Release 42 Instructions

Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked Instructions and Known Issues. Join the discussion of this update in the forums.

Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 42 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, May 25, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 42 (R42) is another significant step forward in progress with a staggering amount of new content as well as a ton of balance and polish. The Path of the Oracle is finally revealed, along with the Oracle herself, starter scenes have seen an amazing amount of polish, more gear can be placed as decorations, Mail is seeing its first iteration, many weapon decorations are now able to be placed on both walls and floors, combat got lots of balancing including additional functionality for Locked Decks and adjustments to Experience Decay, and enemies have been beefed up with new abilities and smarter behaviors!

The Path of the Oracle: For intrepid Avatars that have succeeded in the Paths of Love, Truth, and Courage, an audience can be sought with the Oracle herself. What awaits as you approach her throne in the heart of Brittany? R42 will set the Avatar upon the final path to untangle the meaning of the Dire Prophecies and discover the Avatar’s purpose in New Britannia.

Starting Scene Polish: We have continued to focus on steady improvements to the new user experience by polishing the three primary starter scenes: Battle of Solace Bridge, Blood River Massacre, and Battle of Highvale. Players exploring these scenes for the first time will experience significant improvements to quest flow, task management, NPC behaviors, Points of Interest, and enemy encounters.

Decoration Additions and Improvements: We have expanded the list of available decorations this release to include nearly 120 pieces of gear that can now be placed as decorations. This includes all Chain, Plate, Bone, Clockwork, and Founder’s Heavy Armor sets as well as many equipable offhand items and miscellaneous cloth gear missed in R41. Additionally, many weapon decorations can now be placed on BOTH walls and floors, rather than just one or the other. We are also introducing Ceiling decorations in the form of chandeliers and hanging light decorations. We are excited to see how players will use this improved flexibility to decorate their homes in a variety of new and interesting ways!

Mail: It’s finally here! After countless feature requests, we’re excited to show off the initial iteration of our Mail system. With Release 42, players will be able to receive mail notifications based on vendor transactions. When a vendor item is sold, expired, or removed, players will receive mail that notifies them of the event. The mail will also include the proceeds or refund from the transaction. Mail can be accessed at mailboxes, which are located at all banks throughout New Britannia. Mailboxes can also be crafted and placed at your house. Work is ongoing to eventually allow players to send mail to each other in future iterations.

Combat Balance: Significant improvements were made to combat systems in R42. Locked Decks now support the successive use of the same skill/spell based on the number of available glyphs determined by skill level. This will be balanced with the addition of a new Locked Deck “Heat” system, which will build up after rapid use of the same skill and cause increased focus consumption. Noteworthy changes have also been made to Experience Decay and Boss Loot tables.

Enemy AI: A lot of work this release has gone into fleshing out enemy AI behaviors, as well as arming enemies with new abilities. Most mages will now have an increased arsenal of spells, including roots, buffs, debuffs, and teleportation. Additionally, enemies will no longer stand idly by as their friends are attacked or killed. Most NPCs will now properly react, panic, and investigate the area of the kill and actively search for the aggressor.

I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the items below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post. They are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game and that it is easy to read.

While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change. We do not yet have all of the in-game systems needed to inform players about these changes, and to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely mostly on this message, and the linked Instructions and Known Issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information.

By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.

Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. Be sure to check out a couple of the event calendars run by our community members (via in-game book or the player-run websites: Avatars Circle and Events of the Avatars). You can also get the latest official events on the Main Website.

Without further ado, here is a list of what you can expect to see in Release 42.

KEY:

• Plain Text: The original plan for the Release deliverables. We intentionally preserve the original text so that our backers can compare plan versus actuals.
• Italics: Extra notes and new deliverables.
• Strikethrough: These are items that did not make the release (but are still planned).

RELEASE 42, May 25, 2017

• Story: We will do final polish on the Path of Truth including incidental NPCs and side quests in areas like Xenos and Etceter. We will polish visuals of the final sequence with Titan Boreas in the Path of Truth. Highvale Outskirts, a new scene that players start in after the Battle of Highvale Village, will come online for the first time.

• Path of the Oracle: For those brave avatars who have completed the Paths of Truth, Love, and Courage, they know that at the end, they were instructed to meet with the Oracle, personally, in her chambers in Brittany… The Oracle is waiting. [SPOILER] Release 42 sees the first implementation of the Path of the Oracle, the ending sequence of the main story for Episode 1. Players who have received an invitation may now enter the Oracle Chamber in Central Brittany, and learn from the Oracle what next they must do to discover the true meaning of the Dire Prophecies and why they have been called to New Britannia. Note that the Path of the Oracle is not yet complete and some quests are marked “Not yet implemented” in a player’s journal if awarded. As more high-level scenes come online in future releases, more of the Path of the Oracle will open.
  
• Oracle Colossus: As encountered first by Aren and Syenna in Blade of the Avatar, the Colossus of the Oracle is a key landmark of the Blackblade Mountains. Set amongst the shattered ruins of Alabastia, the entire area is pretty dangerous, both from the fire elementals attracted to the shifting lava and the undead attracted to the treasures found within. Yet Alabastia holds its secrets well, and those who cannot solve its secrets will find why they have continued to be locked away all these years… The Oracle Colossus will play a key role in the Path of the Oracle final quest sequence in a future release, but its perilous traps, puzzles, and mysteries are available for exploration by curious visitors with Release 42. Warning: lava burns.
  
• Battle of Solace Bridge, Battle of Highvale, and Bloodriver Massacre Tutorial Polish: Release 42 brings with it a stunning amount of work gone into polishing each of the Virtue Paths’ tutorial scenes: Battle of Solace Bridge, Battle of Highvale, and Blood River Massacre. Players visiting these scenes for the first time will observe optimizations to quest flow, NPC conversations, NPC pathing, enemy refactoring, scene prop and quest trigger adjustments, compass Point of Interest (POI) additions, task fixes/changes, and general experience improvements. As we continue to address the need for love and polish to the New User experience, there are more changes and polish expected for these scenes in future releases.
  
• Path of Courage: From Resolute, Brigid will now properly send Outlanders to Harvest by directing them through the Sanctus Spine Control Point. Sanctus Spine will now include an ally of Brigid’s that will aid the Avatar by transporting them across the dangerous field of battle with a single-use teleportation scroll. Don’t waste it, as normal travel could prove quite perilous to the unprepared!
• Solace Bridge Outskirts: After review of player feedback from the introduction of our first Outskirts scene in Release 41, a number of improvements have been made for Solace Bridge Outskirts. Release 42 will introduce the “Finale” quest for this scene, as well as much-requested polish and bug-fixing to existing quests. Additionally, Fleta’s fishing quest has been removed, and will instead be replaced with a crafting-focused quest where Sedgewick will task players with harvesting resources around the scene.
  
• Advanced Skill Training: In previous releases, only normal adventuring trainers could unlock Deck Building, Free Attack, and Utility Hotbars for players. Starting in Release 42, players will now be able to unlock the full range of advanced techniques from Master Adventuring trainers as well. Crafting Trainers will now also grant access to Utility Hotbars. When Advanced Techniques are unlocked for the first time, trainers will distribute helpful guides that go into further depth on their functionality.
• Aerie: For too long, the stables and corrals of Aerie have been empty. New Britannian equestrian aficionados may now rejoice as this area has been brought back to life with the addition of multiple horses.
• Ardoris Sewers: New chambers have been added to the notorious sewers below Ardoris’s cobbled streets. These chambers provide additional maneuverability throughout the scene, but be warned, they aren’t without their tricks and traps.
• Artifice: The NPCs within this scene are now much more amenable to speaking with Outlanders. Satyr guards will now appropriately talk and respond to conversation, and the Welcomer before the gates of Artifice will guide Outlanders on a proper course of action if they are not yet ready to enter Artifice’s halls.
• Blood Bay: Watch your step, brave adventurers! The rope bridges of Blood Bay have become more precarious! Release 42 has seen a number of the rope bridges on the backside of the island replaced with new trap bridges that will break on use.
• Central Brittany: The scene marks a couple significant additions. The first is the unveiling of a village-sized orrery in sight of the Oracle’s Temple. Players may use this device to observe the passage of astral bodies and track constellations with ease. Additionally, word has spread of a Spoony Bard’s arrival in Arabella’s court. This figure may have much to share, including the ability to answer once and for all, “What’s a Paladin?”
• Harvest/Estgard NPCs: Release 42 has brought the NPCs of these scenes to life! Adventurers to Harvest and Estgard will now see that all NPCs that have been given unique names, conversations, schedules, and patrols. This is part of an ongoing effort to polish and improve existing scenes that will continue into future releases.
• Etceter: NPCs tied to the Path of Truth within Etceter have been improved in Release 42. Captain Steel’s coffers have been filled and will no longer require 500 gold for passage to Xenos. Steel’s newfound wealth is evident as her unimpressive dinghy has been replaced with an appropriate Galleon that can now be seen anchored offshore. Additionally, Avitas now better guides Avatars for how to acquire access to Artifice, if certain key quest items are not part of the Avatar’s inventory.
• Jaanaford: Joseph Sepp has taken further to the bottle, and his actions in Release 42 have been updated to match. You may now find him wandering around with drinking-themed emotes.
• Kiln: Thieves beware! World-item props placed throughout the scene have now been updated to include thief-detection! Sticky fingers will now provide negative virtue hits to stealing in this scene. Additionally, Ivar now creates a proper Task/Quest when sending brave adventurers to face the threats of Kiln Cistern.  
• Southwest Blackblade Mountains: The scene has been updated to include interactive geyser-jumps and fumarole basins.
• Tenebris Harbor: Careless adventurers beware! Word has spread that a group of dangerous plunderers have set up camp deep within Tenebris Harbor. With added difficulty, these foes will provide additional challenge to those that are brave enough to confront them.
• Factions: Friendship is fickle. All is not well amongst the swamp critters and forest beasts. Factions have been updated across all scenes so that wolves and crocodiles will now appropriately attack one another on sight.
• Northern Grunvald Barrens: A mysterious mountaintop ritual site has now gone dormant, taking with it the twisted dark magics that could previously be seen. In its place, adventurers may now find a circle of candles of untold origin and purpose.
• Novia: A number of visual improvements have been made to the overworld, including updates to the light, vfx, and geometry of Blood Bay island visible from the Novian coast.
• Sieges: We have applied tech to address lingering scene instancing issues for Sieges. These changes should fix reports of Siege instances that were:
• Spawning enemies, but failing to trigger/spawn Cabalists once Catapult camps and engineers have been defeated, and;
• Entering into Siege instances that were completely empty and flagged as completed without closing the scene.
• Enemy Spawners: A remainder of scenes that were missing dynamic enemy spawners have now been updated. Affected scenes include Ruined Keep, Kingsport Sewers, and Ruins of Ravensmoor.
• Redthorn Flower Spawners: The previously static and lifeless Redthorn Flowers have been removed and replaced with vicious, Avatar-hungry spawned versions that attack on sight. Stopping to smell the flowers is ill-advised in the ruins and shardfalls of New Britannia.
• Oracle Confirmatories: Confirmatories across all of New Britannia have been updated with shelves that are now updated with appropriate props and books detailing the Virtues. This pleases the Oracle.
• Vertas: Several scene updates have been made to Vertas including the removal of out-of-place castle walls that surrounded the nearby druid home. Sadly, it did not fit with the village’s local aesthetic, and its removal was considered for the greater good. Additionally, village leader Kiriad has been properly relocated to his home, returning Norgast to his beloved alchemy table.
• NPC Buildings: The common buildings we use in many cities (combat shop, alchemist shop, etc.) have updated decorations, special decorations out front to help identify the shop at a glance, and the anti-theft system applied to its stealable world-items. Some of these building have versions that are available as POT NPC buildings, which have been identically updated.
• Scene Fixes: We went through tons of scenes in the game fixing major and minor bugs including conversations, stuck spots, floating assets, missing assets, bad NPC patrols, inaccessible ore nodes, missing collision, missing/misplaced Resurrection Ankhs, falling through the world, etc.
  • Aerie
  • Ardoris
  • Artifice
  • Battle of Solace Bridge
  • Blood River Massacre
  • Brightbone Pass
  • Brittany Estates
  • Brittany Sewers
  • Brittany Wharfs
  • Crag Foothills
  • Deep Ravenswood
  • Desolis
  • East Longfall Wetland
  • East Veiled Swamp
  • Estgard
  • Ferig’s Battle Camp
  • Forest Siege
  • Greymark Forest
  • Harvest
  • Isle of Storms
  • K’rawl
  • K’rul
  • Libris Ruins
  • Malice
  • Middle Downs
  • Midmaer Passage
  • Novia
  • Owl’s Head
  • POT Mountain Template
  • Resolute Sewers
  • Sanctus Spine
  • Sequanna Colossus
  • Serpent’s Spine Mines
  • Shuttered Eye Exterior
  • Solace Bridge Outskirts
  • Solania
  • Spite
  • Superstition Canyon
  • The Fall
  • Twins Foothills
  • Valhold
  • Vauban Pass
  • Verdantis Mines
  • West Ravenswood
• Highvale Outskirts Delayed: While we made lots of progress and completed all world building tasks for the second of the three virtue Outskirts scenes developed, work continues to fully flesh out this scene with working NPCs, enemy and resource spawners, conversations, and quests.
• Sequanna Colossus Delayed: World building is finished on the new Sequanna Colossus, which has freed up scene quest/design/spawn polish work for the virtue tutorial scenes listed above.
• Libris Ruins (Unclone) Delayed: World building tasks for the unclone of Libris Ruins is still ongoing for future release. This allowed for additional design polish passes of existing scenes (see above).
• Player Towns & Player Housing: Updates to Dynamic Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game.
• Heavy Armor Decorations: Over 70 additional equippable items can now be placed as decorations, including all Chain, Plate, Bone, Clockwork, and Founders Heavy Armor sets.
• Equipable Decorations: Fixed a number of equipable decos that were missed in R41:
  • Admiral’s Hat
  • Ardoris Guard Helm
  • Ardoris Priestess Headpiece
  • Ardoirs Royal Kabuto
  • Ardoris Shogun Helmet
  • Black Clockwork Armor Helm
  • Bug Sprayer
  • Clay Pipe
  • Clockwork Umbrella
  • Copper Clockwork Armor Helm
  • Dragon Handle Maplewood Cane
  • Elder Elven Fighter helm
  • Elven Fighter Helm
  • Fan
  • Fancy One-Man Band Hat
  • Fortified Cloth Helm
  • Fortified Leather Helm
  • Lord Marshal’s Drinking Horn
  • Metal Pipe
  • One-Man Band Hat
  • Ornate Fan
  • Ornate Feather Fan
  • Ornate Gothic Fan
  • Ornate Meerschaum Titan of Courage Pipe
  • Ornate Meerschaum Titan of Love Pipe
  • Ornate Meerschaum Titan of Truth Pipe
  • Ornate Meerschaum Wolf Pipe
  • Ornate Metal Dragon Pipe
  • Ornate Metal Pipe
  • Ornate Norgard Fan
  • Ornate One-Man Band Hat
  • Ornate Triskellion Fan
  • Ornate Umbrella
  • Ornate Wooden Pipe
  • Ornate Wooden Skull Pipe
  • Rose Bouquet
  • Rotten Helm
  • Royal Orb
  • Silver Clockwork Armor Helm
  • Spyglass
  • Steampunk Goggles
  • Twirling Baton
  • Umbrella
  • Virtue Steampunk Goggles
  • Walking Cane
  • Wealthy Merchant Hat
  • Wedding Veil
  • Wooden Pipe
• Mail: We are incredibly excited to unveil the first iteration of Mail delivery! As of Release 42, players will now be able to receive mail notifications based on vendor transactions. Mailboxes can be found in all existing banks (including POT Bank NPC Buildings) as interactive mailboxes adjacent to banker windows. Release 42 will also introduce recipes for craftable wall-deco mailboxes so that bank access need not be necessary. Work continues to expand the features and utility of mail, including the addition of player-created mail, planned for future releases. Further details on mail implementation can be found in the latest Player Instructions.
• Weapon Deco Wall AND Floor Functionality: In our continued effort to provide player homeowners with greater control and utility, Release 42 will introduce the ability for weapon decos to have flags to be used as both Floor and Wall decorations. Previously, all decorations were consigned to only be used as either Floor or Wall decos, but not both. Release 42 will allow for weapon decorations to be able to be placed on both surfaces. Note that this unique flagging will NOT apply to ALL items, as many will retain floor or wall specific placements (No, you cannot place your bar counter on a wall.)
  
• POT Signpost Teleporter Networks: All POTs and PRTs now have “local destinations” signposts at major entrances and other significant locations that allow for fast travel to other signposts within that same scene. These signposts cannot be used while in combat.
• Offline Mode POT Lot Deeds: As of this release, POT Lot Deeds will function just like “Place Anywhere” deeds in Offline Mode.
• Ornate Moondials: Cast your eyes skyward with the inclusion of four new Ornate Moondials. These complex orreries stand apart from previous incarnations, with a magical floating spherical field that will cast outward a bright representation of the updated sky and its celestial bodies. The Ornate Moondial will be accessible from the Add-On store and come in 4 sizes to be used by all players regardless of their space limitations:
  • Ornate Tabletop Moondial: Small and portable, able to fit on a standard table or shelf.
  • Ornate Moondial: “Normal” sized, similar to existing moondial examples, able to fit easily in most rooms.
  • Ornate Village Moondial: Scaled up in size, this impressively large orrery will fit comfortably on a village-sized lot and freely in POTs.
  • Ornate Keep Moondial: The largest orrery in scale, be the envy of your astronomer neighbors with this moondial that can fit on keep (and castle) sized lots, and can also be placed freely in POTs. Have the moondial that can be seen from the heavens themselves!
• Crafting Symbol Chests: Players may now reshape their existing crafted chests/containers to apply the appearance of special Crafting Symbol Chests. Each of these chests includes a brightly emblazoned symbol of the intended crafting school applied. The patterns necessary to reshape chests/containers can now be found on Decorations Merchants.
• Ceiling-Mounted Light Decorations: As we continue work to add greater control and utility to the fingers of our game’s home decorators, we’re proud to introduce the first set of ceiling-mounted decorations in Release 42:
  • Iron Chandelier: As seen throughout New Britannia brightening the hearths of many taverns, this simple iron chandelier will be introduced as a craftable recipe in Release 42.
  • Obsidian Chandelier: Add ambience to your Obsidian-inspired home with this hanging chandelier utilizing the unmistakable glowing shard. This item will become available from the Add-On store in Release 42.
  • Frosted Glass Chandelier: Make a strong impression on your guests by styling your home with the ceiling light version of our Frosted Glass Oil Lamps. Introduced as a craftable recipe in Release 42.
  • Geometric Stained Glass Chandelier: Brighten your thresholds with the stylized ceiling version of our Geometric Stained Glass Oil Lamps. Available in the Add-On store in Release 42.
• Standing/Wall Light Decorations: Release 42 will introduce a number of new standing and wall light decorations to add ambience and visibility to your homes or POTs:
  • Stone Streetlamp: Add-On store
  • Rough Wooden Lamp Post: Craftable
  • Iron Wall Lamp: Craftable
  • Pole Torch: Craftable
  • Simple Wooden Stick Torch: Craftable
• Sigil Decorations: We will be introducing large floor/wall placeable decorations for the three distinct Sigils: Combat, Crafting, and Magic. These three sigils will be available in sets of both Black and White variants on the Add-On store.
• Royal Orb: The functionality of the Royal Orb can now by used by players on anyone else’s taxed vendors to reduce fees without needing to have “modify” permissions on the vendor, itself.
• Devotionals: All Devotionals have become much more impressive, with ambient glowing sparkly VFX and updated SFX and VFX on use.
  
• POT Devotionals Overworld Visibility: Introduced in Release 42, towns with placed Devotionals will now sparkle visibly on the Overworld.
• Mounted Boss Trophies: The mounted trophy heads for Trolls, Dragons, and Phoenix have been appropriately increased in size.
  
• House Fixes: Fixed various issues in homes including places where decorations could not be placed, stairs that could not be climbed without jumping, etc.
  • Duke Benefactor
  • Elven 3-Story Row
  • Elven 4-Story Row
  • Elven Hill
  • Elven Keep
  • Knight Founder
  • Lord (Water)
  • Lord of the Manor Keep
  • Small Old Keep
  • Stone & Timber 5-Story Row Basement
  • Viking 2-Story Stronghold
  • Windmill
  • Wood & Plaster 4-Story Row
• Basement Fixes: We added the correct decoration surface to the bottom floor of all basements to accommodate bottom-floor-only decoration types. Also, we corrected a bug where decorations could accidentally be put on top of basement ceilings and outside the rooms.
• R41 Lot Deed Raffle Tickets: The drawings for our Ninth Lot Deed Raffle will be held on May 25, 2017 and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Deeds will be delivered in Release 42.
  • Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
    • Row: 5
    • Village: 3
    • Town: 1
    • City: 1
  • Player Owned Town Deeds (10):
    • Row: 5
    • Village: 3
    • Town: 1
    • City: 1
• R42 Lot Deed Raffle Tickets: This will be the Tenth Lot Deed Raffle. As always, Raffle tickets can be purchased with in game gold. As with R41 each person can only win a single deed of each type (maximum of one place anywhere and one POT). The drawing and winners will be in R43.
  • Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
    • Row: 5
    • Village: 3
    • Town: 1
    • City: 1
  • Player Owned Town Deeds (10):
    • Row: 5
    • Village: 3
    • Town: 1
    • City: 1
• New and Updated Dynamic POTs:
  • Aerie Cove: Renamed (formerly Krabnevir). Converted to Forest 01b biome. Ownership changed. Changed location.
  • Catscratch Hovel: Renamed (formerly Blood Omen Caverns). Converted to Forest 01c biome. Ownership changed. Changed nested interconnection to within Brittany Estates. Removed PVP flag.
  • Dara Brae: Changed location. Interconnections added (Kingsport, Littlecreek, Forewind, The Brave Coast, Estercove, and Port Mirren).
  • Dawn’s Keep: Interconnection added (Brittany Alleys).
  • Dragomir Mori: Renamed (formerly Dragomir). Changed location (minor). Interconnection added (Aerie)
  • Forptycle: Renamed (formerly Heorth). Converted to Forest 02 biome. Ownership changed. Changed location. Flagged for PVP.
  • Glasgow Oasis: Renamed (formerly Numinous Gleann). Converted to Desert 01b biome.
  • Luna City; Renamed (formerly Raven’s Head). Ownership changed. Changed location.
  • Reverie: Upgraded to Crossroad Village.
  • The Caverns of Kahli: Interconnection added (Braemar).
  • Virtue Oasis: Converted to Desert 01b biome.
  • Whyte Roc: Upgraded to Metropolis.
    

• Combat and Game Balance: We will continue our polish pass on all the visual effects related to combat.
• Locked Decks Update and Balance: Locked decks have needed some attention for some time now, and we spent Release 42 first analysing the issues, and then implementing some needed changes to make playing Locked decks more balanced and useful. Release 42 introduces added utility based on a glyph’s available card count, set by skill level. Players will be able to cast the same locked glyph successively as long as a glyph is available out of cooldown. Note that balance has been added in the form of “Heat” generation that will grow the more a single glyph is cast consecutively, which will increase Focus cost if not managed.  This system will continue to receive attention to ensure it is balanced in comparison to the unlocked system.  
• Reduced max health: The max health of both players and creatures was reduced slightly.  Lower experience players will see little change but players towards the high end of the power spectrum could see their hit points reduced by as much as 100 hit points.
• Enemy Investigation AI: The AI behaviors for many enemies have been updated such that they will now no longer stand idly by as their faction-allies get picked off. Release 42 has introduced the added behavior of panic and investigation if an AI observes their peers killed/attacked. For instance, attacking/killing a bandit ruffian will alarm nearby allies, where they will rush within range of their fallen compatriot and actively try to seek out the aggressor.
• Enemy Skill Variety: We are beginning to make passes to add greater variety and utility to enemy encounters. Part of accomplishing this is by adding enemy-tailored versions of player skills to our existing enemies. Release 42 has implemented the following changes:
• Mages: Most mages have been training in their free time, and now display a wider range of abilities than simply casting fireballs including roots, debuffs, buffs, and blink-type repositioning spells.
• Clockwork Cats: Also set up to use Blink to be able to reposition mid-combat.
• Daemons: Daemons have been updated with a sub-effect glyph applied to their Dash Thrust attack that now allows them to fly forward and knock down/damage all players in their paths.
• Experience & Decay Balance: A number of changes to Decay and Experience Balance are being introduced in Release 42:
• Decay Accumulation: Maximum accumulation of decay stays set at 24 hours, the same as R41. This means players don’t have to worry about taking a week off.
• Death: To soften the blow on deaths and spread of the cost a bit, each death will only apply half the current decay amount. So if you haven’t played in a day (or a week) you would have 24 hours built up. First death will apply 12 hours of decay leaving 12 hours of decay remaining. Second death will apply 6 hours and leave 6 hours remaining. Third death, 3 hours… etc.
• Unlearning: All skills with level > 80 will give back 100% experience when unlearning for R42 only. This is due to a planned change in R43 that will make skills in the 101+ range decay at 2x the rate and the skills in 81-100 decay at 1x the rate. This is also an opportunity for players who want to rethink their strategies for leveling skills or to switch schools.
• Reduce Skill Use to Level Skills: Players with a large amount of experience in their pools should see skills advance as much as twice as fast.
• Taming Decay: Until we have a better chance to evaluate required skill levels in the Taming tree, Taming is set not to decay. We hope to investigate further in a future release, but until then, this will ease the decay pain a bit.
• Friendly Spell Targeting: All friendly target spells have been updated for 360 degree targeting. The following skills will require no facing starting in R42:
  • Air’s Embrace
  • Celestial Blessing
  • Enlightenment
  • Inner Strength
  • Light
  • Purify
  • Resurrection
  • Sacrifice
  • Shield of Crystal
  • Tame Heal
  • Tame Resurrection
• Polearm Balance: In Release 41, we increased the base damage for their auto and free attacks. That helped the “Average Joe” but not the high-end player as the bulk of their damage in critical situations came from skills. Release 42 increases the base damage of the weapons significantly, which will affect both auto attack, free attack, and damage from skills utilizing that weapon. They have now received the “Atos Seal of Awesomeness.”
• Redthorn Flowers: The Red/Purple Alien Plants often found throughout ruins and Shardfall regions have been given life! Release 42 will introduce this new enemy type with unique skills including a Melee Leaf Spin (3 rapid attacks),Grass Stab (single attack), Melee AoE (an AoE grass-stab attack), and a ranged Poison Spray (rapid, 3 shot ranged poison attack).
• Riposte (Blades): Riposte has had its effect updated. Instead of providing a buff to defense, Riposte will now act as a Counter Attack. This skill will currently do 75% of base melee attack UNLESS it is used within 2.5 seconds of Parrying another attack, at which point it does 200% damage with an attack that cannot be dodged, parried, or blocked. Due to this significant change, the skill has been added to the “100% Unlearn” list for the duration of this release.
• Fist Spells: Flame Fist, Stone Fist, Ice Fist, and Death Touch have all had their cooldown periods normalized to 8 seconds and their cast time 0.7 seconds up from 0.5 seconds.
• Offhand Attack: To maintain balance with the new heat system, offhand attack maintains its zero focus cost and zero use time but only as long as there is no heat on the skill.
• Ring of Fire: Skill now has a fixed 5-meter radius instead of a size that varied with skill level.
• Fire Reach: Innate skill has been changed to “Fire Speed.” Now, instead of increasing range and radius of fire skills, it will increase range and speed of DOT ticks. For example, with 100 skill in Fire Speed, players will have tick lengths of 1.5 seconds instead of 2. Fire makes most of its damage off the DOT ticks and the limiting factor is how far it will stack. For the average fire mage, this will work out to something like 20% overall damage boost IF they are willing to do some more casting.
• Fireball: Base radius has been increased to compensate for the removal of Fire Reach.
• Stone Arrow: Damage has been tuned down slightly.
• Boss Loot: All bosses have had their loot tables updated to provide mid-range loot. Previously the contents of boss loot was either “Win” or “Meh,” where players either won a random chance to receive a rare and valuable item or received next to nothing instead. Loot tables have now improved to make killing bosses still feel valuable, even if a rare item failed to drop.
• Cabalist Updates: We are continuing work to make the Cabalist bosses of Siege scenes feel more noteworthy and unique. When first introduced, their animations were placeholders of existing animations used for other bipedal enemies. Release 42 introduces the first set up noteworthy cabalist updates:
• Combat Animations: We have created and applied new attack, idle, and death animations for the Cabalists to make them stand out further.
• Dialogue: All Cabalists have been set up with custom bark text dialogues that correspond with their associated anti-virtue.
• Kobold NPCs: The visual effects for kobold guns have been updated to match their design.
• Skills Balance and Bug Fixes:
  • Knockback: Description updated to clarify that the skill should, in fact, hit 3 targets.
  • Double Slash: Description updated to clarify that the skill can hit 2 targets twice.
  • Ghost Corpion Poison Effect: Description updated for “firey” typo.
  • Knockdown: Description updated to clarify that the skill can hit 2 targets.
  • Moon Worship: Description fixed to refer to “Moon” instead of “Sun”.
  • Thrust: Description fixed to clarify that the skill can hit 2 targets.
  • Creature Heal: Fauns can now heal Satyrs again.
  • Dash: SFX/VFX restored to fizzle for the Dash skill.
  • Multi Shot: Made sure Multi Shot correctly hits multiple targets.

• Character: The Titans Sequanna and Boreas, as well as Arabella, will get their own  unique visuals. We will also do some polish work on Player Customization.
  
  • Titan Sequanna: Titan of Love, Sequanna is one of the pivotal characters you will encounter along the Path of Love. Players will first encounter her behind a crystal cage deep within the heart of Malice. She wears clothing in the distinctive style of the Perennial Coast and reminiscent of her Titan Statue in Ardoris.
  • The Oracle: With the introduction of the Path of the Oracle, discussed above, players will gain access to the Oracle’s Temple in Central Brittany, and with it the first glimpse of the Oracle in person, who has not been seen in many an age. Setting Outlanders upon the path of Virtue, and ever observant from her seat through many confirmatories and robotic Watchers, what lies in store when it comes time for us to address her personally?
  • Wounded Soldiers: After the long wait, we have implemented both male and female wounded soldier models into the game. Existing wounded soldier NPCs have been replaced with these new models, hurt and bandaged. They can be found across battle camps, as well as in scenes like Owl’s Head.
  • Guard Armor: NPC guards won’t be the only ones sporting the flashy new guard armors! Release 42 will introduce player-equipable versions of the new guard armor that can be acquired via the Add-On Store.
  • Cabalist Weapon VFX: The dark energies powering the Obsidian Cabalists have been imbued to their weapons, which now pulse with sinister purpose.
  • First Person View: All skill VFX are now visible from first-person view.
  • Avatar Mesh Fade: Cameras have been updated to fade the avatar’s body from view instead of crash into and be seen from inside. This was notoriously caused in scenes with tight spaces where camera often clipped close between the avatar and a wall, which would have forced the camera into the avatar’s body mesh.
  • Avatar Mesh Updates: Updates have been made and are ongoing to improve avatar meshes for seamless edges.
  • Character Delete: Deleting characters now acts as a full reset of in-game player settings. This was added to promote resetting a true New Player experience in ways that did not require the technical need to reset client registries. Elements like pinned windows, UI positioning, and interact/game settings will be reset on character delete. NOTE: This will not affect account-based character data, such as bank items, mail, housing lots, or POT ownership.
  • Horse Animations: Horses now have a proper trot/jog animation for increased movement speed. This can be seen in scenes like Aerie, at the local stable/corral.
  • Avatar Facing: Avatar characters will now automatically turn to face objects that are interacted with. No more opening chests while looking somewhere else entirely.
  • Spring Telethon 2017 Weapons Cont.:  Release 41 introduced the first set of the Spring Telethon 2017 weapons (Leaf Shield, Leaf Spear, Thorn Bow, Thorn Sword). Release 42 continues with the remaining set of Spring Telethon 2017 weapons for hitting the Stretch Goal of $140,000. As always anyone who spent $5 or more during the telethon will be receiving these in Release 42:
    • Thorn Wand
    • Thorn Staff
    • Thorn Mace
    • Thorn 2-Handed Sword
  • Wearable Backpacks: The plain craftable Backpack can now be rotated vertically and “stood up” as a container decoration.
  • New Weapons:
    • Spiked Club (1-handed Mace): Drops from mid-tier fighters.
    • Long Club (2-handed Mace): Drops from mid-tier fighters.
  • Skill VFX Updates: The following skills have had their VFX updated for Release 42:
    • Healing Touch: Easily one of the most frequently-cast spells provided to early players, this spell has needed love and attention that we’re happy to have provided in this release. No reason to suffer while looking at old VFX when your character’s already dying!
    • Ring of Fire: We’re excited for this new fiery VFX. Matching the skill’s power, the ground now cracks, erupting with molten flame, now appropriately suggesting “Don’t walk. Here there be fire.”
  • Titan Boreas and Arabella NPCs Delayed: We focused our team’s time on the Titan Sequanna NPC as well as the previously-delayed Wounded Soldiers. Work on Titan Boreas and Arabella NPCs will be renewed for future releases.

• Crafting: More recipes and more patterns in gear that is dropped from enemies.
  • Crafting Symbol Chest Patterns: Discussed above, players may now reshape their existing crafted chests/containers to apply the appearance of special Crafting Symbol Chests. Each of these chests includes a brightly emblazoned symbol of the intended crafting school applied. The patterns necessary to reshape chests/containers can now be found on Decorations Merchants. Implemented Crafting Symbols for chest patterns include:
    • Alchemy
    • Blacksmithing
    • Carpentry
    • Cooking
    • Tailoring
    • Agriculture
    • Butchery
    • Milling
    • Smelting
    • Tanning
    • Textiles
    • Field Dressing
    • Fishing
    • Foraging
    • Forestry
    • Mining
    • Book Printing
    • Music
  • New In-Game Weapon Patterns:
    • Spiked Club (1-handed Mace)
    • Long Club (2-handed Mace)
  • New Recipes:
    • Mail Box: A craftable wall-mounted decoration that functions similarly to the mail boxes found in Banks as of Release 42.
    • Iron Chandelier: As seen throughout New Britannia brightening the hearths of many taverns, a simple iron chandelier with candles ensconced.
    • Frosted Glass Chandelier
    • Rough Wooden Lamp Post
    • Iron Wall Lamp
    • Pole Torch
    • Simple Wooden Stick Torch
  • Crossbows: Crossbows can now be enchanted and gem-socketed.
  • Wizard’s Hat: Wizard’s Hats can now be masterworked.
  • Obsidian Longsword: The world-item recipe for the Obsidian Longsword will now appropriately deliver the Obsidian Longsword Recipe, and not just the Longsword Recipe.
  • Backpack: Crafted backpacks will now have working durability, and appropriately deliver leather scrap on salvage.
• Raid System: Tools will come online for large groups, and groups of groups, to go on adventures together.
  • Raid System Delayed: Work on the Rent and Mail System as well as various User Interface polish tasks made us decide to put this work on hold.
• Looking For Group: A tool to help players find a group to adventure with will appear in the game.
  • Looking for Group Delayed: Work on the Rent and Mail System as well as various User Interface polish tasks made us decide to put this work on hold.
• Performance:
  • Upgrading to Unity 5.6: We have finally upgraded to the latest version of Unity. This should result in better overall performance and numerous fixes to longstanding issues. While this does add Vulkan support, due to stability issues with Vulkan we did not make it the default renderer. Unity 5.6 brings more performance optimization options for us to take advantage of in future releases.
  • DX9 Support Discontinued: In each Release, we continue to pursue improved performance and stability for our players, and Release 42 is no exception. With growing challenges to ensuring stability for all DirectX (DX) features employed by our game, a key roadblock identified has been the support of legacy versions of DX. Because these problems continue to hinder development, we have made the hard decision to discontinue support for DX 9. DX 11 will continue to be our supported primary version while also looking into the possibility of DX 12 support in the future. If you have a system that runs an old Operating System (like Windows XP [DX9]), or video cards that do not support DX11+ at all, then the game will likely not run well, if at all. If you still wish to play, we highly recommend upgrading your system to support a DX11+ video card and operating system. The game’s minimum system requirements, listed on the website FAQ, will be updated upon Release 42 going Live.

• User Interface Polish:
  • NPC Conversations: One of the most significant UI changes in this release are the ongoing optimizations to NPC Conversation states. Players can look forward to the following changes to NPC conversations in Release 42:
    • Conversation Window Rebalance: In Release 41 we toyed around with restoring NPC utility windows (e.g. Bank, Merchant, Vendor, Trainer UIs) to the front end of NPC conversations, requiring a “Click [Hello]” dialog option to force conversations and close the utility windows. We weren’t pleased with this outcome, as it felt backwards to how many other RPGs set up the flow of conversation -> utility. Release 42 reintroduces the flow of “Conversation First” where you can then request, via keyword, to close the conversation and open an NPC utility window.
    • Utility Window Keyword Emphasis: In order to support the above change, NPCs that have utility, such as Merchants, Vendors, Bankers, Trainers, etc., will now have an emphasized keyword that starts their dialog to allow players to quickly maneuver to the utility window if so desired. As an example: Starting a conversation with a Blacksmith, the first line of the Blacksmith’s dialog should indicate that you can say “Buy” or “Sell” to exit the conversation and see their merchant inventory.
    • Pull-Down Keyword List: We recently introduced the keyword list to NPC conversations, which provides a quick-reference guide to available keywords for the NPC. While this added convenience, we observed that play often devolved into simply clicking the next keyword in the list, often without reading the conversation text at all. The convenience became a distraction, which we felt detracted from player experience, and definitely not our intent for the New User Experience. In Release 42, we have changed this such that the Keyword List is no longer displayed by default during a conversation, but instead can be toggled by the player as needed by clicking the arrow below the text entry field.
  • Party Nameplates: We polished the party nameplates, such that they should no longer overlap when a party member has more than 6 buffs/debuffs active at one time.
  • Hint Timing: Release 42 has added tech to support better timing of displayed hints to reflect the current game state. This has begun to be implemented in virtue quest introduction scenes. Polish will be ongoing in future releases.

Now that it is clear what to expect, we should also be as clear about what you should NOT expect:
• • Stability: Stability should be much better than previous releases now that we have upgraded to Unity 5.6..
  • Performance: We plan to make steady improvements each release until the game is running smoothly on minimum spec machines in big cities. However, we only made a little time in Release 42 for any significant performance improvements, so performance remains relatively unchanged since last release.
  • Game Loop: Release 42 is a further iteration on our game loop, but is still missing a few key components and balance. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release.
  • Visual Quality: Efforts to improve visual quality are ongoing. We will continue to iterate on these until we have highly competitive visuals.
  • Pledge Rewards: Pledge Rewards that have been built and have tech to support them are in the game; all other rewards are awaiting either content creation or tech support. You can find an updated list of these items in the known issues.
  • Delayed Content and Features: As mentioned above, some features scheduled for this release did not make it (and in each case we explained why). In some cases items from previous releases move into the next release but often they will move further out, either into the next quarter, or even farther. About once per year (around mid-year) we put out a Road Map that details all content built to date and all remaining content.

Here are links to instructions and known issues. Thank you again for your continued support. This is truly the most amazing community we have ever worked with, and we are proud to be on this journey with you.

Sincerely,
Rhys Romero
aka Attenwood
Associate Producer

With assistance by:
Starr Long
aka Darkstarr
Executive Producer