Feudals,
this patch marks the transition of “Seasonal Arden” to Age 3! Let’s revise which modifiers will become active in the “seasonal” world:
Starting from Age 3, players will receive a seasonal modifier called Blacksmith’s bonus, which will speed up all blacksmith actions.
Starting from Age 3, players will receive a mining-focused seasonal bonus called Miner’s Bonus, which boosts ore logistics and encourages active mining during mid-to-late season. It also reduces carried weight of all mined ore types by 25%.
Along with the “Age” change, the patch includes some completely new features which we teased in our previous updates, during the dev.talks and AMAs. Many in the community mentioned that they wish the game would give more reasons to venture beyond the walls of guild strongholds, make the world feel more responsive and facilitate engagement between players through competition over points-of-interest (POI). With today’s expansion, we strive to make the first step in answering that call.
Treasure chests
This update introduced a new feature to the “Seasonal Arden” - “Treasure chests”! The chests are designed to be an important source of valuable resources, thus becoming a new POI on the map. There will be several different kind of chests:
Small treasure Chest
Medium Treasure Chest
Large Treasure Chest
Epic Treasure Chest
To claim the treasure, players must venture into the big knoll camps on s82 or s52.
Come prepared! The chests are protected by a new kind of knools - the “brutes”. Those are the toughest of warriors charged with protection of the natives’ valuables. They won’t venture too far away from their post.
A player won’t be able to claim rewards until all defenders of a chest are defeated. Upon using the ability to “Open chest”, the game will add a reward to your character’s inventory. Mind the weight, or you risk being overburdened! After the reward is collected, a player won’t be able to interact with the treasure chest for a while. The cooldown is player-specific, not chest-specific, meaning a player can interact with a chest right after another player, but only once over a set period of time:
Small Treasure Chest - once every 3 hours
Medium Treasure Chest - once every 6 hours
Large Treasure Chest - once every 12 hours
Epic Treasure Chest - once every 24 hours
We are excited to finally deliver this feature into the game! Apart from serving as a new POI, it provides a strong foundation for further mechanics that can be built around the chests - some of them you will see below. We will closely monitor how the feature blends into the LiF gameplay, and we will try to be prompt to address any shortcomings. “Treasure chests” will first come to “Seasonal Arden”, and we plan to introduce them to regular “Arden” in our future updates.
Outpost "fuel" system
Guild outposts have proven to be reliable production facilities for otherwise finite map resources. Perhaps, too reliable…Such structures strip players of incentives to venture beyond guild claim and risk foraging for much-needed wood or steel. We intend to challenge the status-quo by introducing a resource unique to “Treasure chest” and necessary to make the outposts run effectively - Work Rations!
Outposts now require “Food Points” to produce resources. During each maintenance cycle (in-game day change), the game will check whether an outpost has enough “Food points” to generate associated resources. The “Food points’” consumption depends on the level of an outpost and the number of slaves assigned to it. The fuel is represented by:
Basic Work Ration (10 Food points)
Medium Work Ration (20 Food points)
Reinforced Work Ration (30 Food points)
Where can one obtain "Food rations"?
For "Seasonal Arden" - "Food rations" are available only in the "Treasure chests".
For "orange" zone - "Food rations" drop from roaming knools and knools in the camp.
Mind you that the outposts have the max.number of "Food points" they can keep at a time:
T1 - 100 Food points max
T2 - 200 Food points max
T3 - 300 Food points max
Base Consumption per Level:
T1 - 1 Food point per cycle
T2 - 2 Food points per cycle
T3 - 3 Food points per cycle
Food consumption is multiplied by the number of slaves currently assigned to an outpost. This means that a T3 outpost with 5 slaves will need 3x5=15 "Food points" per cycle to operate.
The new mechanic applies to the following outposts:
Mine Shaft
Herbalist's Hut
Lumber Mill
Quarry
Forager's Hut
Mill
Knackery
Geognosy Pit
Slave Camp
Military outpost
If an outpost does not have enough “Food points”, it won’t generate any resources. In the case of the Military outpost, no NPC archers will spawn on the tower to help during an attack.
Outposts’ UI was reworked to incorporate the new “Food points” mechanic: an outpost menu will show the current “Food points” value, while the new “Add food” button will open a corresponding menu.
The idea of “Food points” addresses several aspects of the game we wish to further develop. First of all, it further raises the importance of “Treasure chests” as an important POI, thus incentivising players to go outside the guild claims. Moreover, the new “outpost fuel system” is aimed to further enhance the strategic level of the game. We want players to actively make choices depending on the situation in the game and shifting priorities. “Which resource do we need more of right now? Which resources will we need to attack/protect this position?” Outposts management becomes an integral part of this decision-making process.
New crafting resources
“Treasure chests” come with new crafting resources, which will now be required to create profession-specific outfits. All the resources below are exclusive to the “Treasure chests”:
For Blacksmith's outfit - Blacksmith's Precision Tools
For Carpenter's outfit - Carpenter's Precision Measuring Set
For Herbalist's Outfit - Herbalist's Distillation Set
For Engineer's outfit - Engineer's Precision Blueprint Tools
For Cook's outfit - Cook's Professional Kitchenware
For Stonecutter's outfit - Stonecutter's Precision Chiseling Set
For Breeder's outfit - Breeder's Animal Husbandry Kit
Skill level requirement to equip an outfit is reduced from 60 to 30 for all outfits. All outfits have been moved to the Household skill.
Crafting
New: the team has introduced a new dynamic crafting system interface. Previously when a player attempted to craft an item, the game presented 5 resource slots regardless of the recipe’s complexity and the number of required resources. Now the interface will present the number of slots corresponding to the number of different components.
Fixed: we have corrected the “Oil press” recipe so that it reflects the appropriate input of each crafting element to the final quality result.
Fixed: “Oil press” now has the “Mass produce” option for “Linen oil”.
Farming
New: introducing new building - “Large barn”! The structure becomes available at Masonry 90. It has the following specs:
Animal cap: 60
Feeding box cap: 800
Breeding pens: 4
Combat
New: in Age 1 we noticed that certain player groups adopted a new practice of attacking enemy fields to dwindle their resources. As such, the practice was deemed acceptable. However, the players did so by using an exploit that allowed “Lowering ground” on fields by performing a certain sequence of actions.
Starting this patch, we adjusted permissions in a way that allows players to “Lower ground” level on crop fields during JH/HJH on enemy claims on “Seasonal Arden”. It will only be possible on crops that are in stage 1 (just planted) and stage 2 (medium grown) of their growth cycle.
Changed: in our previous patches, “Destroy” ability was put in dependence on whether there was an enemy MOP on an adjacent fief. We further specify this mechanic by tweaking the rule:
“Destroy” ability allowed out of Judgment Hour (JH) with enemy MOP on adjacent fiefs.
Changed: hitbox for “Bec De Corbin” has been corrected.
Technical
Fixed: there was a situation when a character could keep accumulating their luck stat when travelling between “Arden” and “Seasonal Arden” thanks to the bonus items (ex. jewelry). This problem has now been fixed.
Fixed: the game will now keep UI/video settings between sessions.
Fixed: Power hour(combat) now provides the correct exp.bonus.
UX/UI
Localization for certain items have been improved.
Performance
The team continues to implement additional tools to research the ways to improve performance. With this patch, we implement a profiler aimed at providing in-depth analysis of traffic and net-related parameters. This data will help us better locate the points of growth and potential optimization bottlenecks.
Today the game received new features that could greatly affect how players interact with the world and what decisions they make. Although we are excited to introduce new content into the game, we understand that there is always a period of learning, and sometimes it can be confusing getting to know the new mechanics.
Therefore, we believe that it is the right moment to launch a new AMA session and hear players' thoughts about the latest developments. We invite you to leave your questions in the designated post. The submissions are accepted till May 20th.
"Seasonal" leaderboard
It is now time to check the guild leaderboard. There were some changes!
Capybaras de la Tormenta did not manage to keep the leadership they had achieved at the beginning of Age 2. In the “Most points” category, Spanish Inquisition now occupies the top placement on the leaderboard! At the same time, The Varangian Guard snatched the title of the “Most wealthy" guild in the “seasonal” world.
Age 2 saw the introduction of Instance Battles (IBs), which now lets us define the guild with the “Most provinces”. As of now, Spanish Inquisition has stretched across the most number of provinces (how historically accurate!...)!
Age 3 showed that nobody can remain too confident at the top of the leaderboard. Yesterday’s kings can be dethroned today and executed tomorrow. What new twists will the next Ages bring?
The leaderboard hints - something that “nobody expects”...