Usurper Reborn v0.53.0 Release Notes

New Class: Mystic Shaman

A new base class joins the roster -- the Mystic Shaman, a tribal melee-caster who summons totems and enchants weapons with elemental power. Inspired by the shamanic traditions of the game's more primal races.

Class Overview

• Races: Troll, Orc, and Gnoll only (race-locked)
• Armor: Medium weight class
• Weapons: Melee only (swords, axes, maces, mauls -- no bows, no staves)
• Primary Stats: Strength (melee damage) and Intelligence (enchantment/totem power)
• Resource: Mana (abilities cost mana, no spell list)
• Role: Melee hybrid with party utility through totems and self-buffing through weapon enchantments

Weapon Enchantments (4 abilities)

Temporary elemental buffs applied to your weapon, lasting 5 rounds. Only one enchantment active at a time. Bonus damage scales with Intelligence.

• Flametongue (Level 1) -- Fire damage on every melee hit
• Rockbiter (Level 10) -- Earth damage + bonus armor (+15% DEF)
• Frostbrand (Level 25) -- Ice damage + enemy slow effect
• Stormstrike (Level 40) -- Lightning damage + mana restored on each hit

Totems (5 abilities)

Summoned objects that persist for 3-4 rounds, providing ongoing effects. Only one totem active at a time. Replacing a totem destroys the previous one.

• Healing Totem (Level 5) -- Heals all allies for 10% MaxHP each round for 4 rounds
• Earthbind Totem (Level 15) -- Reduces enemy attack by 20% for 4 rounds
• Searing Totem (Level 30) -- Deals fire damage to enemies each round for 4 rounds
• Windfury Totem (Level 50) -- Grants 30% chance for an extra melee attack each round for 4 rounds
• Spirit Link Totem (Level 75) -- Redistributes HP among all party members each round for 3 rounds

Direct Abilities (3 abilities)

• Lightning Bolt (Level 20) -- INT-scaled ranged lightning damage
• Chain Lightning (Level 60) -- AoE lightning that hits all enemies in multi-monster combat
• Ancestral Guidance (Level 90) -- For 4 rounds, 25% of all damage dealt is converted to healing for the party

Class Passive: Elemental Mastery

+3% elemental damage per Intelligence point, affecting all weapon enchantment bonus damage.

Starting Equipment

New characters begin with a Tribal Mace (one-handed) and 25 starting mana.

Per-Level Growth

STR +3, INT +3, DEF +2, CON +2, STA +2, AGI +1, MaxMana +8 per level.

Bug Fixes (from v0.52.14)

Shield Stat Doubling Fix

Shields had their AC and Block stats doubled on every equip/unequip cycle due to a round-trip corruption in the Item-to-Equipment conversion pipeline. Fixed across 3 conversion paths.

Companion Loot Displaced Item Loss Fix

When a companion auto-equipped a loot drop, the item they were previously wearing disappeared. Displaced items now transfer to the player's inventory.

MUD Client Input Fix

Reverted the v0.52.13 input delivery change that caused game freezes and random NPC encounter bleed-through for Mudlet/TinTin++ users. Restored the 500ms grace period.

Main Street Menu Alignment

Menu columns now align vertically across all rows using a fixed 16-char column width.

Monk Potion Vendor Labels

Added missing [H] and [M] labels to the healing and mana potion options in all 5 languages.

NPC Population Control

Pregnancy hard cap at 120 alive NPCs with steeper fertility tiers. Immigration diversity gating at 80 alive NPCs.

Stale Team XP Slot Cleanup

Teammate XP distribution slots now zeroed when fighting solo, preventing >100% total after teammate departure.

Throne Challenge Daily Limit

Players can now only challenge the throne once per day to prevent guard attrition exploits.

News Board Cap

News file capped at 100 entries with automatic trimming every 50 writes. Server pruned from 150,000+ entries.

Aldric Quest Boss Fight Fix

Aldric now has a proper scaled HP pool (2000 + level x 50) instead of his tiny BaseStats.HP (~200). Option 2 ("support from behind") is now viable.

Login Screen Alignment Fix

Online login box right borders fixed (inner lines were 2 chars short).

MUD Stream Output Flush

Explicit stream flush before blocking on input prevents edge cases where prompt text sits in a TCP buffer.

Opening Story Skip Hint

MUD/BBS players now see "Press ENTER to skip" instead of "Press SPACE to skip" since line-based input requires Enter.

Dormitory Stolen Item Fix

Items stolen from sleeping players now actually appear in the attacker's inventory instead of being deleted.

Dungeon Party Equipment Persistence

Equipment changes on party members in the dungeon now persist immediately via save + SharedState sync.

Auto-Heal Potion Toggle

The existing auto-heal preference now also controls post-combat automatic potion usage. Label updated to "Auto-use Potions (in & after combat)".

Equipment Corruption Guard

Duplicate equipment IDs across slots are now prevented in EquipItem() and auto-detected/fixed in RecalculateStats().

Group Loot Follower Input Fix

Grouped followers can now respond to loot prompts. Input routes through CombatInputChannel instead of racing with the follower loop.

Quest Title Localization Fix

Bounty quest titles now use hardcoded English "WANTED:" instead of Loc.Get(), preventing Hungarian "KOROZOTT:" from appearing for English players.

Starting Weapon Registration Fix

New character starting weapons (all classes) were created with hardcoded Id = 1 but never registered with EquipmentDatabase. The weapon existed in EquippedItems but couldn't be looked up at runtime, appearing as no weapon equipped. Now properly registered via RegisterDynamic().

Frostbrand Slow Effect

Frostbrand weapon enchant (Mystic Shaman) claimed to "slow the enemy" but had no implementation. Now reduces enemy Defence on each hit, matching the regular frost enchant behavior.

Healing Totem Party Healing

Healing Totem now heals all alive companions and teammates each round, not just the player.

Spirit Link Totem Solo Fix

Spirit Link Totem was completely non-functional when fighting solo (no teammates). Now heals the player for 15% MaxHP per round when solo.

Shaman Armor Shop Visibility

MysticShaman added to all Light and Medium armor templates in LootGenerator so armor appears in shops with [Sha] class tag. Added to 35+ armor templates across all equipment slots plus 9 shield templates.

Equipment Purchase Quests Removed

Equipment purchase quests (Buy Weapon/Armor/Accessory/Shield from the Merchant Guild) were fundamentally broken with procedural shop inventory — quest-referenced items never matched shop-generated items. Removed entirely.

World Boss Screen Reader Menu

World boss combat menu in screen reader mode now uses vertical list format (A. Attack, C. Cast Spell, etc.) instead of horizontal bracket format. Number keys 1-9 now trigger class abilities directly.

Companion Management Screen Reader

Companion detail screen at the Inn now uses R. Deepen your bond format instead of [R] Deepen your bond for screen reader users, making key associations clear.

Inn Patron Count Fix

Inn "Talk to patrons" showed mismatched counts — header claimed 15 present but only listed 4, and prompt said "0-8" regardless. Now shows accurate displayed count in header and correct range in prompt.

Minstrel XP Display

The "Just Listen" option at minstrel encounters now shows the XP gained explicitly (e.g., "+10 XP") instead of just "You feel slightly wiser."

Home Upgrade Save

All home upgrades (Living Quarters, Bed, Chest, Hearth, Herb Garden, etc.) now trigger an immediate save after purchase to prevent data loss on disconnect.

Save Cheesing Prevention

Players can no longer disconnect to undo negative outcomes. Immediate auto-saves now fire after: player death (after penalties applied), companion permanent death, NPC teammate death in combat, dark magic assassination, street murder, and royal execution. All saves are online-mode only and fire-and-forget.

Blood Price Escalation

Murder weight consequences now scale in 3 tiers instead of a flat 20% markup that maxes out at weight 5:

• Weight 5+ (Known Killer): +20% shop prices, NPCs refuse team
• Weight 8+ (Notorious Killer): +50% shop prices, -10% combat damage
• Weight 15+ (Mass Murderer): +100% shop prices (double), -20% combat damage, +50% healer costs
  All tiers visible in /health Active Buffs with murder weight displayed and "Confess at the Church to reduce" guidance.

Online Heartbeat Fix

Stale player cleanup threshold increased from 120 seconds to 300 seconds. With heartbeats every 30 seconds and each player running their own cleanup timer, the 2-minute window was too tight — causing active players to appear offline and lose their heartbeat row. 5-minute window gives 10 heartbeats of buffer.

macOS Steam Support

CI/CD pipeline now builds macOS depots with both Intel (x64) and Apple Silicon (arm64) binaries, universal launcher script, and bundled WezTerm with game icon.

Files Changed

• Scripts/Core/GameConfig.cs -- Version 0.53.0 "Ancestral Spirits"; MaxClasses 16->17; MysticShaman starting stats, race restrictions, armor weight, 7 balance constants, ClassHelpText; 8 blood price escalation constants
• Scripts/Core/NPC.cs -- Tiered blood price shop markup (20%/50%/100%); price clamp raised to 2.0x
• Scripts/Systems/SqlSaveBackend.cs -- Heartbeat stale threshold 120s->300s
• Scripts/Core/Character.cs -- MysticShaman = 16 enum; IsManaClass; ActiveTotemType/Rounds/Power + ShamanEnchantType/Rounds/Power transient combat properties; equipment corruption guard in EquipItem and RecalculateStats; ThroneChallengedToday; shield ConvertEquipmentToItem fix
• Scripts/Systems/ClassAbilitySystem.cs -- ManaCost property on ClassAbility; 12 Mystic Shaman abilities; universal ability access
• Scripts/Systems/CombatEngine.cs -- Mana cost deduction (3 paths); 13 Shaman special effect handlers (both combat paths); ProcessShamanTotemEffects per-round method; weapon enchant bonus damage on attacks; Earthbind monster debuff; Windfury extra attacks; Frostbrand slow; Ancestral Guidance healing; ability menu mana display; blood price combat penalty; save cheesing prevention (player death, NPC teammate death); shield CreateShield fix; companion loot displaced item transfer; stale XP slot cleanup; group loot follower CombatInputChannel; auto-heal toggle
• Scripts/Systems/CompanionSystem.cs -- Save cheesing prevention (companion death saves)
• Scripts/Systems/StreetEncounterSystem.cs -- Save cheesing prevention (street murder save)
• Scripts/Locations/MagicShopLocation.cs -- Save cheesing prevention (dark magic assassination save)
• Scripts/Systems/CharacterCreationSystem.cs -- MysticShaman menu position 11; Tribal Mace starting weapon; mana preview; class description/strengths; ClassName display fix; starting weapon RegisterDynamic fix (all classes)
• Scripts/Locations/LevelMasterLocation.cs -- MysticShaman per-level stat growth (STR+3, INT+3, DEF+2, CON+2, STA+2, AGI+1, MaxMana+8)
• Scripts/Locations/BaseLocation.cs -- Shaman passive in /health; blood price tier display in /health; shield ConvertInventoryItemToEquipment fix
• Scripts/Locations/ArenaLocation.cs -- ClassNames array updated (all 17 classes)
• Scripts/Locations/CastleLocation.cs -- ThroneChallengedToday check and set; save cheesing prevention (royal execution save)
• Scripts/Locations/DungeonLocation.cs -- Dungeon equip/unequip persistence; Aldric quest HP fix
• Scripts/Locations/DormitoryLocation.cs -- Stolen items added to attacker inventory
• Scripts/Locations/MainStreetLocation.cs -- Fixed 16-char column width in ShowClassicMenu
• Scripts/Systems/NPCSpawnSystem.cs -- MysticShaman in NPC class pool (Troll/Orc/Gnoll)
• Scripts/Systems/FamilySystem.cs -- MysticShaman in children class pool (race-gated)
• Scripts/Systems/LootGenerator.cs -- MysticShaman added to melee weapon templates + 35 Light/Medium armor templates + 9 shield templates
• Scripts/Locations/ArmorShopLocation.cs -- "Sha" class tag abbreviation for MysticShaman
• Scripts/Locations/WeaponShopLocation.cs -- "Sha" class tag abbreviation for MysticShaman
• Scripts/Locations/InnLocation.cs -- SR companion menu format; patron count/range fix
• Scripts/Systems/WorldBossSystem.cs -- SR vertical menu; quickbar number key support
• Scripts/Systems/RareEncounters.cs -- Minstrel XP display
• Scripts/Locations/HomeLocation.cs -- Immediate save after upgrades
• Scripts/Systems/WorldSimulator.cs -- Pregnancy hard cap; immigration gating
• Scripts/Systems/NewsSystem.cs -- 100-entry cap with periodic trimming
• Scripts/Systems/DailySystemManager.cs -- ThroneChallengedToday reset
• Scripts/Systems/QuestSystem.cs -- English-only bounty quest titles; equipment purchase quests disabled
• Scripts/Systems/OnlineAdminConsole.cs -- ClassNames updated (17 entries); MysticShaman stat increases for admin level edits
• Scripts/Systems/SysOpConsoleManager.cs -- ClassNames updated (17 entries)
• Scripts/Systems/SpellSystem.cs -- Default case in ExecuteSpell switch
• Scripts/Systems/OpeningStorySystem.cs -- ENTER vs SPACE skip hint
• Scripts/UI/TerminalEmulator.cs -- Input delivery 500ms grace period; stream flush before input
• Scripts/Server/MudServer.cs -- Login screen alignment fix
• Scripts/Server/RelayClient.cs -- Login screen alignment fix
• web/ssh-proxy.js -- Class name mapping (16: Mystic Shaman)
• Localization/en.json -- ~30 Shaman combat keys; monk vendor labels; skip hint; auto-heal label; class description
• Localization/es.json -- Monk vendor labels; skip hint
• Localization/hu.json -- Monk vendor labels; skip hint
• Localization/it.json -- Monk vendor labels; skip hint
• Localization/fr.json -- Monk vendor labels; skip hint
• .github/workflows/ci-cd.yml -- macOS Steam depot (x64+arm64); WezTerm icon patch; Localization copy
• launchers/play-mac.sh -- Universal macOS launcher (arch detection)
• launchers/play-mac-accessible.sh -- macOS accessible launcher