itch.io

Happy Thanksgiving! Check out the event details on our forums:

https://howlbreath.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33&p=103#p103

Stones of Preservation and Blood can now drop from any monster.

Additionally, we have placed some throughout Arbranau/Ecdelton zones and the Contested Land. 5 of each stone have been hidden, most are in the Contested Land. Whoever finds them first gets them!

Happy Halloween! Enjoy double exp AND double drops all day today!

https://howlbreath.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9

Howlbreath

We're running an event for the next month where you can win lots of prizes! The following can be won by reaching various level milestones:
Level any character to 20 by November 14th: 20k gold
Level any character to 50 by November 14th: 50k gold
Level any character to 80 by November 14th: Choice of Hauberk (21% HP Regen) or Hauberk (21% MP Regen)
Level any character to 100 by November 14th: Choice of Chain Hose (15% Physical Absorb) or Chain Hose (15% Magic Absorb) or Sharp Flameberge (49% Hitting Probability) or Virtuous Magic Wand MS20 (49% Hitting Probability)
First player to level a Warrior to 120: Choice of Iferag Blade, Lizoga Blade, Abalrien Sword, Ensanguined Blade, Ensanguined Axe, or Ensanguined Rapier
First player to level a Magician to 120: Choice of Magic Wand (MS30), Iferag Wand (MS20), Azzurian Wand (MS20), Lizoga Wand (MS20), or Revitalization Wand (MS20)

Every player can earn multiple prizes. Only 1 player can earn prizes from the last 2 categories. These rewards start now and will continue through the end date (11/14/22). Log in and start earning rewards!

Kaz,

I wouldn't recommend investing in charisma much if any at all. The increased drop chance from it is very very minimal, you're much better off increasing STR/DEX/VIT so that you can fight stronger monsters. Golems & howlers drop better items than easier monsters. Particularly, golems/howlers drop hauberks and chain hose which can be very helpful if you find them with physical absorb/magic absorb/hp regen/mp regen stats. These can be extremely helpful, and so they are not common drops.

As for changes to the bow requirements -- if anything we're thinking about reducing the requirements. Neither of those have dropped in the game yet though, so we'll think about it for now.

Exp rates: if we end up making any adjustments here, it'll take some time as this kind of thing takes a lot of scrutiny and testing. Not sure if you're staying with orcs because of the high-ish max exp the website shows. If so, the higher end is only for orcs that cast spells, the rest give exp from the lower end (10-30 or so). Orcs are fairly easy monsters meant primarily for lower level characters. At lvl 72 for a warrior, I would expect you would get more experience in a scorpion pit or graveyard in CL (far south, between the 2 Arbranau entrances, just above the road). The zombies & skeletons in the graveyard may not have the best drops, but they are good for leveling up.

For summoning, I can't seem to reproduce any problems. When you use the '/kill' command, it kills the summon, but you cannot summon another until the previous one is completely gone (not just dead, but has disappeared). Make sure you're casting it on yourself. Let me know if you're still having issues.

Guilds: the only benefit right now is that you have a private chat channel with all guild members. We plan to add more features to this in the future, but they're not going to be much use until we have a larger player base, so features here are on the back burner. Probably not worth the gold cost yet.

Lottery tickets are mostly there just for fun. There are a few rare items you can get from them, but odds are very low. Right now we're planning to keep the list a mystery.

ALT+SHIFT works when you have your cursor over an item on the ground, though I did notice an issue this morning that it didn't work if an entity was standing on the item (or laying dead on). We put out a small update this morning to correct that which seems to be working. Let me know if you're still having trouble.

Hey guys,

Thanks again for all of the feedback! We just released an update which makes changes for most of them. There are still a few that we haven't looked into. Me and the other main developer are going to be out next week, so we aren't planning to put out another update until after we get back. I'll still be monitoring the servers and support email in case something comes up. Please check out the devlog/website updates for information and give it all a try. Let us know what you think!

Thanks for the kind words and all of the feedback! We'll definitely work these into our releases and hopefully have updates with them soon!

Also, the part of the underground you enter from CL has more rocks as well (you can also get here from Arbranau->underground->bottom/right path to the right). This area starts having more monsters though too, so may want to lvl up some more before going that way.

Kaz, we just put out another update. The underground areas are pretty big, so we increased the number of mineral rocks throughout them. Also added item/weight limit indicators to the bag dialog. The next time you log in, it should prompt you to update, should be a quick update this time

Thanks for the info, I'll take another look at it and evaluate adding more to the area

We just put out an update that addresses the ant part sizes & chat box text size. Need to manually update to get it (if you download the howlbreath_updater.exe from howlbreath.com, it should show progress now when you run it)

Running around in the first area on Arbranau side right now, I found rocks at (137,39), (51,134), (56,61), and (25,54). They look to be respawning correctly

I don't think it's listed anywhere right now, we'll probably get it added to the bag dialog in a future update

FYI, the experience event has been announced, it's going to be from Friday at noon through Sunday night, double exp!

Yep, you found copper rocks -- there are more copper rocks in the entry underground zones than iron rocks. The mining rocks respawn as soon as you see them disappear, but they do not respawn in the same spot, you have to search for them. Note that the monsters in the entry underground zone are similar throughout the zone. As long as you do not go into the next zone, the monsters won't change much. I'm guessing you just didn't venture throughout the zone enough -- it's a fairly large area

Agree, the ant parts are tiny. We changed the chat color hoping to help, but yes, it's still on the small side. I'll see if we can get these changed to make them both easier to see!

Hey Kaz,

This is normal. You have 2 different types of bag limits: weight limit (max weight shown on F5 dialog and is based on level/strength) and the 2nd is a 50 item limit. Looks like you found the weight limit, so you were hitting the 50 item limit.

You can type into the shop windows, if you just start typing a number it will update with that. If you type a huge number like 999999999 it'll automatically cap it at the max you can buy :)

Ah, it looks like it was working, pack9 is a large file so can take a while to download, guessing you just didn't wait long enough. Probably need to get rid of the cache print out, makes it look like it was having an issue even though it likely wasn't

Are you logging out (via F12 system menu) when you're done or just closing the application? The config file is written to disk when you log out, so if you hard close the application, then the position info doesn't get saved

For poison resistance, you need to drink a "Poison Resistance Potion" to get it to 20% before it will start increasing from poisonous monster attacks. The shopkeepers sell this potion

Are you logging in from the same computer every time? The game saves a local file that stores the position of all the items; if you log in from a different computer it won't be able to load it and will default everything to the middle.

Does it happen every time or just some times? If it's a problem every time you log in, then you might check that you can write to the ProgramData directory, for howlbreath it's at: C:\ProgramData\howlbreath\. When the inventory configuration is working correctly, you should have a ".bagcfg" file for each character in that location. If it doesn't occur every time, then it's likely a bug in the client -- if this is the case, any details on when you do/don't see it would help us reproduce so we can fix it.

We didn't change anything in regard to the inventory locations, so I would expect the issue remains.

Kaz,

We were able to get an update out in the past hour that addresses a lot of the things you brought up, thanks again for pointing them out! Take a look at the dev log on itch or the update page on our website for more information. The next time you log in, it should prompt you to run the updater, which will update you to the current version. You can also re-download the entire installer (from itch or howlbreath.com), but the updater will be a little faster.

For the issue about Log in, can you give some more details? I'm not sure I understand. Thanks!

Yes, all skills are capped based on specific stats/level. Sorry, this is missing from the UI right now, I'll see if we can get it added for the next update. In the mean time, here's the info on what skills are capped on what:

Hand Attack, Mining, and Manufacturing: capped at 2x Strength (so need 50 STR for 100%)

Short sword, long sword, fencing, axe, bow, shield, and fishing: capped at 2x Dexterity (need 50 DEX for 100%)

Magic and staff attack: capped at 2x Magic (need 50 MAG for 100%)

Magic resistance: capped at 2x level (need to be lvl 50 for 100%)

Pretend corpse and alchemy: capped at 2x Intelligence (need 50 INT for 100%)

Poison resistance: capped at 2x Vitality (need 50 VIT for 100%)

Sorry for the confusion, we'll get it added!

Hey Kaz,

Ah, we'll make the speed str requirement more clear in the text, it is unclear right now! We should also be able to add armor defense to the descriptions as well (currently I think they do show when you look at them in the blacksmith, just not in your own bag). Frost manual requires 50 intelligence to learn -- we'll get that info added to spell manuals as well.

For mining, it gets easier as your mining skill increases. Some mining rocks contain more copper, while others contain more iron. The entry underground zones have a little more copper than iron. Further into the underground, the rocks get more fruitful, but you'll want to be a higher level before going too deep. I do think there might be too many hounds in the entry underground zones right now, we'll probably reduce them in those areas in the next update.

Thanks for bringing all of this up. We're working on updates to address these as well as what you brought up previously. Should have a small update out later today or tomorrow!

Nice! If I remember right, pickaxe max speed is around 130, but 60 will get it swinging pretty well. Watch out for those hounds!

Ah yes, there are some golems and hounds down there, so helps to level up a bit before going. By the way, the pickaxe needed for mining requires a fair amount of strength for full swing, keep that in mind if you're planning to do some mining.

We're likely going to do a bonus exp event next weekend. I'll post on itch once all the details are worked out, keep an eye out!

Ya, I thought about using Google voice or finding something online to let me temporarily use another phone number to get my discord account validated, but ultimately didn't really want to do something shady. I contacted their support and went back and forth a bunch of times, but they just don't seem to care. I haven't used discord much, but I figure if I'm having this issue this fast, it probably happens a lot. We're working on getting some forums set up on the howlbreath website. It isn't quite the same, but I think it will make a good place for discussions and ideas like this

Hey Kazzarat

For hunger, you don't regen how/mp/sp as much as you get hungrier. Eating food (which can be created with a spell, bought from shopkeeper, or found from monsters) both reduces hunger and increases the amount of HP you regen on the next regen. You're right that this isn't documented anywhere, I'll make sure info gets added for it in various places!

For defense stats on gear, they don't effect crit chance at all. The defense that armor gives goes into some equations when you are attacked to determine whether or not you take damage and how much. It's also based highly on the attacker's weapon and abilities. The higher the defense, the higher chance you avoid damage at all and also the less damage you take when you don't avoid completely.

Mining is all done in the underground areas, which can be entered from the main towns as well as the contested land and a couple other spots. There is a dark spot in the map for their entrances, when you find them, they look like a dark hole mostly surrounded by a metal gate. Thanks for bringing this up, I'll make sure we get the maps updated to show where they are and add some info about the underground/entrances to the mining web page!

For stats: strength allows you to wear heavier armor, wield heavier weapons, swing heavy weapons faster, and increases physical damage. Dexterity increases your probability to physically hit opponents and also decreased your probability to be hit by opponents. Vitality increases your max HP, increases your hp regen, and slightly decreased damage taken. Intelligence allows you to learn better spells, increases your cast probability, and increases your magic damage. Magic increases your max mp and increases your mp regen. Charisma is needed to start a guild and also slightly increases your luck for finding items when fighting monsters. Again, this was missed in documentation and I'll make sure it gets added to the website and probably the help pages!

Thanks for posting all of the questions, they pointed out some oversights that will definitely help people once we updates out in the next couple days! Let me know if you have more questions!

Sorry no discord channel. I tried to make one but discord locked me out requiring phone verification and they wouldn't accept my phone number.

If you have questions you can post them or email support@howlbreath.com and I will be happy to help

Welcoming constructive feedback!

Please let me know if you had any issues downloading or installing. I've done a lot to try to keep the game from getting flagged by security, so please let me know if you are seeing something or if you have any other issues.

Planning to consistently update this, so feedback on gameplay is helpful. Ideas for the next content, feature, or just small changes are great to post here. Please try to keep it constructive.

If you run into any bugs, please let me know about them as well!