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[zorbus_overdose]

Release 33   (13-Jun-2020)

Full changelog:
http://www.zorbus.net/Zorbus.txt

Huge lore update! Some of the old lore books were rewritten and many new books introduced. Massive thanks to Helical Nightmares for help.

A lore sample:
http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/s22.png

http://www.zorbus.net

[Robsoie]

My dwarf unfortunately met his doom after reaching level 2, when going on the 2nd depth some magic users and an archer let me no chance when i decided to rush to them instead of using the usual cautious approach

Nearly one year later after playing a couple of characters the game is still fantastic and easily one of the best roguelike around.
And it looks like i'm still regularly dying around the 2nd level of the dungeon
This time a few kobolds led by their tribe leaders , assisted by some animals destroyed my poor Aasimar player character 

The leopard bites you but you dodge the attack. The leopard claws you and hits! (Slash: 4 = 5 - res 1) The leopard claws
you and kills you! (Slash: 3 = 7 - res 1)
The leopard uses the Leap talent.
The leopard gets hostile at you.
You slash the kobold tribe leader with the urgrosh but miss.
Kobold comes into view in north at distance 5.
You hear a door creaking in southeast.
The giant rat bites you and hits! (Pierce: 0 = 1 - res 1)
The kobold shoots a bullet at you and hits! (Blunt: 1 = 2 - res 1)
The kobold shoots a bullet at you but misses.
The giant rat bites you and hits! (Pierce: 3 = 4 - res 1)
The kobold shoots a bullet at you but misses.
The kobold shoots a bullet at you and hits! (Blunt: 2 = 3 - res 1)
You use a Potion of Healing. Your health is restored 12 points.
The kobold: An aasimar!
The kobold uses a Potion of Cat's Grace. The kobold seems more agile!
The giant rat bites you but you dodge the attack.
You cut the kobold tribe leader with the urgrosh but it dodges the attack.
Kobold comes into view in north at distance 7.
The kobold shoots a bullet at you and hits! (Blunt: 3 = 4 - res 1)
The kobold: Just one more strike, and you are dead!
The kobold shoots a bullet at you and hits! (Blunt: 3 = 4 - res 1)
You cut the kobold tribe leader with the urgrosh and hit! (Slash: 10 = 12 - res 2)
Giant rat comes into view in west at distance 2.
The kobold shoots a bullet at you but misses.
Someone shoots a bullet at you and hits! (Blunt: 2 = 3 - res 1)
The kobold shoots a bullet at you but misses.
You open the door.
Goblin comes into view in east at distance 20.
The kobold tribe leader: I will be back with our sorcerers!

[Mkok]

So far seems interesting, though I found my first 2 characters heavily vary in strength. While the first guy could summon three giant crocodiles that shred everything to pieces from the go, the second guy didnt have enough strength to kill even single goblin...

Just wondering, is there some way to sell items? I made it to the trade dimension, but only items I can sell are my potions...

[zorbus_overdose]

Just wondering, is there some way to sell items? I made it to the trade dimension, but only items I can sell are my potions...

Sure, the shops buy items, but mostly only of at least +3 enchantment or potions / wands etc.

[Mkok]

Thx, got so much stuff to sell merchants dont have enough gold to buy...

So my first real playthrough. Found holy greatmace +3 on first floor, smashed everything to pieces on all levels except for hidden rooms as my detection was negative (though not having to search each room for hidden doors was much more fun then doing so), reached zorbus and challenge the goddes of teleporting archers or whatever it was. Was hoping she would un out of stamina for all those blinks, but she didnt, after what felt like eternity of just running toward her so I can smash her my half-troll just surrendered and fell to the ground waiting for her to finish him with her pewpews... decent game.

Didnt get a cape till level 6, and only found my one single gauntlents and useless ones at that in the whole run... I also wanted a better weapon all the time,but only better thing I could find was a giant hammer +4 I bough and upgraded to +5...

[zorbus_overdose]

Orb of Anchoring is an item that prevents all blinking and teleporting for 26-50 rounds.
There are also anchoring trap kits that you can set and then spring yourself to get the effect. Traps can not be set when hostile creatures are seen, but in the case of the last level, you can set traps before starting 
 a fight.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are some secrets to be found in the shop level and in the last level, but you need high Search-skill to find the areas.

[zorbus_overdose]

Release 35   (22-Jun-2020)

• Optional low Health warning popup dialog that blocks all commands. The dialog is visible for the configured duration or until closed with ESC, SPACE, ENTER, or left mouse click. The warning thresholds can be configured from the settings. You can set a cooldown in seconds between dialogs. You can disable the dialog when it's visible with DEL or CTRL + W. You can disable or re-enable the dialog with CTRL + W in normal game mode.
• Optional Health bar / UI frame flash when low on Health. Can be configured from the settings.
• When no hostile creatures are seen, companion movement speed is the same as the players.
• Companions that were not near hostile creatures are regrouped around the player after autopilot / autoexplore regardless of their movement speed.
• Setting for autopilot / autoexplore: stop if companion sees hostile creatures (off by default). Summoned / animated / charmed creatures are not counted as companions here.
• Tweaked autoexplore so that it stops before a locked door even if you have a key to the door. Next autoexplore command will open the door.
• New behavior for companions: HANDLE. You can command companion to disable or force a lock / disable a trap. Target a lock or a trap with the cursor in target mode, then press companion number to command a companion, or press 0 to select the best companion for the job. There must be a clear path to the target when issuing a HANDLE command. You won't get experience points from locks or traps disabled by a companion.
• Companions in FOLLOW behavior will try to disable or force a lock after your failed attempt if there's one with better Body-ability or Disable-skill nearby and neither the player or the companion sees hostile creatures. The same method (disable / force) will be used. Can be disabled from the settings.
• New pro tip to the manual / ingame book: Give Disable-skill boosting items to a companion. If you have found items that boost the Disable-skill, but don't want to wear them or don't have room in your equipment setup for them, give them to a companion with the highest Motion-ability. Then, when needed, command the companion to disable a lock or a trap. They will also do that automatically after your failed attempt if their Disable-skill is higher than yours.
• Better handling of charmed creatures. Fixed some related bugs.
• Previous release introduced some bugs to the book page changing with mouse. Fixed.
• Fixed a bug with book keyword filtering.
• NPCs no longer pick up scrolls.
• Fixed a bug where recruitable NPCs wouldn't always appear in the shop level.
• Since there are quite a lot of settings now, you can filter the settings-menu items by writing a keyword. Hold down SHIFT if you have binded letter keys for movement.

Video of the low health warnings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKho9KuEsFA&feature=youtu.be

http://www.zorbus.net

[Uthimienure]

I'm having lots of fun playing, thanks for your work on Zorbus!
One thing I can't figure out is how to equip 2 weapons, such as 2 daggers in the inventory screen "Set 1 off hand".
Does it require a special talent or skill?

[zorbus_overdose]

One thing I can't figure out is how to equip 2 weapons, such as 2 daggers in the inventory screen "Set 1 off hand".
Does it require a special talent or skill?

Yes, you need the Dualwield-talent which requires Motion-ability of at least 14 and Melee-skill of at least 3. I'll need to add this info somewhere since it's asked quite often.

You can see the full list of talents in the talent picking menu if you uncheck the box "Info / Hide unavailable".

[Mkok]

Another run, archer centaur, this time with high search. It was much more fun when you didnt have to run a circle in each single room, but the hidden rooms are fun, it would really help to have some kind of auto-search the walls of this room so you dont have to manually run around each single piece of wall in the dungeon, which is quite a bit of unfun time. Really was much better when all I had to do was peek a look into the room to see if there is something or not and run to the next one.

Also, is Michwan unkillable? I challenged her again, got her to start running (forgot to put anchor trap and no way to do it after challenging her so Im stuck with her teleporting?) so I took out my living slingshot and every 1-2 shots I kill her, but she just uses her die-hard talent to regenerate each single time, I killed her for at least 50 times by now, and she is still shooting at me, she truly has some godlike regeneration. Also wish there was a way to make character also have regeneration like that, would be probably too OP though... right now I take 1k+ turns to heal to full even with regeneration equipment (or do they stack if you have multiple?).

I also cheated a bit by replicating the save files and after challenging few more gods I can tell that they are etremely uneven in their strength, spider god was super easy, gooze god slightlz harder but still quite easy, lich(Nolrad) hard and Michwan... well... Michwan.

It also kinda sucks that you cannot do ranged attacks with throwable weapons against enemies in melee range even with the close ranged trait... would have used double throwing axes instead of a bow if this were a thing 

Also, enhancement scrolls are basically useless, there are too few good items in a run, and the chance of losing them is just too high given the potentially small reward of them being enhanced.

Another thing which seems kind of vague is how often you get talents if you have some kind of bonus to your mind, most importantly the bonus from lone wolf, as that adds to your base mind.

P.S. Are the default gods the same each time or are they random generated? I reset the pantheon once and they were the same, so I guess they are fixed?

[zorbus_overdose]

Big thanks for the feedback!

You automatically search around you in 2 step radius when you move or rest. If there are no hostile creatures seen, Search-skill operates at full level so there is no need to repeatedly try to detect something. If there are hostiles nearby, searching is done with negative modifiers. There's no need to find everything, just settle on what you find naturally. If something feels tedious, don't do it. I've thought about some automated command for searching a room / the full level, but haven't come up with any elegant solution.

Did you find the hidden areas in the shop level / end level?

Nothing is unkillable. According to the leaderboard, some have killed "The Beauty" in under 1 minute. Companions or previously ascended characters might help against some of the gods.

The gods are created when the game is started for the first time (and for every new game update). The base of the gods is fixed, their stats and items are random. The names are scrambled from old roguelike games developer names. A god is removed from the pantheon if he is destroyed. If the player attacks the Overgod, the pantheon will be recreated for the next game, whether the player dies or becomes the Overgod.

That's a good point about the throwing weapons in melee range.

The enchantment scrolls aren't really meant to enchant the already powerful items.

The "how often you get talents" thing:

• Amount of talents is calculated from your base Mind-value without any item or temporary bonuses. The Lone Wolf bonus is already in the base value.
• When the menu selector is on Mind-ability during character creation, it shows in the info box how often you will get talents with that Mind score. If you want to know how the Lone Wolf would affect before picking the talent, just increase Mind by two points in the ability screen, the amount of talents you would get gets recalculated in the info box.
• During level ups, you'll see the talent progression in the info box when the selector is on the "Info / Hide unavailable" menu item.

[Mkok]

I know, its just that the hidden rooms are somewhat fun and not actively looking for them kind of feels like a waste of skill points, since you wont find most of them otherwise, but I guess that is a good point...  Maybe make the search radius larger when not in combat?

Yes, I found them, those are easy to find if you know they are there... Though I was barely able to scratch that baby-like being so I dont know what is in his room.

It might be that I was playing lone wolf melee-focused build and was forced to fight her in ranged due to her blinking, while I did have a clone with bow helping me it just wasnt enough to take down her massive regeneration I guess... I can imagine that if a shot were to force her to use die-hard and another shot in the same round did enough damage to kill her again she would die, but that was an impossible feat for my build who was focused on slow but very heavy hitting... And it was my first character so no other god to help me.

Right now Im trying a gnome using dual daggers where I take melee-skill for defense instead of dodge so I can fight enemies in melee range effectively, but those extra damage and critical talents make a big difference and having to take them for both melee and ranged just makes this build much weaker then just using a bow.

But overall its a pretty good game 

P.S. encountered a game freeze upon drinking from a well protected by a guardian while said guardian was charmed by me.
P.P.S. It is possible to summon celestials, take their weapon and then sell it at the shop, though if you can summon celestials money is probably meaningless.

[zorbus_overdose]

Found a solution for the "search for hidden areas" tedium problem.

Release 36   (27-Jun-2020)

• Improved autoexplore: There is no need to manually walk around the dungeon to search for remaining hidden areas. Once autoexplore no longer finds anything to explore, it will check if your Search-skill is high enough to detect any of the possibly existing secret doors on the map. If something is found, autoexplore autopilots you to the found secret door. You may want to boost your Search-skill with items, potions or talents, even temporarily, for better results.
• Type "0" as a filter in inventory / level loot lists to filter special items, unique items, devices (potions, wands, etc.). Remember that you can filter with an item type (function keys) and a keyword at the same time, so you could press F3 to filter weapons and then type "0" to filter only unique or special weapons.
• Some difficulty finetuning.
• Leaderboard has been reset. The old leaderboard for releases 28-35 can be found at http://wins.zorbus.net/r35.
• You can add a timestamped comment to the journal by pressing CTRL + N. The log journal is added to obituary files.
• Some new sound effects. Fixed some audio related bugs.
• Added new gameplay tips to the manual and ingame tips book: dualwielding, different ways to open locks, level loot.
• The ingame Zorbupedia now has a list of all talents in the game. You can filter Zorbupedia topics with a keyword. Zorbupedia can be opened from the game menu, during character generation and during level up.

[zorbus_overdose]

Release 37   (04-Jul-2020)

• Fixed a bug where NPCs could equip a 2-h weapon after only a shield was equipped in off-hand. (thanks to KurzedMetal for reporting this)
• Charmed creatures no longer react to player looting containers in their home. Should also handle the well bug described by Mkok. (thanks to KurzedMetal)
• Fixed a bug where the shop level teleporter wouldn't work if the game was saved before all companions arrived at the level. (thanks to szary)
• Changed weapon enchantment a bit: There's a chance that the weapon will be destroyed in the process if it's already enchanted with more than 3 enchantments. Every enchantment point above 3 decreases the enchantment chance by 15 percentage points. Plusses, extra elemental damage points, holy-/returning-/vampiric-properties and on-hit effects count as enchantments.
• When the selector is over an enchantment scroll in the inventory, the info box shows which item the scroll would target and the enchantment success chance.
• New item: Scroll of Returning Weapon. Adds the returning-property to a weapon (thrown weapon returns to thrower's hand).
• Small fixes and polishing done.

[zorbus_overdose]

Release 38   (13-Jul-2020)

Most of the stuff in this release is implemented after feedback, so big thanks for it!

• Hopefully fixed a severe infinite loop bug that could happen when you looted home furniture of charmed creatures. (thanks to Horvatii and Mkok)
• Companions no longer enter a teleporter that you just came out from. (thanks to Claudio)
• Companions follow the player better in corridors and other tight areas. (thanks to Claudio)
• Resting 100 rounds for Health / Stamina is interrupted when one of your companions reach full Health / Stamina. (thanks to Claudio)
• Companions use ammunition now more intelligently. (thanks to Claudio)
• You can give a Flask of Poison or a Flask of Slime to a companion who will then automatically use it.
• New feature: Autoammo. When autoammo is enabled, the best ammunition against a target is automatically selected. Autoammo tries to restrain, poison, or otherwise select an ammunition that the creature is most vulnerable to. Ammunition of Dismiss or Explosion are not used, but ammunition of Slime and Poison are. Can be toggled with CTRL + Q. Can be toggled from the main game mode or from target mode. A green "AA" text is shown in the weapon set box when a ranged weapon and autoammo is active.
• Squirm talent grants a bonus when trying to squirm through a restraining map effect (web, slime).
• Fixed checking if a creature is on a restraining map effect when he uses reach or ranged attack.
• AI spellcasters are not so spammy with web / poison cloud spells.
• It is no longer possible to edit inventories of summoned celestials. (You could summon them, take their weapons and sell them at the shop, thanks to Mkok for reporting this)
• Drow companion now has a proper dualwield talent that is listed on his character sheet. (thanks to Claudio)
• Log viewer separates which messages belong to a given round. (thanks to Claudio)
• Amulet of Health no longer grants immunity to poison but resistance of 2 points.
• The miscellaneous statistics in obituary files shows the number of animated and summoned creatures.

http://www.zorbus.net