https://i.imgur.com/HiUG9s5.png
This Thursday we are going to be releasing the 0.9.7 Tale of the White Wyvern game update and we wanted to talk about it before it hit because it's special. As we've been working on the game we've changed elements that effected gameplay but on Thursday we are going to make a big change to the game that will effect Rogues and we wanted to give everyone some lead time as it might change how you play.

The Rogue Update

When Tale of the White Wyvern launched I felt like the Mage and Warrior were classes we got right but Rogue always seemed too similar to the Warrior class. Frankly it wasn't obvious to me how to make the Rogue different so at launch the Rogue and Warrior ability were basically the same in that both abilities were a 3x attack. Warriors had a random chance to gain strength in Forkwood Forest and Rogues gained defense and this difference set them apart but the similar skill attack kept them way too close.

When the 0.9.7 update drops the Rogue (S)neak Attack will change to (D)isappear. Disappear is fun new mechanic where the Rogue will use its powers of stealth to be entirely invisible and immune to attack for four turns. So if you are in a particularly hard Forest Fight or Wyvern fight you can disappear taking up the first turn and you will stop taking damage for the following three turns. So, practically speaking, you can deal damage without any retribution for three turns.

The reason why we are letting players know of this change in advance is if you are nearing a Wyvern kill, knowing this in advance may sway your choice one way or another. After testing disappear it really changes the feel of the Rogue class and makes it quite different from the Warrior finally fixing something we didn't get quite right at launch.

We are also adding instructions when the patch drops to further clarify each class in terms of how skills are gained and what they do. There is some confusion from people in terms of classes they haven't played and what to pick and this should help clear that up.

Buckner's Haberdashery (The Hat Update)

When Thursday rolls around everyone will be able to visit the all new shop in the Town Square, Buckner's Haberdashery. Bucker is one of the newest citizens of Wyrmdoor hailing from the Dwarf forge in the Tristan Mountains. Not much is known about Buckner but his warm smile and cozy shop are a welcomed addition to the Town Square.

Hats are special items in Tale of the White Wyvern as they can grant strength and defense bonuses but also increased forest gold find and experience gain. If weapons and armor are the bread and butter of a strong adventurer, hats are the mashed potatoes and as such should be considered after you have solidly upgraded your main weapon and armor set. It's also worth considering that not all hats are a good deal and some might only be useful very late in the game or not at all depending on how you want to play.

To add some mystery to PvP we intentionally designed the game such that you can't see someones weapons or armor unless we randomly leak it out in the Daily News or you Spy on someone in the Tavern. Hats are different in that you will be able to see what someone is wearing on their profile page.

As with weapons and armor Bucker will have a Member only showroom where Cheerful Ghost members can buy alternate hats that have the same power but offer an alternate fun cosmetic set to wear. We've synced up the normal hat and member only hat set to fit in nicely with the corresponding weapons and armor such that if you want to match up each set of gear at every step, you can. For instance if you have Wool Tunic the Wool Hat thematically matches making for a fun ability to pair up equivalent items.

Since hats are an extra thing and not strictly required to kill the Wyvern we will list out the cost of each hat at the Haberdashery AND ALSO note the strength, defense, gold and experience benefits of each.

Bucker's hats:

  1. Wool Cap

  2. Feather Hat

  3. Leather Headpiece

  4. Iron Helmet

  5. Golden Yellow Hat

  6. Grey Fedora

  7. Bronze Helmet

  8. Dodson's Headgear

  9. Black Fedora

  10. Golden Monocle

  11. Silver Helmet

  12. Astral Rock Helm

  13. Crown of Fangs

  14. The Crimson Stetson

  15. Death's Helmet


Buckner's member only showroom selection:

  1. Green Feathered Cap

  2. Shiny Metal Helmet

  3. Green Plumber's Cap

  4. Silver Crown

  5. Blast Helmet

  6. Blue Feathered Hat

  7. Rabbit Mask

  8. Sorting Hat

  9. Newman's Headpiece

  10. Samus's Helmet

  11. Red Plumber's Cap

  12. Tiger Mask

  13. Blue Bandana

  14. Kokiri's Green Hat

  15. X-Wing Helmet


Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/09/2019 at 03:48am

This is cool, but it seems like (D)isappear is going to make the rogue OP. The skill seems perfect for a wyvern fight. I'm sure if I had this before when I fought the wyvern both times, I wouldn't have died at all. I've tried all the classes so far and am currently a mage for the first time. I noticed the mage has more than one magic skill. This new rogue skill will probably get me to try out the new rogue once I beat the wyvern again and get to change class again.

The hats are a cool addition. I may have suggested splitting armor up into different pieces, giving us more use for our gold. I know the last time I killed the wyvern, I had plenty of gold in the bank, which unfortunately went unused and thus lost.

Thanks for the update!

Travis   Admin wrote on 09/09/2019 at 03:58am

> The skill seems perfect for a wyvern fight. I'm sure if I had this before when I fought the wyvern both times, I wouldn't have died at all.

Think about it this way-- warrior primal scream can give you a 3x attack, OR the Disappear ability gives you (functionally) a 5x attack, but the Rogue attack strength will generally be lower.

Mage still has White, which can nearly one-hit the wyvern if you've planned well.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/09/2019 at 04:00am

> Think about it this way-- warrior primal scream can give you a 3x attack, OR the Disappear ability gives you (functionally) a 5x attack, but the Rogue attack strength will generally be lower.

It's actually a 4x attack because the first one just sets up the skill and burns the turn. Frankly I love this kind of game tedium smile

Travis   Admin wrote on 09/09/2019 at 04:03am

Yep, that was a typo :D

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/09/2019 at 04:07am

> I know the last time I killed the wyvern, I had plenty of gold in the bank, which unfortunately went unused and thus lost.

We have plans for that gold in other things we plan to add to the game but won't be coming right away. Longer term we will add some fun stuff to grind a lot of gold for.

Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/09/2019 at 04:21am

>Think about it this way-- warrior primal scream can give you a 3x attack, OR the Disappear ability gives you (functionally) a 5x attack, but the Rogue attack strength will generally be lower.

>Mage still has White, which can nearly one-hit the wyvern if you've planned well.

Since you put it that way, it doesn't sound as OP. I also haven't discovered White yet. Thanks for the clarifications!

>We have plans for that gold in other things we plan to add to the game but won't be coming right away. Longer term we will add some fun stuff to grind a lot of gold for.

Cool. I was disappointed to lose my bank account balance, but I also understood how OP you could be if you had money saved to buy better equipment sooner.

Travis   Admin wrote on 09/09/2019 at 02:42pm

Haha, oh man, I want to start the game with 50 million gold now. 😂

Will_Ball   Game Mod   Super Member wrote on 09/09/2019 at 03:28pm

I found Mage's skill pretty much useless up until the Wyvern. The number of times you can use a spell vs the number of fights you have seems a little unbalanced.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/09/2019 at 04:10pm

> The number of times you can use a spell vs the number of fights you have seems a little unbalanced.

I don't quite understand what you mean, sorry.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/09/2019 at 04:11pm

The Mage's still is my favorite. I shoot magic missiles for my first fights, so I generally don't take damage, then don't have to heal myself and keep the extra gold!

I'm looking forward to the Rogue update to see how it works out. And can't wait for HATS

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/09/2019 at 04:15pm
Will_Ball   Game Mod   Super Member wrote on 09/09/2019 at 08:52pm

>> The number of times you can use a spell vs the number of fights you have seems a little unbalanced.

>I don't quite understand what you mean, sorry.

Meaning I am forced to use my weapon the majority of the fights. It doesn't feel very balanced to use your spells. A mage should use their spells first and foremost while a weapon should be secondary. I feel like magic is secondary. Maybe I have the wrong expectations here based on other RPGs.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/09/2019 at 09:26pm

> A mage should use their spells first and foremost while a weapon should be secondary.

I totally agree with you here.

> I feel like magic is secondary. Maybe I have the wrong expectations here based on other RPGs.

Expectations are fine, I appreciate you mentioning it.

Two things come to mind when I think about Tale of the White Wyvern and classes and it's simplicity and game balance. No one class should feel markedly overpowered but they all should feel powerful. Frankly I think Mage is the most powerful class in the game right now, and we might fix that but I loathe nerfs.

For such a simple game, you can take many paths in Tale of the White Wyvern on how you play the game. Much of this is how you'd play an RPG like Diablo in that you pick your class and then as you level you can't pick a different path, it's fairly permanent. We allow dual classing too and depending on when you dual class you could have dramatically less skill points that someone else by the time you fight the Wyvern. When you balance a fight like the Wyvern you want it to feel hard but also accessable so a reasonable player that made good choices would kill it. We're not the kind of game where I want to dramatically penalize someone for making the wrong choices. I'd rather create a game where people can make choices and see how it lands and you might have a less fun time with some of your choices but it's not too far to the Wyvern to reset and start over and make better choices.

So to keep the game balanced at the core if you take Mage, Rogue and Warrior skills off the table we have everyone level up and gain the same amount of stats and have all weapons, armor and hats(to come on Thursday) be the same. This makes the game a bit vanilla but means that what choices we do allow you effect how easy or hard it is to kill monsters in the forest, PvP or the Wyvern.

Since I don't want one class to be the best class at killing the Wyvern I limit skills so it's easier to balance the game. Kind of like in Diablo III where all your Magic power is derived from your weapon.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/09/2019 at 09:37pm

Also. It might be worth considering that we change the class name to something that's more like a fighter with magical abilities. That would being it more in line with what the class is, which is kind of a hybrid.

I want to build what you are talking about Will, i'm just wondering if we do how that might effect the simplicity of the game? It would be fun to work on for sure.

Will_Ball   Game Mod   Super Member wrote on 09/09/2019 at 09:48pm

> Frankly I think Mage is the most powerful class in the game right now, and we might fix that but I loathe nerfs.

I must have played Mage horribly then, as so far I found it to be the weakest. :P

> Also. It might be worth considering that we change the class name to something that's more like a fighter with magical abilities. That would being it more in line with what the class is, which is kind of a hybrid.

I like this. Going into it, I expected to find a traditional Mage and was disappointed when I found a class similar to the Warrior with some magic sprinkled in. The class felt more like how I would play a Paladin than a Mage.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/09/2019 at 10:11pm

> I must have played Mage horribly then, as so far I found it to be the weakest. :P

White is a 10x attack. Mage has the worst random skill gain (+3 hp) but with white, wowee, get ready for the hurt Wyvern!

> I like this. Going into it, I expected to find a traditional Mage and was disappointed when I found a class similar to the Warrior with some magic sprinkled in. The class felt more like how I would play a Paladin than a Mage.

Cool. Travis and I will think more about this and see what we can cook up.

Will_Ball   Game Mod   Super Member wrote on 09/09/2019 at 10:36pm

> White is a 10x attack. Mage has the worst random skill gain (+3 hp) but with white, wowee, get ready for the hurt Wyvern!

I did use White to knock Wyvern out.

jaelte wrote on 09/10/2019 at 04:25am

What's the matter, you didn't want to name the hat store after your most heroic of players, Rather Dashing? Rather Dashing's Haberdashery has a nice ring to it, does it not? ;-)

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/10/2019 at 03:44pm

It really does. 🤣

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/12/2019 at 03:12am

Just pushed the update out a bit early (enjoy)!

One other change we made was balance the Mage's White attack from a 10x -> 7x.

It was entirely too overpowered and now it feels good but not insane.

Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/12/2019 at 04:41am

Damn, why'd you have to "balance" the Mage before I kill the wyvern w/ it. ;( I'll try the Rogue after I beat the wyvern w/ my Mage.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/12/2019 at 01:31pm

If it’s any consolation I’m a Mage about to take on the Wyvern. This is one of the reasons why I loathe nerfs. There is never a good time.

Travis   Admin wrote on 09/12/2019 at 02:46pm

If it makes you feel better, White is still massively powerful!

Will_Ball   Game Mod   Super Member wrote on 09/12/2019 at 10:19pm

I love the hats and the new Rogue ability. Thanks guys!

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/13/2019 at 03:01am

I love Will Ball for loving the hats and the new Rogue ability.

Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/13/2019 at 06:02am

The hats give me something more to spend my gold on, yet also distract me from trying to save up for that 4 million gold armor and weapon LOL. I did like how different hats have different stats or stat boosts and I got one I liked and haven't died in the forest since. I also enjoy the names you've given to armor, weapons, and hats. You guys have some funny names! There's a Newman's set of armor and a weapon I always buy.

Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/13/2019 at 06:06am

Oh and although lots of FPS doesn't seem to make a difference for me, I'm wondering how much FPS I'll lose in playing at a higher resolution. I probably still won't notice, except for a counter to just see. I imagine the higher resolution for gaming will probably or possibly be noticeable.

Will_Ball   Game Mod   Super Member wrote on 09/13/2019 at 02:05pm

Did GregoPeck get the CGA graphics patch? :P

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/13/2019 at 03:21pm

Hahaha prob commented in the wrong post.

Travis   Admin wrote on 09/13/2019 at 04:59pm

Wait for the webGL patch, where we render that text using your graphics card!

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/13/2019 at 05:14pm

Wait, do you guys have color monitors?

Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/13/2019 at 05:27pm

I downloaded the secret high resolution text pack. LOL Kidding...yeah I commented on the wrong post.

jdodson   Admin   Post Author wrote on 09/13/2019 at 05:29pm

You can play Wyvern in 4K and if your monitor is 120hz it will take advantage of that as well.

🤣

Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/18/2019 at 07:22am

I just confirmed, you cannot one-shot the wyvern with White. I'm not sure how many times I hit it with White, maybe twice. Luckily, I was able to Teleport instead of letting it kill me.

Travis   Admin wrote on 09/18/2019 at 07:25pm

You may have been able to one shot the wyvern the first time through. You’re at 3 kills right? It gets harder each time. But I’m not sure you can one shot it on the first time through with reasonable weapons by that level

Azurephile   Super Member wrote on 09/18/2019 at 07:30pm

Ok, I bought the 10 million gold hat and it made all the difference. I just killed the wyvern (yes, for my third time).

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