Game update: 10/1

As I've mentioned earlier, I'll be keeping the live MotD messages as brief as possible whenever I post a game update; in exchange, I'll be discussing each MotD entry in more detail here on the Sixth Sense whenever I update Nodeka.

'class/skills' command shows abilities which improve beyond 100%:

A small but very useful interface improvement. The skill/spell list for each class will now identify those abilities which can be trained beyond 100% for additional bonuses, making it much easier to see how each class can advance at a glance. This works for classes other than your own as well, of course.

This feature is actually just a side-effect of something more exciting which is still in development. =) I've made a number of internal improvements while developing the new 'mystery thing', and this happened to be a feature that I could code quite easily with the improvements implemented so far - so here it is.

As for the 'mystery feature', it's coming "soon". =) It's something that I want to release on the same general schedule as the spoils of war (for reasons I'll explain once they're in) and the newbie improvements (because these are improvements to Nodeka's fundamental experience, which need to be explained during the newbie experience and thus necessitate updates to my work in that area).

Quick note regarding bless and greater armor: these spells will report as trainable beyond 100% even for fighters, who do not gain benefits from doing so (they're set so that only casters gain additional bonuses). In the next update, I will be implementing small training benefits to those spells for warriors (although they will be fairly minor, to maintain the original intention of the training boosts). Armor falls under this category too (it does already gain a +ac boost for fighters, but it's pretty insignificant.)

Cinderskein improvements:

Cinderskein can be a bit challenging to use, given its war-shell and range restrictions. I've improved the spell's feedback a bit by adding a message which informs the sorcerer whenever the cinderskein "misses" a player due to the fact that they've moved away from the targeting rune. (Previously, cinderskein would just silently fail on that player, which could be confusing.)

I've also made a number of small improvements to the spell (slightly reduced the lag when firing the heat rays, and slightly improved the damage range, especially when more targets are struck).

Vicious Fist bugfix:

The buff to hand damage which vicious fist grants at masteries beyond 100% was increased slightly in the 9/10 update. However, when I implemented this increase, I only applied the change to left-hand attacks, and failed to increase right-hand attacks... This has been fixed. =)

Helpfile fixes:

Thanks for all of the typo/discrepancy reports, folks. Our helpfiles can always use some spring cleaning, so I appreciate you bringing these issues to my attention. =)