November 29th; what's new?

[Undone]

What's new?
This week brings a new higher level zone, chat item linking, a handful of new Ashen variants, and a few QoL improvements.

While our server memory issues are still ongoing I am happy to report that the servers have remained extremely stable. We have not encountered a single server crash since reverting the memory leak fixes from a few weeks back. We do however, have to cycle zones out periodically to keep their memory footprint down - thank you for your patience while we continue working on this. New memory is on the way and we should have it within a few weeks (which will reduce the frequency in which we ask you to swap instances).

Bug fixes / improvements:

• Tech
  • Fixed some culling exceptions
  • A few players have been having issues with invalid guild ranks which was preventing them from using many guild actions such as speaking in guild chat. These players will now have their guild ranks reset to the lowest guild rank on login. Improved logging has been added to help us suss out the root cause if it continues.
• Environment / Art
  • Added colliders to a room that was missing them in The Aquifer: Undercroft.
  • Closed off some areas of the Redshore zone that were underutilized and underpopulated. This will allow us to increase the mob density outside of these regions in the coming weeks and reduces navigation complexity for NPCs. If your character was camped out in Redshore they have been moved to a safe spot.
• UI:
  • Your bag indicator will now only be shown when you are in the proper region. Given that many of our dungeons share the same server scene (which means they are the same executable and exist in the same space) but are not physically connected it is important that we do not mislead you into thinking your bag is accessible if you are in the wrong dungeon. As an example if your bag is on level 2 of The Undercroft then the backpack indicator will NOT show when you are on level 1 or 3.
• Design:
  • Rearranged active defense priorities. Server now checks in this order: Parry --> Block --> Avoid
  • Enabled Line-of-sight checks for social aggro in the Meadowlands wolf cave.
  • New Darkwater mobs added to The Aquifer: Undercroft.
  • Added mid-tier skinning to Elks and Ravens.
  • Raven Feathers usable as a fletching source.
  • Elks skinning for new Noble Carcass, dropped recipes added for Noble meat/bones/leather.
  • Elks skinning for new Elk leaves, dropped recipes added for Tea Leaves and Tea.
  • Fixed issue with Nighthunter using the wrong loot table.
  • New large roaming mobs added to most zones. These are very big and very dangerous.
  • New VFX added to halt (WIP)
  • Increased higher level damage values for the following abilities: Bleeding Strike, Venom Strike, Quillback Spines, Viperid Toxins, Perforate, Rip.

New stuff:
Item Linking
You can now send item links in chat! With your chat input active you can shift+left click on an item to insert a chat link to that item. This also works on abilities, roles, specializations, and crafting recipes within the crafting UI. However, this does not work on your action bar (abilities, pouches).

Redshore Ridge
Added new lvl 33+ zone called Redshore Ridge. Located in the North-Eastern part of Redshore, the Ridge has been deserted by both the folk of Newhaven and the Exiles of Redshore. What hasn't been reclaimed by nature has been claimed by the aggressive Snatchscale tribe. This zone does not yet have map discoveries.

More Ashen!
New ashen variants for Doe, Stag, Small Bear, Raccoon, Rat, Croc, Wolf have been added to the game.

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.

Patch Size (ongoing)
We are working on migrating our scenes to a new loading system that will reduce the overall size of patches. At the moment all scenes are lumped together into a large ~3gb file. Any time data within this file changes it must be redownloaded - even if those changes are small. By breaking our data up into smaller chunks those downloads will ideally be minimized to smaller individual files moving forward. The end result will be saving us bandwidth (money), and saving you download time on patch day. The tech required to do this loading has been implemented. The work remaining is breaking the scenes up into individual files along with creating the shared bundles that contain assets used by multiple scenes.

Recently released and upcoming zones:
The following table does not include all in-progress zones; only the ones in our most immediate future. Redshore Ridge's first pass made its way to QA this week and has developer eyes on it. We have already found a few small tweaks that need to be made but this zone should be available in the next patch.

Zone	Notes	Status
Meadowlands Emberdrift A		Added 10.20.22
Dryfoot Emberdrift A		Added 10.20.22
The Aquifer: Karst	Meadowlands smaller static dungeon.	Added 10.27.22
Dryfoot Emberdrift B		Added 11.03.22
The Aquifer: Undercroft	Meadowlands larger static dungeon with solo/small/full group content.	Added 11.10.22
Redshore Ridge	A higher level zone considered more of an extension to Redshore located in the north eastern part of the zone.	Added 11.29.22
Redshore Freehold	A higher level zone occupied by a faction of humanoid NPCs in the north western part of the zone.	Name pending. Content & quest design in progress. Base layer of spawns and configuration is complete.
Redshore Dungeon	A very large custom dungeon located below Redshore.	Name pending. Initial layout and prop placement complete. Awaiting cleanup and initial spawns and design.
Dryfoot Fortress	A higher level zone located in the middle of Dryfoot.	Name pending. Content pending. Design pending.
Gorge	A higher level zone offering a bit of overlap in content with Redshore. This zone is a large canyon with arid terrain similar to Dryfoot.	Name pending. Zone layout and design nearing completion. Awaiting initial content pass.

Known Issues:

• A recent change was supposed to make all Emberdrifts available at all times - this seems to not always be occuring. Their spawn system was not designed to operate this way so some tech changes need to happen to iron this out so they have 100% uptime.
• Occasionally a loot roll may be skipped entirely and a carcass will be given. When this happens please provide any relevant details as we are still trying to track this one down.
• Not all ember rings and/or POIs are proper map discoveries.
• Deconstructing crafted items returns junk 100% of the time.
• 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.

 

[Decimation]

Great additions loving it...Might I suggest some additions of camps in the lower level zones in the vast emptiness of Meadowlands for example. Wouldn't imagine it would be that difficult to add a few more of the higher level bunny camps, a few more wolf caves.

Just some examples, as there are times not only is it getting harder to find people to group with..But once you do the camps are highly contested

 

[Blacktalon]

Looking forward to it. This game is quite addicting.

 

[Taamerlane]

Keep up the great work team!

 

[Nfab35]

I didn't see anything in the patch notes on fixing the Warlords Stamina hym duration. So I'll post it here Incase you're not getting the bug reports I send in game.

Every Hym lasts 30 seconds except the stamina hym. It only lasts 27, it falls off the bar at 3 secs left every time. Can we please address this issue.

Also can we please fix the camera when it's close to a wall, rock, structure etc. This has been an issue since beta and is somewhat better but it still fights your camera angle when close making it a real pain. Is there a way to disable the camera always trying to center itself when close to something? I would prefer my camera to be governed where I turn it so I can see what I want, not the camera deciding for itself what view I should be seeing. Should be a simple fix on both issues.

 

[AdricLives]

Every Hym lasts 30 seconds except the stamina hym. It only lasts 27, it falls off the bar at 3 secs left every time. Can we please address this issue.

This is due to the tick rate changing to a value which does not divide equally into 30.

lvl 8: 1 STAM every 6s (30/6 = 5 ticks) = Total 5 STAM over 30s, full duration buffs
lvl 16: 1 STAM every 4s (30/4 = 7.5) = Total 7 STAM over 28s (buff drops when no ticks are left)
lvl 24: 1 STAM every 3s (30/3 = 10) = Total 10 STAM over 30s, full duration buff

We can make the duration 28 for the tiers that don't divide equally into 30.
Or the 4s tick tiers changed to 5s, so it lines up, but would be a net loss in STAM. (7->6)

 

[Nfab35]

This is due to the tick rate changing to a value which does not divide equally into 30.

lvl 8: 1 STAM every 6s (30/6 = 5 ticks) = Total 5 STAM over 30s, full duration buffs
lvl 16: 1 STAM every 4s (30/4 = 7.5) = Total 7 STAM over 28s (buff drops when no ticks are left)
lvl 24: 1 STAM every 3s (30/3 = 10) = Total 10 STAM over 30s, full duration buff

We can make the duration 28 for the tiers that don't divide equally into 30.
Or the 4s tick tiers changed to 5s, so it lines up, but would be a net loss in STAM. (7->6)

I suppose if that's how it works I guess. But at the moment looking at it it looses 1 tick because it drops off at 27 secs. Unless I'm retarded and not looking st it right but if the ticks are around 3 secs per tick then it should tick 10 times and even out at the secs instead of 9 ticks at 27. But if it is what it is then I guess it's fine I suppose. We definitely don't need to loose any more stamina than it's already not giving ;-)

How about those camera angles though when close up to things? Can we please get that fixed

 

[AdricLives]

I suppose if that's how it works I guess. But at the moment looking at it it looses 1 tick because it drops off at 27 secs. Unless I'm retarded and not looking st it right but if the ticks are around 3 secs per tick then it should tick 10 times and even out at the secs instead of 9 ticks at 27. But if it is what it is then I guess it's fine I suppose. We definitely don't need to loose any more stamina than it's already not giving ;-)

How about those camera angles though when close up to things? Can we please get that fixed

Yea I think the most annoying part is your timing between all your hymns is in 30s chunks, and one being off-cadence is obnoxious. I'll play with the numbers a bit to see if I can make it less annoying.

The camera issues I cannot help you with however, that requires a significant amount of TLC from Undone

 

[Nfab35]

A

Yea I think the most annoying part is your timing between all your hymns is in 30s chunks, and one being off-cadence is obnoxious. I'll play with the numbers a bit to see if I can make it less annoying.

The camera issues I cannot help you with however, that requires a significant amount of TLC from Undone

And maybe I'm looking at it wrong but the sta hym gives +1 per tick and if it drops off at 27 secs we only get 9 instead of 10.

I can just go off what I see But we definitely don't need to loose any lol the poor Warlord has been nerfed enough ;-)

Hopefully @Undone can get it figured out. I know a lot of people are complaining about it.

 

[Undone]

Also can we please fix the camera when it's close to a wall, rock, structure etc. This has been an issue since beta and is somewhat better but it still fights your camera angle when close making it a real pain. Is there a way to disable the camera always trying to center itself when close to something? I would prefer my camera to be governed where I turn it so I can see what I want, not the camera deciding for itself what view I should be seeing. Should be a simple fix on both issues.

Please don't crucify me for asking - but next time you run into this issue can you provide me with a /report so I can get a better look at a specific example of this happening? The camera is set to pull itself forward when it encounters a collision so that it maintains your view direction (which is what you are asking for); but if that is not happening I need a better test case.

 

[Nfab35]

Please don't crucify me for asking - but next time you run into this issue can you provide me with a /report so I can get a better look at a specific example of this happening? The camera is set to pull itself forward when it encounters a collision so that it maintains your view direction (which is what you are asking for); but if that is not happening I need a better test case.

I don't really see it pulling the zoom forward but when close to something behind you the camera always wants to center its self and fights you when you're trying to look in the direction you want.

If you logged in and stood about 5ft from a wall and tried to use your mouse look to pan around side to side you'll notice the camera fights you and wants to reenter your camera view.

I can try to put in a report but it will be the same as I'm trying to explain. I can try taking a video with my phone when doing it if that would help?

 

[Undone]

I don't really see it pulling the zoom forward but when close to something behind you the camera always wants to center its self and fights you when you're trying to look in the direction you want.

If you logged in and stood about 5ft from a wall and tried to use your mouse look to pan around side to side you'll notice the camera fights you and wants to reenter your camera view.

I can try to put in a report but it will be the same as I'm trying to explain. I can try taking a video with my phone when doing it if that would help?

Any of those will help. A specific location with visuals (video/etc) would go a long way so I don't have to hunt. In all of my test cases I find that the camera pulls forward as expected - this doesn't make things less jerky at times but the jerkiness is dependent on framerate and collision parameters.

 

[Nfab35]

It is better than it used to be, doesn't spin your view 360 or as craz

Any of those will help. A specific location with visuals (video/etc) would go a long way so I don't have to hunt. In all of my test cases I find that the camera pulls forward as expected - this doesn't make things less jerky at times but the jerkiness is dependent on framerate and collision parameters.

I'll get you something when I get home from work. If you want to message me with an email or something I can send the video to that would be great