Pre-Alpha Test - MS 62 Release Notes
Features
- Vehicles will slow down when moving through areas that give out passive damage
- Vehicles that pass over areas that deal passive damage (Oil Pots for example) will be slowed.
- Avatar System Rework
- Avatars are now fully tracked world entities rather than inventory items. Players must control an Avatar at all times and can switch freely between any Avatar in the world they have access
- Avatars have three levels of access: personal, family or public level
- Avatars can be stationed at major locations and moved by Caravan, making their positioning a strategic logistical task since fast travel is not possible.
- Avatars have attributes that provide gameplay bonuses and can be improved by performing activities in the game
- There are two types: Auxiliaries (generic, fixed, always public) and Named Avatars (unique, with variable attributes and persistent inventories).
- For now, at the start of an age, you deploy as an aux avatar at towns instead of wild points. Performing tasks can promote you to a named avatar, which rolls a name and maximum attribute values. This simulates population variety in the world and intentionally prevents every Avatar from having the same "meta build".
- For more details on the Avatar system, read this post: prealpha-notices
- Inventory drag and drop
- Items can be moved using drag and drop with Left Click in any inventories with Right Click representing quick transfer and Shift + Left Click or Right Click would transfer only 1 item instead of a stack
- Private Storage at Keeps and Camps
- In addition to the public inventory at Fortress Keeps and Camps, players can now rent a Family Inventory or Personal Inventory for Silver, replacing the old Town Storehouse and Public Lodgings. These inventories can also store vehicles, including Horses.
- Custom item stack transfer
- Pressing CTRL + Left or Right click will open a Transfer Item pop-up, allowing you to select a specific amount of items to transfer.
- House system
- The former Family system has been reworked into the new House system, which is no longer linked to any structures. Players can now open the House interface with F1 to create and manage their own House, form alliances with other Houses, and invite nearby players to join.
- Town Changes & Homestead Specialization
- Players can built in Towns again
- Players can built small Homesteads in Towns again (empty areas that can be built in)
- Smithing and Cooking based Homesteads are only viable in Towns now as they require Charcoal, which is only available at Town Workshops and expire (cool down) quickly
- Public access to all Homestead structures
- All storage and production structures now include a dropdown to make them publicly accessible, allowing anyone in the same faction to use them. Additional settings let access be restricted exclusively to Members or Managers of the House claiming the Homestead
- Beds & Tents
- Beds and Tents now have a new function: they boost the recovery rate of Avatars. Each additional bed or tent provides a small, fixed increase to recovery speed
Game Balance
- Makeshift walls can be built over roads
- Cave queue reservation time has been extended from 30 minutes to 60 minutes
- Deer health has been increased by 33%
- Torch cost has been slightly increased, but they now yield 2 at a time
- Hammers now deal damage again, but they no longer affect vehicles
- Stone Spears now deal 20% reduced damage
- Maces and Broadaxes now deal 10% increased damage
- Striking enemies with tools will now automatically place the player into combat mode
- Homestead Keystones now require 10 Wood Planks and 4 Stone Bricks to be built
- The House member cap has been raised to 75
- Players mounted on boats will no longer drown
- Players in a fully buffed shield wall will no longer be knocked down by enemy cavalry charges
Other Changes
- Interior surfaces will no longer visually appear wet from rain or snow during weather events
- Torch light clips less with the environment
- Various client optimizations to improve frame rate and reduce stutter around Forts
- The size of the win condition widget on the map screen has been reduced
- Visibility culling in the Underworld has been improved
- Game client has been upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.6
- Crafting at Workbenches or other Structures now requires players to interact with them by pressing E
- Health and stamina of avatars are reduced when deployed from Caravans
- Avatar progression becomes slower at higher attribute levels
- Players must have at least the Member role to access House-claimed avatars
- Tool effectiveness decreases when there is insufficient stamina to perform the action
- Aqueducts are now and available in Town areas
Bug Fixes
- Long spline-based structures could occasionally display the “This structure cannot be built here” prompt
- Using ALT + Left Click on an item near a Cave entrance could sometimes cause the player to enter the Cave instead of interacting with the item
- Characters could sometimes become stuck after exiting a Handcart on a downslope
- The Caravan would occasionally produce no sound while being driven
- Beds could sometimes not be built within the same structure across multiple floors
- Canals built perpendicular to elevation could occasionally appear partially underground
- Shadows from Modular Roofs or Ceilings could sometimes remain visible after destruction
- Foliage movement during weather events could occasionally appear unnatural
- The Windmill operating animation could sometimes appear laggy
- Structures placed inside buildings with Archways could occasionally decay
- Arrows shot at enemies in the dark could sometimes remain visible even when the target was outside view range
- Characters climbing a Ladder attached to a Makeshift Wall could occasionally become stuck upon reaching zero stamina at the top
- The Handcart inventory layout could sometimes appear misaligned
- Terrain irregularities such as holes or floating water could occasionally appear around the map
- Makeshift Walls did not always visually display fire effects when burning
- Players traveling between regions with a Resource Wagon could sometimes become stuck between regions
- Visibility culling could occasionally remain enabled inside Homestead structures
- Collapsed Square Foundations could sometimes appear invisible when climbed upon
- Resource nodes around the world could occasionally appear floating in the air
- The text cursor could sometimes jump to the end of the text box when editing a Sign Post
- Weapons could occasionally lose durability when throwing torches while equipped
- Players operating a Power Mill did not always receive damage when hit
- Roads could sometimes not be built directly in front of Foundation Gates
- Triangular Foundation Diagonals could occasionally appear invisible
- Deadwood Trees would sometimes fail to spawn in the world
- The game could occasionally crash when building or approaching an Aqueduct
- The Heavy Battering Ram did not always deal damage as intended
- The Pack Saddle could sometimes not be crafted
- Crafted Javelins would occasionally result in only one having the correct tier of the weapon tip
- Hitting a Foundation Gate could sometimes display blood effects
- Donkeys did not always trigger traps as intended
- Corridor pieces would sometimes prevent walls or roofs from being built
- Heavy Battering Rams could occasionally fail to deal damage to other players
- Market listings from the previous faction could occasionally remain after a town was captured
- Fortresses could occasionally remain claimed by the family that originally built them after being captured
- Players could sometimes pass through Workbenches
- Charcoal placed in structures filled with ash could occasionally fail to decay
- Storing an avatar in a Caravan situated close to a Town or Camp would sometimes store it in those structures instead
- Restarting the game would sometimes reset the keybinds
- Changing the renderer from DirectX 12 to DirectX 11 could sometimes fail to take effect
- Sign posts would sometimes not display the text written on them
- Fort foundations could sometimes be built inside Town Homesteads and snap to Homestead Foundations
- Name Tags would sometimes appear off-center and smaller than intended
- The chat box would sometimes not display a scroll bar
- Using the same spawn point very quickly could sometimes get players stuck in first-person view
- Raven Deadwood Trees would sometimes spawn inside Town Areas
- Avatar skills could sometimes be improved beyond their limits
- House locks would sometimes not persist after a server restart
Playtest Objectives:
- Test how different playstyles fit into the core gameplay loop
- Test the usability and experience of using private storage
- Evaluate how well players can collaborate using the new systems (House System)
- Evaluate if Homesteads are working as optional logistics hubs rather than mandatory bases
- Assess systems that shift gameplay away from Homestead dependency