HOME | DD

Description

Felis Catus – Patch Notes v1.04 (Update Week 4):

Optical sense now implemented (thank you for your patience!) – the development team will continue upgrading this sense over the coming weeks until it meets a standard on par with moderators.

Auditory sense also implemented – apologies for the prior downtime while drivers were fully optimised in preparation for launching this feature.

Temperature regulation fixed, this should now be working as intended in all cases.

Waste management fixed (basics now in place, moderator interaction no longer required, location-specific disposal now being implemented asap).

Antibodies implemented – disease hazards have been significantly nerfed and player resistances/defence buffed in all cases.

The fluid requirement miscalculation introduced in v1.01 has now been fixed. Required fluid quantities should now be set at a far more reasonable level for all players.

Strength and speed have been buffed to more desirable levels. Values will continue to rise over time as players gain experience.

Movement beyond the starting zone should now be possible for all players.

PvE now fully implemented – player armament can now damage the fully-destructible environment. Note that some attack actions will cause neutral NPCs (e.g. Homo Sapiens) to become hostile.

Limited friendly-style PvP is now permissible both in and out of the starting zone.

To prevent unintended damage, players can now de-equip weapons during combat. Doing so replaces all ‘strike’ attacks with ‘bat’.

Players can engage in “play”, “stalking” and “hunting” mini games, as practice for open world PvP and missions after full release. These activities can be played in teams or solo. Players should consult moderators regarding the rules of each activity (with the exception of the default free-for-all “play” activity, which has no set rules).

Appearance management and self-grooming skill paths are now available – these skills need to be trained via observing moderators. Following negative feedback, appearance upkeep should no longer require external grooming and/or water supply in most cases.

Basic Avifauna and Mus musculus neutral NPCs can now be found outside the starting zone, along with friendly Canis familiaris NPCs, Homo Sapiens NPCs, and ‘objects’.

Following overwhelming negative feedback, player vehicles/carriers will (from now on) only be used sparingly.

New mechanic: ‘curiosity’ – players are now compelled to explore areas outside the starting zone, particularly small and/or dark terrain, for bonus experience.

Minimum size limits for entering small spaces have been significantly reduced – the whiskers HUD now acts as an indicator for these refined limits.

The development team agrees with recent feedback that the curiosity mechanic necessitates more than one re-spawn per player. However, twenty-five re-spawns per player was deemed excessive and thus a compromise has been implemented that the dev team believes is reasonable. Players should now be able to re-spawn eight times, for a total of nine spawns.

Attention spans were deemed overpowered and have therefore been heavily nerfed. Distractions will now present a greater challenge to all players and moderators.

Pounce attacks were grossly overpowered. Activation times have been increased and players are now required to enter the “focused wiggle” stance before pouncing (this stance can be cancelled at any time).

Periodic resting requirements have been increased.

Maximum jump/pounce distances have been increased (again!).

Territories and control zones are now reset (apologies for any inconvenience caused).

Adorableness and Cuteness now decay (very slightly) over time to re-balance PvP encounters between new and veteran players, with the former benefiting from a significant bonus.

Known Issues List for 1.04:

During testing, the curiosity mechanic often led to players spending inordinately large periods of time in or around ‘box’ objects (particularly cardboard types, regardless of size). A fix for this bug is in progress, but may not be possible. Players are advised to implement the workaround previously proposed to combat this bug (i.e. try to ignore the boxes) if effects are deemed undesirable.

Teeth mechanics remain basic – these will be replaced by a more robust version matching moderators in patch 1.06.

Eye appearance options are not yet implemented – players won’t yet be able to switch from the default blue until patch 1.05 is launched (which should allow for one-time-only customisation from blue to gold, orange, green, etc). Note that a small percentage of players will not be able to customise eyes at all due to class designation and/or build type.

Player contact with Nepeta cataria and its derivatives will trigger randomised environmental settings and illusory sensory input for short periods of time. Due to positive player feedback, this issue will be permitted to remain in the game.

Voice commands remain basic – an emergency fix was attempted, however this simply introduced inexplicable sub-vocal oscillation triggered by raising the satisfaction stat sharply. Commands remain limited to “mew”, “meow” and “murr”, with “hssssss!” and “mwwr!” unlockable during PvP encounters. There are no timescales available for further additions.

The landing animation exploit has not been removed. Since the underlying bug has created an equal benefit to all players, it has been decided that this exploit will be permitted to stand (no pun intended). Players are warned that this animation bug will not activate below a certain distance, and in extreme cases will only prevent full HP loss in SOME cases.

The dev team is aware that many neutral NPCs and even some friendly NPCs (e.g. Canis familiaris) unintentionally appear hostile to most players, resulting in excessively numerous PvP encounters. Players are advised that experience gain in close proximity to such NPCs will fix this in most cases.

The “defeat one Mus musculus and return it to a Homo Sapiens” quest does not always result in positive rewards. This is working as intended.

There is no “defeat your exact duplicate behind the invisible wall!” quest. Players should ignore NPCs offering this ‘quest’ while near reflective surfaces.

Homo Sapiens NPCs may not behave as players expect/demand – this is working as intended, with resource and attention provision partially randomised. Player vocalisation and harassment attacks can mitigate this randomisation, though results may not always be positive.

The dev team is aware that the “focused wiggle” pounce stance can trigger randomly under some circumstances. A fix is being investigated.

Players should be aware that early-game skill choices (e.g. experience dedicated to learning appearance management and mini game activities) will significantly impact mid- and end-game builds.

Moderator supervision will remain in place across the entire game server until patch 1.10 is implemented.

Full release remains eleven months away, at which point full PvP, optimised builds and moderator-free roaming will all be introduced.