Client Release: 0.5.1 'Shields Up!'

[Hande]

Dear NI Community, it's time for another patch. This release brings better ranged ai behavior, new items (including support!), a new attack animation for polearms, and more enjoyable gameplay as free roaming melee in normal and hard.

If you are having issues with connecting to our servers, please install the 1.153 warband client in a separate folder, or paste the files over your steam warband files and turn automatic updates off.

The installer for 1.153 can be found here:

http://download.taleworlds.com/mb_warban...p_1153.exe
or
http://download2.taleworlds.com/mb_warba...p_1153.exe

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New Major Features

• Overhead stab-type polearms that are around 200 length or less can be used with shields, and they now have a much more friendly fire compatible one-handed overhead stab in addition to the old down direction stab. Animation generously given by Cifre.
  
• Two extremely high tier engineer items, Master Weaponsmith's Anvil, and the Master Shieldsmith's Anvil. The weapon anvil improves weapons to masterwork quality, while the shield anvil improves shields to reinforced quality. Please note that while they do change the quality of deployables and/or health kits, they do not actually improve their effects/scene props, and that they will take every weapon/shield you have equipped of the same type, so drop your extra weapons/shields before attempting to smith.
  
• Three new types of barricade type items, platform, heavy platform, and wall barricade.
  
• Model Contest Items
  
• Nord archers and throwers will attempt to aim and shoot at players, even when they aren't in line of sight or in range as a workaround for players easily picking bots off with peek shots and stuckage issues, as bots will rush when they run out of ammo. Nord archer ammo count decreased. Nord thrower ammo count increased slightly. Single shot crossbowmen behave normally.
  
• Descriptions added to some items ingame, mostly support items
  
• A mysterious new support item for the house tournament champions, item will get passed on to the next winner
  

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Major Balance Changes

• Bots will damage cades when they attempt to swing at them in addition to whenever they hit them. However, barricade health has been raised somewhat, and bots will prioritize players in range, meaning a shieldwall will drastically extend the life of any barricades nearby.
  
• Einherjar Rangers toned down a lot, but later Ragnarok waves made tougher
  
• Hard mode difficulty increased on the later waves
  
• All bosses now have multipliers on their hitpoints, with multipliers getting higher on later waves.
  
• Most non-bosses have had their armor decreased, but have added HP multipliers if they are meant to be tough, and as a result, cut weapons will be more effective than they have been before.
  
• Bots with certain weaknesses that border on exploits have been adjusted.
  
• Crushthrough weapons on bots mostly replaced with shields and bonus vs shield weapons as a response to ranged kiting/shc metagaming
  
• Much higher damage flinch threshold for more fun gameplay as melee in normal/hard (1 -> 10, if you want a general idea of how much damage this means, base recruit health = 43, royal guard health = 89)
  
• All crossbows damage as if their target had 20% less armor
  
  

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[anchor=UK]General Changes

• Onehanded stabs for one-handed weapons and polearms have been reverted to native animations.
  
• Fists give exp, and the last throwing weapon in a stack will give exp, but it is melee due to module system limitations.
  
• Big shot buffed to knock down or stop movement on hit
  
• Many minor item stat adjustments
  
• Nord Ranger WPF buffed due to odd behavior with low WPF
  
• New maps
  
• Moar rangers
  

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The NordInvasion updater is available here

The full patch is available here

DOWNLOAD HOTFIX: http://nordinvasion.com/NI/NordInvasion_...update.zip



Love,

The NI Family

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Edit: Added 1.153 mirror.