Dear friends,

This update includes the main objective of Chapter 2: the damage formula and other changes in PvE damage calculation.

Tutorial 2.0

Added technical buffs for new characters:

• “Rookie” karma level:
• No experience or item loss upon death (except "red" items);
• Killing a character with such karma level decreases karma by 1000 points;
• Removed upon reaching level 31 or after killing 3 characters;
• Tax Exemption:
• Exempts players from paying castle taxes;
• Removed upon reaching level 21;

T2 County: Unsund

• Added 2 settlements:
• Added T7-T9 powder merchants;
• Added T4-T6 equipment merchants;
• Planned for the near future:
• Settlement minimaps;
• Addition of T7-T9 equipment merchants, quest givers, and other NPCs;
• Real estate;

Damage Formula 2.0 (General and PvP)

A complete overhaul of the damage formula with several changes/fixes:

• Formula no longer smooths out significant advantages of attack over defense;
• Removed effective melee weapon range and hidden additional critical damage chance stats;
• Minimum damage when defense exceeds attack is now simply "1" (was 10% of attack value), with simplified attack/defense comparison;
• Body parts and hitboxes:
• Head/neck hits: pull weapon damage toward MAX attack value and add damage multiplier ONLY to weapon attack (x1.5 crossbow, x1.4 melee, x1.45 magic);
• Torso/arms: No modifiers;
• Leg hits: pull towards MIN weapon attack, multiplier (x0.8 crossbow, x0.9 magic), energy drain increased 2-2.5x;
• Improved and fixed hitboxes for male and (significantly) female characters;
• Powder heating: Fixed incorrect bonus calculation. Heating bonus now only affects powder's own attack value but stacks with headshot bonus;
• Planned for the near future:
• Balance adjustments for new formula;
• Rework of minimum damage to move away from "1" damage;
• Rework of shield interactions with different weapon types, including AOE magic;

Damage Formula 2.0 (PvE and Scaling)

• Added a "partial scaling" mechanic when the character level significantly exceeds the AI level:
• The greater the positive delta between character and AI level, the more attack value the character loses and the AI gains;
• Fixed formula error causing double attack values for certain AI attacks;
• Fixed experience calculation error for killing blows – now considers all attack values instead of just weapon attack;
• Due to overlapping new damage formula, scaling mechanic, and AI stat revisions, we apologize in advance for potential artifacts;

Combat System:

• Disabled prediction system for melee weapons:
• Client now always waits for server response about attack results instead of simulating parallel calculations;
• This will add ping-based delay to hit reaction SFX/VFX (hit sounds, blood, crosshair color, weapon recoil animation, etc.)
• But eliminates discrepancies between client/server calculations (where client showed hit but server registered miss)
• Fixed crosshair focus issue when target is in range;
• Increased melee weapon recoil animation speed;

Disenchantment Changes

• The concept of "disenchanting" has been removed along with its overly strict rules;
• Enchanted items can now be re-enchanted without prior disenchanting;
• However, re-enchanting requires a recipe of EQUAL OR HIGHER quality than the item;
• Initial enchanting still allows using lower-quality recipes with risk of failure and item breakage;

Changes

• Increased sprint speed in Red and Black zones by 11% (now 4.8 m/s);
• Increased crossbow bolt speed and flatness by 20%;
• Reduced radius of Air magic S_/M_ missiles by 10% and 15%, respectively;
• Increased Shroom spawners in Daerkunn, Unsund, and Oer;
• Removed Vocational quest CD;
• “Tax Evader” karma now gives the same penalties as “Bad” karma;

Optimization

• Various background sublevel loading improvements;
• Loading screen no longer disappears prematurely;

Best regards,

The Atlant Games Team