DD#156 The Legacy of the Four Knights and More Prefixes news - [Neolithic]To the End

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.

This week's development focus is the Sealed Palace so that we can continue the story of "The Legend of an Elf King."

Here is the breakdown:
1, The Floor of Water
It has an environment similar to the underwater tunnel. However, it has its unique mechanism. The floor is made up of a few islands in the sea. To traverse through this area, you will need to study the flow of the water and let the water carry you to your destination. You may need to literally test the water to find the correct path. However, the area is not as safe as the peaceful sea looks.

Water Nymphs are guarding this area against any interlopers. Their charming skills can be as deadly as their water spells.
The good news is, that you may bind them and turn them into your pets if you are skilled.

As we are talking about binding, thanks to Dagarond's feedback on the forum, the system is now much clearer about how everything works. The dice-roll system has been integrated into the binding skill. You will see your skill against your target's binding difficulty roll. That shall allow more informed decision-making when trying to capture pets. Bonus point: You can now also use Loaded Dices to manipulate the chance. That can significantly reduce the difficulty when you try to capture your desired Pokemon... err...I mean pets. :D

2, The Floor of Fire
Although the Floor of Fire in the Sealed Palace is not yet as complete as the Floor of Water, some of the nature of this area can already be experienced.

It's the domain of one of the Dark Elf King's most hot-tempered knights. The floor is just as hot and unstable as its guardian. Grounds are shocking, floors may rise from or fall into lavas. To overcome this level, you may need some patience and stay calm even when everything around you is burning.

Just like this. :)
More content on this floor will be added soon as it still does not have any hostile entities inside yet.

3, The Legacy of the Four Knights
Each one of those floors was once guarded by one of the Dark Elf King's knights. They are Yaers of the Earth, Waqi'er of the Water, Fairey of the Fire, and Wyande of the Wind. In ancient times, adventures had to defeat each one of them to pass the floor they guard to have a chance to have an audience with the Dark Elf King. Now eons have passed, and those four knights are gone. Yet, their legacy remains for worthy adventurers to find.

Each one of their "approval" is a unique ring. Each ring can grant its user a spell of their respected element, spell power increase of its element, and even allow its user to level up their elemental proficiency faster. Each floor of the Sealed Palace has one of those rings. As such, finding those rings can be an optional object for anyone who wants to fully explore the Sealed Palace.

4, Alchemy Usage of Elemental Stones
Previously, we already had access to the Golden Stones of Xuanhuang, which has the power of the wind, outside the Sealed Palace. They can be used in Alchemy to create potions that enhance a character's wind power. Now, as we go down deep into the Sealed Palace, the guardians of this place may also drop other elemental stones. The Earth Golem may drop the Emerald Stones of Liuli which are the stone of the earth and the Water Nymphs may drop the Aquamarine Stones of Biqing which are the element stones of the Water. Thus, their alchemic usages have also been added to the game. You can now use them to create element empowerment potions accordingly. New animations for those enhancement effects are also added to provide a feeling of power when a character is enhanced with an element.

In addition to the development of the Sealed Palace, we also have many more special attributions and new item prefixes derived from them added to the game this week. The goal is to have a method to accelerate the level-up speed of a character's Life Skills, Element Proficiencies, and Weapon Proficiencies.
Here are some of the new prefixes that you may find on random equipment:
Semantic Increase Speech Skill Level Up Speed
Code-Study Increase Programming Skill Level Up Speed
Apprentice-Engraver's Increase Modeling Skill Level Up Speed
Kitchen-Hand's Increase Cooking Skill Level Up Speed
Potion-Researcher's Increase Alchemy Skill Level Up Speed
Kendo Apprentice's Increase Blade Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed
Gun Trainee's Increase Firearm Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed
Novice-Wand-Wielder's Increase Magic Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed
Baseball Rookie's Increase Blunt Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed
More details can be found on the game's wiki pages.
Hopefully, those new prefixes may provide a better gaming experience and make the game less grinding especially when training a new pet or customized teammate on those skills.

That's not everything yet. During this week's update, we also have the Magic Staffs appear on more loot lists so that they can be more available to everyone. For example, Skeleton Cultists may now drop Magic Staffs of Dark. Water Nymph may now drop Magic Staffs of Water. Boss chests in random caves may now have a +2 Magic Staff of a random element. Kayir's Chests on the 2nd floor of the Maze underneath the House near the Paddy Field may now have +2 Magic Staffs of a random element. Compared to their counterparts sold by merchants, those Magic Staffs you loot as your trophies are more powerful as they can have prefixes.

That's for this week. The Floor of Fire is still burning. People are falling into the lava. But, everything is fine. :)


The full update logs of this week:
20240113
English
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[Speical Attribution]Added new special attributions that can modify a character's life skill level-up speed.
[Qimuyi Administration Office]Added a food merchant.
[Prefix]New Prefix: Semantic (Increase Speech Skill Level Up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on most weapons or equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Code-Study (Increase Programming Skill Level Up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on most weapons or equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Apprentice-Engraver's (Increase Modeling Skill Level Up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on most weapons or equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Kitchen-Hand's (Increase Cooking Skill Level Up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on most weapons or equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Potion-Researcher's (Increase Alchemy Skill Level Up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on most of weapons or equipment.)


20240114
English
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[Environment]New Environment: Underwater
[Environment]Changed the environment of the entire Underwater Tunnel to "Underwater" from "Seaside."
[Sealed Palace]The Floor of Water is now accessible. (The map itself is a relatively easy puzzle. More content to be added.)
[Enemy]New Enemy: Water Nymph
[Sealed Palace - Floor of Water]Water Nymphs now appear in this location.
[Loot]Added an item drop list for Water Nymphs. (Defeat them in the Sealed Palace may sometimes give you Aquamarine Stones of Biqing)
[Item]New Item: Alch-Student's Necklace
[Enchantopia Elegance Emporium]The Alchemy Vendor now sells Alch-Student's Necklaces
############DEBUG################
Removed a debug message when gain life exp.


20240115
English
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[Pet]Water Nymphs can now be turned into pets.
[Sealed Palace - Floor of Earth]Removed the WIP board. The floor is pretty much quite completed.
[Special Attribution]Added new special attributions that can make elemental proficiency level up fast.
[Elemental Proficiency]Casting spells with a power score of 0 now also increases your elemental proficiency.
[Elemental Proficiency]You can now only gain elemental proficiency if the spell takes some sort of effect. (This change is mostly to fix an exploit that one can spam spells that will certainly fail to cast from the menu and get their MP cost refunded while still getting Exp.)
[Item]New Item: Yaers's Approval
[Item]New Item: Waqi'er's Approval
[Item]New Item: Fairey's Approval
[Item]New Item: Wyande's Approval
[Item]Those are the 4 rings of 4 Knights of Dark Elf King. But those guardians are no longer in the Sealed Palace. All those rings have similar features while representing different elements.
[Sealed Palace - Floor of Earth]Added a chest that contains "Yaers's Approval."
[Sealed Palace - Floor of Water]Added a chest that contains "Waqi'er's Approval."
[The Bow of an Elf King]Increaed its value from 17000 to 33000


20240116
English
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[State Effect]New State Effect: Earth Enhance
[State Effect]New State Effect: Water Enhance
[State Effect]New State Effect: Fire Enhance
[Animation]New Animation for Earth Enhance
[Animation]New Animation for Water Enhance
[Animation]New Animation for Fire Enhance
[Animation]New Animation for casting earth spells.
[Alchemy]Emerald Stones of Liuli can now be used in alchemy.
[Alchemy]Aquamarine Stones of Biqing can now be used in alchemy.
[Alchemy]Ruby Stones of Shenhong can now be used in alchemy.
[Tileset]New tileset: Fire Cave 2 (The Sealed Palace - Floor of Fire will use this tileset. But, for now, you can use it in your pocket dimension already.)


20240116-B
English
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[Binding]Binding skills now use the dice-roll system to visualize its process. It shall display the difficulty and chance of capturing the enemy. (Thanks to Dagarond's feedback on the forum.)
[Binding]Made the binding difficulty reduction at a smoother rate when an enemy's HP is lowered. (Previously, it checked a few thresholds. Now when an enemy's hp is lower than 50%, the curve shall be linear.)
[Binding]You can now also use Loaded Dices during the binding process. That shall make you able to capture most of the pets very easily as the lowest difficulty on most of the enemies is usually 0.


20240117
English
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[Special Attribution UI]Made the attribution-name window wider.
[Special Attribution UI]Added better mouse support. When the mouse hovers over an attribution's name, its value shall automatically update.
[Special Attribution]Added new special attributions that can increase weapon proficiency levels.
[Special Attribution]Added new special attributions that can modify weapon proficiency level up speed.
[Weapon]The Bow of an Elf King now provides +5 Bow Weapon Proficiency Levels.
[Weapon]The Bow of an Elf King now makes its user level up Bow Weapon Proficiency 50% faster.
[Prefix]New Prefix: Kendo Apprentice's (Increase Blade Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on all non-weapon equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Gun Trainee's (Increase Firearm Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on all non-weapon equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Novice-Wand-Wielder's (Increase Magic Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on all non-weapon equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Baseball Rookie's (Increase Blunt Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on all non-weapon equipment.)
[Prefix]New Prefix: Punch Practicer's (Increase Fist Weapon Proficiency Level-up Speed. It's a generic prefix that may appear on all non-weapon equipment.)
############DEBUG################
Fixed a bug that was causing special attributions related to life skill level-up speed display incorrectly in Chinese localizations.


20240118
English
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[Loot]Skeleton Cultists may now drop Magic Staffs of Dark. (Can have prefixes.)
[Loot]Water Nymph may now drop Magic Staffs of Water. (Can have prefixes.)
[Wonderland Travel Agency]Randomly generated underwater caves now have their environment set to "underwater" instead of "seaside."
[Wonderland Travel Agency]Boss chests may now have a +2 Magic Staff of a random element.
[Maze underneath the House near the Paddy Field]Kayir's Chests on the 2nd floor may now have a +2 Magic Staff of a random element. (The chance is relatively higher than other weapons because of story reasons.)
############DEBUG################
Fixed a rare crash in the generate code of Magic Staffs.


20240119
English
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[Sealed Palace]Floor of Fire is now accessible.
[The Legend of an Elf King]Story continues when you enter the Floor of Fire.
[Sealed Palace - Floor of Fire]Added a new mechanism for this floor to reflect how unstable this floor is.
[Sealed Palace - Floor of Fire]Added a chest that contains "Fairey's Approval."
Added a new way to die: Fall into lava.
#############System###############
map_comparsion now also outputs a list of affected tiles.