Patch Notes Page 34

v0.18.4

Fixed staged-client mercenary pricing and a few remaining merc presentation/combat issues.
The staged client loose gameplay.json now matches the authored merc contract tuning, so hiring mercs in the shipped Client build no longer falls back to the old 200c / 5 waves values.
Hired merc hover cards now use taller health and shield bars so the numeric readouts stop clipping.
Minutemen merc melee reach is now shorter and closer to the intended standard Warden melee distance.

Fixed remaining Sorcerer mercenary collision and spacing issues.
Sorcerer merc projectiles and Flame Wall casts now require a clear lane to their target instead of firing through collision-heavy trees or walls.
Flame Wall now only scores and executes when the merc has an unobstructed line to the chosen threat.
Merc AI soft-follow tuning now keeps hired allies nearer to their Warden and makes them regroup sooner without restoring a hard leash.
Polished mercenary hover readability.
Hired merc hover cards now use thicker health and shield bars so the numeric readouts fit cleanly inside the card.

Fixed mercenary hire pricing and eased aggressive unstuck warping.
Mercenary shop fallback pricing now matches the intended 1000c hire cost even if gameplay tuning data is unavailable during startup.
Merc contract duration fallback now remains permanent instead of silently reverting to a one-wave style display.
Merc stuck recovery now waits roughly 10 seconds of failed movement before teleporting back to the Warden.

Refined hired mercenary behavior, contract flow, and readability.
Mercs now favor staying nearer to their Warden, retreat less aggressively at healthy states, react faster to close melee pressure, and stop spinning in place as often when idle or pathing stalls.
Ranged mercs now respect world projectile blockers such as collision-heavy tree lines before choosing or firing at a target, and stuck mercs now teleport back to their Warden after several seconds of failed movement.
Sorcerer merc bolts now use Jade’s proper fire auto-attack visual sheet.
Updated mercenary contracts, dismissal, and death handling.
Hiring a merc now costs 1000c, contracts no longer expire by wave, and only end when the merc dies or is manually dismissed.
Dead or dismissed mercs now drop all carried and equipped items, and Kalibros now informs the player when their active mercenary has fallen so another can be hired from the Pub.
Dismissed mercs now walk away from the Warden while fading out instead of pathing back to the Pub door.
Polished mercenary trading and hover presentation.
Merc inventory icons now render correctly in the shared inventory screen.
Hovering a merc now matches the broader world-HUD treatment and shows only health and shields instead of a redundant energy readout.

Polished hired mercenary combat support and navigation.
Hired mercs now use a smaller movement-only collision footprint so they path through tighter doors and bridges more reliably without changing combat hitboxes.
Archer, Minutemen, and Spearman combat sheets now normalize back to their 16x16 movement footprint so they stop popping larger while attacking.
Spearman melee reach now matches the normal Warden melee footprint instead of striking from an exaggerated distance.
Improved mercenary healing and caster behavior.
Warden single-target heal spells can now target hired mercs when the cursor or controller reticle is near them, and still self-cast when no ally is under the aim point.
Paladin mercs now choose between healing themselves or their hiring Warden and mark the healed target with a green support highlight.
Sorcerer merc projectiles now use the non-exploding low-rank firebolt behavior and attack slightly less frequently.
Added clearer mercenary support readability.
Healed heroes and mercs now get a short green world highlight when support magic lands.
Hovering a hired merc now shows a compact health/shield readout card in the world HUD.

Added new one-time Kalibros guidance for broken gear and crafting.
The first broken item now triggers a Kalibros warning that sends the player to Trax in the eastern maze for repairs.
Reaching wave 8 now triggers a three-page Kalibros crafting tutorial covering break down reagents, crafting, and the stronger results from forged gear.
The crafting reminder now adapts its first page for controller versus keyboard/mouse inventory play while naming the live break-down hotkey.

Slowed the fast non-dragon enemies that appear during the Verdaxis encounter.
Gate battalion summons and pylon defenders now use explicit Verdaxis encounter speed multipliers instead of inheriting full baseline enemy speed.
Non-dragon elites and bosses that spawn while Verdaxis is active now have their move-speed bonuses damped so stacked elite affixes cannot create runaway encounter adds.

Fixed occupied SpawnAreas allowing enemies and encounter content to appear on top of Wardens.
Enemy, event, teleport, obelisk, and portal spawn-area picks now skip any SpawnArea a live Warden is standing in or hugging closely, then fall back to the next nearest valid area instead.
Verdaxis encounter gates and pylons now obey the same occupied-area rule, preventing special encounter pieces from selecting a Warden-blocked spawn lane.
Restricted Verdaxis and Baron Von Dreadmoor to the neutral center lanes on Main.tmx.
Verdaxis and Baron Von Dreadmoor now only choose SpawnAreas whose map footprint is outside the XP, DangerPay, Combo, and WarpFlux hotzones.
The first dragon boss wave and the final Baron encounter now both avoid the eastern and western hotzone mazes when selecting their spawn anchor.
Tightened Dragon encounter safety near map edges.
Dragon bosses are now clamped to stay at least 3 tiles away from the world border, preventing border-snags during flight and landing loops.
Reduced Dragon airborne self-healing by 25% while kiting.