Greetings Adventurers!
Much has been happening in TADO since last we spoke so there's quite a bit to get through. Before going into details here's a quick update on the events currently live in game.
With the Steam Autumn sale we had a quest running to allow new characters to gain a unique cosmetic item set, we've decided to keep this running throughout the Winter Sale and upto the new year, so there's still time!
Mr Claws has also been seen once again around the world with sightings in Genmire Isle, The Ice Kingdom and Star Island stealing the presents of the locals. With an updated loot table this year including a variety of drops of all qualities and tiers we've also added some rarer items like Restful Herbs for unlearning so good luck recovering those presents! Keep an eye out for announcements of Mr Claws arrival in the events channel in game.
As a thank you for all the people who had played and been part of the community this year, from the 25th onwards you'll be able to pick up your presents from under the tree in Genmire (assuming Mr Claws hasn't run off with them all!)
Lastly on current events, for the duration of the holiday events we've swapped out the item given away with every Token purchase to a cosmetic head item of a somewhat festive pair of antlers.
Onto the more in-depth news about recent updates and changes in TADO, and there's been quite a lot.
We recently pushed one of the largest patches which has completely rebuilt the UI, gone are the full-screen panels and we welcome more traditional MMO stylings with multiple windows you can drag around and position as you like.
We’ve also gone through the player character models and upgraded the quality of the available hair styles, its looking much nicer and gives us the ability to have longer hair interact with the wind and your movements. You’ll also be able to go and get your hair cut and dyed at the newly opened Rogue Town Barbers.
We have a limited time quest going on at the moment where if you make a new character you will start with an additional quest to complete the main story as far as Rogue Town, a few hours in for most players. Upon completion you’ll be rewarded with the new limited Infiltrator's Armour cosmetic set - we'd originally planned for this to run through just the Autumn sale but thought we might as well give more people a chance and continue it through the winter sale too.
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the look of the game, Rogue Town has been completely overhauled to provide a better experience to players arriving there, it not only looks a lot nicer but also performs a lot better.
Speaking of performance there’s been some pretty major changes to some of the way the game renders objects, which in Genmire Isle and the Great Sea has lad to reducing the amount of time a frame takes to render by ~50% which will result of significant FPS gains on most hardware.
We’ve also substantially expanded the amount of settings and quality controls available to players making it easier to reach a smooth 60fps at high resolutions on most hardware. This also includes the latest FSR3 upscaling options which can have a dramatic influence on frame rate particularly at higher resolutions.
We've also added some quality of life improvements people have asked for such as being able to zoom out more and offset the cameras position relative to the character further left or right.
Finally, on gameplay, every Stamina based skill has been looked at and adjusted. Stamina previously worked as a resource you had to manage a bit like mana, only it came back faster and you had much less, it throttled your ability to use your chosen abilities.
However, with many such abilities having cooldowns anyway, and most players having a favourite one or two stamina abilities, the weaker ones tended to be disregarded or not that useful competing for that precious stamina. To make this feel better, we’ve basically removed the stamina costs of most abilities and are letting the cooldowns be their primary resource for these kind of builds. This has made melee (and to some degree ranged) combat, particularly when using second weapons, or shields, a lot better flowing and makes a larger range of skill gems more viable as secondary abilities and buffs.
Thanks again for all the support throughout the year, look forward to seeing you all in the new year as we open a portal into the demon world and find out what's pushing them to Star Island.
Take care Adventurers, happy holidays!