Our next stress tests are scheduled for:
What's new?
The primary focus of this week's patch is improving shadow rendering performance for a smoother experience. In addition, the macOS launcher & client now support Apple Silicon natively! Beyond that we have added egress points to the dungeons, added a new quest, boosted rare spawn rates, and reduced respawn rates in high density areas.
We are seeking focused feedback on these items this week:
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:
Cached Shadow Maps
This week we are enabling a new HDRP feature called "cached static shadow maps" which should provide a significant performance boost for shadow rendering. The basic idea is to render the shadow map for static objects (ones that do not move) once when a light is enabled and save that off in memory. Then the light only has to render shadows for dynamic objects (ones that move) every frame. As you can imagine, our game has a lot of static objects so in theory this should greatly improve performance for both the CPU and GPU. Please let us know how performance is this week compared to last!
Egress points
New ember formations have been discovered in Northreach Central Veins. These egress points will transport you to start of the dungeon when not in combat. Let us know if you find these helpful in your journeys!
New Creatures
Three new creatures have been added to the project with both their art and animation passes finished. Once the first design pass is complete (audio, abilities, AC, Health, etc) they will start to appear throughout the game world along with their ashen variants.
Native Apple Silicon support
This week brings Apple Silicon support to the macOS client and launcher! This (in theory) should provide improved performance as the client no longer has to go through Rosetta translation. There may be a few quirks in the process so please let us know if you notice any oddities in your play experience compared to recent weeks.
NOTE for macOS users: the latest update for the launcher is going to fail due to some internal issues. To get back up and running you will need to delete the launcher and download the latest version from your My Account page, which will also require you to redownload the game. The issue that caused this has already been resolved but we unfortunately cannot get the fix out to you in an automated way
Works in progress:
To see a full list of what is currently in progress head on over to this thread. I will do my best to update this list on a weekly basis and highlight the differences from the previous week with bold font. Below I will highlight some of the upcoming changes in more detail.
Crafting Specs (timeline: 2-3 weeks)
Each crafting profession will be split into three specializations similar to adventuring roles. We are still working through the details of how recipes will be laid out but the general gist is the following:
Ember Essence Collection (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
Now that ashen spawning tech is in along with ashen creature visuals I can start working on the tech that will allow you to collect ember essence. The design for this is mostly wrapped up but we're not ready to share those details yet.
Mob Leashing Updates (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
As it currently stands every mob has a "soft leash" distance. Outside of this distance if a mob is in the idle or wandering state they will elect to return to their point of origin before resuming their idle/wander. Implementing a "hard leash" or a "reset" state for an NPC is something we are considering, but it has a few extra complications. Some of which are for those who like to kite and issues with different zones/regions having different average leash distances for NPCs. In fact, we already implemented this tech, but it is currently disabled because it causes some funny business in a number of the above described scenarios.
Known Issues:
Wed. August 31st @ 8pm central
(Thurs. September 1st @ 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.(Thurs. September 1st @ 1am UTC)
What's new?
The primary focus of this week's patch is improving shadow rendering performance for a smoother experience. In addition, the macOS launcher & client now support Apple Silicon natively! Beyond that we have added egress points to the dungeons, added a new quest, boosted rare spawn rates, and reduced respawn rates in high density areas.
We are seeking focused feedback on these items this week:
- Performance: how are things performing compared to last week? Especially with shadows.
- Rare spawn rates increase - nice? or very nice?
- Northreach dungeon difficulty (both static entrances, and ember drifts)
- Egress points: are they useful?
- Line of sight changes for NPCs: Is this working as expected? Have you noticed any oddities? How does it impact fights with longbow mobs?
- Lull abilities: are they useful? are they OP?
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:
- Hot Fixes from the previous weekend:
- Fixed: exception that was preventing some tooltips from showing information
- Fixed: some misc exceptions with overhead combat text
- Fixed: rare issue that could cause a player to get locked out of crafting
- Replaced Newhaven Valley loading image.
- Added some additional checks to culling system in an attempt to resolve a few lingering issues.
- Disabling a number of rogue lights in Newhaven Valley that should not have been enabled.
- Tooltip anchor is now based on mouse position on the screen rather than trying to detect if the tooltip runs off the edge. Let me know if this sucks.
- Updated: NPCs now consider Line of Sight to attack. If they cannot see you they will attempt to move TO you.
- Tech
- Added: tech that allows us to vary a crafted item's visuals based on the materials used. This mostly cuts down on how much data we have to duplicate in our internal database and will make the design process a bit quicker.
- UI:
- Lock buttons on UI elements no longer lock the contents. It should only prevent the window from being dragged.
- Quests:
- Added: "Patrolling Northreach" quest.
- Fixed: quest started notifications
- Design:
- New characters now start with a small amount of wounds. This allows us to teach players about Ember Rings right off the bat. Thematically it represents wounds you have suffered while traversing the Darklands.
- More rare spawns & drops have been added to Meadowlands and Redshore
- Boosted rare spawn rates. We will be testing the waters to see how much of an impact this has on the balance of the game.
- Ashen creatures are less resistant to physical damage.
- "Paralyze" type effects from mobs will use Stun Resist (i.e. Juggernaut's Unstoppable should now prevent the application of these abilities)
- Additional Ember Rings have been added to the Ember Drift dungeons in Northreach.
- Respawn timers increased.
- Reduced distance in which spiders and mires can smell you (or maybe you all took baths?)
- Fixed wolf skinning levels in Northern Dryfoot.
Cached Shadow Maps
This week we are enabling a new HDRP feature called "cached static shadow maps" which should provide a significant performance boost for shadow rendering. The basic idea is to render the shadow map for static objects (ones that do not move) once when a light is enabled and save that off in memory. Then the light only has to render shadows for dynamic objects (ones that move) every frame. As you can imagine, our game has a lot of static objects so in theory this should greatly improve performance for both the CPU and GPU. Please let us know how performance is this week compared to last!
Egress points
New ember formations have been discovered in Northreach Central Veins. These egress points will transport you to start of the dungeon when not in combat. Let us know if you find these helpful in your journeys!
New Creatures
Three new creatures have been added to the project with both their art and animation passes finished. Once the first design pass is complete (audio, abilities, AC, Health, etc) they will start to appear throughout the game world along with their ashen variants.
Native Apple Silicon support
This week brings Apple Silicon support to the macOS client and launcher! This (in theory) should provide improved performance as the client no longer has to go through Rosetta translation. There may be a few quirks in the process so please let us know if you notice any oddities in your play experience compared to recent weeks.
NOTE for macOS users: the latest update for the launcher is going to fail due to some internal issues. To get back up and running you will need to delete the launcher and download the latest version from your My Account page, which will also require you to redownload the game. The issue that caused this has already been resolved but we unfortunately cannot get the fix out to you in an automated way
Works in progress:
To see a full list of what is currently in progress head on over to this thread. I will do my best to update this list on a weekly basis and highlight the differences from the previous week with bold font. Below I will highlight some of the upcoming changes in more detail.
Crafting Specs (timeline: 2-3 weeks)
Each crafting profession will be split into three specializations similar to adventuring roles. We are still working through the details of how recipes will be laid out but the general gist is the following:
- flux will only be usable by specialization recipes
- crafting specs will unlock recipes for item types that were previously not craftable
- jewelry will be moved to the provisioner
Ember Essence Collection (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
Now that ashen spawning tech is in along with ashen creature visuals I can start working on the tech that will allow you to collect ember essence. The design for this is mostly wrapped up but we're not ready to share those details yet.
Mob Leashing Updates (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
As it currently stands every mob has a "soft leash" distance. Outside of this distance if a mob is in the idle or wandering state they will elect to return to their point of origin before resuming their idle/wander. Implementing a "hard leash" or a "reset" state for an NPC is something we are considering, but it has a few extra complications. Some of which are for those who like to kite and issues with different zones/regions having different average leash distances for NPCs. In fact, we already implemented this tech, but it is currently disabled because it causes some funny business in a number of the above described scenarios.
Known Issues:
- Terrain textures have a bit too much tiling. This will be resolved shortly.
- Characters can get stuck in any looping animation if they do not properly complete. This is most noticeable for strikers using a bow.
- 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)
- MacOS:
- Zooming the camera while holding the right mouse button can cause your chat window to scroll. This is not intended behavior.
- At some camera angles the sun may go dark. This should not happen frequently but is readily reproducible at some locations. Investigating a fix.
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