April Update

Downtime for the April Update will begin at 5AM PT (12PM UTC) on April 25, and is expected to last for 2 hours.

Greetings, Adventurers!

With dozens of bug-fixes, new quality-of-life (QoL) features, and UI changes, this update is all about making life in Aeternum feel better and smoother on a moment-to-moment basis. Our team is continually working on improving the New World experience, and we thank you all for your patience and the reports that you continue to make in-game and on the official forums. Checkout the full list of bugs we’ve squashed alongside the various improvements and other updates below.

World Experience

Quests

• The darkness veils located in caves on the starting beaches have had their health significantly reduced. Fighting the veil should be tough, but not that tough — especially in starting zones!

• The starting beach artificer quest — which has new players craft a weapon — has been adjusted to also accept a named weapon for the final step if the player happens to be lucky enough to craft one.

• Fixed the names of four items rewarded from various quests in Reekwater, which were pointing at weapons for other zones. This change affects the rewards for the quests “Seek and Hide”, “A Plan's Deconstruction”, “The Queen is Dead (Elite)”, and “The Eternal Pool (Elite)”. The weapons affected are: Occult's Razor, Switcher's Revenge, Bow of Navarona, and Demon's Claw.

• Update the “Covenant Initiation” quest in Windsward to ensure players are tasked with collecting the proper items.

• Fixed a bug where faction missions acquired from non-settlement territories (Edengrove, Great Cleave, Shattered Mountain) could become defunct and uncompletable after a patch.

  The first time a player logs in after this change, any in-progress faction missions from a non-settlement territory will be automatically abandoned while missions ready to turn in will get completed with expected rewards issued.

Exploration

• Rafflebones will now only spawn at level 66 in zones that reach 60+, to allow players weapon drops that can be upgraded.

• Small-sized flint objects no longer have player collision. No more tripping over rocks!

Expeditions

General

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to body block certain expedition bosses, preventing them from transitioning to a new phase.

• Fixed several issues where users disconnecting or leaving dungeons in the middle of the boss fight could cause an expedition boss not to reset.

• Fixed an issue causing the "Expedition Entrance" respawn point text to appear untranslated in other languages.

• Fixed an issue where dying before entering an Expedition could cause failure to progress within an Expedition itself.

Garden of Genesis

• Alluvium Marl will no longer be able to jump backwards and land outside of the Caretaker's Arena.

Lazarus Instrumentality

• Made adjustments to minimize flashing lights in certain areas of the map.

• Fixed an issue where

  Cilla would not reset properly if players logged off while on the same platform as her.

Tempest’s Heart

• Fixed an issue where Ekheke could die prematurely.

• Fixed the spawn animation for Uzret during the encounter to destroy the Corrupted Monolith.

• Adjusted the amount of gold players receive from bosses to align with other Expeditions.

• Myrkard Musketeers will now award points when defeated in the mutated version of the Expedition.

Global Mutators

• Fixed a bug that caused final boss animations to not trigger after a party wipe.

Notable Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused the loading screen to be dismissed prematurely while the world was still loading-in when fast-traveling to an owned homestead.

• NPC Gregory Jones is no longer standing inside a barrel in an upgraded Trading Post within Everfall.

• Fixed an issue which could cause no AI to spawn at a Corrupted Portal event.

• Fixed a rare client crash that could occur while loading into the game.

Combat & AI

General

• Fixed an issue that caused buffered attack inputs to not be cleared by weapon swapping if they were pressed at the end of an attack.

• Fixed an issue where status effects applied by equipping weapons could become permanently stuck when traversing across regional boundaries.

• Fixed a slight stutter/desync when moving and casting spells.

• Fixed an issue where players could become stuck in the knockback reaction animation.

Perks

• Fixed an issue with the Great Axe Weapon Perk Insatiable Gravity Well that caused inconsistent activation and no VFX. Removed an unintended 1 second root applied to targets next to the caster when the perk activated.

• Several Blackguard's Weapons rolled with a “Plagued Heavy Strikes” perk. This has been changed to “Plagued Crits” on the Blackguard's Bow and Blunderbuss, and “Refreshing Evasion” on the Blackguard's Fire Staff, Void Gauntlet, and Ice Gauntlet.

Weapons

Bow

• Removed Input Buffering when exiting ADS to avoid Hip Fire from unintentionally activating.

Blunderbuss

• Fixed an occasional character stutter/desync when using the Blunderbuss "Blast Shot" ability.

• Fixed an issue that caused ammo to be consumed incorrectly if the player was using primary fire and abilities at the same time.

Great Axe

• Fixed an occasional character stutter/desync when using the Great Axe "Reap" ability.

Ice Gauntlet

• Fixed an issue where using Ice Spike during movement could cause a server/client desync.

Life Staff

• Added hotkeys for the Targeted Healing system. There is now an assignable hotkey for targeting each member of your group— 1 through 5. Group Mode can now be toggled on and off with a new assignable hotkey. Find new hotkeys in ‘Key Bindings’ tab of the ‘Settings Menu’ under the ‘Life Staff Combat’ section.

Musket

• Fixed an issue where the Shooter’s Stance camera could get stuck if jumping while activating the ability.

• Fixed issue where the Scent of Blood upgrade was applied to all roots and not just the traps’ root.

• Fixed an issue that could occur while using ADS and Shooter’s Stance at the same time, where the camera could get stuck in ADS and slow player movement.

Rapier

• Fixed issue where the Keenly Jagged perk's bleed could trigger Evade's passive Cresendo's cooldown reduction.

Spear

• Fixed an issue where the spear could become invisible if a player was interrupted immediately after throwing it.

• Fixed an issue where players could throw spears over the fort boundary during the War Preparation phase.

Sword & Shield

• Fixed a desync that could occur when the camera swung quickly at the start of the Whirling Blade ability.

• Fixed an issue where shield attribute bonuses were only applied when the sword and shield were unsheathed. You still need to have a sword equipped in order to gain shield bonuses.

Game Modes

Arenas

Fixed an issue where World Arena Bosses would sometimes not aggro non-combatant targets.

Outpost Rush

Fixed an issue where players could aggro friendly Outpost Rush minions with projectile attacks.

War

Fixed an issue where companies could declare war solely based on previous influence race participation and not on participation from only the current and active influence race.

Economy & Progression

Items

• Fixed a bug where the Azoth Attuned bag perk’s effect would not stack with multiple bags with the same perk.

• Hidden Stashes can now only be collected from gatherable items that require tools. For example, Hidden Stashes will no longer drop from bushes, bullrush, nuts, etc.

Crafting

• Replicas of named items from the Tempest's Heart Expedition can now be crafted at the appropriate crafting stations.

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Crafting Screen to close unexpectedly while using it.

Gathering

• Fixed a bug where gatherables would no longer work if gathering was cancelled part way through.

• Fixed an issue that caused the icon for an active gathering tool in the quick slot to disappear while gathering.

Notable Fixes

• Fixed an issue where players could exceed the 500 inventory item limit.

• Gem VFX applied to the Isabella Great Axe now displays correctly.

• Fixed mesh clipping around neck area for equipment pieces Wizened, Sagacious, and Tactician's Hat.

UX, UI, & Social

Quality of Life

• When entering a settlement or outpost, opening the map will automatically zoom in on the settlement or outpost map.

• Updated quest icons on items to represent whether they are complete or in-progress.

• Unequipped items now show the correct total damage.

• Players are now able to drop multiple items during a single inventory session while moving.

• Disabled the “Withdraw from Company Wallet” button if your personal wallet is full.

• Named crafted items that are crafted at Epic rarity but can gain a 5th perk when upgraded to Legendary now show the final perk as disabled on the crafting screen, so that you know that it will be available in the future, but not available when crafted.

• Updated the position of the quest marker for items in the crafting menu so that it obscures less of the item’s image.

• Updated the Objectives panel in the map screen with additional functionality:

  • UI panel renamed to “Manage Objectives”

  • Added a key-bind to open the map with the objectives tab open — default hotkey is [I].

  • Clicking "View in Map" from the Journal and "View in Map" from the HUD now opens the map with the Objectives panel open.

• Updated the order of tabs in the map. The new order is: Manage Objectives, Territory Standings, Upcoming Wars, Resource Locations, Filters.

• The Territory Standing icon in the map panel now properly changes color when territory points are available.

• Tax information has been removed from the “entering settlement” UI banner to help declutter.

• Right-clicking on an inventory item no longer opens the action menu. This should improve menu interaction consistency and prevent unintended actions with the new functionality to move the character/camera while the inventory screen open.

Chat

• Increased legibility of ‘System’ messages and ‘Faction’ messages in chat.

In-Game Store

• Fixed the preview window not working as expected with certain items equipped.

• Store Region is now properly displayed in the confirmation pop-up.

Notable Fixes

• The inventory category “Alchemy and Arcana" has been renamed to "Arcana" for simplicity.

• Removed the text “Remaining XP” for leveling up in the XP Bar tooltip when at max level.

• Fixed an issue where ammo could become unequipped if ammo is equipped, at the max limit, and the same type is selected to be equipped again from the inventory.

• Fixed an issue where text could overflow in the Journal Objectives tasks list.

• The Pin Quest button should no longer disappear when restarting the game client.

• Fixed an issue that caused aptitude banners to display when entering or exiting instances, such as Expeditions.

• Fixed an issue that caused player achievements to load incorrectly at start of a new game session.

• Fixed an issue where a tile of the world map wouldn’t render properly at certain zoom levels.

• Fixed an issue where a player experiencing network instability while trading could receive a "Trade Canceled" message when the trade actually completed successfully.

• Fixed a bug where compass objective pins from the open world could still show up while inside the Dynasty Shipyard Expedition.

Translations

• Added missing translations to the "Locked" message prompt within an Expedition when approaching a door that cannot yet be entered.

• Provided missing translations for several housing-related messages.

• Fixed an issue with un-localized Weapon Mastery tool tip descriptions.

• Adjusted certain translations within the Outfitting crafting station UI to address text truncation.

• The Main Story Quest acceptance banner is now localized in all languages.

• Main Story Quest and Skill Progression Quest type header boxes in the map are now localized in all languages.

• Added missing translations for loading screen gameplay tips within the Dynasty Shipyard Expedition.

• Fixed broken Spirit Shrine icons displayed within the journal on non-English language clients.

Store Update - Regional Transfers

With this update we've enabled paid server transfers that can be purchased via the in-game shop. These will allow players to move a character to the available world of their choice as long as they don't already have a character on that world.

We've also added functionality to allow players to transfer cross-region with these tokens. For Cross-Regional Character Transfers, players can select a desired destination region where the character will be moved to a random world within that region. This allows players to then move from the random destination world to their desired world via the standard character transfer process using the same transfer token. Transfer Tokens will not be debited from Player's accounts during the Cross-Region transfer, but will be used when selecting the desired world. In addition to the standard transfer rules, Cross-Regional transfers also require:

• You must be at least level 25 before transferring

• You must not own any houses before transferring

A paid server transfer will cost $14.99, with each supported region using another currency having an equivalent cost in the applicable local currency. Regional prices with local currency can be found in the in-game store.

PTR Notes

The following notes were added or changed as a direct result of internal testing efforts and players submitting feedback in the PTR. Thanks to all those who participated!

World Experience

Expeditions - Tempest’s Heart

• Return to the Tempest's Heart and face a brand new challenge for end-game rewards! Tempest’s Heart is now part of the weekly Expedition Mutator rotation.

• Made changes to ensure players are not able to enter the arena of the final Isabella boss fight after it locks to new participants.

• Fixed an additional location where it was possible to avoid damage from Neishatun by going prone.

• Fixed issue where healing effects could be gained outside of boss encounter arenas.

• Fixed an issue that caused drops for Tempest's Heart bosses to not include Expedition gear. You should now see Expedition gear dropping from bosses.

• Fixed an issue causing Tempest's Heart Expedition loot to roll on the wrong perk buckets. You should now see higher rarity loot more frequently with improved perk spread!

Quests

• When players are on “The Dryad Promenade” quest, they will now be able to pick up the Protector's Tuning Orb on defeating the targeted Pride of the Trees AI.

• Updated the “Covenant Initiation Quest” in Windsward to ensure players are tasked with collecting the proper items.

• The quest marker will now stay on screen instead of disappearing once the player reaches the Genesis of Spite for the quest “A Stock of Ironwood”. We hope this leads to less confusion if a player dies or leaves the area, since the location marker will now persist.

Notable Fixes

• Fixed missing collision on a number of housing furniture pieces.

• Fixed a rare issue where if a player left an Expedition at the same time their open world server was crashing, the entire party would unintentionally be ejected from the instance.

Combat & AI

War

• Fixed an issue that could cause a war to not occur if the defending company was abandoned prior to the war. Wars should now proceed as usual and the attacking company will have a chance to become the new owner.

• Fixed an issue that allowed players who are removed from a War/Invasion to re-signup for the wrong side.

• Fixed an issue that prevented players from sometimes being able to signup for a War/Invasion from the world map (as opposed to using a territory War Board).

• The scoreboard during the respawn screen can now be closed with the top right close button.

Outpost Rush

• Fixed a situation where attempting to place equipped bound items into Outpost Rush storage could potentially result in the item being permanently destroyed.

Damage Formulas

• Weapon damage tooltips now ensure elemental perk attribute scaling is accounted for.

Perks

• Fixed an issue that allowed the “Shirking Fortification” perk to stack multiple times, allowing up to a 50% Fortify.

• Fixed an issue where swapping bags with the same weight reduction perk could result in weights being continuously reduced.

• “Refreshing Move” was deemed overpowered on the Blunderbuss. As such, faction-issued Blunderbusses and the “Troublemaker” and “Troublemaker 9000” now have “Refreshing” instead, and “Pirate's Piece (T5)” now has “Vicious” instead.

• Fixed an issue where a perk added when upgrading items to 600 GS was not activated until the player's next play session.

Weapons

Fire Staff

Fixed a slight desync when using the Fire Staff “Meteor Shower” ability.

Rapier

Fixed an issue where ‘Riposting’ players were obtaining status effects that could not harm the player from several attacks while in the riposte defensive stance.

Economy & Progression

Gear & Items

• Fixed an issue causing some named blunderbusses to use musket appearances.

• Fixed an issue where the Chef's armor set was not providing the correct 'Additional Items' bonus for Recovery Foods in the Cooking station.

• Fixed an issue where consumables or ammo could become unusable after picking them up off the ground.

Rewards & Loot

• Fixed an issue that was causing Tempestuous Caches to sometimes not reward an item and not be consumed.

• Added the new in-game player title “Warmonger” as a participation reward for a recent PTR event.

• The Regents Bow, which was obtainable from a quest in Reekwater, has been transformed to the Bow of Navarona. All of it's gear score, perks, attributes, and socketed gems remain unchanged.

• There are some early quest items that will have their rarity classifications changed due to odd interactions with other systems. Although the rarity for these items is changing with this update, they will not lose any perks, attributes, or gems. Only the color rarity will be downgraded. The items will return to "green" rarity in a future update. The impacted items are:

  • Watcher's Warding Charm

  • Constable's Boar Spear

  • Naval Medicine Chest

  • Silken Gloves

  • Traveler's Tabard

  • Scorched Breastplate

Gathering

Changed the minimum and maximum efficiency for a number of gathering tool tiers:

• Raised the base efficiency of the T1 gathering tools from 100% to 200%

• Raised the minimum base efficiency of T2 gathering tools from 125% to 200%

• Raised the maximum base efficiency of T2 gathering tools from 225% to 350%

• Raised the minimum base efficiency of T3 gathering tools from 250% to 350%

• Raised the maximum base efficiency of T3 gathering tools from 350% to 450%

• Raised the minimum base efficiency of T4 gathering tools from 400% to 450%

• Raised the maximum base efficiency of T4 gathering tools from 550% to 625%

• T5 gathering base efficiency has remained the same at 625% and above.

UX, UI, & Social

General

• Crafting menus have been updated to display the cooldown timer for recipes that have an active cooldown.

• Disabled the ability to drag Umbral Shards, Gems, and Repair Kits directly from Storage onto equipped items. This should prevent instances where upgrading shows you the wrong amount of available shards in certain instances.

• Added AFK timer warnings before players get AFK kicked in all circumstances.

Translations

• Fixed an issue with Tempest Heart Replica crafting categories displaying placeholder names in non-English languages.

• Fixed an issue with the names and tooltips of “Desecrated Flesh” and “Madness Incarnate” items appearing untranslated.

• Fixed an issue where speaking to NPC

  Heloise Saville again for a brief summary after accepting the MSQ quest “Encroaching Corruption” did not display text in non-English languages.

Notable Fixes

• Fixed an issue that could occur at the start of a new game session where player achievements did not load correctly.

• Fixed an issue where players could move while accessing Storage.

• Fixed an issue in the Achievement menu where text overlapped in some languages.

• Fixed an issue with dropped item bags where items were sometimes deleted after choosing ‘Take All’.

• Fixed an issue with dropped loot bags where items were sometimes deleted after attempting to move quickslot items into them.

• Fixed an issue where Schematics played dropped stone SFX when moving between the Inventory and dropped item loot bags.

• Fixed an issue where being interrupted while interacting with a corrupted pylon would cause the player to be unable to open their Inventory until they relogged.

• Fixed an issue with the Map where players were offered to sign up for an Invasion before they were allowed to.

• Fixed an issue in the Inventory where the upgrading with Umbral Shards didn't show the expertise requirement and the player's current expertise level.

• Fixed an issue with the Covenant Corruption Breach Faction mission where the text was incorrect.

Thanks for your support. We’ll see you in Aeternum!