After the release of the Ripley Run DLC quite a few player reported crashes and memory issues. So this week we scrambled to make sure these got fixed as soon as possible. We've already been testing out some solutions in the unstable branch over the last couple of days, and from what we hear most issues were solved. That alone would justify a major update; but we also managed to address some balance issues: mostly concerning the combat dynamics and stealth.

Combat Dynamics
From the comments here and elsewhere we noticed that melee combat was still something of an issue. The swinging attack was still difficult to time right, and attacks by enemies were hard to avoid.

To solve these issues, we've changed the swing attack so that you first hold your weapon to the side and then swing and step forward. Enemies do this also, giving a chance to dodge their attacks. You can also see when an enemy is about to lunge forward with a spear or short sword.

This is quite a big change to the fighting dynamics, and it might take some getting used to as the timing is slightly different. But overall we are pretty confident it is a big improvement and we expect you'll get the hang of it quickly. We'll be monitoring the forum in case you feel otherwise.

Stealth
There have been two changes to stealth. First of all, when you are in stealth mope you are no longer slowed down, as it sometimes was hard to control, and the lack of control could make it feel a little sluggish. On the other hand, enemies have a better chance of spotting you when you are hidden, especially if they have seen you just before, or when they have a keen sense of smell.

Other changes were also made. Check the complete overview below:

New Features
- Changes swinging weapon dynamics.
- You can see when an enemy is about to swing or lunge.
- Adds a couple of visual indicators of AI State.
- You can combine a staff of fire ball and a staff of lightning to make a staff of switching.
- When you reload a game it starts paused.
- You can grab torches from walls by using tools.
- You can coat weapons in oil.

Game Balance
- Enemies have a better chance to finding you while hidden if they recently spotted you.
- Sneaking no longer reduces your speed.
- Daggers and potions no longer knock back big creatures such as trolls as much.
- Boiled Leather stops 50% of the blows from the front.
- Increase knock-back on melee weapons (and stabbing weapons in particular).
- The Lounge Lizard's lightning spells deal 10 damage.
- The Marine Magus marine missiles deal 8 damage.
- Praying works for destructible walls, one-way teleporters, and disabled teleporters.
- Eggs wake up if you bump into them.

Performance
- Improves ray-tracing (better performance near multiple light sources).
- Less memory intensive game log.

Bug Fixes
- Fixes generator issue that caused memory leak like behavior.
- Fixes issues with the Crackling and Thorough achievements in the Ripley Run.
- Falling down in a time trial no longer caused problems.
- Fixes issue with count jade cat puzzle.

To all new players that joined us the recent sale: please let us know what you think about the game in general and these updates in particular. And to all players that have been around for longer, you knew already that any type of feedback is appreciated by us, so you didn't need to be reminded, did you?