Playable Worlds’ Stars Reach is continuing its march through pre-alpha, and its latest patch has quite a bit in it for testers, starting with something they’re going to love: an XP refund system that means you’re not going to have to deal with grinding everything all over again the next time the devs reset toons.

“We’ve changed some skill nodes again, but rather than reset your characters, we’ve added an ‘XP Refund’ system. When this update begins, all of your XP will be refunded to you, all your skill nodes will be unlearned, and you’ll be able to respend your XP any way you desire,” Playable Worlds explains.

We also spy some other interesting things in the patch blog, most of them relating to plant harvesting: a reset of flora behavior, XP bonuses for harvesting near other players doing the same thing, loot sharing with all folks on a dead mob’s aggro list, visual tweaks for harvested plants, a new pruning mode for the Xyloslicer, a split-up of the cooking and artisan crafting skills, and medical XP.

Finally, PW has implemented a new sliding mechanic that basically tweaks how players interact with hills.

“We’ve added sliding to the game. When you are on a steep slope and try to move, it’s quite likely that you will slide down the slope. This makes cliff climbing more interesting and it can be hard to find a place to stand on a cliffside because of it. Don’t forget your ability to cut niches or add ledges with the Terraformer!”