Mazzarin's Demise VI (v4) Changelog

Report any issues or read about previous changes in this MariusNet thread. This might be the last build before the final goes up on the Tain, so play it a bunch and report any issues. If players ask you where they can find Mazz, tell them to double click on the red Mazz game and manually type the URL it gives them.

Changes from rc08 to rc09:

General/Not-Specific:

• While this plugin does not include built-in detail textures, you can still download some and enable them. This set of detail textures is one known option. However, they are somewhat dark in some areas, so ideally a v2 of those Dtex will eventually be uploaded somewhere for those who want them. Do a search and find them when they get uploaded. There might be others in the works by different individuals, so pick what you wish. Addons are a different type of Myth file that are placed in your plugins folder and will automatically load without having to activate them manually.

To be able to see them on the map go to your preferences. While having OpenGL or DirectX 10/11 rendering selected, check "Landscape Textures". ("Anisotropic Filtering" as well to make textures look better while viewed in steep angles.) While in-game you can use the "Page Up" (or "F11") key to toggle dtex on and off when wanted.

• Altered the requirements for triggering the Suicide script. To suicide any units, with the exception of Mazz, move them to the nearby crater to the East of the starting location and taunt. If people still accidentally lose units despite this change, then they are idiots. (No way I'm getting rid of it just because people feel the need to use Taunt as a stop command when they have nothing to dodge or attack on the first minutes of the game. Units stop walking once they reach their destination, no need to tell them to stop for that, too.)



• Altered the requirements for triggering the Auto-Distribute script. It can only be triggered by taunting Mazz in the spot he starts in. If Mazz is moved out of it before triggering it, you can always move him back to trigger the script as long as it happens before the 1 minute mark. This will prevent players from accidentally triggering the script if they didn't intend it. (Strangely I never heard of a case where a player accidentally taunted Mazz and yet several in which other units were accidentally taunted causing their deaths. Maybe the players that were more likely to taunt were also the less likely candidates to be trusted with Mazz.)



• Fixed the Auto-Distribute script. It had been re-added to Mazz (in rc07) in a broken form. Due to very little scripting room left it is rather limited and works best for Normal difficulty and higher for games with many players, but does (partially) work on lower difficulties with less players as well. This means the captain of the game might still need to check if someone needs extra units as some of the unit groups given don't appear in lower difficulty levels. The script will give every player at least one heron and one berserk as long as there are enough for everybody. The extra units are left with the captain to distribute.



• Tweaked the messages shown at the start about how to auto-distribute and suicide units to match the updated methods. The level's hints have also been adjusted to include that information.



• Tweaked some inventory items so that their attacks always override the default. This prevents Mazz from using his Dispersal Dream when you ordered him to use a special attack from another inventory item. Same thing for Paladin when trying to use Heal Burst without having enough mana. Instead of defaulting to normal Healing like before, it now does nothing until it has more mana or you switch to Inventory 0.



• Removed some unused tags as well as altered the Mazz map so that it always shows up in the list of solo/coop maps to play without having to use Shift to see it.



• Added a message to show up in the start of a game if veteran units are detected. This is meant to let other players know the game they are in has vets from a previous game. This can also be useful for films when you want to know which started with veteran units.

The Watcher:

• Altered the Watcher's script that calculates how much damage he receives each time a black thrall wave is killed. Since rc05, the damage which is based on the difficulty level (meaning less damage on higher difficulty levels) would be reduced to 25% when he reaches lower than 37.5% health. Then 25% of that when around the stoning point. Now its 50% and then 25% of that. Which means he can take more damage when lower than 37.5% health with this build compared to rc05-rc08 builds.



• Altered the amount of mana the Watcher gets when low on health to slow down the special attack rate frenzy. Instead of it being 11 to 15 seconds in between, now it is 15 to 20 seconds.



• Altered the amount of health the Watcher regenerates after getting stoned to be 8 total health points instead of 12 in the span of 2 minutes.



• Fixed an issue with the Watcher's damage script. As his health reached specific low percentages he would receive less damage from the death of black thrall waves. However, the script would make this damage value smaller each time he got stoned. If a game got him stoned and then unstoned several times (which appears rare), it would cause the damage script to do almost no damage from black thrall wave deaths after a few times depending on the difficulty level.



• Altered the Watcher's hellfire from the sky attack. Instead of dropping somewhere between 18 to 22 hellfire projectiles it will only drop 18. This will decrease some of the damage the attack does and make it slightly harder to kill powerful units in one attack. Also, it no longer causes the units to flinch. This should help lower the chance of death when units are too close when the attack is touching down. It will still kill you if you don't move out of the way in time.



• Altered the Watcher's rift storm attack. The attack used to be very volatile and would sometimes kill player units even when they had full health. This can still happen but is much less likely than before. When you see those black clouds forming, scatter to avoid the rift causing projectiles falling from above.



• The Watcher's Curse attack now uses a different look (red) than the Wraith attacks (white). This should let the players know visually that the target unit got cursed instead of "wraithed".



• Altered the Watcher's Curse script and attack. Changes had to be made to allow other changes (for heron/berserks) to work, but it should work just as before. If it doesn't then save the film, zip it, and upload/send it.



• Altered the Watcher's attack script. An addition (back in rc05) was made to give the Watcher an order to curse Mazz, specifically. The problem was the script was instead targeting the Paladin when this action was triggered. Not a big difference, but now it will target Mazz for this one attack order.

Iron Golem:

• Iron Golem is now immune to confusion. A mindless summoned creature should probably not be confusable anyways.



• Iron Golem is now always visible even if not near the players' units. This allows you to track where it is and how much health it has left in case you want to heal it. (Won't show up on the overhead map if too far, but if you know its location you can still see it.)

Mazzarin:

• Increased the chance Mazz's Eldritch Lance attack would hit its target. Before, you would need multiple tries to hit a distant idle enemy.



• Rifts (which are created by a Mazz special) are now red and turn white (after 3 minutes) when they are reaching their peak. The peak is reached 5 seconds after it turns white. Rifts still work as before, but before this change they started white and the effect restarted when reaching their peak. So if you weren't paying attention to it or to when you created it, you wouldn't easily know if it peaked yet.

Berserks/Heron Guards:

• Hogging purple crystals for the Watcher fight will no longer be permitted. Once the Watcher starts to attack, a script will track down any purple crystals being held and take them away. As a consolation prize, any unit holding one when this happens will receive 10 experience points. (Purple crystals were meant to help vet units, not to chop up The Watcher into pieces.)



• Fixed an issue with Berserks not getting the mini bless bonus at 100/250 kill marks. This also resolves the leftover delay for level 3 berserk. (The rc08 script was still looking for the rc07 way of leveling berserks, so never found the berserks at all.)



• Tweaked berserks so that even if their inventory is set to 0 or to a carried item, they keep their faster moving speed that they have when level 2 or 3 mode is selected as inventory 1. (They still lose their charging speed boost for level 2 and 3 if not selected; and lose some damage resistance in the case of level 3 when not selected.)



• Level 3 Berserks and Heron Guards are no longer immune to confusion.



• When a level 3 Berserk or Heron Guard is cursed, it permanently loses its regeneration, it drains ("degenerates") health for 5 minutes, it loses all its mana for 5 minutes, and it loses 50 kills. Level 1 and 2 Berserks and Heron Guards are still converted to the enemy team when cursed. (Note: There had been a report that Berserks attack slower after reaching certain number of kills, this is not the case. Berserks attack slower when they have less than full mana which made it appear slower even after vetting more.)



• Tweaked Mazz and Paladin crystals so that they are dropped if the units holding them die. While these crystals are useless once the units that can use them die (Mazz and Paladin), it also affects Berserks. Before this change, when a berserk died with a Mazz or Pal crystal, that crystal would be gone for good.

Ranger/Archers:

• Altered Celestial Bow of Paralysis so that the attack is now a special attack requiring pressing the T key to use. This should help prevent wasting too many arrows on a single target.



• Fixed minor issue where Ranger would not get a bonus bow when its inventory was full. (Note that Ranger can only get one at 250 kills if the remaining Archers are dead or already at 250 kills and at least one bonus bow remains.)



• Removed Celestial bows from random drops. (Used to be extremely rare with about a 0.005% chance of appearance.) Now the only Celestial bows are the 6 given to Archers/Ranger when they have enough kills.



• Adjusted initial values for Celestial bows. Instead of the script taking away some of its charges when given to the player, the values they ended up as are now the default. So the old values of 50% are still the same quantity of arrows as the new 100% values.



• When the Ranger is cursed, it loses all its experience (kills). If it had more than 150 kills when it got cursed, it will regain only 125 kills after 5 minutes. If it had less, then it regains nothing. (So if Ranger gets cursed twice, he is stuck with no kills. If he regains more than 25 kills after being cursed the first time, then he gets to keep 125 kills next time Ranger gets cursed.)



• A message now shows up when all 6 bonus bows have been handed out. The message will not appear if the sixth bow was given to the last eligible Archer/Ranger since it wouldn't matter after that.



• The "Mega Bow of Paralysis" has been renamed to "Ultra Bow of Paralysis" to keep all bows consistent. In the original Mazz VI (v2) there were 4 categories for bows: Common, Mega, Ultra, and Celestial. For Paralysis, however, there was no Ultra category. During the version 4 update to Mazz VI (in rc05), all Mega class bows were removed except for paralysis. Now there are only 3 categories for bows: Common, Ultra, and Celestial.

Pyromancer/Electromancer:

• Removed Mancers' natural ability to regenerate mana as they have recharge crystals for that as well as their mana replenish attacks. They can still naturally regenerate mana while on Inventory 0. (This one needs testing, if it causes too much trouble it gets reverted back.)



• Increased the range of the Mancer's Mana Replenish attack so it can target enemies farther away to trigger its mana replenishment without the need to press T and click on the unit.



• Fixed the Mancer script so that when leveling, RCs (recharge crystals) are not left behind if they were too far from the Mancers when the script tried to give them back after leveling. As well as dealt with a bug that could hold up the leveling process. (If there were 6 RCs near a leveling Mancer, the script used to get stuck trying to give that 6th RC to the Mancer when it was already full. The Mancer would then not level until that RC was moved away. No longer the case.)



• Tweaked Pyro's and Electro's inventories for Stasis/Path and Bolt/Orb so that they don't auto attack with them unless they were already targeting enemies. This will stop highly vetted Mancers from attacking (and therefore from wasting mana) multiple times as long as they weren't already ordered to attack.

Dwarves (Mort/Demos/Striders):

• Altered how Mort and Strider ammo behave. They will no longer detonate when the dwarf holding them dies from a single explosion, unless there is an explosion that is still affecting the ammo after it is dropped from the dead dwarf. Meaning, a Trow kick or a Lich fountain that kills a Mort or Strider will not detonate its ammo, but a series of explosions like a Dispersal Dream can detonate the ammo right after its death. However, this change does not stop Berserks holding such ammo from detonating upon death. This should decrease but not eliminate the chance of games being ruined when a mort or strider die too close to the team.



• Tweaked the Mort's and Demo's melee attack. Now you have to double click to make them melee enemies. This will stop them from walking up to an enemy that is getting closer to attack them.



• Tweaked the Mort's max vetting limits (the point where its attacks stop getting better). In level 1 it stops vetting at 100 kills, in level 2 it stops at 150 kills, and level 3 remained the same at 250 kills.



• Tweaked the Mort's level 3 artifact. When Mort is at level 3, you can use inventory to switch to "None" which is the same as if he was at level 1. This is useful for players that don't keep a constant eye on their Mort to prevent it from auto attacking and killing allies. Since level 1 has a lower vetting limit the Mort will not shoot as fast and therefore have less of a chance to kill friendly units. (Keep in mind when switched to "None", the Mort's attacks are weaker, is less resistant to damage, and walks slower.)



• Created an alternate method of handling the Anvil part of the Demo H&A special. You can still use the old method if you prefer. After launching the hammer, press T to use the anvil. (This way you don't need to ctrl click two different spots, just one ctrl click and press T when the hammer is where you want it at before "launching it".)



• Demos now start with a Hammer & Anvil crystal in their inventory. (This will help vet them at the start when they have such a slow attack speed. This will also help players practice using that crystal.)



• Red crystals (Hammer & Anvil / Plasma Globes) will now start with 20 charges instead of 100 charges.



• Red crystals have increased in chance of appearance to 5 times more than before. This should increase the chance of finding red crystals for Demos/Striders for vetting purposes instead of them being too rare.



• Demos/Striders can now hold up to 4 items in their inventory. (Used to be 2. Keep in mind one slot will be needed for level 2 status.)



• Made the red crystal droppable using Shift-I so that Demos and Striders can share their red crystals if needed.



• Removed Demo's stab attack when H&A (red crystal) is selected since it would use up the artifact's charges (artifact's ammo count).



• Altered the Hammer and Anvil attacks of the Demo so that even if you ctrl click closer to the dwarf than you should have it will toss them. (Sometimes players would do this causing the dwarf to move away to get in range and miss the chance to launch the attacks without hitting themselves with the hammer part.)



• The Hammer attack of the Demo H&A special will not dud into an unlit bottle now. (Happened less than 1% of the time.)



• Fixed a leveling issue where the script would not make a Demo or Strider a level 2 unit if its inventory was full but would still take its kills away.



• Leveling for Demos and Striders has been tweaked. Striders still level at 140 kills and Demos at 130 kills, but instead of losing 70 kills for level 2 status they lose 100 kills.



• Altered the bottles tossed by Level 2 Demos/Strids so that they can't hurt the owner of the attack. This should prevent highly vetted dwarves from accidentally killing themselves, but they can still hurt friendly units.



• Striders can now hold up to 10 rounds of ammo. (So you could suicide the Mort and both Striders can fill up on the ammo.)



• Tweaked Demos so that if one is a level 1 and the other is a level 2 you can still double click on one to select both. For some reason they were set to be different, but it didn't seem that useful to do such a thing for this case.