Greetings, medieval adventurers!
We are updating the game with a fancy new mining minigame and a bunch of other smaller changes and features related to XP-progression and online play. Additionally, we implemented a technical improvement to alleviate the loading stutter that occurs when the game is loading new areas of the world during movement.
Let's get into it!
Non-Combat Skill Progression
A recurring theme in player feedback has been skill levels feeling like a slog, which we partly addressed in our previous update by tuning combat experience gains, and continue here with giving similar treatment for a lot of the non-combat skills.
General XP gains
The game always was intended to be slower pace, and in fairness some players are never going to gel with that and will always wish it was something different. At the same time, we can recognize that a lot of the skills have had the habit of getting very stretched indeed, and that the effort spent on gathering + refining materials and crafting items should feel more rewarding.
In any case, XP gains have been increased across the board on non-combat harvesting, crafting, refining, and other related skilling activities.
The largest increases are focused around the mid-game, where progression previously began slowing down more sharply than perhaps intended. We also wanted to encourage players who won't level all the way to the end to make it at least a little further up on the ladder.
Skilling Minigames: The Silderglass Tunnel
Hidden deep at the back of Ratcliffe Mines you may now find a brand new skill-levelling minigame - The Silderglass Tunnel.
You'll find the dig site occupied by a crew called the Silder Rats, who are a bunch of rogue miners working an extremely unstable and hazardous tunnel in hopes of extracting the great prize of Silderglass from its other end.
But for some reason the tunnel is extremely hazardous and unstable! The rocks keep shifting about and the roof keeps collapsing down on the poor miners.
You'll need to work with some wit and speed to reach the Silderglass Vein on the other side. Alternatively, the tunnel is also a good place to dig for regular ore, although take care not to get too greedy and bring the whole place down on you!
Found deep within the Ratcliffe Mines.
Any Silderglass you do manage to collect may be exchanged with the Silder Rats for new rewards, including the ever important mining outfit that comes complete with an attached lantern, as well as a mythical dwarven contraption that may be of great help when slaying monsters for crafting materials!
Two new equipment sets have been added for mining and tailoring that may also be used to boost xp gains.
The Mythical Dwarven Mill
The Dwarven Mill is a mysterious new device obtainable as a reward from the Silder Rats mining crew. Once placed on the ground, it collects additional loot from monsters you defeat nearby without reducing your normal drops.
The idea behind the new item is to give players a bit more control when intentionally hunting for specific drops. If you’re grinding out monsters for a particular crafting material or some other item, you can place the device on the ground nearby to temporarily boost those drops in that area, with the option to spend Coins for even higher drop rates.
The Dwarven Mill has its own inventory and anything it generates can either be claimed directly or sent straight to your bank. By default, the device generates additional loot at 0.5x the normal drop rate at no cost. However, you may also feed the device a ton of coins to increase its rate of generation to:
1x - 2000 coins per 15 minutes
2x - 10 000 coins per 15 minutes
3x - 50 000 coins per 15 minutes
But beware! The mysterious device may attract the unwanted attention of nearby 'opportunists' looking to make off with its contents, so don't just set it and forget it!
Other Minigames
The other existing skill-related minigames also received minor tweaks and improvement.
Thornbark Sawmill
XP gains at higher woodcutting levels at the Sawmill have been increased to help the activity maintain its relevance as your skills increase. We’ve also finally improved Tom the Cart Guy’s pathing, so he should be significantly less likely to get stuck while making his rounds, as has been often reported.
Shearston Tailoring
And again, the Tailoring minigame XP gains have been increased especially at higher skill levels. But additionally the game did get a few other QoL tweaks.
The target dye will now change less frequently, giving you more time to work towards the current color before having to switch. The aforementioned tailoring outfit has also been added to the reward shop, and we’ve reduced the wandering distance of the Wooly Sheep, making them a little easier to keep track of.
Mistywood Fishing Jetties
And once more, the XP gains at higher Fishing levels have been increased for the Mistywood Fishing Jetties. Additionally the minigame now requires Level 13 Fishing to initiate.
New Online Features
Based partly on player suggestions and partly on our own curiosity, we've added a few experimental online features that let you interact with other players in new ways.
A friendly reminder, though: the game is still designed as a single-player experience, not an MMO or fully multiplayer game. These online features don't change that, and we don't have control over things like other players using mods or cheats.
So please treat the online elements as a fun extra on top of the single-player game, rather than a competitive or tightly controlled multiplayer environment.
Network Regions
First off, you can now select your network region from the Online options menu. By default, the region will be set to US East, and your ping will be displayed after selecting and connecting to a region.
Players can only see other players connected to the same server within the same region, so keep this in mind when trying to meet up with friends.
Player Duels
We've added an option to challenge other players into duels.
To initiate, right-click another player and challenge them to a duel. The duel ends when either player is defeated or leaves the area. Once the duel ends, both players are automatically restored to full health.
If somebody cheats, we won't do anything about it. Just don't duel them.
Player Trading
Player-to-player trading is now available. Maybe you can be the good wizard helping out struggling new players, or something similar.
To initiate, right-click another player and select the trade option to begin exchanging items.
Party Chat
You can invite your friends to a party chat, giving the option to toggle chat messages within a party, which will be displayed globally regardless where you are on the map. When pressing Enter to chat, you can switch between Local and Party depending on who you want to talk to.
Additionally the feature will open a sidebar displaying each other's location and health. You'll also be displayed to each other as dots on the minimap and the world map.
The party members must be connected to the same online region and the same server to appear as Online. If a member is connected elsewhere or is no longer online, they will appear as Offline instead, along with their last known location.
Phantom Combat Npcs
You can now see a non-interactable phantom of the enemy another player is currently fighting, whereas other players would previously appear to be attacking empty air, as the enemy npc was only visible in their local game.
This still doesn't mean that you're in any way able to partake in another player's fight, the game merely now displays the information about what they're fighting.
Optimizations
We discovered and implemented a set of optimizations aimed at reducing the stuttering that occurs when loading new areas of the game during player movement. These changes have resulted in a slightly larger game file size, but we believe the improvement in overall performance is well worth the tradeoff.
This was a fairly substantial back-end change, so there may be some unexpected graphical glitches or other visual oddities that slipped through testing. If you notice anything out of place - well, more so than usual - please use the in-game bug report button to let us know.
Misc
Fixed a bug where Loras the Nimble would heal some enemy barbarians in the Amarien Mountains - talk about betrayal!
Fixed Training Dummies awarding clean-kill defense XP.
Fixed a bug where some player followers and pets could be hit by friendly player abilities.
