As announced in the last roadmap update, here comes a new major release!
Let's get into it - but first, a surprise!
Heaven's Bounty
The first Special Event of Fractured Online is here!
From now until Monday, October 28 at 8am UTC, all players will enjoy the following bonuses:
- Doubled Divine Reward drops. This applies only to Divine Reward drops that go directly into your inventory, i.e. random drops from regular monsters, Corrupted monsters and Iridia coins. Time to farm those Babilis and Iridia trials!
- Doubled Divine Favor gains. This applies to all the Gods!
- +50% Gold drops. This applies to gold that goes into the inventory of monsters.
...and now, to the patch log!
Consumables
The patch is focused on consumables, which have been completely reworked. In a nutshell, these are the major changes:
- Consumables now have their own dedicated slot in the hotbar.
- There are way more consumables than before, split into three different categories: poisons, bandages, and potions.
- Consumables are much stronger than before, but their cooldown is higher.
- Whole new items are needed to craft consumables, such as Gem Dusts and Awakened Energy.
- A new city building has arrived: the Herbalism Shop!
Please note that the items that used to be called “potions” (the ones consumed from the inventory when resting) are now called “elixirs“. They have also been tweaked, in that a third power tier has been added, and their crafting requirements changed.
Interested in getting all the details? Then check out this google doc!
Please note that the old consumables crafted from fireplaces have been removed from the game. In order to compensate the players who crafted them, they've been converted into the material used to craft them. This means that if you had 50 Arnica Teas in a chest, you'll find 50 Arnica Leaves there.
Also, please note that low-toxicity elixirs (e.g. Elixir of Luck) now have one tier only, which power-wise is in between the old T1 and T2. Existing items of both tiers have been converted into the new item.
Balancing
This patch is guaranteed to shake the PvP meta - and not only because of consumables. Check out the additional changes below!
Armor Penetration
The working of Armor/Magic Penetration has changed. Let's assume you have 50% armor penetration and your opponent has 1500 armor (which means 75% damage reduction).
- Before: you would deal damage as if your opponent had 750 armor (which means 60% damage reduction).
- Now: 50% of your damage goes through unmitigated, and 50% is mitigated (by 1500 armor, ie 75%).
What this means in practice is that Armor Penetration is now more powerful, particularly against targets with high armor. Because of this, we had to reduce all numbers from weapons, talents and attributes. While before a character with a dagger, 23 DEX and the talents would hit 50% pen (the cap), the same character with 25 DEX now hits 30%.
How does 30% now compare to 50% before? Let's assume you deal 100 damage:
- Before, 50% resist opponent (light): 50 => 67
- Before, 75% resist opponent (tank): 25 => 40
- Now, 50% resist opponent (light): 50 => 65
- Now, 75% resist opponent (tank): 25 => 48
As you can see, it's slightly less powerful vs a light user, and clearly more powerful vs a heavy user. Moreover, all statuses and abilities that used to reduce armor (e.g. rend armor, impale, corrosion...) now reduce it the same way, ie they apply armor pen on the victim. The total armor pen is capped at 50%, while before the cap was only on your modifiers, but abilities pushed above.
In sum Armor Penetration is now much stronger and desirable than before if you are fighting against a tank.
Battlemage Armor
The effect now works with ranged weapons too!
This is a small change, but is likely to be very impactful, giving birth to whole new competitive builds, so it deserved its own paragraph.
Misc Fixes & Changes
There's a lot here!
- Nelena teleport charges now refresh correctly every day at midnight UTC.
- The legends spawned in the Galvanos Trial are now 5 instead of 3 but no longer show on the world map (they still do on the minimap).
- Eviction notices no longer reset on server restart.
- The Loot All button now work if your inventory is full but the items you are picking can stack with items you already have.
- After defeating a Summoned Legend, all its minions instantly disappear.
- Giving attack and movement commands at the same time no longer makes your character behave in funny ways.
- The Mending Staff is now visible in the progress wheel.
- Decayed cities no longer remain part of a nation.
- The summoned Skeletal Warrior now correclty displays its name.
Some other very minor bug fixes are not listed to keep this shorter.
This is all. Stay tuned for the Free To Play date announcement next week! Cheers!
