Reign of Guilds News

Dear friends,

Before we start, we want to thank all the participants for their bug reports and feedback.

All in all, we received over 100 unique bug reports, the most critical of which were immediately addressed by our team during the tests.
Hosting the testing session, fixing bugs, and adding new content proved to be even harder than just preparing for the test. That’s why, during PT #4, we’ll concentrate on bug fixing.

From the technical perspective:
We think that the tests have been successful. As a result of the work we did after them, we were able to improve server stability, fix some rare crashes that were caused by cheating players, and address a number of other issues that were related to the visual part of the game.

Speaking of the performance issues, they were caused by our attempts to seek out certain bugs during the second half of the tests. We were experimenting with collisions, increasing the number of AIs, adding new mechanics, and excessive logging. Some of those might have caused the issues with performance.

Reports and questions (by popularity and seriousness):

Manual and guides

• (EA) there were many questions and bug reports related to players not being able to grasp some of the game’s mechanics; for that reason we are currently working on a game “wiki” that would look like an in-game journal;
  
• (EA) encountering some mechanics for the first time (in case this is the first character and “hints” option is turned on) will bring up a pop-up notification clicking on which will open a corresponding “wiki” page;
  

Quests

• (?!) they were the biggest troublemaker being responsible for most bug reports, because they prevented player from joining Vocations, getting additive abilities, and were also vulnerable to being abused (even unintentional);
  
• (PT#4) this mechanics leaves us no choice except to completely refactor it, changing the architecture and rejecting the idea of storing the quests in the DB;
  

Vocations

• (?!) aside from quests, the biggest cause of issues were Vocations. They brought so many problems that we even had to refrain from implementing additive abilities;
  
• (?!) unfortunately, PT #3 only offered a superficial view of Vocations, due to insufficient attribute and stat bonuses;
  
• (PT #4) we’ll pay through attention to the number of additive abilities, so that every profession would have several of them;
  

Character progression

• (?!) noticeable slowdown of character progression with leveling PvE abuses;
  
• (PT #3) decrease the amount of XP gained from training dummies, amount of XP gained from bosses was also cut down;
  
• (PT #3, Patch #4) average character DPS was increased by 30-50% by the means of more dramatic stat growth between the items of levels 1, 2, and 3.;
  
• (PT #4) amount of XP gained from receiving damage in PvE was decreased considerably;
  
• (PT #4) reaching level 10.10 on a twink character should take no more than 30 mins, while for levels 16.15/15.16 it is around 2 hours;
  
• (PT #4) we will add powders that give a tech buff, that causes the XP gained for one attribute to be transferred to another attribute with a small penalty;
  
• (?!) insufficient XP bonus for being in party and “progression conflict” causes by party members leveling different stats;
  
• (PT #4) redistribution of attributes points within one growth direction will be done using Tabula Rasa, while between different growth directions it’ll be accomplished with the use of the abovementioned powders;
  

Content

• (?!) visual lack of new content on the continent in comparison with Rivulet Island;
  
• Rivulet Island was added before PT #1 and was filled with existing biomes in order to introduce the players to the mechanics that Dwarrhan would offer in a safe and friendly environment;
  
• (PT #4) we will add more kill, fetch, and collect quests;
  
• (EA) more additions to the quest system: RNG for rewards and objectives, more variations of rewards, repeatability, etc.;
  
• (EA) we will add caches/treasure chest found during exploration with a system of keys that grant access to them;
  

Economy

• (?!) player activity was poorly rewarded and the ratio between the prices of goods and NPC service prices was dumb;
  
• (PT #4) dramatic overhaul of all kinds of prices, including a noticeable change in the growth of prices for items of different levels;
  
• (PT #4) greater quest rewards and stricter DQB rules in Dwarrhan;
  

AI

• (?!) abuse of named mobs (bosses);
  
• (PT #4) as part of the necessary spawner refactor, there will also be more detailed customization of areas for navigation within each spawner;
  
• (PT #4) changing craters;
  
• (PT #4) adding partial/full immunity to various weapons/elements;
  

Magic

• (?!) the casual physics of magic had a significant impact on its relevance, especially in terms of characteristics (they were underestimated);
  
• (PT #3, Patch #4) fundamental changes were made to the approach in order to collect feedback on it. The main direction is to increase damage and complicate physics;
  
• (PT #4) adding strong "shooters" for earth/fire/water, similar to the air's Big Shock powder and AOE magic for all elements;
  
• (EA) revision towards increasing passive HP / MP regen depending on the satiety of the character, which should reduce the number of actions of players, especially in slow PvE;
  

Melee weapon

• (?!) the first received feedback and statistics showed the need for rebalancing and a certain simplification in the management of some types of weapons;
  
• (?!) the second, but more significant problem is the discomfort due to the need for the client to wait for information from the server to play VFX / SFX tricks, which creates a clunkiness when having ping, above average;
  
• (PT #3, Patch #4) weapon control was simplified, the bonus in characteristics for less comfortable types of weapons was increased;
  
• (PT #4) this problem will be solved by PT #4 with the help of prediction;
  

Ranged weapons

• (?!) casuality of physics;
  
• (PT #3, Patch #4) as part of the testing, cardinal changes were made - a slowdown in speed and a decrease in flatness;
  
• (EA) adding different types of expendable ammunition (bolts) for the crossbow, affecting physics / damage;
  

Duping, abusing and farming talers in the tutorial level, etc.

• (?!) all currently known dupe paths have 2 directions: the ability to access a character until it is removed from the world, and differences in the approach to saving homogeneous data types in the database (quests) in different mechanics;
  
• (PT #4) the “online” status for characters will not allow access to them until they are deleted from the world and saved to the database;
  
• (PT #4) saving of bankers, questgivers will take place absolutely synchronously with the saving of the character's inventory in the database with additional checks;
  
• (PT #4) 1st character will receive 100% of the starting money, the second – 50%, the third will get 25%, and 4th+ characters receive 0 talers at the start;
  
• (PT #4) We also include here the situation with the characters who were duping recipes (the record is 600+ items). The inventory will be sent to the client in several packages, depending on the number of items on the character;
  
• (EA) the “online” status for the account will not allow you to re-enter it using simple actions with Steam on this account;
  

Inventory

• (?!) clunkiness in all possible ways;
  
• (PT #4) it will be revised: the inventory weight of items and its correspondence to the crafted weight, the number of slots in recipe books/token boxes and pouches will be increased (the main restrictions will be shifted to its carrying capacity);
  
• (PT #4) changed the approach to the numbers in stacks;
  

UI/UX

• (PT #3, Patch #4) the approach to UI / UX in the context of the main hood (the main screen in the first person) was changed;
  
• (PT #4) Rejection of nameplates/HP bars over characters/AI with the ability to enable “classic mode” in the settings;
  
• (PT #4) work with inventory:
  
• (EA) refactoring the player notification system using VFXs;
  

All of the above does not concern the content that we have been planning to add for PT #4. It is simply our summary gathered from the feedback and bug reports from the participants of PT #3

We intend to host PT #4 in the first ten days of June. Given the short amount of time remaining, we will focus our efforts on addressing the issues mentioned above rather than adding the content planned previously.

[h3]ROG’oms Up![/h3]

Dear friends,

Unfortunately, we hadn’t managed to prepare this patch as scheduled. So, only about 15% of existing abilities were added to the project. The main issues that we are fixing at the moment are quests and quest rewards that give abilities.

Bear in mind that during PT #3, the team is working quickly, meaning that most changes enter the build after not being thoroughly tested. Even adding Vocations had to be mixed with fixing more serious issues that were revealed during this test.

Thank you for your understanding.

Changed:

• Instance-to-Instance transition (test version):
  
• on the right side of the location name, there’s a button that brings up a window to send an instance transition request;
  
• there, you should enter the ID of the instance to transfer to;
  
• the ID of your instance can be found in this window;
  
• you may learn the other ID from your friend or send them yours;
  

Vocations:

• max level Vocation limits were turned off temporarily;
  
• when you join a Vocation, you receive one main ability, but you can also get 1-2 additional abilities from the quest giver in Harbur;
  
• added the interface to choose from multiple available additional abilities;
  

Crafting:

• added crafting stations in Isgollyne; in Harbur, moved them to the central square;
  
• fixed the issues of recipes and blank items;
  
• enchantment recipes were simplified for the purposes of PT due to ingredients being too hard to find;
  
• for testing purposes, the random generation of rare metals was made visible during processing;
  
• fixed the issue when rare metal ingot icons were not visible when split or merged;
  

General balance:

• increased XP rates for characters of levels 1-15 three times, and for levels 15-30 - two times;
  
• increased the DPS of items for characters at levels 1-15, which also makes leveling easier;
  
• level 8.8 can be reached in 15 minutes after leaving the Tutorial Tavern;
  

Weapon balance: in the final days of tests, we dramatically changed the approach to weapon physics and stats;

• 2h weapon physics was made more “comfortable”;
  
• crossbow bolt speed was decreased five times, and the trajectory curve magnified six times;
  
• magic: projectile speed was decreased 1,5 - 3 times depending on the element;
  
• melee weapon damage was increased by 3-25%, including the change in randomization ranges;
  
• magic damage was increased by 25-100% depending on powder level;
  

AI:

• named mobs give 8 times less experience, still didn’t manage to fix their navigation;
  
• castle guard was made 2 times weaker;
  
• all AIs no longer can receive tech buffs;
  
• the number of active buff slots was limited to 1 - 3;
  
• enabled the test version of mob projectile avoidance system;
  

UI:

• changes in general: the UI was made less obtrusive, allowed customization;
  
• added UI customization in main HUD:
  
• to try it, press the “tool” button in the upper right corner of the screen;
  
  • HP/MP/Energy;
    
  • Passive buffs;
    
  • Active buffs;
    
  • Hotbar;
    
• the button also allows to quickly change graphic quality presets and reset UI element positions;
  
• removed interface underlays from wherever it was possible;
  
• chat and battle log were made transparent until hovered over by a cursor; battle log was moved to the right side;
  
• HP/MP numbers were set on by default (press LMB on the bar to toggle);
  
• ability icons were refactored;
  

Changed:

• castle elixir filling length was increased to 1 hour of real time for the common elixir and 6 hours for the royal elixir;
  
• vegetation: tweaked the collisions of ground objects to improve the navigation;
  
• a number of VXFs had their emission turned down;
  

Fixed:

• (rare) server crash when someone duped items;
  
• issues with leaving real estate rooms;
  
• client crash when casting magic on castle gates;
  
• Seamless zone VFX on middle graphics settings;
  

[h3]ROG’oms Up![/h3]

Dear friends,

Here’s another update that addresses a number of issues. We also took care of the players who took advantage of the vulnerability of the GM panel.

Briefly on Vocations:

• Next week, we will release a patch that will fix the issues related to Vocations and introduce additional abilities;
  
• We added a temporary item that allows players to abandon their current Vocation (“Prof dropout" scroll);
  

Added:

• (Island) Prison cells with characters banned for using GM panel or of those who benefited from them;
  
• (Island) Black territory in the locations of named world bosses;
  
• (Daerkunn) Collision volumes that restrict the boundaries of the county and tell players that they are leaving playable area;
  
• Discord news are updated every time the starting menu is opened instead of according to a timer;
  
• system messages telling of an inability to teleport, a lack of inventory space, etc.;
  
• (Items) T2 Jewelry, T2 and T3 Bags;
  
• localized a number of objects in the world;
  
• icons for herb essences;
  

Changed:

• Main HUD UI;
  
• now players can remove recipes from the Recipe Book;
  
• players now can’t die inside their houses, and new descriptions of real estate;
  
• (Items) prices of a number of items, and vendors’ balances;
  
• (Items) T2 Jewelry’s and Robes’ stats;
  
• (Island) The respawn time of Bur's escort has been reduced by 4 times;
  
• DBV: Travelers;
  
• the size of several herbs to make them more noticeable;
  
• tree collisions (oaks and birches);
  

Fixed:

• possibility of bringing up the GM panel when editing memory;
  
• under certain conditions, the player character would save in the wrong way, decreasing the character’s level to 1.1;
  
• spawner manager issue that obstructed the work of the manager and caused unnecessary stress on the server;
  
• item quality didn’t visually update item requirements;
  
• some map icons disappeared from the map;
  
• loot dropped by golems could fall through the landscape;
  
• items acquired through the refining process could disappear into nothingness if the player didn’t have enough room in the inventory;
  
• castle AI would fight each other;
  
• weird blue “rays” in the world;
  
• 2D fire crackling in random places of Daerkunn;
  

[h3]ROG’oms Up![/h3]

[h3]How is this playtest different from the previous ones?[/h3]
During this test, the players are able to leave the starting island and come to the game’s overworld. Daerkunn County of Dwarrhan Kingdom, to be precise. There they can test new mechanics such as open-world PvP, guilds, and castle sieges.

[h3]Daerkunn County?[/h3]
It covers 40 km2 and has two settlements, three castles, over fifty resource extraction and refinement locations, Vocation teachers, several world bosses, and over 4000 mobs.

[h3]Can I play with my friends?[/h3]
Of course, you can. Beside that, playing together will give you more overall experience if you band together in a party. Arriving in the main world, you’ll even be able to create a guild and try your luck in castle sieges.

[h3]How can I get to my friend in another instance?[/h3]
Currently, players cannot change instances at will. However, Dwarrhan Kingdom is not divided into any, and you’ll be able to play with your friends there with no obstacles.
During this playtest, we will try to add the possibility of choosing game instances manually.

[h3]When will there be Vocations, abilities, and crafting?[/h3]
Players can already join Vocations. In the middle of the test, though, there will be an update giving the ability to take additional abilities. Crafting and enchanting will also be made available with this patch.

[h3]Why do certain abilities still debuff me when all seven effect slots are occupied?[/h3]
Some mobs and all the bosses can apply both regular and technical effects. The latter cannot be deflected in any way and are applied by a few well-telegraphed attacks that can be easily dodged.

[h3]Why can’t I find a certain kind of mob near the settlements?[/h3]
There is an ecosystem in the game. It is not enabled on Rivulet Island, but it is always active in Dwarrhan. Ecosystem means that if a certain type of mob in a specific area is farmed by players, its population will decrease, while unoccupied space will be claimed by other types of mobs. Each mob has its own rate of "extinction" and "restoration." There are particular types of mobs whose populations are connected.

[h3]Why do shop prices and quest requirements keep changing?[/h3]
Quests and shops are dynamic mechanics that work based on the simplified rule of supply and demand. They have practically no effect on the island since there aren’t many alternatives for the players, while in Dwarrhan these systems work at full strength.

[h3]How are mobs spread across the map?[/h3]
The farther you go from player hubs,

• the more loot will drop from mobs of the same type;
  
• the higher the level of mobs, not exceeding the county’s threshold;
  
• there will appear new types of mobs; their proportions will change;
  

Besides, forests are more densely populated compared to open areas.

[h3]Where are the servers located?[/h3]
Central Europe and Moscow.

[h3]Is there going to be a wipe before or after the test?[/h3]
We wipe the servers before every playtest.

[h3]Is there a building system in the game?[/h3]
No. But if you want to settle in the game’s world, you can buy real estate or join a guild and try to capture a castle.

[h3]Stuck in the Tutorial! What do I do?[/h3]
If you have no idea how to progress the tutorial further, try hitting “+” to skip the tricky stage.

[h3]Why can’t I equip an item I have just bought from a vendor?[/h3]
Most items have requirements. If you can’t equip the item, check its description to see whether you have the attributes it requires you to have.


[h3]Leveling up the character and attributes. How do I get endurance?[/h3]
The character gains attribute experience by dealing or receiving damage. Endurance is developed when you receive damage or when you use magic that requires that attribute.
The higher the level of your target, the more attribute experience you gain. When you kill the target, you even gain additional experience.
There’s a mechanism that prevents players from abusing the system by decreasing the amount of experience gained from attacking the same characters repeatedly.

[h3]What’s attribute redistribution?[/h3]
You can always use an item called “Tabula Rasa” to redistribute points between attributes. However, physical and magical attribute points are separated and cannot be interchanged.

[h3]I left my items in the tavern on the island! What do I do? [/h3]
Say goodbye to them. During this test, there’s no way to come back to Rivulet Island.

[h3]What’s ROG Club, and why’s everyone talking about it?[/h3]
RoG Club is a small player community that has been following our game for a long time. They helped us a lot by testing the game and reporting issues.

[h3]How is the game going to be distributed after release? [/h3]
It’ll be a one-time purchase.

[h3]Why is the game so similar to Morrowind/Oblivion/Gothic?[/h3]
We are fans of classic RPGs. The similarity is accidental rather than intended, but thank you for the compliment.

[h2]ROG’oms Up![/h2]

Dear friends,

In the second patch, we continue to take care of the issues that the players have reported in the past few days.

Added:

• (Daerkunn) vendors selling items and powders of levels 2 and 3;
  
• Physical and visual borders marking the edges of Daerkunn County;
  
• A number of objects have been localized;
  

Changed:

• (Daerkunn) AI were made 15-30% weaker depending on the distance from hubs;
  
• (Island) DQB system was turned off (quest objectives are static, no matter how often a quest has been completed);
  
• (Island) the ecosystem was completely turned off (the mobs no longer go extinct after being mown down by players);
  
• (Island) named Stickman was made significantly weaker;
  
• (Island) named mobs drop significantly more ancient coins; skeletons drop coins with higher chances;
  
• (everywhere) experience gained from dummies is limited by the character’s level; the amount of experience gained was made 20 times less;
  
• (AI) stickmen’s defence stance will give them more PD and MD;
  

Fixed:

• Dodging could block stamina regeneration;
  
• Satiety depleted too quickly;
  
• Players could discard an item’s “shadow” from their inventory;
  
• Splitting item stacks in the inventory;
  
• Water drops on the character model;
  
• Description and localization;
  

ROG’oms Up!