LIVE April 25th; what's new?

[Undone]

What's new?
This week brings a slew of new content including two new higher level regions, faction banners, bag dragging, and support for NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). In addition there are a number of bug fixes and minor QoL improvements found below.

Bug fixes / improvements:

• Tech
  • Updated Game Engine to the latest minor revision. This should bring some minor improvements and bug fixes to rendering, performance, and stability.
  • Added tech to allow for NPC AoE conal abilities to target the front, side, rear, or any combination. NPCs may start to utilize this tech in the near future.
  • Reduced Camera shake for large bears.
  • Rooted/Halted mobs will now more intelligently select their targets based on who they can attack nearby.
  • Fixed: NPCs will now maintain their targets while Feared, Stunned, or Rooted.
  • Fixed an issue where an NPC may not select the closest target if more than one player had enraged them.
  • Fixed an issue with culled lights not properly disabling themselves.
  • Fixed: deconstruct results should now stack.
  • Fixed a number of social UI bugs.
  • Fixed: non-armored target dummy at Ravenrock no longer has armor.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed mobs to apply hamstring to the player multiple times.
  • Fixed a bug that could potentially cause issues with some abilities not properly overwriting others.
  • Fixed an issue with AoE CCs not applying the correct amount of additional threat on application.
• Environment / Art
  • Improved the reliability and consistency of anything that relies on the altitude of the sun to make adjustments. This includes adjusting the fog throughout the day, your backpack visual effects, ember ring visuals, and dungeon sky lights. This fixes an issue with the fog density changing dramatically when moving from 11:59pm to 12:00am.
  • Moved the third Ember Ring + Hallow in Grimstone Canyon to a safer spot. Added an anvil and merchant at this location.
  • Grimstone Marauders now wear a unique mask.
  • Fixed Ember biomes in a number of scenes to properly populate around Ember Drifts, Ruptures, and Rings (blue flowers, mushrooms, odd trees).
  • Fixed visuals for Manslayer Sword and Shadow Bows.
  • Fixed missing colliders in the Undercroft.
  • Fixed a missing stair in the Undercroft.
  • Fixed IK issues for Stonecoats, Nocturnes and player abilities. IK stands for Inverse Kinematics and relates to how their feet and hands are positioned.
  • Fixed some environmental rock issues at the Newhaven City entrance in Northreach.
  • Fixed some environmental prop issues in Dryfoot.
  • Fixed some navigation issues in Grimstone Canyon, Redshore Ridge, and Dryfoot.
• Audio
  • Audio listener is now always at the player location. This toggle has been removed from the options menu.
• UI:
  • Moved the Stats/Combat/Resists tabs inside of the Equipment window.
  • Added "Enable Camera Shake" toggle to the Gameplay Options Menu.
  • The Newhaven Council has approved the usage of time zones throughout the land. From this point hence forth all time will be expressed in reference to Newhaven Standard Time (NST). All time in tooltips and text will now have NST along with a +/- value if applicable. Zones to the east or west of Newhaven will include these modifiers:
    • Meadowlands: NST-1
    • Dryfoot: NST+1
    • Grimstone Canyon: NST+2
  • Adjusted Hail (default key bind is H) priority. The hail command will now hail your offensive target, followed by your defensive target. If neither of those exist it will find the closest player within 20m in front of your avatar, if none exist it will then consider the closest player behind your avatar. If none of those exist it will default back to "Hail".
  • Cleaned up the "globe" tooltip on your chat windows. Many items have been moved to their own line for clarity (instance, time, date, season).
  • Fixed: self overhead nameplate no longer shows while in first person mode.
  • Fixed: GEL indicators no longer show on defensive targets (NPCs)
  • Fixed: combat text can now handle multiple vital types.
• Design:
  • Striker abilities while dual wielding weapons now perform an additional off-hand weapon attack which contributes 10% of its damage to the end result. The off-hand roll is completely independent and will take advantage of any flanking bonuses of the off-hand. The end result of an ability is (Ability Damage + Main Hand Damage + Off Hand Damage * 10%). This should make dual wielding weapons a bit more viable for strikers. There is more work to be done here but this should be a good first step.
  • Spider webs in dungeons and Meadowlands has become a bit stickier.
  • Warlord's "Presence" is now "Renewing Resonance" which regens both health and stamina.
  • All 1 chevron ranged mob weapons should no longer have a deadzone (longbow and heavy crossbow)
  • "Motivator" sword has a custom flanking bonus.
  • Renamed Redmane's Hamstring ability to Tendon Slice.
  • Added target dummies to the Redshore Outpost.
  • Adjusted chest spawn rates in all zones.
  • Adjusted spawns around Ember Rings in Redshore Ridge.
  • Fixed an issue with NPC "Revenge" ability being too powerful
  • Fixed some spawn configurations to reduce the likelihood of multiple of the same rare being up at the same time.
  • Fixed mining loot table for Stonecoat Emissary.
  • Fixed Ashen Large Spider range on Spit attack (can now spawn as ranged).
  • Fixed naming of Noble refined goods.
  • Brigand abilities Overpower and Hidden Strike have had some adjustments to make them more distinct from one-another. The goal is to keep Hidden Strike's utility of a quicker threat-reduced attack while keeping Overpower as the longer cooldown heavy hit.
    • Overpower has had its damage multiplier increased
    • Hidden Strike has had its innate penetration removed and damage multiplier slightly decreased.
  • Sentinel Ability Salvo reduced initial coolodown and stamina cost, higher level values remain the same.
  • Warlord Ability Flinching Strike fixed stamina reduction progression to be consistent (12->11->10->9 ).
  • Marshal Ability Pressure fixed stamina reduction progression to be consistent (12->11->10->9->8->7).
  • Warden Ability Aid fixed duration to line up tick rate. Amount healed per tick slightly reduced and overall amount healed increased. Example 2 ticks for 18 (36) are now 3 ticks of 15 (45).
  • Warden Ability Viperid Toxins removed trigger count.
• Quests:
  • Fixed a case where "Missing Weapons" quest was not starting.
  • Adjusted the description on a number of quest objectives to make them a bit more clear.
  • New Quests Added:
    • A Renegade's Retribution
    • The Threat of Grimstone
    • Caught With Their Pants Down

New stuff:
Faction Banners
New banners have been sighted throughout the land! These represent the different factions in the game and can be seen in various places in the different zones. Each one also comes with an accompanying tooltip so you can more easily familiarize yourself with who they represent.

In the gameplay options a new toggle has been added labeled "Enable Cloth Sim". When checked these new banners will enable their cloth sim for a little extra visual detail. This option is disabled by default to avoid any potential performance or crashing issues that cloth can notoriously cause.

Bag Dragging
This month we have added chat commands that will allow you and your group mates to drag your bag. Bags can be dragged if the owner is online in the same zone as the bag, the dragger is within 5m of the bag, and if the bag is not your own you must be grouped with the owner. The commands are as follows:

• "/bag" will attempt to drag YOUR bag. Keep an eye on the chat box for feedback.
• "/groupconsent" will toggle consent on/off to your group. This consent will allow anyone grouped with you to drag YOUR bag. When executing this command you will be notified in chat if consent is enabled/disabled. This remains enabled until you zone, log off, or toggle consent off. Consent is defaulted to OFF.
• "/bag <target name>" will attempt to drag a nearby bag belonging to the target name if present. If the drag was successful the owner will be notified who dragged their bag.

The distance is currently quite small but may be extended in the future based on feedback. And yes, we know that a macro system would be quite helpful here but one step at a time! Don't forget that when chat is active pressing the up & down arrows will cycle through your previous commands.

Regions
Two new regions have been added and are now open for adventuring. Both regions roughly span levels 35 through 39.

Grimstone Canyon Phase II
With hordes of new creatures spilling out from the Forgotten Depths and the Stonecoats dominating this part of the Canyons it's no wonder the Grimstone Marauders have only a tentative grasp on this territory. Come explore the higher ground of these canyons to see what new challenges await.

Forgotten Depths II
After exploring the upper corridors of the Forgotten Depths, passages that lead even deeper have now been discovered. Drifters are greeted with the tormented shrieks of a never before seen creature. The darkness grows deeper in this new set of ancient halls as the Cabal and their cultists hungrily seek more ways to seize the power of Ember at the expense of their victims. Delve into this new section of the Forgotten Depths to see what horrors lay withing.

Shrieks
A new creature has been found lurking in the Forgotten Depths: the Shriek! Why are they called Shrieks? You'll have to pay them a visit to find out...

DLSS
Support for NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) has been added in this patch. For those of you with an NVIDIA graphics card a new option will be found in your Video options allowing you to enable it and adjust the quality parameter. If you run the client at greater than 1080p resolution with a NVIDIA graphics card it is recommended you enable this option for increased performance.

Note: in low light situations you may notice some motion blur from certain objects and/or artifacts on world space UI (overhead nameplates). We are working to resolve these issues but hope that the performance boost DLSS offers will offset the minor visual issues that you may encounter.

Hat Visuals
Three new hat/helm visuals have been added to the game!

Mask of the Renegade:

Woven Grass Crown:

Rockskull Cap:

Known Issues:

• Damage shields are not currently working against Ember damage.
• DLSS may have some ghosting in low light situations.
• DLSS may have some artifacts render on top of world space UI such as overhead nameplates.

 

[BamRenatus]

Brigand abilities Overpower and Hidden Strike have had some adjustments to make them more distinct from one-another. The goal is to keep Hidden Strike's utility of a quicker threat-reduced attack while keeping Overpower as the longer cooldown heavy hit.

• Overpower has had its damage multiplier increased
• Hidden Strike has had its innate penetration removed and damage multiplier slightly decreased.

@AdricLives Thanks for including it. I see you made some additional adjustments and while Hidden Strike took a hit, it all rounds out and makes sense.

 

[SirLags]

Very nice.

 

[Gan]

Thank you for your hard work.

 

[Meeks]

Excited for this. Thank you, @Undone and team!

 

[meet this god]

Thanks for the update.

Is there an indicator for file size/download size of updates? I can see only percentage on the launcher.

 

[Aeldar]

Wow, so many updates!

 

[Johnnyboy1980]

Nice work ! ( can't wait alchemy !! )

 

[Archer]

All 1 chevron ranged mob weapons should no longer have a deadzone (longbow and heavy crossbow)

I'm a little confused by this. Does it mean that the minimum range is ignored against single chevron creatures but still applies against double and higher ones? Or does it mean that single chevron mobs using bows do not have the range limitation?