Alpha 0.5

**Alpha 0.5** is a Game Version of Last Epoch that was released on August 21st, 2018.
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## Purchasing Access

This version of the game requires alpha access which is included in some of the Supporter Packs. Alpha Supporter Packs are available from Supporters

## Installing the Alpha Launcher

The support page includes instructions for how to download the alpha Game Launcher and install the game.

## Patch Notes

Patch notes were posted in this thread.

Here’s another bug and balance pass patch! Thanks everyone for helping us find issues, it’s been great to see everyone’s experience with the Alpha.

### Performance

* The cooldown and mana cost for ability tooltips are now only calculated while the relevant tooltip is open. This results in slightly higher fps at all times.
* Many graphics related optimizations. Hopefully greater FPS should be possible, or higher fidelity at the same framerate

### Level Design

* Deprecated all levels from the Pre-Alpha
* Added 9 new levels, making up Chapter One of the game. Chapters will usually be smaller than acts in other ARPGs.
	+ Last Refuge
	+ Council Chambers
	+ Last Archive
	+ Upper District
	+ Precipice
	+ Armoury
	+ Lower District
	+ Sheltered Wood
	+ Surface
	+ More quest and story content will be coming at a later date– the current state isn’t our full vision for chapter one.
* Implemented new waypoint models and effects
* New waterfall vfx
* Lots and lots of new textures and objects
* Arenas now reset when you die, setting the wave counter back to 1
* There are now three arenas that cycle at random when the arena resets or you progress 15 waves.

### Graphics

* Added an in-game graphics options menu which allows you to change graphics tiers and individual options (changing resolution or full screen still requires a restart)
* Adjusted outlines of enemies and friendlies to be less cartoony
* Added【ａｄｖａｎｃｅｄ　　ｇｒａｓｓ】

### Enemies

* Revamp of void enemies: new textures, vfx and animation
* Implemented new enemies with new skills and models
* Added support for an enemy to have a percent chance to cast an ability on death
* Void enemies now have a corpse object that they drop on death as their death vfx destroys the model

### Skills

* Added 3 new skills
	+ Storm Totem for Shaman: Casts lightning at nearby enemies for 8 seconds
	+ Flame Reave for Spellblade: Fire melee attack that hits a cone. Does less damage over distance
	+ Dark Fissure for Knight (likely Void Knight in future): Hit the ground and leave a fissure for 4 seconds. Nearby enemies will gain despair and do 40% less damage
* Added new VFX for Elemental Nova, Fireball, Meteor, Fury Leap, Summon Skeleton and Summon Bone Golem
* Abilities (for all casters) now fail when their caster dies

### UI

* Changed the format of item tooltips to better distinguish which affixes are prefixes or suffixes, and allow affixes to have multiple lines of text (i.e. hybrid affixes)
* Passive node tooltips now update to show the total amount they change a stat by, rather than simply stating “per point”. The possible range is presented if no points have been allocated to the node.
* Remapped Passives to P (from G) and Town Portal to T (from P) as the passive system is no longer a grid
* Item tooltips now show “increased” for percentage increases
* Tooltips now show in front of the game version text
* Updated character sheet to display the correct class. It will show your base class, and change to a mastery class if you take a lock node.
* Added a counter for the total number of unique items a character has picked up
* Closing the input setting window now takes you back to the main menu

### Items

* Added Dreamthorn, a unique two-handed sword
* Updated 2D art for Death Rattle, Decayed Skull, Tome of Elements, Snowblind, Stormtide, Doublet of Onos Tull, and Mourningfrost
* Added a prefix that grants “Chance to receive a glancing blow when hit” that can spawn on helmet, body armour, gloves, and boots
* Affixes that give attributes are now hybrid affixes. This solves the problem of affixes naturally being able to give you 5 of a stat because there are 5 tiers. These affixes no longer increase the amount of attribute given at each tier, but also have a secondary stat increase
* Replaced the block elemental protection stat with Block Protection stat that applies to all damage types
	+ Shields now all have implicit Block Protection, instead of Block Armor
	+ The Imperial Shield now has implicit block armor instead of implicit block elemental protection
	+ Nodes on skill trees that previous granted block armour now grant block protection
	+ Nodes on skill trees that previously granted block elemental protection now grant block protection or block armour
	+ Block elemental protection affixes have been replaced by block protection affixes
	+ The block armour affix has been buffed
* Added affixes for void, necrotic and poison protection

### Sound

* Added new WIP music to many levels
* Improved many sounds
	+ Blood Rip cast
	+ Bone Golem summon and death
	+ Skeleton summon and melee hit
	+ Exhume cast
	+ Marrow Shard cast
	+ Sacrifice cast
	+ Transplant cast and arrival
	+ Void enemy AoE cast
	+ Waterfall
* Implemented new sounds
	+ Exhume fire
	+ Sword Aura (Void Armor skill) cast
	+ Grole sounds
	+ Torches
	+ General “void goop” sounds
	+ Ambient cave sounds

### Bug Fixes

* Fixed a bug where dodge chance was being rolled twice
* Fixed a bug where enemies spawned from fracturing rare enemies would not attack immediately if the player was too far away
* Fixed a bug where minions would not always be placed correctly when you entered a new zone
* Fixed bugs where some enemies were giving too much xp
* Fixed the wording of the flat health regen affix
* Fixed the doge rating shard saying it can be applied to gloves twice
* Fixed situations where projectiles would hit the camera
* Fixed the input settings window being inaccessible in character select
* Corrected wording of Eye of Reen

## Hotfix 2

Alpha 0.5.0.2 is a hotfix that was released on August 22nd, 2018.

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* Fixed an issue preventing users from logging in
* Fixed a camera issue

### Features

* The game now has a launcher and patcher, which will download the game and any updates for you. After logging into the game, you can play offline. Updates will no longer require re-downloading the whole game.
* Added a global Game Chat. This allows us to start testing out the systems that will ultimately make multiplayer possible
	+ Can be joined by opening the menu in-game (Esc by default) and clicking join chat
	+ Chat window will fade away automatically, and will display new messages even when faded away
	+ Chat can be left any time through the menu
* Removed ability to access devmode as it will likely cause issues down the line
* New Mastery System – the Passives Grid has been replaced.
	+ Each base class has three mastery class trees (two each implemented)
	+ You gain Mastery Points when leveling up which can be invested into Mastery Nodes
	+ Allocating points into a mastery allows you to access later nodes
	+ Each tree has a lock node that requires having put 25 points into a mastery. Once you a lock node, you have access to the rest of the tree, but you can only take one. This is when your character’s displayed class will change
	+ To hear about what we learned from the Passive Grid and why we chose to replace it, read this devblog! https://lastepochgame.com/Forums/topic/9442/#post-9471
* Changed the Difficulty system (but it is still fairly placeholder)
	+ There is now one standard difficulty, with a similar level of challenge to the previous veteran difficulty
	+ Masochist difficulty is now a challenge option (similar to hardcore and solo challenge) that is set per character
	+ You cannot change a character’s difficulty after creating the character
* The Arena has been re-worked somewhat
	+ Unified wave and streak counters. Now the wave count resets when you die, and later waves are more difficult.
	+ There are three arenas that cycle at random every so often or when you restart
* Added hybrid affixes, allowing for multiple stat bonuses within one affix, especially for affixes that don’t work as well in a 5 tier system.
* Added a new shader that causes objects blocking the camera to fade away and not impede movement
* Camera offset now reduces as you zoom in. This should mitigate issues of zooming into scenery that blocks the camera, and should allow players to view their character in more detail when zoomed all the way in.
* Added the Glancing Blow mechanic. A glancing blow causes a hit to deal half as much damage
* Reworked and expanded the rare monster system. There is now only one tier, instead of rare and heroic. Added support for more complicated changes on heroic monsters compared to their standard counterparts, such as different cooldowns for skills
* Added Void Protection, Necrotic Protection, and Poison Protection
* Reworked cull properties, your cull percent is now the maximum of the cull you get from skills, passives, and weapons, not the sum
* Adjusted xp curves and the amount of xp granted by enemies

## Hotfix 3

Alpha 0.5.0.3 is a hotfix that was released on August 22nd, 2018.

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### Items

* Improved unique art for Death Rattle, Decayed Skull, Doublet of Onos Tull, Snowblind, The Falcon, Tome of Elements (this was mistakenly listed for 0.5.0)
* Glancing blow affixes can now be put on belts

### Level Design

* Re-enabled the ice center of the Tundra Arena
* Added a Training Dummy to Council Chambers

### UI

* Renamed Colour Grading Exposure to Brightness and moved it higher in the options. This is technically incorrect, but changing this setting will make levels clearer for some users.
* You can now move with chat open

### Skills

* Vengeance now reduces damage of hits that you riposte by 30%

### Balance

* Significantly reduced the damage of most minions, especially melee ones, to bring them more in line with other skills (which were nerfed since pre-alpha)
* Adjusted xp required for levels to counteract the 0 xp bug (see below)
* Slight increase to totem and skeleton health
* Nerfed Rip Blood’s base damage
* Increased cost of Marrow Shards
* Nerfed percent chance of glancing blow granted by affixes

### Bug Fixes

* Temporarily disabled Screen Space Reflections as it was causing a serious memory leak. This is a Unity bug– we will re-enable them when an update is released
* Fixed some cases of chat blocking other windows and movement
* Fixed a bug where if an enemy would give 0 xp it would give xp equal to its maximum health
* Fixed a bug where claw totems were dealing much less damage that intended
* Fixed vendor and stash being stuck in walls on arena levels
* Disabled plant objects in the Forest Arena that were causing issues
* Fixed a null reference
* Fixed being able to go above your maximum mana