's Guides: step 1 now has two objectives, "Reach level 5" and "Travel to" the zone you need to go to (Highland Plateau for Warrior and Red Mage, Miram Drift for Thief and White Mage, Silvercrest Enclave for Monk and Black Mage). If you're already there, it completes when you accept.
• Blaze, the Black Mage guide's target, is now level 5. It was level 20.
• Each starting zone's Courier no longer offers the job quests for the mentors in that same zone. Dagny skips Warrior and Red Mage, Ithren skips Black Mage and Monk, and Osk skips White Mage and Thief.
• The Priestess Who Stopped Praying: fixed a quest that could never be finished. Its objectives now read "Search Near the Glowing Tree" and "Find What Calls Her Name".
• Offer a Prayer: Prayer Water has a proper flask icon, and there is a new step, "Offer the Prayer Water". Click the well once to pour, then again to turn in.
• The Cold Pantry: Ice Elementals were too strong for this level. The quest now asks for Drift Bear Haunch from Drift Bears.
• Quest-only items stop dropping once every objective that needs them is done, and don't drop before you've accepted the quest. This fixes Midge Bat Wings dropping long after you had enough.
• "Reach level" objectives in the tracked quest list now update as you level.
• The Quest Log shows quest names again. They had gone transparent.
• The Quest Log's objective gems no longer have a red ring around them.
• Quest markers are softer: less glow and gentler colours, soft gold for available quests and soft green for turn-ins.
• 26 quest items that had no description, or one that only repeated their name, now have short lore. The Thief's Ice Crystal no longer says "Snowy Bear Pelt".
• The Grove's books have real names: Grove Keeper's Journal, The Thornwoven Codex, Songbook of the First Light and The Sylvane Reliquary.
• "Secure the Grove" in Highland Plateau now has level 3 Dervish Rabbits, and a stray slime has left the Memorial Hall.

Trusts

• Calling a Trust is now a three-second cast. Moving, getting hit or dying breaks it.
• When a boss arena's walls close, Trusts left outside warp to you inside.
• Drops now roll with the best Treasure Hunter in your party at the moment of the kill, Trusts included. Wear the gear yourself, or bring a Thief Trust.

Crafting & Merchants

• Guild Stewards: Brannoc (Highland Plateau), Ilvaine (Silvercrest Enclave) and Marlow (Miram Drift) now list all 30 level 8 gear recipes, plus other recipes up to recipe level 25.
• A Steward can register you for a craft up to the Registered rank, for the same 2,500 gold and skill 8 as in Misthaven. The Register button follows the recipe you've selected. Licensed and above are still handled in Misthaven.
• Spell scrolls: the general merchants in Highland Plateau and Silvercrest Enclave, and the Dwarven Ice Merchant in Miram Drift, now sell every Black, White and Red Mage spell scroll for levels 1 to 8.
• The Crafting Log's recipe list is sorted by recipe level. Each recipe shows its craft's icon and a level in brackets before its name.
• The Craftable filter is now a gem toggle with a label. The Register button appears only once you can buy the next rank.
• Long result descriptions shrink to fit instead of running over the materials.
• The "+X today" note on the crystal cost is gone. It was a skill bonus from the day, weather and moon, not a price. The bonus still applies.
• Merchant stock is sorted in shop order.

Items

• Weapons are job-locked again. A job can equip only the weapons it can use. The "any job, any weapon" setting is off.
• The weapon tooltip now says "You are (not) proficient with this weapon." and no longer warns that equipping changes your weapon skills.
• Equipment tooltips now show an icon for items any job can use, a double star.
• Item tooltips grow to fit long descriptions, such as the Message in a Bottle.
• Four weapons that sat far off the price curve now cost in line with the weapons around them: Brass Axe, Bronze Knuckles, Ash Club and Maple Scepter.
• Loot bags can be picked up from a little further away.
• Chat colours items by type: armour is cyan, Curiosities violet and key items green. Weapons stay copper. Quest key-item rewards now post a line in chat.
• Shared consumables, such as potions, now show their cooldown on every action slot that holds one.
• A slot you can't use now flashes a black icon over it instead of a broken-looking cooldown ring.

HUD & Interface

• Compass: the minimap shows N, E, S and W on its rim. A gold arrow shows which way the camera faces, so dialogue and quest directions are easier to follow.
• Nameplates are centred over characters. Drev's now shows his name.
• The "new curios" message now says they've arrived at the Auction House in Misthaven.
• Parchment map: water is blue, with an inked shoreline. Grass and rock get their own tone and outline, and the terrain is simplified. We're still tuning it, and some zone map images still need to be regenerated.

Options & Controls

• Auto Loot Containers (Options › Gameplay, off by default): opening a container takes everything in it.
• Automatically Target Next Enemy (Options › Gameplay, on by default): when you're fighting several enemies and the one you were on dies, you switch to the nearest one that's attacking you, and keep auto-attacking.

World

• Characters and creatures now stand on the ground. The player's collision shape had been sitting about 10 cm too high, and every zone's walkable mesh now follows the terrain's real surface.
• Silkfallen Cavern has a cleaner walkable mesh, with one surface instead of two competing ones.
• Ropes in Beaconrock Hollow now rest on the crates and docks beneath them. Twelve were floating.
• The three Tome Pedestals in the Grove now have the standard torch flame.
• Gathering rings start straight away, and the pieces from a mined node disappear after two seconds.
• Highland Plateau's dwarves are now close to the player Dwarf's height. Dorin Ironhall, Vrenn Forgemark, Thorin Ironhall, Haldrek Stonemar and Tuldak Ironbell had been far taller than the player.
• Pell's horse, Consequence, now makes the same animal sounds as the Enclave's horses.
• Low Open and Standing Open, the chest and container animations, now run for as long as you're opening the container.
• Silverleaf in Silvercrest Enclave no longer stands holding logs.

Characters

• Fixed NPCs standing with their mouths hanging open. Their idle, walk and run animations were holding the jaw open a little, and now it stays shut. Talking mouths still move.
• Achievements no longer repeat after you die. "Kill 10 enemies" had been awarded four times to one character.

Audio

• Falling from six metres or higher now ends with a heavy landing thud.

Known Issues

• Six Trusts in the roster, the Chapter 2 job masters, stay locked for now.
• Saves from before this patch with a level 5 job quest or The Narrow Door in progress haven't been tested. If one gets stuck, please report it.
• When the water is high in Blackgrim Wetlands, some quest and gathering points end up underwater. Tell us if one stops working.
• Some of Tutik's tallest cliffs still have no way up from the water.
• The minimap may still show Stickbreaker while it's hidden.
• Enemies don't have a wind-up before most attacks yet, so some hits give little warning.
• The Couriers in the starting zones stand with their arms pressed against their sides.
• Some zone map images are out of date, and the parchment map is still being tuned.
• Some newer consumables still use placeholder icons, and the Clapperless Bell has no icon yet.
• Trial Sigils can only be bought at the Hunt Board for now, not crafted.
• Runic Surges don't have their announcement and victory sounds.
• There are small cracks between terrain tiles on Highland Plateau.
• In Beaconrock Hollow, the skeletons near Draven Kell can get stuck running in place, and Old Tally moves in small stutters.
• Dwarf characters created during the female-Dwarf builds keep that body. Start a new Dwarf to see the current look.

Thanks for playing, and keep the reports coming. Include the version number from the title screen when you do.