Hello Warriors!
This may be the update, where we are implementing the performance improvements allowing us to push the boundaries even further! Recent battles, especially one of the biggest State of War events in the history of the Eaglewood server, gave us a lot of data to achieve better results in-game optimization, performance, and stability on more loaded servers.
This week we are introducing some big changes in response to our Community’s voice, including some important fixes of some game mechanics. Addressing your feedback and reports we are also allowing some new strategies and introducing new tools, regarding balance changes between defenders and attackers in sieges.
Like always, there also are a lot of Quality of Life improvements and fixes. Check the details below and see you in battle!
The screenshot’s and artwork authors have been awarded. Wintar, Vt, Jeff and Queen Dzena ibn Taxi – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.5.8 Beta
Game optimization:
We are happy to introduce the first part of the announced Beta Network Traffic Optimization! Improvements have been made on both – client and server sides. In addition to overall optimizations and improvements, we improved our DDOS protection system and also found some minor issues that have been fixed right away. Changes should be noticeable for everyone and most visible in situations where there are a lot of players in one area, like on occasions of siege events or the State of War.
That is not the end of the task, but it is a huge step forward and we will continue our work to provide you the best possible performance and game experience!
Siege engines:
As mentioned in the previous update, we are working on changing the spawn system of siege engines during the siege, and implementing more unique ways to counter various tactics and approaches of both – defenders and attackers. First iterations of those changes and improvements are introduced in this update, so please, keep in mind that there are more to come in the following weeks!
In this update, we are introducing a new siege engine for attackers. Warwolf – visible on the map, stationary siege trebuchet spawned on attackers' siege tent (only by tent owner) will be able to hit castle ballistas and walls to reduce ballista vs bows meta, opening a new way to counter stacked defensive siege engines while reducing the risk of being focused and quickly destroyed after entering the ballista range. This machine has limited ammunition and only one can be spawned per nation. It has great range and it will be hard to reach it with a ballista shot, but It is vulnerable to defenders raids on enemy siege camps, so place and use it carefully.
In light of recent events, we also confirm that some non-expected actions could be considered as bypassing the game rules and systems assumptions, because of design loopholes, so we are making some changes related to traitor and friendly fire mechanics too. From now on, hitting allied siege engines or horses with FF turned on will trigger a penalty on reputation and traitor debuff as it is done while hitting a player. You will also not be able to hit allies with siege engines, even with turned on Friendly fire or with Traitor status.
Siege engines are from now nation bound and there are some new rules to use them efficiently:
– Spawned siege engines have the same nation as the player who spawned them
– Allied siege engines have a green HP bar, enemy and neutral ones have a red HP bar
– Siege engines assigned to the location have the same nation as the location flag
– Siege engines assigned to the location are changing their nation the moment the location flag changes it. In such a case player who drives the machine will be kicked out from it if an engine-related flag is not under his nation control
A very important change is also removing a possibility to capture and use siege engines spawned by enemies. Of course, you can still destroy them. There are some exceptions from those rules above, like Emperor's Flame in siege camps and event siege engines (like those ones on Sirius Event).
We hope you will like the changes since they are introducing more diversity into the State of War and making features of the game related to that system more distinguishable. We are making such things to make more clear what can be considered as politics and what as an exploit of game mechanics, and also to create even more potential solutions of attack, defense, and counterattack, both for attackers and defenders.
Sometimes it is great to just admire the charming views in the game. Thank you for such nice capture!
Nukers on spawns:
Some of you are aware that NPC nukers who are guarding spawns in Gloria Victis to prevent spawn camping were causing some troubles. This system was not bad, but we found a better and easier solution. NPC spawn guards were removed from the game and from now on, spawn areas will have zones that will deal enemy nation players' damage over time.
Spawn Points are of course protected by colliders and placed in a way that prevents enemies from getting on them, but still, in some edge cases, as an example – when the flag is changing its nation, some players spawned before the change were able to stay on spawn and wait for other nation players. Nuker had a downside that his attacks could be blocked and could focus only one player that was where he should not be, and the new system removes all of those issues.
We hope the new system will be warmly welcomed and we are counting on your feedback and reports if some zones or their damage would need adjustment.
Quality of life:
We received some reports about inconsistencies in the max capacity of resources that can be stored and acquired from guild locations economic systems, and looking on that we decided to make a full overhaul of that and update the system to meet the recent economical game changes. As it was planned from the beginning, Forts, which are dedicated to farming will have the biggest farming-related resources capacity, Economic Castles and Strongholds are the most balanced and universal but still will have lesser farming resources capacity than forts. The whole system has been reviewed and we made sure to make it fair and unified for all types of locations and ingame nations.
– Hitting allied players horses with Friendly fire turned on is giving reputation penalty and traitor debuff
– Hitting allied siege engines with Friendly fire turned on is giving reputation penalty and traitor debuff
– Improvements of the most deadly areas that had a bad impact on new players retention
– Improved Thorstein’s dialogue and NPC enemies difficulty in one of Ismir questlines which had a bad impact on players retention
– Improved “Kill the traitors” event and fixed all known issues related to it
– Balance of chests and NPC enemies in 4th questline of each nation
– Christmas event has been ended
– Karleonian Greaves no longer have their own shoes attached, which will remove most of the clipping issues
– Updated the model and icon of Karelonian Heavy boots
– Fixed some of the reported clipping issues in regular and cosmetic skins equipment models
Fixes:
– Fixed the position of Villagers Workshop on Baalhammon farm, it got stuck at the doors to the main building somehow
– Fixed an issue with collider of oblique short wall model, which allowed to get under the walls textures
– Fixed the navmesh issue in the new wooden main building model, which was preventing guards and NPC’s to reach and interrupt capturing of the flag
– Fixed an edge case issue with corrupted character creation that could prevent access to the game
– Fixed the collider of a small battering ram, to prevent players from getting stuck inside it
We had a funny discussion at the office earlier today since this update number was more "even" for part of our team than the recent 250th update, but luckily we agreed that there are many people that are usually using integers instead of powers of two, so they may not understand "Weekly Update 2^8" title. ;/