Biggest update so far. Only major system lacking is server events, while minor systems around solo questing can easily be fitted with the new focus. Next patch will be 0.9.1 and ever closer to our future release goal of 1.0.0 leaving early access.

Game Responsiveness

Between player ability and movement, all the aspects of the Enemy AI systems, and the new network backend, there was some tightening of screws to be had. The maintenance almost got out of hand but clearly the results are worth it. Switching to Mirror over Unet for networking had amazing improvements for the game.

Ability Responsiveness- I min/maxed the ability loop to prioritize firing off Cmds to the server as soon as possible. For instant attacks ( long range sniper type) the change is amazing. In the end all abilities should feel snappier after pressing the button

Network Movement Synchronization- With the change to Mirror networking we are able to implement better sync between entities. Interpolation has been added and looks buttery compared to the old looks. We will continue to adjust settings associated with sync.

Enemy Systems Rework- They hardly functioned before, couldn't be debuffed and very error prone. Now we can adjust enemy behaviour easily on our end (also for future modders I assume) and this has opened the way for procedural enemy patterns or machine learning rather easily. Enemies now respond rather well when you aggro them, take buffs and debuffs, and provide an overall more responsive fight.

Overall the quality of life should be substantial improved. We have more work we can put in, but for now we should be able to focus on creating fun challenging content for the game rather then continually troubleshootings oddities from our basic systems. That almost always went back to Unet's fault anyways

World Building

While we had a nice base for a world before this patch, but we really went ham this time. Floating cities, 4k textures, and nostalgia inducing music are just the surface of current adjustments and additions.

• Suzerain- A floating city that serves as the main player hub. The Suzerain is in the hands of an appointed Watcher. Maintaining peace and balance between the native elementals and keeping the engines of Prima in balance, the Suzerain is the quintessential brain of Prima.
• Frozen Outpost- Reach the outpost by connecting a water missle with the portal at the Suzerain. Once you arrive help secure the area and do what must be done to serve out your duty as a Bloodline. Simple friendly mobs surround the city with progressively dangerous threats on the outer fringe.
• Music- We will work on a more informative post, but for the record we are looking to use nostalgic invoking music. Nostalgic for time with 40 mans and epic epics. Some has been found and applied.
• Textures- Everywhere possible we are tweaking materials with 4k textures and appropriate shader information. We are trying to balance the game with no main light source, no sun, as we are just a space prison hurtling across the cosmos.

Patch 0.9.1 will introduce a dynamic ziggurat and server quest for players. The changes this patch should facilitate the coming additions nicely. Overall everything fits neatly into the bigger story of Prima. Pages that highlight these story elements will be appearing soon.

Core Gameplay

Essential changes have taken place. We doubled health, thirst, and hunger max values. Adjusted ability cooldown, energy cost and damage to make all abilities competitive. Drop rate for Uncommon or better items was gutted, like have fun getting an uncommon outside of a group or harvesting. Tooltips show icons now for quicker understanding of what the player is moused over. Oh, we also added targeted abilities to boot.

Drop Rate Adjustment- Drops from enemies, especially Class B or worse, have had a nerf to drops. Class D can only drop common items. This will lead to more transmutation use and essence collecting.

Starting Stat Adjustment- You are not a noob, you have full gear. You are not naked and your a half way to level cap kind of toon. We doubled some stats to make things feel like mid game. Get to raiding sooner then later right?

Ability Adjustment- We adjusted everything. Its balanced now. Is it perfect? No, but its a pass at least. Lobs still need some reworking but everything should be pretty bug free for some broad testing this patch.

Tooltip Adjustment- You can see what ability a ring has easier now. This is nice when you can manage to have a few different rings you swap out. The visual feedback just makes looking at the tooltips feel more rewarding even!

Targeted Abilities- Ok so this is the bread and butter of the DoT and HoT play styles. For up to 3 seconds after you last targeted you may use a targeted ability on the target. This pretty much allows guaranteed connection of effects. Very nice for taunts, heals and cc!

Now the fun begins...

This was huge, nothing will be this big again. We had some backlog to take care of thanks for Unet failing us so hard. We couldn't get more then a few players on a server at a time. Now we should be able to handle hundreds now. Several bugs and problems we had to code around are gone now.

Now for patch 0.9.1 and introducing the dungeon Mymosa has been working on. Should provide hours of content after its said and done. The next patch will have the server quest system live as well. Server progression really is coming into focus.

Hopefully we can reach 1000 ccu soon! To make this possible we will be giving out steam keys in all of our social media channels till we reach this goal. Thanks for all you support so far, so check out our live streams on Youtube, Twitch, Mixer or Dlive!