Just Another Idle — v0.45: World Expansion, Combat Overhaul & Inventory Rework
Nine updates in one post — this is a catch-up devlog covering everything since v0.36.1. The short version: the game world got significantly bigger, combat is now a real system with depth, your inventory got reworked from the ground up, and a lot of rough edges got smoothed out for new players. Here’s the rundown.
🗺️ World Expansion — 37 New Actions
The biggest content drop since launch. Forty-four new actions were added across 8 skills, filling every level gap and giving all 7 areas a proper reason to visit.
New content by skill:
- Woodcutting: Birch Tree (lv15, Coastal), Teak Tree (lv35, Forest), Redwood Tree (lv50, Mountain), Spirit Tree (lv65, Desert), Crystal Tree (lv92, Arcane)
- Mining: Limestone Rock (lv15), Sandstone Rock (lv35, Desert), Obsidian Seam (lv60, Caverns), Crystal Formation (lv92, Arcane)
- Fishing: Crab Spot (lv15, Coastal), Pike Spot (lv35, Forest), Anglerfish Depths (lv50, Mountain), Sea Turtle Shallows (lv65, Desert), Manta Ray Trench (lv90, Arcane)
- Cooking: matching fish recipes at levels 15, 35, 50, 65, and 90
- Combat: Skeleton (lv15), Giant Spider (lv35, Forest), Desert Scorpion (lv38, Desert), Shade (lv65, Caverns), Lich (lv90, Arcane)
- Fletching: Birch Shortbow (lv15), Teak Longbow (lv30), Redwood Shortbow (lv48), Elder Longbow (lv62)
- Enchanting: Enchant Helmet (lv8), Enchant Gauntlets (lv32), Enchant Boots (lv48)
- Exploration: six new locations spread across Coastal, Forest, Desert, Mountain, Caverns, and Arcane areas
Thirty-one new resources were added alongside these — new logs, ores, fish, cooked food, combat drops, bows, and enchanted items.
Action grids now also filter by area by default: current-area actions appear first, and actions locked to other areas are collapsed into a tidy “Available Elsewhere” section at the bottom. A Settings toggle lets you turn this off if you prefer the old flat view.
⚔️ Combat Overhaul — Styles, Weaknesses & Drop Tables
Combat now has a real triangle system.
Three combat styles exist: Melee (sword/axe), Ranged (bow/crossbow), and Magic (staff). Your style is determined by whatever you have equipped in your main hand. Every one of the 14 enemies has a weakness and a resistance — being advantaged deals 1.5× damage (50% faster kills), being disadvantaged deals 0.5× (50% slower). Your combat stats panel now shows which style you’re currently running.
Four magic staves are craftable via Crafting: Apprentice (lv20), Mystic (lv45), Arcane (lv70), and Elder (lv90, requires Arcane area). If you want to take magic into late-game, there’s a full progression path for it.
Drop tables were also completely redone. Previously combat enemies used simple min/max resource rolls. Now every enemy has a weighted drop table with independent per-entry probabilities — each drop has its own % chance and rolls separately. Rare drops (equipment, special items) are listed on enemy cards with the exact % chance shown in the tooltip, so there are no more mystery grinds.
🎒 Bank & Inventory Rework
Resources no longer go straight to the bank. You now have a 28-slot quick-access Inventory that fills first when you gain resources. When all 28 slots are full, overflow goes to the Bank as before.
The left panel shows your inventory as a 4×7 grid. Right-clicking any slot gives you deposit options (deposit 1 or deposit all of that item). A “Deposit All” button sends your entire inventory to the Bank in one click.
The Bank also gained a “Withdraw to Inventory” button per item and a “Withdraw All” footer button.
Auto-sell still works the same from a player-facing perspective — items on auto-sell are sold immediately on pickup and never appear in your inventory at all.
This lays the groundwork for more inventory-based mechanics going forward, and makes it much clearer where your resources actually are at a glance.
🔧 Tool Requirements & Better Onboarding
Four skills now require the matching tool equipped to run:
- Woodcutting → Hatchet
- Mining → Pickaxe
- Fishing → Fishing Rod
- Combat → any Weapon
If the right tool isn’t equipped, you’ll see a 🔧 badge on the action card with a clear message. Actions auto-pause when you swap to the wrong tool and auto-resume the moment you equip the right one back.
To go with this, four starter tools were added to the Shop at 50g each: Bronze Hatchet, Bronze Pickaxe, Fishing Rod, and Iron Sword. New characters also start with a Bronze Hatchet already equipped and 500 gold in their pocket — enough to buy tools for the other skills straight away.
The intent: new players should know exactly what to do next instead of staring at locked actions wondering why nothing works.
✨ Enchanting & Gem Depth
Four new enchantment properties were added, bringing the full pool to 10:
- Preserve Input — chance to get all crafting input costs refunded on completion. Very valuable on expensive late-game processing chains.
- Combat Damage Bonus — reduces your combat action interval (more actions per minute = more effective damage and faster drops).
- Combat Defense — reduces incoming damage. Stacks with the Combat skill tree defense node.
- Agility Efficiency — reduces stamina cost per agility course action.
Two new gem attributes also arrived: Enchanting Potency (scales up your enchantment property values — great for builds that lean on enchanting) and Stamina Regen (passive stamina trickle per second, scales up significantly at T4).
💰 Late-Game Cost Scaling
A handful of systems that were previously free or flat-cost now scale up as you use them:
- Gem merges now cost gold based on tier (T1: 500g, T2: 2,000g, T3: 8,000g, T4: 32,000g).
- Gem reroll cost escalates ×1.3 per reroll on the same gem instance on top of tier scaling.
- Star Scrolls cost an extra scroll per application on the same item (1 → 2 → 3).
- Reset Scroll applications cost escalating gold: 1,000g on first use, ×1.5 for each subsequent global use.
This is mostly a late-game and endgame concern. Early and mid-game play is unaffected.
🔨 Quality of Life
A few other changes worth calling out:
Save compression. Saves are now compressed using LZ-string, reducing localStorage usage by roughly 60–80%. Players who were approaching the 5MB browser limit now have breathing room.
Icon system. Skills, woodcutting trees, and tools now use proper image icons throughout the UI instead of emoji placeholders.
Assistant upkeep. Assistants now cost 10g per minute each while active. They go inactive automatically if gold runs out and reactivate when gold is restored. The Assistants modal shows your current gold, upkeep rate, and estimated time remaining.
8 new achievements. Six gem achievements (Gem Hoarder, Master Merger, Reroll Addict, Perfect Gem, Triple Threat, Gem Merchant) and two cross-skill achievements (Self-Sufficient, Grand Artisan).
What’s Next
The game is in a good spot right now — the world is fuller, combat has depth, and the onboarding is much cleaner for new players. Next I want to look at the mid-to-late progression experience more carefully, especially around the Arcane area and endgame choices.
If something feels off or you’ve found a bug, the Discord is the fastest way to get it fixed.
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— VHS