Overview
This patch is HUGE. We’ve been working hard for months and we’re very happy to present it for your evaluation. We’ve worked on way too many things to list them all individually, so here are the main updates in this patch.
Please use the Feedback button to update us on any new issues (in the Options Panel in game)
The World
This patch begins with population of large sections of the world with content to explore. We intend to deliver additional content over the next week to add more life to the world. The inner areas of the world (grassland/forest) are mostly populated with more being added next week in the remaining grassland and entire tundra areas.
3rd Person View
After substantial player demand, we are happy to bring you 3rd Person perspective and hope you enjoy it. After testing it extensively over the last few months we feel it’s an amazing feature that we know players will love.
Improved Map & Minimap
The world map has been greatly updated (not final) to show a high level of detail to player surroundings. The minimap in world and the dungeons has been implemented. The dungeon minimap is a first pass and will be revised and finalized in a pass early next week.
Performance
Below is an Overview of performance upgrades:
• Upgrade Engine to Unreal 4.17
• Optimized Rendering Performance in the world and enabled multiple cascaded shadow maps (shadows will now vary with quality)
• Fixed multiple player mount bugs
• Fixed issues with foot surface detection (correcting sound as well)
• Prioritize asynchronous loading of player armor to smooth loading of characters
• Added global chat, /g as shortcut. This functions across the entire world.
• Character stat panels now update your stats more accurately.
• Improved UI for Player screens, Journal, and NPC interactions
• NPC interaction text now accurate.
Player Stats
Player stats have been revised and balanced. This should allow for players to have a more even gameplay experience in terms of combat. Prior to this magic damage would be mitigated twice (via armor reduction and magic resistance reduction). In the new system, spells will be reduced via Magic resistance (which is a new stat that provides resistance to all types of magic) and physical damage will be reduced my armor. Armor factor no longer has any effect on magic/spell damage.
Magic Resistance is a new stat that applies to all magics (some items may still have additional magic resists that would be additive to the base Magic Resistance stat for a specific type of magic). Players should keep in mind that abilities may have more than one damage type that is mitigated by different stats (i.e. Poison Arrow features an initial damage that is physical (armor mitigated) damage, and a damage over time that is Nature (magic resistance) damage).
In addition to this change, player stats will now more align with the classes they play. All player abilities now scale off a classes primary attack power. Melee Attack Power for Champions and Rogues, Spell Power for Wizards and Clerics, and Ranged Attack Power for Rangers. Players will no longer have to worry about a balance of all types of spell powers to affect the output of their abilities.
• New stats have been added to the game
• Glancing Blow, Deflection, Magic Resistance, Armor Penetration and Spell Penetration will now appear on items
• Glancing Blow allows a chance to avoid taking a critical hit from physical damage, the hit is reduced to a normal damage blow
• Deflection functions like Glancing blow but applies to magic/spell damage
• Armor Penetration allows for a chance for a physical attack to bypass armor mitigation completely
• Spell Penetration allows a chance for magical attacks to bypass magic resistance completely.
Abilities
Abilities have largely been refactored to work with the new stats. Some abilities have had their effects increased slightly, some reduced. The overall goal is for a more balanced contribution from the different classes offering a different style of gameplay.
• Ability Tooltips will now show players what they do at different levels of an ability regarding their specifics output
• Players can now Parry when they have a weapon equipped (like block)
o Parry will reduce all damage from an incoming blow if timed correctly.
The Inn
The Everdale Inn has been transformed and will no longer allow players to instantly queue for dungeons. This was a functionality that was largely a stop gap while we were fixing areas of the world to support dungeons being zoned into from portals found from player exploration. Players will need to explore the world to locate the dungeons.
Maps
Players can now find maps after completing dungeons in the world. Upon completion of a dungeon (killing the final boss) all players should receive a “map” for that dungeon. These maps will function like sitting at the Inn. Once a player has a map to a dungeon they can speak with the map merchant in town (Jeran Falstead) and he will function like the old tables at the inn. Only the group leader is required to have a map when interacting with Jeran to allow for instant travel to the dungeon.
Gameplay Improvements
• Graveyards have been added to the world allow players to respawn near their location rather than teleport back to Everdale.
• Multiple Bindstones are present in the world that the player can access or use. Players will gain a new teleport stone for each location and be able to use that teleport stone in your inventory to instantly travel to the Bindstone location in the world. This will function as a means for players to fast travel.
• New item tags (Quest, Unique, Soulbound (cannot be traded))
• Adjusted/Improved Player character animations (both 1st and 3rd person)
• Adjusted/Improved NPC movement (removed stutter and sliding of NPC’s)
• Added dynamic cloth (fixed bug that cause cloth artifacting)
• Adjusted timing of Melee combat to feel more impactful (in both 1st and 3rd person perspectives)
• Implemented Parry animation sets for 1st and 3rd person
• Harvest nodes for raw materials have been added to the world for ore and herbs.
• Animals now drop leather.
• The materials vendor currently only sells thread. Cloth, ore and leather availability will be increased in a patch early next week on NPC’s in the world.
• NPC’s in the world have only been added to the inner sections of the world (the grassland/forest area). The snow-covered areas of the world will have NPC’s added and patch mid next week.
• Time of Day has been increased to be approximately 4 hours for a full day/night cycle.
PvP
We made the decision to remove PvP gameplay from the game. As the game was built it largely wasn’t designed with balancing PvP gameplay for players, nor supporting the varied content needed to allow for PvP. We had always intended the game to be a PvE experience and for the time being are focused on finishing and improving that part of the game.
Quests
The initial quests have been added to the game in town. These represent only about 20 quests currently with a couple hundred more being patched in next week.
• Quest giving NPC’s will now have a green rim shader if they have a quest to offer a character. When a quest has had its requirements met the rim shader will turn yellow for the appropriate turn in NPC.
Founders Items
Founders Items are no longer available for purchase in game. If you have the items you can keep them but will not be able to purchase them in the game now or anytime in the future. We want to thank those that were earlier adopters for their support.
What’s remaining for launch?
• A “Heroism” system. This is an amazing end game system that allows you to specialize your class even further. This allows for progress well past level 50!
• Loot system revision (dungeon loot as well as crafting patterns and materials)
These two things are being worked on now and will be added soon!
Disclaimer
Keep in mind Kings and Heroes is a massively multiplayer online game and as such we’ve tried hard to create a large, vast, living, breathing world. Even though we will be launching soon, we intend to add content since it is never truly “finished”.
Thank you for support…see you in game!
