PvP fest Playtest Patch Notes

This update kicks off our newest playtest. We’ve added a handful of new features, balance changes, QoL improvements, bug fixes, and this week, you will be able to experience all of this. As always, we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback, as it helps us improve the game for you.

New Changes

Mission & Map

• Performance, loading and memory usage improvements

• Improved water rendering

• New enemies added:

  • Ghost Bandit Crossbow

  • Ghost Bandit Dagger

  • Forgotten Champion

• Reworked the main questline up to the first Vaultbreak event.

• Many quest rewards reworked to support new Ability Items

• Darkness rework

  • New darkness effect and behavior added to the Elemental and Gondrak caves

  • Torches added to maps in Darkness areas, but darkness radius is now smaller

• New Spirit Artifact added to the second Vault

• Refinery map extended in size (new mini areas are coming soon!)

• Gas mask and poison rework

• Storm Summoner removed along with its building requirement

• Silverhook Sam and Goldbelly locations in the mission updated

• Bear Cave is no longer locked

• Multiple environment effect SFX & VFX updates

• Updated Doomburst Cactus name and locations available

• Chest type and location updates

• Bahra now patrols the area

• Ore now drops from various Elementals

• Changelings removed from Tutorial match

• Health bar communication of color and state updated

  • All health bars are now green, so they do not impart information about if a given entity is an enemy or a friend. You will have to find that out in other ways!

  • Wounds are dark green, so they do not appear similar to shields, and are thematically better linked to health.

  • Party members’ names now appear in blue in missions as well (this was only the case in the Haven before)

• Added primary quest line icons to differentiate primary quests and other quests in the world

  • Hopefully, this helps players make easier decisions about what to pursue when in doubt

Combat Balance

• Vaultbreaker abilities available from the start have been reworked

• Gear slots reworked

• Ability items added for deeper playstyle expression and customization:

  • 3x class ability items

  • 7x gear abilities

  • 2x weapon abilities

• Balance changes for playable Vaultbreakers:

  • Dev comment: With so many new Ability Items added, the balance is hard to predict. We’ve tried tweaking some things based on the last test, but not overreacting too much before we see how Ability Items affect the game. For the changes, the big outliers last test were Nymera being too strong and Lumiri being too weak. Lumiri’s energy re-cast rework was a bit too demanding. Nymera's ultimate was a bit too strong for PvP when staggered.

    • CosmeticNymera Ult/Emerald Barrage damage delay time from 0.1 to 0.3
    • CosmeticNymera Ult/Emerald Barrage projectiles 5 to 4
    • CosmeticNymera Ult/Can no longer be rotated while channeling
    • CosmeticNymera Perk/Soaring Strike less invulnerability duration on cast from 1 to 0.5s
    • CosmeticLumiri perk/Sharp Leaves - Damage increased from 80 to 120 and scaling from 70% to 100%
    • CosmeticLumiri/Piercing Overgrowth. No recast. Base version doubles Shooty Flowers.
    • CosmeticLumiri/Basic attack and flower attack energy gain increased from 2 to 4.
    • CosmeticLumiri Perk/Empowered Discount energy reduction reduced from 50 to 25.
    • CosmeticLumiri Perk/Energizing Touch to 50 to 25 energy per hit.
    • CosmeticThora/Rager whirl pulls in (reverse knockback) enemies
    • CosmeticBjornir/Wild Swing energy gain reduced from 20 to 10
    • CosmeticBjornir/Basic attack has energy gain on hit from 0 to 5
    • CosmeticBjornir/Basic attack hold self slow increased from 20% to 25%
    • CosmeticSparkwing Perk/Empowered Vortex base