This update contains a pretty substantial clean-up of some features of the site, especially adventuring. There is a lot to get through, so let's get started...


Adventuring Remodel

Adventuring has essentially been pulled into pieces and put back together to make it run better both back-end and front. While it was mostly a back-end remodel, there are a number of notable front-end changes too.

If you were in the middle of an encounter, that encounter has been ended to prevent you from getting soft-locked or trapped due to the rewrite of the animations system.

Animations Rewrite

In order to work towards a more screenreader-friendly adventuring system, the part of adventuring where animations live has been stripped out and entirely rewritten.

The primary differences you will notice are:

• Disabling animations in adventuring now truly disables all animations in adventuring, including all pauses and other timing. This also means that you are likely able to go much, much faster.
  
  If it feels too jarring to have nothing moving at all, don't forget that you can turn off the text-typing effect alone in account settings to preserve the dice rolls and timing. If even that still feels "too fast" I can consider adding an option to turn off only the dice rolls.
  
  We'll try it out for a bit though to see how it feels. It's definitely going to feel different.
  
  
• In line with the above, it is no longer possible to get the "you are going too fast" error message. It should be able to handle you going faster.
  
  
• To prevent turning animations off from becoming "the meta that everyone must choose", the cooldown between adventuring starts has been increased from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. Only 6% of existing adventures were finished in under 15 minutes, and less than 1% of adventures were finished in under 10 minutes, so the impact should be somewhat small unless you fancy yourself a speedrunner.
  
  
• There is a new toggle in your settings that allows you to enter "page refresh mode." If you enable this setting, the whole page will refresh every time you take an adventuring action. This is primarily for screenreaders that don't handle the constantly updating content very well.
  
  
• The items on the page now process in a more intuitive order. Previously, result text was sometimes at the top and sometimes secretly at the bottom but displayed at the top anyway. This caused somewhat unusual keyboard and screenreader effects. (Yes, building it like this was a terrible decision and it took forever to fix. In one of your forum helper's words, adventuring was built, er, tail-backwards. But now it's not anymore.)

While the above is all with the intention of working towards a more screenreader-friendly version, I do not think it's quite all the way there yet. Skill challenges should hopefully be easier to navigate, but the battles are difficult because of the spatial component to them.

I would love to hear suggestions on how to better express via alt/aria text the locations on the map and how to get to them. Right now it lists out coordinates but that can be very difficult to wrap your head around, especially when there are so many options for where to move. Perhaps there isn't a perfect solution, but I'd love to hear any suggestions to help work towards making it better.


Automatic Success Chips

To prevent certain types of abilities from failing (mainly healing), abilities can now feature "automatic success chips." These chips are basically a "1-sided die" that always shows a standard success. Automatic success chips will display as static circles in ability descriptions and when you roll to use an ability.

The abilities below have been modified to take advantage of this new feature:

First Aid: A standard healing ability with +1 automatic success chip.

Tend Wounds: A healing ability with +1 bonus die and +1 automatic success chip.

Cooperative Care: A healing ability with +1 bonus die and +1 automatic success chip that targets the user and all adjacent allies.


Rebrand of Status Effects

The previous system for status effects was, quite frankly, clunky and difficult to understand. This goes both for the front end and probably even more so for the back-end. To streamline this and make status effects easier to comprehend, the status effect system has been rebranded. Essentially, it is similar to before, but the terminology around it has shifted. Additionally, each effect has been given a graphic/image to go with it.

Emotional Conditions are now Moods and all use mood-related words.

Physical Conditions are now Stances and all use body-position-related words.

True Conditions are now just Conditions.

To make this even more obvious, and to better reflect that all of these effects can be granted from multiple sources (various abilities, teas, etc.), some of the statuses have been renamed to be less "specific" to one of their many sources.

A list of all current status effects and their images is listed below. Note that no changes were made to what the status effects actually do, with the exception of poison, which has been made way deadlier and can't even be acquired with the current level cap anyway.

Conditions

Defeated: When your cats reach 0 health, they become defeated and cannot participate in the adventure until you go back home to rest. Don't worry though, they'll be just fine after a nap!

Poisoned: Poisoned creatures will steadily lose more and more health on each of their turns. The shorter the "countdown timer" on the poison, the faster the poison will escalate.

Moods

Determined: Determined creatures will gain +1 die on all ability rolls. Formerly Called to Action

Enthusiastic: Enthusiastic creatures will gain +2 dice on all ability rolls. Formerly Rallied

Afraid: Creatures that are afraid will use a reduced die type on all ability rolls.

Shocked: Shocked creatures lose -2 dice on all ability rolls.

Stances

Blocking: Blocking creatures use an improved die for dodge.

Hidden: Hidden creatures use a twice-improved die for dodge.

Protected: Protected creatures get +2 Dice on all dodge rolls.

Guarded: If a creature is guarded, anything that might attack them will instead have to attack the creature guarding them.

Readied: Creatures that are readied will reflect any extra defense back on the attacker as damage when attacked.

Fallen: Creatures that are fallen are unable to move.

Trapped: Trapped creatures need to use their actions to attempt to escape.

Hasted: Creatures that are hasted have double the movement speed.
(So, uh, apparently I forgot to actually draw this one. I will fix that before it becomes usable.)

Status Effect Durations

Status effects now have durations saved with them so that certain abilities can be enhanced by making them apply conditions for longer periods of time.

A list of all currently-usable abilities that apply status effects and the durations they have been given is below:

Block: Improves the user's dodge die type for the next round.

Hiss: Shocks the target, causing them to lose 2 dice on rolls for the next two rounds.

Rally: The user and all adjacent allies get +2 dice on rolls for the next three rounds.

Screech: Frightens all enemies into using a reduced die type until overwritten by another mood

Protect: For the next three rounds, the target has +2 dodge dice..

Guard: For the next round, the user defends against all attacks on behalf of the target.

Call to Action: An ability that gives all allies +1 die to their ability rolls for the next round.

Hide: Improves the user's dodge die type twice for the next round.

Herbal Blend Tea: Heals 1 die worth of damage and gives the target +1 die to their ability rolls for the next three rounds.

Spiced Blend Tea: Heals 1 die worth of damage and gives the target +2 dice on rolls for the next three rounds.


Class Adjustments

Previously, the thief abilities largely used the "melee attack" ability, which meant that fighters would get the improved die for thief abilities and not the thief. This was rather a bit silly, so all of the current and future thief abilities have been changed to now attack using dodge / agility, which thieves are skilled at.

Attacks specific to the guardian, medic, and scout abilities have been given a similar treatment (though none of these are obtainable with the current level cap), so these aren't really displayed anywhere right now.

Bards will probably need something similar done for skills like the Dance ability the Heart of the Woods Boss uses, but I've left that one alone for now because I do not want the boss to start obliterating newbies. Bards may get an alternative ability in its place when we get there.

The party set-up page now also notes the already-existing mechanic where guardians use an improved die type on health rolls in battle and scouts use an improved die type on perception rolls in battle. This was left off because it was unused, but it will be used in the future.

Note: I have my eye on the spider given the above changes. It may need to be given less dice.


Other Adventuring Changes

• The auto-focus on some pages has been changed from the button to the divider around it. Keyboard users should be able to proceed as normal by hitting an additional tab key, but this should hopefully lessen the "jolting down" effect some users with low height devices are getting.
  
  
• Any abilities that affect "all adjacent allies" now also affect the user of the ability.
  
  
• The icons for cats and monsters have been given a white (or red) outline to increase contrast with the background.
  
  
• There is a new setting in your gameplay settings that allows you to set the opacity of adventuring backgrounds. You can disable backgrounds entirely by setting them to 0, or leave them as fully opaque by leaving them at 100.
  
  This is introduced as a potential solution to two different problems some users had been having:
  
  1) Some users found there was not enough contrast between the backgrounds and icons, making the cats and monsters hard to find
  
  2) Some users found there was too much contrast between the backgrounds and the overall light/dark theme selected by the user.
  
  Neither of these problems was solvable with an art update because every adventuring location and season will have different kinds of colors for the backgrounds and it would not be sustainable to make a large number of alternative art variants for every location.
  
  Setting the background to a lower opacity level should allow you to both increase contrast between icons and backgrounds and decrease contrast between the background and the page itself.
  
  
• Changing your cat's class is now a radio button and not a checkbox. No more will you accidentally forget to uncheck the previous class when making a change.
  
  
• Some items have had their effects enhanced, see below:
  
  Sweet Dandelion Tea: Heals 2 dice worth of damage and removes the afraid condition.
  
  Fireworks: Deals 3 dice of damage, removes the hidden condition, and startles the opponent into losing 2 dice on all rolls until overwritten by another mood.

Village and Scene Expansions

A new section has been added to the Village Lodge page for Cat Capacity (Catpacity) Expansions. You can now purchase up to 12 expansions for your catpacity. Each expansion comes with 1 active cat slot and 4 traveling cat slots.

Since hitting the maximum traveling + active catpacity is a very late game effect, these have been priced quite high. The first expansion starts at 6000 notes and the cost increases by 1500 notes with each expansion.

The limit to the number of scene expansions has also been increased. You can now buy up to +24 scenes. (Yes, this does mean the navigation is starting to become unmanageable for villages with a lot of scenes. I'm rolling some ideas around in my head for a customizable village map that allows you to place the scenes on a map and navigate through them that way.)


New Health Stat Functionality

The health stat has been under-utilized so far, so some new functionalities have been add it to make it more broadly applicable.

The health stat now mitigates weather effects when Gathering Resources. You'll notice a visible difference in the negative modifiers based on the cat's health.

13-16 Health: 1 less negative modifier
17-20 Health: 2 less negative modifiers
21-24 Health: 3 less negative modifiers
25-28 Health: 4 less negative modifiers
29-32 Health: 5 less negative modifiers
33+ Health: 6 less negative modifiers (effectively no loss at worst possible weather)

HP effects from heat and cold in Adventuring can now be mitigated by the cat's number of health dice as follows:

3-4 Health Dice: 10% loss becomes 8% and 5% loss becomes 4%
5-6 Health Dice: 10% loss becomes 6% and 5% loss becomes 3%
7 Health Dice: 10% loss becomes 4% and 5% loss becomes 2%
8-9 Health Dice: 10% loss becomes 2% and 5% loss becomes 1%
10+ Health Dice: No loss


Littermates and.... Not-Littermates?

I've never really thought that the term "adoptive littermate" fit what I was going for very well. Since launch, I've also found it has fostered a lot of misconceptions about what happens when you select the option - such as users fearing adding an adoptive littermate will remove the kitten from its original family. Ultimately, it's just a deep commitment by the parents to provide opportunities for their two sets of beans to socialize daily and grow up together.

As such and in line with existing site lore and vibes, the "adoptive littermate" title has been removed from the game and replaced with a new title: "not-littermate".

Many thanks to the user Truffula for suggesting this change, which was captured perfectly below:



This is perfectly in line with not-cat lore and culture and, as a more unique-to-the-site term, is hopefully much less likely to lead to misconceptions about the system.


Purchase of Essence Fragments

The code for purchasing essence fragments has been added to the site and users will slowly begin gaining access to the essence fragment purchase page, going from lowest to highest user ID. This slow roll-out is because, while "test transactions" are working, there are a million settings for actual transactions and I'd like to make sure everything is working correctly before opening the floodgates.

Please note: Until your ID is given access to purchase fragments, the link will lead to a "whoops" redirect. All the wrinkles may be ironed out now so essence fragment purchases have been rolled live to the site. You should get them quite quickly and it should come with a notification if all is working well. (The notification going missing is the part that was holding things up).

Essence Fragment purchases have been developed using Stripe, which accepts a variety of different payment methods by default.

Bundles will be available at the following price points:

$5 for 50 EF
$10 for 105 EF
$20 to 215 EF
$50 for 550 EF
$100 for 1125 EF

The Terms of Service has also been updated with a brief new section related to premium currency:



The simple explanation of the above is that essence fragments are a fictional item that you get to use as part of playing the game. It is not a real-world currency with real-world value. And, of course, if you try to make fraudulent transactions your account will be closed.


In-Game Calendar

A simple in-game calendar for the seasons and events has been added to the site. You can access it from the bottom of the events page and from the bottom of the weather box on the main page of the site.

No more must we do math in order to figure out when the events are supposed to be happening or what real-world day our cats were born on.


Other Changes

• A few of the site assets have had very minor color changes made to them to make them more in line with the site's color palette (mostly decreasing the saturation on some of the bright reds). You probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't said something, but it has been bothering me for ages.
  
  
• A new toggle has been added to your account settings to allow you to completely hide hidden forum posts that are hidden because you or another user have blocked each other - in case you'd like to not be reminded of it while going about your browsing.
  
  
• A number of text labels on the site have been changed to headers to make it so screenreaders can skip between them more easily. So far, this includes: Luncheon Recipe Names, Gathering Cat Names, Crafting and Crafting Recipe Names, and Item Database Item Names.

Bug Fixes

- The item and cat frame for dark mode has been adjusted so that parts of it are no longer the exact same color as the background (making them invisible).

- Fixed issue where monsters were ignoring weather health penalties.

- Minor art fix for Fossil Footprints and Fossil Leaves (clipping issue)


Super Old Bug Fixes from January that Never Got In An Update

- Fixed issue wehre custom items didn't work in image bbcode

- Sort variables were being lost on pagination in artisan's market search by shop and search by item and search by tags

- Shop age sort was reversed

- Fixed issue where custom items didn't work in sandbox

- Fixed issue where custom shop can't be edited because it says the name is taken

- Fixed issue where filters on the search by item page were not working (twice)

- Queue is no longer eating money if you missed checking a box

- Queue pagination now works

- Fixed issue wehre tags were not wrapping, extending the page on mobile

- Custom buildings no longer broken in forum scene code

- Fixed issue where items from shops that aren't open yet were showing up in the item search but couldn't be purchased

- Tag searches with spaces in the artisan's market no longer lead to the "not allowed" page

- Crescent Pier info box no longer gets stuck on the world map

- It is now possible for users to cancel items from the queue

- Fixed search blurb variable being lost when moving items to inventory

- Custom item images no longer broken on quick sales page

- Custom item shop search now works when you are in a tab

- Custom item shop price search now works

- Essence fragment sales on OM and CRB are no longer taxed

- Submitting a custom item with too many colors no longer makes it so queue mods are unable to approve your item


What's Next?

- Forum migration and search

- Leaf Day!

- End of Beta - Date TBA

!!! Yeehaw!

lets go!!!

Behold! The Bloom of the Essence Fragment Market!

This is amazing! Thank you for all your work!

Update Pog

this is the bestest update ever, thank you so much Squid

I would love to use the new Adventuring icons as catmojis...a thought, perhaps

YAY

Yay!! Thank you for the update