Patch Notes - Weekly Update 0.5.0.0

We’re full steam ahead towards 1.0 now, and we’re taking the opportunity to trial a few experimental features that we see as important to bringing a wider audience to the game as well as addressing some of the fundamental issues faced by players arriving later in the season or wanting to progress alts.

We’re resetting progress for all players so everyone’s starting over, and we’re interested to see how these changes affect progress for better or worse so we can make the appropriate changes in coming updates.

Think of this period like a Public Test Server on main rather than a new season. That said, we have some new content we’re trailing as well alongside the system changes. We know not everyone wants to play experimental or partly-complete content and we totally understand if people want to wait until 1.0 to see what we’ve been cooking, but for those who stick around and want to dive in, we’re very grateful and looking forward to hearing what people think.

Our team will be watching and reacting to feedback from the players over the next few weeks as things shake out, with an eye to fix some of it live, and some longer-term fixes will come with our winter update as we get closer to the Holiday season.

Adventure Mode

We’re debuting our new ‘Casual’ way to play the game, replacing the League system with an intentionally less structured progression system. Our intention with revisiting the new-player experience was to present something that serves new players, returning players, non-competitive players, and those levelling their alts all at the same time. Our feedback showed that the Capstone dungeons bottlenecked players and limited progress, and many who ‘just wanted to play a dungeon’ struggled to find players to match against. We have stripped out the progression deliberately, allowing all players to unlock items regardless of the level of challenge they want to play at, without feeling forced into increasing the challenge beyond what they are comfortable with. Opting-into harder challenge should yield greater/faster progression of gear, but shouldn’t be mandatory. We want the casual ‘sometimes’ player to eventually get the gear they are looking for, without having to require veteran players to ‘slum it’ by dropping down to beginner difficulties.

Eternal

While our focus has been on making the Unranked experience of ‘Adventure Mode’ work for this release, we’re taking the opportunity to make some structural changes to Eternal at the same point to see if it makes the experience better or worse as a result.

The most obvious one is gaining access. Instead of graduating from Paragon league, players need to gain an average Item Level of 240 to unlock access, but we know that the difficulty is much higher than a 240 item level can handle. We recommend 270+ before undertaking it successfully, but for those who have the skills, or alts who are being boosted, we wanted to give power players an opportunity to timesave, whilst ‘preventing learner drivers accidentally straying onto the highway’.

We’ve adjusted the structure, separating capstones into their own difficulty tiers. Rather than the previous few seasons of 3+1, we’re going 4-4-2 for a spell to see how it feels. In the future we plan to more radically shuffle up the content available at each difficulty, but our focus has been on Adventure Mode for now.

The mode has 32 fixed difficulty levels now, in an effort to set completion goals and to prevent massive separation of the player base over time. We don’t imagine players will reach 32 anytime soon, but we’re excited to see us proven wrong.

Multi-Hero Queueing

After much teasing over the last few weeks, we are finally ready to roll out multi-hero queueing for both Adventure and Eternal. Part of the reason we couldn’t debut it sooner was because of the changes to Adventure matchmaking.

Players can use the ‘cog’ button next to the matchmaking button to edit their settings. By default, the player can search for their current hero with Oddcomp enabled but this can be overridden and saved, letting the player choose which heroes they want to queue for and which levels of difficulty they want to queue for. The first match that pops wins, so make sure you’re queueing for things you actually want to do. Don’t worry if you’re not correctly geared for the dungeon you get, we moved ready check and loadout selection into the Dungeon itself, so you can be ready to go with whatever pops.

Loot and Itemization

The feedback for how the loot system worked in EAS3 was thorough and clear, and we’ve been taking steps to refactor it that we couldn’t do during the season itself. Now that loot is resetting we can roll out these changes so we can see how the experience feels.

Stat Distribution across Item Slots has been Updated:

• Head: ~9% -> 10%
• Necklace: ~8% -> 7%
• Shoulders: ~9% -> 9%
• Back: ~6% -> 6%
• Chest: ~11% -> 10%
• Wrists: ~6% -> 6%
• Gloves: ~7% -> 7%
• Legs: ~10% -> 10%
• Feet: ~8% -> 8%
• Ring: ~7% -> 6%
• Relic: ~7% -> 6%
• Weapon: ~12.50% -> 15%

Legendary Item Slots have been changed from Cloak, Ring, Wrist, to Head, Chest, Legs.

Set Bonuses have been removed. The Passive Perks of Set Bonuses are now added to new Relics.

Relics have had their active ability moved to the ‘Charm’ item type. Charms grant utility abilities and may only be used while equipped to a Relic Slots

Rarity Drop Rates have changed so that players are guaranteed to be getting higher quality loot as they progress.

• Uncommon: No Modifiers
• Rare: 1 Modifier
• Epic: 2 Modifiers
• Champion: Removed
• Heroic: 3 Modifiers

Item Modifier Types have been renamed.

• Imbued Essence -> Embellishments
• Heroic Trait -> Sigils
• Master Traits -> Aspects
• Blessings -> Glyphs
• Neck Traits -> Protective Enchants

Enchants are a new Item Modifier Type that replaces the previous ‘Blue Stats’ that could roll on equipment. These are bundles of Stats offering +4/+4 for two Secondary Stats, and scaling up to +6/+6 if the attached item is iLvl 300+.

New Crafting Recipes

• Pick Modifier Slot (1 / 2 / 3)
• Pick Desired Modifier Type (Embellishments, Sigils, Aspects, Glyphs, Enchants)
• Pick Desired Accuracy (Random, One of Three, or Pick Exact)

Weapon and Neck Trees can be opened from the Hero Sheet with new buttons beside those slots, but you may still visit the Shrine of Imbuement if you please.

Vendors are internally defined as Jeweler, Blacksmith, Mystic, and Artificer. The Craftsman has changed profession in all but name as our new resident Mystic (Enchant Craftsman). The Shrine of Imbuements plays the part of our Artificer.

Economy Changes

We have streamlined the economy based on feedback:

• Rare and Epic quality versions of crafting materials have been removed entirely.
• Marks of Fellowship are now less common, but are only used to exchange for Crafting Materials.
• Supplies have been removed entirely.
• Cosmic Threads may be found through the Progression track and can be used to purchase Stronghold Mounts.
• Two Seasonal currencies have been added for this reset to purchase Titles and Cosmetics
• All Neck and Weapon Trees are unlocked by Default.

Drop Tables

Gems have a higher baseline drop chance.

Adventure Mode draws from every Dungeon in Rotation for its drop table. Eternal still only drops loot for the Dungeon you’ve completed.

At Difficulty +30 Eternal Souldust, Eternal Godstones, and Eternal Aether have a significantly increased drop chance, allowing players to optimize their gear and experiment with builds freely.

General Changes

• [The Dragon]: Absorb value of max health reduced by 50%
• [The Oak]: Now gives 25% armor (was 35%)
• Legendary items power [Blood of the Undying] now grants +10% maximum health instead of +10% damage reduction.

Progression

We've retired the previous progression 'Star Map' as we move over to a more 'Challenge' based progression system. We've tried to preserve a lot of the legacy content from previous seasons, and this is just the beginning of our journey to 1.0 in this regard, but as we build more challenges for players to do without the need to climb and solely chase dungeon rating, we are trying to lean in more to this kind of approach.

Dungeons

New Dungeon: Crown of the Wild

We’re trialing one of our new dungeons, the tree-topping village ‘Crown of the Wild’ has our heroes precariously close to the edge, traversing rope bridges and platforms, battling our new druidic faction that feels very different from the dungeons we’ve previously worked on. It’s been very exciting for us to both work on, and play, this new dungeon and we’re excited to hear how you feel about it.

In-Dungeon Loadout Change and Ready-Check

We’ve seen a positive embrace of the ‘Vote Restart’, so we wanted to ensure that if players have the right gear, if they kept failing because of the wrong gear, we wanted to keep the group together and let players modify their loadout quickly before the start of the next run.

This also helped with Multi-Hero queueing as in our playtests, heroes were being pulled into dungeons they weren’t correctly geared for, so rather than add a second ready check and loadout update, we moved both into the dungeon so that whether coming in fresh or restarting from an aborted run, the flow is the same.

General

Across the board, dungeons have received an overhaul of changes:

• Enemies have been balanced throughout the dungeons.
• Some enemy abilities have been reworked.
• Kill Score has been adjusted throughout the dungeons.
• Timers have been adjusted for all dungeons.
• New enemy compositions in all dungeons.
• Reduced the overall dungeon pool to 8 active Adventures and 2 active Capstones.
• All adventures are playable in ‘Adventure’ mode
• Capstones are only playable in ‘Eternal’ mode

Seasonal Event

To mark the one-year anniversary of Fellowship and the start of Halloween, we’re Haunting the Stronghold once again with a range of seasonal challenges and rewards.

We’ve a range of new skins and titles for all our heroes to unlock from our spectral event vendor in the Stronghold who needs Eyes of Newt and Wool of Bat for their diabolical potions. Completing challenges unlock progress towards global rewards, but also drops event currencies you can use at the vendor to acquire the specific hero rewards you are after.

For those who missed out on last year’s Haunting, the legacy skins, and a few additional treats for the newer heroes, are available for purchase in the store.

We’ve also added a few pets for the spooky season, for those looking to spend the event with a companion.

Heroes

Thank you for all the feedback in the hero threads! This patch has a round of number changes for some heroes. We know there’s a lot of interest in bigger reworks to talents, abilities and legendaries. We’re keeping all of it in mind for the future and there are plans for more reworks as we go.

Mara

• [Stalker Step] Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds ( was 30 seconds )
• [Web Crack] Range increased to 10yd ( was 5yd )

Meiko

• [Shatter Earth] Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds ( was 60 seconds )
• [Stone Stomp] Cooldown reduced to 60 seconds ( was 120 seconds )
• [Gust] Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds ( was 30 seconds )
• [Resonance of Earth] - Reduced damage taken increased to 20% (was 10%)
• [Peacefield] - Increased healing value to 80% (was 45%)
• Range on all finishers increased to 800 (was 500)
• [Taunt] - now has 2 charges
• [Slipstream] - no longer grants 50 spirit at dungeon start (To be reworked in the future.)

Elarion

• Fixed an issue where [Multishot] could not deal damage to enemies attached to the player such as chains.

Xavian

• [Aura of Solace] can no longer trigger [Golden Hour] or [Rising Spirit] outside of combat.
• [Ruptured Dawn] Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60)
• [Taunt] - now has 2 charges
• [Invictus] - now properly scales according to the set target count threshold.

Gunde

• [Bloodbound Spirit] now applies [Rend] for 100% of the damage dealt ( was 50% )
• [Grim Carve] Radius increased to 850 ( was 700 )
• [Oathshatter] talent soft target cap increased to 10 ( was 8 )

Helena

• [Second Wind] - increased duration to 14 seconds (was 8)
• [Unscarred Soul] - increased Strength scaling to 100% on the damage dealt to enemies when absorb shield from empowered [Shield Slam] is up (was 50%)
• [Sweeping Strikes] - increased range to 800 (was 500)
• Legendary ability - [Razor Crash] - increased target cap to 12 targets (was 8)
• [Taunt] - now has 2 charges

Rime

• [Soulfrost Torrent] - Increased buff duration to 24 seconds (was 18 seconds)
• [Frostweaver's Wrath] - Increased buff duration to 20 seconds (was 12 seconds)
• [Glacial Blast] - Reduced cast time to 1.5 seconds (was 2 seconds)
• [Burstbolter] - Tooltip updated to correctly match the damage increase of Bursting ice with 30% (tooltip previously stated 20%)
• When the legendary with [Frostwyrm’s Spite] effect is equipped, [Freezing Torrent] can be cast while moving.
• The legendary with [Undulating Spirit] effect no longer grants 50 spirit at dungeon start

Vigour

• [Residual Luminosity] - Now reduce incoming damage by 5% (was 15%)
• [Residual Luminosity] - Fixed an issue where [Residual Luminosity] did not apply if the new [Luminous Barrier] had a lower value than the active one.

Aeona

• [Temporal Barrage] - Mana cost reduced to 49 (was 61)
• [Paradoxical Twist] - Increases damage of [Temporal Barrage] on primary target by 80% (was 50%) and increases damage up to 2 nearby enemies by 50% (was 40%)
• [Intercession] - Cooldown reduced to 200 seconds (was 300 seconds)

Tariq

• [Square Hammer] - Now grants +8% expertise (was 5%)
• [Kill Em All] - Procc chance of offensive abilities triggering [Kill Em All] increased to 10% (was 8%)
• [Pneuma] - no longer grants 50 spirit at dungeon start (To be reworked in the future.)

Ardeos

• [Burning Initiative] - no longer grants 50 spirit at dungeon start (To be reworked in the future.)