Posted by PrintsKaspian (Source)

Albion Online's 11th Guild Season starts on Saturday, December 5. This season will bring major new features along with changes to existing systems. In our newest Dev Talk, Combat Designer Michael Schwahn discusses these changes and how they will affect guild warfare in Albion.

No time to watch or prefer a written summary? Then read on...

20v20 Crystal League

This Season introduces the 20v20 Crystal League, allowing all players to join fair and exciting 20v20 battles.

• Tokens can be bought at the Energy Manipulator and used for one of 3 slots each day
• Match rules are similar to the 5v5 League, where both teams need to control and hold more orbs than the enemy
• 20v20 matches will use an entirely new map with a layout similar to the old city fight map
• As in the 5v5 League, Level 1 matches are knockdown only and offer perfect training for newcomers
• High-stakes, full-loot matches are also available, increasing toward the end of the season

Crystal League Point Limit

To make sure the Crystal League doesn't dominate the entire season at the expense of other activities, we're rebalancing its Season Point rewards and introducing a daily limit for Season Points gained via Crystal League. The limits are separate for 5v5 and 20v20 matches, and vary based on the amount of points available on a given day. This keeps high-level matches rewarding while ensuring seasons can’t be won solely via elite Crystal League squads.

World Boss Raid Zones

To add high-value open world objectives, we have overhauled World Boss Raid Zones:

• World Bosses now spawn every hour
• Defeating a World Boss gives every team member a PvE Fame buff while remaining in the zone, as an additional incentive for groups to stand their ground when they meet an enemy group
• To further make these areas into Fame Farming hotspots, their Elite mobs are now much stronger, but also way more rewarding, and they respawn much faster
• These spots are limited, which should lead to more small and midsized open-world fights

Castles

With Season 11, Castle and Castle Outpost timers will be the same for all clusters in the game. This means treasure spawning and scoring now occur independently of the cluster prime time.

• Castles score every 6 hours
• Castle Outposts score every 3 hours
• Castle Chests appear on Saturdays at 12:00 and 18:00 UTC and Sundays at 00:00 UTC
• Castle Outpost Chests appear every 6 hours

We've also increased distances between Castles by removing tunnels and cluster connections to ensure they are always at least four zones apart.

These changes will put pressure on bigger power blocks to split their forces if they want to contest more than one objective. This will hopefully lead to fewer overcrowded cluster battles.

Skip Overcrowded Clusters

The Cluster Queue was originally designed as a tool to handle edge cases with too many players, but queued battles have become more and more frequent and many battles now revolve around this system. This is especially frustrating for players who might not get a chance to participate in the fight at all.

To improve this, players can now skip overcrowded clusters. You can now select any connected entrance to jump to, and find new battles instead of waiting outside as a potential backup. This essentially allows two battles at once: one in the overcrowded cluster, and another between queued players.

The queue entrance range will also increase, letting players travel further without leaving the queue. And if two clusters in a row are overcrowded, you can skip through both.

Combat Balancing

Finally, for Season 11 we will also roll out a combat balance update. This includes the new Axe ability Rending Rage, a combo where you swing your blade and then leap forward and root the enemy. This gives Axes a Q-slot option for mobility and crowd control. This patch also contains buffs for Axes, Spears and Arcane Staffs along with various adjustments to other abilities.

There are quite a lot of changes in Season 11, and we are excited to see how players interact with them. Hopefully we'll see some fierce competition for the top spots this season.

Thanks for watching!