Hello Steam! It's been quite a while since we've updated on here or on our website, I'm so sorry yet again about this and the fault is mine! We've had our heads down and working non-stop with little thought of anything else to get this patch finished and polished for you guys to enjoy. This patch is more than a simple patch, but our first go at a large "Expansion" styled update. Hopefully this update tackles at least a few parts of issues that players have been reporting to us that have stifled their fun in-game. We understand that one update can't fix everything or make anything perfect this time around, but we're dedicated to the long-term game here and we hope over time we can evolve Leafling into something much more than it is now. Without further ado lets get into all thats changing in Patch 1.5 - Artemian Eclipse
New Content:
*Main Story Quest: Chapters 1-3 including a live MSQ event titled Artemian Eclipse that will alter the game world and cause strange things to happen around the world.
*New Event Portal: Andariel will be going on vacation as we introduce a new Event Portal boss fight! This time face off against the Eclipse itself, taking on both the Sun and Moon Prophet in an intense twin-boss fight!
*New Zone - Thundering Plateau: A new zone has been released with new quests, new repeatable content, an intense new dungeon, new world bosses, gear, crafting, and more!
*Role Mastery System: Enhance your power further at Level 30 by unlocking Role Mastery to unlock a new Spell from a list of your Role. These role masteries are **not** reset but will be a challenge to master
*Tower of Hazel: An intense end-game dungeon featuring a plethora of challenging boss fights that increase in difficulty the deeper you go. Upon release of 1.5 the Tower will contain 10 floors. More floors will be added over time as players progress in power and make it through the Tower.
*New Gear: Over the duration of patch 1.5 there will be over 100 new pieces of gear added to the game via drops and crafting recipes. On release day over 50 of these items will be immediately available to craft and farm.
*New Enchantments: 30 New enchantments for gear are being added to pump up playstyle customization even more! These new enchantments are focused on new unique build paths to open more build opportunities for nearly every class.
New Player Experience
In the past few months, the new player experience in Leafling has degraded as we added new content to the game with an increasing power spike. We would like to directly address this and make it much more accessible for new and casual players to make it into the end game at an acceptable power level so that they can both feel the power of their progression, and also not be a hassle to the parties they join by being undergeared in end-game content.
Tutorial Overhaul: Chapter I of the MSQ contains a new tutorial going over multiple important components of the game such as crafting, class changes, shops, enchanting, and more. Also upon level 30 players are now directly guided to the Ancient Forge quest where they also recieve a more in-depth tutorial on enchanting and how to progress.
Tomb of the Ancients Overhaul: Tomb of the Ancients is the first dungeon freshly Level 30 players will start in to begin farming their first legendaries. As of now the dungeon is too hard for small parties of new players, and some players can't even find groups, softlocking their progression. To remedy this and help boost newer players into the real meat of endgame, Tomb of the Ancients is being changed to a much more scaled down dungeon where the bosses can be killed by a single level 30 player with base common level 25-30 gear. (You will still need a friend to open to gate for you)
Early Dungeon Overhaul: Slime Queen and Gnoglin Warchief have been the bane of new players, restricting them from the fun of practicing in early game dungeons to help their leveling experience. Both of these dungeons are being scaled down massively to more properly reflect the difficulty of the recommended level (IE: Level 10's can not currently defeat Slime Queen reasonably despite it being a Level 10 boss)
Balancing
Player Health Adjustments: All classes have recieved a reasonably large increase in base MaxHP per level. This will help mitigate one-shot-one-kill instances which aren't fun for anyone. This also allows us to slightly scale up player power without PvP fights becoming too fast, and scale bosses up without becoming impossible. (This also acts as a buff for new players as they will gain more survivability during the leveling process)
Overall Class Balance: During the course of patch 1.5 we will be targeting more balance overhauls as we near an equilibrium with class power. This will be an ongoing battle but we're determined to find a fun and balanced state for both PvP and PvE
New Classes
5 New Classes are entering the spotlight over the course of Patch 1.5 (DISCLAIMER: The new classes listed here will not be immediately available upon the release of patch 1.5 but rather will be rolled out periodically during the following weeks so that we don't overload the game with a flurry of balance issues. The new classes are:
Timeweaver: A mystical weaver of time and space. Control the fundamental weave of reality to aid allies, debuff enemies, and unleash cosmic furies upon your foes.
Shinobi: A deadly assassin who relies on their arsenal of high damage abilities and fast paced gameplay. High barrier to entry, but high skill ceiling.
Ronin: A wandering bladesman wielding a powerful katana. Imbue your katana with mystical energies and harness your dance-like swordfighting style to outplay and destroy your enemies in 1v1 combat.
Necromancer: A force of life and death that onslaughts foes with a serious of damage-over-time abilities and self sustaining blood pacts.
Wrap Up
I wanted to take this moment to express my sincere apologies on the poor state of the public side of the game. This isn't an excuse but we are an extremely small team working on a massive project, and while we make great process at fast rates, and we're dedicated to this game for the long haul, sometimes things like publicity can fall to the way side. I promise I will be doing everything I can to improve the state of updates here on Steam and on our official website to keep you guys in the loop as much as I can, though, as you can see by our "Weekly Update" idea, those things tend to fall through and add unnecessary pressure, so we won't be sticking to any concrete update times, but when we have enough to share we'll be compiling it and posting it here for you guys to enjoy!
Patch 1.5 Launches on March 25, 2021.