Creatures of the 7th Plague - NEW BETA!


Our next feature arc, Creatures of the 7th Plague, is now in beta! Big picture, this arc includes the next quest in the main questline, significant updates to the UI and input, lots of new visual and sound effects, lots of performance improvements, and many gameplay changes.

If you'd like to help us test it, download the new beta version.  Check out this thread if you want to post your feedback and get access to fast-forward wishes to help test the new quest. Note: previous saves won't be compatible with this beta.

Live and drink, friends. Patch notes below.


NEW MAIN QUEST AND THE GIRSH NEPHILIM

  • Added the next leg of the main quest. Talk to Barathrum after completing the Golem.
  • Added the Girsh Nephilim, 7th plague of the Gyre. Lairs to come.


    UI AND INPUT

    Several of these changes were merged in from the "input" beta.

  • Merged all input managers down to one, meaning you no longer have to change settings for gamepad to work.
  • Added a new keybind screen and made key binding more flexible, with many more commands now bindable.
  • Made keyboard, gamepad, and Steam Deck input much more robust across the board.
  • We added a new Abilities screen ('a').
    • Added icons for every ability.
    • Added in-depth, dynamic descriptions for many abilities (the rest to come).
    • You can reorder abilities on the Abilities screen and they will also reorder in your hotbar.
  • We made several enhancements to the ability hotbar.
    • Your abilities are now automatically hotkeyed. You can change the hotkeys from the Abilities screen.
    • Added hotkeys for scrolling through your hotbars (default ctrl+1 - ctrl+5).
    • New ability icons also appear on the hotbar.
    • Added the new ability icons to the old UI sidebar. They also now respect the order of abilities on your ability screen.
  • We added many new visual effects.
    • Added new visual effects for several abilities: flaming ray, flame breath, teleportation, slammed, digging, and temporal fugue.
    • Added new visual effects for several types of deaths: decapitation, transmuted, consumed, lased to death, and immolated.
    • Added new visual effects for several missile weapons: all lead slug weapons, all arrows, laser rifle, chain laser, laser pistol, point defense laser, spitting seed plant, light rondure, flamer thrower, null ray pistol, and rocket launchers.
    • Added new visual effects for several other creatures and items: aloe pyra, flaming vents, HE grenades, neutron flux, and hookah.
    • Added new visual effects for throwing.
    • Replaced the combat slash animation with a new one that has three grades of intensity for 1, 2-3 and 4+ penetrations.
    • Added a new animation for bludgeoning damage.
    • Added a new block animation.
  • Added a new, highly visible autoexplore danger indicator.
  • Added new tiles for some flashing status indicators: swimming, wading, covered in spores, flying, and sprinting.
  • Holding down movement keys to move quickly is now safeguarded by the autoexplore danger indicator.
  • Added gamepad button glyphs for Xbox and PlayStation controllers wherever the UI indicates a button bind.
  • Right-stick up and down now defaults to page up and down in menus.
  • Added default force-attack diagonal bindings: Ctrl+Shift+arrow keys.
  • Added a bunch of new keybinds.
  • Page Up and Page Down can now be used to navigate popups and the look menu.
  • Changed the default bind for the Factions page to ctrl+f.
  • Removed "laptop defaults" keybind options. The new defaults should be usable without numpad.


    GAMEPLAY
  • Added new creatures: grand newfather, temple mecha mk I, and temple mecha mk II (legendary).
  • Added new items: grappling gun and longreach grappling gun.
  • We revamped the First Aid skill tree.
    • Renamed the skill tree to Physic and reduced the initial purchase cost to 50sp.
    • Staunch Wounds now simply improves your bandaging rolls, both in and out of combat.
    • You can now use Staunch Wounds on your companions.
    • Removed the Heal and Set Limb skills.
    • Added a new skill: Nostrums. 100sp. INT 21.
      • You can treat bleeding, poison, illness, and disease onset at a campfire.
      • Treatments can be applied to companions.
      • Some treatments require a medicinal ingredient.

    • Added a new skill: Amputate limb. 50sp. INT 23.
      • You can voluntarily amputate your own limbs.
      • You can amputate your companions' limbs, if they are infected or equipped with unremoveable equipment.

    • Added a new skill: Apothecary. 100sp. INT 25.
      • Healing tonics you apply last an extra round.
  • We revamped the Dual Wield skill tree and made changes to how offhand attack changes are displayed. (Experimental: subject to change)
    • Renamed the skill tree Multiweapon Fighting and the skills Multiweapon Proficiency, Multiweapon Expertise, and Multiweapon Mastery.
    • The bonuses to offhand attacks granted by Multiweapon Fighting skills now apply to all offhand limbs, except mutation-based weapons like Horns and Stinger. This now includes chimera limbs, as before, but also limbs granted by Multiple Arms and Helping Hands.
    • Reduced the offhand bonuses from the three skills from (effective) +20/40/60% to +20/35/50%.
    • Reduced the skill point cost. Each skill is now 150sp, down from 300sp.
    • Natural offhand limbs and weapons wielded in offhand limbs now display their offhand attack chance in their descriptions.
    • When you swap your primary limb, your old primary inherits the offhand chance of the new primary you swapped to. This was always the case but is now easier to track due to the offhand chance getting displayed in the limb/weapon description.
  • We added a new Single Weapon Fighting skill tree. (Experimental: subject to change)
    • Single Weapon Fighting. 150sp. AGI 17. You no longer make offhand attacks in exchange for mastery with a single weapon (toggleable).
    • Opportune Attacks (free with skill) - Whenever you score a critical hit with a melee weapon, the cooldowns of up to two random weapon or shield skills are immediately refreshed.
    • Expert Strikes. 200sp. AGI 19. Your attacks always penetrate one extra time.
    • Weapon Mastery. 150sp. AGI 23. Whenever you make a melee attack, immediately make a second attack for free.
  • We made improvements to how mutation variants are chosen and displayed.
    • Added new tiles and descriptions for each mutation variant. E.g., horns, horn, spiral horn, antlers, and casque now each have their own tiles and descriptions.
    • Added new tiles and descriptions for Flaming Ray's ghostly flames and Freezing Ray's icy vapor.
    • When you choose a variant during character generation, the appropriate tile and description are now displayed.
    • When you randomly choose mutations during character generation, you can now get mutation variants.
    • When you gain a mutation after character generation, you can now pick a variant.
  • Increased Gun Rack's license point cost from 4 to 6.
  • Intravenous ports now stack by adding to the tonic's duration its original duration, before any modifiers, for each implant.
  • Objects that occlude vision, like trees, and stationary pieces of furniture now have a chance to be hit if a missile passes through their space.


    MISCELLANEOUS
  • Added MANY new sound effects.
  • Changed the penetration SFX to match the 1, 2-3 and 4+ tiers.
  • Replace "Then Things to Do When You Start the Game" with a "Quickstart" guide that has up-to-date info and dynamic keybinds.
  • There is now case specific death messaging for dying from reflected damage.
  • Removed the unfinished dungeon Trembling Dunes, to return at a later date.
  • Simplified the campfire sounds.
  • Greatly improved save & load performance for both the game and previously visited zones.
  • Greatly improved performance when new game objects were created.
  • Improved general rendering performance.
  • Improved performance when sounds would play during your turn.
  • Improved performance when custom effects play during your turn, particularly offscreen.
  • Improved performance when a creature takes damage and attempts to alert nearby allies.
  • Reduced memory usage & fragmentation for long play sessions, particularly when saving or loading the game often.
  • Reduced save file size.


    BUGFIXES
  • Rejoinder no longer counterattacks while toggled off.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Light Manipulation to cast ambient light even when out of charges.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some popup selections to cancel autoexplore immediately after.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a spurious option popup when selecting a category in the trade menu.
  • Fixed some grammar issues in Disintegration's messaging.
  • Fixed a bug that caused several dynamic quests to stop working if you swapped bodies.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented "find a relic"" dynamic quests from immediately completing the find step if you already had the relic when you got the quest.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the first step for site-finding dynamic quests to not complete if you found the site before you got the quest.


    DEBUG & MODDING
  • Improved the map editor UI.
  • The workshop uploader now provides a native file picker for images.
  • The workshop uploader now allows you to close the upload status screen after an error.
  • The workshop uploader now allows you to elide hidden files from your uploads.
  • The map editor now provides a native file picker for maps.
  • Fixed a bug in the map editor that caused dragging the map to be scaled improperly.
  • The mod manager now displays disabled mods as grey instead of red.
  • GameSystems.FireEvent now supports all events fired on the player
  • There is a new GameSystems class which provides public static helpers for raising an event on all game systems.
  • Added string, int, float, list, and dictionary properties to Quest XML.
  • ReflectDamage is now an IActivePart.
  • Systems now support PlayerEquipped, PlayerActivating, and PlayerObjectAddedToInventory.

  • Files

    cavesofqud-windows-beta.zip 714 MB
    Version 2.0.206.1 Oct 07, 2023
    cavesofqud-osx-beta.zip 710 MB
    Version 2.0.206.1 Oct 07, 2023
    cavesofqud-linux-beta.zip 713 MB
    Version 2.0.206.1 Oct 07, 2023

    Get Caves of Qud

    Buy Now$29.99 USD or more

    Leave a comment

    Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.