TBATEC

Version 1.28.0 Changelog:

• Added half-bloods: humans, elves and dwarves have a rare 5% chance to carry an asura's blood (sylph, hamadryad, leviathan, titan, pantheon, phoenix, or Vritra for those raised in Alacrya), with half again the mana, three more hearts, the clan's art at 60% strength, a small trait and a subtle look
• The asura scorn half-bloods: higher prices at their stalls, sharp words from the clans, Windsom, the Indrath steward and Kordri, and a harder (never closed) way into Epheotus
• New /tbatec origin <player> heritage command and a Half-Bloods page in the Mage's Codex
• Kordri's trials now take you into the soul realm inside Clan Indrath's aether orb: touch the orb in the training cave and fight him in your own arena while your body waits by the orb
• Kordri's trials are much harder: he slips and counters careless blows, strikes faster and harder, and his King's Force throws you off the floor unless you crouch to bear it
• Whatever happens in the orb (passing, failing, falling, quitting, logging out or the server stopping), you wake where you touched it with everything you carried; time runs twelve times faster inside
• The Relictombs' First Level is now four times larger and walled in by cavern rock; no path drops into the void, the quarries are climbed by proper stairs, and a lamp-lit avenue leads straight to the glass portal up
• Fixed being unable to ascend: the Second Level's arch can now be walked into, and you arrive there facing the arch instead of the portal back down; the glass portal now says where to earn an Ascender badge
• Every Relictombs zone, sanctuary and keystone realm is now lit so nowhere you walk is pitch dark (the Lightless Vault stays dim by design), and edges that dropped into the void are walled
• Structures no longer generate on, inside or under each other: the mod's sites, villages, temples, mansions, trial chambers, ancient cities and the rest each keep their own ground
• Hillsides, ridges and banks no longer cut through towns, keeps, camps or cave mouths; sites level their ground and clear the land above their streets and roofs, and floating cities float clear of the mountains below them
• Etistin and the Alacryan beachheads no longer appear on Alacrya's beaches
• The Wall now always generates: one, on the Beast Glades border halfway along Sapin, facing the Glades, with the Alacryan siege camp across its killing ground
• Every structure can now be found with /locate, including the capitals, Alacrya's and Epheotus's sites and Xyrus's districts, and /locate no longer points at structures that gave way to another
• New /tbatec locate <structure> command that searches every dimension (Alacrya and Epheotus from anywhere) with a clickable teleport
• Dicathen's sites no longer start in Alacrya or Epheotus because a vanilla biome they list also grows there
• Added Kezess's offer: once your core is White or you walk the aether path, Virion or the Indrath steward puts Lord Indrath's terms to you; refuse them, or keep your answer for later
• Added Taci, Kezess's executioner: refuse Kezess and he comes down out of the sky near your home for a fight in the open (Mirage Walk, the black orb, his four-armed true form); he drops Taci's Crimson Spear
• Added Kezess Indrath before his throne in Castle Indrath: a four-phase endgame fight for the reborn (King's Force, stopped time you tear free of with aether, Spatium, Aevum Mending) that only godrunes can win; he leaves Kezess's Longsword
• Added Mana Integration, the stage past White: purify a peak White core (meditation with Mana Rotation, S-class cores, casting from a full pool), then survive a six-wave rite that can fracture your core
• Integrated mages get 54,000 mana, double recovery, a fifth of every spell drawn from the air, a stronger self-healing body, and no backlash ever again
• Added the domain (an aura of your mastered art, like Varay's cold or Mica's gravity, that weakens foes and strengthens your spells) and presence (a lesser King's Force that slows weaker mages and beasts)
• A White reached through a Lance's artifact is sealed: Virion, now also in the Djinn Sanctuary, gives you the asura's new artifact to mend it
• Added Core Elixirs: brew beast cores for small permanent boosts; beast cores now drop graded by purity (Clouded to Flawless)
• Added asura true forms (Left Alt): dragons fly and breathe aether, basilisks become winged eight-eyed serpents, phoenixes become birds of flame, leviathans sea serpents, titans grow huge, pantheons grow horns, four arms and golden scales, hamadryads become living trees, sylphs cloud and gale; each costs mana, has a time limit and a rest, and needs room
• Added dragon bond growth after Sylvie: a fox as a child, a rideable flying dragon as an adolescent, a human form when grown, with vivum, King's Force and aevum arts; other clans' grown bonds take their true forms in hard fights
• Added reputation with Sapin, Elenoir, Darv, the Alacryan Bloods, Clan Vritra and the eight asura clans: it changes prices, service, guards and requests, and the half-blood scorn now wears down (never below +10%)
• Added becoming a Lance: the Council of Dicathen names proven mages with a code name, an empty seat's artifact and Council missions from Virion
• Added parties: no friendly fire, party chat, travelling through gates together, the leader's summon, and a party HUD
• Added mana signatures: Yellow cores and up sense nearby signatures through walls; suppression hides you
• Added titles and ranks on the character sheet and above names, and codex discovery locks with completion rewards
• Added Agrona Vritra, the High Sovereign, in the throne hall of Taegrin Caelum: 11,000 health in four phases ending in his basilisk true form, second only to Kezess; no single blow carries him past a quarter of his health; his will seizes anyone with his blood (look away to resist)
• Added Cecilia, the Legacy, in her chamber in Taegrin Caelum's spire: she unmakes spells and turns their mana back; strike her body, use aether, break her draws
• Added Bivrae, the last Retainer of Truacia, in the rot cellar under Viessa's seat
• Added the Wraith hunt: Agrona sends Wraith squads after strong players; kill the captain before his runes ignite
• Added the siege of the Wall: horns, a corrupted horde with its beast handler, battlegroups from the siege camp, then a Retainer, with Sapin's Bulwark fighting beside you; lose the gate and Greengate is overrun
• Added beast stampedes: Glades beasts, classed by how deep they come from, break out toward border towns and villages
• Added Alacryan raids on villages: defend them, or find the aftermath later and track the raiders down to free their captives
• Added the titles Defender and Warden of the Wall, Stampede-breaker and Raid-breaker, the /tbatec event commands and the tbatec-events.toml config
• Added Regis: set an Acclorite in your palm with Uto's Horn and, once reborn, it wakes on your aether as a shadow wolf who lives in your shadow, fights beside you, grows with your aether vessel until you can ride him, and becomes the Regis gauntlet when you use Destruction
• Added the people of the books as companions: the Twin Horns (Helen, Adam, Angela, Durden, Jasmine), Caera Denoir, Chul, and Ellie with Boo, each met in their own place and each asking something before they join
• Added companion rules: up to two book companions at a time, follow/stay/guard and stance controls, and they are safe for your party and respect PvP
• Added aether core layers: the reborn's core grows from one to four layers through aether drawn in, woken godrunes and a rite at a Relictombs sanctuary pool; each layer holds more aether, regenerates faster, raises the godrunes' Attunement cap and strengthens the aether arts
• Added Aetheric Intent (Y, the reborn only): an aura that slows, weakens and breaks off lesser foes' attacks, and from the third layer freezes the far weaker; bosses and asura are only slowed and Kezess and Agrona shrug it off
• Changed the Aether Arts to grow with the core: a second Burst Step at layer II, a quicker Strike at III, an Aura that pins class S beasts at IV
• True forms and bond forms now sit, lie down, sleep, jump, flinch and fall over properly, and a dragon's long neck follows its gaze a beat behind its head
• Fixed a server crash when a thorned beast and a player in a thorns set reflected damage back and forth forever
• Added the Sovereigns: Kiros Vritra hosts a spectacle on the Victoriad's sand, Orlaeth Vritra fights with two heads and barrier pylons under Seris's seat, and Oludari Vritra must be hunted across Truacia and taken alive in chains
• Added the Victoriad tournament: an eight-place bracket in Vechor's arena against the bloods' and Ascenders' champions, optional player bouts, a crowd, prizes by placement, and a final challenge from Kiros
• Added Sovereign titles, advancements, codex pages and reputation rewards
• Fixed the reborn keeping mana abilities: no Mana Flight, no Spell Workshop, no mana spells from staves or relics, and their affinity shows as gone
• Flight now sheds a few faint white mana motes instead of a constant stream in your element's colour
• Realmheart now shows the ambient mana of every element and the aether around you, as thick as the place holds it; only you can see it
• Added Xyrus Academy life: enrolment, lectures that grant mastery, the Discipline Committee and ranking duels
• Added the attack on Xyrus Academy, led by Draneeve and Lucas Wykes, ending in the fight with Lucas
• Added Elder Rahdeas, the traitor beneath Vildorial
• Added the Grand Mountains warrens, a gnoll and orc dungeon ruled by the Black-horned Mutant, findable with /tbatec locate
• Fixed God Step crashing or putting you inside blocks: every step lands on a safe spot with head room, never through walls, bedrock, the void or the world border, and says why when it can't
• Aether cores hold far more at every stage: 400 at rebirth, +80 per godrune, +200 for Fate, +250 per layer, up to 1,750
• Only one player per world can be reborn onto the aether path (players already reborn keep it; /tbatec rebirth slot; can be turned off in the config)
• Destruction now burns with its own cold, dark-violet flame instead of blue and red soul-fire lights
• The aether core's fourth layer now needs the insight into Fate, as in the books, and the codex tells when each layer formed
• A second core layer now speeds the Aetheric Strike's gathering; the follow-up Burst Step comes with the third
• Regis's breath and birth and burning tomb wards now use Destruction's violet flame
• Added Spatium, the sixth godrune, won in Epheotus's great hunt for the questing beast: a blade of folded space, a fold that drags foes in and snaps back, a wall of hardened space, and a sense of the space around you
• Added Fate's powers: sneak + Aetheric Intent cuts a creature's thread of Fate (once per fight it breaks Kezess's fold and mending, or Agrona's blood hold and beasts), and now and then a killing blow is undone
• Added Aether Burst Strike: strike right after an Aether Burst Step for a near-instant aether punch
• Aetheric Intent now briefly pins bosses from the third core layer, which then resist it for a while
• Added the Archon title, given by the asura the first time you stand in Epheotus holding the Fate insight
• Mana signatures now show as small arrowheads round the crosshair pointing toward what you sense; they can be turned off in tbatec-client.toml
• The download is about half the size (about 35 MB, was 72 MB): structure tiles are stored in a compact format
• Structures generate faster and use far less memory; the blocks placed are exactly the same as before
• Datapack overrides of structure tiles still work; world.fastStructureTiles in tbatec-mana-progression.toml switches the fast placer off
• Added a shared set of 24 full-body combat animations for the mod's people and bosses, with blows that land on the frame the blade arrives
• Added root motion (a cut or lunge carries the body forward) and weapon trails for bosses, people and players
• Added elbows and knees to every humanoid model (players, armour, zombies and the rest); skins and armour look the same as before
• Added attack animations for players by weapon: sword strings, axe overheads, spear lunges and bare-hand punches (third person; animations only)
• Players' knees and elbows now bend when walking and riding
• Reworked the Kezess fight: he walks to you, fights with telegraphed sword strings and a lunge, has his own gesture for every art, parries while holding back, and shows each phase change
• Fixed boss bars dropping whenever a boss lost sight of its target; Kezess's bar now shows from the challenge until he leaves
• Striking Kezess in Creative mode now tells you why he does not fight
• Structures with a boss inside can no longer be destroyed by the Destruction godrune until that boss is beaten
• New client options in tbatec-client.toml: combat.weaponTrails, combat.playerAnimations, combat.jointedLimbs
• A rebirth onto the aether path is now offered only when your asura bond is a dragon (rebirth.dragonBondOnly)
• The djinn relic armour can only be worn by those who hold aether, is found only in the Relictombs, and grows stronger with each layer of its wearer's aether core
• The aether blade is no longer crafted: the reborn shape one from aether with the new blade key (apostrophe); it has no edge without aether
• Aether Clad is much stronger and now takes 35% of every blow on itself, paid in aether
• The reborn are much harder to kill: a tougher body, a fifth off every blow, faster healing on aether, and a killing wound survived on aether once every two minutes
• True forms are larger and far stronger; beast forms swing the view behind them, sweep everything before them with a blow
• The reborn can let the relic armour go and call it back (sneak + the blade key); it stays with them through death
• The reborn's dragon body now shrugs off poison and wither
• Mana-forged weapons deal 70% in a reborn's hands; the aether blade, Regis and the relics are unaffected
• Tester report, first batch: an Alacryan's Character screen now shows their role (or Unadorned) instead of augmenter or conjurer
• The Godrunes tab only appears for players aether has touched (a vessel, the reborn, a godrune or a keystone held)
• Fixed fliers getting caught at Castle Indrath's ward: it now sets you down clear of it, leaves your view alone, and puts you at the gate if it keeps happening
• Fixed Lance duels that never seemed to end: the Lance stops fighting the moment the duel ends, the end is announced over the hotbar, and the "turns your blow aside" line no longer keeps coming back
• A Lance's Seal only works in Dicathen
• Spells of an element or art you no longer hold are removed from the Spell Workshop when your race or affinities change
• An asura's art opens with age: a child shapes a third of its clan's spells, an adolescent two thirds, an adult all of them and King's Force
• An asura born in Epheotus can only leave once grown and with Lord Indrath's leave (pass Kordri's three trials); asura already abroad keep their leave
• Asura health and armour about tripled (a grown dragon has 60 health), and their bodies slowly mend when left alone
• Body Augmentation and Iron Skin now cost an asura as much of its pool as they cost anyone else
• Iron Skin also reduces spell damage (three fifths as much as blows) and no longer stacks with stronger hardening such as Golden Scales
• Sneak plus the arts key sets the strength of Body Augmentation (tap) and Iron Skin (hold) in five steps
• Mana recovers more slowly during backlash; asura backlash sooner and can starve to death if they keep burning mana to nothing
• Monsters and mana beasts no longer spawn inside settlements, next to them, or under floating cities
• Controls: four TBATEC groups, keys for powers you don't have are hidden, no more false key clashes, the Spell Workshop opens from the Character screen, and the aether blade key moved off G
• The mana orb can be moved, resized or hidden (Character screen, HUD button)
• New characters wake among their own people: elves in Zestier, dwarves in Vildorial, humans in Ashber
• Where you were raised is asked before your class and elements are shown; an Alacryan's blood is drawn, not typed
• The Crystal of Rebirth now needs one rare item from each continent
• Short tips appear in chat at the moment they matter (/tbatectips off to silence them); the Codex opens with what to do first
• The first trial's den is easier to find: coordinates, and a pointer over the hotbar
• Every item's Codex page says how to get it
• Aether answers only some dragons, each in one branch (Aevum, Vivum or Spatium); Realmheart is rarer still; the breath is pure mana
• Hold the suppression key to release your mana: it weighs on weaker creatures around you; a grown asura's is King's Force
• You are told when a power flares near you, and on which side
• Clan arts must be taught: Mirage Walk and Flash Strike (pantheons), Blade Shroud (sylphs), Asuran Body State (phoenixes)
• Soulfire stops its victim casting while it burns
• Character screen, Look: show or hide your race's features; a dragon's wings no longer show in human form
• Blood Iron can strike a single enemy (cast while sneaking); Bile Water is a grey haze; basilisk icons are black, not violet
• Domain of Flame is a large dome of bright orange fire; Golden Scales is now True Release and shows the extra arms and eyes
• World Eater costs 45-85% of your mana; Third Eye Beam, Panoptic Gaze, Mana Feedback, Mana Disruption and the Void Orb reworked
• Body Augmentation no longer draws lines over the body; less screen warping from shockwaves (new client setting)
• Support spells reach your party, your beasts and golems; a message explains when they reach no one
• Golems take orders (use one: follow, stay, stand down; sneak-use: dismiss) and no longer appear in the air beside a flying caster
• Lance artifacts are bonded by blood: a Silver core becomes White at once, with the limiter; players can bond each other, with an oath
• Lance artifacts are coins carried in a charm slot
• The Lances give a lesson once a day
• Lord Veruhn in Ecclesia gives up to three Mourning Pearls for standing with his clan; a pearl ends a backlash or forms a White core in someone without one
• Ground beasts no longer stand helpless under a flier: strong ones leap and drag you down, the rest break off and recover
• Settlements hold about half again as many people
• Fixed several character records being lost on death (an asura's leave, tips already seen, taught arts)
• In first person your hand now follows each attack: different swings for sword, heavy weapon, spear and fists (client setting combat.firstPersonSwings)
• A character made Alacryan with the path command is now carried to Maerin
• Fixed a reborn keeping their aether core, godrunes and Archon body and title after the Crystal of Rebirth or the reroll command
• Fixed long freezes around Xyrus City, on /tbatec locate and when first joining a world (a floating city's height was being worked out dozens of times; now once per world)
• The log now gets a [lag report] when the game freezes or runs slowly, saying what it was doing (setting world.lagReports)
• Fixed missing banner patterns in Indrath Castle and adventurer camps, and three books missing from lecterns in Xyrus Academy and Indrath Castle
• Structures no longer fill the log with an error for every item frame and painting
• Alacryans now have their own core breakthrough trials (runes, the Relictombs, the bloods and the Victoriad) instead of Dicathen's; before this an Alacryan could not reach Orange
• New Victoriad fighter: a horned Vritra-blooded scion. Beating him is the Alacryan trial for a Silver core
• Winning Echeron's trial at the Victoriad is the Alacryan trial for a White core
• New advancements: Read Deeper and Horns Lowered
• People now hold books, quills and other flat items upright instead of flat at the hip
• Elf ears now sweep back instead of standing straight up (elven NPCs and players)
• First-person swings: the weapon stays in view through every cut (the cooldown dip no longer hides it), and cuts show the flat of the blade.
• Choose Your Heritage: the cards use the whole window and no longer cut their text off mid-list.
• Fixed a rare freeze or crash while new land generates near a wolf pack (the alpha was chosen on the wrong thread).
• The Ironhide Mammoth retreats from a lost fight, bellowing and trampling lesser beasts in its way (as in the novel).
• Bosses wind up their melee blows: you can step out of a cut before it lands.
• Villagers and beasts no longer make their idle gestures all at the same moment.
• Knights and guards fight with real attack animations and wind up their blows, like the bosses.
• Alacryan soldiers, book companions and bonded asura children fight with wound-up attack animations too.
• Every NPC and boss has a waist, a neck and ankles now: shoulders turn against hips, feet stay flat on the ground when walking.
• The Look screen is a character editor now: its own key (F7), it opens right after your race is revealed, 29 shapes of horns, ears, crests, fins and shoulder stone across nine races, three colourings per asuran race, features that grow with an asura's age, and a figure you can turn. The people of Epheotus wear varied shapes; dragon NPCs have no wings in human form and Kezess has no horns.
• Contracts with a Lance: each living Lance gives one task a day (Varay officers, Bairon soldiers, Mica corrupted beasts, Aya the beasts of Elenoir), pays on return, comes once to your aid while it stands, and gives their Seal after three kept contracts.
• People are drawn at the player's scale now (they all stood a little too tall, the Lances much too tall), and Varay, Bairon, Mica and Aya wear detailed regalia of their own instead of the same plain plate.
• The scheduled Victoriad no longer opens the moment a tournament asked of the herald has ended.
• Orcs throw hatchets at foes they cannot reach.
• A true form in first person can no longer have its view blocked by its own body.
• People turn their shoulders a little when they look to the side.
• Echeron's Victoriad run now takes place on the arena floor and can be finished: Echeron and Dragoth come down to the sand for their bouts, the beasts fight only you, and a lost run can no longer kill you.
• Boss bars no longer appear with no fight going on, and Dragoth returns to his box after a trial.
• Cadell and Dragoth are now really guarded by Lyra and Echeron, and Retainers and Scythes return to their seats after a fight.
• Vritra-blooded Alacryans can choose between three horn shapes, or hide their horns, in the Look screen (F7).
• The phoenix true form has larger wings and five long tail plumes of fire, and the two-headed serpent's hind head can bite.
• The runecard shows "Out of favour" for a blood you have wronged (it said "Unknown").
• Sylvia's cave is much easier to find: it could be tens of thousands of blocks from spawn.
• Forests no longer grow through the mod's towns and fortresses (new land only); the Wall's market has traders; guards, adventurers and mercenaries answer a right-click.
• Towns are populated all over, not just in one corner (new land only); Xyrus has about twice the people. Bats, fish and squid in the Beast Glades are no longer ranked mana beasts.
• Harmless animals in the Beast Glades are class D at most: no more S-class cores from a sheep.
• Two rooms nobody could enter are open (a tree hall bedroom, the stair to Zestier's vault).
• Many fixes and changes.