New World: Large February Update releases today – All about patch notes and downtime

The MMORPG New World is receiving the new update 1.4 today, on February 28th. The focus is on over 100 bug fixes, adjustments to the combat system, and less grind in the endgame. We at MeinMMO are revealing the highlights of the update, the server downtime, and have attached the full patch notes at the end.

Update 2:00 PM: The servers are now under maintenance for two hours.

What are the highlights of the update? The February patch aims to make the combat system smoother and improve balance in the game. Additionally, some critical bugs will be fixed and traveling will be much cheaper:

• The weapon swap is improved and should now also happen during movement and dodging. Additionally, abilities activated during the weapon swap will execute with the new weapon and will no longer interrupt the swap.
• Animations for dodging and blocking have been adjusted and shortened.
• There’s more loot in the Outpost Rush, including faction tokens and the important Shadow Shards.
• There are generally more Shadow Shards and the cooldown for almost all gypsum types will be reduced.
• You will need to collect 10% less experience when leveling the professions Arcana, Armoring, Weaponsmithing, Jewelcrafting, and Carpentry – so it will be faster.
• The XP from all quests from level 10+ has been increased by 50%.
• There are important balance adjustments to the fire staff, the Unholy Stulpen, and the rapier, to make PvP more balanced.
• The Azoth costs for traveling have been adjusted. There is no longer a penalty for higher weight or greater distance. Additionally, the cooldown for the inn will be reduced from 60 to 30 minutes.

This is just a snippet of the most important changes in the new patch.

When will the patch be released and how long will the servers be down? The update 1.4 will be deployed today, February 28th, at 2:00 PM on the servers. The server down should last about two hours.

The maintenance should therefore be over by 4:00 PM. We’ll keep you updated here in the post in case there are any delays.

Update 1.4 – The Complete Patch Notes

Game World

Important Bug Fixes

Expeditions

• A bug was fixed where the miniboss Taxodius could be killed and looted twice in one instance.
• Missing collisions were fixed, which allowed players to leave the intended playable area in the depths.
• A bug with the animation intro of the Ancestor Guardian in the Starstone Burial Mound was fixed.
• A bug was fixed where players could join ongoing expeditions from another expedition entrance.

World

• A bug was fixed where players could build tent camps on top of each other to reach higher places by exploiting the environment.
• A bug was fixed where there were too many and too difficult Ancestor AI enemies in Syleio Seko in Brackwater for single players.
• Additional vines in Sha Makogai and Sunken Visage were removed, and the number of enemies in Sunken Visage was reduced for single players.
• A bug was fixed where players could climb over a wall to enter the Siren Queen’s Arena.
• The loot chest in the Adamant Mine in King’s Fall was adjusted to provide a greater challenge.
• A bug was fixed where players would pop up and down when interacting with orichalcum veins in large elite checkpoints.
• More lights were added in the Lower Abraumlager.
• A bug was fixed with a pile of floating stones in the waypoint Elafry Pyrgo.
• A bug was fixed where half of a large rock in Grimrock was missing.
• Various floating graphics and faulty collisions in the world were fixed.
• A bug was fixed where player faces might not display correctly at low graphics settings.

General AI

• We have added a new physics system for the collision between players and AI enemies, which significantly reduces the knockback when colliding with characters.
  • This update applies to bipeds and simple form creatures (Ancient Guardians, Corrupted, Lost Pirates, Desertlings, Vines, etc.).
  • Future updates should also improve the collision with quadrupeds and large creatures (cats, deer, wolves, alligators, etc.).
• We have improved the AI targeting evaluation to prevent AI enemies from attacking positions that players have already left.
• We have lowered the knockback when blocking for most attacks from enemy creatures to 0.
• Corrupted Ogre
  • A bug was fixed where the damage area of the ball spell did not match the graphic.
• Dryaden Soldier
  • A bug was fixed where the soldier repeatedly used its empowerment ability when shot from more than 30 meters away or unable to reach the player.
• Elemental Bears
  • We have reduced the rate at which elemental bears regenerate stamina.
• Sump Dryaden Soldier
  • A bug was fixed where the downward strike of the Sump Dryaden Soldier occasionally caused area damage. This has been removed.
• Sump Dryaden Beast
  • A bug was fixed with the pull skill where players were lifted higher into the air depending on their distance from the beast.
• Undead Navigator
  • The bonus that the Undead Navigator grants itself is now displayed correctly as a status effect in the character’s nameplate.
• Boss of the Siren Arena
  • A bug was fixed that prevented the siren from attacking players at the edge of the arena.
• Large Cats
  • The animation when downed has been updated to differentiate more from standard reactions.

AI Enemies in Expeditions

• Garden of Origins
  • Rot Garde
    • The hit box for headshots has been enlarged for the Rot Garde.
  • Genesis Shaman
    • The graphic effect of the fog attack has been corrected to match the damage.
  • Angry Earth Druid
    • The visibility of the attack graphic effect has been improved.
• Lazarus Instrumenta
  • Chardis
    • Chardis’s stun phase has been extended by 5 seconds.
    • The time window before the last laser in phase 3 was extended from 75 seconds from the start of the phase to 90 seconds.
    • The cooldown between lasers in phases 1 and 2 has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
    • The damage of the base laser in phases 1 and 2 was increased.
    • Chardis’s overall damage has been increased by 25%.
    • Chardis’s last laser has been revamped and now deals 15% of health as damage per second.
    • A bug was fixed where hit animations created safe spots at the back wall.
    • A bug was fixed where Chardis did not take bonus damage from effects and coatings related to Ancients.
    • A bug was fixed where Chardis did not have the correct strengths and weaknesses against certain damage types.
    • A bug was fixed where Chardis’ laser could persist even after his death.
    • The hit area for headshots on Chardis has been enlarged.

Mutators

• The “Withered” timer was reduced from 60 seconds to 45 seconds.
• Curse damage has been standardized to ensure that curses are always a threat to players, regardless of how much health they have.
  • Damage from “Censored” has been adjusted to 65% of base health.
  • Damage from “Withered” has been adjusted to 50% of base health.

Combat

General

• Weapon swapping
  • Weapons can now be swapped during reactions to hits, dodging, moving, and using consumables (excluding weapon coatings).
    • This does not interrupt these actions. In these cases, there is a cooldown of 1 second for the weapon swap.
  • Weapon swap buffers will no longer be interrupted when you stagger before the weapon is swapped.
  • Weapon swaps and attacks can now be queued simultaneously. So if, for instance, you press weapon swap during recovery after an attack and immediately after press a skill key, the weapon will swap on the first swap cancel frame and then the desired skill will be executed immediately after. Note that the actions still have buffers and cancel windows. This change just makes them easier to use and more reliable.
• Dodging & Blocking
  • We have reduced the recovery time for all dodging actions. Switching from dodging to movement should now feel smoother for all players.
  • The start of basic melee and ranged attacks can now be canceled up to 2 frames before the first active frame by dodging or blocking. For melee attacks, the first active frame is the first frame in which the weapon can deal damage. For ranged attacks, it is the first frame in which the projectile spawns.
  • For light attacks with melee weapons, blocking and dodging inputs now take priority over the next light attack in the chain. This aims to prevent accidental chaining of attacks, which would leave players vulnerable when they actually wanted to defend.
• Jumping
  • Jumping off lower objects no longer triggers a full landing animation, allowing you to move more fluidly through Aeternum.
• Attribute
  • Attribute bonus at 300 focus: The mana regeneration from this attribute bonus is now triggered when the spellcaster has 15 mana or less.
• Equipment Weight
  • The descriptions of equipment weights have been revised and now also indicate how much stamina is consumed when dodging.
  • A bug was fixed where the speed of lateral movements varied depending on equipment weight.
• Bug Fixes
  • A bug was fixed where canceling attacks in shallow water did not work (e.g., canceling a skill into another).
  • A bug was fixed where some attack animations did not play correctly when attacks were used while running.
  • A bug was fixed where players could get stuck while resting heavily in a tent.
  • A bug was fixed where players could clip through protruding collisions by using certain skills while lying down.
  • A bug was fixed that allowed players to evade some damage from area-effect attacks while lying down.

Bow

• Rain of Arrows:
  • A bug was fixed where “Rain of Arrows” could trigger attacks from stealth.
  • A bug was fixed where the bleed duration of “Rain of Arrows” could not be extended by effects and passive skills that extended the effect of bow bleed effects.
• Dodge Shot:
  • Energy Spender Dodge Shot (item effect): A bug was fixed where this effect could not be triggered when upgrades for the dodge shot were unlocked.
• A bug was fixed where “Rain of Arrows”, “Piercing Shot” and “Poison Shot” could be used when players were overburdened or in deep water.
• A bug was fixed where light attacks with the bow could be activated underwater.
• A bug was fixed where the cancel windows when firing from the hip with the bow were different than when firing with aiming. The firing rate when shooting from the hip and when firing while aiming has now been aligned.

Fire Staff

• Fireball
  • The projectile radius of the fireball has been increased from 0.01 to 0.33 to make it easier to hit.
  • The fireball can now land critical hits.
• Afterburner
  • A bug was fixed where “Afterburner” could continue to persist on weapon swap and skill use.
  • “Flamethrower” and “Meteor Shower” have been updated to trigger the 4-second timer of “Afterburner” at the end of the skill.
  • A bug was fixed where the icon for “Afterburner” was incorrectly displayed as “Empowerment”.
• Fire Pillar
  • The delay between the activation of the fire pillar and the appearance of its damage area has been shortened. The fire pillar now appears as soon as the player has fully extended the staff.
  • The recovery time of the fire pillar was shortened by approximately 0.5 seconds.
• Flamethrower
  • The basic movement speed of the flamethrower has been increased to make haste bonuses more noticeable. The new movement speed is approximately twice as fast as before.
  • Accelerating Flamethrower (item effect): A bug was fixed where “Accelerating Flamethrower” was triggered only at exactly 3 stacks and not at a minimum of 3 stacks.
• Let it burn: A bug was fixed where the burn status effects of “Fireball”, “Ignited” and some passive skills did not trigger the passive skill “Let it burn”.
• Graphic issues with some fire staffs have been fixed.

Great Axe

• The placement of the passive skills “Frustration” and “Sharp Blade” has been swapped. Skill points spent in the great axe tree will be refunded, and the values will need to be redistributed after this update.
• Source of Gravity:
  • The damage area has been revamped and adjusted to the vortex graphic.
    • The pull of the vortex has been reduced to give players a chance to escape.
    • The pull ends just before the vortex damage hits, allowing players a chance to escape through dodging.
    • Unintentional damage from the first pull and area effect of the vortex has been removed.
    • The description of this skill has been revamped for clarity.
• Mahlstrom:
  • No Letup: A bug was fixed where the cancel window for this upgrade was set too early, causing the skill to cancel before the second spin when attacking.
• Persistent Strike:
  • We have reduced the damage mitigation by this passive skill from 20% to 12%.
  • The tooltip has been revamped to clarify that the damage mitigation occurs with any active mut, not just from heavy attacks.

Axe

• A bug was fixed where the passive skills “Gathered Power” and “Critical Hit” with axes using effects with alternative damage sources (damage over time, chain elemental, etc.) were not consistently triggering.

Ice Gauntlet

• Ice Spikes
  • Spike Thrust: The projectiles fired from this upgrade have been adjusted to reduce the likelihood of a single target being hit by all four parts of the attack.
• Ice Storm
  • A bug was fixed where two players with different amounts of modifiers and effects for “Ice Storm” could stack damage from the skill and it was not just a single damage instance.
  • Severe Storm: The tooltip now clarifies that this only increases the damage from “Ice Storm”.
• Icy Rain:
  • A desynchronization bug was fixed that could occur when players dodged during the Icy Rain.
  • A bug was fixed that caused the rooting of the Icy Rain to fail when players dodged through it.
  • A bug was fixed where the Icy Rain did not start its cooldown immediately upon the appearance of the first ice area.
  Icy Pillar:
  • Pillar Break (item effect): The radius of the effect area has been increased from 1 to 3 meters. A new graphic effect for the break has been added to indicate this new radius.

Life Staff

• Beacon
  • Light Speed:
    • A bug was fixed where the haste from “Light Speed” was not applied to the spellcaster when their weapon was sheathed.
    • Haste from “Light Speed” now affects all targets in the area, not just allies who are being healed. The tooltip has been revamped to indicate this new functionality.

Musketeer

• Sticky Bomb:
  • A bug was fixed where the critical damage of the sticky bomb was not increased when critical damage numbers were displayed. Critical hits now deal approximately 273% weapon damage.
  • The base damage of the sticky bomb was reduced from 235% weapon damage to 210% weapon damage.
  • A bug was fixed where the transitions of the sticky bomb at the end of the throw would be erroneous and inconsistent depending on the actions performed after the throw. This could cause players to not be able to use other skills until they moved or swapped weapons.
• Marksman Stance:
  • A bug was fixed where no shot was consumed if shot too quickly after entering Marksman Stance, allowing players to bypass the limit of 5 shots.
  • A bug was fixed where the stacks of the passive skill “Increased Precision” were reset upon leaving Marksman Stance.
  • A bug was fixed where players could bypass the animation of Marksman Stance and shoot while standing.
• Manstop Effect:
  • This skill has been revamped and no longer strengthens the next shot. Instead, after a warm-up time, a special bullet is fired that knocks the target back on hit.
  • “Manstop Effect” can be fired with aiming or from the hip.
    • The animation for suffered hits with “Manstop Effect” has been changed and better synced with the timing in which the target staggers.
    • The skill description has been revamped to indicate the new functionality.
    • The cooldown has been extended from 15 to 20 seconds.
• “Powder Burn” and “Powerful Shot”:
  • Charged shots can now overwrite each other. If one of these skills is activated to charge a shot while the other is already charged, the previously charged shot will be replaced by the new one.
  • A bug was fixed where shots charged with these skills did not count towards the stacks of the passive skill “Increased Precision”.
• Haste: A bug was fixed where this passive skill lasted shorter than intended if the passive skill “Keep Your Distance” was also active.
• Players can now use consumables while reloading. Using consumables interrupts the reload.
• A bug was fixed where light attacks with the musket could be activated underwater.

Rapier

• Cutting Whirl: The skill description has been revamped to clarify that Cutting Whirl can be interrupted by other skills and dodging.
• Dodge: A bug was fixed where sheathing the rapier after triggering dodging caused players to receive a permanent speed bonus.

Spear

• Leg Sweep:
  • Refreshing Reach: A bug was fixed where “Refreshing Reach” was not correctly triggered with the Execute.
  • Throwing Spear: A bug was fixed where swapping weapons during the use of the throwing spear could lead to a faulty animation state.

Sword and Shield

• Shield Rush: The hitbox of this skill has been brought closer to the player to avoid situations where the skill could hit targets that seemed out of reach. As compensation for the reduced range, the distance traveled by the skill has been increased.
• Backstab:
  • Strategist: This upgrade no longer reduces the cooldown of “Backstab”. It still reduces the cooldown of other sword skills when triggered.
• Jump Strike:
  • The jump and attack of this skill now have their own properties for target finding and movement to improve overall accuracy depending on distance.
  • The target finding has been adjusted for better translation against further away targets.
  • The target finding has been adjusted to be more accurate and consistent against closer targets.

Unholy Stulpen

• Healing Dodge: A bug was fixed where this passive skill not only reset your shortest active cooldown alongside its listed effects.

War Hammer

• Armor Breaker: A bug was fixed where players could not buffer attack inputs from war hammer skills into the skill “Armor Breaker”.
  • Hardened Steel:
  • We have reduced the damage mitigation from this passive skill from 20% to 12%.
  • The tooltip has been revamped to clarify that damage mitigation occurs with any active mut, not just from heavy attacks.
• Empowering Armor Breaker (item effect): A bug was fixed where this skill was applied for 5 seconds to all hits, not just the first.

Effects

• Weapon skill effects: Upgrades of effects of certain weapon skills can be found in the update notes for their respective weapons.
• Chain Effects
  • A bug was fixed where chain effects could hit targets through obstacles.
  • A bug was fixed where chain effects could appear on weapons where they shouldn’t appear (e.g., shields).
• Dodging: A bug was fixed where the icon for the effect “Dodging” was incorrectly displayed as “Standalone”.
• Endless Ammunition/Infinite Arrows:
  • A bug was fixed where the bag effect “Endless Ammunition/Infinite Arrows” did not scale correctly based on the armor rating for the chance of receiving ammunition/arrows.
  • A bug was fixed where the chance of receiving ammunition/arrows was not stacking correctly when you had multiple bags with the same effect.
• Energy Burst Counter: A bug was fixed where this effect was mistakenly activated with other equipment weights than “Light”.
• Collective Recovery: An inconsistency in the naming of this effect in some tooltips has been fixed.
• Eager Slitter: A bug was fixed where the tooltip for this effect displayed an incorrect bleed duration.
• Resistance: A bug was fixed where elemental resistance and physical resistance were not stacking correctly.
• Equipped Gems: A bug was fixed where debug text was shown instead of the actual values with gem effects.
• A bug was fixed where “Herald’s Fire Staff of the Wise” and “Herald’s Fire Staff of the Scholar” had the effects of each other’s weapon.

War/Invasion

• A bug was fixed where the Doom Destroyer could survive after both its eyes were destroyed.
• A bug was fixed where the Elixir of Purification removed debuffs during its duration but did not correctly prevent their reapplication.
• Players can now view the scoreboard while waiting for respawn.

Outpost Rush

Bug Fixes

• A bug was fixed where the Corrupted Legionnaire had no stamina.
• A bug was fixed where the dogs of the Corrupted Priest appeared to be skin-able shortly after death.
• A bug was fixed where the names of objects with which the player had previously interacted were displayed in Fort barriers in Outpost Rush.
• A wrong description for the Desertling Summoning Stone was corrected.
• A bug was fixed where rebuilt turrets appeared to be burning.
• A bug was fixed in Outpost Rush where the command post was shown as active before its completion.
• A bug was fixed where the map of the Outpost Rush was misaligned.

Optimizations

• Revamped point scoring in Outpost Rush:
  • Dealing damage now increases the points of players.
  • Killing players now gives fewer points.
  • Killing AI enemies now gives fewer points.
• The nameplates of several AI enemies in Outpost Rush have been graphically updated to better display their difficulty. However, the change in the nameplates does not mean that the AI enemies have been overhauled, except where stated below.
• The health of the Corrupted Priest has been increased by 10%.
• The damage dealt by the Corrupted Desertling has been reduced by 10%.
• The health of the Corrupted Desertling has been reduced by 13%.
• Summoned Spirits and Bears now take 150% bonus damage from siege damage.
• Summoned Corrupted Desertlings now take 200% bonus damage from siege damage.
• The base damage of the repeater has been increased by 20%.
• The base damage of the fire rain has been increased by 16%.
• More allied players at a checkpoint now provide more benefits. Each allied player in a non-contested point now accelerates the capture of the point by 3 seconds (previously 1.5 seconds). For non-contested points, this benefit applies up to 10 players with a minimum capture time of 30 seconds.
• The point lock of Baroness Hain has been reduced from 3 to 2.5 minutes.
• The throwers of explosive barrels on both sides of Outpost Sol have been replaced by ballista towers. Their construction costs 50 treated ore and 50 treated wood, and they are a good means to disable the defense of Outpost Sol.
  • The gun emplacements have been revamped to fit better to the ground.
• The rewards in Outpost Rush have been revamped.
  • Completing a match in Outpost Rush now gives Shadow Shards. There are 100 shards for the winning team and 50 shards for the losing team. To receive this reward, players must reach the required minimum score.
  • Completing a match in Outpost Rush now provides faction tokens. To receive this reward, players must reach the required minimum score.
  • Outpost Rush camps now provide 2 Outpost Rush armor pieces and 1 Outpost Rush weapon. Additionally, there’s a 15% chance for a fourth item, an Outpost Rush accessory.
    • There is a 2.5% chance that the rolled Outpost Rush item is a named item – the same probability as before.
  • Rewards in Outpost Rush camps now have a much higher chance to increase the player’s expertise.
  • For Outpost Rush equipment, there is now a fixed list of effects on the roll that better fit PvP combat. This means that attributes like “Beast Protection” are no longer possible on Outpost Rush equipment.
  • “Beast Protection” was removed from “Illusory Puzzle” and replaced with “Eager”. This change is not retroactive but applies only to new Illusory Puzzles after the patch.
  • Players can now view the scoreboard while waiting for respawn.

Quests

Important Bug Fixes

• The third fishing quest, “Baited”, has been improved. Baits can now be caught more easily and must be dismantled instead of simply being in the inventory.
• Loot PvP faction missions in the war camp will now reset upon fast traveling.
• Players will no longer be excluded from subsequent quests when they ask the faction representative in First Light about dyes.
• Bätyl headgear can now be correctly looted to complete the quest.
• The quest “Even Measure Alligators” can now be completed without resetting.
• The optional Siren Voice Orb now drops correctly during the quest “Long Live the Queen”.
• The difficulty of the last enemy in “Creaking Beams” has been adjusted.
• Map markers were added for “Safe Investment (Part 2)”.
• Map markers were added for “Invisible Paths”.
• The tokens received for the faction rank-up quest have been adjusted.
• Map markers were added for “The Queen is Dead”.

Economy, Progress & Rewards

Progress

• Level ups in Arcana, Armoring, Engineering, Carpentry, Jewelcrafting, and Weaponsmithing now require 10% less XP.

Rewards

• A bug was fixed that prevented family muskets R5 from dropping. It also fixes a bug where family muskets of lower ranks dropped at the wrong levels.
• Bartholomew in Thunder Harbor did not drop level-appropriate equipment. This has been fixed.
• Two missing housing items have been added to potential loot drops: “Wooden Side Table” and “Wobbly Twig Table”.
• Camps from strong corruption outbreaks now more likely increase proficiency.

Crafting

• Several R5 weapon blueprints were incorrectly labeled as “Legendary” while they actually produced epic items. These blueprints now correctly display the rarity “Epic”. Affected blueprints: The Cursed Herald (Longsword), Creator’s Mark (Axe), Stonebreaker (War Hammer), Eternal Twilight (Great Axe), The Needle (Rapier), Inquisition (Musketeer), Hidden Truth (Spear), Veil Stab (Bow), Wind Singer (Life Staff), Fading Crescent Moon (Fire Staff), Gift of the Ice Fairy (Ice Gauntlet), and Empty Promise (Unholy Stulpen).

Fishing

• The effectiveness of fishing bots has been reduced.

Important Bug Fixes

• A bug was fixed that prevented certain weapons dropped in the Lazarus Instrumenta expedition from being dismantled into materials of the correct rank. They now yield R5 materials upon dismantling. This bug also affected some crafted versions of these weapons and that has been corrected as well.
• The Forest Guardian set provided incorrect amounts of repair parts and coins when dismantled, and the costs for repair parts were also incorrect. The Forest Guardian armor pieces now provide the correct amounts and cost the correct number of repair parts when dismantled.
• The description of “Shard Crystallized Azoth” has been corrected. It now correctly states that it grants the “Divine” effect.
• A bug was fixed that filtered the Fur Guard set in the trading post using the wrong armor weight. It is now correctly filtered into “Medium Armor”.
• Several unused attribute mods have been removed from the trading post.
• A bug was fixed where some items were shown in the trading post even though they could not be traded.
• If a preview of weapon skins from the shop is displayed in a housing area, it no longer causes players to have the wrong weapon animations thereafter.
• A graphic issue with the “Rotten Erosion” clothing set has been fixed.
• A graphic issue with the “Golden Wrath Cloak” clothing set has been fixed.
• Graphic issues with the “Rogue” clothing set have been fixed.
• A graphic issue with the “Spiked Leather” clothing set has been fixed.
• Graphic issues with the weapon skin “Festive Spear” have been fixed.

UX/UI & Social

• There is now a trade chat channel.
• A tent camp notification has been added to alert players when they are out of range from their tent camp/no tent camp or have low health. Upon entering a waypoint, the status of your tent camp will be displayed in the banner.
• In the war overview, the average armor rating, weapon mastery for 2 equipped weapons, and the attribute distribution of players can now be displayed.
• Players can now see both allied and enemy player’s fort stats in Outpost Rush regarding the Desertling in the Corrupted Portal.
• In the crafting screen, the first plan should no longer be selected if you quickly select another plan while it’s being opened.

Important Bug Fixes

• Players can no longer schedule their siege windows during maintenance times.
• In the trading post UI, the displayed window should now correctly show the refunded coins based on the non-purchased remaining amount when a purchase order is canceled.
• A bug was fixed where ancestor muskets were displayed without an icon.
• A bug was fixed after a connection drop due to connection issues and a client crash on the loading screen while participating in an ongoing invasion.
• A bug was fixed where the voiceover of Bercina Thornton was missing in the quest “Same Fashion Taste”.
• A bug was fixed where the information for adjusting the weapon armor rating was not fully translated in all languages.
• A bug was fixed where the icons for “Timeless Ring Shard” and “Timeless Amulet Shard” did not match the icons of other resources.
• A bug was fixed where the icon for the PVP marker was displayed during war and Outpost Rush.
• A bug was fixed where connected Twitch accounts could see themselves in an underarm list.
• A bug was fixed where a check mark was displayed instead of an X in the banner of failed quests.
• Some translation errors in the competence tooltips of items were fixed.
• GM chat messages are now correctly displayed as from the GM.
• A tooltip on housing item limits has been added to indicate the limits for animated items and lighting items.
• Items in the faction shop with a cooldown between purchases now have a purchasing timer (hourglass symbol).
• An explanation of fishing spots has been added as a conversation topic with fishing NPCs.
• A tooltip has been added in the upper right on the details page of fishing skills in the “Skills” tab.
• The tooltips in the housing loading screen have been revamped to better describe how you can pick up your furniture and place it in your settlement’s storage.
• A typo in the spear “Defender of the Archaeologist” has been corrected.
• Multiple grammar errors in tips in the loading screen have been fixed.

Notes for the Public Test Area

The following notes have been added or revised based on internal testing and feedback from players in the public test area. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Endgame

• There is now no minimum drop time for yellow topaz.
• The minimum drop time for black gypsum has been reduced from 10 to 5 minutes.
• The minimum drop time for purple gypsum has been reduced from 2 minutes to 30 seconds.
• The faction trader now offers a gypsum orb that can be purchased once daily for 7000 faction tokens.

Talents Levels

• R3 talent boxes now provide crafting equipment at the forge.
• Talent boxes now drop with viscous azoth.

General Bug Fixes

• Armor Plates of the Ancients, Ancient Metal Wire, and Cold Forged Buckles cannot be earned in the game and are no longer incorrectly listed in the trading post.
• The new chat channel for trade has a new icon and text color.
• Shadow Shards can no longer be used to upgrade an item that has been removed from the player inventory and placed in a bag on the ground.
• A bug was fixed where players were not notified about expired orders in the trading post, indicating that they should return to the town storage.
• Several grammar errors in tips in the loading screen have been corrected.
• A bug was fixed where the shield action menu did not function correctly after canceling dyeing.

Open World

• Due to the lessons learned from lowering the base taxes in December, we want to lower the base tax costs further for players who own houses, to make life easier. In this update, we significantly lowered the tax rates themselves and increased the income earned directly from base taxes for companies (to offset the lower tax rates so that cities can continue to be operated as before). After these changes, we will continue to closely monitor the economy in the game and adjust the territory tax system as needed. Here are the specific changes for February:
  • The minimum base tax rate has been reduced from 5% to 0.1%.
  • The maximum base tax rate has been reduced from 10% to 1%.
  • The ruling company receives 5 times more coins from regional base taxes.
• The experience curve for level-up for fishing skill has been flattened by about 38%.
• The experience curve for cooking has been increased by about 30% as progress in this skill was significantly faster than in other skills. This should make the frequency of rewards for cooking talent more in line with those in other professions.
• Completing the Mutated Dynasty expedition now gives Sapphire Gypsum.
• The bosses in the Dynasty expedition now reward the same amount of coins as bosses in other endgame expeditions.
• Castings now yield 100-400 Shadow Shards instead of the previous 3-200.
• Crafting now yields 25-100 Shadow Shards instead of the previous 1-85.
• A bug was fixed where some players were locked out of chat at the start of their session for a few minutes.
• Graphic issues were fixed where tooltips in clothing made of treated silk displayed the wrong armor rating.
• We have ensured that the first item dropped by expedition bosses always provides an expertise boost.
• No debug text is now displayed on the Starstone Memory Ring.
• The server now teleports twice as many players in and out of wars, reducing wait times.
• A bug was fixed where the wrong attribute effect was rolled for fire staffs and life staffs in mutated expeditions.
• Mutator orbs now have 5 Mighty Gem Dust instead of 10.
• Mutator orbs can now be purchased in the faction shop every 3 days instead of every 7 days.

World

• The faulty collision in the northern spawn in Outpost Rush, which allowed enemy players access to the spawn, has been fixed.
• A bug was fixed that caused players to receive large amounts of Advent Stars. The amount has been adjusted to 4.

Quests

• Level-60 quests in Brackwater and Breakwater now yield gypsum orbs as a reward.
• The experience reward for side quests (level 10-60) has been increased by 50%.

Travel

The Azoth costs of fast travel have long been a problem for players completing quests, depositing items, or just exploring the wilderness of Aeternum. Given high base costs and additional costs for distance and encumbrance, traveling to the next step in a quest could feel more cumbersome than it should be. To remedy this, we are lowering fast travel costs and shortening the cooldown for retreating to your last inn:

• Fast traveling from towns and shrines now has a base cost of 20 Azoth.
• The costs no longer change due to distance or weight.
• The standard cooldown for retreating to the inn has been reduced from 1 hour to 30 minutes.
• The costs for resetting the fast travel cooldown from houses have been reduced from 50 to 20 Azoth.

We are aware that these changes will result in significantly more Azoth remaining in the game world and many players will have more than they can use in the near future. We are also aware that this will neutralize the bonuses for faction control points in certain regions. We want to address these pitfalls in a future update. However, we did not want the improvement of your travel experience to be delayed for this reason.

Mutations

• The flammability tooltip now correctly describes the effect on players.

AI

• A bug was fixed where Corrupted Priests would repeatedly run back and forth in forts during invasions instead of attacking.

Combat

• The tooltip for “Eager Slitter” now gives the correct duration. Previously, a cooldown of 10 seconds was displayed as the duration of damage over time instead of the correct 6 seconds.
• After a melee attack, there is no longer a delay before you can run again.
• The sliding after dodging or rapid direction changes has been reduced.

Unholy Stulpen

The Unholy Stulpen are currently a bit too effective at holding and killing targets before they can escape from the root caused by “Petrifying Cry”. We are extending the cooldown of “Petrifying Cry” to make this deadly combo rarer and reducing the damage of the Decay Sphere to make it less likely to kill these harder opponents. Since the Decay Sphere also has many other functions like healing and weakening, we believe we can reduce its damage without making the skill overall less attractive.

Petrifying Cry

• Cooldown extended from 15 to 25 seconds

Decay Sphere

• Skill base damage reduced from 100% to 90%
• Exploding sphere: Explosion damage reduced from 100% to 70%

Rapier

We see that many players use the rapier mainly for its defensive capabilities as a secondary weapon. While we expected this behavior in a two-weapon system, we think this setup is a bit too effective when running away. Therefore, we are increasing the cooldowns of the abilities in the Elegance tree. As compensation for the longer cooldown when dodging, we are swapping the upgrades “Crescendo” and “Inhale” to allow players who use dodging offensively to reduce the cooldowns better.

Riposte

• Cooldown increased from 12 to 18 seconds.

Dodge

• Cooldown increased from 6 to 12 seconds.
• The positions of the upgrades “Crescendo” and “Inhale” have been swapped. Due to this change, the points spent in this tree will be refunded and need to be redistributed.

Fléche

• Cooldown increased from 17 to 20 seconds.

Great Axe

We have received feedback that the changes to “Source of Gravity” in PTR have reduced its effectiveness too much. Therefore, we are trying a different approach. The new version of “Source of Gravity” roots your targets after the first pull and then causes a stronger slow, making it harder for opponents to escape the damage impulse without using a movement ability.

• Gravity (passive): A bug was fixed that prevented this skill from functioning.
• Source of Gravity: This skill has been revised compared to the previous PTR version.
• The pulling now pulls opponents more reliably into the center.
• Enemies pulled into the center of the vortex are rooted for 1 second.
• Slow has been increased from 55% to 60%.
• The duration of the slow field has been reset back to 3 seconds so that it lasts until the explosion.

Server

• Players must now be nearby each other to trade and send gold. Players who are in an invalid location receive an appropriate error message.
• Several bugs related to transferring characters to other worlds have been fixed.

What do you think of the big February patch? Are you satisfied with the changes or do you miss an important adjustment?