Dark and Darker – Early Access Patch #1 brings new skills, attributes and balancing adjustments

With yesterday’s “soft wipe” all items and currencies of the players in Dark and Darker were reset, but the corresponding patch was still a long time coming.
We have the patch notes for you!

Good things take time

Actually, Early Access Patch #1 should have been available at the start of the Dark and Darker wipe maintenance, but it was delayed until Wednesday morning.

On the other hand, the patch is very extensive and brings a whole series of fixes as well as many adjustments and innovations for the dungeon crawler from Ironmace.

For example, there are now two brand new attributes in the game – Manual Dexterity (how fast you use something) and Persuasion.

The Bard class has been adjusted and is now much more dependent on items and attributes, making it a bit more balanced. The Warlock has received new skills and the other classes have also undergone a balancing update.

In terms of loot balancing, there are now no more legendary items in normal dungeons, these are only found in high roller dungeons.
The Ruins map is now also more worthwhile in terms of loot, as there are both new treasure chests and an improved drop rate.

Early Access Patch #1 – Patchnotes

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the player character’s hair could appear strangely depending on the head armor.
• Fixed an issue where the player character’s inner face could be exposed.
• Fixed an issue where T pose could be exposed when consuming a potion.
• Fixed an issue where the ankles could appear turned when sitting down after wearing the Battle Axe.
• Fixed an issue where Reactive Shield and Dark Reflection could not be activated.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes item options were not created properly.
• Fixed an issue where the Torch skin was missing animations.
• Fixed an issue where the lantern would sometimes not light up.
• Fixed an issue where hit sounds would be played when goblins die.-Fixed an issue where Dark Swarm’s next area could be designated as the outskirts of the map.
• Fixed an issue where if you drank a potion and used Stealth outside of Dark Swarm, Stealth would not be broken even if you took damage.
• Fixed an issue where the Trading Post’s rarity filter was sorted by name rather than by rarity.
• Fixed an issue in Trading Post where text that was too long would disappear instead of being printed to the next line.
• Fixed an incorrectly installed portal.
• Fixed an issue where Warlocks could not be granted Karma.
• Fixed background objects with incorrect collision.
• Fixed several issues that were causing crashes.

Updates

• Sounds have been added to UI, Items, Perks, Skills, Spells, etc.
• Water sounds now play when you step on water.
• 7 new emotes have been added.
• A feature has been added to receive server maintenance notices in-game.
• Additional protection added against possible security vulnerabilities.
• Barbarian and Fighter’s face shapes have been modified.
• Bard reworked to make the class more gear and attribute dependent.
• Added new attributes: Manual Dexterity, Persuasion.
• Warlock’s Curse of Pain now has a slightly more generous aim.
• 2 new perks have been added to Warlocks: Curse Mastery, Vampirism.
• 8 new spells have been added to Warlocks: Bolt of Darkness, Evil Eye, Bloodstained Blade, Flame Walker, Life Drain, Ray of Darkness, Eldritch Shield, Summon Hydra.
• Rogue will no longer break stealth when bumped if the Pickpocket perk is equipped.
• Rogue’s Hide cooldown changed from 45s -> 40s.
• Rogue’s CutThroat cooldown changed from 60s -> 28s.
• Ranger’s Quickshot now fires a different amount of arrows based on the Bow type.
• Ranger’s Quickshot cooldown changed from 18s -> 28s.
• Ranger’s Multishot cooldown changed from 35s -> 28s.
• Ranger’s PenetratingShot cooldown changed from 28s -> 24s.
• Hunting Trap only deals 1 damage per second at all rarities.
• Wizard’s Fireball damage changed 30/15 -> 25/10.
• All weapon damage has been rebalanced.
• Most armors have been updated and give additional bonuses in addition to just armor rating.
• Armor rating curve slightly reduced at the upper end due to the higher overall armor values.
• The value range of most random modifiers have been rebalanced.
• Battle Axe now has a slightly longer range.
• Torches and Lanterns give a slight movement speed advantage rather than a penalty.
• Rarity-specific skins have been added for the Drum and Lyre.
• Coin Bag that holds up to 500 gold coins has been added. Must be crafted at the Leathersmith.
• Coin Chest that holds up to 3000 gold coins has been added. Must be found from the Treasure Hoards.
• 4 new artifacts have been added: Echo of Screams, Soulreaper, Deathbloom, Stinky Stick.
• Cloak’s cloth simulation has been slightly optimized.
• Item skins are now displayed properly on the paper-doll.
• Lockpick drop rate has been increased.
• The names of level modules are now displayed on the minimap.
• Additional layouts added to the Normal Goblin Caves map pool.
• High-Roller Crypt maps increased from a 4×4 to a 5×5 size.
• The Normal and High Roller Crypt now share the same map pool.
• Added an extra Dark Swarm’s phase so players don’t need to traverse as much distance at once.
• Updated environments for approximately 40 level modules.
• Level object density for Ruins and Crypts has been increased.
• A portal has been added to the outskirts of Ruins.
• The Rusty Iron Door has been re-added to the High-Roller pool.
• New Royal Coffins have been added to the dungeons.
• Previous Gold Chests have returned to the dungeons as Marvelous Chests.
• Additional attack patterns added to the Nightmare version of the monsters in the Goblin Cave.
• Skeleton Champion animations have been updated.
• Royal Guard animation has been updated.
• Ruins Golem subboss has been added.
• Merchants updated to sell a much larger amount and variety of items.
• Greater Luck Potion has been added to the Fortune Teller.
• New craft and mining items added.
• Equipment Slot filter has been added to Trading Post.
• Trading Post now displays a Timestamp.
• Several other changes not listed were included.