LIVE October 31st; what's new?

[Undone]

Today's patch introduces Alchemy which has been in development for quite some time. We are very proud to bring this feature to the game and hope you all get as much enjoyment out of it as we had creating it. In addition, we have added a number of QoL features, a new cosmetic slot, and multiple of new hair styles.

• Tech
  • Fixed a tab targeting issue with first person mode that was preventing a target from being selected if you could not see the base of the mob.
  • Increased the rate at which your client refreshes your session key. This may help a select few having connection issues when switching zones.
  • Added keybind option for looting nearby objects in front of your character. This is unbound by default and will allow you to initiate loot for dead npcs, gathering nodes, and chests. It will not loot the items, merely assist in opening the loot window (this may come in a later patch).
  • Doubled the amount of entities collected when gathering AoE targets (this just improves accuracy in high density mob/player situations).
  • Reduced the CPU load for building humanoid characters. We still have a lot of improvements to do in this area but these tweaks should help those of you having issues loading into the city.
• Environment / Art
  • Fixed some floating props in Dryfoot Stronghold
  • Fixed a visible seam in a dungeon room.
  • Removed a stray tree in Newhaven Valley.
  • Adjusted LOD parameters on some city buildings.
• UI:
  • Fixed an issue with the coin selection UI that prevented you from entering more than 99 silver or 99 copper (i.e. when you wanted to split gold)
  • Fixed an issue with the Crafting UI where it would not show the required material count for some recipe components.
  • Fixed a case where Social UIs might fail to fully update all list entries
  • Fixed spelling of Gallbladder
  • Fixed spelling of Visegrip.
  • Mouse sensitivity sliders now go down to 1%.
  • Interface audio has now been broken out to its own audio slider in the game options.
  • Many options from "Gameplay" have been moved to the new "Interface" tab in the options menu.
  • Merchant tooltips now only show when hovering over the item's icon.
  • Offensive target reticle is now slightly larger than the defensive target reticle.
  • Added keybind for "Activate Chat" and "Activate Chat with Slash". These are bound to "Enter" and "/" by default.
  • Added a tooltip to the direction indicator on nameplates that tells you the distance to your target (offensive target, defensive target, and group members)
  • Added aliases for /emote of /em and /me
  • Adding a portrait for Phil
  • Added "Off Hand Attack Chance" to Striker role tooltip.
  • Off Hand auto attacks in the combat log will now be grayed out as regular auto attacks are.
  • Added new icons for Tool and Light Source equipment slots.
  • Added a tooltip to character select buttons that show profession levels.
  • Added two auto pass toggles to the Gameplay options:
    • Auto Pass on Known Recipes
    • Auto Pass on Un-usable Reagents (for other roles / specs)
  • Added alternate full screen mode options for Windows & MacOS. These toggles can be found next to the full screen toggle in the video options.
    • Windows shows "Exclusive Full Screen" which changes the operating system resolution of the display to match the application's chosen resolution.
    • MacOS shows "Maximized Window" which changes the app to a full-screen window with a hidden menu bar and dock.
  • Allow overhead chat colors to be customized via chatColors.json (see below).
• Design:
  • Added "Smoldering Ash Flare" recipe for Tinkerers. The color of the flare is based on the color of the smoldering ash (orange, green, red, blue, and purple).
  • NPC sensors are now dampened for green mobs. This means that green con mobs will have a lower chance to detect you.
  • Fixed the naming of the Exile Woodsman in Northreach
  • Fixed tool required to harvest the mandrake "Reed".
  • Fixed armor value for Ravenrock Leather Faulds (35 -> 29)
  • 2^/3^/4^ Ashen creatures now reward +2/+3/+4 Ember Essence.
  • Increased loot sample count for Darkwater 2^ and 3^ mobs
  • Increased the chance a creature turns Ashen when close to a Rupture.
  • Normalized Recipe prices by level; higher level recipes see an increased price.
  • "Grip Wrap" augments have been renamed "Grip Padding" to avoid confusion with grip wrap recipe components.
  • Brigand's Stun: Removed damage component from ability. This fixes the issue where re-stunning a stunned enemy was allowing them a single auto attack.
  • Open Wound: increased damage multiplier on triggered effect damage.
  • Crawling Ruins Ember Vein has had a minor remodel and now includes a solo loop.
  • With the introduction of Alchemy we have increased the difficulty of 3^ and 4^ mobs at level 25+ while 1^ and 2^ remain unchanged. (Note that these new values are still less than what they were adjusted to in the August 2023 patch)
    • Level 25: 7.5% health increase, 5% damage increase
    • Level 30-50: 15% health increase, 10% damage increase
• Quests / Lore:
  • Added 3 new quests to the game:
    • The Magic of Ember!
    • A Plea for the Restless Dead
    • A Requiem for the Blighted

New Stuff
Cosmetic Equipment Slot (subscribers only)
Have you ever wanted to wear a turnip head but couldn't bring yourself to sacrifice stats from another helm? Well now you can with the Embers Adrift Cosmetic Equipment Slot! This patch adds a single cosmetic slot for subscribers. It can be found just under your light source equipment slot. You can think of this slot as an "override" in that it will override the visuals of any piece of equipment you currently have equipped. Items placed in this slot do not contribute to your stats nor armor class; it will only display the visuals for that item. For pieces of equipment that have two slots (bracers, shoulders, greaves) it will override the visuals on both slots. Due to the tech required to implement this it is restricted to the following types of equipment:

• Head
• Chest
• Hands
• Legs
• Feet
• Pauldron
• Cuirass
• Vambrace
• Faulds
• Greaves

Note that when equipping a helm to this slot the show helm checkbox will be ignored. This slot functions largely the same as subscriber bank slots in that if your subscription lapses any item in the slot can be removed but no new item can be placed.

New Hair Styles
Our hair system allows you to mix and match any top, side, and tail elements creating a vast array of possibilities (up until this point there have been 108 possible combinations). With this patch we are introducing 7 new tops, 3 new sides, and 1 new tail. These add an additional 438 combinations bringing us to a total of 546 total possible top/side/tail hair combinations! A number of these new styles can be found in the pictures below. Remember that you can edit your character's appearance at any time from the character select screen by right clicking on the character button and selecting "Edit Appearance".

(note that all hair styles are available for both male and female characters)

Customizable overhead Combat Text
July's patch introduced tech that allows you to customize chat colors by modifying a text file. We are expanding this functionality so that you may customize the overhead combat text colors. At some point in the future we hope to introduce in game UI elements to allow for this. I will copy/paste the instructions from July and add that the new colors start with "Overhead":

Custom chat colors are now possible via editing a text file. At some point in the future will be moved to in game UI elements. We are implementing a more technical approach first to get it into your hands a bit quicker. To take advantage of this you will need to add a new file to the StreamingAssets folder. This folder is located in the following spots for the different platforms:

• Windows: "<launcher directory>\client\live\Embers Adrift_Data\StreamingAssets"
• MacOS: you will first need to right click on the launcher and select "Show Package Contents", then navigate to "client\live" where you will see the Embers Adrift app. Right click that app and again select "Show Package Contents". Now navigate to "Contents/Resources/Data/StreamingAssets"
• Linux: "<launcher directory>/client/live/Embers Adrift_Data/StreamingAssets"

To avoid any permission issues I recommend you create this new file in your documents/desktop first and then copy it to the appropriate spot. The file name should be "chatColors.json" and the default contents are as follows:

{
    "Say":"FAEBD7",
    "Yell":"FF0000",
    "Tell":"FF00FF",
    "Party":"00FFFF",
    "Guild":"32CD32",
    "Zone":"009900",
    "World":"ADDFAD",
    "Officer":"008080",
    "Trade":"FF8199",
    "Subscriber":"CCADDF",

    "OverheadSelfNegative":"FF0000",
    "OverheadSelfPositive":"00FF00",
    "OverheadTargetNegative":"FF0000",
    "OverheadTargetPositive":"00FF00"
}

The first item in quotes is the channel name and the second item is the hex color (a good spot to find hex color codes). Create this file and then copy it to your "StreamingAssets" folder. I recommend keeping a backup of this file elsewhere (i.e. documents) as it may be deleted during patching by the launcher. If this file is present when the game launches then the custom colors will be parsed from it. If you modify the file while the game is open you will need to run the chat command "/reloadchatcolors" to re-parse the file and update the colors.

Finding Ember Essence Sources
With the introduction of Alchemy Ember Essence is far more involved in the gameplay loop. To help you more quickly discover sources of Ember Essence we have added a new visual effect when you are near a Hallow (respawn points). This effect will show the location of Ember Drifts (purple) and Ruptures (green) via a wispy funnel-like visual extending from each. Once you leave the presence of the Hallow your ability to see this phenomenon dissipates. These are not meant to guide you directly to these features; instead they are meant to provide you with a sort of directional indicator to their locations at that moment in time.

Alchemy
A rumor out of the Academy says a roving Philosopher has returned to Newhaven after a long expedition to discover the lost knowledge of the Vehueramen. He claims to be on the cusp of a major breakthrough into the secrets of Ember and is desperately seeking aid to complete his life’s work to unlock the mysteries of Alchemy.

Once unlocked, Alchemy allows players to empower their next combat skill with Ember Essence. All non-aura skills are eligible for empowerment and each is empowered in a unique way. However, empowering your abilities comes at a cost. It takes time to extract and harness the essence from your stone: each empowerment adds to the execution time and requires Ember Essence. In addition, an "alchemy cooldown" is triggered which prevents you from empowering that ability again for some time while your mind recovers; during this time you can continue to use the ability non-empowered as you would normally. There are currently two levels of Alchemy; their additional execution times, essence cost, and cooldowns are shown in the table below:

Alchemy Level​	Added Execution Time​	Ember Essence Cost​	Alchemy Cooldown​
I​	+1s​	10​	2m​
II​	+2s​	50​	10m​

When Alchemy is initially unlocked every ability can be empowered by Alchemy I. Alchemy II on the other hand must be earned for each ability individually; this is done via empowering the ability with Alchemy I. In other words: practice. Alchemy II abilities are extremely powerful and hence require 200 empowerments of Alchemy I to unlock.

Now let's go through some of the UI elements that will help you navigate, manage, and monitor your alchemical progress. Once Alchemy I is unlocked you will find a new progress meter to the right of each qualifying ability in your skills UI. Hovering over the I/II circular icons you can preview the effects of each ability, while between the two bubbles is a progress indicator. In the following example you can see that I have unlocked Alchemy II for Venom Strike and Eagle Eye. You should also take note that no Alchemy progress indicators are present for Lay of the Land given that it is an aura and cannot be empowered.

Now if we load up our skill bar with any ability that qualifies for Alchemy I you will have a new bubble on the right side of your action bar. This bubble shows a number indicating how many times you can perform an Alchemy I empowered ability (in this case 9) before you run out of Ember Essence. Once we memorize an ability that has unlocked Alchemy II, a second bubble will appear above the first with a number indicating how many times I can execute an Alchemy II empowered ability (in this case once as I have about 94 essence).

To prep Alchemy I we can either click on the Alchemy I bubble, or hit the default keybind of ALT+1. This will extend the bubble and highlight any ability on your bar that currently qualifies for Alchemy I with a soft orange glow that pulses. If instead we wanted to prep an Alchemy II ability we can click on the Alchemy II bubble, or hit the default keybind of ALT+2 to extend the Alchemy II bubble and highlight the qualifying skills on your bar with a more intense orange color that also pulses.

At this point you may be asking: can we prep Alchemy I and Alchemy II at the same time? Yes you can! When both I & II are active any abilities that qualify for Alchemy II will prep for that, while anything else will prep for Alchemy I. You can also cycle through Alchemy prep levels with the default keybind ALT+~ (which will cycle through I --> I+II --> None).

With Alchemy I or II prepped all you have to do is execute the desired ability. This will add 1 or 2 seconds of execution time and consume 10 or 50 Ember Essence. Once execution completes both I & II will automatically deactivate while an Alchemy cooldown will begin on the ability executed. Here we see Eagle Eye shortly after empowering it with Alchemy I. Notice how we have a regular cooldown of 16s and an orange outline "charging up". The tooltip will also show the "Alchemy Cooldown" in addition to the normal cooldown.

Once Eagle Eye's normal cooldown has elapsed we can continue to use the ability un-empowered; which looks something like this:

In this state when Alchemy I or II is prepped, Eagle Eye would not receive a pulsing orange outline indicating that any executions would not be empowered - but other abilities can be empowered. Once the Alchemy Cooldown elapses you can once again execute an Alchemy I or II Eagle Eye if you have the appropriate amount of Ember Essence.

As we mentioned above each ability is uniquely empowered. A few examples of what that might look like are found in the table below:

Ability​	Standard	Alchemy I	Alchemy II
Advantage Strike	Advantage for a single attack.	Advantage on all attacks for 10 seconds.	Advantage on all attacks for 20 seconds + increase the damage multiplier by 2.5
Threatening Strike	Instant threat	+Adds a threat over time component	+Significant threat over time + increases the damage multiplier by 2.0
First Aid	Heals defensive target	+No stamina cost	+No Stamina Cost + completely heals your defensive target

In addition to the empowerment, Alchemy also converts the damage and resist types of attacks to be Ember based. In some cases this is very beneficial, such as when fighting a mob which has used a high physical defense ability. However, this also can be detrimental as all Ashen are naturally resistant to Ember and its effects.

Please understand that the implementation of Alchemy required us to basically design around 216 new and unique abilities. This means there will likely be a number of balance adjustments in the coming weeks as we collect data regarding these skills. Visual & audio effects will also continue to receive improvements as we move forward. We appreciate your patience and welcome all constructive feedback. A few quick things to note:

• Changing your specialization will reset your Alchemy II progress for spec skills.
• Changing your base role will reset your Alchemy II progress for all skills.
• Quest areas & mobs for unlocking Alchemy will be extremely busy when the servers open up. Please exercise patience and kindness to your fellow Drifters as everyone works towards their unlock. Those of you who do the quest as a group will be able to advance it much quicker than those who go at it solo.
• Ember Stone capacity will be increasing with future quests.
• We recognize that options for high level players (50) to farm Ember Essence are less than optimal. Next month's patch should include the introduction of Grizzled Peaks which should provide a plethora of additional options.

 

[Kittik]

Neat. I love that I can now see what my crafters are. Thanks.

 

[zabatiz]

"With the introduction of Alchemy we have increased the difficulty of 3^ and 4^ mobs at level 25+ while 1^ and 2^ remain unchanged. (Note that these new values are still less than what they were adjusted to in the August 2023 patch)

• Level 25: 7.5% health increase, 5% damage increase
• Level 30-50: 15% health increase, 10% damage increase"

So mobs are now more difficult full time, yet we are only able to use the alchemy on a limited time? With the high costs of using the skills with alchemy boosts, it seems alchemy just adds some light visual flair/bonus to a skill on a very limited basis, yet mobs will be constantly harder. 10 ember essence to boost a skill seems very costly if I am reading this right.

There have been a lot of complaints about leveling speed and making mobs harder 100% of the time based on using Alchemy what.. 2% of the time, is going to make it worse.

Also the Ember cost of the skills should be adjusted based on what it does. A warlord haste buff getting 10 extra seconds at the cost of 10 Ember Essence is not a good trade off.

 

[Undone]

Neat. I love that I can now see what my crafters are. Thanks.

Now I know who all of your characters are! I can codify bad rolls for all of them!

With the introduction of Alchemy we have increased the difficulty of 3^ and 4^ mobs at level 25+ while 1^ and 2^ remain unchanged. (Note that these new values are still less than what they were adjusted to in the August 2023 patch)

• Level 25: 7.5% health increase, 5% damage increase
• Level 30-50: 15% health increase, 10% damage increase

So mobs are now more difficult full time, yet we are only able to use the alchemy on a limited time? With the high costs of using the skills with alchemy boosts, it seems alchemy just adds some light visual flair/bonus to a skill on a very limited basis, yet mobs will be constantly harder. 10 ember essence to boost 1 skill seems very costly if I am reading this right.

In August we bumped all 25+ mobs by about 30%. To compensate for this, we reduced the amount of experience required per level by about 30% at higher levels. But because of the armor changes that happened at the same time it was a bit too much for players to adjust to so the difficulty change was reverted while the xp change was not. This month, we have boosted 3^ and 4^ mobs only about 15% (half of our target goal, not to mention we aren't touching 1 or 2^ mobs) to bring us back in line with our difficulty and TTK goals. This change is not specifically tied to alchemy, but alchemy does provide a power boost to the players that is not currently compensated for.

 

[Strykerx88]

The preemptive HP buff is disappointing. Magic will feel like you're just catching up again instead of getting stronger.

 

[Undone]

The preemptive HP buff is disappointing. Magic will feel like you're just catching up again instead of getting stronger.

This was slated to come regardless of alchemy. See my above comment regarding the why.

 

[zabatiz]

Now I know who all of your characters are! I can codify bad rolls for all of them!


In August we bumped all 25+ mobs by about 30%. To compensate for this, we reduced the amount of experience required per level by about 30% at higher levels. But because of the armor changes that happened at the same time it was a bit too much for players to adjust to so the difficulty change was reverted while the xp change was not. This month, we have boosted 3^ and 4^ mobs only about 15% (half of our target goal, not to mention we aren't touching 1 or 2^ mobs) to bring us back in line with our difficulty and TTK goals. This change is not specifically tied to alchemy, but alchemy does provide a power boost to the players that is not currently compensated for.

But that power boost is used what, 2% of the time outside of an Ember Vein? At its current costs Alchemy is just too expensive outside an EV to have an impact. Thanks for hearing us out.. its all about balance and I trust you all will continue to collect feedback from the community and adjust. Keep up the good work!

 

[Undone]

But that power boost is used what, 2% of the time outside of an Ember Vein? At its current costs Alchemy is just too expensive outside an EV to have an impact. Thanks for hearing us out.. its all about balance and I trust you all will continue to collect feedback from the community and adjust. Keep up the good work!

There will most certainly be adjustments going forward. Keep the feedback coming and we'll keep our ears to the ground!

 

[Sintax]

Rolling out new content is always exciting to players. But making the game harder for everyone to ostensibly offset the damage bonuses from the new system that was introduced feels like exactly the wrong approach, and it risks undermining the excitement around something new.

We're all accustomed to the level of difficulty that exists. 3^ are already very tough. I don't see a glaring problem that needs fixing. Is there one? I'd just like to say, please be careful to not make this a net negative update from the perspective of existing players.

 

[Undone]

Rolling out new content is always exciting to players. But making the game harder for everyone to ostensibly offset the damage bonuses from the new system that was introduced feels like exactly the wrong approach, and it risks undermining the excitement around something new.

We're all accustomed to the level of difficulty that exists. 3^ are already very tough. I don't see a glaring problem that needs fixing. Is there one? I'd just like to say, please be careful to not make this a net negative update from the perspective of existing players.

As I mentioned above, the damage adjustment is NOT entirely just to offset the damage bonuses from a new system. These changes were planned regardless of the introduction of Alchemy or not; it just so happens they landed at the same time. We've made significant reductions to our intended target health/dps values and these are still not where we want them to be. But we are changing things incrementally and listening to feedback along the way.

 

[Road]

Please let me bind alchemy trigger to just Ctrl.

 

[zabatiz]

The alchemy really shined in the Ember Veins.. Was very cool to see everyone's skills going off in the dark and lighting up the corridors. Ashen rates still feel low, I killed 8 mobs standing on and ember rift and 2 turned ashen. Hoping to be able to use alchemy more outsider of the EV's!

 

[Strykerx88]

WTB longswords sheathed on the back and daggers sheathed on the hips.

 

[zabatiz]

WTB longswords sheathed on the back and daggers sheathed on the hips.

I've seen your posts in world chat about this. If this your major contention with the game, I would suggest you direct your energies elsewhere. Literally nobody has brought this up as a pain point over other far more meaningful updates that the game needs. Please let it go..

 

[Undone]

These animation requests are fine. Just know we don’t have a dedicated animator so it’s unlikely to happen for some time.

 

[Strykerx88]

I've seen your posts in world chat about this. If this your major contention with the game, I would suggest you direct your energies elsewhere. Literally nobody has brought this up as a pain point over other far more meaningful updates that the game needs. Please let it go..

Sorry, didn't mean to offend you, the non dev, with a reasonable inquiry to the actual devs.