CAMPFIRE CHECKPOINT: 22/10/2026

Halloween in the Stronghold. A progression reset. Adventure Mode. Multi-Hero Queuing. Another big round of Itemization changes…

Yep, we had quite a lot to get through in today’s Roundtable stream which you can check out in this VOD if you haven’t yet.

This time I was joined by Will, Bretton and Ambjörn to talk through the Halloween update that’s mere hours away, show off some of what you’ll be playing and answer questions about how all these changes fit together.

The Patch Notes have the detailed breakdown, but the Roundtable gave us an opportunity to explain more of the thinking behind them. There are some pretty fundamental changes here and we’re very interested to see how they feel once you’ve had time to play.

Let’s get into it.

ADVENTURE MODE

Adventure Mode replaces the previous League structure on the journey towards Eternal.

One of the biggest things we want to improve is how Fellowship introduces its systems. Experienced players already know what they’re doing and want to get back into challenging content while our newer players need time to learn their Hero, understand encounters and get comfortable with everything the game is asking of them.

For veterans, the early journey can feel like a chore. For someone learning their first tab-targeting game, following a trail of defeated enemies while an experienced player clears the Dungeon doesn’t teach them very much and it also just feels bad and we’re hoping this new Adventure Mode gives us more room to support both.

We’ve also accelerated the early gearing progression considerably compared with our initial plans. As discussed on stream, experienced players can complete an Easy run, then a Medium run, and be playing Hard on their third match.

That doesn’t mean three matches to Eternal. It means getting players who are ready for the full Adventure experience into it quickly, while allowing others to spend longer learning.

Easy also has a purpose beyond your first few Dungeons. If you’re trying a completely unfamiliar Hero, having space to learn your abilities without every missed mechanic becoming a disaster should be useful. So, if you’re new to Fellowship, we would particularly love to hear how this feels. Our regular Discord contributors understandably include a lot of experienced players, but we need feedback from people encountering these systems for the first time too.

ETERNAL: HOW WILL IT LOOK?

Eternal’s difficulty curve is being compressed into a targeted 32 levels for this reset.

During Season 3, our highest players were pushing deep into the 70s. Meanwhile, other players were reaching the 15-25 and struggling to find another group since a lot of people had achieved their 10K rating goals. That experience is something we really want to address. Hearing that someone stopped playing because they couldn’t find people to run Dungeons with is rough, especially when there are changes we can try.

Fewer difficulty levels should help keep players closer together for longer, with more meaningful steps between them so we’re paying super close attention to pacing. Though, we know there isn’t a magic number of difficulties that automatically makes Eternal work. For us, success means players can log in, find an appropriate match and spend their evening actually playing.

We’re also not naive enough to think this is the final version of Eternal. Adventure Mode and Loot 2.1 have been major priorities for this update, and the reset gives us an opportunity to test a different Eternal structure alongside them; a great chance to get quick feedback before our next reset and development phase.

MULTI-HERO QUEUING IS HERE

Finally. This has been one of my most anticipated additions for a while! Personally, I’m going to be trying a “triple-main” strategy (one of each tank/healer/DPS) and seeing how that queue experience is.

By default, you’ll still queue with your current Hero. Through the queue settings, you can then select multiple Heroes and choose the eligible difficulties or complexity levels you’re happy to play on each.

Maybe you’re comfortable playing one Hero across several options but only want to practise another on Easy. That’s totally doable.

A couple of details from the stream worth noting:

• Adventure and Eternal remain separate queues, with separate saved settings.
• You can select options that each Hero has unlocked.
• A Hero that hasn’t unlocked Eternal can’t join your Eternal queue selection.

Development of this feature overlapped with the changes to Adventure Mode. Rather than finish building it around Leagues and immediately rebuild it, the team focused on making it work with the new structure.

Now we get to see how you use it and we can’t wait to hear what you think!

LOOT 2.1

A big theme of this update is making individual gear choices easier to understand and giving you more freedom to change them. Previously, an upgrade could create a chain reaction across your equipment. Swapping one item might break a Set Bonus, which meant changing another slot, which meant losing the stats you wanted somewhere else. It was frustrating for all of us.

Moving forward, gear slots are getting clearer identities, with Head, Chest and Legs now serving as the Legendary slots. We’re also moving away from the additional random secondary stats that were fixed on items under Loot 2.0.

Enchants take on an important role here, including providing secondary stats early in progression. Other layers, such as Gems, are introduced over time.

REMOVING SET BONUSES FROM GEAR

Set Bonuses created some interesting combinations, but they also made a lot of equipment difficult to consider. If your build needed a particular Set Bonus, you could end up wearing an item with stats you didn’t want simply because breaking the set cost left too much power on the table. For this reset, we’re moving those big passive bonuses onto Relics.

You’ll choose two, making those decisions more explicit. Getting a Relic should feel like an impactful moment, much like getting a Weapon.

A selection of the previous Set Bonuses have been carried across for now. The team wants to explore more passive effects and develop this space further, but that work continues beyond this update.

CRAFTING AND THE ECONOMY

The economy is also being simplified.

Some of our earlier ideas made thematic sense internally but became less clear as more currencies and crafting materials were added. We want players to understand these systems sooner, experiment earlier and use their resources with more intention at the endgame.

The broader ambition is that dedicated players can eventually optimise their gear and focus on execution. Reducing the dependencies between items should also make it easier to try alternative builds for different Dungeons or Curses.

FEWER MODIFIERS, MORE PURPOSE

You’ll notice that some Traits and Blessings have been removed.

The team reviewed modifiers that felt mandatory, behaved badly in specific situations or simply weren’t especially interesting to use. Defensive Traits have been removed, while Neck items take a more deliberate defensive role. The number of Blessings has also been reduced.

This is a step back that gives us room to build more interesting choices. After more than a year of seeing how players approach Fellowship, we have a much clearer understanding of which effects create good decisions and which mostly add clutter.

Some of the benefits previously offered by Defensive Traits may return in another form as that work develops.

HERO CHANGES: AMBJÖRN IS STILL COOKING

Ambjörn has been spending a lot of time playing different Heroes, reviewing feedback and investigating where the pain points actually sit and while sometimes the answer is a numerical adjustment, sometimes a Hero needs reworks of Talents, Legendary effects or their underlying kit. That can mean additional programming is required rather than just updating a specific value.

That’s why the size of today’s Hero change list doesn’t necessarily reflect how much attention they’re getting. Sylvie was one example we discussed on stream: increasing a few numbers wouldn’t address all the feedback about how she feels to play. There are some immediate changes to try, though.

All Tanks now have two charges of their Taunt, giving them more control when an enemy gets away or another pack unexpectedly joins the party.

Meiko also received a substantial set of buffs, including cooldown reductions that have definitely caught my attention. If you played her in earlier seasons, we’re super interested to see how she feels during this reset.

Ambjörn hopes to continue iterating regularly through this testing period, ideally with something each week where possible. That could include fixes, balance changes or more involved adjustments, depending on what’s ready.

HALLOWEEN: GET YOUR SPOOKY STUFF

The Stronghold is looking suitably spooky again, and you’ll notice that the Halloween rewards are moving into our Challenge system since the previous Rewards map is no longer there.

It’s been replaced with a refreshed page that supports a broader approach to progression. Challenges can give players things to work towards without requiring everyone to keep climbing difficulty and solely increasing their Dungeon Rating.

For Halloween, that includes account-wide rewards, cosmetics and event currencies you can spend at the seasonal vendor. It also changes how you work towards Hero outfits. Last year, earning a particular Hero’s cosmetic meant playing that Hero specifically. This time, you can progress through the event and choose rewards for the Heroes you prefer.

There are earnable outfits available solely through gameplay, alongside store options that are similarly priced to the recent Summer outfits.

We showed off new looks for Xavian, Gunde and Aeona during the stream, and the art team has done some incredible work.

There are also other collectibles to discover, including companions (including a cat with a witch hat!) and profile cosmetics.

FAMILIAR DUNGEONS, DIFFERENT ROUTES

Existing Dungeons are getting refreshed enemy placements, so your old routes may need another look.

We showed a few examples during the stream, including some very suspicious pigs.

We’re also testing a smaller active Dungeon pool. Having more content is great, but an enormous rotation means you can go a long time without revisiting a Dungeon and putting what you learned into practice.

A smaller pool should give players more opportunities to learn routes, refine builds and become familiar with encounters. It also lets the team focus its work on a more manageable selection of content which will be important as we move forward with Fellowship. Dungeons outside the active pool can return later, giving us more opportunities to refresh the experience over time.

There are useful preparation changes too. Before starting a Dungeon, you can adjust your setup, access your Stash and make changes to Talents and your Weapon and Necklace Trait trees.

NEW DUNGEON: CROWN OF THE WILD

Coming in this reset, we’re dropping Crown of the Wild!

We kept the preview light on mechanics so you can discover those for yourselves. It’s a single-Boss Dungeon rather than a Capstone, and players should encounter it relatively early during Adventure progression. We’re sure you’ll agree that the environment, animation and effects teams have put together something very cool.

There also appear to be plenty of opportunities to roll off the edge.

Elarion players, I look forward to your clips.

There’s a lot changing at once, and this testing period is an opportunity to see how those pieces behave together.

Thanks to everyone who joined the Roundtable, asked questions and shared their thoughts. We’re looking forward to hearing how it all feels once you’ve spent some time with it.

See you in the Stronghold <3 - The CR Devs