For the initial release of Final Beta, we are noting only major changes, as there have been too many smaller fixes and improvements to count!
We rebuilt the entire world of Albion and all individual areas from scratch, doubled it in size and overhauled layout and distribution for more variety and interesting gameplay. Here are the most important changes:
Royal Continents and the Outlands are each as big as the entire old Albion world.
The new world consists of different biomes that all come with their own visuals, mobs and resources.
Final Beta launches with mountain, swamp and steppe biomes; during the test we will add highlands and forests.
Since not all resources are available in all areas, trading and transport will be crucial!
We have simplified and expanded the item system, so you now have more choices that are easier to understand.
The new reputation system brings another way of creating an identity for yourself within the world of Albion. A very peaceful player will rise to the higher titles and may end up with the title of Glorious at some point. However a very aggressive and hostile player will find themselves reaching the depths of their reputation and may become Dreaded by others.
GvG has had a major facelift with improvements both visually and mechanically. Here are some of the key changes to the new GvG system:
Read more on our news post about the GvG rework
Further content will be rolling out over the course of Final Beta.
With Final Beta every player starts with a fresh character and gear. We took this opportunity to revisit all the abilities and items in the game. Various items and abilities have been moved, values changed and mechanics adjusted to create an overall more interesting and compelling PvP dynamic and PvE experience.
Weapon passives have been reworked completely. They don't offer any passive stats any more, but are instead tied to actions. These passives are now triggered every x-th auto attack or after x ability activations. This way the passive can be used more actively and reliable in combat, adding another layer of strategy and build optimization. Because of their increased importance, passives are now available on one handed and two handed weapons. Therefore the offhands don't have any selectable passives anymore.
Since mobility is such an important factor in open world PvP the mobility differences in weapons and armors has been reduced. This doesn't mean that all weapons and gear provide the same amount of mobility, but the gaps are generally toned down.
Every weapon now has always one ability in the "E" slot. In case a weapon offered multiple E abilities before, one of them stayed on the weapon and most of the other options are available on the Artifact weapons or are either moved to the W ability slot or removed from the game.
Normal attack interval has been increased for all staff weapons. Damage per normal attack has been lowered, to keep the DPS the same. This change helps to activate passives over auto attacks.
On top of this, there have also been many visual improvements, bug fixes and balance tweaks to fit the new meta.
All shield abilities are now also increased by Heal Power, so they become stronger with Cloth Armor or any other heal power increases. This gives Arcane Staff wielders stronger shielding abilities if they decide to not go full tank, while the tanky Arcane Staff can still be played the same way as before.
The Halberd was moved to the axe line, because the weapon's theme fits better into this line. Because of this change, the Scythe has become an Artifact weapon, making the weapon harder to obtain but also more valueable and fearsome.
A new one-handed crossbow type entered this weapon line, introducing new possibilites to combine a crossbow with various offhands.
Because the cast time of Knockback Shot was really hard to utilize, the ability is now an instant cast. When played together with the new knockback passive, the crossbow can offer a lot of disruption, at the expense of the extra damage or slow from the other ability choices of the W ability slot.
The Dagger's E ability was limited to five hits only, which made it straightforward but also didn't leave much room for optimizing the ability's appliance. To make the ability more interesting, it is now only limited by an uptime, which makes it possible to stack attack speed buffs to get more damage out of the ability. This adds a layer of possible build improvements, and brings this item more in line with the burst damage theme of this weapon tree.
New Ability on W Slot: Throwing Blades
The Great Fire Staff offered two mighty AoE abilities: the Meteor and the Magma Sphere. With their focus on big groups, both of these abilities fit much better on Artifact weapons. As a result, the Great Fire Staff got a new E ability: the Flame Pillar. This provides good constant AoE damage, but less burst potential against big zergs.
New Ability on Q Slot: Fire Bomb
New E Ability on Great Fire Staff: Flame Pillar
All the E abilities of this line have been reviewed and adjusted, to reinforce a distinct role for each weapon in this category. The Freezing Wind will now root enemies; the root breaks on damage, which can be very strong in coordinated small scale PvP or for solo kiting. Hail's focus is on damage, and without the cast time it is much more reliable in hitting the first wave. Blizzard's area control is still strong - the uptime was reduced, but to balance this out the storm now moves faster.
Holy Staffs got a new ability buffing cast speed for the W slot. This allows for more burst and mobility, to increase this weapon tree's potential in PvP scenarios such as GvG Battles.
The Divine Staff's Resurrection ability was too situational as an E ability; for this reason, the ability has been moved to the W slot and is available on all Holy Staffs. From Tier 7 on, all Holy Staffs can now switch to Resurrection for specific situations like big group fights.
New Ability on W Slot: Enlightenment
New E Ability on Divine Staff: Divine Protection
New Ability on W Slot: Stalling Slam: It stops the enemy's energy regeneration.
The Quarterstaff line was great for disrupting enemies with all its knockback abilities. However the Iron-Clad Staff was generally the best weapon for this job, leaving the other two staff types a bit underused. Therefore the E abilities of these two have been adjusted. The Quarterstaff now also reduces enemy attack speed, lowering the enemy's damage output and countering builds that rely strongly on normal attacks. The Double Bladed Staff now slows all enemies around the impact area instead of the knockback - a strong weapon to deny enemies an escape.
The ability Taunt is now available on the W slot
Spear line was by far the most mobile weapon tree in the game, and could too easily enforce an engage or disengage. For this reason, the ability Forceful Charge was removed, and the speed boost from the Spirit Spear has been reduced. Spears still have a lot of versatitlity, but they can't completely control the engage and disengage against any other weapon type anymore.
Additionally, the Halberd was replaced with the Glaive, which fits the weapon line's theme much better. The Glaive still has the Fling ability, which can now be used in combination with Spirit Spear. The Rooting Smash from the old Halberd is now found on the Pike, and the Harpoon is on an Artifact spear.
Added Ability on W Slot: Charged Blade
Dual Swords are replacing the Glaive, which can now be found in the spear line. The Dual Swords bring a strong AoE skill which also deals a percentage of the enemy's max health as direct damage.
Iron Will is now a W ability, which in combination with the Heroic Charges can make you very sticky to a target. The Interrupt and the Mighty Blow got a self-buffing component, adding more strategic possibilities.
Since one-handed and two-handed weapons both now have passives on them, the passive choice from the offhand has been removed. But, with all the new Artifact Offhands coming into the game and all boosting a different stat (or stats), a lot of choices and combinations will be possible.
All armor chest lines offer now at least one ability that increases movement speed. For the cloth line it is the Speed Caster, for Leather it's Haste and for Plate it is the new ability Wind Shield. This change was made to decrease the mobility differences in armor types, because mobility is so crucial in open world PvP and solo roaming.
Also, various underused helmet and shoe abilities got some buffs and added effects. For instance, the Energy Shield on Soldier Boots got a stronger shield value, and the Howl ability now also decreases enemy attack speed. Energy Regain is now an ability choice on every helmet, similiar to the Mend Wounds on armors. Some strong group-oriented abilities like Smoke Bomb and Electric Field are now on artifact items.
Added ability on all Leather Armors: Inferno Shield
New ability on all Plate Armors: Wind Shield
For the initial release of Final Beta, we are noting only major changes, as there have been too many smaller fixes and improvements to count!
We rebuilt the entire world of Albion and all individual areas from scratch, doubled it in size and overhauled layout and distribution for more variety and interesting gameplay. Here are the most important changes:
Royal Continents and the Outlands are each as big as the entire old Albion world.
The new world consists of different biomes that all come with their own visuals, mobs and resources.
Final Beta launches with mountain, swamp and steppe biomes; during the test we will add highlands and forests.
Since not all resources are available in all areas, trading and transport will be crucial!
We have simplified and expanded the item system, so you now have more choices that are easier to understand.
The new reputation system brings another way of creating an identity for yourself within the world of Albion. A very peaceful player will rise to the higher titles and may end up with the title of Glorious at some point. However a very aggressive and hostile player will find themselves reaching the depths of their reputation and may become Dreaded by others.
GvG has had a major facelift with improvements both visually and mechanically. Here are some of the key changes to the new GvG system:
Read more on our news post about the GvG rework
Further content will be rolling out over the course of Final Beta.
With Final Beta every player starts with a fresh character and gear. We took this opportunity to revisit all the abilities and items in the game. Various items and abilities have been moved, values changed and mechanics adjusted to create an overall more interesting and compelling PvP dynamic and PvE experience.
Weapon passives have been reworked completely. They don't offer any passive stats any more, but are instead tied to actions. These passives are now triggered every x-th auto attack or after x ability activations. This way the passive can be used more actively and reliable in combat, adding another layer of strategy and build optimization. Because of their increased importance, passives are now available on one handed and two handed weapons. Therefore the offhands don't have any selectable passives anymore.
Since mobility is such an important factor in open world PvP the mobility differences in weapons and armors has been reduced. This doesn't mean that all weapons and gear provide the same amount of mobility, but the gaps are generally toned down.
Every weapon now has always one ability in the "E" slot. In case a weapon offered multiple E abilities before, one of them stayed on the weapon and most of the other options are available on the Artifact weapons or are either moved to the W ability slot or removed from the game.
Normal attack interval has been increased for all staff weapons. Damage per normal attack has been lowered, to keep the DPS the same. This change helps to activate passives over auto attacks.
On top of this, there have also been many visual improvements, bug fixes and balance tweaks to fit the new meta.
All shield abilities are now also increased by Heal Power, so they become stronger with Cloth Armor or any other heal power increases. This gives Arcane Staff wielders stronger shielding abilities if they decide to not go full tank, while the tanky Arcane Staff can still be played the same way as before.
The Halberd was moved to the axe line, because the weapon's theme fits better into this line. Because of this change, the Scythe has become an Artifact weapon, making the weapon harder to obtain but also more valueable and fearsome.
A new one-handed crossbow type entered this weapon line, introducing new possibilites to combine a crossbow with various offhands.
Because the cast time of Knockback Shot was really hard to utilize, the ability is now an instant cast. When played together with the new knockback passive, the crossbow can offer a lot of disruption, at the expense of the extra damage or slow from the other ability choices of the W ability slot.
The Dagger's E ability was limited to five hits only, which made it straightforward but also didn't leave much room for optimizing the ability's appliance. To make the ability more interesting, it is now only limited by an uptime, which makes it possible to stack attack speed buffs to get more damage out of the ability. This adds a layer of possible build improvements, and brings this item more in line with the burst damage theme of this weapon tree.
New Ability on W Slot: Throwing Blades
The Great Fire Staff offered two mighty AoE abilities: the Meteor and the Magma Sphere. With their focus on big groups, both of these abilities fit much better on Artifact weapons. As a result, the Great Fire Staff got a new E ability: the Flame Pillar. This provides good constant AoE damage, but less burst potential against big zergs.
New Ability on Q Slot: Fire Bomb
New E Ability on Great Fire Staff: Flame Pillar
All the E abilities of this line have been reviewed and adjusted, to reinforce a distinct role for each weapon in this category. The Freezing Wind will now root enemies; the root breaks on damage, which can be very strong in coordinated small scale PvP or for solo kiting. Hail's focus is on damage, and without the cast time it is much more reliable in hitting the first wave. Blizzard's area control is still strong - the uptime was reduced, but to balance this out the storm now moves faster.
Holy Staffs got a new ability buffing cast speed for the W slot. This allows for more burst and mobility, to increase this weapon tree's potential in PvP scenarios such as GvG Battles.
The Divine Staff's Resurrection ability was too situational as an E ability; for this reason, the ability has been moved to the W slot and is available on all Holy Staffs. From Tier 7 on, all Holy Staffs can now switch to Resurrection for specific situations like big group fights.
New Ability on W Slot: Enlightenment
New E Ability on Divine Staff: Divine Protection
New Ability on W Slot: Stalling Slam: It stops the enemy's energy regeneration.
The Quarterstaff line was great for disrupting enemies with all its knockback abilities. However the Iron-Clad Staff was generally the best weapon for this job, leaving the other two staff types a bit underused. Therefore the E abilities of these two have been adjusted. The Quarterstaff now also reduces enemy attack speed, lowering the enemy's damage output and countering builds that rely strongly on normal attacks. The Double Bladed Staff now slows all enemies around the impact area instead of the knockback - a strong weapon to deny enemies an escape.
The ability Taunt is now available on the W slot
Spear line was by far the most mobile weapon tree in the game, and could too easily enforce an engage or disengage. For this reason, the ability Forceful Charge was removed, and the speed boost from the Spirit Spear has been reduced. Spears still have a lot of versatitlity, but they can't completely control the engage and disengage against any other weapon type anymore.
Additionally, the Halberd was replaced with the Glaive, which fits the weapon line's theme much better. The Glaive still has the Fling ability, which can now be used in combination with Spirit Spear. The Rooting Smash from the old Halberd is now found on the Pike, and the Harpoon is on an Artifact spear.
Added Ability on W Slot: Charged Blade
Dual Swords are replacing the Glaive, which can now be found in the spear line. The Dual Swords bring a strong AoE skill which also deals a percentage of the enemy's max health as direct damage.
Iron Will is now a W ability, which in combination with the Heroic Charges can make you very sticky to a target. The Interrupt and the Mighty Blow got a self-buffing component, adding more strategic possibilities.
Since one-handed and two-handed weapons both now have passives on them, the passive choice from the offhand has been removed. But, with all the new Artifact Offhands coming into the game and all boosting a different stat (or stats), a lot of choices and combinations will be possible.
All armor chest lines offer now at least one ability that increases movement speed. For the cloth line it is the Speed Caster, for Leather it's Haste and for Plate it is the new ability Wind Shield. This change was made to decrease the mobility differences in armor types, because mobility is so crucial in open world PvP and solo roaming.
Also, various underused helmet and shoe abilities got some buffs and added effects. For instance, the Energy Shield on Soldier Boots got a stronger shield value, and the Howl ability now also decreases enemy attack speed. Energy Regain is now an ability choice on every helmet, similiar to the Mend Wounds on armors. Some strong group-oriented abilities like Smoke Bomb and Electric Field are now on artifact items.
Added ability on all Leather Armors: Inferno Shield
New ability on all Plate Armors: Wind Shield
In this first patch we're fixing a large number of smaller issues which slipped through the release of final beta last week. Most importantly we've revisited our setup for the reputation system and have adjusted it to the intended values.
Expect to see weekly patches for the next few weeks as the game designers, programmers and artists will continue bugfixing and tweaking the game. At the same time, the content team is busy preparing the next larger Beta Update for a mid-September release.
The Frost Staff line offers strong CC and area control, but are energy-hungry weapons. However at least for the Q slot abilities, they were a bit too tedious to play. Therefore, energy costs have been reduced. With this change, the damage of the Frostbolt has been reduced, increasing the ability's focus on the CC. Hoarfrost has now been defined stronger as the damage choice on this slot.
The Inferno Shield was recently moved from plate to leather armors. However since the base resistances of Leather Armors is lower than Plate Armors, the ability's effective resistance gain has become much stronger. To adjust the ability's effective gain to the new armor line, the armor increase values have been reduced.
This ability's power was out of line with its short cooldown. The cooldown has been adjusted, to bring it in line with other sprint spells. The shield value has also been decreased to reflect the recent changes with the way shields can be scaled up.
This patch contains additional fixes and a change to the reputation system which we wanted to get to you as soon as possible - we won't be patching next week while Albion is being demoed to international press at Gamescom in Cologne. The next planned patch, outside of an emergency, is expected for August 23rd.
This patch mostly deals with several critical technical and balancing issues. There are several changes to the game which should allow beginning players to play together more easily, and others deals with the most obvious issues of beginning players.
After this patch, the team is working on a small feature patch which will bring improvements to travelling speed, better rewards for open world PvP objectives and a solution for exiting dungeons when mobs have spawned behind you and your group.
The Claymore had too many advantages and too few disadvantages.
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