Avatars,
Please read this entire message, as well as the linked Player Guide and Known Issues.
Release 57 of
Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, August 30, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).
Release 57 is the second release in which we focused on the current iteration of our Top 10 Priorities (from
Q3 2018 post).
We continued to make great progress on Systems and User Interface
Polish with a specific focus on improving Quality of Life. We also
continue to fix huge numbers of bugs.
Quality of Life Improvements: This was the main focus of Release
57. Our goal here was to improve moment to moment and daily gameplay.
Siege skipping, Control Point skipping, Global banks, removed NPC
slowdowns, double XP as the new normal, reduced Roving encounter
awareness and other similar changes should all make very noticeable
improvements to every Avatars play experience by removing continual
inconveniences and slow-downs.
User Interface Polish: To support the above improvements we made
several changes to the UI to improve daily use. For example, we added a
“Vendor” button to all vendor NPC types (trainers, merchants, bankers)
that gives Avatars immediate access to their function. We also added
status indicators to the health and focus bars. Additionally, we made a
more compact loot window, polished the auto-selection of ingredients at
crafting tables, and implemented a host of other UI improvements.
Player Made Dungeon Preview: Player Made Dungeons are previewing
in Release 57 with 5 dungeon entrances and 5 static example dungeons!
Players can place these examples on their property to get a feel for how
the real system will work when it launches in Q4.
Decoration Dyeing: We now have technology and user interface
support to allow the use of dyes to change the colors of decorations
including banners, beds, couches, sofas, and more! For now, only a few
items can be dyed but we will be expanding the numbers of items as
quickly as possible.
Bug Fixing: We dedicated a significant portion of the release to
working solely on fixing bugs and reducing our overall bug count. We
addressed over 100 issues with over 70 of them highlighted in these
notes including fixes to various scenes (typos, stuck spots, etc.),
crafting fixes, combat fixes, and various user interface fixes.
I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to the players who tested
the items listed below on our QA server. They found many bugs and also
provided editorial feedback on this post so that it is easy to read and
actually matches what is in the game.
Before offering feedback and/or reporting a bug, we kindly ask that you read this whole message and the linked
Player Guide and
Known Issues to get up to date on the current game state. To keep up to date, please check out the
Patch Notes.
By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal
of our time and effort can be focused on new “unanswered” questions and
addressing critical issues that impact each release. We greatly
appreciate you taking the time to review this post and for all the truly
valuable feedback you continue to provide.
Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each
release, our community is also working overtime to make new events for
you to enjoy. Be sure to check the schedule for player-run events (via
the player-run websites:
NBNN Community Calendar &
Avatars Circle). You can also get the latest official events on the
Main Website.
Without further ado, here is a list of what you can expect to see in Release 57.
Key:
- Plain Text: The original plan for the Release deliverables from the Q3 2018 Schedule Update. We intentionally preserve the original text so that our backers can compare plan versus actuals.
- Italics: Detailed notes of what was actually delivered.
- Strikethrough: These are items that did not make the release (but are still planned).
RELEASE 57, August 30, 2018
- Story: We will continue polishing the starting scenes for
balance and guidance. Additional work will continue on Tier adjustments
to better balance scene difficulty. We will also add a few new
sidequests.
- Control Points Voluntary Entry: Control Points can
now be crossed over on the Overworld without forcing players to enter
the scene. This is part of an overall effort to reduce the number of
scene loads in each play session. The following scenes are affected by
this change and can now be entered voluntarily, just like any other
adventure scene:
- Brightbone Pass
- Eastreach Gap
- Nightshade Pass
- Sanctus Spine
- Superstition Canyon
- Vauban Pass
- Vertas Pass
- Town Sieges Voluntary Entry: Town Sieges can now be
bypassed by all level of players, allowing direct access to the
besieged town. This is part of an overall effort to reduce the number of
scene loads in each play session. Sieges can now be entered voluntarily
from the Overworld, just like any other adventure scene. Note when
leaving towns you automatically bypass sieges (no option is given to
enter them).
- NPC Movement Slow Down Removed: NPCs will no longer
slow down your character when you move through them when you are in
non-combat mode. We made this change to improve general quality of life
and because players were just working around this by running through
towns in combat mode.
- Roving Encounters Awareness Reduction: We have reduced the awareness ranges of all patrolling NPCs on the overworld so it should be easier now to evade them.
Comments
- Unstable Power Elixir of the Obsidians: We fixed an incorrect tooltip about dexterity (listed intelligence twice) and fixed a typo about “glowing.”
- Unsummonable Tamed Pets: We fixed an issue where it
was possible to get a tamed pet into an un-summonable state by
summoning an elemental right after it died.
- Untargeted Arrows: We fixed an issue where untargeted arrows would shoot into the sky or floor versus straight ahead.
- Windows Remaining Pinned: We fixed an issue that
caused some windows (social for example) to remain pinned when they were
closed, such that they were still pinned when they were reopened.
- Scene Fixes: We went through many scenes in the
game fixing major and minor bugs including conversations, quest markers
clearing, stuck spots, floating assets, missing assets, bad NPC patrols,
inaccessible ore nodes, missing collision, audio issues, falling
through the world, tree issues, etc. The list includes:
- Aerie
- Ardoris
- Battle of Highvale
- Blood River Forest
- Blood River Outskirts
- Brightbone Pass
- Brisach Maple Forest
- Brittany Central
- Brittany Estates
- Crooked Shank
- Desolis
- Dog Roving Encounters
- East Vauban Foothills
- Elad’s Lighthouse
- Estgard
- Etceter
- Etceter Crag Mines
- Hidden Vale Overworld
- Kingsport
- Kobold Expeditionary Camp
- Malice
- Middle Downs
- Mud
- Naryad Moors
- Norgard Fens
- North Drachvald Spur
- North Fetid Swamp
- Northwest Blackblade Mountains
- Novia Overworld
- Owl’s Head
- POT Templates with Docks
- Resolute
- Shores of Malice
- Solace Bridge Outskirts
- Soltown
- Soltown Sewers
- South Midmaer Way
- Spite
- The Obsidian Trial
- The Rise
- Upper Tears
- Verdantis Foothills
- Vertas
- Vertas Pass
- Westend
- House, Furniture, & Equipment Decoration Fixes: Fixed
various issues with homes, furniture, and equipment decorations
including places where decorations could not be placed, where stairs
could not be climbed without jumping, where furniture could not be used,
gear that could not be placed as deco, etc. The list includes:
- 1-Story Village Mine Basement
- 2-Story Storefront Row Home
- Adobe Domes
- Ancient Staff of Anarchy (glow restored)
- Blue Cylinder
- Common Chair
- Frosted Glass Floor Lamp
- Heavy Rustic Chairs
- Norgard High Back Chair
- Plow
- Replenishing Confetti Eggs Basket
- Shooter Wax Cylinders
- Shovel
- Slightly Used Geisterseelen
- Viking 4-story Row Home
- Village Stone 5-story Basement
- Yoke
Crafting & Economy: We will continue to add more loot, recipes, patterns, components, and artifacts to the game.- Auto Selection Polish for Crafted Items: We
have refined the process of how items are filtered and auto selected
when you double click on the Socketing, Masterwork, and Enchanting
recipes in your recipe book.
- Socketing: Items that are already socketed will not be selected.
- Masterwork: Items that already have the max number of Masterwork effects will not be selected.
- Enchanting: Items that already have the max number of Enchantment effects will not be selected.
- Watering Status Tooltip: Plants in their various
growth and watered stages in the Agriculture system now have tooltip
that says their watered state (“Watered” vs “Needs water”).
- Recipes Stackable: Recipes can now be stacked!
- Recipes Values: We have set the value on all recipes based on their difficulty. Values range from 5 to 100 gold.
- Sale Number Increase to 256: Players can now sell up to 256 items at a time to an NPC merchant (was previously limited to 50 items).
- Cinnamon Bark Purchase Orders: This rare component can now be added to purchase orders on Player Vendors.
- Offline Mode Decoration Prices: At the suggestion
of players we have reduced the price of decorations on the decoration
merchant in offline mode. This will allow a cheap source of starter
decorations for players.
- New Recipes & Patterns:
- Blue Rose Flower Arrangement (Florists, see above)
- Orange Rose Flower Arrangement (Florists, see above)
- Pink Rose Flower Arrangement (Florists, see above)
- Red Rose Flower Arrangement (Florists, see above)
- Yellow Rose Flower Arrangement (Florists, see above)
- Blue Rose Bouquet (Florists, see above)
- Orange Rose Bouquet (Florists, see above)
- Pink Rose Bouquet (Florists, see above)
- Red Rose Bouquet (Florists, see above)
- Yellow Rose Bouquet (Florists, see above)
- Reshape Dungeon Entrance Recipe
- Tomb Dungeon Entrance Recipe including example 50-Point Dungeon (Blacksmithing merchants and Decoration merchant in Brittany)
- Standing Stone (Smelting Recipe, Drachvald Decoration Merchants)
- Engraved Standing Stone (Smelting Recipe, Drachvald Decoration Merchants)
- Book Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern (Add-On Store)
- Mirror Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern (Add-On Store)
- Stone Archway Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern (Add-On Store)
- Rift Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern (Add-On Store)
- Dark Elven Kinsman Buckler Eternal Pattern (Add-On Store)
- Dark Elven Kinsman Buckler Pattern (Add-On Store)
- New Components & Artifacts Delayed: We focused our efforts on bug fixing and polish and therefore no new components nor artifacts were added this release.
User Interface Polish: Polish on the overall visual look of the interface will continue. We will also work on improving the Looking for Group interface.- In-Game Crown Purchase Prototype: There is now a Crown
Purchase window in the game. Please note that this is currently a
prototype that consists of links to the 5 different crown packages on
the web store, and lists the quantities of crowns and current prices for
each package. Note that you cannot actually purchase crowns in the game
yet, but that is the goal for future versions of this interface. All of
the places in the game that previously sent you to the web store now
open this interface instead. The exceptions to this are the links in the
front-end (main menu and login screen), as well as offline mode. In
these cases, the links still lead to the web store as they did before.

- Siege PVP Message: When presented with a Siege confirmation for a PVP scene it now notates that it is a PVP town under siege.
- Gold Trade Logging: We added chat logging to when someone modifies the gold amount in the trade window. Previously only items were logged.
- Looking For Group and UI Visual Polish Delayed: We
chose to focus our efforts on Quality of Life improvements, bug fixing,
and other user interface polish tasks therefore delaying polish work on
the Looking for Group interface and UI visual updates.
Combat: We will continue iterations on the Obsidian Trials with more rulesets, win/loss conditions and currency rewards.- Obsidian Trials Disk Teleporters: While we
actually delivered all our goals for the Obsidian Trials in Release 56,
we did make a tweak in R57 to the Disk Teleporters so they now
deactivate on use and only allow a single user through.
- Polearm Balance: Pole arms received a small balance
pass this release aimed at slightly reducing their max hit amount. The
base critical damage multiplier for all polearms was reduced by roughly
10%.
- Crushing Blow: This bludgeon skill now hits 2 targets (for real this time, not like last time we said it).
- Disorderly Displacement: This Chaos Magic spell now has a unique icon.
- Break Effect Immunity: We have expanded the
immunity you get from stuns, mezzes, and knocks (that prevents chain
stuns) to also get applied when you break those effects.
- Smelling Salts: The stun that applies when changing
PVP status on joining a PVP group (to prevent PVP flagging exploits)
can no longer be removed with Smelling Salts.
- Aetheric Feedback: The critical time window for this spell has been increased.
- Healing Grace: For those who are Life Specialized, the cast time of healing grace has been decreased.
- Magic Tree Specialization: Specializing in a school will now give a negative resistance to the opposing school instead of negative attunement.
- Vile Crossbow: Now includes a 50% poison effectiveness debuff.
Player Towns & Player Housing: Updates to Dynamic Player-Owned Towns (POTs) that have locked submission forms will appear in the game.A word of advice though (not that they ever took any advice from the community).
I do think that we will see an increase for sure in number over the player dungeons once all the parts are in the next 2 months. As well with the boxes going out to all the 59-60k backers it will trigger some to come back and check it out again. I think they are in a much better state now to retain then the last year