Beyond the Veil Patch 10
This patch, which includes Guild Season changes, will go live shortly after the start of the upcoming seasons. For a full rundown of these changes and the reasoning behind them, as well as the season schedules, see this forum post: forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/181982
Hideout Power and Energy Changes
Crystal Arena
Adjusted Rank Point formula to make players less likely to hit a wall where they get fewer points per win than they would lose per loss. Crystal and Iron brackets are not greatly affected, but players are less likely to be stuck in Silver and early Gold brackets if they maintain good win rates.
5v5 Crystal League and Crystal Arena
This season we are changing the map back to Cross. Due to the smaller and more compact map design we're decreasing the round timer and proportionally the point value per rotation to ensure exciting and fast paced gameplay.
After reviewing the data from the Knightfall patch, it was found that slight adjustments were needed. While overall rewards were fine, the Silver-to-loot ratio needed adjusting. Therefore, Silver from mobs has been significantly reduced, and Silver from loot chests found in Statues and protected by bosses has been increased.
This brings mob values more in line with those found in other dungeons, while increasing loot of affected chests by ~22.2%. Coffer and Treasure Chest values are unaffected by this change.
Combat Balance Changes
This patch further improves some underused spells, and adjusts some abilities and items that are a bit out of line or are frustrating to play against.
Arcane Staffs
Time Freeze's disruptive potential in large-scale fights is addressed by lengthening the immunity period between each freeze. This lets it remain a powerful tool to stop a single engagement, but makes it much weaker when trying to constantly cast Time Freeze into an enemy group as a distraction. Further, The Void's cleansing mechanism is reworked to instantly remove any CC and debuff effects, negating potential mini-stuns that briefly occurred between Cleansing intervals. Ground area CC effects like Sacred Ground will still hit inside the area.
To enhance the viability of Demon Arrow (Wailing Bow) in large-scale battles, its damage increase logic has been updated. Now this ensures that damage amplifies properly for each player hit, enhancing the spell's damage ramp up against tightly clustered enemies.
After the last change to Chain Slash its damage value was too heavily shifted towards the last hit, leading to underuse in small scale battles. To make Chain Slash more valuable in small scale encounters and provide more reliable damage towards focused targets, the damage spread is redistributed to downplay the fourth target.
The Resilience Penetration of Demonfang and Bridled Fury is toned down, bringing it closer to other weapons with large area attacks in large scale fights. This accompanies a fix for the missing AoE escalation on Merciless Finish (Bridled Fury), which is offset by a reduction in base damage.
Due to the low usage in PvP scenarios Burning Fields initial damage hit was significantly increased. This change further promotes hitting the initial damage aspect of the spell instead of relying on the burning effect lasting on the ground. This should lead to more engaging fights with and against the spell.
Flame Blast currently competes with a heavy utility lineup of other available W-Spells on the Fire Staffs. We’re adding a mobility component to Flame Blast strengthening its playability in the Open World and other solo content while also promoting cooperation with other players.
To reinvigorate the use of Holy Touch (Lifetouch Staff), its channel time has been shortened without reducing the healing output. This makes it possible to heal faster and guarantees more healing output gets through, even when interrupted.
In response to the decline in Camlann Mace's usage in large-scale fights, both the range and projectile speed have been increased for its E-ability.
Recently, unintended ganking strategies were used by linking Soul Link with a mount and a player to completely negate the mount's armor. To prevent this strategy, and any similar attempts in the future, Soul Link can no longer be cast on mounted players.
Considering the game’s faster pace in recent years, the channel time of Forest of Spears feels a bit outdated. The channel time has thus been reduced while keeping the total damage the same, making it faster to get more damage through.
Carving Sword has a strong presence inside the Mists, as well as many other forms of group fighting. The strong resistance reduction, paired with good mobility and damage, made it slightly too powerful. To balance its strength without changing how it plays and feels, its Resistance Reduction is slightly decreased.
Create Opening was often outshined by other Q-options in PvP. To make it a more viable option, its cast range is increased, making it easier to keep on enemy targets.
The Resilience Penetration of Spiked Gauntlets and Ravenstrike Cestus is toned down, bringing it closer to other weapons with large area attacks in large scale fights. Further, Earth Crusher (Ravenstrike Cestus) self slow is reduced to make it more responsive and threatening during the charging time. And Earth Crusher’s base damage is increased as a counterbalance to the Resilience Penetration change. Spiked Gauntlet's damage remains unchanged, as it is already very strong.
Although After Image provided some fun outplay options, it remained underused. To give players options to utilize its unique effect better and to make it less susceptible to be completely countered by a single CC Effect, the time window for the reactivation is increased.
Sandstorm (Bridgewatch Cape) did not find its way into the meta after the latest rework. To make it more attractive, the slow value of the area is increased.
Brecilien Capes have also not seen much usage so far. However, we want to avoid straight up giving it better defensive values, to not overshadow other defensive capes (e.g. Martlock Capes). Instead, we want to put more focus on a secondary utility effect. The debuff immunity is therefore replaced with purge immunity while the shield is active. This should open up more opportunities for different build compositions as well as different playstyles that are currently hard-countered by purges, e.g. builds relying on Speed Caster, Haste, etc.
Avalonian Capes had a bug where cooldown scaled with Item Power, though it was intended to always be 25s. Based on the popularity of the item and its wide usage range with that dynamic cooldown, we decided to adjust the cooldown to 30s. This change will result in a small improvement for lower IP capes and a longer cooldown on higher IP capes.
This patch, which includes Guild Season changes, will go live shortly after the start of the upcoming seasons. For a full rundown of these changes and the reasoning behind them, as well as the season schedules, see this forum post: forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/181982
Hideout Power and Energy Changes
- If a guild owns a territory in the same zone as their Hideout, that Hideout's depletion rate is reduced (i.e. it holds its Energy more effectively):
- Level 0-3: -12.5%
- Level 4: -14.2%
- Level 5: -16.6%
- Level 6: -20%
- Level 7: -25%
- Level 8: -33.3%
- Level 9: -50%
- Roads Hideouts cannot gain the Territory Bonus
- Level 0-3: -12.5%
- Increased HQ Hideout Power Bonus from 50% to 100%
- Increased HQ Hideout Energy Penalty from 35% to 51%
- Increased Energy drain rate for Hideouts and HQ Hideouts at medium-to-high levels:
- Level 4: +16.6%
- Level 5: +20%
- Level 6: +25%
- Level 7: +33.3%
- Level 8: +50%
- Level 9: +100%
- Level 4: +16.6%
- Decreased Energy granted by Outlands Hideout Power Cores from 100% to 75%
Crystal Arena
Adjusted Rank Point formula to make players less likely to hit a wall where they get fewer points per win than they would lose per loss. Crystal and Iron brackets are not greatly affected, but players are less likely to be stuck in Silver and early Gold brackets if they maintain good win rates.
5v5 Crystal League and Crystal Arena
This season we are changing the map back to Cross. Due to the smaller and more compact map design we're decreasing the round timer and proportionally the point value per rotation to ensure exciting and fast paced gameplay.
- Changed Map: Spade → Cross
- Scoring Round: 150s → 120s
- Scoring Changed:
- 1 Runestone advantage 25 → 20
- 2 Runestones advantage 35 → 30
- 3 Runestones advantage 50 → 40
- 1 Runestone advantage 25 → 20
- Albion East:
- All Castle and Castle Outpost Treasure Spawn Times moved 30 minutes earlier, making it easier to contest Territory Fights and claim Castle Chests afterwards
- Updated Guild Logos on Beta Season Winner Statues in open world
- All Castle and Castle Outpost Treasure Spawn Times moved 30 minutes earlier, making it easier to contest Territory Fights and claim Castle Chests afterwards
- Albion West:
- Season 18 West Statues are now placeable furniture items
- Season 18 West Statues are now placeable furniture items
After reviewing the data from the Knightfall patch, it was found that slight adjustments were needed. While overall rewards were fine, the Silver-to-loot ratio needed adjusting. Therefore, Silver from mobs has been significantly reduced, and Silver from loot chests found in Statues and protected by bosses has been increased.
This brings mob values more in line with those found in other dungeons, while increasing loot of affected chests by ~22.2%. Coffer and Treasure Chest values are unaffected by this change.
Combat Balance Changes
This patch further improves some underused spells, and adjusts some abilities and items that are a bit out of line or are frustrating to play against.
Arcane Staffs
Time Freeze's disruptive potential in large-scale fights is addressed by lengthening the immunity period between each freeze. This lets it remain a powerful tool to stop a single engagement, but makes it much weaker when trying to constantly cast Time Freeze into an enemy group as a distraction. Further, The Void's cleansing mechanism is reworked to instantly remove any CC and debuff effects, negating potential mini-stuns that briefly occurred between Cleansing intervals. Ground area CC effects like Sacred Ground will still hit inside the area.
- Time Freeze (Great Arcane)
- Immunity to another Time Freeze vs Players: 5s → 11s
- Immunity to another Time Freeze vs Players: 5s → 11s
- The Void (Malevolent Locus)
- Reworked Cleanse Logic inside the area. CC effects and debuff are now instantly removed when applied (i.e. preventing micro stuns inside the area)
- Reworked Cleanse Logic inside the area. CC effects and debuff are now instantly removed when applied (i.e. preventing micro stuns inside the area)
To enhance the viability of Demon Arrow (Wailing Bow) in large-scale battles, its damage increase logic has been updated. Now this ensures that damage amplifies properly for each player hit, enhancing the spell's damage ramp up against tightly clustered enemies.
- Demon Arrow (Wailing Bow)
- Reworked Damage Increase logic, so the damage keeps increasing when multiple targets are hit at the same time.
- Reworked Damage Increase logic, so the damage keeps increasing when multiple targets are hit at the same time.
After the last change to Chain Slash its damage value was too heavily shifted towards the last hit, leading to underuse in small scale battles. To make Chain Slash more valuable in small scale encounters and provide more reliable damage towards focused targets, the damage spread is redistributed to downplay the fourth target.
The Resilience Penetration of Demonfang and Bridled Fury is toned down, bringing it closer to other weapons with large area attacks in large scale fights. This accompanies a fix for the missing AoE escalation on Merciless Finish (Bridled Fury), which is offset by a reduction in base damage.
- Chain Slash (all Daggers)
- 1st Hit Damage: 90 → 110
- 2nd Hit Damage: 110 → 125
- 3rd Hit Damage: 130 → 140
- 4th Hit Damage: 150 → 155
- 1st Hit Damage: 90 → 110
- Merciless Finish (Bridled Fury)
- Fixed missing AoE escalation, reduced base damage to make up for this change
- 0 Charge Damage: 79 → 63.2
- 1 Charge Damage: 126 → 100.8
- 2 Charge Damage: 189 → 151.2
- 3 Charge Damage: 250 → 200
- Fixed missing AoE escalation, reduced base damage to make up for this change
- Demonfang
- Resilience Penetration: 50% → 40%
- Resilience Penetration: 50% → 40%
- Bridled Fury
- Resilience Penetration: 75% → 50%
- Resilience Penetration: 75% → 50%
Due to the low usage in PvP scenarios Burning Fields initial damage hit was significantly increased. This change further promotes hitting the initial damage aspect of the spell instead of relying on the burning effect lasting on the ground. This should lead to more engaging fights with and against the spell.
Flame Blast currently competes with a heavy utility lineup of other available W-Spells on the Fire Staffs. We’re adding a mobility component to Flame Blast strengthening its playability in the Open World and other solo content while also promoting cooperation with other players.
- Burning Field (all Fire Staffs)
- Damage of initial hit: 52 → 70
- Damage of initial hit: 52 → 70
- Flame Blast (all Fire Staffs)
- When cast on yourself or an ally target the target gains a 60% move speed bonus for 1.6s.
- When cast on yourself or an ally target the target gains a 60% move speed bonus for 1.6s.
To reinvigorate the use of Holy Touch (Lifetouch Staff), its channel time has been shortened without reducing the healing output. This makes it possible to heal faster and guarantees more healing output gets through, even when interrupted.
- Holy Touch (Lifetouch Staff)
- Tick Interval: 0.6s → 0.5s
- Amount of Ticks: 6 → 5
- Heal per tick: 64 → 76.8
- Tick Interval: 0.6s → 0.5s
In response to the decline in Camlann Mace's usage in large-scale fights, both the range and projectile speed have been increased for its E-ability.
- Vendetta (Camlann Mace)
- Projectile Range: 18m→ 21m
- Projectile Speed: 19.23 m/s → 23.07 m/s
- Projectile Range: 18m→ 21m
Recently, unintended ganking strategies were used by linking Soul Link with a mount and a player to completely negate the mount's armor. To prevent this strategy, and any similar attempts in the future, Soul Link can no longer be cast on mounted players.
- Soul Link (Ironroot Staff)
- Can no longer target mounted players
- Can no longer target mounted players
Considering the game’s faster pace in recent years, the channel time of Forest of Spears feels a bit outdated. The channel time has thus been reduced while keeping the total damage the same, making it faster to get more damage through.
- Forest of Spears (all Spears)
- Number of Ticks: 8 → 6 (This reduces the max channel duration by 0.6s)
- Damage per Tick: 35.96 → 47.94 (total channel damage stays the same)
- Number of Ticks: 8 → 6 (This reduces the max channel duration by 0.6s)
Carving Sword has a strong presence inside the Mists, as well as many other forms of group fighting. The strong resistance reduction, paired with good mobility and damage, made it slightly too powerful. To balance its strength without changing how it plays and feels, its Resistance Reduction is slightly decreased.
- Fearless Strike (Carving Sword)
- Resistance Reduction:
- 0 Stacks: 0.07 → 0.05
- 1 Stack: 0.11 → 0.10
- 2 Stacks: 0.17 → 0.15
- 3 Stacks: 0.24 → 0.2
- Resistance Reduction:
Create Opening was often outshined by other Q-options in PvP. To make it a more viable option, its cast range is increased, making it easier to keep on enemy targets.
The Resilience Penetration of Spiked Gauntlets and Ravenstrike Cestus is toned down, bringing it closer to other weapons with large area attacks in large scale fights. Further, Earth Crusher (Ravenstrike Cestus) self slow is reduced to make it more responsive and threatening during the charging time. And Earth Crusher’s base damage is increased as a counterbalance to the Resilience Penetration change. Spiked Gauntlet's damage remains unchanged, as it is already very strong.
- Create Opening (all War Gloves)
- Cast Range: 2m → 2.5m
- Cast Range: 2m → 2.5m
- Earth Crusher (Ravenstrike Cestus)
- Self Slow: 50% → 25%
- 0 Charge Damage: 160 → 166
- 1 Charge Damage: 170 → 176
- 2 Charge Damage: 180 → 187
- 3 Charge Damage: 190 → 198
- Self Slow: 50% → 25%
- Spiked Gauntlet
- Resilience Penetration: 60% → 50%
- Resilience Penetration: 60% → 50%
- Ravenstrike Cestus
- Resilience Penetration: 60% → 50%
- Resilience Penetration: 60% → 50%
Although After Image provided some fun outplay options, it remained underused. To give players options to utilize its unique effect better and to make it less susceptible to be completely countered by a single CC Effect, the time window for the reactivation is increased.
- After Image (Mistwalker Shoes)
- Recast time for return teleport: 4s → 6s
- Recast time for return teleport: 4s → 6s
Sandstorm (Bridgewatch Cape) did not find its way into the meta after the latest rework. To make it more attractive, the slow value of the area is increased.
Brecilien Capes have also not seen much usage so far. However, we want to avoid straight up giving it better defensive values, to not overshadow other defensive capes (e.g. Martlock Capes). Instead, we want to put more focus on a secondary utility effect. The debuff immunity is therefore replaced with purge immunity while the shield is active. This should open up more opportunities for different build compositions as well as different playstyles that are currently hard-countered by purges, e.g. builds relying on Speed Caster, Haste, etc.
Avalonian Capes had a bug where cooldown scaled with Item Power, though it was intended to always be 25s. Based on the popularity of the item and its wide usage range with that dynamic cooldown, we decided to adjust the cooldown to 30s. This change will result in a small improvement for lower IP capes and a longer cooldown on higher IP capes.
- Fey Barrier (Brecilien Cape)
- While the shield is active the caster becomes immune to purges.
- Removed the debuff removal and Debuff Immunity
- While the shield is active the caster becomes immune to purges.
- Sandstorm (Bridgewatch Cape)
- Slow Strength: 20% → 40%
- Slow Strength: 20% → 40%
- Force Pulse (Avalonian Cape)
- Cooldown: 37s (700 IP), 26.5s (1400 IP), → 30s (across all IP)
- Cooldown: 37s (700 IP), 26.5s (1400 IP), → 30s (across all IP)
- UI Fixes:
- Fixed issue where zone map could not be closed by clicking outside
- Fixed issue where interacting with Island Merchant with Social UI open caused overlap
- Fixed issues where searching in Guild Season Rankings did not function correctly and window could become stuck when logging out with UI open
- Fixed issue where emptied Coffers still showed on minimap
- Added error message when attempting to execute players while in Hostile Dismount state
- Fixed issue where zone map could not be closed by clicking outside
- Spell fixes:
- Fixed issue where Ethereal Form (Feyscale Sandals) reduced its channel time when hit
- Ethereal Path (Harvester Workboots): Removed incorrect lingering invisibility text from tooltip; revealing the invisibility no longer interrupts dash or removes forced movement immunity
- Fixed issue where Ethereal Form (Feyscale Sandals) reduced its channel time when hit
- Improving quality of Brecilien Owl mounts no longer increases the negative carry weight effect
- Improved behavior of keyboard (WASD) movement: While channeling spells, any new movement keypress will cancel the channel
- Fixed issue where character models could appear and disappear
- Fixed issue where Brecilien could not be selected as a destination at the Travel Planner when having Home set to a Mists Island
- Fixed issue where downing yourself with Bloodthirsty Blade (Dagger) would expel you from the Mists
- Fixed issue where chests in Castles and Outposts would display incorrect rarity
- Fixed issue where reflecting damage could put a player into an active combat state
- Undead Archers can now be rooted or slowed as they run away
- [CONTROLLER] Fixed issue where fishing would cancel on bite
- Additional graphical, audio, UI, terrain, and localization fixes
