Release Notes for Masquerada: Songs and Shadows

Patch 1.22 (05 January 2018)

Fixed intermittent game freeze on game launch on Windows.

Patch 1.21 (05 January 2018)

Added support for Switch Pro controller (bluetooth wireless mode only)
Fixed issue where mouse input is not accepted on laptops with touchscreens.

Patch 1.20 (08 August 2017)

New Game Plus mode

New Game Plus mode that is only accessible after players have completed the game once.
Multiple conversations throughout the game have additional lines of dialogue that add more colour to our cast of characters.
Cicero now has mastery over all 4 elements, greatly expanding his skill tree and flexibility in combat.
Players are now able to respec skills at any time within the Skills Menu while out of combat.
5 more skill points are awarded at the start of the game.
12 brand new masks to be found throughout the party’s adventure.
2 new secret bosses have been added. Search for them where Maskrunners hide!
1 new boss fight added to Seimora's Throne.
We have also added text localizations for German, French, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Turkish languages!

Gameplay changes

New Game Plus mode has been added.
Added localizations for German, French, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Turkish languages.
Chapter Select (at the Main Menu) now has a chapter description and preview image for each chapter.
5 more skill points are now awarded between receiving your first mask in the Hall of Bearings and the end of the Quiet Order. This change has a retroactive effect on existing save games. This is separate (and additional to) the 5 additional skill points available in NG+ mode.
Added "Already Obtained" notifications for when the player obtains Masks, Inks, Engravings and Codex entries that they have already collected.
Updated controller scheme for navigating the options, skills and behaviour menus.
Updated PS4 controller button icons. Updated tutorial texts and images when using a controller to play.
Added subtitles when Cicero replays certain past dialogues in his head.
Added controller shortcuts to open some menus. The same shortcuts can be used on toast notifications.

Bugfixes

Fixed Nahl constantly casting his Mask Ultimate Ability in the tutorial.
Fixed Tristan's dialogue getting cut off in the Pale Isle.
Fixed Pale Isle's battle music not playing.
Fixed Cicero's animation if player skips dialogue with Kalden in the Golden Bazaar.
Fixed Amadea's sitting animation in the Astiguary Interior Night.
Fixed Cicero's animation if player skips dialogue in the Misted Aisles.
Fixed Oli's animation in the Astiguary Interior.
Fixed floating cheese in the Whispering Streets Entrance.
Fixed graphic bug in the Whispering Streets Maze and Seimora's Throne.
Fixed Mangiatore's shadow effects still lingering after its defeat.
Fixed Amadea's Fissure cost to standardize it with the others.
Fixed missing sound effect for Amadea's Burrow.
Fixed Ice Spikes skill description.
Fixed a number of textures that were not rendered correctly.
Fixed units T-posing when the player pauses the game and pans the camera to a unit that has never previously appeared in the game view.
Fixed Spouthound AI to match all other summoned units.
Fixed bug where mask activations with 0-cast time are not recorded for achievements. This also fixed Razer Chroma's mask activation ripple effect.
Fixed bug where Vasco's Stampede mask was incorrectly unlocked to Amadea's character data. This fix is retroactive to existing save games.
Fixed bug where game difficulty is not successfully changed when player adjusts the difficulty (in Options menu) at the Main Menu.
Fixed "Option A" display bug in AI menu dropdowns.
Fixed skill AI option that read "Cast on enemy with highest threat" instead of "Cast on self when below 75% health".
Fixed vignette display bug if pausing and unpausing very quickly.
Fixed rare bug where the game paused indefinitely on exiting combat.
Fixed controller skills tooltip not hiding after using the skill.
Fixed grammatical and spelling errors.

Misc

Updated Unity engine from 5.3.4p4 to 5.4.2p2.
Improved a number of visual effects of abilities and in the environment.
Lots of code, texture, units and scene optimizations to improve framerate.
Reduced the game install size from 15gb to 11gb by compressing and reducing image sizes that are unnecessarily large.
Updated Credits.

Known Issues

Mouse confine does not work on MacOS.
Razer Chroma: Some keys are lit incorrectly on the Razer Blade/Stealth. They are offset on the Function key and number key rows.

Patch 1.11 (31 October 2016)

Gameplay changes

Added an option to allow players to close the Party Select menu in most locations.

Bug fixes

Fixed a bug with the boss fight in the Seimora's Throne Basement where some of the summoned apparitions do not home in towards the boss.
Fixed a bug where "The Randagia" Codex Entry was visible but unobtainable at the Camps Combined.
Fixed a bug where Vasco fires projectiles while playing his flute during a cutscene in The Astiguary.
Fixed a bug introduced in v1.10 where Tristan can be seen observing Palov and Cicero’s brawl in The Pale Isle.
Fixed a bug where some Ridiro Fey in the Misted Aisles cannot be affected by certain skills.
Fixed a bug with players floating in the air after using Tradewinds on Ridiro Fey in The Assemblea, Repository.
Fixed an incorrect description for Sorelle's Ward.
Fixed a bug where players can cast Tradewinds and displace allies from the rock slab in The Sunken Star, Vault. You can no longer leave anyone behind. Nice try, though.
Fixed several skills AI options in the party behaviour menu.
Fixed collider issues.
Fixed environment FX.
Fixed NPC character walk speeds so that they do not appear to be sliding.
Fixed a bug where characters might slide when walking during a conversation.
Fixed a bug with skills that are meant to acquire targets randomly but do not end up actually doing so, and instead acquire the first target.
Fixed certain singular horses that were missing shadows.
Fixed issue with Grotesque sound effect being delayed.
Fixed issue with Quagmire and Sorelle's Whirlpool sound loops not ending.
Fixed issue with missing sound effect for Scarab's Cant.
Fixed Stampede and Clarity masks not being instant cast (was 1 second).

Misc

Skill telegraphs no longer disappear when the player uses the mouse to hover over the skill bar while using a controller to play.
Improved the accuracy of the telegraph and ability radius for Sorelle's Ward.
FX Improvements for Guardian’s Redoubt, Sorelle’s Ward, Tremor, Void, Tidal Wall.
Updated Whispering Streets background music.

Patch 1.10 (18 October 2016)

Gameplay changes

Enemies in Story Mode difficulty now deal 20% less damage.
You will now get a notification whenever a new chapter unlocks.
Skill and upgrade descriptions have been updated to include much more detailed information.
Shifted numerous codex unlock locations to ensure that players will not receive too many simultaneously.
Added in combat map limits for the Sunken Star.
Added a new cutscene to the Whispering Streets Courtyard.
The skills menu tutorial now shows up before the player exits the Hall of Bearings.

Companions

When AI is disabled for a companion, the AI will now autoattack any enemies in range (without moving) instead of doing nothing while there are no active commands.
Kalden and Tiziana now focus on targets nearest to them rather than focusing on targets with the highest threat.
Vasco's auto attacks are less frequent but hit harder. Number of attacks reduced from 12 to 8. Auto attack damage increased from 2 to 4.
Amadea's auto attacks have a slight increase in damage. Light Attack increased from 6 to 8 damage. Heavy Attack increased from 14 to 16 damage.
Increased Cicero's Dirge auto attack overall damage per second.

Enemies

Dactite Bruisers now take 1.5 seconds to cast their AOE attack (previously instant) to give a better warning to players.
Enemy homing projectiles are easier to evade.

Abilities balance changes

The following abilities have FX Improvements: Buratti’s Thunderblast ability, Maelstrom Mask, Rebirth Mask, Aegis Mask, Attune Mask, Buratti’s Ice attacks, Quagmire Mask, Grotesque Mask, Embroil Mask, Flame Herald Mask, Meteor Storm Mask, Clarity of Mind Mask, Stampede Mask and Chimera Fey’s Water Bloom.
Renamed "Rattle" to "Silence" and "Ensnare" to "Root" to better indicate what the effect does.
Summoned units now correctly benefit from the summoner's damage scaling over the course of the game. For Transpose and Spouthound, their base health and damage have been reduced to compensate.
Reduced Transpose summoned units heavy auto attack damage from 12 to 10.
Spouthounds base health reduced from 150 to 100.
Hound Master Upgrade: Health buff reduced from 100 to 50 and reduced damage reduction buff from 20% to 10%.
Requiem's base damage increased from 6 to 8 damage per second.
Requiem's cast range increased from 10 to 15.
Requiem Haunt Upgrade: Base Damage increased from 7 to 10 damage per second.
Requiem Invigorate Upgrade: Focus restore increased from 2% to 3% of max focus.
Requiem Serenade Upgrade: Base Damage without Haunt increased from 8 to 10 damage per second, with Haunt increased from 10 to 13 damage per second. Focus restore with Invigorate upgrade increased from 3% to 5%.

Mask Ultimate abilities balance changes

All Mask Ultimate ablities are now instant cast.
Reduced the cost of expensive mask ultimates. In general, players will find that they should have an easier time casting the mask ultimates that have a higher cost.
Forbearance cost reduced from 240 to 190.
Attune cost reduced from 180 to 160 and duration reduced from 15 to 10 seconds.
Maelstrom cost reduced from 180 to 160 and the duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
Clarity of Mind cost reduced from 240 to 190.
Rebirth cost reduced from 240 to 190.
Flame Herald cost reduced from 240 to 190.
Meteor Storm cost reduced from 180 to 160.
Moltenskin cost reduced from 180 to 160.
Tectonic Phase cost reduced from 180 to 160 and duration reduced from 20 to 15 seconds.
Grotesques cost reduced from 240 to 190 and now applies a taunt for the duration of ability. After the player is healed, the effect of the taunt dissipates and threat returns back to normal.
Kilgen Affinity cost reduced from 240 to 190. Summoned units auto attack now applies a movement speed and attack speed reduction of 20% for 3 seconds.
Shroud cost reduced from 180 to 160.
Wind Storm cost reduced from 180 to 160 and duration reduced from 20 to 15 seconds.
Stampede cost reduced from 240 to 190. Stampede Damage has been changed to better reflect the damage it is doing as per stated in the tooltip. It now does a one time application of 60 damage per horse.
Ridiro Affinity cost reduced from 180 to 160.
Chakra Mask Ultimate damage increased from 10 to 15 damage per second.
Eye of the Storm Mask Ultimate ability increased mask charge regen from 5 to 7 per second.

Ability bug fixes

Maelstrom Mask Ultimate now has the proper cast animation.
Mira Bas and her Songstresses are now immune to the effects of Tradewinds.
Fixed a bug where units might accidentally teleport out of the map boundaries in the final boss fight.
Fixed a bug where the health regen from the Jack of All Trades Passive is not being applied.
Fixed Grotesques Mask Ultimate where the last tick of healing did not apply.
Fixed an issue with Grotesque Mask Ultimate being recasted automatically.
Fixed Rebirth Mask Ultimate where Tiziana's health does not go below 1 hp for a short duration if Rebirth is triggered early.
Fixed Ridrio Affinity summoned minions where their projectiles does not get destroy after hitting an enemy unit.
Fixed Zephyr's Momentum Upgrade damage boost that was not being applied properly.
Fixed Cicero's Passive Tactician upgrade which was causing performance issues.
Requiem graphical effects now display the correct size based on the upgrade that the player has chosen.
Cadence upgrades that increase the number of orbs fired now fire orbs with more consistency.
Fixed potential game-breaking bugs with Zephyr and Tradewinds.
Minor bug fixes with a number of other player and enemy abilities.

Bug fixes

Fixed various game crashes when trying to play a cutscene and when loading the next scene.
Fixed white screen when trying to play cutscenes and failing.
Fixed graphical issues when toggling VSync and/or Fullscreen mode.
Fixed a number of art layering issues, environmental effects, collider issues and floating animals in multiple scenes.
Fixed scrolling text not appearing sometimes when switching stance while the game is paused.
Fixed rare cases of tooltips sometimes going offscreen.
Fixed a few character animations not playing correctly.
Fixed issue with final boss's attack being rendered incorrectly.
Fixed Shroud’s FX not showing up.
Fixed the cinematic trailer's audio track from 24kHz to 48kHz.
Fixed and improved lipsync/character postures on a large number of dialogues.
Fixed a bug where equipping a mask in the Astiguary was not updating the tooltip.
Added missing environmental mist FX to The Spire Act 4 scenes for consistency.
Fixed ability animation timings to be consistent with the skill actually used.
Fixed summoned units spawning in invalid locations.
Fixed units getting stuck when issuing certain invalid ability commands.
Fixed flickering shadows on units.
Fixed Chimera's Bloom sound effect not playing.
Fixed Beniva's Choke/Ice Prison sound effects not stopping. Fixed babies not crying in the fight.
Fixed a bug where Amadea keeps singing if the player skips the dialogue too early.
Fixed a bug where players can hear Mira Bas' singing when transitioning from Hall of Songs to Pale Isle.
Fixed a bug in the Pale Isle Tavern where the player will be able to move down past the camera limits after fighting Palov.
Fixed a bug in the Golden Canvas Alley where the player will see the defeat screen before transiting to the next scene.
Fixed the wrong audio playing for Vasco's overhead dialogue in the Hall of Songs.
Fixed missing localization texts in the Misted Aisles and The Withering Mast Nursery.
Fixed a bug where the carriage would teleport in the Pale Isle in Act 1.
Fixed a bug that caused Elemental Tags to not appear on the Training Dummies and Barrels in the Training Grounds.
Fixed the Purple interaction in the Whispering Streets Courtyard that does nothing.
Fixed a bug where the party will enter combat before the dialogue finishes playing in the Whispering Streets Courtyard.
Fixed a bug where the player's party members will get stuck when moving up the stairs in The White Spire Upper Hallway.
Fixed a bug where certain enemies will run past the player to a designated spot before engaging in combat.
Fixed grammatical and spelling errors.

Misc

XInput has been enabled to support a much larger range of controllers.
Controller support has been added to the tutorial (the tutorial still lists keyboard keys), Options menu and Codex.
Added a game option to pan the camera to the selected character (when switching characters) while paused. Default is off.
Tooltips now scale with screen size so they are no longer tiny at high resolutions.
Added a sound effect when mask ultimate is usable.
Added an unrolled bundle of cloth to the bed after the cutscene where Sable throws the bundle.
Shifted the position of the Maskrunner's body after the Antiquarian attacks her.

Patch 1.02 (10 October 2016)

Bug fixes

Fixed game-breaking bug introduced in patch v1.01. Players were unable to exit the room after talking to the Crown for the second time in Seimora's Throne.
Props at the Registry Courtyard are no longer breakable by the Portieri soldiers undergoing training.

Patch 1.01 (04 October 2016)

Gameplay changes

Added additional skill reset interactions to all Astiguary Interior scenes. You can still reset your skill points at the Training Grounds.
All codex entries in the Gameplay subcategory under the Lore category will now unlock if you revisit or reach the second chapter in Act 2 (A Bitter Sea). This allows players who started playing Masquerada on v0.95 to easily obtain these Codex entries that were added in v1.00 without needing to replay Act 1.
Reduced the damage done by the Mangiatore's Gas attack from 100 to 25. Mangiatore's Poison attack now extends to the rest of area behind it.
Increased the cast time of Brehon's dive from 0.5s to 1.5s so that players can dodge it more reliably.
Reduced cooldown of the final boss's AoE skill from 20s to 12s, and directional attack from 15s to 12s. Light Orbs now have reduced health but heal more when it explodes.
Increased Creed's radius by 2. Increased Cauterise upgrade's healing amount by 5%.
Adjusted the gauntlet battle in the Quiet Order's Back Alley to be easier.
A number of Kilgen Fey and Shadow Fey have slightly lower HP and damage.
Companion AI will no longer cast spells on targets/locations out of range. That is, if it requires movement to get into range, the AI will no longer consider that target/location.
Companion AI will more intelligently remember your last attacked target and stick to it.

Misc

Updated Evensong’s texture to a higher resolution.
Increased volume of dialogues in the Prologue.
Tristan has an updated injured walk animation.

Bug fixes

Fixed a game-breaking bug where Nahl did not die for the Revive tutorial in the Prologue.
Fixed the bug causing the error "Unknown targeting behaviour" to show up when attempting to use Lightning Blade and Fire Blade while the game is paused.
Fixed a bug causing reviving companions not to work on controllers.
Fixed a bug that prevented many keyboard keys from being re-binded with the error that the key is already in use.
Fixed a potential Game Over if Cicero takes over 60 seconds to be defeated by Palov.
Fixed a number of art layering issues in multiple scenes.
Fixed Fireguards shadow rotation.
Fixed texture errors for Forbearance mask FX.
Fixed an unnamed Ice Tomb unit in the Beniva fight.
Fixed Antiquarian telegraph to correctly reflect the location of its attack.
Fixed Creed's Enkindle upgrade that was healing more than intended.
Fixed a number of small UI bugs (things that were slightly out of position, displaying incorrectly, etc).
Fixed drifting of characters in dialogue banners when they fade in.

Known Issues

Occasional game crashes when loading between scenes. Restarting the game fixes this in most cases.
White screen on MacOS when playing large cutscenes. Restarting the game fixes this in most cases.
Switching between fullscreen and windowed in game on MacOS causes the game to render a black screen.
Controller support for the Options menu and Codex are not implemented yet.
Razer Chroma: Some keys are lit incorrectly on the Razer Blade/Stealth. They are offset on the Function key and number key rows.

Update (03 October 2016)

Mac version added.