Our next stress tests are scheduled for:
What's new?
This week was spent working on a few lingering issues in prep for the open beta weekend. We have added tool visuals for harvesting, completely revamped the Northreach dungeons, and added a little flavor to large creatures in the form of some camera shake. A summary of the upcoming crafting changes can also be found below which we would love to hear your feedback on. We have more armor coming from the art team, and a few new zones just around the corner. Thanks for testing!
We are seeking focused feedback on these items this week:
Bug fixes / improvements:
Central Veins North 2.0
The dungeon accessed via Northreach has been completely revamped. The focus of this redesign is as follows:
Harvesting Tool Visuals
For too long you harvested plants, logs, ore, and carcasses with invisible tools. This ends now! This week you can finally stop looking like a fool and start looking like a real adventurer!
Different tools of the same type do not currently have different visuals, but this may be something we can accommodate in the future. Mounting things in your hand is always a huge pain in the neck so please let me know if something goes nuts.
Camera Shake
This week we are adding a new system that should make large creatures feel a bit larger. It involves slightly shaking the camera when the creature walks or falls to the ground. Ideally this effect will be subtle enough to not be an annoyance - it is currently enabled for bear roars and ridgebacks. Please let us know if this causes any issues!
Augment System Improvements
Weapon & Armor augment tech got some love this week. Previously augments were only able to provide a single "bonus"; now they can now provide multiple bonuses. We have also finalized the tech for how armor augments expire. Here is a quick rundown of what to expect when augments become available (hopefully with the next big crafting update):
Croc Armor
Crocodile armor has been delivered from the art team and has made its way into the project. It is not yet available to players but should be in the near future via recipes and/or drops.
Raven
The art team just delivered their latest creation and we hope to have it in the game soon!
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 Profession Revamp (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
The more we discussed crafting specs and the mechanics behind them, the more we realized that a specialization was not the right direction to go. Our adventuring system works great due to the shared experience between the base & spec. With crafting however, this design does not quite work as there are some odd edge cases with experience that would force us to "change the rules". Because of this, we are going to simplify things by splitting the crafting professions into 8 individual professions.
New Dungeon (2-3 weeks)
@Charlizd has been hard at work building a new dungeon. There is still a lot of work left to do before it is game ready but we wanted to give you a quick preview. The scale of this thing is massive which means we will be opening it up one chunk at a time. The location of this dungeon is not yet determined - but it will likely end up below Redshore.
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. September 14th @ 8pm central
(Thurs. September 15th @ 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 15th @ 1am UTC)
What's new?
This week was spent working on a few lingering issues in prep for the open beta weekend. We have added tool visuals for harvesting, completely revamped the Northreach dungeons, and added a little flavor to large creatures in the form of some camera shake. A summary of the upcoming crafting changes can also be found below which we would love to hear your feedback on. We have more armor coming from the art team, and a few new zones just around the corner. Thanks for testing!
We are seeking focused feedback on these items this week:
- Northreach dungeon: both difficulty and pacing.
- Proposed crafting changes - thoughts?
Bug fixes / improvements:
- Tech
- Fixed: when an Ashen creature spawns your client should automatically target it if you were just targeting the npc that spawned it.
- Improved: humanoid locomotion animation speeds now vary slightly with character size. Larger characters will play their movement animations slightly slower, while smaller characters will play them slightly faster. This has NO impact on actual movement speed.
- Fixed: some animation events were not properly firing which meant some audio queues were not triggering - especially for bears.
- Fixed: right clicking an equipment item in your bag that has two possible target slots (bracers, shoulders, etc) will now result in the item being equipped to the empty slot if one is present, otherwise it will replace the first slot.
- Adjusted: adjusted some logic around the show/hide buttons in your equipment panel. This required some data to change so your previous settings of show/hide for the helm and ember stone will need to be reselected.
- Added: tech to support separate indoor and outdoor call for help & sensor profiles. This gives us a bit more control over the dungeon experience.
- Fixed: Visual effects for a number of lasting effects (confusion, stun, daze, webbed) should now last the duration of the buff/debuff.
- Adjusted: Reduced memory overhead on login/selection/creation scene.
- Adjusted: slightly increasing the volume of footstep and UI audio.
- Environment / Art
- Misc. environmental bug fixes in Dryfoot & Northreach.
- Fixed: Meadowlands' road signs should now say stuff.
- Fixed: skinning of bear armor shoulders
- UI:
- Added: armor weight panel now has a tooltip.
- Added: egress points now have a tooltip saying that they will return you to the dungeon start.
- Quests:
- Misc. grammatical fixes.
- Adjusting how discovery quest objectives are handled. Let us know if any funny business occurs here. We are still trying to track down the cause of some discovery objectives not progressing.
- Design:
- Added: A number of NPC abilities now have application VFX (confusion, stun, daze, webbed). More to come in the future.
- Added: Effect applicators such as those from the Ember Rings and environmental webbings now have associated VFX.
- Greatly increased grub bat ear drop rate.
- Increased range on Quillback Spines ability
- Lumberjacks in Redshore are more plentiful
- Adjusted the size of some rare mobs such as Misha.
Central Veins North 2.0
The dungeon accessed via Northreach has been completely revamped. The focus of this redesign is as follows:
- Simplifying the dungeon layout.
- More strategic placement of Ember Rings and egress points.
- More distinguishable "wings" of the dungeon by level, mob types, rare spawns, and props.
- Ember Drift improvements
- Reducing size and complexity.
- Increasing challenge and mob diversity
- Adding unique characteristics to these areas that add extra challenge.
- Utilization of new Indoor sensors and call for help tech (this also applies to the dungeon accessed via Newhaven Valley)
- Some mobs (notably spiders and humanoids) sensor ranges have been reduced within the veins.
- Some mobs (notably spiders and humanoids) call for help ranges have been reduced within the veins.
Harvesting Tool Visuals
For too long you harvested plants, logs, ore, and carcasses with invisible tools. This ends now! This week you can finally stop looking like a fool and start looking like a real adventurer!
Different tools of the same type do not currently have different visuals, but this may be something we can accommodate in the future. Mounting things in your hand is always a huge pain in the neck so please let me know if something goes nuts.
Camera Shake
This week we are adding a new system that should make large creatures feel a bit larger. It involves slightly shaking the camera when the creature walks or falls to the ground. Ideally this effect will be subtle enough to not be an annoyance - it is currently enabled for bear roars and ridgebacks. Please let us know if this causes any issues!
Augment System Improvements
Weapon & Armor augment tech got some love this week. Previously augments were only able to provide a single "bonus"; now they can now provide multiple bonuses. We have also finalized the tech for how armor augments expire. Here is a quick rundown of what to expect when augments become available (hopefully with the next big crafting update):
- Augmenting an item will bind that item to you.
- Augments can be replaced by other augments if you so desire.
- Augments cannot be removed once applied.
- Some augments may come with positive and negative stats.
- Weapon Augments
- Can provide DiceMod, Damage%, Hit, Penetration, and Flanking.
- Have a fixed expiration based on the number of hits done with that specific weapon.
- Stat bonuses from weapon augments do NOT show on your stats sheet as they only apply when that weapon is used for damage.
- Armor Augments
- Can provide any regular stat (regen, movement, resilience, etc).
- Have a fixed expiration based on the time your character has spent in combat (not combat stance, but active combat).
- Stats bonuses from armor augments WILL show on your stats sheet.
Croc Armor
Crocodile armor has been delivered from the art team and has made its way into the project. It is not yet available to players but should be in the near future via recipes and/or drops.
Raven
The art team just delivered their latest creation and we hope to have it in the game soon!
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 Profession Revamp (timeline: 1-2 weeks)
The more we discussed crafting specs and the mechanics behind them, the more we realized that a specialization was not the right direction to go. Our adventuring system works great due to the shared experience between the base & spec. With crafting however, this design does not quite work as there are some odd edge cases with experience that would force us to "change the rules". Because of this, we are going to simplify things by splitting the crafting professions into 8 individual professions.
- Light Weaponsmith (1h weapons, small/medium shields, and Banners)
- Heavy Weaponsmith (2h weapons, heavy shields)
- Bowyer (ranged weapons & ammo)
- Tailor (inner armor)
- Outfitter (medium armors such as leather)
- Armorsmith (heavy armors such as metal)
- Provisioner (food/drink, potions, and other consumables)
- Tinker (tools, jewelry, belts)
New Dungeon (2-3 weeks)
@Charlizd has been hard at work building a new dungeon. There is still a lot of work left to do before it is game ready but we wanted to give you a quick preview. The scale of this thing is massive which means we will be opening it up one chunk at a time. The location of this dungeon is not yet determined - but it will likely end up below Redshore.
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:
- Skydome occasionally gets "stuck". When this happens you should notice that the clouds stop animating. When this occurs change your quality setting to something else, then back and it should "reset" the skybox.
- Loot roll occasionally does not trigger leaving the loot open to anyone. We are currently investigating.
- After resizing your game client some of the buttons in the upper right may no longer be clickable.
- 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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