Update General Patch Notes: Anniversary 2024 Extra

Welcome to the general Patch notes for the Anniversary 2024 second patch!

This patch is aimed at improving the Retro World event experience, along with fixing various issues reported during the past week.

Event Changes

• General Changes:
  • The Event duration has been extended by one week, and will now end on the 8th of September, 23:59 servertime.
  • The Cake Boss entry points system has been reworked:
    • Players now gain 1 Cake entry for every 3 Retro Reach clears (down from 5).
    • Players now gain 2 Cake entries for each Demon King Tower (Hard Mode) boss kill (not necessarily in a single rush from floor 1 to 20).
      • The two ways are cumulative, meaning that completing 3 Retro Reaches and 2 Demon Towers hard mode will grant 5 points (one from Reach, four from Tower).
    • Cake Boss entry points are now automatically converted as soon as enough Retro Reach clears are accumulated.
      • This means that, for example, players will no longer see "2 available Cake entries, 13 Retro Reach accumulated" in the points display (with the old 5-reach system), but rather, "4 available Cake entries, 1/3 Retro Reach until next entry" (with the new 3-reach system).
      • This conversion will be automatically done the first time the player clears Retro Reach, or uses the !points command, after this patch.
        If your first post-patch Cake entry is denied, even though you had accumulated more than 3 Retro Reach clears pre-patch, using the !points command once will fix the issue.
    • Cake Boss entry is now spent only after claiming the reward, rather than upon boss map entrance.

• Cake Boss fight:
  • The HP of the Cake Boss has been almost halved.
  • Players can now enter the Cake Boss fight in a party of 3 to 6 players (down from only 6).

• Retro Reach:
  • HP of the Training Flame Phantom and of the Training Golem has been slightly reduced.
    • This brings the fight back to the exact levels of the 2023 event.
  • Added handling for the automatic conversion of the old cake entry system into the new one.

• Demon King Tower:
  • General:
    • Falling through the floor in any level of the Demon King Tower will now respawn the player at the start of the same level, with one less heart.
      If the player lost their last heart falling down, they will instead be teleported out.
      
    • Fall damage is now disabled in all the Tower floors.
    • Lever activation of springs is now broadcast to all players of the run, rather than only the ones present in the map during lever triggering.
    • The final reward is now distributed upon boss kill, and the Demon King NPC map is no longer part of the instance.
      Relogging while in this map will bring players back there, rather than in Balina Town; leaving / completing the quests still requires talking with the Demon King NPC.
      This prevents players from being able to disconnect and fight the boss again for multiple clears.
      
    • Leaving the Demon King Tower will now place the player on the spawn point nearest to the tower, rather than in the middle of the town.
    • Altering the party composition before selecting the entry Floor will no longer allow players to join climbs from a floor they did not have yet access to.

• Players will now be able to choose between two Tower difficulties:
  • Journey Mode - an easier and shorter version of the Demon Tower, with less map hazards and no branching paths.
    It's the same Tower layout as 2023 Anniversary event.
    Will grant up to 10 Retro Coupons per clear (1, 1, 1, 2, 5), and Long Jump skill is disabled.
  • Hard Mode - the 2024 version of the Tower, albeit with multiple changes (listed below).
    Will grant up to 15 Retro Coupons per clear (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), 2 Cake Boss entries per boss defeat, Long Jump skill is enabled, and a full clear is eligible for the Time Trial challenge.
  • Progress made in the two tower climbs is independent from each other - a player can have reached floor 5 in Hard Mode and floor 15 in Journey Mode, and both will be saved.
    • Completing the climb in one Mode will only reset the floor progress in that Mode.
    • The current climb progress made during the past week is valid for the Hard Mode, while every player will now start Journey Mode from floor 1.
  • Changes listed in General apply to both Modes.

• Demon King Tower (Hard Mode) has received a rework across most floors aimed at making it less punishing and more intuitive to navigate.
  
  Spoiler: Detailed list of changes

  • Map 3:
    • increased height on a sawblade to no longer require ducking;
    • removed leftmost fire in the fire pit;
    • removed the saws at the end of the stage.
  • Map 6:
    • added a safety net floor for the first lever interaction;
    • removed archer on top of the first rope;
    • added a safety net floor for the first long jump rope interaction.
  • Map 7:
    • removed initial sawblade, increased jump height on the initial spring;
    • added a safety net floor for the first jump-hopping platforms interaction;
    • stun orbs have been replaced with spikes;
    • added a safety net floor for the rope to catch with a long jump.
  • Map 8:
    • improved the landing zone after a long spring jump;
    • stun orb has been replaced with spikes;
    • an archer has been replaced with a mimic.
  • Map 9:
    • improved the landing zone after a long spring jump;
    • decreased the difficulty of the series of long jump platforms;
    • a platform before the fire now allows ducking space;
    • removed vertical sawblade after a spring jump;
    • improved the landing zone in case the spring jump rope is missed.
  • Map 11:
    • removed a skippable segment;
    • stun orbs have been replaced with spikes.
  • Map 12:
    • extended rope lengths;
    • stun orbs have been replaced with spikes.
  • Map 13:
    • removed skippable segments;
    • widened platform for the top spring, to remove the need for a long jump into it;
    • widened platform with the first sawblade;
    • better synchronized the spike sequence in the sloped descent.
  • Map 14:
    • stun orbs have been replaced with sawblades;
    • added a safe area for rope + long jump practice;
    • lowered vertical height of the pillar (timer no longer interferes), adjusted fire placements with the new height;
    • added platforms to better fight an archer in a multi-obstacle section.
  • Map 16:
    • removed a skippable segment;
    • reduced distance between the platforms under the golems section;
    • changed the circular sawblade into a horizontal sawblade that spins over the golems.
  • Map 17:
    • moved treasure chest further in the map;
    • split the golem platform in two, golem no longer roams on the rope;
    • increased vertical boost of the spring after the golem;
    • changed top left archer with a mimic;
    • removed a skippable segment;
    • added a mini wall to prevent the golem from reaching the bottom of the rope.
  • Map 18:
    • removed skippable segments;
    • added a safety net for the spring sequence;
    • removed one of the golems in the maze;
    • added a mini wall for the bottom row golem;
    • increased horizontal boost of the spring after the maze section;
    • added a mini wall to stop inertia after a long spring jump;
    • extended the landing area of the next spring;
    • increased horizontal boost of said spring;
    • reduced difficulty of a jump into a fire trap platform.
  • Map 19:
    • reduced difficulty of a long jump platform;
    • removed obstacles (two sawblades and a spike segment) in the final platform of the room.

​

Client Changes [v1.25.1]

• Maps can now be flagged to ignore fall damage.
  • Currently, this feature is only used in the Demon King Tower event, but it will be available for all future content.

• A custom packet to broadcast lever-activated spring data has been implemented.
  • The previous system was built on top of the existing lever trigger packet, which would only broadcast for players who were in the map with that lever data, which is why instance-wide spring activation was not working.

• Revamped some start-up elements to potentially reduce crashes upon client opening.

Changes and Bugfixes

General:

• Pet equipment and Pet food for the current Event pets are now correctly available in the Cash Shop.
• The login page now sports a pixelated version of the MapleLegends logo.

Items:

• "Rugrats Backpack" : item has been reimported to fix issues that made it incompatible with the new sprite linking system.
• Descriptions for the Pets of this Anniversary event have been fixed, to no longer include unavailable features such as pet skills.

Mobs:

• Various mobs have been fixed after the link system messed up with their sprites:
  • Stumpy (no longer fires a projectile with invalid hit effect data, crashing the client);
    
  • Pink Bean;
    
  • Horntail preheads;
  • Horizontal Menhir in Crimsonwood Keep PQ, stage 3;
  • Summoned Menhir (Margana) in Crimsonwood Keep PQ, Boss stage;
  • Cursed Aufheben (first body);
  • Summoned Aufheben.