Version 0.8.1

Version History
← 0.8.0 January 1, 2011	0.8.1 December 3, 2011	0.8.2 → January 1, 2011

Patch notes

These are the official patch notes for version 0.8.1 released by Grinding Gear Games.

Features

• Added the Rhoa quest in the Mud Flats
• Added the Medicine Chest quest to the Terraces.
• Quest rewards added to all Act One quests. Higher difficulties give special items instead of skill gems.
• Added proper quest text to Act One
• Added skeleton casters to many areas (ranged elemental foes)
• Many dungeons now have Epic Chests at the end. These drop a lot more (not necessarily better) items.
• Changed how rare item names are generated
• Added new weapon types to decrease the gap between weapons at higher levels. They have borrowed art for now.
• Partied members in the same area can now be seen on the minimap regardless of distance
• Flasks are now refilled by more than one charge when bosses are killed
• Stability improvements to the server backend
• Improved doodads in the spider grove
• Some more variety of Act Two areas added
• Named most of the Act Two monsters
• Added waypoint to the start of the Flooded Depths
• Increased variety of moss monsters
• Updates to sound effects, visual effects and world environments
• New Rhoa charge animation
• Improved the flowing water in Act Two town
• Some quest text now displays in a more readable way
• Default chat type is now local chat (not party)
• Improved the size, branchiness and challenge of dungeons in Act Two
• Rhoas can now charge past the player (with an improved animation)
• Chat now won't fade away when a linked item is hovered
• Set max party size to 6
• Added limit of 24 characters per account

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that resulted in most monster movement speeds being slightly wrong
• Ghost Pirates should now be holding the correct coloured weapons
• Fixed size of the Massacre Club
• Fixed some problems and crashes related to linking items
• Scroll wheel should work in chat now properly
• Fixed issues where items would be positioned wrong in chat if the window was resized
• Fixed a bug where skills could get stuck repeating
• Fixed a bug where item icons would not fade from chat
• Fixed various leaks and crashes
• All party actions now display messages
• Following a party member into their own portal no longer disconnects you
• Fixed a bug with hover names displaying wrong when entering an area
• Area transition names now appear at reasonable heights
• Minimap is now once again underneath item hovers
• Fixed bug where the minimap moves as you type certain characters
• Coloured names in chat now fade out properly
• Chat word wrap problems fixed
• Inappropriate monster mods should not spawn on the wrong monster types now
• Volume of many sounds is corrected
• Fixed a bug in the display of portal names
• Fixed a crash when the client was closed on the main menu
• Chat text containing the "@" symbol is now coloured correctly
• Unique items linked in chat now display properly
• Realm shutdown messages now appear at the right times
• The Alpha ladder now displays the correct character classes
• Made non-interactive NPCs non-interactive
• Fixed various temporary names and spelling mistakes
• Fixed a bug that allowed access to the Inca Dungeon before killing two bandit lords
• Moss monsters will bleed stone now
• Players are now unable to transition directly back to Merveil's cave when they enter Act Two

Balance

• Improved benefits of armour by 25% to aid Marauders and Duelists
• Bonuses to attack speed and cast speed are now substantially smaller
• Dropped item base type selection is now biased towards items at 70% of your character's level
• All player weapon attacks are 10% faster by default now
• Nerfed elemental damage on items, support gems, Elemental Hit active skill
• Improved difficulty of Act Two bandit bosses
• You can now only gain one charge of each type per action you perform
• Made monsters even faster in higher difficulties
• Merciless difficulty is now a lot harder
• Blood Rage skill is now more dangerous to use
• All stats gained per active charge are now slightly worse
• Spell area of effect is slightly harder to obtain now
• Made progression of Ruthless difficulty shallower. There's more of a gap before Merciless now
• Whetstones/Armour Shards now improve quality by different amounts depending on the rarity of the item. Normal = 5, Magic = 2, Rare/Unique = 1.
• Increased overall monster density
• Granted Mana and Hybrid flasks 10% more recovery
• Made "Multiple Attack", "Multiple Cast" and "Multiple Projectiles" support gems require more mana
• Biased currency item drops towards the common ones more
• Reduced effect of "Reduced Mana Cost" support gem by 20%
• Added ranged skeletons to the Prison and the Ledge
• Reduced experience penalty in Merciless difficulty to 15% (from 20%)
• Made starting difficulty Hillock harder
• Nerfed some implicit mods on items such as cast speed
• Decreased Ice Nova damage
• Increased Fireball damage and mana cost
• Changed knockback passives to be knockback-on-crit
• Changed the stun calculation to be probabilistic
• Reduced default stun duration to 350ms
• Block rates nerfed substantially
• Many passive skill changes to balance individual stats (mostly damage going down)
• 30% additional penalty to ranged monster accuracy
• Halved monster energy shield recovery delay time
• Ranged monsters now have more life and do more damage