Patch Notes v1.0: What's New in Vampires vs. Werewolves

🆕 New Features

Email Waitlist System

• New POST /api/waitlist endpoint — register your email for early access codes
• Submission is idempotent (re-submitting an already-registered email returns a friendly reminder)
• Public count displayed on the homepage (rounded to nearest 50 for privacy)
• Homepage waitlist form with source tracking (homepage / blog / social)

GDPR Data Export

• New GET /api/auth/export-data endpoint (GDPR Article 20 compliance)
• Exports your full account data as a downloadable JSON file
• Accessible from Settings → Privacy & Data → Download My Data
• Rate-limited to 5 exports per day to prevent abuse
• Never exposes hashed password or internal security fields

Eclipse War Scoring

• New GET /api/events/eclipse-war/score endpoint
• Live scoreboard showing vampire vs. werewolf faction kill counts during Eclipse War events
• Visible on the Events page when an Eclipse War is active or recently concluded
• Kill attribution uses battle outcome — winning faction gets the kill credit

Cookie Consent Banner

• GDPR-compliant cookie consent on all public pages
• Accept/Decline options — no tracking cookies set without consent
• Consent stored in localStorage (no cookie used for consent itself)
• Links to the full Privacy Policy

Legal Pages

• Terms of Service — full 11-section ToS covering gameplay rules, account conduct, and IP rights
• Privacy Policy — GDPR-compliant 10-section policy covering data collection, retention, and rights
• Both pages linked from registration form, footer, and settings

Registration Improvements

• Terms of Service and Privacy Policy links in the registration form are now functional
• Both links open in new tab with rel="noopener" for security
• Form now validates Terms agreement before submission

Balance Changes

Combat

• Life Steal cap reduced from 50% to 35% of dealt damage. Vampire Blood Mage builds were recovering too much HP in sustained fights against low-DEF enemies.
• Dodge diminishing returns adjusted. DEX above 80 now has a steeper diminishing return curve. Maximum dodge chance capped at 55% (down from 65%).
• Wolf Rage skill duration increased from 2 rounds to 3 rounds. The skill was underperforming against opponents who survived the initial burst.
• Blood Bite cooldown reduced from 3 minutes to 2 minutes. Blood Mage playstyle was too passive in the early game.
• Minimum damage floor raised from 1 to 3. Level 1 characters were dealing 1 damage per hit even with no defense reduction, making early fights too slow.

Economy

• Work gold increased by 15% across all levels. Early-game gold income was insufficient for keeping up with shop prices.
• Dungeon D1 gold reward increased from 50–100 to 80–160. The gap between hunting and dungeons was too wide at level 1–5.
• Shop prices for Iron tier items reduced by 10%. New players were spending too high a fraction of their gold on basic gear.
• PvP gold steal minimum raised from 1 to 50 gold per successful attack. Sub-50 gold attacks felt unrewarding and discouraged PvP.

Progression

• Level 1–10 XP requirements reduced by 20%. The early game ramp was too steep for new players who hadn't optimized their stat allocation.
• Skill points per 5 levels system confirmed working correctly (was bugged in beta — fixed).
• Prestige threshold reduced from Level 100 to Level 80 for the first prestige. Level 100 was taking 3–4 weeks of active play which was too long as a first milestone.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed: Clan war auto-resolver wasn't committing results when both clans had 0 members online
• Fixed: Shadow Dash skill was granting the dodge bonus on the following turn instead of the current turn
• Fixed: Auction House listings weren't expiring when the character who posted them went offline for 30+ days
• Fixed: Daily login streak counter was resetting at midnight server time instead of the player's local midnight (now uses server UTC 00:00)
• Fixed: Dungeon D5 boss "Void Wraith" was applying two stun effects simultaneously, causing the player to skip two turns instead of one
• Fixed: Character names with apostrophes were causing 500 errors in the public profile endpoint
• Fixed: Inventory sell endpoint was allowing sale of equipped items when both the equipped and inventory slot had items of the same ID
• Fixed: Ranking page showed incorrect ELO changes when a player ranked up while offline
• Fixed: Chat messages over 500 characters were stored but not displayed, causing silent truncation
• Fixed: Notification count badge wasn't clearing after reading all notifications in some browser/cache combinations
• Fixed: Work cooldown timer showed negative values after a server restart during the cooldown window
• Fixed: Registration form accepted emails with consecutive dots (e.g. user..name@domain.com)

Performance Improvements

• Added database index on battle_logs.created_at — Eclipse War score query reduced from ~450ms to ~12ms
• Added composite index on characters(race, level) — ranking queries 3× faster at 10,000+ characters
• Monster data is now pre-loaded into memory at startup instead of per-request JSON parsing
• Shop item list is now cached with a 5-minute TTL — reduced DB load by ~30% during peak hours
• Alembic migrations now run in a single transaction — migration rollback is safe if interrupted

Security

• Added AuditLog middleware — all 401, 403, 429 responses on /api/ routes are now logged to the audit table
• Added honeypot endpoint /api/hidden — any request to this endpoint is logged as bot activity and returns 404
• Refresh token cleanup now runs daily — expired tokens purged from DB automatically
• CSP header updated to allow Google Fonts while blocking all other external resources
• Security headers (X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy) now applied globally via middleware

Upcoming in v1.1

Here's what we're working on for the next update:

• Blood Moon Festival — the full event system goes live with the +40% XP / +25% gold bonuses and exclusive Crimson Fang item drops. First Blood Moon scheduled for launch week.
• Seasonal Events Calendar — Halloween (Undead Festival), Winter Solstice (Frozen Bloodmoon), and Spring Equinox (Great Hunt) events added to the scheduler.
• Expanded Auction House — bidding system (not just buyout), watchlist, and price history charts for popular items.
• Clan Territories — claim and defend geographic zones on the world map for passive resource bonuses. Clan wars become more strategic.
• Character Titles — earn titles from achievements displayed next to your name in PvP and rankings (e.g., "Shadow Walker", "Blood Sovereign", "Pack Alpha").
• Mobile UI Polish — combat screen, inventory, and shop pages optimized for 375px-width mobile screens.