After many months of development, I am happy to announce that version 0.2.0 of yams RPG has been released!
This major release builds on the foundation set by the 0.1.x releases. New game mechanics have been added that open up new strategies and gameplay styles, and many existing game mechanics have been tweaked.
Version 0.2.0 requires Luanti 5.14.0 or later, although 5.15.2 is recommended. Please make sure to read the first half of the
above post if you have not done so already. It is unlikely that existing worlds will break, but
back up your worlds before updating!
As always, you can download the new version from within Luanti or from the ContentDB website.
Below are the highlights of this release.
More content in the Cloudlands
- yams_rpg_cloudlands.png (107.76 KiB) Viewed 866 times
In version 0.1.0, the Cloudlands, which includes both the islands generated by the Cloudlands mod and the floatlands generated by the v7 mapgen, was rather unfinished. For this release, more attention has been paid to this part of the world.
There are now mobs that can be only found in the Cloudlands. Some of them can be challenging to fight. Furthermore, mobs can now spawn in caves within the Cloudlands, so be on your guard! There are other subtle tweaks that make the Cloudlands feel less unfinished.
Special thanks goes to those who worked on the Dmobs and the Not So Simple Mobs mods, as the assets for the new mobs came from those mods.
Both the Cloudlands and the Nether are still under development, so please look forward to more additions in the future!
Unique abilities on many weapons
- yams_rpg_special_ability.png (32.65 KiB) Viewed 866 times
Stronger weapons now have fixed abilities on them that can be very powerful. Some of them passively strengthen the player, while others allow the player to deal more damage under the right conditions. There are abilities that also hinder mobs, such as the ability shown in the screenshot above.
Note that any weapons which players currently have do not have to be crafted again. Those weapons will gain those abilities automatically upon updating the game.
Make sure to read the tooltip for each ability carefully. Experiment and see what new tactics you can come up with!
Status effects on mobs
- yams_rpg_stunned_monster.png (120.46 KiB) Viewed 866 times
As the previous section may have implied, mobs can now have status effects. In the above screenshot, the dirt monster is currently stunned. Some weapons can inflict negative status effects such as Stun on mobs, making them easier to fight.
Mobs can also have positive status effects, too. At lower depths, some mobs that spawn may seem a bit tougher than usual…
Note that many status effects are exclusive to players, while others can only affect mobs. A few status effects affect both players and mobs, but they may behave differently depending on who they are affecting.
Elemental resistances on players
In version 0.1.0, many mobs have elemental resistance, but the element of an incoming attack did not matter for players. With this release, elemental resistances has been implemented for players too.
Some types of armor now influence a player’s elemental resistances, and there are now status effects that temporarily increase a player’s resistance to a specific element. The chili bowl and triple berry smoothie now bestow their elemental resistance effects to the player.
Note that while mobs can resist either physical or magical damage, this distinction between those types of damage does not apply to players.
An expanded arsenal of ranged weapons
Version 0.1.0 gave players who focused on the Dexterity stat limited options compared to those that focused on Strength or Intelligence. There were many clear gaps in the player’s arsenal of ranged weapons, and the selection of spears was quite limited. The diamond bow and mithril crossbow were last-minute additions to that version that only partially addressed this issue.
Many new weapons have been added in this release to fill in these gaps, ensuring a smoother progression of power for those that prefer to attack mobs from afar. This includes a new bow, a new crossbow, new spears, and even a new slingshot! Many of these weapons also have unique special abilities. There is also a new game mechanic that only applies to spears.
Tweaked ranged combat
Spamming the punch button while waiting for the ranged attack cooldown to expire no longer works in this version, as the player’s next ranged attack is now delayed if they do this. There is now a cooldown bar below the player’s crosshair when holding a ranged weapon to indicate when they can fire their weapon again.
Ammo for ranged weapons is no longer required to be in the hotbar, which frees up that slot for something else. Ammo only has to be within the main inventory now for it to be usable. An ammo counter now appears on the bottom-right of the screen when holding a weapon that requires ammo.
Rebalanced melee weapons
I wanted axes to be a viable alternative to swords in version 0.1.0, but in practice, axes were inferior to swords in every way besides the increased knockback, which was not useful in practice.
For this release, the characteristics of swords, axes, and spears have been reworked. Axes now deal much more damage and knockback, but their punch interval is longer than swords. Swords deal less damage than axes, but players can attack with them more often, making swords better for beginners. Spears remain the melee weapon of choice for players with a high Dexterity stat, but their damage output is not as high as swords and axes, although their punch interval is lower than both types of weapons. There are other subtle advantages and disadvantages that I will let players discover.
Many melee weapons have special abilities, as described earlier, but note that attacks performed before the punch interval elapses will never trigger those abilities. It is even more important to attack properly when using stronger melee weapons.
Other notable changes
There are many other changes that make yams RPG feel more complete as well as some important changes to game mechanics.
Here is a list of changes that have the most impact on players:
- There is a new main menu background and game logo.
- Scaling applied to various types of non-combat damage, such as fall damage, has been reduced.
- Damage from fire and lava now scales with the player’s maximum health. Fire resistance reduces this damage.
- The EXP penalty on death is now 20% of the required amount of EXP to advance to the next level. Previously, it was a percentage of the player's current EXP that varied based on their level.
- A custom death screen has been added.
- The Glamorous Deaths mod has been removed due to the addition of the custom death screen. The game will continue to support this mod, so players may install and enable this mod separately if they want to.
- The Telemosaic mod has been added. Players with enough materials can now built a network of teleporters to make traveling around the world much faster.
- The recipe layouts of some magical items, such as enchanted pages, have been changed. Their cost remains the same.
- The stats of magical weapons and tools have been adjusted. Their durability has been increased, and damage and mana costs have been adjusted to account for their new abilities.
- Status effects that block negative status effects, such as Ailment Ward, are no longer removed after blocking an effect, but they now last for a shorter period of time.
- The Mana Sap status effect is much stronger now.
- New status effects, including Stun, have been added.
- Many new potions have been added. The Potion of Health Regen’s recipe has also been changed.
- Effects have been added to many types of slime goo.
- Loot chests have been tweaked. Loot also now becomes better at specific depth thresholds.
- The layout of the Bags tab has been changed.
- The Armor tab now has more information, and it takes the player’s stats into account.
- A few new awards have been added.
- Help pages have been revised and updated.
Everything else
Of course, this release has an assortment of bug fixes and minor additions too. These changes can be seen within the spoiler below. Note that these lists are probably missing a few changes.
Spoiler
Bug fixes:
- Fix a crash that occurs when pumpkins or melons are flooded
- Fix a crash caused by trying to use bonemeal on a mob
- Fix damage to armor being applied twice per hit under certain conditions
- Fix armor not being damaged by explosions
- Fix knockback from mobs’ attacks not being applied to other mobs properly
- Fix player projectiles being able to destroy tools on an anvil
- Fix ghosts losing their ability to go through walls
- Fix exploding mobs blowing up more quickly than intended
- Fix a math error related to Poison and Health Regen
- Fix mobs spawning in dungeon rooms exposed to sunlight
- Fix monsters standing in a corner while ignoring the player in most cases
- Fix savannah slimes never spawning
- Fix lava slimes not spawning in the Nether
- Fix spears being thrown when using a boat or a cart
- Prevent horses from being captured with the lasso while mounted
- Work around a very rare crash caused by splash damage
Gameplay changes:
- Add the Tough Skin effect to dried quince pieces and roasted chestnuts
- Remove the Tough Skin effect from pumpkin pie, but make it restore 50% mana
- Make Attack Up more powerful and adjust food items accordingly
- Let bronze armor give bonuses to mana regeneration
- Make nether armor give penalties to stamina regeneration
- Increase the protection values of mithril armor
- Add the stellar shield
- Tweak the stats of scythes, sickles, hoes, and the steel hammer
- Tweak how a thrown spear’s damage is calculated
- Add a rare mini-boss mob that spawns in oceans
- Reduce the drop rate of water essences from ocean slimes
- Make mobs get a temporary increase to their sight range if attacked from afar
- Ensure that mobs always play their war cry sound
- Improve the movement of spiders
- Remove a mechanic specific to skeletons that allowed them to be cheesed easily
- Dark resistance of many mobs, including nether mobs, have been reduced
- Stone monster variants now drop the corresponding type of stone
- Nerf the drop rate of bronze ingots and portal books from the oerkki
- Change how the oerkki decides to use its ranged attack
- Allow the oerkki’s ranged attack to be interrupted
- Make the oerkki’s ranged attack more visible in the dark
- Nerf the diamond and mithril drops from the mineral slime
- Nerf the mese monster’s drops
- Simplify how the land guard’s anger works
- Prevent land guards from spawning during daytime
- Make poisonous spiders more obvious
- Make it more obvious that the mummy is poisonous
- Buff the explosion master’s damage
- Make jungle, poisonous, icy, and savannah slimes spawn more often
- Prevent vehicles from blocking mob projectiles
- Try to make loot within loot chests depend on the world’s seed
- Try to ensure that each dungeon has at least one chest
- Buff the higher tiers of Orbs of Insight
- Change the list of eligible spawn biomes to prevent unfair initial spawns
- Let players craft sticks using dry shrubs
- Let players pick up items while holding ranged weapons
- Increase wear applied to weapons when spamming melee attacks
- Change the net’s crafting recipe
- Make boats go faster
- Implement the Tome of Gravity
- Add tooltips to some tomes
- Make stardust more common
- Let crops appear within the Cloudlands
- Add a better loot table for dungeon chests within the Cloudlands that are above a certain height
- Make pumpkins and melons rarer
- Increase the stack size of water bottles to 99
- Make the poisonous goo more dangerous
- Slightly reduce the duration of the poisonous potato’s effect
- Allow players to respec once per hour of playtime instead of every seven in-game days
- Mark more items within the crafting guide as ‘recommended’
Other changes:
- Update mods originating from Minetest Game
- Update other mods from upstream
- Update licensing information
- Remove percentages next to the primary and secondary stats in a weapon’s tooltip
- Change the texture of Orbs of Insight
- Change sounds related to the slingshot
- Rework how the Plague effect works
- Add new sounds for the land guard
- Add new sounds for the nether leech
- Add hit sounds for some mob projectiles
- Add hit particles for the skeleton
- Add the ‘xcompat’ mod since the ‘hangglider’ mod now requires it
- Track the playtime and death count of the player
- Ignore the player’s minetest.conf when registering spears
- Address most ‘failed to get biome’ warnings
- Address the warning caused when a player punches a mob with their fist
Mod update notes:
- Unlike in Minetest Game, the /clearinv and /pulverize commands will require the ‘give’ privilege
- Cows and a few other animals do not randomly attack the player, unlike in upstream Mobs Redo
If you read this far, thank you! Enjoy the update and feel free to leave feedback!
As for the future, I plan to release version 0.2.1 at some point. There are still some minor issues that I did not fix, and it is possible that I overlooked some bugs which lead to crashes. Regardless, I had a lot of fun developing this release, and I hope you enjoy it too!
(Edit: clarified some details, and added some missing changes)
