Changelog/2019/December 18

Unlisted Changes

 * Snow Minion
 * Despite listed below, sponge armor doesn't appear to be buffed (18 Dec 2019)
 * Despite listed below, crystal armor intelligence is buffed to ‭345‬, not 350
 * New special reforges (only applied by Terry):
 * Salty
 * Treacherous

Transcript
Hello,

It's the holidays in SkyBlock, the Winter Event is here, along with a few other changes!

As a quick note, SkyBlock is still in maintenance, read more about that here.

Winter Island
The 3rd permanent Event of SkyBlock is out, in the form of an island. Like always, we won't spoil much about the island, but here is all the necessary information:

The Winter Island is opened during the entire Late Winter month, every SkyBlock year (roughly 11 hours straight every 5 days and 4 hours). You can access the island from the SkyBlock Menu, or your own Jerry, or from the Jerry located at the Event Stand in the Village during the entire month. While the island is pretty calm, for one-hour things get pretty chaotic, as the workshops are under attack, defend them at all costs! For that you will need to talk to Frosty at the entrance of the island, they will reward you his Snow Cannon, very useful!

The Event, and the rest of the island, mostly reward Gifts. There are 3 types of gifts, all with similar rewards, but Green has slightly better rewards than White, and Red Gifts are the best ones. To open a Gift: You can go to any player, except your co-op members, and right-click them with a gift in hand, you'll both get the rewards!
 * Gifts!

On top of the first 2 Winter Events, we are scheduling another 4 Bonus Events to make sure everyone has a chance to participate: The Winter Island will only be opened 3 hours during Bonus Events, from 1 hour before the event to 1 hour after. As always, you can see the time schedule of all Winter Events in your Calendar Menu.
 * Bonus Events

During the festivities, some of the buildings in the Village have been redecorated.
 * Winter Hub Theme

2 tunes were added for this event:
 * Music
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvGiu9DNZA4
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQeWbs45AMA

We added 5 upgrades to the Ice Collection:
 * Ice Collection

Useful to catch some special sea creatures!
 * Ice Bait - Unlocked in Ice Collection 6

Crafting ingredient
 * Enchanted Packed Ice - Unlocked in Ice Collection 7

Fire icicles at your enemies!
 * Frozen Scythe - Unlocked in Ice Collection 8

Upgrade of the Blaze Armor
 * Frozen Blaze Armor - Unlocked in Ice Collection 9

Special Fishing Rod, useful to catch sea creatures on the Winter Island.
 * Auger Rod - Unlocked in Ice Collection 10

Balancing
The third balancing thread was focused on armor and weapon items, thanks to everyone who participated. Keep in mind balancing is a never-ending work, keep giving your feedback!


 * Perfect Armor - and changes
 * Each piece gets an extra 5 Defense
 * Perfect Armor now has 12 Tiers


 * Emerald Armor -
 * Cap goes to 350 Defense and HP, instead of 300.


 * Sponge Armor -
 * The full set gains an extra 100 Defense
 * Which essentially means an extra 200 Defense while in/underwater. This is another set that needs context to shine. One day!


 * Zombie Sword and Upgrades -, and changes
 * The ability now has 4 charges, still no cooldown
 * After using charges, those refill every 15 seconds each (if you used your 4 charges, it takes 15 seconds to refill 1, 60 seconds to refill all 4)
 * The ability is buffed to heal 120 HP + 5% Max Health
 * The Ornate Zombie Sword ability is now 20% stronger, instead of 10%, and also has 5 charges.


 * Mosquito Bow -
 * 20 extra damage (from 231 to 251)
 * Ability deals +19% damage instead of +9%


 * Golem Armor -
 * From Uncommon to Rare
 * +100 HP total on the armor set
 * Ability gives Absorption 3 instead of 2 (60 HP instead of 40)


 * Tactician Sword -
 * -10 Weapon Damage (from 210 to 200)


 * Reaper Mask -
 * +50 Intel (from 50 to 100)
 * +20 Defense (from 40 to 60)


 * Young Dragon Armor -
 * +13 Speed per piece (from 7 to 20 each, 52 extra speed total)
 * Speed cap when wearing the set is increased to 500% (from 400%)


 * Old Dragon Armor -
 * Growth levels now grant 25 HP instead of 20
 * Protection levels now grant 5 Defense instead of 4
 * Feather Falling levels now grant 8% damage reduction instead of 7%
 * Sugar Rush added to the effect, giving +3 speed per level instead of +2
 * True Protection added to the effect, giving 8 True Defense per level instead of 5


 * Protector Dragon Armor -
 * +100 Defense total on the entire suit


 * Rogue Sword - Changes
 * Ability cost reduced from 60 to 50 mana
 * If the effect is still active, the ability only gives 10 Speed instead of 20.


 * Wise Armor - Changes
 * +150 Intel total on the entire suit (from 200 to 350)
 * The ability only reduces mana cost by 33% instead of 50%


 * Emerald Blade -
 * Scales a bit faster


 * Diver Armor -
 * +100 Defense total on the entire suit
 * +10 HP total
 * From Epic to Legendary


 * Ender Armor - Changes
 * Sell price increased to 10k, from 1000
 * Ender Armor completely removed from Ender Chest Zealot loot table
 * Lvl 42 Endies now have a 1/1000 chance to drop Ender Armor (from 0)
 * Lvl 45 Endies now have a 1/3000 chance to drop Ender Armor (from 1/1000)
 * Lvl 50 Endies now have a 1/5000 chance to drop Ender Armor (from 1/1000)


 * Growth Armor -
 * Cap increase from 25 to 100 (so 300 extra HP total)


 * Raider Axe -
 * 20 coins instead of 25
 * From Epic to Rare


 * Blaze Armor -
 * Damage cap now scales from 500 to 5000, each 5000 Blaze collection increasing it by 100.
 * Added an upgrade in the Ice Collection.


 * Hurricane Bow - Fix
 * Extra arrows do not crit when they shouldn't
 * While a bug fix, it seemed important. Remember bows will have a chance to crit when the bow isn't fully drawn after the bow changes (in a later update), so this won't be a huge nerf.


 * Spider Hat -
 * Damage reduction nerfed to 30% instead of 50%


 * Fishing Rods -
 * Triple damage on Sea Creatures
 * Allow Telekinesis on Fishing Rods


 * Angler Armor - Changes
 * Defense buffed from 80 to 100
 * Health nerfed from 160 to 0
 * Every Fishing Skill level gives an extra 10 HP


 * Fairy Armor -
 * +5 Speed on every armor piece (from 5 to 10)
 * Set Bonus gives +1 HP for every Fairy Soul found
 * When nearby a Fairy Soul you have no found yet, a sound will play


 * Speedster Armor -
 * +10 Speed on every armor piece (from 5 to 15)
 * Set Bonus buffed from +14 to +20 Speed


 * Farmer Suit -
 * Add the effect of the Farmer Orb on the set bonus (stacks with the Orb)


 * Pigman Sword -
 * +10% crit damage (from 20 to 30)
 * The ability now deals 1500 Base damage (magic scaling will be fixed)
 * Ability does not give Resistance I any more but instead gives +50 Defense for 5 seconds
 * Fix the damage ticks from the ability making enemies invulnerable


 * Aspect of the Dragon - Change
 * Half the drop chance


 * End Sword -
 * Uncommon instead of Rare


 * End Stone Sword -
 * +70 Weapon damage (from 50 to 120)
 * +30 Strength (from 50 to 80)


 * Explosive Bow - Fix
 * Explosions should deal the correct amount of damage


 * Spirit Mask -
 * +20 Intel (from 0 to 20)
 * Fix the ability triggering too early
 * When the passive triggers, give +50 Speed and immunity from mobs for 3 seconds.


 * Creeper Pants - Fix
 * Same issue as the Spirit Mask, the ability triggers too early


 * Obsidian Chestplate -
 * Give immunity to wither effect


 * Bat Person Armor -
 * Remove cooldown on Grappling Hook
 * Increase the velocity of the grappling hook substantially


 * Strong Armor - Change
 * Increase the base damage of the Aspect of the End by 75 when wearing the full set


 * Shaman Sword - Unrelated change
 * Added Pooch Sword


 * Rabbit Hat - ?
 * Gives permanent Jump Boost 4


 * Armor of the Pack -
 * Range increased to 30 blocks
 * +20 True Defense against animals


 * Flaming Sword -
 * +20 Strength (from 0)


 * Reaper Scythe -
 * Mobs hit by the Zombies should not receive any invulnerability frame
 * +33 Weapon Damage (from 300 to 333)


 * Zombie Armor -
 * +40 total defense (from 60 to 100)


 * Leaping and Silk -
 * Ability only 1s cooldown instead of 2s
 * Mana cost reduced from 100 to 50
 * +5 Weapon Damage (Silk only, from 170 to 175)
 * +15 Strength (Silk only, from 110 to 125)


 * Crystal Armor -
 * +50 Intel on the entire set (from 300 to 350)


 * Others:
 * Gravity Talisman: Buffed from being bugged to not being bugged anymore
 * Fix Power Enchantment not working at all
 * Fixed Snipe Enchantment not working at all either
 * Fixed Piercing Enchantment not reducing damage

General Changes

 * It'll now be impossible to open the profile of a player when holding swords, bows, ender pearls and multiple other items.
 * The Cake Bag now has 2x more space
 * Fixed 2 issues that would sometimes crash servers

Note on future content
As the end of the year approaches, most of the team will take at least a few days off to spend with their families. After the Winter Event, Dungeons are our last top priority and are working hard on finishing them within a reasonable timeframe. Our biggest mistake was announcing them very early, but the pressure won't impact the quality standards we set for them. Dungeons are not there to give players a few weeks or months of content, they are designed to give you unlimited content. Dungeons are randomly generated, you will never play the exact same dungeon twice, and they have multiple difficulty tiers that should scale way beyond the current late game.

Here is a teaser of our new mob system: Don't pay attention to the map or their names, or my awful performance.
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haiIvIspBgA

This allows us to create very interesting mobs, I'm sure you can imagine all the possibilities. Each mob can have their own settings, different behaviors or personalities, they could even look like you!

This video is only a teaser, we improved them since the video and will keep improving them for years. In the clip we showcased multiple details, those are the most important ones: Those mobs learned how to sprint jump, but only jump when they need to. Their pathfinding is greatly improved, sometimes even better movements than real players. They are able to use many vanilla and SkyBlock items correctly and are getting better and better with bows. They can strafe and have different strafing patterns depending on situations.

If you want to see a glimpse of the new system, we implemented a more basic monster during the Winter Event, a horde of them.

We are spending a lot of time and energy on R&D with random generations, smart monsters and other things, but in the end, it'll be worth it. Production took months but once done, the game will be better forever. We don't plan on making the second Dungeon right after this one, but once we start working on the second dungeon, production should be a LOT faster.

Still no ETA on release, but we can see the end of the tunnel! Sorry for the wait.

Over the next few days/weeks we will also spend some time improving the Winter Event and finish some of the coming soon features.