Albion Online Dev Tracker

Hi all,

When it comes to large scale Outland gameplay, one of our core design goals is to encourage as much conflict as possible.

This is always a balancing act between making it easy to get to and find fights on the one hand, and making sure that a coalition of players does not become overly dominant on the other hand. Part of this is also to set up the game systems in such a way that conflict is always encouraged as much as possible, of course within the constraints that in an open world Sandbox MMORPG, players can freely choose on how to play and who to fight.

Over the past weeks, we have received a lot of feedback regarding the role of hideouts for power projection in the Outlands. Due to the flexible custom rights system, it’s currently possible for each hideout to in principle act as a respawn point for an entire coalition, no matter what their actual in-game alliance status is. In addition to that, freshly placed hideouts can fulfill that role ri... Read more

Call to Arms Hotfix 6.1

• Level 6 20v20 Crystal League tokens are tradable again as intended (known issue: the non-tradable icon still appears on the item; this will be fixed in an upcoming patch)
  
• Fixed an issue where Avalon Portals were not displayed on the minimap
  

Note: the above issues are not yet fixed for iOS, but the current iOS version remains compatible and playable.

In addition, the following temporary server-side fix was deployed for iOS:

• [iOS] Fixed an issue where no respawn options were available after dying - iOS players will now respawn automatically after 10 seconds
  

Call to Arms Patch 4 (Balance Patch) - Version 18.040.1 - May 6, 2021

Hellgate Changes

Hellgate rewards have been greatly increased, and Infamy for Hellgates has been adjusted to scale more quickly, as well as to max out at 50%. Nearly all players will also see an even greater bonus. A very small number of the highest Infamy players may see their bonus percentages slightly decrease, but even in these cases, overall loot will go up significantly.

• Significantly increased rewards across all non-lethal and lethal Hellgate modes
  
• A chest will now always appear at the portal after any Hellgate is completed, either by killing the opposing team or collecting sufficient Infamy from killing mobs
  
  • These chests can be Common, Uncommon, Rare or Legendary
    
• Increased the value of Uncommon, Rare, and Legendary chests i...

Read more

Faction Rank Changes

• Removed Faction Standing Upkeep for Ranks 13-16
  
• Reduced Faction Standing Upkeep for Ranks 17-21 from 10% to 5%
  
• All characters received additional Faction Standing to reverse this week's Faction Standing Upkeep. You can read more about these changes here.
  

Note: We are aware that there are issues with for Android players with this hotfix. Our d... Read more

Hey everyone,

In response to your feedback about the Faction Standing Upkeep, we’ve reviewed this mechanic and made some of the requested changes.

Firstly, it’s important to communicate what the intention behind this mechanic is: We want high prestige ranks to remain meaningful and prestigious for the long term. If there is no upkeep, eventually everyone will be maximum rank and it will no longer mean anything. It was aggressively tuned to protect the prestige of the higher ranks, as we’d prefer to relax the mechanic over time rather than make it stricter if we end up having too many people at the maximum rank.

However, we’ve reviewed your feedback as well as the data we’ve collected since the Call to Arms release, and have made the following adjustments:

• This no longer affects ranks 13-16. All rewards have already been unlocked by rank 16, so once a reward is unlocked it remains unlocked unless a character changes Fa...

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Call to Arms Patch 3 - Version 18.030.1 - April 19, 2021

Hellgate Changes

We've made various changes and improvements to Hellgates based on early data as well as community feedback. You can read about these changes more in depth here: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/147730

• Further reduced selectivity of Hellgate matchmaking in 10v10 Hellgates to broaden the ra...

Read more

Hello there,

I'm Shakul57, a new game designer, who recently joined SBI.

One issue you brought up from time to time is the state of our ability tooltips. So I’m happy to announce, we are finally in the process of overhauling them. For this we try to have a more consistent and clear style. During this process we will also fill in the information that might be missing from some tooltips.

We created a first draft of examples for these overhauled tooltips and are now looking for feedback if you think the new versions are an improvement in terms of readability compared to the old descriptions.

Raging Storm - Bow of Badon

Old:

Shoots a Lightning Arrow, which creates a stormcloud on impact with an enemy. The cloud lasts for Xs and constantly hits
enemies within its Xm radius with lightning. This lightning interrupts enemy casting, and deals X magical damage, every Xs.
After leaving the ... Read more

Greetings everyone,

We’ve been reading through feedback about the new 10v10 Hellgates released in Call to Arms, as well as watching a lot of great videos players have shared on various social platforms.
We’re definitely happy with the response to the PvP content when it happens but would like to incorporate some of the feedback for improving the accessibility and matchmaking of the feature in Patch 3.
To start, we’ve reduced the Base IP Requirement 1100 to 1000, as well as changed the soft cap from 1300 to 1200 and a scaling factor change from 0.5 to 0.35.
This should significantly decrease the barrier of entry so more of you can experience the content without breaking your banks.
In addition to this, we’ve also reduced the selectivity of the matchmaking progress even further, so teams more readily match with each other. It’s our hope that these changes will increase the frequency of PvP in 10v10 Hellgates significantly. We’ve also made some changes to th... Read more

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where icons for the chests and avatar ring were invisible and not claimable in the Hunter Challenge popup screen.
  

Hey there,

in the past weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about the smart cluster queue feature introduced with Queen.

With this post, we'd like to give an overview of the situation and share with you the steps that we consider taking.


What is the goal of the cluster queue?

There are hard tech limits to how many players can fight in a single zone. These tech limits are not subject to hardware, meaning that no matter how many servers we use, they can't be exceeded without causing massive issues. We have been able to extend this limit substantially since the game's release, but that won't change the fact that such a limit will always exist.

Now, prior to the cluster queue, it was possible to block off a zone by placing a large number of players there and reaching the zone player cap. This stopped other players from entering entirely.

The goal of the cluster queue is to prevent zone c... Read more

Hello everyone,

we will make some changes to the cluster queue, to prevent strategies that gave a big advantage by playing around the system. That strategy was based on zoning in via the queue and then immediately leaving the zone again, to get enemy players zoned out and then prevent them from re-queuing again by camping all entrances.


Changes:

• Players who are removed from a zone via the cluster queue will receive a special Queue Removal Protection: As long as they stay close to the entrance and do not perform any actions, they will stay invisible and invulnerable, but they are also silenced and can’t attack other players for up to 150 seconds. This will allow them to stay in the queue to re-enter the zone for at least 1 queue cycle.
  
• If a player moves away from the entrance, or after the 150 seconds ended, the Queue Removal Protection will be canceled, and the player will instead get a normal zone change bubbl...

Read more

Hi all,

here is a short explanation of how the manual cluster queue priority system works.

1. The cluster queue in general works on an alliance level.

2. Based on the players from the alliance who are in the queue or already in the zone, the system calculates how many total player slots that alliance will get in the zone in the upcoming queue cycle. The calculation is based on the average IP value of the players in the queue or zone. This calculation is not affected by any manual queue priority settings.

3. Once the system has calculated how many total slots an alliance will have in the zone, it checks if the current number of alliance members in the zone is higher or lower than that. If it is higher, some members will be kicked form the zone. If lower, some members can enter the zone.

4. The system then determines players to be added to or removed from the zone based on the following:

Entering (if the... Read more

Call to Arms Patch 2 - Version 18.020.1 - March 31, 2021

New Hide Mob and Mount: Moose

• Moose have been added to the forest biome as a T6 Hide Mob
  
• Their lootable offspring (Moose Calf) can be grown into adults in a pasture
  
• Grown Moose can be saddled and ridden as a mount
  
• Moose share a Mount Skin category with Giant Stags
  

Changes

• Significantly increased Faction Points awarded for PvP knockouts and kills
  
• Using a new Randomized Dungeon Map now cancels your previous reservation
  
• Added Hellgate Infamy to player stats menu
  
• Hellgates: decreased lava speed by 30%
  
• Respawn time for Faction Outpost bosses: 90s → 30s (NPC respawns are still temporarily blocked if the outpost has recently been contested)
  
• Players...

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Fixes

• Increased maximum Faction Points that can be earned by knocking down or killing other players in Faction Warfare - now matches the launch values that were in place prior to Patch 1
  
• Fixed an issue where furniture such as chests was hidden and inaccessible when a city cluster was overcrowded
  

Call to Arms Patch 1 - Version 18.010.1 - March 25, 2021

Guild Season Winner Statues Added

• A new statue commemorating Black 0rder, winners of Guild Season 11, now appears at the entrance to Conquerors' Hall (located in all Royal Cities except Caerleon).
  
• The statues awarded to the 1st-3rd place guilds can now be placed as furniture items.
  

20v20 Crystal League Changes

• Increased the rewards for Level 2+ matches:
  
  • Reward chests now contain artifacts, with a rare chance to include Avalonian artifacts.
    
  • Artifacts are guaranteed for winning teams, though losing teams may also receive them based on the overall point spread.
    
  • To create a stronger incentive to directly play Level 3 matches, Level 3 chests contain twice as many artifacts on avera...

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Hello!

As I’m sure some of you are wondering, we do intend on converting Faction Standing from the old Faction Warfare to the new Faction Warfare.

This conversion process is as follows:

• When enlisting with a Faction for the first time, your standing with that Faction will be converted without the normal conversion penalty. This means that there will be absolutely no loss of your old Faction Standing’s contribution to your progress in the new Faction Warfare.
  
  • HOWEVER: This complete conversion can only be used once. When enlisting with a Faction, standing with other Factions will be set to zero. Please be certain when making your choice about which Faction to enlist with as this decision can’t be undone without any loss of Faction Standing.
    
  • As the Caerleon faction is new, players have no Faction Standing with there. If a player joins Caerleon they must start fro...

Read more

Hello everyone,

With the launch of the Call to Arms update, we've upgraded the underlying Albion Online game engine version. In addition to providing a more optimized development process, this update should greatly improve some aspects of the game's performance, particularly a reduction of micro-stutters during gameplay. At the same time, there are potential new issues which come with any new technology.

We will continue to monitor the game's post-update performance and make any necessary adjustments. Please let us know if you notice any improvements or notice any new issues.

We wish you all lots of fun with the Call to Arms Update!

- Robin 'Eltharyon' Henkys

Call to Arms Update - Version 18.000.1 - March 17, 2021

Version Numbers Simplified

With this update, the version numbers we assign to all updates, patches, and hotfixes have been simplified. These will now appear in the form XX.XXX.X and will increase incrementally and chronologically. As in the past, patches will frequently have names (e.g. "Call to Arms Patch 6", "Brimstone and Mist", etc.) in addition to their version numbers.

Island Move

As Faction Warfare has received a major rework, player and guild islands are eligible for a single free one-time move between cities. This move is available via the Island Merchant, and must be completed prior to maintenance on April 17, 2021.

Update Features

FACTION WARFARE REVAMP

Faction Warfare has been completely reworked and updated:

...

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Hello players of Albion,

I would like to introduce you to all the upcoming changes currently in development for Season 12.

This season we want to make ownership of territories more important for the season win and also create incentives for more activity in the Outlands outside of large battles. And we will are also making improvements to the newly introduced 20v20 Crystal League.

Large Scale Fights
Season Point Values
For Season 12 we will flatten the Season Point progression curve between the "Outer Circle" and "Inner Circle" of the Outlands to some degree.

This is intended to increase the importance of guild objectives like Territories and Castles globally as an important source of Season Point and Siphoned Energy generation. While these changes will flatten the progression curve, we are also increasing the overall output on the higher end:

Season 12 (New)
... Read more

Rise of Avalon Patch 15 (Season 12 Patch) - Ver. 1.17.410 / REV 186806 - 3 March 2021

For full details of these changes and the reasoning behind them, see this forum post: forum.albiononline.com/index.p…nges-for-Guild-Season-12/

Season Point Changes

Territory Season Points (amounts given daily for owned territories):

• 240 → 300
  
• 200 → 260
  
...

Read more