This month's patch introduces the Mail system, adds a number of Map improvements and More! Also included at no additional charge: five new quests, Travel Essence, and a slew of misc. updates and performance improvements!
Mail
You can now mail other players in Embers Adrift! You can send them a simple letter, attach and item and/or coin, or send an item cash-on-deliver (COD). The recipient of these messages can either accept or decline any attachments; when declined these will be returned to the sender. If something was sent COD the recipient must pay the cost before they can accept the item (the cost will be returned to the sender as an attachment). Mail boxes have been added to Newhaven City and most major encampments North of the wall.
A few important bits of information:
Map Improvements
We have added functionality of the in-game map to allow for pan/zoom & loading of different maps. We have also expanded the teleport functionality that was previously implemented for Monolith-->Ember Rings to work for Monolith-->Monolith teleports. This means that while standing near a Monolith you can teleport to a different Monolith via the map as opposed to the context menu typically used (at some point in the future this context menu will likely be removed in favor of using the map).
At the top of the map window you will now find:
In addition to the above functionality you can now click on zone line markers (or zone names on the world map) to load that particular zone.
(note that the map window still cannot be resized; this is on the todo list)
Travel Essence
One of often voiced critiques about the Alchemy system is that higher level players cannot acquire Ember Essence reliably in lower level zones. This can disincentivize players from visiting lower level zones as they might not have enough Essence for traveling back to higher level zones. Since implementing fast travel via the Monoliths we have been brainstorming different ideas on how we might allow players to also pay for travel with in-game currency; this would add a natural gold sink in game while allowing players an alternative means of to pay for travel. However, using currency at the Monolith didn't make much sense from a lore perspective.
Further brainstorming sessions led us to the idea of a specialized "Travel Essence" or TE for short. The basic gist is that we double the capacity of each player's Ember Stone and the added capacity can only be filled TE. This allows players to "bank" some of their Essence for travel while reserving the rest for abilities. In addition, if players were required to pay for this conversion it adds a universal (but optional) gold sink into the game which should benefit the economy. When using a Monolith travel funds would be removed from TE first followed by your regular Essence.
In this patch a new device called the Taproot has been added to the Academy. This is activated in much the same way as a Monolith, but as this experiment is not connected to the Ember Monolith networks that flow throughout the world no actual teleportation takes place. The sapped Essence still channels through the Taproot as it does in a Monolith. The difference here is that when it reaches the bottom, it finds no viable pathway and instead leaks out and quickly hardens into rosin that can be reabsorbed into your Ember Stone for later use.
Each Ember Stone in the game can now hold Ember Essence up to its max capacity plus its max capacity in Travel Essence. To purchase TE you must speak with Galinomen in the Academy which will open the conversion UI. Here you can use the slider to determine how much TE you would like to purchase, hit convert, and you are good to go!
The best part about this process is that every 1 Essence converted turns into 2 Travel Essence. This process is a great way to double the value of your hard earned essence when it comes to travel. When using a Monolith to travel TE is used before regular Essence.
We do recognize that this conversion process is not exactly cheap; one should consider it a luxury provided by the Academy. And as a friendly reminder: players are not forced to engage with this system. It is simply offered as a way to make your Essence more potent for travel purposes at the cost of some in game coin. If you decide to never purchase TE from the Academy then travel via Monoliths will work exactly as it has for you in the past.
Next Month
The current short-list of deliveries you can expect for next month:
- Tech
- Fixed an issue causing some audio clips to be loaded into memory multiple times.
- Adjusted some weapon texture settings for better performance.
- Improved the overall performance of overhead nameplate initialization. This was done by increasing the initial pool and properly allowing them to initialize their internal data at the start of the game rather than their first use. This was causing considerable slowdown in areas with high mob density (especially humanoids) and should improve initialization performance in these areas a bit. There are still a number of humanoid initialization performance improvements that are being worked on.
- Environment / Art
- Fixed stuck spots in Newhaven Valley, Dryfoot, Dryfoot Stronghold, Grimstone Canyon, Grizzled Peaks, Ember Veins, and Aquifer.
- Updated the Proving Grounds collider so that your feet are more firmly planted on the actual surface.
- Updated Crystalized Great Sword visuals.
- Adjusted LODs on a number of props.
- Removed mushroom growing inside of a tent on the character select screen.
- Increased the time between Shriek idle ticks which decreases the frequency in which they shriek.
- Scale armors have been colored.
- UI:
- Fixed an issue with the per-item repair icon showing for items with 0 AC.
- Fixed Toxic Spit ability emote to not reference "you" if it spit on anyone nearby.
- Added global repair icon next to player nameplate. This new icon will appear next to your nameplate when one of your equipped items is operating at less than 100% capacity. For armor this triggers when one is below 80% durability and the AC is suffering. For weapons this triggers when one is below 20% durability and its damage is suffering. The tooltip of this icon will state which slots are impacted.
- Added a button to tutorials which will open your log to the appropriate tutorial entry.
- Added an "Open Map" button to the Monolith context menu.
- Updated the confirmation text when forgetting base roles, specializations, and professions to be a bit more specific about what you will lose.
- Known recipes for a profession that you have forgotten will show as "Previously Known" rather than "Already Known" on their tooltip. However, these will be considered unknown recipes when it comes to loot filters.
- Design:
- Added juice to pie vendor at the Proving Grounds.
- Spider Stalker can no longer go Ashen.
- Adjusted all npc Resilience buffs so that they will no longer use them until they are close to death. These abilities now last longer and have a longer cooldown. This should provide more time for players to deal with these buffs while also not wasting the NPC's cooldown before needing it. Note that these buffs fall off after a specific number of hits OR when the time expires.
- Adjusted npc heal abilities to only be used when they are at lower health.
- Tasks
- Fixed a typo in the Northreach Plateau task.
- Grimstone Canyon "Doe" task expanded to include all Deer.
- Redshore Ridgebacks tasks now only require 5 ridgebacks and 10 crocs.
- Quests
- Added "The Ballad of the Merry Five"
- Added "The Cor'duun Heresy"
- Added "Into the Drift"
- Added "The Legacy of House Hanse"
- Added "A Puzzling Inheritance"
You can now mail other players in Embers Adrift! You can send them a simple letter, attach and item and/or coin, or send an item cash-on-deliver (COD). The recipient of these messages can either accept or decline any attachments; when declined these will be returned to the sender. If something was sent COD the recipient must pay the cost before they can accept the item (the cost will be returned to the sender as an attachment). Mail boxes have been added to Newhaven City and most major encampments North of the wall.
- Sending a simple text only message has a flat rate.
- The per-item rate is based on the item's category (color). Think of this as insurance. These prices are subject to change based on player feedback.
- There is 1 item attachment slot and 6 subscriber-only attachment slots. These additional attachment slots are provided as a convenience.
- You cannot send mail to yourself.
- You cannot send mail to other characters on the same account.
- Messages are polled on the social server and hence there can be a delay of a few minutes before the mail is received.
- Mail expiration time is currently set to 10 days.
- Returned mail has an expiration time currently set to 10 days (in other words: it refreshes when returned to sender).
- There is an attachment limit on your inbox of 20. This value represents the number of messages in your inbox with an unaccepted attachment (items and/or coin, multiple items attached to a single message still count as 1). No further messages with attachments will be able to be sent to you until these are accepted/rejected. The value of 10 is subject to change based on player feedback.
- A functional mail system is the first step towards any sort of auction house / job board / bazaar / consignment shop / etc. We're still tinkering with designs in this space but having mail in place opens up our options for the future.
- Mail is NOT available for trial players.
Map Improvements
We have added functionality of the in-game map to allow for pan/zoom & loading of different maps. We have also expanded the teleport functionality that was previously implemented for Monolith-->Ember Rings to work for Monolith-->Monolith teleports. This means that while standing near a Monolith you can teleport to a different Monolith via the map as opposed to the context menu typically used (at some point in the future this context menu will likely be removed in favor of using the map).
At the top of the map window you will now find:
- World Icon: hitting this button will take you back and forth between your current map and the world map. You can also right click anywhere inside of the map while on a zone map to back out to the world map.
- Zone Dropdown: this dropdown will list all of the zones you have discovered and can load + the world map. Selecting one of these will load that map.
- Zoom In/Out: clicking either of these will either zoom in, or zoom out. Alternatively you can zoom via your mouse wheel.
- Reset Zoom: clicking this button will reset the zoom value.
In addition to the above functionality you can now click on zone line markers (or zone names on the world map) to load that particular zone.
(note that the map window still cannot be resized; this is on the todo list)
Travel Essence
One of often voiced critiques about the Alchemy system is that higher level players cannot acquire Ember Essence reliably in lower level zones. This can disincentivize players from visiting lower level zones as they might not have enough Essence for traveling back to higher level zones. Since implementing fast travel via the Monoliths we have been brainstorming different ideas on how we might allow players to also pay for travel with in-game currency; this would add a natural gold sink in game while allowing players an alternative means of to pay for travel. However, using currency at the Monolith didn't make much sense from a lore perspective.
Further brainstorming sessions led us to the idea of a specialized "Travel Essence" or TE for short. The basic gist is that we double the capacity of each player's Ember Stone and the added capacity can only be filled TE. This allows players to "bank" some of their Essence for travel while reserving the rest for abilities. In addition, if players were required to pay for this conversion it adds a universal (but optional) gold sink into the game which should benefit the economy. When using a Monolith travel funds would be removed from TE first followed by your regular Essence.
In this patch a new device called the Taproot has been added to the Academy. This is activated in much the same way as a Monolith, but as this experiment is not connected to the Ember Monolith networks that flow throughout the world no actual teleportation takes place. The sapped Essence still channels through the Taproot as it does in a Monolith. The difference here is that when it reaches the bottom, it finds no viable pathway and instead leaks out and quickly hardens into rosin that can be reabsorbed into your Ember Stone for later use.
The best part about this process is that every 1 Essence converted turns into 2 Travel Essence. This process is a great way to double the value of your hard earned essence when it comes to travel. When using a Monolith to travel TE is used before regular Essence.
Ember Stone | Max Essence | Max Travel Essence | Cost to fill Travel Essence |
|---|---|---|---|
Crudely Cut | 100 | 100 | 50 EE + 1gp |
Roughly Cut | 150 | 150 | 75 EE + 1gp 50sp |
Finely Cut | 200 | 200 | 100 EE + 2gp |
Precisely Cut | 250 | 250 | 125 EE + 2gp 50sp |
We do recognize that this conversion process is not exactly cheap; one should consider it a luxury provided by the Academy. And as a friendly reminder: players are not forced to engage with this system. It is simply offered as a way to make your Essence more potent for travel purposes at the cost of some in game coin. If you decide to never purchase TE from the Academy then travel via Monoliths will work exactly as it has for you in the past.
Next Month
The current short-list of deliveries you can expect for next month:
- Engine upgrade to Unity 2022 ... finally?!
- More humanoid performance improvements (looking at you Exile Freehold)
- Dryfoot Fortress (name pending)
- NPC AI improvements.
- New shirts
- New NPCs
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