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Update Highlights
As of Nov. 18, 2020
Willkommen, Wizards, to the new sweet world of Karamelle!
Karamelle is every bit as sweet as you’ve hoped, and more. From exploring the peaks of the Rock Candy Mountains to the streets of Karamelle City, to facing Honey Badgers and Chocolate Moose, Nana is welcoming every Wizard into her world for a tour, starting with Karamelle City.
For months before Nana ever tweeted the first sneak peeks of Karamelle, the team has worked tirelessly, fueled by passion and endless mounds of snacks and candies Nana gave us in order to bring you this new world. What awaits you at the start of Arc 4 may surprise your tastebuds, but there’s a lot more in this update than icing – there's a whole cake of other features! See below for just a sampling of what Nana and the devs have in store for you.
Highlights Include:
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WELCOME TO KARAMELLE!
An unexpected invitation draws the Wizard to Karamelle, home to Nana’s Olde Fashioned Karamelle Delights and the sweetest world in the Spiral. What begins as a dream vacation takes a darker turn as the Cabal and other mysterious forces pull the Wizard into a web of intrigue, deception, and Gobblers. Things in Karamelle may not be as sweet as they seem...
Known Points of Interest:
- Karamelle City: The bustling hub of Karamelle, where visitors come from all over the Spiral to sample the sweets and treats and have an old-fashioned delightful day.
- Candy Corn Farm: A factory farm where Candy Corn is used to make a new special kind of treat, and startling secret ingredients are harvested.
- Gumdrop Forest: A lovely tourist attraction and center of Karamelle candy production, where the gumdrops are harvested that will turn into Nana’s endless array of treats.
Quests to Unlock Karamelle: To begin play in Karamelle, Wizards must have completed the Empyrea storyline and finished the quest Nothing to Fear. The new world begins with the quest Better Recognize from Fitzhume in the Arcanum.
NEW LEVEL 140 CONTENT
Level 140 & New Spells:
We don’t want to spoil the fun of finding and earning the new spell for your school – Oh? Did we mention there’s a new spell for every school? - so instead we’ll talk here about the new spell mechanics that we’ve added with Karamelle.
Can you guess which school is getting each of the new mechanics below?
- DOT Trap – A new trap type that only triggers on damage-over-time spells. These traps cost less than a “full” trap, so you’ll typically get a few such traps with a single spell cast. (This one is too easy to guess, right?)
- Critical Blade – After your spell is cast, you gain a powerful blade if you successfully Critical Hit an enemy.
- Convert Blade – Technically, this new spell effect allows a spell to convert any hanging effect into any other hanging effect – and to scale the new effect based on what was converted. Specifically, one school will be getting the ability to convert a blade of one school into a universal blade of half the value of the original. (Another easy one!)
- Taunt – We've added a new “taunt” mechanic worthy of the name! Attackers must target defenders with a Taunt effect in preference to any other targets. If there is more than one “taunted” defender, the attacker can choose any of them.
- Pacify – And the flip side. Attackers cannot choose defenders with a Pacify effect if they have any other valid targets that are not Pacified. If all the remaining defenders have a Pacify effect, the attacker can choose any of them.
- Confusion – When an attacker is under the confusion effect, there is a chance that any spell he casts will target his own team instead of the enemy team. If the attacker tries to pass, he’ll choose a spell to cast at random.
- Push Jinx – This spell pushes a harmful Charm (such as Weakness) from you onto your target. Since we’ve attached this to a spell, you’ll push the Jinx before your own attack goes off. Pretty SWEET, wouldn’t you say? (Important to note here that Mantles and Dispels affect the casting of this spell, so they can’t be pushed...)
Since we don’t want players to have all the fun, we’ve also added some new spell effects to the Bosses in Karamelle – and you can bet we’ll be adding some of these to player spells just as soon as we can. In order of appearance in the game, they are:
REDACTED BY NANA
PET LENDING AND HATCHMAKING CHANGES
Pet Lending gives Wizards a powerful in-person hatching option to lend their pet for hatching to another Wizard. And as a bonus you can do this without being charged Gold or having your Wizard’s Hatching Slot timer started. It’s a wonderful opportunity to exchange adventure stories as you also exchange pet types!
New pet features wouldn’t be complete without rewards for having fun going through the process. You will get advance warning before the hatch process begins on what type and quality of reward you are expected to receive. The value of the reward will depend on the pet lending level and pedigree. Also, you will receive a badge for many of these lending actions!
Note that there is a limit to how many times you can lend a pet (based on your Wizard’s level).
CASTLE TOURS IMPROVEMENTS
Castle Tours allows Wizards to show off their well decorated and interesting houses, even letting other Wizards visit your home while you are offline. We’ve improved the system in many ways!
Three new house categories have been added:
- Dorms – Basic dorms, Arcanum Apartments, Mirage and Wizard City Apartments can now be added to Castle Tours!
- Gauntlets – If you add a new house to Castle Tours and it contains a Housing Gauntlet, it will automatically be added to the Gauntlets category.
- Collections – Do you have house with every Fire Pet, every Gardening plant, every Fish or a nice selection of furniture from Krokotopia? Whatever you collect, use this category to show it off.
New ways to earn Castle Tours Badges:
- You can now earn badges for appearing on any of the top Castle leaderboards.
- You can now earn badges for rating houses. Only the first 10 houses per day count toward the house rating badges.
Changes to Rating Houses:
- Before rating a house, you must visit both the inside and outside.
- There is now a slight delay before the rating button is enabled to give you a chance to inspect the house.
Other New Features:
- When visiting a house, there now a button to take you to the house entrance.
- You can now favorite Castle Tours houses and visit them later, as long as they’re still on the Tour. When visiting the house, click the Favorite this Castle button.
- Myrella Windspar has a now option to display your favorite castles. Click on a castle to visit it.
A new friend has joined the Castle Tours Headquarters, Angelica Windspar! She sells interesting recipes that are guaranteed to spruce up your home’s design. To buy her recipes you must have earned badges by rating houses. Her recipes use a new reagent, Blueprint Tokens. Blueprint Tokens are rewards for a new event, The Spiral Scene and can be acquired in other ways too.
These are the recipes Angelica sells:
- Various invisible floors, walls, stairs and bridges. These items only appear when you’re placing items. They are placeable collision.
- Placeable banks in various styles. Access your bank from anywhere in your house.
- A placeable world gate. Access the world gate from anywhere in your house.
- A Babbage Basset house guest. Place Babbage Basset in your house and you can purchase all his Castle Magic spells and items without a trip to Marleybone.
- A Castle Tours Apartment. This apartment is conveniently located across from The Commons Fairegrounds.
New Pet Bread Crumb option
Pet Bread Crumb have an exciting new option, Ignore Ground. When Ignore Ground is selected, pets, mounts and house guests using the Bread Crumb won’t snap to the ground.
Have a gigantic mansion where guests frequently get lost, or just want to touch up your dorm with a few personal reminders? We’ve added a bunch of new house sign options to ensure visitors find their way. They are:
Misc. Signs
- Gardening
- Fishing
- Crafting
- Home
- Daily Reward
Castle Magic Signs
- Directionals (Up, Down, etc.)
- Find this item
- Warmer/Colder
- You chose poorly/wisely
- Try again
World Name Signs
New Castle Magic Spells & Items
Babbage Basset in Marleybone has these new Castle Magic Spells and Castle Magic Items for sale!
New Castle Magic Spells:
- Stop Pet – Stops the targeted pet from moving
- Pet Wander – Makes the targeted pet wander
- Pet Walk to Item – Makes the targeted pet walk to the item that contains the spell. The item must be near where the pet was placed.
- Pet Dance – Makes the targeted pet dance
- Pet Scold – Makes the targeted pet sad
- Pet Jump – Makes the targeted pet jump
- Silence Item – Makes a noisy item quiet. Use the Restore Object to make it noisy again.
New Castle Magic Items:
- Invisible Magic Button – The Invisible Magic Button works just like a wall or floor button but it’s invisible. You can use it to make any appear to be useable.
- Magic Any Item Player Detector – This item can make another item into a Player Detector. On the Magic Options tab of the Magic Any Item Player Detector you can set which item you wish to turn into a Player Detector. The Castle Magic Spell and Target for the Magic Any Item Player Detector are cast when the player gets near the other item.
Also, the Use Item Castle Magic Spell now works with Monstrodomes!
NEW HENCHMEN
New Henchmen are ready to join you as you investigate the new world of Karamelle and all its potential dangers! Here are your level 140 friendly helpers:
- Wener Lebhaft – Level 140 Life
- The Necrohamster – Level 140 Death
- Honeybadger Queen – Level 140 Myth
- Willow – Level 140 Storm
- Whatchamagolem – Level 140 Fire
- Heinz Schneefall – Level 140 Ice
- Otto Korecht – Level 140 Death
Some old Henchman have decided to retire from the life of the Spiral (they secretly ate too much Karamelle candy and are now taking a long nap break):
- Lysmata – Level 125 Storm
- Grud'n – Level 125 Myth
- Acolyte J'on – Level 125 Life
- Oscar Fortunehunter – Level 125 Ice
- Aengus Sellsword – Level 125 Fire
- Lambo – Level 125 Death
- T'Karo – Level 125 Balance
- Zella the OathKeeper – Level 95 Storm
- Elan RainSong – Level 95 Myth
- Merrik BattleCry – Level 95 Life
- Mevian DarkMaw – Level 95 Ice
- M'Arr Grawloc – Level 95 Fire
- Matthias Jabtail – Level 95 Death
- Zzander Venomtip – Level 95 Balance
STAT REBALANCE & MATCHMAKING
Crit/Block Stat Rebalancing:
As part of our ongoing stat rebalance, this update includes significant changes to the Crit and Block stats, how they interact with each other, and how this will affect your play experience in both PvE and PvP.
Our goals for this redesign:
- Expand the functional “cap” of both Crit and Block to allow players to chase new (and old) gear setups
- Restore some stat-based school identity (e.g. Storm has high Crit, Ice has high Block)
- Increase the relevance of the Block stat
- Create a system with customizable parameters to allow us to tweak Crit/Block for PvP without affecting PvE
For complete details on this Crit/Block stat update, check out Ratbeard’s October dev diary!
PvP Matchmaking:
Matchmaking has been in development for some time and now we’re happy to announce that it will be coming to 1v1 Ranked play in this update! Here’s what we hope to see from this update:
- Better quality matches (fewer unfair matchups)
- Shorter waiting times in queue
- Solutions to boosting and setting
For complete details on the new Matchmaking system, check out Ratbeard’s September dev diary!
Also, check out Ratbeard's Karamelle PVP Update dev diary on why we're removing enchants from PvP. This includes reference to players no longer being able to use pre-enchanted spells in PvP.
NEW MONSTROLOGY CATEGORIES
We’ve added Golems and Cyclops to Monstrology! Both creatures have a mix of worlds where they can be found.
For new Wizards, Monstrology allows you to capture ‘Animus’ from defeating creatures and use it to create new spells. These new items will have powers related to the creature which you defeated. In order to begin using Monstrology, you must be at least Level 12.
Learn more about Monstrology over at Wizard101Central.com!
CROWN SHOP DELIVERY INVOICE
We’ve made it easier to review what you have purchased in-game with the new Crown Shop Delivery Invoice. This invoice lists all the purchases you made, their value, as well as where they were delivered (backpack, bank, etc.). Think of it as an itemized receipt!
MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANY
- Fixed a crash instance upon using the Team Up Kiosk
- Fixed an issue where set bonuses disappear upon entering a zone that automatically dismounts your Wizard
- Improved the color depth on wigs worn in the game proper vs what’s shown in the Magic Mirror
- Players should no longer be able to use a hatching elixir with no eggs to hatch when redeeming from their gift queue
- Locked items should now be able to be moved to the shared bank when equipped
- Exiting Bountiful Mine should no longer cause a player to get stuck
- Several PvP related changes (see Ratbeard's Dev Diary)
- Various animation and other graphical fixes
- Various performance and stability improvements
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December 16, 2020
- Solar Surge is now properly labeled and usable for PvP Only
- All versions of the Shift TC are now marked No PvP (as intended)
- Level 140 Storm Fairy now properly casts spells
- Misc. other bug fixes
November 20, 2020
- Mobs below level 50 should not crit
- Fixed TC quick sell
- Should now be able to zone into Rock Candy Mountain from the hub for Monsters Cabal quest
- Final round of The Cavity quest now properly spawn mobs
- Should now be easier to take a screenshot of Cavity
- Beastmoon Monster Mayhem quest giver should reward you properly
- Heidi no longer casts +25 charm when a player uses a death wand spell
- You can now repeat the Toasted Brudel fight
- Some TBD Karamelle badges have proper names now
- Some UI tooltip updates
- Improved game stability
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