Greetings, Wizards! We'll be releasing a large update tomorrow to inject some new creatures into the game while also improving stability and addressing some gameplay and balance issues. Your support and feedback has played a direct role in helping to identify bugs and balance issues, and we want to thank you greatly for sharing your feedback with us here on Steam, on Twitter and through our support email!
(Scroll down to read about bug fixes and balance changes)
New Game Content
Infernal Dragon
The Infernal Dragon is a towering nightmare of jagged fangs, spiraling horns and dense, rippling muscle. Most scholars agree that the Infernal Dragon was once similar in size and appearance to the common dragons of Ignus, but after longterm exposure to demonic energy it has become a twisted abomination that exists only to terrorize those who would venture too far into the untamed Tundra of the north.
Approach the Infernal Dragon with extreme caution. If you are compelled to engage in combat with this formidable adversary be sure to bring allies and a healthy supply of rejuvenate provisions. It will be a long, hard fight, but in the end you will be rewarded handsomely with significant experience and a bounty of rare and valuable crafting resources.
Some say it’s possible to tame and ride such creatures, but most regard this is as wild speculation by mad men and fools…
Skeleton Warriors
The same evil magic that delivered the scourge of Imps and Demons unto this world has been used to reanimate the ancient dead of Ignus’ ancient warring houses. These Skeleton Warriors, who have risen from millennia of slumber, are fast and swift attackers who aim to catch their opponents off guard and attack by clawing and biting. Skeletons tend to coalesce in groups, and can easily surround you if you let them get too close. Fighting from a distance is recommended.
Wild Boar
Though it may appear to be nothing more than a simple beast of burden, the Wild Boar is actually quite dangerous when encountered in its natural habitat. They are aggressive, impulsive beasts that have often been observed lashing out at perceived threats. A minor threat for seasoned mages, but newly minted wizards should be wary in their presence.
Fixes, Optimizations and Balance Changes
Optimizations
We’ve made an important change in the backend of the game that should make performance and stability on populated servers up to ten times better. The source of a lot of our server issues stems from a bug in the Unreal Engine itself: while UE’s distance culling system does not draw objects within a certain distance of the player, it was still sorting the priority of tens of thousands of undrawn objects every single frame.
We’ve created our own custom distance culler to combat this, which will exclude objects at an extreme distance from the prioritization process. This should greatly improve performance and reduce structure download times.
Telekinesis
After listening to your feedback and commentary it has become obvious to us that our current implementation of Telekinesis needed a little rethinking. We wanted to ensure it would not become a tool for griefing, but clearly that did not end up being the case. To those that lost their hard work to the spell, we do sincerely apologize.
We didn’t want to just turn off structure Telekinesis, so we came up with the following solution: along with now never working on PVE structures (as it should never have), Telekinesis will no longer be usable on any structure that has been claimed by a throne. If you want to throw structure pieces now it can only happen with structures that have been rendered abandoned. This means that another player can no longer use the spell to casually dismantle your fortress. As with all balance changes, we will be monitoring this closely to see how it plays with the current layout of the game.
Spell Improvements
We’ve tidied up a number of issues related to spell cooldowns, key among them being the weapon swapping exploit. After tomorrow’s patch you will no longer be able to rapdily swap weapons with ‘G’ to cancel cooldowns and spam high level, high cooldown spells. Some players took advantage of this bug to gain a significant advantage in PVP fights, and we wanted to ensure it was patched up to prevent griefing.
Additionally, we’ve added ranges to many of the game’s spells. Spells like Fireball previously had unlimited range which was problematic from the perspective of both PVP balance and server performance. Enemies could spam Fireballs from miles away and it would be impossible for the recipient to retaliate, and Fireballs shot into the air would continue to exist and travel indefinitely, straining the server after long periods of time. These two issues should now no longer exist with Wednesday’s patch.
Decay Modifiers for Private Servers
Your server, your rules. We implemented the new decay system to reduce strain on our official servers, but we want to ensure that private server owners have the flexibility to opt out. After Wednesday’s update you will have the ability to either decrease/increase the decay rate or turn it off altogether.
Much More
There will be a ton of other tweaks, fixes and improvements in the patch: Camera sensitivity options, pet inventory fixes and much more. Stay tuned for the details and full changelog tomorrow. We greatly appreciate your patience as we patch up the game and make it a more stable and balanced experience!
Update Livestream
We're doing it live! Join us tomorrow at 4pm EDT to see us walkthrough the new content and fixes, and listen to us talk about the future of Citadel. Hop over to twitch.tv/playcitadel and give us a follow to make sure you don't miss out!
- Blue Isle Studios