Posted by PrintsKaspian 3 years ago

Queen Update

Features

New Outlands
The Queen update brings a complete rework of the Outlands. The new continent has lower-tier zones at the outer edge, with tiers and resource values increasing toward the center. This structure allows guilds of different strengths to compete at their own levels, and live in the Outlands in conjunction with numerous other new game systems such as Hideouts, Open-World Territory Battles, and the Smart Cluster Queue (see below).
The new Outlands continent also contains three small towns, allowing players to use banks, repair stations, and local markets. All clusters within a given Outlands region now share the same prefix for improved search and navigation, and clusters with portals are clearly indicated by name.

For an overview of these changes and the intentions behind them, please see this article: albiononline.com/en/news/devtalk-new-outlands

For important information about how players and items will be migrated out of the Outlands with the Queen update, please see this article: albiononline.com/en/news/player-item-migration-queen-update

Avalonians, Elite Dungeons, and Avalonian Armor
The Avalonians are a new faction in Albion, consisting entirely of elite mobs and intended for large groups. They can be found in Elite Randomized Dungeons, which will spawn in all T6-T8 Outlands zones and offer a high-level challenge to groups of 10-20 players.
In addition to the highest-value loot in the game, the final areas of these dungeons contain shrines that offer a week-long PvE Fame increase. In addition to the Avalonian mount, tools, and foods already introduced with the Standalone Event Season, players can now obtain artifacts and shards from defeated Avalonian mobs which can be crafted into three different sets (cloth/leather/plate) of powerful Avalonian Artifact Armor.

Hideouts
Hideouts allow guilds to freely place entrances to underground bases in open-world black zones. After a construction phase, during which the Hideout can be attacked and destroyed by enemy guilds, it will become a powerful, autonomous "home base" with a guild bank and building spaces, and can eventually be upgraded to include a Marketplace, Artifact Forge, and even a Guild Hall. Hideouts can also be used as respawn points, filling the role no longer offered by territories (see "Open-World Territory Battles" below).

Requirements and limitations:

• The player placing a Hideout must be in a guild
  
• Only one Hideout per guild per cluster is allowed
  
• Global limit of six Hideouts per guild
  
• Hideouts cannot be placed too close to numerous other game-critical objects, including other Hideouts
  
• Hideouts can only be placed during the cluster's primetime
  

Open-World Territory Battles
Guilds can now claim territories via open-world battles. This allows all members of a guild to contribute to territory control, while the zerg debuff introduced with the Standalone Event Season ensures that armies cannot triumph on numbers alone. In conjunction with the updated Crystal Realm Battle system (see "Crystal League" below), Territory Watchtowers can be upgraded for cluster-wide bonuses that greatly benefit the owning guild.

With the Queen update, territories and siege camps are removed from the Royal Continent. (Siege camps still exist in Birken Fell and Wyre Forest for attacking Caerleon.) Additionally, Outlands territories will no longer have banks (though battlevaults are still available), and can no longer be used as respawn points. Instead, Hideouts can be used as respawn points for Outlands players.

Crystal League
High-level 5v5 players can now compete in the new Crystal League, which offers rewards like Silver, Fame, and rare mounts that increase with each successive bracket.

Access to Crystal League battles requires a token of the correct level, and can either be done with an assembled non-guild team (accessed via cities) or a guild team (accessed via owned territories). If the latter option is used, winning in the Crystal Realm brings a powerful tower level upgrade that will greatly benefit your guild.

Level 1 Tokens can be purchased from the Energy Manipulator. Winning a battle gives each member of the winning team an entry token for the next-higher level battle. In addition to the Energy Manipulator that remains in Caerleon, there are now Energy Manipulators in the other 5 Royal Cities, found inside Conquerors' Hall next to the relocated Realmgate.

Smart Cluster Queue
When a PvP-enabled territory is overcrowded, players will need to join a queue in order to enter the cluster. This queue assesses a player's guild, alliance, and strength, and lets in players of both sides as evenly as possible to prevent zone-locking and ensure the fairest possible fight.

Wardrobe Skins and New Vanity Items
The Queen update brings Wardrobe Skins, which includes old costume items that have been converted to skins as well as new items. These can be purchased on the Marketplace or unlocked in the Appearance section of the player menu, with all items unlockable via ingame currency. Additionally, Avatars and Avatar Rings are now part of the Appearance UI.

In addition, numerous costume items have been converted to Vanity items. For weapon-style costume items that includes spells, such as the Portal Gun and Fox Crop, an additional button will appear in the spell UI for casting the "vanity" spell.

Enchanted Stone

• Enchanted stone now appears in T4-T8 zones, similar to all other rare resources
  
• Enchanted stone can be gathered as normal and refined into blocks at the Stonemason, which produces the following number of blocks per raw resource:
  
  • Uncommon: 2 stone blocks
    
  • Rare: 4 stone blocks
    
  • Exceptional: 8 stone blocks
    
• The bonus does NOT apply to the stone blocks needed for refining - for example, 1 Tier 5.3 Enchanted Stone will produce 8 T5 Stone Blocks, but will also require 8 T4 blocks
  
• As with all other resources, local refining bonuses and Focus bonuses will give the corresponding amount of raw enchanted stone in return
  
• The tool levels required for gathering Enchanted Stone are the same as those of all other enchanted resources
  

The goal of this new resource type is to make it easier to build Hideouts, and to make boosts to tower levels (and thus the rarity of resources in the cluster) matter to stone gatherers. Additionally, this makes it easier and more rewarding to level stone gathering.

Improvements

• Cursor Improvements:
  
  • Added additional cursor colors for improved visibility (Gold and Crystal in addition to the default Iron)
    
  • Updated all cursor icons for maximum visibility
    
  • Added new cursor icons that appear when mousing over resources, mounts, and entrances
    
  • Limited cursor sizes to 32x32 so all platforms have the same sized cursors
    
• UI and Chat Improvements:
  
  • Added a keyboard shortcut to inspect currently selected player (Default: Y)
    
  • You can now hold shift while drag-and-dropping stacked items to place half the stack into the target slot (can be done between containers as well)
    
  • Improved and streamlined the farming UI
    
  • After crafting an item, the crafting UI stays in place rather than returning to the top
    
  • When both the Marketplace UI and Inventory UI are open, you can now shift-click on an item in your inventory to automatically search for it in the Marketplace
    
  • "Browse to my position" now works as intended in the Season Rankings UI
    
  • Editing a guild tag now updates the tag in the Access Rights dropdown menu as intended
    
  • Disbanded alliances are now automatically removed from island access rights
    
  • Chat now remains active when CTRL-clicking items
    
  • Zooming in on the Destiny Board now happens at the cursor's position
    
  • Typing /wiki in chat now opens the Albion Online Wiki, and following it with a page name opens that page directly
    
  • Tabs in the Settings menu have been reorganized and simplified
    
  • Guild account logs have been reworked and all logs are now accessible from the same UI
    
  • Emotes are now listed in the Character menu
    
  • Avatars and Avatar Rings can now be viewed and selected via the Appearance UI
    
  • (The above items were added on 18 December)
    

Item Sort Improvements
Pressing the "Sort" button in any inventory display (chests, banks, personal inventory, etc.) will now sort items as follows:

1. Equipment items, further sorted by slot (Weapon, Armor, Accessories, Mounts, Tools, Gathering Gear)
   
2. Consumables
   
3. Consumable from inventory (e.g. Tomes of Insight)
   
4. Farmables
   
5. Simple items (e.g. resources, cooking ingredients)
   
6. Furniture items
   
7. Journal items
   
8. Any other items (Uncategorized, etc.)
   

Within each of these item types, the sorting will work as follows:

1. Shop Category
   
2. Shop Subcategory
   
3. Item Name (e.g. Hunter Jacket)
   
4. Tier
   
5. Enchantment Level
   
6. Quality
   
7. Stack size
   
8. Durability
   

Sort order is always descending, i.e. most powerful, highest enchantments, etc. are listed first.

Audio Improvements

• Lowered and adjusted the ambience and music levels throughout the game to make sound effects more audible and adjusted the default audio settings accordingly
  
• Numerous audio fixes, including replacing missing ambiences in all mob camps and faction homebases and correcting reverb settings in steppe clusters
  

Additional Improvements

• Updated World Boss icons on cluster maps to better indicate which boss is spawning and better match the game's aesthetic
  
• Every city on the Royal Continent will now have its own version of Conquerors' Hall; Outlands portals can now be found within this building in each city except Caerleon - see "Portal Changes" section below
  
• Nine new Achievements have been added (both to Steam and the native client) related to new content, including Elite Randomized Dungeons, Crystal League, and Territory Claiming
  
• Reworked numerous spell effects for more accurate visual feedback during combat
  
• Added a new potential uncommon boss encounter to Keeper Randomized Dungeons
  
• Visuals for all Judicator Armor sets have been reworked and improved
  
• Reworked mermaid and fixed textures for T8 Legendary Player House
  

Changes
Item Power Progression Changes and Mastery Modifiers
Item Power progression has been streamlined and simplified, and now increases in a linear manner rather than dropping off at higher tiers and enchantments. For the full explanation of these changes, please see this forum post: forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/121085
In addition, Mastery Modifiers have been added to the Mastery Bonuses of high-tier equipment as follows:

• 5% on all T5 items
  
• 10% on all T6 items
  
• 15% on all T7 items
  
• 20% on all T8 items
  

This bonus applies to all Armors, Weapons, and Offhands, and includes IP bonuses from basic Specializations as well as advanced Masteries. Enchanted gear will be calculated at the level of its base tier, e.g. a Tier 5.3 sword would receive the same 5% bonus as a Tier 5.0 sword. (Clarification added 19 December)

For example, if you get an additional 100 IP from your Destiny Board Masteries for swords, using a T6.2 Sword will give you a 10% additional boost to that Mastery bonus, for a total bonus of 110 IP.

Tier 7 and 8 Mob Fame and Resource Changes
As the new Outlands offer an increased number of high-tier zones, as well as increased access to these zones for all players, the Silver and PvE kill Fame given by T7-T8 mobs has been reduced. And as the new Avalonian Grail Buff increases Fame from mob kills by 10%, high-level players looking to maximize their PvE Fame will be able to more than make up the difference.

With the large Outlands rework, we used the chance to introduce some changes to Tier 7 and 8 resources as well. T7-8 resources will have their total gatherable "charges" reduced, and will no longer spawn fully charged. In turn, however, the overall quantity of these nodes has been drastically increased, and their respawn time has been reduced:

• Tier 7: max gatherable charges = 3, average respawn time = 18720 seconds (312 minutes)
  
• Tier 8: max gatherable charges = 2, average respawn time = 38880 seconds (648 minutes)
  

Royal Zone Changes
The following Tier 5 red zones have been changed to yellow zones:

• Forest: Willow Wood, Hornbeam Wood
  
• Steppe: Snapshaft Trough, Slowtree Plain
  
• Highland: Gutras Hill, Lewsdon Hill
  
• Swamp: Nightcreak Marsh, Sleetwater Basin
  
• Mountain: Cairn Glascore, Cairn Fidair
  

Realmgate Changes

• As part of the major Outlands rework, portal access to the Outlands from Caerleon has been removed
  
• Each of the other five Royal Cities (Bridgewatch, Martlock, Thetford, Fort Sterling, Lymhurst) retains its Realmgate
  
• Realmgates can now be found within Conquerors' Hall, which now appears in each city
  
• With the launch of Queen, all existing portal locks will be removed - the next Realmgate passed through will then activate a new portal binding
  
• A tutorial window has been added to explain the Portal Binding mechanic
  

City Crafting Bonus Changes

• Improved display of city crafting bonuses
  
• Increased the city-specific refining bonus of Royal Cities and their islands from 35% to 40%
  
• Added crafting bonuses for tools, food, and potions to Caerleon
  

Avalonian Crafting Changes

• Removed Avalonian Season Rewards Tab from the Energy Manipulator
  
• Avalonian items can now be created at the following locations:
  
  • Avalonian Basilisk: Energy Manipulator (Rare Mounts Tab)
    
  • Avalonian Food: Cook
    
  • Avalonian Tools: Toolmaker
    

Outlands Treasure Changes

• Lesser Outlands treasures spawn every 5 hours
  
• Greater Outlands treasures spawn every 7 hours
  
• Treasures spawn at castles and castle outposts at cluster prime time on Saturdays and Sundays
  
• Doubled upkeep, claim cost, and attack cost for territories to match increased rarity
  

Randomized Dungeon and Dungeon Map Changes

• Chests will no longer unlock if too many mobs have been alerted but not killed en route to the chest - this includes mobs that have aggroed and de-aggroed AND mobs bypassed while invisible
  
• You can now transmute five Solo Randomized Dungeon Maps into 1 Group Map and 5 Group Maps into 1 Elite Dungeon Map at the Artifact Foundry
  
• The maximum distance maps will be able to find a dungeon has been reduced (with zero being the current cluster):
  
  • Group: 3 → 2
    
  • Solo: 3 → 1
    

Other Changes

• The number of fragments needed to enchant items has been doubled to put enchanting via fragments more in line with other ways of getting enchanted resources
  
• The Trash icon has been updated for better visibility while looting during PvP encounters, and to better match the game world
  
• Changed main tutorial area name from "Hideout" to "Cove" to avoid confusion with the new Hideout feature
  
• Changed how some items are categorized and thus where they show up in the Marketplace:
  
  • Randomized Dungeon Maps: Consumables → Maps
    
  • Chopped Fish: Products → Cooked
    
  • Mount Upgrade Items (Undead, Keeper, Morgana): Materials → Other
    
  • Avalonian / Siphoned Energy: Materials → Other
    

Combat Balance Changes
Axes

• Rending Bleed (all Axes):
  
  • Removed the per-stack Healing Reduction
    
  • Instead, 3 stacks of Rending Bleed applies a 20% Healing Received debuff, which lasts for 3 seconds
    
  • This debuff can't be stacked
    

Mounts
Mounts intended for transport have had their transport stats increased, while those intended for battle have had their transport stats decreased:

• Saddled Direboar:
  
  • Carry Weight: 1252kg → 2623kg
    
• Saddled Wild Boar:
  
  • Carry Weight: 739kg → 1477kg
    
• Saddled Direbear:
  
  • Mount Hit Points: 1855 → 2847
    
  • Carry Weight: 2469kg → 5408
    
• Saddled Winter Bear:
  
  • Mount Hit Points: 1689 → 2365
    
  • Carry Weight: 1231kg → 2462kg
    
• Grizzly Bear:
  
  • Hitpoints: 1770 → 2686
    
  • Carry Weight: 2146kg → 4498kg
    
• Elder's Command Mammoth:
  
  • Carry Weight: 3977kg → 1187kg
    
• Venom Basilisk:
  
  • Carry Weight: 3311kg → 946kg
    
• Flame Basilisk:
  
  • Carry Weight: 3311kg → 946kg
    
• Siege Ballista:
  
  • Carry Weight: 1505kg → 499kg
    
• Crystal Tower Chariot:
  
  • Carry Weight: 4118kg → 989kg
    
• Gold Tower Chariot:
  
  • Carry Weight: 3579kg → 788kg
    
• Silver Tower Chariot:
  
  • Carry Weight: 3142kg → 623kg
    
• Crystal Battle Rhino:
  
  • Carry Weight: 3293kg → 791kg
    
• Gold Battle Rhino:
  
  • Carry Weight: 2862kg → 630kg
    
• Silver Battle Rhino:
  
  • Carry Weight: 2514kg → 499kg
    
• Bronze Battle Rhino:
  
  • Carry Weight: 2141kg → 391kg
    

Fixes
Spell fixes:

• Displacement Immunity:
  
  • Now only resists the displacement effects of a spell as intended, rather than all movement-affecting spells that involve displacement - e.g. for a spell with Knockback Slow, and Damage, a target with Displacement Immunity will only resist Knockback and will not resist Slow or Damage
    
• Dodge:
  
  • Replaced whole-spell immunity with just CC effect immunity (similar to Displacement Immunity changes above)
    
• Frost Shot (all Bows):
  
  • Fixed an issue where Frost Shot had no Jump effect when used directly after Dodge
    
• Morgana Raven (Carrioncaller):
  
  • Damage now ticks 5 times instead of 4 as intended
    

Other fixes:

• Fixed an issue where players were not put into combat mode when attacking a mob but not receiving damage from it
  
• Numerous additional visual, animation, audio, terrain, and localization fixes