Update #38 Release Notes April 9 2015

Introducing the Horen

Added a ton of new Horen faction assets including a new keep, shop, well, terrain, catapults and towers.



More Horen content will be added over the next few updates.

Founder Vexie

Founder Vexie has now been added to the Founder Bundle. It costs the same price but now includes one extra skin.



Anyone who previously purchased the Founder Bundle should now find a free Founder Vexie in their inventory.

Heroes

Skalla

Fixed Skalla's traps not properly refreshing Bleed on targets who are already afflicted with Bleed.

Vallamere

Fixed a bug where the splash damage from Might of the Empire was damaging Structures and Wards.

Standardized attack ranges of all melee heroes.

Hero Gear

Battleborn Axe and Heart of Valor now show the number of stacks they have in the Active Buffs Window.

Items

Leader of the Pack Recipe changed to Merchant's Vest + Leeching Vial + Dagger + 800 gold from Short Sword + Leeching Vial + Rapier + 775 gold





Total cost reduced to 2715 from 3205





Now grants 250 Health





No longer grants Attack Power or Attack Speed





Life Steal aura reduced to 10% from 20%





Attack Speed aura reduced to 15% from 20%





Now has Active: Summon a Spectral Wolf that will seek out the nearest enemy hero within a large range. If it reaches them, it will apply a 40% Slow and reveal them for 2.5 seconds. At Night, 3 Spectral Wolves are summoned instead. 90 second cooldown.

Shatterstorm Recipe changed to Long Sword + Piercing Shiv + Short Sword + 620 gold from Long Sword + Long Sword + Short Sword + 950 gold





Total cost increased to 3550 from 3250





Now grants 10 Armor Penetration





Splash Damage radius increased to 0.8 from 0.7





Splash Damage percentage increased to 50% for Melee attacks and reduced to 20% for Ranged attacks, from 30% for both





Now has Active: Shatterstorm's 3 heads spin around you, each dealing 100 (+0.25 AP) Physical Damage to the first enemy struck and applying a stacking 6.67% Armor reduction buff for 4 seconds. 40 second cooldown.

Gameplay Misc

Fixed bug where you couldn't pick up a dropped an item (e.g. gryphon food or veric pelts) because it was blocked by something in the way (e.g the gryphon or an altar).



Fixed a bug where you could hear a Hero capturing something if you didn't detect them.



Fixed bug where units may stutter trying to go around another unit.

New Communications Options Tab

Front End Chat Show Timestamps (real time)





Join General Chat on Login

HUD Chat Show Timestamps (game time)





Show new twitch messages (if disabled have to use hotkey to show messages)





Show new steam messages (if disabled have to use hotkey to show messages)





Cross Team Chat moved into this category.

Voice Chat Voice Chat options moved into this category.

Hud and User Interface

Team and ally chat messages are now formatted and colored differently.



Messages to all players now have [ALL] prefixed and the colors are based on the relationship between you and the player. (e.g. enemy player messages are red, ally are green).



Added a new Steam chat channel. This can be brought up using a hotkey (default is "m").



No longer receive channel chat messages while playing a game to avoid any possible slowdown due to spammed or busy discussions.



Fixed a number of items that were spamming the combat log.



Fix ActiveBuffsWindow not rendering the correct duration for duplicate non-stacking buffs.



Fix inconsistency in Path to Ascension minimap state: the active checkpoint now only blinks while it is being captured.



Fix tooltips for neutral monster reward buffs displaying incorrect scaling values based on the camp's level. They now display the uncalculated scaling until acquired by a hero, at which point they will display the actual value based on the scaling.



Fix Leaf Scorpion Offering buff tooltip formatting.



Tooltip improvements for a number of buffs that occur during quests.



Advanced Casting moved back to Options->Keybindings.



Repositioned the replay bar so its not blocking chat and other key HUD elements.



Added a new "Toggle Cinematic Mode" button to the replay bar.



Cinematic view enabled (ALT+C) will now also suppress new chat messages.

Front End

Social Media Links

Twitter link button now opens directly to home page instead of a pre-filled post form.

Facebook link button now opens directly to home page instead of pre-filled post form.

Play Panel

Button for Tutorials added. Currently disabled as this mode is not yet available.

Button for Adventures added. Currently disabled as this mode is not yet available.

All buttons on Play panel have tooltips now.

Try Hero will no longer double spam the Hero's spawn dialog when button is clicked.

Twitch

Players are no longer required to register their email to give out Twitch in-game rewards to their viewers.



Complete rewrite of how viewer list syncing is done. Should be much more stable now and not be desynced from your channel.

Twitter

A one time reward chest is now given for following @SinsOfADarkAge on Twitter. Go to the new tab in Profile -> Extras to register your Twitter User Name.

Server Regions

Added new South African servers.

Languages

Added Italian language option.



Added a first pass at Russian, French and Italian localization. If you see problems with translation please let us know. No need to inform us of lines that don't fit within the space allocated for them yet (e.g. they are too big for the button).



Special thanks to our community members who helped with the translations. To protect your privacy I haven't listed your names here but if you would like me to you know who to contact :)

Misc

Fixed rare potential crash bug due to mesh animation thread corruption.



Custom games with no players are now released much quicker than matched games. Don't need to keep the resources around for rejoining.



Many memory fragmentation reductions.



Various rendering optimizations.



Fixed sync bug.

A black cloud falls over the Sunken Forest, a menacing darkness that moves against the wind. As it draws near, it becomes a mass of bird-like shapes, wingtips jutting out of its edges. The hideous cry of carrion-eaters begins to fill the air. A flock of valkryn descends upon the Northern edge of the Forest, savagely squabbling with each other in mid-flight. There are giants among them, with wings near as wide as a blackship's sails. They are savage beasts, clawing, biting, snarling amongst themselves, the giants sometimes spitting up great gobs of acid that sizzle on the ground, the runts occasionally swooping down to take food from their masters.Like the sea that crashes against rock-strewn shore, like the waves that drag men down into the depths, so churns the blood of the Horen. Savage, marauding, and dangerous. With great beasts of burden at their sides, carrying pieces of their disassembled blackships, with valkryn overhead, they claim their encampment. They are oblivious to the pleas for mercy from the poor wretches previously stationed there.They burn the homes of the southmen and hoist their corpses upon their towers as a warning to their enemies. They feed their scraps to the valkryn and the deathhounds, and from their bones they fashion weapons, armor, and masks. The giant valkryn perch upon the towers, spitting and hissing as the Horen march to war.