Version 0.680a

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
Summary: Finally, finally, the third zone is done and the temple is "complete" in the story sense! Protip if you ever want to make a game that takes a billion years to finish: make only bosses and cutscenes. So without further ado, here's a patch full almost only bosses and cutscenes!

Recommended level: around 21-23

Update Description

Copypaste disclaimer: This is one of those real Frontline updates, meaning the polish level is at maybe 80 % or so. Place holder sounds, some missing effects, etc! Old timers know what to expect!

Also note: Just like with the crafting recipes, the items sold by the shop NPCs will be changed a bit later on! We'll definitely add some new baseline equipment, and some new hats.

Not much to say about this one. It's quite short playtime wise but very... "thick" with content. It feels a bit underwhelming to release after such a long time, honestly, but hopefully when looked back upon this last piece of this very strange "temple" will feel worth the massive amount of time and effort that went into it!

Now, the boss(es) in this patch is in a very unclear state for us. They might be too easy, or too hard, and we have ideas for solving both cases, but we truly can't tell right now! In other words, we very much appreciate feedback on the patch right here in the thread! When you provide feedback for enemy encounters, please also add your level and build!

Some minor changes were made to some dialogues/descriptions get rid of some lore inconsistencies, and to once and for all make the timeline in the different panels correct! The translation crews in particular might be interested in exactly what 'lore' changes were made, and for everyone else please advise that we've merged the two characters Aline and Tannie into one:

Flying Fortress panels now name Tannie as Pine's protegé instead of Aline (they got merged)

Some minor changes were made to a couple Flying Fortress panels

Dates changed in pretty much all panels, including those in Mt Bloom

Bishop used to say that even he couldn't make out the shadow in the player's fate, but... we just didn't like that line so we changed it a bit!

Lurifix no longer receives the "Emblem of Valor", since that name is used for a different item in Tai Ming

The third Caveling Treasure is now called Monyplix's Manifesto in a reference to his hand in making the caveling the master tricksters they have become

Tessen now calls the house where you get the Emblem of Loyalty "the House of Citizens", just like the guard from Zone 1 does.

The Cursed Priestess has a slightly different introduction, since we felt her mentioning the Crown was a bit strange considering... stuff.

/taiming3reset will reset the third zone and place you at the end of the second
/mimicreset will reset the boss
/zhamlareset will reset Zhamla

Here are the patch notes:

Hotfix 03/27/2017
  • Angel's Thirst now actually gives the ATK bonus it says it does
  • Shiidu no longer lets itself be manipulated by the style slot
  • Standing behind the second mimic as the time shifts no longer leaves the player stuck inside the wall
  • Saving Shiidu during the fight now correctly stops additional enemies from spawning when it's over
  • You no longer become trapped in the arena after completing a challenge inside

Hotfix 03/26/2017
  • Game no longer crashes if returning to second zone
  • Game no longer crashes if you try to talk to Bishop, or the priests chanting
  • Enemies should once more respawn in the second zone of Tai Ming
  • A certain boss name is no longer Giant Thorn Worm
  • You now get the enemy entry of the temple boss after defeating it
  • Missing cards should hopefully be back

Additions
  • The third part of Tai Ming is now playable!
  • The first two parts of Tai Ming now have most of their sound effects added
Changes
  • There are no longer any GUN-D4M projectiles that goes through a Perfect Guard
  • A player stuck inside a slime prison can now wiggle to quicken release
  • Unique items gained from chests and quests can no longer be dropped (traded), but most can still be sold
  • Shockwaves (like from the Living Puzzle Block) can now be reflected with a perfect guard
  • Giga Slime's hammer strike can now be perfect guarded without breaking the shield
  • Giga Slime (all versions) should now function better in multiplayer with high latency (100+ ping)
  • "The living puzzle block should now function better in multiplayer with high latency (100+ ping)
  • When farming in the same area, the amount of respawn slots occupied by an enemy now differs between enemies, and if they are Elites
  • Two Elite Echoes of Madness can no longer spawn at the same time
  • The Thorn Worm return-damage now has a maximum equal to the power of the enemy attack
  • There's been a number of minor changes to flavor text/dialogue for better lore consistency - nothing that changes the overall story
  • For a moment after zoning, Frosty Friends won't block players
  • Clouds and Frosty Friends now have 'safe zones' in a lot of cutscenes, where they go to not block the view of the action
Bug Fixes
  • Mundi and the artifacts now have the common sense to flee the scene when the Giant Thorn Worms appear
  • The Giant Thorn Worms and their appendages now obey the damage number settings
  • Teleporting away from Tai Ming during the first few introduction cutscenes no longer softlocks the game
  • Steam Friends playing a different version (Frontline vs Stable) is now marked as such to avoid confusion with failed connects
  • Using Gold charge Heroic Slams in multiplayer now looks proper for the other players
  • Killing Giga Slime while it's in the air no longer leaves its shadow behind
  • Respawning in the past after dying in Tai Ming: Inner City no longer removes player collision
  • Typing in text prompts with movement bound to letter keys should now work better
  • The lobby chat scroll bar has been released from the asylum and should now work properly
  • Exiting the game in the middle of the Santa Fae cutscene no longer soft locks the game
  • Dead players no longer have superfluous empty healthbars above their heads
  • In Arcade Mode, having the Pet Fae active while receiving a reward from Bishop should no longer crash the game
  • Removing stuff from quickslots with a controller now actually removes what you've selected!
  • Static touch cubes no longer permanently disappear after phase shifting into a barrel
  • Teleporting into Mount Bloom now properly triggers 'Go to MtBloom' quest objectives
  • Enemy shield damage will no longer show despite damage numbers being turned off
  • Summons should no longer try to kill the corpses of certain defeated bosses
  • Ivy no longers stands up at the table to stare at players if they talk to her after her cutscene
  • Using certain timerifts in Tai Ming Inner City should no longer deactivate the enemies at the entrance
  • Elite Echoes will no longer get locked in by the puny barriers of mortals
  • The Insect Swarm now properly damages the Giant Thorn Worms
 
Last edited:

The G-Meister

Giga Slime
Just updated. Took the statue up here out of the area after going through a few portals, killed it, and nothing wants to respawn...

upload_2017-3-26_17-3-1.png
 

res7less

Jumpkin
Wow, that was... something! It's not much in game time, but I can see why it has taken so long. The one chest boss alone was really spectacular and I don't even wanna know what it's like to face him on hard (I have never made it past Winter on hard). And the story, oh, the story. Even though some of us have seen it coming, I still had goosebumps all over during the first cutscenes where everything takes a dark turn. Love it, love it, love it.

I only had one crash, but I think that's what was sneakily hotfixed while I was playing as the issue didn't repeat itself. But just in case, after the orb cutscene where the Bishop pops up at the end, I was trying to hit his image, that stayed until after the cutscene. Not sure if that was what caused the crash, though.

Also I laughed so hard at the Shiidu part. 5000 Shield HP and the special effect is that you can't use her. Good old SoG trolling never gets old. :D
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
I played the patch with character that has over 800 HP. I died once to Zhamla, once second before I'd defeat him (second attempt survived with 32 HP), then defeated Mimic on the first try. I don't play Grindea that often, so my skills are pretty rusty, and my test character has all skills and talents maxed (level 21 tho). I'd say the bosses are fine, maybe even a bit too easy.

Looks like the story was very predictable on the Zhamla part, however the Ritual and time travel thing was interesting.

The further into the game, I feel like the default boss music... isn't just epic enough. The Zhamla battle was amazing, and it's like mini-bosses get better music than the main bosses. At least I think so :fish:

Anyways, great work with the patch! (even if it was so little ;_; )
 

Jenkolegs

Rabby
I died one to Zhamala and i got through the mimic with 34/1343HP
I want that human card though...
Who wants to race to kill zhamala without the ritual?
 

res7less

Jumpkin
Style: In Screen 12 (3 of 4) it says "dark power" and in 4 of 4 it says "dark chapter". Perhaps change one of the adjectives. Like "sinister" or "grim".
 

Own

Moderator
Copypasting some of my stuff from chat / other things.

1. I do hope before this goes to Stable, the 'FIGHT-breaking-splashes-healing-on-players' or similar pre-battle healing goes in. Dying immediately to boss #2 due to low HP from Zhamla seems anti-hype

2. Ankin's cherryblossom tree still drops no petals.

3. You can no longer leave the arena through the doors after completing a challenge.

4. When James goes to turn in the new artifact, he has the other scientists in the room. I still only see dad in there. He also sees Gaantlet in the HQ, I only see an empty pedestal.
 

Momizi

Rabby
C76YzFYU8AA_PJo.jpg

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY!

might want to tone it down abit guys...
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
Hotfix 03/27/2017
  • Angel's Thirst now actually gives the ATK bonus it says it does
  • Shiidu no longer lets itself be manipulated by the style slot
  • Standing behind the second mimic as the time shifts no longer leaves the player stuck inside the wall
  • Saving Shiidu during the fight now correctly stops additional enemies from spawning when it's over
  • You no longer become trapped in the arena after completing a challenge inside
 

The G-Meister

Giga Slime
Might as well put this here. New boss music is awesome, sound effects in the previous zones really tie everything together and I enjoyed the bosses. However, I feel Hard needs a step up in difficulty, at least for the Mimic.

Zhamla qualified in difficulty, but possibly only scraping it. It may have helped that I found the pickaxe to be the most useful weapon and that I ran a heavily DEF focused build anyway, but it seemed to take me a few less tries than I would've imagined for a maxed out build upon first contact. For scale, I felt that Cursed Priestess took about three or four times as many tries, and the Giant Thorn Worms about two or three times more.

In regards to the consistency of difficulty in that fight, the bullet hell section seemed a little too difficult until I realised I could tear through the Earth Spikes with the pickaxe and that using the invincibility frames from tanking the odd bullet to run forward really helped. His dashes were pretty easy to perfect guard, but that's probably just me with my unusual amount of practice. The lightning did a fantastic job of obscuring the place the next lightning bolts were going to land, which was especially annoying when they did a pretty significant amount of damage. Finally, it would be nice if he teleported to you before doing the Ice Nova, as otherwise it's far too easy to see what he's doing from his position and stand at the edge. Or maybe it fires out a row of Winter's ice spikes without warning :D

The Mimic, however, felt far too easy. It took me... 4/5 tries? Normally it takes me in the region of 50 for the final boss of a dungeon. While writing the post I had the idea to check what it was like without picking up the health orbs, so I'll go do that in a sec. I can't really pick out what it specifically was because I didn't play it enough, but I have a feeling it's to do with that high DEF build I have - tanking was a pretty easy job, combined with Dodging Strike when you're getting jumped on. In fact, I remember grinding in Tai Ming being more difficult that that. Was certainly a great fight with all the stuff going on, especially the final death, but I don't think I deserved it.

Moar challenge pls. Masochism needs to be fed :mad:
 
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