Today's Patch is primarily to improve certain balance issues that we have noticed in the first 2 weeks since Release. While we know that whenever we do balances, some players will be incredibly upset that their build, item, or ability is now potentially weaker, we expect this but that doesn't change the fact that we need to make changes that we feel are best for the balance of the game, even if this means your build is now not as OP as it previously was.
Botting & Macro'ing
We understand some think they are very clever by using rudementary bots to play Ravendawn. We do retroactive banning, just because you are able to get a bot to work, does not mean you will be able to play this character for long. We have banned 1000's of players now, and daily we have people opening tickets to cry, plea and beg saying "I watched a youtube video and they said how easy it is so I paid $5 i'm sorry!". If you are caught botting, macro'ing, or automating gameplay in anyway, your character will be permanently banned.
We feel it is important to make an announcement on this so players understand we have a 0 strike policy. We do not apply "slap on the wrist" 3 day bans for cheating.
We are additionally partnering with a largescale bot detection company and implementing more timely detection that should lead to exceptionally fast permanent bans to these players soon.
We are aware of an issue occuring with the self-balancing system behind Tradepacks where the average value of Tradepacks is consistently going downwards and not properly self-balancing. We are investigating this and hope to have a fix to it shortly, however, for the time being, we reset the value of all Tradepacks to their average 100% value.
Players can now use Health Potions and Mana Potions while channeling a skill without canceling the channeling.
Reduced the regeneration provided by Vitality (Health) and Wisdom (Mana) from 1.0 to 0.7 per point.
Changed the duration for both Mobile Munks (RavenStore) from 1 minute to 5 minutes after spawned.
Applied adjustments in 3 items from Rangers Company:
◈ Sigil of the Sun ー Changed the stats from Attack Power (10/25) to AP (8) and DP (8).
◈ Sinister Sigil ー Reduced the area of the effect from 9x9 to 5x5.
◈ Berserker Talisman ー Reduced the AP stat from 20 to 5.
To maintain balance and diversity in gameplay, we've made adjustments to the Berserker Talisman. It dominated tier 5, overshadowing other choices by a significant margin, and often remained the uncontested Best in Slot until tier 7 (Lost Kingdom Amulet) or 8 (Runic Amulet). This item was clearly massively overtuned, and now is inline with other tier 5 items strength.
Applied adjustments to the Dynamic Event "Open Waters" ー Improved the trigger of the Event and decreased the rewards and occurrence of creatures.
The color of the messages from Looking For Group chat is now the default chat color.
Added a message on Collector NPCs when no item to be sold.
Many developers choose not to do active balance patches because all developers know the blowback that comes from players that had their builds nerfed, but we know how important consistent adjustments to balance is for an MMORPG's long term health and ultimately leads to worse outcomes when it is simply ignored rather than just ripping the bandaid off and making balances the game needs. Please don't forget, balance is a consistently everchanging part of an MMORPG. If something feels too weak or too strong before, or after a latest Patch, I promise you we are looking at it.
Archetypes Skills
Viper Arrow ー The bonus damage per Aether consumed increased from 3% to 5%.
Several patches before Ravendawn’s Release, we significantly reduced the damage capacity of this ability. However, we feel this ability has an interesting fit for Damage over Time related builds but it has been significantly underperforming, thereby we are slightly buffing this skill. Considering it can deal both physical and magical damage, it opens up opportunities for spell power builds to invest in Archery.
Prophet ー Chance increased from 10% to 20%.
Based on it’s incredibly low usage, and overall feel of this underperforming, we have increased it’s % chance. We're taking a cautious approach with this specific passive, given its manipulation of a precious combat resource from a support perspective.
Devout Healer ー From now on, the passive can't be learned in case the player already learned "The Cost of Restoration".
Currently, most healing abilities in the game already have higher multipliers than damage-dealing abilities. Combining this with the ease with which players could achieve high levels of healing power using both of these passives, we created a scenario where players were gaining a significant amount of healing power quickly and with minimal investment. For now, we've chosen to prevent players from learning one passive if they've already learned the other. We'll monitor it’s usage, and further changes may be applied.
Spirits Resolve ー Cooldown increased from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds.
This change aims to address the scenario where some players were staying alive in a somewhat unfair way when using the RavenCard Hoglet. We believe this change won't have much impact on other builds and will simply rectify the mentioned problem of players that seem near-unkillable at times.
Divine Purpose ー A cooldown of 1 second was added for the player to gain stacks of the skill.
Following the pattern of other stacking passives, we are testing this model for Divine Purpose, one of the top picks for the Protection Archetype at the moment.
Death Blossom ー The bonus damage per Aether consumed reduced from 70% to 60%.
We are slightly reducing Death Blossoms burst potential as it is higher than we feel attributes to good gameplay, primarily on the PvP side.
The Cost of Restoration ー From now on, the passive can't be learned in case the player already learned "Devout Healer".
Wind Wall ー The duration of the Wind Wall was increased from 3 to 5 seconds.
This change aims to provide players with Archetype-related builds with a more effective way to manipulate scenarios where the ability fits well.
Typhoon ー Cooldown decreased from 75 to 60 seconds.
We aim to make this ability's cycle more enjoyable for players in PvE, exploring the offensive side of the Spiritual Archetype. It can assist allies in landing other abilities, hasten the closure of a box, or smoothly fit into the player's damage-dealing skill cooldown if using the Shark Hydromancer card.
Arcane Pulse ー Defense Power reduction changed from 5% to 3%.
Arcane Pulse ー Duration reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.
Understanding that Defense Power reduction is one of the most potent debuffs in the game, especially in the context of Ravendawn's damage formulas, we noticed that the RavenCard Ghostlamp Hag, combined with the basic ability Arcane Pulse, was achieving values higher than we would like for a Tier 1 Skill.
Eternal Worms ー Healing is doubled when used against players.
Due to the way damage from Damage over Time (DoT) abilities functions in PvP, this ability was underperforming compared to its PvE counterpart. Doubling the healing when used against players aims to balance its effectiveness.
Cursed Touch ー Damage increased from 20% to 30%.
To address player concerns about the damage output of DoT abilities, and after testing, we felt Cursed Touch needed an increase in the multipliers of this passive, avoiding adjustments to other abilities that we believe aren't currently suitable for damage increases, as it might impact non-DoT-dependent builds.
Bladestorm ー Health cost increased from 6% to 10%.
We are already aware that, with Patch 1.0.1, Bladestorm is allowing the consumption of more than 50 Aether to cast the skill. This is not intentional, and the team is already working to push a fix as soon as possible.
Fissure ー Health cost increased from 6% to 8%.
Spiked Chains ー Health cost reduced from 10% to 5%.
Earthquake ー Health cost increased from 10% to 12%.
Warfare is currently (significantly) the most common Archetype among players who choose physical damage builds. We believe this popularity is due to the archetype's versatility and, above all, its sustain. We don't want to make specific changes to sustain abilities like Feasting Strike, Bloodbath, Bloodseeker, and Savagery, as we feel these abilities are already in a good place. Instead, we're adjusting the cost of each main ability of the Archetype to make it require slightly more Health cost to use certain abilities. We will be closely monitoring these changes specifically and make adjustments as necessary.
Coldblast ー Snare duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
This change aims to increase the setup potential of Coldblast for other abilities such as Icestorm, Flame Tornado, Rain of Arrows, and Meteor Strike.
Flame Tornado ー Cooldown reduced from 60 to 45 seconds.
Flame Tornado ー Damage reduced from 80% to 60% Spell Power.
Currently, Flame Tornado can handle a significant amount of creatures as nearly a one-click ability, depending on the player's strength and what they're facing. A common practice is players using Air Aura and immediately following it with Flame Tornado to kill an exceptional amount of creatures at once. We feel this is too powerful for a 4-point ability, and have thus reduced it’s damage but also slightly lowered it’s cooldown.
RavenCards
Hoglet (Spirits Resolve) ー The threshold for the effect activation reduced from 30% to 20%.
This change aims to lower the bar for players to benefit from the RavenCard. We like this adjustment as it creates more opportunities for players to be quickly finished off in a PvP scenario.
Skeleton Haunt (Shadowstrike) ー The damage on all tiers decreased from 100/120/140/160/180/200/220% to 75/87.5/100/112.5/125/137.5/150%.
The RavenCard Skeleton Haunt was dealing significantly more damage than expected, so we felt it needed a reduction in it’s performance.
Ghostlamp Hag (Arcane Pulse) ー Shatter duration reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.
Twinhead Yeti (Earthquake) ー From now on, the Defense Reduction applied by the card will be the highest stat between Weapon Power and Spell Power, instead of both.
The RavenCard received a change to make it more flexible for spell power builds that choose to play as Warfare. However, the result was that the ability was reducing defense more than twice what we would like for an area-of-effect ability. Therefore, we decided to make the RavenCard choose the higher attribute between the player's offensive stats, addressing our concern and maintaining the important design flexibility we aim for in the game.
Hog Saboteur (Erupt) ー From now on, the RavenCard will activate its effect whenever you deal damage, but a cooldown of 2.5 seconds was added to it.
After a past nerf to address unforeseen scenarios in its design, we felt that this RavenCard had lost much of its value in the eyes of the community, which is understandable as we significantly altered its original chaotic design (which was intentional). With this change, we believe it regains its original brilliance, allowing players to use it to assist in area damage with low-frequency-hit abilities in a more controlled manner. We added a cooldown to activate its effect to ensure more balanced gameplay.
Land Deeds are now set as Soulbounds when being returned to the players after deleting their land.
Ewin's Lucky Charm is now properly working, providing silver while killing creatures under 10 Level range.
Hoglet Ravencard is now working correctly, not improperly increasing mana cost for others skills.
The kill credits are now properly counting while killing creatures in party.
The passives Sellsword I & II are now working correctly.
It's not possible to use potions while on Ship anymore.
We hope you enjoyed Patch Notes 1.0.1. We look forward to seeing you all discussing and theorycrafting new builds and skills combinations in the Discord Taverns!