1.5.1 – What the Lake Swallowed

Update 1.5.1 is live. The Mirror Lake has a story to tell: its fish swallow more than gold, and now you decide which ones to gut. Boss fights also get calmer and tidier, and nearly everything else in this update comes straight from your reports and wishes on Discord and Steam.

What the lake swallowed

• Gut fish on purpose (thanks, countzero666). Gutting at the Mirror Lake now has a “Gut heavy fish only” button. It guts exactly the fish that have something in their belly, and each of them gives its find. The rest stay with you for cooking.
• Heavy fish stand out. They carry a clear badge with a tooltip and a frame around their row. A short legend explains the mark.
• “Keep” per kind. Every kind of fish can be set to “Keep”. The two group buttons, “Gut heavy fish only” and “Gut all except ‘Keep’”, then leave it alone, for example for your cooking recipes. The buttons in each kind's row work as before and always go through.

If there is gold in a lake fish's belly, sometimes something else now lies with it. Six new finds, each with a purpose:

• Drowned Ember Mark (at any depth): an old swallowed coin, meant for selling.
• Gallstone (from 60 m): for alchemy. Dissolved into a Riptide Brew, one brew becomes two.
• Drowned Bottle Post (from 120 m): when you gut it, you read one of three lake letters, which then stays in the World Chronicle.
• Gizzard Stone (from 200 m): for gem cutting. Two gizzard stones make one Frost Flawless.
• Clouded Lake Pearl (from 300 m): for crafting. Four lake pearls and one silver bar make a pearl necklace.
• Eye of the Lake (from 500 m): a rare piece for the museum, in the Hall of the Sea.

The “Treasures” tab shows under “What fish swallow” what can be in a belly at your depth. The finds come on top: the gold in the belly stays as it was, and rings, keys and everything else from a fish belly drop exactly as before. The set line finds the new pieces too, and lake letters you have read stay in the World Chronicle after the Ashfall.

At the bonfire: Keep or Protected?

Rody asked on Discord what the difference between “Keep” and “Protected” actually is. A fair question, because the game never explained it anywhere.

• A legend above the “My choice” list now explains every state: “Burn” means auto-burn burns everything above the threshold. “Keep” only locks auto-burn, you can still throw the kind into the fire by hand. “Protected” locks both and shows a lock. Favourites always stay put, just like protected pieces.
• Every button has its own tooltip. It names the state and says what the next click does.
• “Keep” now also applies in “Wood only”. While checking, we noticed: in “Wood only” mode, a kind of wood you had explicitly set to “Keep” still burned. Now your “Keep” holds in every mode. Kinds you haven't set behave as before.

Boss fights, tidied up

Three things bugged us in our own play, and Naya reported one more.

• After a boss fight you stay with your boss. After a win or a defeat against a world boss, an epoch boss, a trial, a titan or a seal boss, you are back on its page instead of the Hunting Grounds. This now works every way, whether the last blow was a normal attack, poison or an ability. Until now it only worked for abilities, and a world boss almost always falls to a normal attack. Dungeons and the tower stay on their page as before, and “Repeat” keeps running in the fight.
• Faster to the next boss. In a world boss's loot window, “Collect and continue” starts the next ready world boss right away, and “Stop Combat” takes you from a trial or seal fight back to its page.
• Boss fights get their own window. When fighting a world boss, epoch boss, titan, trial or seal boss, and in a dungeon or the tower, the full Hunting Grounds foe list with its region tabs no longer sits below the fight. Instead, a short note tells you where you return afterwards. “Stop Combat” stays at the top and bottom. The “Spoils of the Hunt” strip only shows in a boss fight while “Repeat” is running, and then counts the boss loot across many fights. Normal hunting is unchanged.
• No more jumping while you watch. The combat page used to be rebuilt from scratch on every event: every win, every phase, every ability and every potion. Now only the values update. If you scroll down during a fight, you stay there, and nothing flickers anymore.
• “Where does my damage come from?” stays open (thanks, Naya). The panel closed on every win, so with foes that fall in one hit you could never read it. Now it stays open until you close it yourself and always shows the values for the current foe.

Companions, foes and gear

• One-of-a-kind companions can rank up (thanks, Naya). Stars come from duplicate companions, so a companion you can only get once was stuck without a star forever. Riftbiter and Ash Sleeper can now be bought again in the Embertide Shop whenever they are on offer. Every further purchase adds a star, up to five. For every other companion that exists only once (from the Ember Trail, seal bosses, the tower, the daily reward, the Mirror Lake and the fifth Ashfall), the Embertide Shop offers the new Starglow: one star per day for your active companion, otherwise for the one with the fewest stars. The Menagerie card of each of these companions tells you where its stars come from. Nothing is taken away.
• Cleaner foe cards (thanks, Rody). Health, attack, experience, “danger to you” and counter or study progress are now always on the card, and for bosses also the healing warning and special attack. The fold is now called “Story & origin” and only shows the story and the home region. Gold per kill is in the loot table. Resistance and counter stay hidden until a foe is studied. Every number comes from the same calculations as before.
• “Unequip all” (thanks, countzero666). A new button under the paper doll in your gear puts everything into your chest with two clicks. The first click asks, the second one unequips.
• “Equip best” in a fight (thanks, countzero666). While a fight is running, “Equip best” now also swaps workshop pieces for your best combat gear. Outside a fight your workshop set stays on as before, since you usually wear it on purpose while gathering and crafting. The hint under the paper doll now says so.
• House tasks count like daily orders (thanks, countzero666). While a House task is open, the requested trophy drops three times as often, just like the orders on the board, offline in the night watch too. The House task and the loot table say so.

Colour, art and language

• Combat in its own colour (thanks, Isorn). The combat tabs in the menu now glow rose, clearly apart from gathering (green) and crafting (orange). A small colour legend with all three colours is back at the top of the menu, each with a tooltip.
• World Ablaze outfits without gaps (thanks, Naya). On some outfits from the World Ablaze the background showed through, and on Sera's “Unburnt” a whole leg was see-through. 13 of the 18 pictures are fixed, small and large. Design and pose stay exactly the same, only the gaps are closed. For the archers, the space between bow and string of course stays open.
• Grammar fix (thanks, countzero666). The German afterword of the second Ashfall now uses the correct dative case.
• Three translation errors fixed. French: in the daily reward window the Ember Shield read “Meilleure”, now it says “Bouclier de braise” there. Simplified Chinese: the title “Kholmoss, the Unforgotten” contained one character in traditional script. Traditional Chinese: the Ash Warren now has the same name everywhere.

Thank you

Thanks to countzero666 for gutting on purpose, “Unequip all”, the House trophies and the dative, to Rody for the bonfire question and the new foe cards, to Isorn for the combat colour and to Naya for the damage panel, the companion stars and Sera's leg. You make this game a little better every day. ❤️

Your saves are kept, and Steam downloads the update automatically as usual. See you at the lake. 🔥