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Dev Talk: Solo Randomized Dungeons



The Percival update arrives July 10, bringing several major new features to the world of Albion. In our latest Dev Talk, Robin Henkys, Game Director of Albion Online, discusses the new Solo Randomized Dungeons coming with this update. He covers what exactly these dungeons are, how they play, and how they fit into the bigger picture of Albion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK_lf8bvohg
No time to watch the video? Read on for a written summary of his talk.

What are Solo Randomized Dungeons?

Simply put, Solo Randomized Dungeons are the soloable version of the group randomized dungeons we introduced with the Oberon update. You can find solo dungeon entrances of different tiers all over the open world, and you’ll be able to recognize them by their distinct portal-like entrances.

These solo dungeons exist for all for major mob factions of Albion Online and contain a highly varied set of challenges and rewards.

Maps to solo randomized dungeons can also be found as drops in the open world, which can guide you to particularly challenging and rewarding dungeons.

On average, solo randomized dungeons will be competitive with group dungeons in terms of rewards, though group versions will still be slightly better to reward the effort of putting a group together.



How do they play?

These new solo dungeons are mostly linear, and are somewhat shorter than their group counterparts. We’re aiming for a playtime of around 10 minutes for an average dungeon, but of course there will be some variance in both directions due to randomization.

Once you've located and entered a Solo Randomized Dungeon, you can expect to explore alternating corridor sections and highlight rooms. With this update, we’ve also expanded the overall variety of rooms you can discover in both solo and group dungeons.

In addition to these new rooms, we’re introducing a wide range of new mobs and mob types with these dungeons. These include stationary “trap”-type opponents whose area-of-effect spells interfere with the battlefield, “nest”-type opponents which will continue to harass you with spawning mobs unless destroyed, and all sorts of fun exploding opponents! As with the new rooms, these new opponents will appear in Group Randomized Dungeons as well.

Exclusive to the solo dungeons, however, will be the new small combat shrines. These relatively frequent shrines will, when activated, buff a single player with a random combat boost. These shrines provide an advantage to the user in PvE, and can make the first player to enter a dungeon into a real threat to any would-be attackers as well!



How do they fit into the big picture?

Solo Randomized Dungeons fill a long-empty gap by adding a varied and exciting solo PvE activity to the open world of Albion Online. Solo player, as well as group players who are waiting for their friends to come online, can now fill the time with highly rewarding PvE content.

In addition, these solo dungeons complete the second major PvE milestone on our roadmap. Of course we’ll continue to expand the system in the future, but now that solo dungeons are finished, we can turn our attention to the next big goal: the introduction of proper raid-level content to Albion’s open game world. You can expect to hear more about that in an upcoming update.

That's all for now – thank you for listening, and we hope you’re looking forward to exploring Solo Randomized Dungeons with the release of the Percival Update for Albion Online on July 10th!

Changelog: Oberon Patch 9

Oberon Patch 9 - Ver. 1.14.381 / REV 144529 - 19 June 2019
Changes
  • Rubberband Boots are now tradeable as intended
  • To better reward the winning team in a Hellgate, Fame was shifted from Trapped Demons (-40% previous Fame) to the Sadistic Overlord (+100% previous Fame). The overall Fame earned in a Hellgate stays roughly the same.
Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where Guild Application and Alliance Invitation messages could not be deleted
  • Fixed a bug that did not allow characters with extremely high amounts of Silver to place bids
  • Magic Pollen (Harvester Cap) is now cleanseable, as intended
  • Additional minor worldmap, UI, terrain, and localization fixes

The Percival Update Arrives July 10!



Percival is coming! The seventh major post-release content update for Albion Online brings long-requested Solo Randomized Dungeons, a variety of major new customization and vanity options for characters and mounts, upgrades to personal banks, new mobs and skills, expanded Crystal GvGs and city scrims, and much more. 

Solo Randomized Dungeons are Coming

The next step in Albion's open-world expansion is coming! Percival brings Randomized Dungeons for solo players, allowing you to explore on your own and face off against a host of fearsome new creatures. Like group dungeons, they will spawn at random throughout the world, allowing you to partake in thrilling solo dungeon-diving. You can also use rare dungeon maps to unlock higher-tier solo dungeons, which bring challenging foes and epic loot that increase in turn.

Customization and Vanity System + Bank Upgrades

Percival brings a comprehensive new customization and vanity system to the world of Albion, letting you show off your personality with dozens of hair, beard, face, and even underwear options. Mount skins allow you to unlock permanent appearance-changing options for all characters on your account, and cover a large variety of both standard and exotic mounts. In addition to free options, you can also use gold to unlock additional unique customization options to truly set your characters and mounts apart from the crowd!

New Mobs and Skills

Along with Solo Randomized Dungeons, new creatures have emerged from Albion's depths to face off against intrepid adventurers. These newly-designed mobs have a wide range of never-before-seen spells and abilities at their disposal, requiring creative strategies and tactics to counter them. Fortunately for you, a variety of new spells and abilities have been added to a diverse array of weapons, to make sure Albion's combat meta stays fresh and exciting, with new choices and unlocks for a huge range of combat builds.

Additional Features and Improvements
  • New 20v20 city fight scrim option
  • Crystal Realm Battles now available during the off season
  • New Group Randomized Dungeon templates
  • Separate language channels in chat
  • Hotkeys for emotes
  • ...and more

For a detailed list of everything coming with Percival, visit the update page.

Changes Coming for GvG Season 7

And in addition to everything coming with Percival, some big changes to Albion's GvG seasons are just around the corner. With the start of Season 7 right after the Percival launch, guild warfare will be updated and streamlined in regards to GvG scheduling, castle claim times, and many other core aspects of the system. We'll be announcing further details of these changes over the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Changelog: Oberon Patch 8

Oberon Patch 8 - Ver. 1.14.381 / REV 143913 - 12 June 2019
Vanity-Related Items Removed from Marketplace

In anticipation of the new vanity / customization items coming with the Percival update, certain items, which will be converted to vanity items, have had their sell orders canceled and can no longer be sold via the Marketplace. Since these items will likely be much more valuable in the future, this was done in order to protect players with long-running sell orders for these items from having them bought out from under them and resold (i.e. "flipped") by other players. These items are still tradable between players, but cannot be sold via the Marketplace after this update.

For the same reason, we have also canceled all sell orders for Arena Sigils, Necromantic Elixirs, and Morgana Mare Saddles. These items will, however, remain tradable on the market, so that all owners have the chance to update their prices accordingly.

Due to the Bonehorse and Morgana Mare becoming permanent skins with the Percival update, we have reduced the drop chance of the corresponding mount upgrade items found in chests in Randomized Dungeons to 10% of its previous value.

We are no longer selling the guild-bannered Warhorses in the Vanity Store. These items will return as vanity skins once Percival goes live. The current items can be used as before, and you will be able to exchange them for their original cost (Gold + Horse) when Percival goes live.

Finally, the time allowed to pick up items from unsold and canceled orders has been increased to 60 days (formerly 30 days) for all items.

For more information about this change, please see this forum post: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/112754-Vanity-Customization/

Server Compensation

This patch includes compensation items for those affected by recent latency issues. For further details, please see this article: https://albiononline.com/en/news/fame-boost-and-premium-days

Changes
  • Increased the radius around open-world exits (connections between clusters, as well as portals and dungeon entrances) within which furniture items cannot be placed
  • To avoid accidentally deleting items, ingame messages that still have items attached can no longer be deleted
  • Mobs in all Hellgates are now non-lethal
Combat Balance Changes
Morgana Raven
  • Raven Scream:
    • Cast Time: 1s -> 1.5s
  • Reactive Scream:
    • Cooldown: 120s -> 180s
Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where channeling times displayed in tooltips for some items were not being calculated correctly
  • The debuff icon has been removed from the lava puddle of the Demon Cape
  • Fixed an issue where filtering the destination dropdown in the Travel Planner UI would lead to wrong fast travel target
  • Fixed an issue where the energy cost of Rending Swing was lower than intended (formerly 2, now 3)
  • Fixed an issue where the number of damage ticks caused by Bleeding (Axes) was lower than intended (formerly 4, now 5)
  • The Inner Focus buff is now removed when the weapon that triggered it is removed, as intended
  • Fixed an issue where switching overcharged equipment with high ping would sometimes unequip the item without removing the overcharge
  • Improved throne lighting in Conquerors' Hall
  • Updated Marketplace subcategory for Knight Challenge furniture
  • Additional minor worldmap, UI, terrain, and localization fixes

Fame Boost and Premium Days

The Mists of Albion Are Back

Ready to max out your gathering, crafting, and combat specs? Eager to unlock new items and try out new builds, or reach that final mastery? Good news: the Mists of Albion buff will be active for one week, giving an additional 25% Fame for all activities! Get ready to advance your progress by leaps and bounds with this automatic buff. Here are all the details:
  • Duration: June 12 10:00 UTC (after maintenance ends) to June 19 10:00 UTC
  • Does NOT affect Fame earned through Tomes of Insight
  • Does NOT affect the rate at which Challenge Points are earned

Just log in during the designated time to take advantage of this powerful boost!

Compensation for Server Issues

To compensate players affected by the recent performance issues, we will be sending out compensation packages after maintenance on June 12.

All players who logged in during the affected timeframe (May 17, 00:00 UTC to May 30, 10:00 UTC) will receive 3 days of claimable Premium. This can be claimed once per account on any character you choose. Log in between June 12 at 10:00 UTC and June 30 at 10:00 UTC to be able to claim these days.

Additionally, every character that had Premium active at any time during the affected timeframe will receive an additional 7 days of Premium. This will be added automatically when logging in for the first time after maintenance on June 12. (Premium earned during the tutorial does not count toward this reward.)

And on top of that, affected Premium characters will receive a brand-new item: Rubberband Boots. Relive the glory days of lagging and rubberbanding with this unique costume item, which comes complete with a Rubberbanding spell that bounces you back to your previous position over and over again!



Make sure to log in starting Wednesday to enjoy the full benefits of the Fame Boost - we'll see you soon ingame!