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BETA TEST June 15th; what's new?

Undone

Codemaster
Stormhaven Studios
Our next stress tests are scheduled for:
Wed. June 15th @ 8pm central
(Thurs. June 16th @ 1am UTC)
The developers will meet in Discord and test for approximately one hour. However, the servers will remain open for roughly 4 hours. The most up-to-date client can be retrieved via the patcher found on your account page.

What's new?
This week is a bit light on new items due to most of the work being held back for next week's wipe. That means that this weekend is your last opportunity to freely experiment with different roles and specs before you have to start over. To make things a bit easier the level potions have been bumped to level 30 and also increase your gathering & crafting levels. In addition, we have added merchants that will sell you higher level adventuring gear and raw materials at no cost! After the wipe these will no longer be available.

REMINDER: the servers will be open for 4hrs Wednesday evening. The servers will open again on Friday @ 12pm central and close on Tuesday at 12pm central. See events in Discord for timezone translations.

Bug fixes / improvements:
  • Tech
    • Adjusting NPC distance buffers.
    • Fixing an issue preventing players from doing damage to Ant Hills, Rat Nests, and Target Dummies.
    • Changing the data type of some synchronized variables to reduce network traffic.
    • Adding audio events to harvesting actions
  • Art / Environment
    • Environment fixes in Redshore
    • Adding a number of nav links to North Newhaven & Redshore to improve npc navigation.
    • Rebaking Redshore nav mesh.
    • Adjusting shoreline water foam visuals in Redshore.
  • UI:
    • Adding Tick Rate mod to reagent tooltips
    • Merchant item icons should now be properly tinted.
    • Adding material level to raw material tooltips
    • Increasing the size of overhead combat text.
    • Removing Volumetric, Transmission, and Subsurface checkboxes from Video Options
    • Adding "Multi Frame Cloud Reflections" checkbox to video options. Disabling this will result in more accurate cloud reflections but have a larger performance cost. Typically this type of checkbox would not be included as an option but I am putting it in to see if toggling this helps those who are encountering broad daylight at night. If you find yourself in this situation please toggle this option off, wait a few seconds, then re-enable it and see if that resolves it.
  • Design:
    • Level up potion is now increases your crafting & gathering professions.
    • Level up potion has been increased to level 30. All other potions have been removed for clarity. This change should allow you to test out all abilities for all specs.
    • Thrown flask of Lull added to the leveling potion merchant. Since we have yet to implement a lull ability we are adding it as a consumable. Grab some lull potions and test out the mechanic and let us know what you think! Which spec do you feel should get the lull?
    • Added equipment merchant at North Newhaven gate next to the leveling potion merchant. Here you can pick up level 20-25 equipment at no cost (note that these items cannot be sold back to the merchant).
    • Added crafting material merchant at North Newhaven gate next to the refinement station (flux is not included). Again note that these items are free but cannot be sold (and likely won't stack with regular gathered materials due to the "NoSell" flag).
    • Update levels for spawns directly near the starting camp to more consistently be level 1.
    • Updates to a few rare item visuals
    • Fixed an issue with Doe's needing 10 skinning before level 10
    • New creatures have been spotted in Redshore.
    • Tools no longer get removed from your inventory when they reach max damage absorption. In order to continue using them they need to be repaired.

Requested Feedback:
This week we need focused testing and feedback on the following line items:
  • New chat window functionality: Is text overlapping in the window? Are things working as you would expect minus the known issues (input field overflowing, non-renamable tabs, etc).
  • Guilds: how are these working out? Permissions, invites, roles, ranks, chat, etc.
  • Lull functionality: is the ability useful? Does it do what you would expect?
  • If you get stuck in day/night does toggling the "Multi Frame Cloud Reflections" option fix things?
  • Ember Monolith fast travel system: is this useful? How do you feel about our implementation?
  • Redshore map discovery vs. other maps: does the "area" discovery feel more natural compared to other maps where you have to find a specific POI to uncover the map bits? (I know there are still issues with some POIs being hidden behind fog even if you have found them, I'm speaking more generally)

Works in progress:
  • Zones: 3x additional overland zones have had an initial art pass completed
    • Grizzled Peaks - accessed via Highlands, Redshore, and Gorge. Mountainous region with a number of tunnels. High level range (40-50). Has a one-way exit to Newhaven North. This is the snow capped mountains you can see from Redshore.
    • Highlands - accessed via Meadowlands. Hilly region with sparse vegetation and water features. Mid level range (approx 30-40, likely to come after Redshore and Grizzled)
    • Gorge - accessed via Dryfoot. Large canyon-like area. Mid level range (approx 30-40, likely to come after Redshore and Grizzled)
  • Dungeons: prefab reorganization is about 70% finished. Once this task is finished up I will need to sync with the art team and make sure there is no lost data, at which point we can make sure all of the new scenes are up to speed with the new organization structure - and then on to spawning them.
  • NPCs: Most NPCs have been converted to a "universal" model that includes the base + ashen variants. This brings us one step closer to getting the ashen variants in the game; they are currently awaiting a VFX and lighting pass.
  • Quests: a number of quests are in the queue for implementation/testing. Quest data structure and likely needs a refactor. This is slated to happen after guilds are deployed.
  • Tech: npc improvements, npc merchants.
  • UI: quest dialog redesign, tooltip improvements
  • New clothing & armor is still in the works.

Crafting Updates (timeline: 1 week)
These past two weeks we have made a number of adjustments to crafting progression and functionality. This next iteration should be available next week barring any major issues.

Reagent Upgrade System (timeline: after the above tasks)
Ember essence collection and spending is on the list of things to do SOON, but is taking a back seat until we can iron out crafting, Unity 2021, and reorganizing and prepping of the new dungeons. The first step for getting this in will be allowing you to collect ember essence. Now that we have something for you to spend it on there is more of a reason to get this in the game.

Unity 2021 upgrade
We are nearing the point of finalizing our move to Unity 2021. Both servers and clients are now running Unity 2021 executables. Please let me know if there are any oddities. If all goes well Wednesday I will likely migrate the team to 2021 permanently over the weekend.

Known Issues:
  • Terrain textures have a bit too much tiling. This will be resolved when we finalize our move to Unity 2021
  • Character creation & editing camera on Apple Silicon MacOS is bugged. I isolated the issue and submitted a bug report with Unity.
  • Not all ember rings and/or POIs are proper map discoveries. This is especially true in Dryfoot, Dryfoot Stronghold, and Redshore. Discoveries and map uncovering is a WIP and will be revisited soon.
  • Deconstructing crafted items returns junk 100% of the time.
  • cannot roll on loot while unconscious
  • not all clothing/armor has visuals
  • Dragging a group-nameplate in the group window will set the wrong pivot point for the group window and the whole thing will drag a bit weird.
  • typing chat text may occasionally become invisible. unfocus your chat window and trying again a few times typically resolves this.
  • Sometimes when you respawn you don't end up at the proper Ember Ring --> if this happens please report the position where you died via the "/report" command or "/debugposition" (if using debugposition you'll need to paste the value here)
 
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Unfortunately with wipes every month and new higher lvl content being added I'm finding it hard to make the time to regrind from beginning every time.
How do you guys plan on working this out for the higher lvl content so we can test it without having to spend weeks to get up to the appropriate lvl to test the higher content? I know you have the potions but those are going away after the wipe. Will they only be brought back a few weeks before another scheduled wipe? If so then I will probably only test once the potions are brought back.
We've all done the lower lvl stuff and there hasnt been any changes or additions to it requiring the continued test of low lvl content. It would be nice to have the potions readily available throughout all the stages of testing so we can help test what's needed without major time sinks and weeks spent trying to back to where we can test the higher content. Or bump up exp gains so it doesn't take the testers weeks or a month to get to lvl 20+

Just my two cents for what it's worth. Love the game and enjoy the shit out of it lol just continually having to grind up from the low levels is getting tiresome.
 
Unfortunately with wipes every month and new higher lvl content being added I'm finding it hard to make the time to regrind from beginning every time.
How do you guys plan on working this out for the higher lvl content so we can test it without having to spend weeks to get up to the appropriate lvl to test the higher content? I know you have the potions but those are going away after the wipe. Will they only be brought back a few weeks before another scheduled wipe? If so then I will probably only test once the potions are brought back.
We've all done the lower lvl stuff and there hasnt been any changes or additions to it requiring the continued test of low lvl content. It would be nice to have the potions readily available throughout all the stages of testing so we can help test what's needed without major time sinks and weeks spent trying to back to where we can test the higher content. Or bump up exp gains so it doesn't take the testers weeks or a month to get to lvl 20+

Just my two cents for what it's worth. Love the game and enjoy the shit out of it lol just continually having to grind up from the low levels is getting tiresome.
Unfortunately we need to gauge how things feel with the upcoming crafting changes. Things like equipment progression, crafting progression, and the like. All of which we can't really get a feel for if you are drinking potions and skipping content. No one said we are wiping every month - my goal is to not wipe at all - but these crafting changes required a reset.
 
Unfortunately we need to gauge how things feel with the upcoming crafting changes. Things like equipment progression, crafting progression, and the like. All of which we can't really get a feel for if you are drinking potions and skipping content. No one said we are wiping every month - my goal is to not wipe at all - but these crafting changes required a reset.
Totally understandable and I get where you're coming from. Hopefully the crafting can get dialed in and we can move on to adding content/variety to the game. Cant wait to see the new crafting though
 
Nice job as always, here my feedback from last weekend, since I'll be away for the next 2 weeks almost.
  • New chat window functionality: Is text overlapping in the window? Are things working as you would expect minus the known issues (input field overflowing, non-renamable tabs, etc).
    • The chat is better than it was, although it would be best to be able to rename tabs.
    • Combat log cannot be inline at the bottom of the screen like the chat window does for an unknown reason.
  • Ember Monolith fast travel system: is this useful? How do you feel about our implementation?
    • I like how the fast travel has been implemented. There's still some walking to do, so it's not making the world feel small, but overall it's good. Sometimes you have to think if it's better to walk or use the Monolight and I kinda like that.
  • Redshore map discovery vs. other maps: does the "area" discovery feel more natural compared to other maps where you have to find a specific POI to uncover the map bits? (I know there are still issues with some POIs being hidden behind fog even if you have found them, I'm speaking more generally)
    • The Redshore map discovery is far superior than the other map IMO and it make more sense I think.
Keep up the good work!!
 
I think I've only discovered one Ember Monolith so far, but I am excited to test that travel system out using the leveling potions and some exploration on my character next week!
 
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