Patch Notes 2.2.0.0

[Robmo]

Combat Abilities


One of the major new features of the Reckoning Expansion, the Combat Ability and Adrenaline system.



These new and impactful additions represent the largest and most evolving change to the game’s combat to date.



You will be able to unlock and use new and unique Combat Abilities for every weapon group (with the exception of Lances) including Bows. Using these Combat Abilities consumes a new resource called Adrenaline, which is generated by engaging in combat actions.



Each weapon group has three unlockable Combat Abilities, which can be obtained from the Soldier and Hunting Taskmasters in towns.


Unlocking Combat Abilities



Every Combat Ability must first be unlocked by reading its associated Combat Treatise Chapter. These are consumable items which teach you how to perform a specific Combat Ability.

These combat treatises are named books written by in-world authors, and are obtained primarily from the existing Soldier and Hunter Taskmasters in every town, with abilities for bows, spears and daggers being obtained from the Hunter Taskmaster, while most melee weapon abilities will be obtained from the Soldier Taskmaster. Every town will have at least the first chapter for every weapon group available, while the second and third chapters must be obtained from specific towns.

For example, the combat treatise for Two Handed Swords is called “Dancing on the Edge” written by Wentunio Vygos, and consists of three chapters, one for each Two Handed Sword combat ability:

• Dancing on the Edge Chapter I: Hilt Strike
• Dancing on the Edge, Chapter II: Flurry
• Dancing on the Edge, Chapter III: Hanging Thrust

Every weapon group has their own unique combat treatise book name, author and chapters.

Something important to note is that the chapters do not need to be read in order, however each combat ability does have a specific minimum skill requirement for its associated weapon group. For example you might need 50 Sword skill to perform Flurry, and 100 Sword skill for Hanging Thrust. Generally combat abilities which require more Adrenaline will have a higher skill requirement.


The number of task coins required for these ability unlock items are intended to be reasonably low and readily accessible.

Adrenaline​

Every Combat Ability costs Adrenaline to use, which is a new resource similar in concept to Stamina or Mana.

Adrenaline is displayed in the center of the screen, and consists of 10 separate points.

While not fighting, your Adrenaline will passively generate up to 1, allowing you to initiate combat by performing any Combat Ability with an Adrenaline cost of 1, should your chosen weapon group have one.

Adrenaline is gained by engaging in combat related actions, such as dealing damage, taking damage, parrying, killing someone or performing a fatality. Damage dealt by Combat Abilities does not generate Adrenaline.

When taking damage you gain four times more Adrenaline for each point of damage taken compared to when you deal damage, this was done to allow players who are outnumbered and thereby naturally receiving more damage and opportunities to parry on average, to generate more Adrenaline organically and have more frequent opportunities to use Combat Abilities, which if done skillfully could help them overcome greater odds.

When you have been out of combat for 7 seconds, meaning you have not hit or been hit by anyone, your Adrenaline will begin to decay until it reaches your passively generated threshold of 1. The intention here is to allow players to earn Adrenaline rather quickly when engaging in combat and allow the use of combat abilities reasonably frequently, however once the combat has ended or paused for a while, for any Adrenaline remaining to be drained away.

One primary focus of this decay mechanic is to move toward it not being viable to “preload” Adrenaline on your friends before a fight.

Clade Specific Adrenaline Modifiers​

Each of the four Clades, (Human, Alvarin, Oghmir and Thursar) has a unique benefit to how they gain Adrenaline. These benefits are tied to specific Clade Gifts which must be unlocked.

• Humans decay Adrenaline 3 times slower than other clades.
• Alvarin passively generate up to 2 Adrenaline instead of 1.
• Oghmir gain more Adrenaline from taking damage than other clades.
• Thursar have an additional +1 to their maximum Adrenaline, allowing them to generate and use up to 11 Adrenaline instead o 10. Thursar also gain slightly more Adrenaline from dealing damage than other clades.

 

[Robmo]

Selecting your Combat Abilities


After you have unlocked a Combat Ability, you will need to open the Combat Abilities UI page, which is a new tab appearing in the Skill menu ( [L] by default ).

From there, you can select your weapon type, and view your unlocked Combat Abilities.

At the bottom of the page there are 5 slots, which indicate which abilities you have currently selected. These 5 slots also appear when you are in combat mode on your screen, and are separate for each of the shown weapon types, they also update automatically when you swap to a different weapon.

Below the Combat Abilities specific to each weapon type, you can view all of the Shared abilities, which as the name implies are shared across all weapon types. This means you can select which weapon specific combat abilities you would like to have in your set, along with which Shared abilities you would also like to include.

Currently there are 3 different weapon specific Combat Abilities for each weapon type, except for Bows which have 7, allowing you to for example have 3 Two Handed Sword abilities selected, along with 2 Shared abilities, or even all 5 as Shared abilities if you so desire.

Combat Ability Keybind Update​

As we now have 5 separate dedicated slots for Combat Abilities, we needed to reevaluate our default keybind layout to make room for them.

Some notable changes include moving the interact key to E, Weapon Swap to Middle Mouse Button, and the default casting keys to Mouse Thumb buttons 1 and 2. If you do not have thumb buttons, you will of course be able to rebind these actions to any key of your choosing in the settings.

As such, existing players will likely need to shuffle things around in their keybind settings.

Types of Combat Abilities​

There are two different types of Combat Ability when it comes to activating them.

1. Instantly activated Combat Abilities
2. Directionally activated Combat Abilities

Instantly activated combat abilities are as simple as they sound, when you press your dedicated keybind for that combat ability, the ability will automatically activate and be performed.



Directionally activated combat abilities are slightly different, in that they have one additional step.

Each Directional combat ability has a set of available directions, which represent all of the valid directions you can choose to initiate that combat ability from.

To use a Directional combat ability, simply press your dedicated keybind for the ability, and then initiate an attack from one of the valid directions. You will then perform the combat ability using a unique animation that is specific to that direction, with a good example being the Two Handed Sword Combat Ability called Flurry.

Flurry is a Combat Ability which performs two horizontal cuts from opposite directions. It has two available directions, Left and Right, after activating Flurry, if you initiate it from the right, you will perform a right cut followed by a left cut. If you perform it from the left, you will perform a left cut followed by a right cut.

This applies to every other Directional combat ability, where the chosen direction is always where the first attack will come from.

Combat Abilities can have multiple strikes within the same animation, and so although Flurry only has two, there are several abilities which have three and even four different strikes which each come from different directions. This means the number of different unique attacks which are being added to the game is quite large, as a seasoned player will need to learn and remember the sequences of many different abilities in order to preemptively parry in the right directions consecutively.

Combat Ability Variables​

These are some of the variables combat abilities may have:

• Whether the ability is parry-able
• • Note: apart from naturally the bow abilities, currently this is only being used for Crushing Blow and Severance.
• Whether the ability allows the player to sprint while using it
• The set turn radius in degrees per second while the ability is active
• Whether the ability can be used while mounted
• • This is necessary to restrict the melee abilities to be usable on foot only, however most of the Bow abilities can be used while mounted, in addition to the Shared abilities.
• Whether the ability interrupts spellcasting
• Whether the ability causes knockback

In addition to the above, many combat abilities apply various effects to your opponent when hit by them, from Armor Piercing and Bleeding to Mana Drain and higher equipment durability damage, as well as various new Debuffs such as Sapped which reduces stamina regeneration, Dazed which pauses Mana regeneration and Limping which slows the movement of creatures.

 

[Robmo]

Tagmaton Invasions


As many of you who have read the lore article “A New Dawn” over on our website may know, the most defining event which occurred between Mortal Online 1 and Mortal Online 2 is known as “The Tagmaton Irruption”, when nearly all life on Myrland was quenched by their unimaginable number.



Although these new rumored stirrings are nothing compared to the horrors of The Irruption, the Tagmatons appear to be increasing in activity once again.



Every invasion begins with a single creature, the Drone. These Drones will spawn in semi-random locations on Myrland, and immediately begin scouting for a suitable location to call forth the invasion force.



Once they have found one, they will attract a variant of Tagmaton known as a Disgorger to the chosen site.



The Disgorger is large and centipede-like. Its entire purpose in life is to function as a kind of transport tube for other variants of Tagmatons to travel through, it does this by moving through the ground and surfacing at a destination location chosen by scouting Tagmaton Drones.



The other Tagmatons located in their nests underground then enter it from the rear end and move through the inside of it in a fluid, both by crawling as well as being pushed along by contracting muscles similar to a mammal digestive system’s intestines. They are then expelled through the mouth of this creature, and begin transforming the environment around the Disgorger.


The first to spew forth onto the surface are the winged Scramblers, who immediately take to the skies and begin surveying the area. Then come the evasive Borers, who opposite to the Scramblers will climb out of the Disgorger and begin digging into the surrounding ground, forming tunnels and loosening the soil in preparation for terraforming.



Bursters, with their bulbous fluid filled abdomens follow closely behind, depositing enzymes and spores which play a critical role in the biological characteristics of these Tagmatons.



As the Tagmatons solidify their presence and foothold on the new area, over time the Disgorger will expel larger and stronger Tagmatons to aid in its defence, such as the scythe-limbed Slayers, agile Lancers, enormous Bulwarks and fearsome Harbingers.



Once the location has been deemed ready, a Broodmother will ascend, and after some time, gather a large number of her followers and begin marching across the land.



In order to quell the invasion, you must locate and destroy all Disgorgers.



Beware however, as Disgorgers grow stronger the longer they are alive, and so the oldest Disgorgers will likely be surrounded by many of the strongest variants of Tagmatons.



The specific mechanics for eliminating a Disgorger will not be as simple as hitting it however, due to their extremely hard carapace the only way to damage them is to utilise the explosive nature of the Tagmaton Bursters to your advantage, which are known to be most vulnerable just before they explode.

New Loot Items​

To go along with the spectacle of the invasions themselves, we have also introduced a new crafting material known as Huskweave, which may only be obtained from killing and harvesting Tagmatons.



There will also be many interesting items one might be able to gather from dead Tagmatons, such as strange organic glands that may have intriguing but useful effects when consumed.

Brood Egg Hatching


One of the new mechanics coming with the Invasions feature is the ability to find and hatch Tagmaton Brood Eggs.



These eggs will be obtained largely from Tagmaton Broodmothers, and each one will hatch into a Tagmaton Wriggler.



If you manage to keep this Wriggler alive and fed for long enough, it will undergo metamorphosis, turning into one of many new and interesting pets.

The Hivebreakers​

The Hivebreakers are an association of people who carry the weight and heritage of survivors of the Tagmaton Irruption, and have dedicated their lives to the hunting, slaying and culling of Tagmatons wherever they can find them.



This group can be found in small encampments outside some towns, dressed in, ornamented and decorated by pieces of exoskeleton and carapace from the Tagmatons they have slain.



These are the people who have learned how to harvest and craft with Huskweave, and where you can obtain knowledge of it from, for a price.



Their self-appointed title evokes a sense of purposeful and driven pursuing of Tagmatons to eradicate them as quickly and brutally as possible. They are focused on vengeance for what the Tagmatons have done to the population of Myrland and the relatives of those within the group. Their goal is to kill, humiliate and insult the Tagmatons however they can, while vigorously opposing any attempt from the Tagmatons to expand into Myrland once again, lest history repeat itself.



In exchange for bringing them various Tagmaton body parts as proof of honor, the Hivebreaker Appraiser will award you with “Hivebreaker Marks”. They will also sell various items to you in exchange for you collected Hivebreaker Marks, such as wall mounted body parts of slain Tagmatons, as well as the crafting skill lore book for Huskweave, and for the worthy few, a striking garment which identifies a proven and honored member of their rank, the “Hivebreaker Cloak”.

 

[Robmo]

Territory Control Overhaul


Regions of Myrland

The continent has now been separated into 35 distinct named Regions.



Any guild may contest and claim any of these Regions by engaging with the new Outpost Siege mechanics, meaning Territory Control is not restricted to just Keep owning guilds anymore.



Each Region has its own unique set of benefits, such as guild-wide buffs while you are inside a Region you own, collected taxes from every Player House and Stronghold located inside the Region, hourly generated Supply and local resources which are generated within the Region’s Outpost and must be withdrawn after reaching a certain cap in order to generate more.



These benefits are tailored to the local environmental aspects of each Region. For example, owning the Region which contains Cave Camp will provide a buff to Mining Yields, while owning a Region containing coastline will provide a buff to Fishing Catch Yields, or owning a Region containing dense forests and many creatures may provide a buff to Pet Experience Gain. We have endeavored to make each of these Regions appealing for different reasons, so they are always desirable, however without causing significant harm to the world’s resource economy.



Each Region also has a set nation affiliation, such as Tindremic, Khurite or Wilderness, which is used to determine what type of Standing is lost when being reported for murder or committing crimes.



We have also designed these Regions to be heavily and frequently contested, with a primary goal in mind being to facilitate reliable and engaging fights, centering around the Outpost Siege mechanics.

Outposts​

Each of the 35 Regions on Myrland contains its own Outpost, which is a fortified wooden structure belonging to the guild who currently owns the Region it is in.



These Outposts are where the owners of the Region can withdraw any generated local resources, as well as store items in their unique but slot-limited Outpost Banker as well as use the Outpost Priest, which is currently set to guild use only, both of which are locked behind a door that only the Region owners can operate freely.



Outposts are the location where Outpost Sieges happen, which are the events that determine who will be the new owner of a contested Region.



Initiating a Region Claim and starting an Outpost Siege is done via the in-game map by right-clicking on a Region to Contest it. Contesting a Region will cost a decent amount of Prominence as well as some gold from your Guild Treasury.



Doing the above will start a countdown timer until the Outpost Siege begins, which is 1 hour long. At this point everyone who looks at the map can see that the Region is being Contested and can view the Outpost Siege countdown timer. A guild can only have one outgoing Region Contest at a time.



Once the Outpost Siege countdown has ended, the event will begin at the Outpost for that Region.



Please note that initially as a special case scenario, all Regions will be Neutral and unclaimed, allowing the first guild to click them to own them immediately without going through the Outpost Siege mechanics. Due to their design, this is the only time this will happen. Once all Regions have been claimed by a guild, the only way for them to change hands is through the Outpost Siege mechanics.

Outpost Sieges​

After the cooldown timer has ended to initiate the Outpost Siege, the Outpost Siege event timer begins which currently lasts 1 hour, meaning the Attackers have one hour to complete all stages and successfully claim the region as their own.

• A guild must be at least Guild Tier 2 to contest a Region
• A guild must have a total of at least 20 members to contest a Region
• There is a zone around every Outpost which disables murder counts while the Outpost Siege event is ongoing.

Outpost Sieges are designed to allow you to engage with their mechanics without requiring you to bring any resources or specific items such as Siege Tents or Manganons. This means you will not need to build anything or traditionally siege anything once the event starts.



The layout of the Outposts has also been designed to facilitate a variety of gameplay, with consideration for increased verticality and breaking lines of sight in certain areas.



Outpost Sieges consist of three main stages.

They are:

1. Break down the Outer Gate
2. Lower the Inner Gate
3. Raise your Guild Flag

Stage 1 – Breaking the Outer Gate

Once the event starts, three specialized structures will spawn outside the Outpost which produce Oil Pots automatically at a fixed rate of 1 every 30 seconds. These structures do not need to be built, do not require adding any materials and can not be destroyed during the Outpost Siege event.



The Attackers then need to pick up and carry these pots of oil to the outer gate of the Outpost.

After placing 20 pots outside the gate, they will explode and the outer gate will open.



Stage 2 – Lowering the Inner Gate

Once the outer gate has been opened, the Attackers will then gain access to the area inside the outer gate as well as the first floor platform on the outside walls of the Outpost. The Defenders maintain access to the inner second floor wall platforms, however are able to drop down if they wish to fight the Attackers attempting to open the gates.



The Attackers must then open one or both of the two Inner Gates by operating a lever mechanism and lowering the gate completely, while the defenders try to stop them.



Each gate has a lever next to it, which when pushed down will cause the gate to slowly lower, and when pushed up will cause the gate to slowly raise. You do not need to stay next to the gate mechanism after interacting with it to turn it on or off, it will continue to raise or lower on its own unless toggled the other way by a member of the other team.



It currently takes 10 minutes for a gate to lower from 0% to 100% progress if uninterrupted.



If either gate is lowered completely, the Attackers then gain access to the Inner Yard of the Outpost where the Outpost Flag Contest mechanic is played.



Stage 3 – Raising your Guild Flag

• A flag in the middle of the inner yard raises and lowers based on who from the attacking and defending guild is standing within its area.
• If only the Attackers are standing in the flag area then the attackers will gain points.
• If only the Defenders are standing in the flag area then the defenders will gain points.
• If the Attackers flag is successfully raised to the top of the flag pole, they win the Outpost Siege event and are the new owners of the Region.
• If the Defenders manage to stop the attackers from raising their flag to the top of the flag pole before the Outpost Siege event timer ends, the Defenders win and remain as the owners of the Region.
• If one member of both the Attackers and Defenders are present in the flag’s area, the flag will not move. Either group must push out or kill the remaining members of the opposite side in order for the flag to tick up in their favor.
• If uncontested, the flag will take 10 minutes to first lower the Defender’s flag and full raise the Attackers flag.
• • Meaning 5 minutes to lower the Defenders flag to the bottom, then 5 minutes to raise your guild’s flag back up.
• Overtime Mechanic:
• • If the Outpost Siege event timer ends but the flag is still being contested by the Attackers, it will enter an overtime state where the attackers can continue to gain points, however the moment they step out of the area they will lose and the event will end.

After an Outpost Siege

• After an Outpost Siege event has ended, that Region can not be contested again by the attacking guild for 150 minutes, while all other guilds have a cooldown timer of 120 minutes before they can contest the region after the outpost siege has ended.

​

 

[Robmo]

Fatalities​

Fatalities have been added, which are specific executions that can be used on players and humanoid AI which are in mercy mode.

• There are 3 Fatalities to choose from, Iron Hand, Skull Hammer and Mangle.
• You can choose which Fatality you will perform in the weapon type selection of the Combat Abilities UI, which may also be set to random.
• Performing a Fatality will generate 5 Adrenaline.

Nation Standing Rework​

Something which is not directly tied to the main features from the Reckoning Expansion, but that will still have a significant impact on the game is the new rebalance to Nation Standing ranges, and the introduction of more nuanced Standing penalties.



All Standing ranges have been updated to scale from -1000 up to +1000, with varying caps depending on the various in-world inter-clade relationships and lore. Each step of 100 Standing is also equipped with new descriptive labels which better represent how the Nation feels about you.



The additional granularity of this new range allows us to have different penalties based on what crime has been committed, such as for example a much greater Standing loss penalty when being reported for murder compared to simply being sighted by a town guard.

• Increased range from -100 to +100, to -1000 to +1000
• Rebalanced standing limits for clades and nations.
• Criminal actions now have unique standing costs.
• • Being reported for murder will now drain 30 Standing.
  • Being sighted by a guard as a criminal will now drain 5 Standing.

UI and Interactions

• The Skill window has been made larger.
• Fixed a bug in book descriptions that said that you could not read the book if you had exactly the correct level of the required parent skill.
• Guilded NPCs can now only be used by members of the same guild by default.
• Legacy House NPCs no longer get set to the same guild as the house.
• Added support for bankers with less slots. These are used for the Outposts.
• Added support for Treatise items that instantly give you a combat ability when read.
• Fixed crash when dragging chat tabs.
• Added a new icon that appears in the middle of your screen when swapping to a new weapon. This allows you to see which weapon type you have equipped, even when not in combat mode.

Keybinds

The default keybinds have been changed to the following:

• Interact: E
• Mouse Mode: Z
• Push to Talk: V
• Enter/Exit Combat: X
• Inventory: I
• Character Menu / Inventory: TAB
• Feint: L Ctrl
• Push / Bash: G
• Swap Weapon Set: Middle Mouse Button
• Thrust / Modifier: L Alt
• Generic Modifier Key: L Ctrl
• Overhead: Unbound
• Left Attack: Unbound
• Right Attack: Unbound
• Social Menu: O
• Spellbook: U
• Skill Menu: L
• Guild Finder: H
• Map: M
• Mastery Tree: Y
• Auto run: Home
• Combat Ability Keybinds
• • Combat Ability 1: Q
  • Combat Ability 2: R
  • Combat Ability 3: F
  • Combat Ability 4: C
  • Combat Ability 5: T
• Cast Spell: Mouse Thumb Button 1
• Cast Last Spell Self: Mouse Thumb Button 2

Bugs

• Fixed a bug that could cause relics to become empty once they were opened.
• Fixed the water in the Meduli fountain turning yellow.
• Fixed an issue with the melee damage reduction calculation for Akh Bond, causing it to reduce damage twice instead of only once.

Engine

• Minor upgrade of Unreal Engine from 5.5.3 to 5.5.4 that fixes a few crashes and translucency rendering artifacts.
• Fixed config issue with concurrent tick queue causing sporadic crashes.

Optimizations

• We’ve introduced a brand-new animation budgeting system designed to boost performance during the most intense moments on the battlefield.

Whether you're clashing with hundreds of players or fighting off waves of AI, this system smartly prioritizes important animations and attempts to ensure a minimum FPS by deprioritizing less important animations to reach a target FPS, especially in large-scale battles.

Expect smoother gameplay, fewer slowdowns, and a better overall experience when the action gets chaotic.

This is a major step toward ensuring fluid performance no matter how large the fight becomes.

• Optimized character LODs to consume up to 25% less CPU power, improving client performance during large scale battles.

Login and Server Routing Improvements

• Players no longer need to log out and back in when traveling between continents (currently only between Haven and Myrland). Server routing now happens automatically in the background. This is done in preparation for future cross-continent travel.
• Using the Haven statues to travel to Myrland now occurs during a loading screen instead of forcing a logout to the main menu.
• The character selection process in the main menu has been streamlined to not require a relog process if a character is selected on a different server.

Pets

• Potential fix for newly Tamed/Dominated pets not attacking properly.
• Fixed an issue where AI using equipment were not able to attack large targets in melee, such as bandits fighting Molvas or Campodons.

Elementalism Balance

We have made various changes to the balance of certain Elementalism spells in this update, to hopefully address some long standing feedback. A few of the notable changes include adjusting the AoE size of Fireball to closer match the spell’s visuals, decreasing the overall damage of Lightning Bolt given its very large AoE size, as well as adjusting Firewall and Static Charge. Many of the propulsion spells have also been adjusted to be more effective and appealing.

• Adjusted Lightning Bolt base damage range from 9-14 to 10-11
• Adjusted Fireball base damage range from 25-29 to 26-28
• Adjusted Fireball AoE size from 4m to 2m
• Adjusted Firewall damage range from 14-17 to 12-13
• Increased Firewall Mana cost from 20 to 25
• Adjusted Static Charge spell lifetime from 10s to 7s
• Increased Static Charge Mana cost from 20 to 25
• Adjusted Ice Barrier spell max range from 250 to 1 (This means the sphere will always spawn with the caster in the center)
• Decreased Stone cast time from 1s to 0.5s
• Decreased Ember cast time from 1s to 0.5s
• Decreased Hailstone cast time from 1s to 0.5s
• • Developer Note: These cast time decreases were done for two reasons, first to account for the animation time delay of raising your hands before casting a spell, making the intended 1s cast time closer to 1.5s instead, and to make these projectile spells more appealing when compared to the AoE Elementalism spells.
• Adjusted Boulder damage range from 20-25 to 28-30
• Adjusted Comet damage range from 23-33 to 27-29
• Decreased Dust Burst cast time from 2s to 0.75s

Necromancy Balance

• Raised walkers are now automatically controlled by the caster.

AI​

• Reduced the frequency of Outlaw spawns in the world.

Keep Territory Structures

As the Keep Territory area has been reduced to the default size due to the Territory Control Overhaul, any TC structures which were built inside Keep Territory areas will not be able to pay upkeep and will begin to decay. If you would like these structures to be removed and their construction plans returned to you, please contact a Game Master before the 30th of July.