Alpha Two Update Notes - November 8, 2024

Vaknar · 8:05AM

Here is what's changed for Alpha Two since last weekend's test. As a reminder, if you come across bugs during this test, please report them to us in-game using /bug - As always, we look forward to seeing testers interact with these changes, and provide feedback on them!

StevenSharif wrote:

Glorious testers, Intrepid has been hard at work this week making adjustments based on the data collected from last weekend's testing. It is important to note that development is not a perfect science. Sometimes when you fix bugs you make new ones, and often times velocity of work done correlates to new bugs generated. Please be vigilant this weekend as you test the changes listed below. Thank you for your help and patience, as we continue to make Ashes of Creation better and better - Steven

HIGHLIGHTS

Fixed issues with the launcher impacting testers that are connecting via IPv6
Updated NPC Navigation performance by more than 100x
This previously severely impeded our server performance and took most of the servers' tick time in certain situations. Players should now notice much less rubber banding and much more responsive NPC behaviors
Fixed a bug to prevent “ghost characters” appearing to be stuck on invisible walls in the world
Fixed a bug causing an infinite loading screen loop if the unstuck command was used while mounted
Added a Corruption “Blight” stat that is gained from killing non-combatant players. “Blight” causes you to gain Corruption faster for subsequent PK’s

KNOWN ISSUES

You can find a list of Known Issues here

FIGHTER ARCHETYPE UPDATES

Knockout ability activation time has been reduced
Knockout cooldown has been reduced from 18 seconds to 15 seconds
Cataclysm will now apply Tripped to Staggered enemies

MAGE ARCHETYPE FIXES

Fixed a bug causing “Enchant Weapon” to permanently provide empowerment buffs. These will now last for a limited duration
[Fixed a visual bug for the Mage’s prismatic beam ability

CHARACTER

Adjusted experience formulas to reduce the effectiveness of power leveling
Reduced raid bonus experience multiplier when in a raid with 9 or more players
Player swim speed has been reduced from 66% to 50%
Sprint is no longer usable while swimming
Fixed a bug causing players to incorrectly spawn if no war event spawn locations were found
Fixed a bug causing combat settings to not properly persist on login
Fixed a bug causing mounts to sometimes block projectiles
Fixed a bug that caused increases to the healing received stat to stack permanently

CORRUPTION

Added a scaling Corruption penalty which reduces movement speed
Added a Corruption “Blight” stat that is gained from killing non-combatant players. “Blight” causes you to gain Corruption faster for subsequent PK’s
Added corrupt player location on the minimap for other players within 100m
Corruption reduction through killing enemies has been changed to scale based on enemy difficulty
Corrupted players will no longer be able to unequip equipment
Corrupted players will no longer be able to trade
Fixed a bug causing players to become combatants incorrectly when killing a corrupted player
Fixed corruption sometimes being granted during sanctioned PvP and also not being granted if both players were in a guild

ECONOMY

Updated commissions and quest rewards
Gathering/Processing/Crafting will now grant more XP with higher rarity and/or tiers
Crafting XP now better matches the power of the slot of the item crafted
Saplings now spawn and mature to adolescence faster
Adolescent trees now mature to adulthood faster
Adolescent trees now reward less base wood to account for their faster spawn and growth rate
Adolescent trees now do more durability damage to lumberjacking tools
Hunting & Gathering experience has been increased
Reduced base XP rewards for common and T1 Gathering/Processing/Crafting
Gathering tools initially given by the Sweat of Your Brow quest have had their durability reduced
Reduced the durability of starter tools from 110 to 60
Fixed bugs that allowed the sale of items for negative value
Fixed missing crafting stations in Lionhold
Fixed broken text in the Tailoring Station

NODES

Reduced Node XP gain by 85%
We felt that Nodes were leveling up too fast. This change is to prevent nodes from near-instantly leveling up
Added additional Mayoral Commissions
Added additional war preparation commissions so that war can be declared more easily
Updated the Mayoral Commissions in New Aela so that it has a similar number of slots as other nodes
Updated regular elections to begin its registration phase 5 days before the 1st of the month
Updated the citizen renouncement dialogue
Increased the cooldown time to rejoin another node after renouncing your citizenship time to 36 hours
Increased the time for the first unscheduled election to 24 hours
Fixed a bug allowing storage to be transferred via cargo between nodes
Fixed a bug with Node resource storage causing items placed outside of default Node resource storage to be lost
Fixed a bug with Node expansion plots that didn’t work correctly

LOOT

Item roll duration has been increased from 15 seconds to 30 seconds
Time for loot rolls appearing will now pause if another loot roll is in progress
Fixed a bug causing Ashen Haunts to not drop gear

POPULATION

Made changes to the NPC population in Samia's Hope
Made changes to the NPC population in the Scholar's Academy caravan camp
Fixed a bug that prevented Goblin Shamans in the Ursine Caves from throwing their poison orbs
Fixed an issue with NPC pathfinding
Fixed bugs in Samia's Hope commissions, so they should no longer refer to incorrect NPCs
Fixed a bug causing Named Goblin High Shamans to do significantly less damage than intended

THE KILLING FIELDS

Increased the spawn area of NPCs
Increased the spawn rate of skeletons at night
Ravens will now attack goblins

UX/UI

Added a Breath Bar that should appear while underwater
Made several changes to UI font sizing
Updated the Buff Bar to no longer resize the UI when a character has max buffs/debuffs
Updated HUD UI iconography for the ignore and leave event icons
Fixed issues with notifications in The Daragal Estates showing incorrect text
Fixed a bug that caused an “Unknown Notification!" pop-up
Fixed a bug that caused UI windows to be the incorrect size after resizing
Fixed a bug causing cargo to not properly update
Fixed a bug with transferring Commodities via Caravan Cargo Storage
Fixed a bug causing Warehouse items to sometimes not show up the first time you open Warehouse storage

ENVIRONMENT

Made improvements for road generation and visuals
Made improvements to the environment in Samia’s Hope
Changed visuals for the rounded bottoms of waterfalls
Fixed a bug causing plants to sometimes grow through roads
Fixed a bug causing some parts of the world to appear pink

LAUNCHER & CONNECTIVITY

Fixed issues with the launcher impacting testers that are connecting via IPv6
Fixed a bug with the launcher that caused multiple authentication web browsers to open at the same time
Reenabled "GPU Crash Debugging" in Launcher settings.
Note: Having this on can help us fix issues for people who crash often, but this will take up more space on your computer

STABILITY

Updated NPC Navigation performance by more than 100x
This previously severely impeded our server performance and took most of the servers' tick time in certain situations. Players should now notice much less rubber banding and much more responsive NPC behaviors.
Made a multitude of changes to increase both client, graphics and server stability
Made a multitude of changes to NPC navigation to improve server performance
Fixed a bug to prevent “ghost characters” appearing to be stuck on invisible walls in the world
Fixed a bug causing an infinite loading screen loop if the unstuck command was used while mounted