about 3 years ago - Retroman - Direct link
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)
Cluster Type Territory - Daily Season Points Castles - Season Points every 6h Castles Outposts - Season Points every 3h
Q6 (inner circle) 300 340 50
Q5 260 295 44
Q4 220 250 38
Q3 180 205 32
Q2 140 160 26
Q1 (outer circle) 100 115 20

Season 11 (Old)
Cluster Type Territory - Daily Season Points Castles - Season Points every 6h Castles Outposts - Season Points every 3h
Q6 (inner circle) 240 270 48
Q5 200 225 40
Q4 160 180 32
Q3 120 135 24
Q2 80 90 16
Q1 (outer circle) 40 45 8



Cluster Queue Changes
We also worked on the Cluster Queue to fix problems where players could get stuck and were not able to rejoin the fight:
  • Cluster Queue will now also be available at tunnel clusters in the Outlands
  • Cluster Skipping will also be available from instanced areas such as Hideouts
  • Cluster Skipping is also possible on relog
(Disclaimer: These Cluster Queue Changes will not go live with the Season start, but are planned for the first patch after the Season starts.)

Hideouts
Hideouts will now regenerate only 1 shield after a successful defense instead of all shields at once.

While this change makes Hideouts more vulnerable, we also hope to encourage attacks taking place at multiple fronts with this change.
So, instead of focusing a massive amount of players all at only one hideout it becomes a valid strategy to attack multiple hideouts at once, because one single successful defence will not negate the whole attempt anymore.

(Disclaimer: This change is also scheduled for the first patch after the Season starts.)

We also intend to make further adjustments to Hideout mechanics in patches throughout the season. We want to adress how easy it is to create a safety net with multiple Hideouts and the Power Projection it enables.

Castle Chest
The value of the castle loot chest is doubled and now may also contain Artifacts. This is to incentivize more frequent fights for the chest, and to offer rewards that are more fitting for the actual group sizes that contest these objectives.

Small Scale Objectives in the Open World
Open World Boss Locations
While the open world bosses like the Demon Prince are defeated for the Season Points, the mobs in this area are currently not played much at all.
To entice players to stay active in the area and create an open world hotspot with a high chance of PvP, we will shift the source of the Fame buff from the boss to the surrounding mobs.
The buff will slowly stack up when defeating mobs in the area, but is lost on cluster change. This is to create an additional incentive to stay and fight another group when a group has already stacked up the buff.
  • Each defeated mob (excluding weak mobs like Brittle Skeletons) gives a buff which increases Fame gained by 1%.
  • By repeatedly defeating mobs in the area, this buff stacks up to 50% bonus pve Fame
  • The buff is lost on death or cluster change
  • Defeating the World Boss itself no longer gives the Fame buff

Static Dungeons
This buff will also be introduced to all non-basic group mobs of the Undead, Keeper and Morgana factions found in non-instanced content (i.e. static dungeon locations in the open world).

Lesser Outlands Treasure Chest
Outland treasure chests now spawn more often (every 60 minutes) and their loot has been reduced accordingly, but in turn they will have a chance to contain an Artifact of Tier 6 or higher to make up for the silver output reduction.
With the hourly spawn timer, we want to encourage more smaller Open World objectives in the Outlands, outside of CTAs.
  • The hourly silver value stays the same, so the base loot value is reduced to match the more frequent spawning
  • Added an additional Artifact drop chance to offset the value reduction a bit
  • The chest spawns every 60 minutes, always at the :30 minute mark: i.e. at 0:30 UTC, 1:30 UTC, 2:30 UTC, etc...


20v20 Crystal League
Added one additional Level
We have added a new match level to the 20v20 Crystal League. The new Level 2 match is a mid-level daily match meant to bridge the gap between the previous Level 1 and Level 2 matches. The matches that were previously level 2 and above are now all moved one level higher, so the old Level 2 is now Level 3, the old Level 3 is now Level 4, etc.

With this change the silver cost for the first three level tokens will now also follow the same progression as the tokens for the 5v5 league.

Token Level Match Frequency Time Slots (UTC) Silver Cost to buy Silver Prize Pool Tradable Season Points (per player) Item Power Soft Cap Lethality
Level 1 daily 1:00, 1:30 12:00, 12:30
19:00, 19:30
100,000 200,000 yes 5 900 (hard-capped) Non-Lethal
Level 2 daily 1:00, 1:30 12:00, 12:30


19:00, 19:30
200,000 400,000 yes 10 900 Full Loot
Level 3 daily 1:00, 1:30 12:00, 12:30


19:00, 19:30
400,000 800,000 yes 15 1,100 Full Loot
Level 4 every Saturday 1:00,


12:00,
19:00
1,000,000 yes 60 1,300 Full Loot
Level 5 Saturday, every 2 weeks 1:30,


12:30,
19:30
1,300,000 yes 200 1,500 Full Loot
Level 6 Saturday, once a month 17:00 2,000,000 yes 750 1,600 Full Loot
Level 7 Last Saturday of the Season 18:00 4,500,000 no 2,500 1,700 Full Loot



Match Rule Changes
To weaken strategies of pushing objectives with massive casualties, we are increasing the value of a player kill. Holding the majority of the capture points should still be very important, but both teams will have to be a bit more careful with casualties on their side.
To make up for this change we also increase the Starting Points per team, so the total match duration keeps roughly the same length and is not shortened by the change.
  • Point Loss on Player Kill: 1 → 2
  • Starting Points per Team: 200 → 250


Guild Challenge
We decreased Season Points gained for the first 15 Guild Challenge Levels, to reduce the amount of global Siphoned Energy generated via the Guild Challenge and put more emphasis on open world objectives:
  • Level 1: 50 → 20
  • Level 2: 100 → 40
  • Level 3: 150 → 60
  • Level 4: 200 → 80
  • Level 5: 250 → 100
  • Level 6: 300 → 120
  • Level 7: 300 → 140
  • Level 8: 300 → 160
  • Level 9: 300 → 180
  • Level 10: 300 → 200
  • Level 11: 300 → 220
  • Level 12: 300 → 240
  • Level 13: 300 → 260
  • Level 14: 300 → 280
  • Level 15+: 300 (remains unchanged)


We hope you are looking forward to the upcoming changes for Season 12.

And like always we are interested in your feedback. Be aware that these changes are still in production and some details may differ in the final version.

Cheers,
Retro