By Antonela Pounder @AnimatedAnt (Senior Community Manager – 505 Games)
Portal Knights… The Creator’s Update is OUT NOW on Steam! Featuring Creative Mode, Universe Sharing, Pirate City – Landlubber’s Leap and much more! Let your imagination run wild, alone or with friends and build something truly amazing! Or be inspired by other players creations on the Steam Workshop. If you’ve not joined us yet, now’s the perfect time to!
Steam Content Update 1.4.1
The Big Picture
• Creative Mode – Create your own islands using unlimited resources. Share them with friends!
• Landlubber’s Leap – A pirate’s paradise with new quests, characters and more!
• Armor – Reworked, rebalanced and renamed! Plus, new epic and exotic armor!
• Spectral Knight encounters!
• Receive weekly gifts from Mailboxes!
The Nitty Gritty
– The universe selection menu has been updated and it now allows the creation of “Creative” Universes.
– Players can now create up to 5 Universes.
– Creative Universes have unique rules:
o Islands can be created from a selection of presets or copied over from other Universes.
o Islands in the Creative Universe can be freely named and re-named.
o Everything can be mined with one strike.
o All game items (blocks, props, etc.) are available in inventory and can be used without limit.
o Characters can fly – initiated by double-jumping.
o It’s always daytime.
o Plants do not grow.
o There are no enemies.
o There are no quests or events.
o There are no loot drops.
o Placement and mining distances are longer than in Adventure Mode.
o Characters can fall from an island without penalty.
o Characters cannot drown.
– Steam Workshop can be used to upload and share Universes and to subscribe to other players’ Workshop items.
– When loading a Workshop item from another player, the Universe can be visited and viewed, but you cannot mine or place items.
– You can subscribe to as many Workshop items as you want. They don’t use up Universe slots.
– All bombs, artifacts, and potions — except health and mana potions — are now crafted at the new Alchemy Table.
– Players can craft three types of gift boxes containing items from a pool of resources, such as valuable crafting resources, furniture sets, vanity items, etc.
– “Palm Bay” (Island 2-01) is now called “Landlubber’s Leap” and hosts a new pirate hideout. In older universes the “Regenerate Universe” feature may be used to make this new content available. Landlubber’s Leap offers:
o Pirate NPCs with quests.
o New rewards for the player.
o New merchants selling current and new items.
o New pets.
o New hair and beard styles.
o New building blocks.
– Changes to Armor
o Some armor is now dropped from normal dungeon chests instead of being crafted.
o Some armor has been reworked and rebalanced to better align to this new system.
o Two additional endgame armor pieces for each class have been added to the game.
o A new upgrade station, the Altar of Enhancement, has been added to the Portal Knights Sanctuary, allowing mid-tier armor to be refined into the high-end armor.
o Rings and Capes have been rebalanced and are now dropped as loot from epic chests and bosses.
o One new high-end Cape for each class has been added.
– Mailboxes can be crafted and placed anywhere and can also be found at large forts or villages.
o Mailboxes will periodically have gifts for players.
– Spectral Knight Encounters
o At various points in the game players can interact with a mysterious Spectral Knight who will guide the player and give hints. In older universes the “Regenerate Universe” feature may be used to make this new content available.
Other Changes
– Reduced the size of crafting stations.
– Prices for goods and quest rewards have been rebalanced to make purchases with merchants more consistent.
– The Jade merchant and Pet merchant events are now rare events, randomly triggered.
– Tutorial NPCs on Squire’s Knoll can now be relocated.
– Some tutorial texts have been reworked to better fit the player’s journey.
– The mage weapons “Dancing Swords” have been polished.
– The first-person camera block placing animation has been changed so as not to obstruct the player’s view as much.
– Block drops from enemies have been replaced with more useful items such as recipe items for potions.
– Recipes for potions have been reworked to better aid in the player’s journey.
– Mine carts and tracks can now be mined and placed.
– Dungeon chests can now be mined once they have been opened.
– The dedicated server configuration file can now be set to create a Creative Universe.
– Tree density has been lowered on vacant islands.
Fixes
– Inviting friends starts the intended pre-game UI flow now for the joining player. This means that joining players can select a character and then will be taken to the host’s game right afterwards.
– Several text cut-offs or incorrect line breaks have been fixed in various languages.
– The art for the world globe in the background of the title screen and the worldmap has been polished.
– Several HUD elements have been polished, both stylistically and concerning the layout.
– Improved HUD elements layout for split-screen mode, especially XB bar and oxygen bar.
– Player names now keep the red color correctly when switching islands whilst low on health.
– Water behaves better at underwater dungeon entrances now.
– The level of an island is now displayed shortly before spawning at the landing pad.
– Pets move less erratic now.
– The tutorial no longer marks the camera switch step as done when the player walks close to a wall.
– The character no longer dies twice when returning to the landing pad at the same time as they died.
– Upgrade stations now show better that they can’t be upgraded any further when they are at maximum tier.
– Player characters no longer collect loot after having been killed.
– The sit emote no longer causes issues for follow-up actions like using the teleport scroll or returning to the landing pad.
– Mage weapons with light damage cause the correct damage type now.
– Improved the layout of some islands, especially in normal size, where not enough suitable areas for enemies occurred. Due to the randomized island shapes the issue may still occur occasionally.
– The C’Thiris Cultist Mask works better with several of the hair styles now.
– The Archer Station has the correct sound and visual effect now.
– Jumping up at wall feels more consistent now.
Developer Notes on the New Armor Progression
As with the changes to weapons in Update 1.3.0, we have reworked progression and loot drops for armor. Nearly all weapon stats and character level requirements for armor have been revised.
Our goal was to give players a more meaningful reward after completing a dungeon or a boss fight while at the same time refining our crafting system and giving you more choice when deciding what armor to craft and use next.
Standard dungeon chests now contain SPECIAL pieces of armor. Finding them all will complete different sets.
The remaining armor recipes have been restructured. Whenever players gain access to new resources they will be able to craft new sets of armor and will you be able to choose between two equally powerful sets.
These changes made previous armor recipes redundant and we have removed them from the game! Any armor players crafted using those recipes will remain in their inventories, however.
We hope you like the new changes as much as we do!