Hey guys,
It's been a while since the last update and thus this topic is a little longer. I've done my best to keep things as short as possible, so that everything can be read quickly. We've got a new boss and some tweaks for the Ranging skill introducing proper longbows, new arrows and new bolts!
Engine / Performance TweaksQuite a lot of people were complaining that the game was lagging. I've investigated the issue and was able to tweak some things in the engine that will improve fps rates overall. I was able to identify and fix a few problematic rendering issues. The game runs best on a dedicated graphics card. If you've got a laptop with 2 graphics cards, make sure Emps-World runs on the high performance one! Intel HD chips (primarily on laptops) are known to be slow and really can't get you 60+ fps with maxed out settings. I'll now be stopping to improve the game's performance, because it's been the only thing I was able to do in the past weeks. I want to focus on content updates rather than improving the game engine more and more. I've also received quite a few reports about invisible players, areas not loading properly, flickering objects, etc. I'm still working on getting all graphical glitches fixed, but it should already be in a really good state right now. These problems are coming from the aggressive loading method I'm using. If you enter a new area, your game doesn't pause and loads new data on-demand resulting in smooth loading processes. While this sounds really nice in theory, it's a nightmare to program it. That's the main reason for certain objects not loading properly or players disappearing. However, it's already working out quite nicely and will be free of bugs in the future.
Spell EffectsI've been watching some wilderness fights and this has been a topic for quite a while now: The hit chance of spell effects. Magic hit chance and spell effect chance have always been one value and with this update I am separating them. The chances of successfully applying a spell effect on your opponent is double your accuracy. So even if you've got only a chance of 30% to hit your enemy with a magical attack, the chance for a spell effect to apply is 60%. This change may sound harsh, but I think that freezing spells in the wilderness have lost their purpose. The damage output is fine imho and I don't want to change that.
Har'LakkUp for a similar challenge as Nex? Har'Lakk is going to give you another tough fight! You can enter the boss lair north-west of the Barrow hills. If you cannot find the spot, use the minimap and simply search for Har'Lakk. The boss drops items for the 4 top damage dealers and can be instanced. It is highly recommended to face this enemy as a team. The best drops you can get are the Demon longbow and Demon crossbow; new level 85 Range weapons. These weapons allow you to fire Ancient arrows and Ancient bolts, which will boost your dps by a significant amount.
I've tried my best to get Har'Lakk down on my own... but I couldn't get it done. Maybe you can show me how to properly get a solo kill?
Here's the Demon longbow and crossbow:
More Ranging TweaksI'd like to make longbows more useful in the game and am thus introducing their weapon type. Whenever arrows are used with a longbow, they give you additional +30% Ranged strength to compensate for their slower attack speed. This results in much higher dps and makes them a valid alternative to shortbows.
The Ranged requirement and thus crossbow requirement for enchanted bolts has been increased by some levels each. You now require a level 71 or 72 Ranged weapon to fire dragon or onyx bolts. The strongest ammo shouldn't be usable with lower level crossbows, because it results in too much damage on weaker equipment. Enchanted crossbow bolts with their level requirements are now also existing in the Range skill guide.
I'm changing the level requirement of dragon arrows and introduce 2 new arrow / bolt types:
- Dragon arrows: require level 60+ bow
- Barrow arrows: require level 71+ bow
- Ancient arrows: require level 82+ bow
- Ancient bolts: require level 83+ crossbow
The point of this change is to create a gap between low and high level Ranged gear. Prior to the update you'd get almost the same damage of any bow that used dragon arrows. You can now use higher level arrows with higher level bows, which gives higher level bows a real power-up. However with this changed I am forced to nerf the arrow strength of arrows by 10%. Otherwise the newly introduced arrows would outperform everything. Barrow and Ancient arrows can be poisoned as well. The projectiles of poisoned dragon, barrow and ancient arrows have received a different model. It can now clearly be seen when you're firing a high-level poisoned arrow.
Engine changes: - Fixed screen mode updated. It's now usable and scales appropriately with your monitor. If you've been a fan of the fixed screen mode, I recommend trying it out now and adjusting the frame scale setting in order to make it bigger.
- I've identified quite a significant fps drop when new regions are loading. I can't remove this completely, because loading a new region just requires some loading time. However, I've changed the way a new region loads a little. The minimap is now refreshed after the region is fully loaded, which has a smaller impact later on on fps drops. I've also sped up the way floor is loaded. Overall the fps drop still exists (has no fix), but is a lot less impactful than before.
- Fog calculations overhauled. I now have support for more foggy areas and the way fog is calculated was also adjusted. This may result in an increase of fps on slower systems and fixes some transparency issues with distant objects.
- Animated objects are now properly replaced and are no longer flickering. This issue existed pretty much only in Agility courses, especially in the Karamja one.
- A bug with character / npc clones has been fixed.
- The option to select Pick Mode has been removed. By default the software pick mode is now used, which is faster and isn't an ancient openGL technique that's long deprecated.
- Minimap viewer has received some improvements. Certain maps would not load and edges of walls wouldn't display.
Game changes and updates: - Kolodion respawn timer changed from 30 minutes to 15 minutes.
- Certain minigame npcs have had some of their combat issues fixed: Spectrals, barrows, etc.
- Zamorak and Saradomin bows have been buffed. Their unique arrow effect has been turned into more reliable and flat +8 arrow strength bonus when used with their appropriate bow.
- Karamja Agility course has received a little overhaul. Animation timings were improved and a few bugs have been fixed.
- The dragon arrows reward in the Barrows chest has been replaced with Barrow arrows.
- Nex and ancient warriors/rangers/mages now drop Ancient arrows.
- Dragon arrows can now be fletched. All dragon arrow drops have been replaced with dragon arrowtip drops.
- New arrow types (barrow and ancient arrows) can now be fletched.
- Crossbow stand animation has been updated. Crossbows will no longer be inside the player model.
- Bolt animation updated. You can now see what type of bolt you're shooting (includes enchanted ones). The start and flight animations have also slightly been improved.
- Non-members can now use one additional bank tab and members two. Resulting in a storage of 11 bank tabs and 1200 items in total.
- Halloween event has been removed. You can no longer get any skulls as drops. However, the miniquest including Roddeck and the Grim Reaper can be done any time.
- The spawn timer of Shooting Stars has been reduced by about 60 minutes. A new star can now spawn in 60-90 minutes instead of 120-180 minutes.
- Cabbages can now be harvested! You may have to re-plant them in order for this fix to apply.
The past weeks have been quite stressful for me, because I had a lot of other irl things to do. I'll now be looking into the Christmas event. After that I'll make sure Melee and Magic also get a brand new tier 85 weapon with a similar boss challenge!
All the best,
Thomy
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