By Mod EdHello everyone!
It is now time for another mega patch. This one took a bit longer than expected due to IRL stuff, but also because it is packed with so much stuff.
As you all know, we are getting closer and closer to launch now, which means I need to put some time into improving the app for new users and making the barrier to entry lower. So this patch comes with a lot of UX, UI and QOL improvements which should benefit all new and existing users!
Let's get into it!
Trial: Trading Post & Economy
I've had a long-term goal of having a player-owned economy in Levla. After a lot of consideration, I decided to do a trial of it before launch. This is a system that can be disabled by me very easily as it is quite independent, so we will see if it makes any sense later on and if it will actually be used.
Coins have until now been quite useless and just stacking up, because there is nothing to spend gold on. There are plans to add more items to shops and things to spend gold on (like cosmetics, upgrades, and maybe "workers"), but that is further away.
With the Trading Post, you can now buy and sell items to other players, which opens up a whole lot more for gold to be spent on. It's available starting from the current patch. I've also actually done some mathing on our economy gold-wise and it looks really healthy, which is awesome to see. However, by launch the gold input will of course be lowered (since dungeons no longer give flat gold) which was a big influx of gold into the game.
You can access the Trading Post from the market tab (inventory)!
Note: Levla currently has 50 active users, so this will most likely look very dead. But imagine when we have thousands of users, this is going to be blooming!
Inventory QOL Changes
With the recent addition of Inventory Tabs, managing your inventory got a big improvement. However, it is still a bit clunky, especially if you have hundreds of items, and that is something I wanted to fix in this update.
There are now two new modes accessible from your inventory settings sheet.
Insert Mode
There is now a toggleable insert mode. When enabled, dragging and dropping an item over another will now insert the item in front of the hovered item instead of swapping their positions.
Sort Mode
A new sort mode has been added, which can be entered by pressing "Enter Sort Mode" in your inventory settings sheet.
When in sort mode, you can select multiple items and move them to another tab in bulk.
Skill Details & Item Details
A lot of content has been added to the game recently and more will come. If you're a new user this can most likely get confusing very fast. For us who have been part of the playtest, things make sense now, but as a new user the barrier to entry is quite high. That is something I'm actively working on right now, and the first two improvements are coming out in today's patch.
New Skills Screen
The popup that was shown when clicking a skill in your skills list has been replaced by its own dedicated screen with a lot more information available about the skill.
- Much better description of each skill
- You can now see all unlocks that come with a skill
- Properly see your bonuses (if the skill gives any)
- Leaderboard tab to find other users who trained this skill!
I'm sure this will help a bit with clarity!
New Item Details Sheet
The old popup for items has also been replaced with a new bottom sheet which has gotten the same clarity treatment. This also gives us way more space to work with, so adding more content here in the future will be much easier.
- Shows durability in the icon now
- Compares equipment to your current equipped item in that slot
- Updated stats section slightly, new titles, and you can now press each stat to get a nice description of what it does. Try pressing the crafting quality one (it will now show all qualities and their rarity)
- The sheet also comes with a Sources tab where you can see where this item can be found, whether it's from a shop, drop, resource node or even a quest!
Much better in my opinion!
Late Check-In Popup
I have heard that the late check-in popup has been acting a little bit weird and I am still working on looking at what is causing this. However, this update comes with some performance improvements to this popup which might also fix some of the reported issues.
Art, UI & UX Changes
- ART: Updated the image for Veigar's Curiosities shop
- ART: Updated item icons for Daggers, Swords, and Tattered Cape
- ART: Added custom icons to the Bartering skill
- ART: Updated the art for the dungeon: The Old Sewers
- UI: Fixed small UI issue with purchase popup
- UI: Changed resource gathering color palette
- UI: Skills screen progress bars now use a skill-specific color to stand out more
- UI/UX: Updated the NPC bottom sheet that shows when viewing an NPC in the dungeon view
- UI: The update screen has been updated to better show progress + style update
- UI: Dungeons no longer show XP + Gold as 0 if there are no rewards
Other Changes & Fixes
- NEW: You can now purchase armor + weapons up to Steel from the Weapon & Armory Shop
- FIXED: Opening a shop from a dialogue now properly lets you swipe back to close
- FIXED: Skill icons using older icons instead of new ones
- FIXED: Slaying monsters and NPCs in dungeons now gives combat XP based on total damage dealt. 33% goes to Vitality and the rest is distributed randomly into Attack + Defence.
- FIXED: Auto-pulled supplies not getting put back in the right tab
- FIXED: Cancelling a monster slaying adventure now gives you rewards up until cancellation
- FIXED: Stamina not being depleted after starting a bounty adventure
- CHANGED: We are phasing out "Practice Skill" slowly. A few skills have been removed: Bounty, Cooking, Blacksmithing, Alchemy.
- CHANGED: Handworking has been renamed to Artisan
- CHANGED: Scratch's Dagger has been added to The Old Sewers and has an updated description
- CHANGED: Tattered Cloak has been renamed to Tattered Cape
- CHANGED: The character screen icon to a head instead of a sword.
- BUFF: Scratch's Dagger has been buffed to be an upgrade over Rune Dagger
I hope you enjoy this update, see you in the next patch will be filled with new content!
