1.6.1 – Faster, clearer, fairer

Update 1.6.1 is live. Shortly after the Relic Hall comes the first big follow-up, and almost everything in it comes from you: your hero can now stand at full height, the long chains for upgrades and relics are much shorter, and a long list of your reports from Discord and Steam is done. Nobody loses anything: what you already have stays.

The hero at full height (thanks, Naya)

Naya told us that the frames were covering her hero. In 1.6.0 we trimmed the frames; now the whole hero follows.

• Half figure or full figure. In the settings under “Display” you switch between “Half figure” and “Full figure”; a small button on the hero card does the same. The full figure stands in a rectangular frame, and all 24 frames have a shape of their own for it. Two arrows at the edge flip through the garments you have already unlocked. The choice applies to all ten slots. On wide screens (from about 1,700 pixels) the hero stands in a column of their own anyway and shows the full figure there by itself; otherwise the half figure stays until you switch.
• A column for the hero on wide windows. From about 1,700 pixels of window width, the hero stands with name and life bars in a column of their own on the left, and the menu gets its height back. You can switch the column off in the settings.
• The campfire badge. As long as the campfire blessing is active, a badge stands next to the hero: the ring shows the time left, the shield the experience bonus, and that is the very number that takes effect. Without a blessing it disappears; a click on it opens the camp.
• A new Wound-Walker frame. The “Wound-Walker” frame has been repainted and leaves the hero clear.

Faster to the goal (thanks, countzero666)

countzero666 did the maths on Discord: how long does upgrading a mythic melee weapon take when its material comes from a single boss with a daily window? His answer was 127 years. It was not quite that bad, but he was onto something: some chains took months instead of days. So we measured every long chain in the game, with 20,000 simulated players per chain and the same loot functions that roll in the game, and released the brakes. The goal: a few days to two weeks, not months.

• Bundles of eight instead of five. Daily bosses and world bosses now give their material in bundles of eight instead of five.
• Bad-luck protection for boss material. If a boss with a daily window does not drop its upgrade material for six days, the seventh day drops it for sure.
• Bad-luck protection for world boss gear. For weapons and armour that only world bosses drop, bad-luck protection makes sure a long losing streak ends after about 14 days. (The limit of one piece of boss-loot gear per day still applies and can push it back a little.)
• A second way for melee weapons. On the final tiers, the upgrade accepts, as an alternative, the same amount of Frostbreath Gland and Primordial Heart Frost from the Primordial Frost Worm, an ordinary foe without a daily window. If you farm there, you have the material together in about one day of active play. The gland and heart-ember of the Ash Drake still count, and nothing changes about its loot.
• Relic parts drop faster. The parts of The Hundredth Day, Shoulderweight and Last Thought drop faster and have bad-luck protection, the Ash Sprout for the Rootcaller is guaranteed sooner, and the Last Thought now needs only two Memory Gold instead of three.
• You can see where you stand. The upgrade card now shows “On average about N days” or “about N wins”, calculated from the same numbers as the loot itself. The foe card, the item wiki and this estimate line also name the bad-luck protection.

What that means in days. The first number says after how many days half of the players are done, the second after how many 99 out of 100 are done; for the relics only the first is shown.

Calculated for someone who plays every day (around three hours plus the night watch); for bosses with a daily window, one win per day counts. If you play less often, it takes correspondingly longer. Parts and counters you already have stay.

From your reports

• “To the foe” on house tasks (thanks, countzero666). Every open daily task of the Houses of Ash now has a button that takes you straight to the right foe.
• Hide purchased tools (thanks, countzero666). On the tools (Upgrades and Market) a switch hides what you already have at the highest tier. If everything is purchased, it says “All tiers purchased.”
• Search fields keep their focus (thanks, countzero666). In the Ash Bank and in Equipment the search field lost its focus after one or two letters, and the next keys went off as hotkeys. Now the cursor stays where it is.
• The Yard crate rounds (thanks, countzero666). It showed its capacity with fourteen decimal places; now it shows a rounded number of hours.
• “Her weakness” (thanks, countzero666). In German, the cards of the female titans said “his weakness”. While fixing it we searched the whole game and found 27 German lines where a name in a sentence got the wrong gender or case, world bosses included. All of them are fixed.
• Correct labels on armour (thanks, Madazenus). On the workshop cards, armour now shows Attack, Defence or both, depending on what the piece really has; before, it only ever said Attack.
• The belt chip is wide enough (thanks, countzero666). The small chip on the belt switches between “ready”, the cooldown and “Heal” and had no fixed width, so the healing items next to it shifted a little every time. Now it is wide enough and no longer cuts off its text in any language or zoom level.
• Relic sources are correct (thanks, Madazenus). The Fur Knot now names the level from which it really drops: Ember hunt from level 86 instead of 80. In the “Relics here” strip the materials now also say who drops them, and identical entries appear only once.
• The picture no longer jumps (thanks, Madazenus). If you had scrolled down a page and then did something, for example arm an Ash Sigil, the “Relics here” strip disappeared and the whole picture jumped up by its height. We measured it: this affected not just the dungeons but 13 pages, among them World Boss, Titans, Mirror Lake, Ash Tower and Expeditions. The fix sits in the one place that builds the strip for every page.
• A hint for the Garment of the Ashen Night (thanks to everyone who asked). Many of you searched for it and did not find it. Now the game gives a hint that puts you on the trail. Where exactly it comes from, we will not tell you here – that is for you to find out.

Clearer Ashfall and relics

We measured exactly what happens to your relics in the Ashfall, with the real Ashfall on nine save files. The good news: almost everything you farm for relics comes along. Parts, the twelve materials, Ember Solder and Titan Shards are saved, and the whole entry of the hall stays: awakening, echo, Ember Trail, bad-luck protection and hall rank. The only things that can burn are the ordinary assembly ingredients (bars, splinters, crystals and the like), if the relic was not assembled before the fall. Three things the game did not say correctly until now, and one reminder is new:

• The preview counts correctly. The preview in the Ashfall window now also counts the Last Bond, Homecoming (Awakening V) and Ash Anchors as saved, not only Final Ember and Last Ward.
• The Daily Spark also works on sleeping relics. It now also gives echo to sleeping relics (0.3 per day and chosen relic). Before, the button said “received today”, but nothing arrived.
• Clear words about ingredients. The window and the help now say clearly that ordinary assembly ingredients burn, while parts, materials and Ember Solder stay.
• Hral reminds you of your sleeping relics. After the Ashfall, the Relic Hall's menu entry lights up with a number (“N waiting for Hral”). On your first visit after the fall, a small window shows all sleeping relics: which ones you can call home now and from which combat level the others are ready, each with its cost.

Display and controls

• The Ember Crucible shows itself. The return window now names how many runs the Ember Crucible made and how much gold it took for them, with a button to its page and one to switch it off. If a run takes 500,000 gold or more, it speaks up every time, not just the first. Reserve and switch are also in the settings. What it catches up on your return stays as it was.
• The top bar no longer pushes the text around. When an effect, a potion or the treasure run appears or disappears at the top and the bar becomes one line taller or shorter, the card you are reading stays where it is. This had been the case for a very long time and showed on long pages such as the forge and the market.
• The sliders in the settings window no longer get stuck. The sliders, for example for music and effects, got stuck when the page behind them was redrawn in the middle of dragging. Now the redraw waits until you let go.
• Two nuisances fewer. The Traveller's speech bubble stops catching clicks after a few seconds, and the letter dialog no longer comes straight back after you close it.
• Numbers written properly. Upgrades, crates and the wiki now show odd percentages exactly instead of rounding them to zero. The places for Veyr Core and Titan Marrow name every world boss that drops them, and the marble block names all of its ingredients. In the German text, decimal numbers now use a comma instead of a point (for example on the equipment page, the Ashfall page and in the Pyre Tree), Expeditions no longer show an ambush reduction of zero at scout rank 0, and the menagerie shortens large XP numbers like everywhere else.
• Numbers in your language. In French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian, decimal numbers now use a comma, and large numbers get the thousands separator that is usual there: a narrow space in French, a point in Spanish and Portuguese, a space in Russian.

Small things from testing

• The hero selection waits until the intro has finished.
• The Ashfall dialog names the Relic Hall.
• The chronicle only announces a new page when there really is one.
• The search no longer gives away anything that is meant to stay hidden, and knows the hall's technical terms.
• The “Relics” menu entry appears together with the hall's window.
• The “Relics here” strip shows at most five lines, the rest folds out.
• The Relic Belt remembers the weapon's base form and says honestly how many pieces it put on.
• The last part of a relic announces “complete”.
• Nine languages. All new texts exist in all nine languages.

What comes next

The Ember Grades are in the works. Until then: thanks for playing and for every report on Discord and Steam. This update would not exist without you.