May 2016 – albionstore

Albion Online Tips to Make the Game Feel Really Well Built

Today we will share with you some tips in Albion Online to make the game feel really well built. Here we go:

Have mobs drop a range of silver, not a static number.

Different Mouse-over icons for the various gathering materials: Axe = wood, pick = ore, etc.

Loot needs to be highlighted when behind trees/etc.
Blood splatters when Demo-ing buildings. Olly makes sense if they’re mutated zerglings
The sound for adding resources to buildings doesn’t fit, just sounds like a sword swinging at air
Volume Slider for Mount Movement/Steps would be nice as it tends to be significantly louder than everything else around and can be obnoxious.
Increased base carrying weight seems useful or a slower reduction in movement based on weight. I max out on weight pretty quickly and it just “feels” like a longer time would be helpful. Then again, the world is much emptier than it would be at launch so I’m able to gather materials a lot faster than I could in that situation and it might fit better at that time.

Variety in monster/mob attack sequences/spell casts and Variety in damage output. Hitting for 39 every time I swing on a mob that does the same sequence of attacks and spellcasts turns into an incredibly repetitive combat encounter.

A suggestion to consider, not saying I’d recommend it, just something for more game-design savvy people to think about: Reset the materials needed to make T5+ processed goods so that T5 needs no pre-requisite, just like T1/Some T2. Then T6 needs a processed T5 + raw T6, same w/ T 7 and 8 etc. It seems like it would be a nice refresher after working your way up to T4 and could help reduce some of the monotony of always having to go back to low-tier resources.

Create a purpose for the random buildings, ruins, etc placed everywhere. Give them some things to search, destroy, have them randomly spawn mobs/bosses, etc.
Add tank viability w/ swords? Just a preference by me here.
Better visibility in large-scale combat. Distinguishing between allies, enemies, PVE mobs, etc, can’t be extremely difficult. Allow me to turn off allied cast bars so I can see enemy cast bars better. A better indicator of who my target is would be nice so I don’t get lost on where it went in hectic combat. Also, an auto-target feature would be useful as when the battlefield is cluttered, I’m often unable to target an enemy because my allies are crowding it.

Designation for weapons to show if they are 1h or 2h.

New Learning Points System in Albion Online

As you know with Darian we made a change to the Learning Points system.

Our System is now very similar to EVE (when you are having an active subscription/premium you are generating LPs even when you are offline).
However we made two major additions
Someone who is actively playing progresses faster than someone who is not
When you are out of LPs you can still progress by accumulating fame
Right neither the fame nor the LP progression are balanced, this will be very important.

A potential argument against that system is that everyone can easily have alts with whom they craft their gear.
See below why this does not convince me yet of being a problem:

As mentioned above it is a matter of balancing:

Lets say if you are actively playing a crafter it takes you 3 month to reach the maximum (random number) of one node (Leather Helmet) and if you are not playing actively it would take you 12 months, I think one can fairly say that there is not an issue. To find the sweetspot here will be our task over the next months till release.

Also keep in mind that you need several pieces for your equipment not only a helmet or a weapon
Even more important: A key element of Crafting is obtaining the required resources, either by gathering them yourself or making good deals on the AH

Someone is asking to remove the characters per account (also because there is the risk of one account having alts who are supplying your main with gear)

We had this in the past and added more characters per account due to the demand from the community
People would create just a 2nd or 3rd account anyway. Something hardcore players will probably do anyway
Right now the best strategy is also to put all LPs into one “tree”, therefore you may want to have different characters anyway

IMPORTANT: We have in the past made several changes when we did see things not going as planned. And we would like to get some data first. Hope that makes sense and we are especially looking for a lot of constructive feedback in terms of numbers and values for these systems, that will help the more than just saying “the system sucks”.

Albion Online Guide: Arcane Armory

There are many discussions around arcane staff. Goal is to offer support for beginners, or different build options for advanced players that want to try out something else. Now we will talk about the topic again.

So far for the intro, let’s get going too the important stuff.

Overview

Weapon basics
Spells
Builds and Media
Build Ideas

Arcane Staff Basics

The arcane staff is a support weapon, it is not meant for hyper dps, strong heals, or tanking in pve, if you want those then you’re probably in the wrong place.
Now, now don’t get discouraged immediatly, the arcane staff does increase the damage output of your group significantly, while also offering great ways of reducing damage.
Additionaly it can cleanse debuffs on allies or purge buffs from enemies and there are alot of hidden mechanics that are in favour of this weapon.

Spells
Q-slot:

Arcane shield, a spell that buffs the target with a small damage absorbing shield. The spell blocks the damage before the armor/magicresistance is applied. That means it is calculated against the raw damage, one would take.

Example: 1000 damage, 1000hp, 50% armor/magicresistance, 300 shield.

(1000(damage)-300(shield))x(1-0.5(ar/mr))= 350 damage recieved

Castspeed instant, range 9m cooldown 5 seconds, duration 4 seconds

Available on all staves, starting at t3

W-slot:

Cleanse, removes negative effects from an ally and all allies in a 5 m radius around him. The target of the spell recieves a movementpeed boost and a cc-resistance buff for 5 seconds.

Cast time instant, cooldown 10 seconds, range 9m, aoe 5m, duration 5 seconds

Available on all staves, starting at t3.

Arcane beam, is a channeled spell, that buffs the damage output from the target by 137% for up to 7 seconds. Movements, spellcasting or cc will interrupt the channel. Interesting sidenote is that the channeled beam leaves a lingering buff that lasts roughly 1 second on the target. Additionally does the beam range , once casted, exceed the 9m range, if the target keeps on moving further away. It still breaks with at a certain distance.

Is the Delated Teleport a New Playstyle?

Delayed teleport in Albion Online is not that useless at all.

Delayed teleport works with cast time spells like heavy cleave for example:

1. Delayed teleport
2. Wait 1 sec
3. Cast heavy cleave or something like that

The aoe will be set at the new position of your character. Nice combos inc.
So it is nice for repositionning without breaking your casts, with a little of anticipation of course.

For example : snipe shot with crossbow. If you cast delayed teleport before it, you will be replaced without breaking your cast. (Keep targeting a target who run away or replacing yourself to avoid stuns).

Another: Iron-clad staff, use dalayed teleport, “e” spell, then your are now in the enemy team to split them.

Do you have any idea for combos with that?

Talking about the Steppes in Albion Online with Level Designers

The steppes are a rough environment. Whereas the swamps are green and full of life, the steppes are a dry wasteland. But there is a glimmer of hope within the badlands; oases pop up every now and then, refreshing everything and everyone surrounding them. If you need hide or fiber, the steppes are the place to be.

Today we’re taking a look at what you might find along your journey in the steppes, along with level designers Lino Claudius and Viktor Pekar.

Level designers build the world of Albion, they jokingly call it “playing God”. Using assets made by the art department, they create the puzzle pieces of the world and fill it with small “stories”. It is up to the player to fill in the blanks and guess what has happened.

Below you will find a few of the steppe scenes created by Lino and Viktor. Feast your eyes!

Road through Hell

As Lino kindly puts it, the steppes are an “unfriendly area to live in”. Setting up camp when travelling through this abyss can be quite dangerous, which is why nomads put up their site near a canyon. They have now moved on, abandoning their camp, and* continuing their journey. Or perhaps they just slipped and fell…

Dried-Up River

Once a flourishing river, the water has disappeared and the land has gone dry.

Abandoned Camp

Once used by animal farmers, this camp has been deserted for a while. The remnants of the camp still remain, slowly being taken over by the steppe. It looks like the farmers left in a hurry. What happened here will remain a mystery – but it does make you wonder…

Fall of Death

“Accidents happen – even in Albion,” Viktor commented when showing this scene. The question hat events transpired here will not be answered, but it certainly does not look good!

Like what you see? More information about the flora and fauna in the steppes will follow in a future developer news!

Castle Fight is Available in Albion Online for 6 Weeks

Conquer Castles in the next 6 weeks to have your own guild logo implemented in Albion Online!

Starting from Monday, May 23, until Sunday, July 3, we are running a Castle Fight event in Albion Online!

The goal of the event is to get a hold of as many castles as possible at the checkpoints listed below. Each castle will grant your guild one point. The top three guilds at the end of each week will get their custom guild logo implemented in the game. Any guild who can get first place twice during the event will receive the logo exclusively for them to use!

Each week will start on Monday, 11:00 UTC, and end the next Monday, 11:00 UTC. The only exception is the last week, which will end on Sunday, July 3, at 20:00 UTC. That means there are two fewer checkpoints in the last week of the event!

Each day has four checkpoints:

02:00 UTC
08:00 UTC
14:00 UTC
20:00 UTC

As there are six castles in the game, a guild can get a maximum of six points per checkpoint. The official blog will update the leaderboard regularly and announce the winners every Monday.And all event details can be found in the event forum thread.

Do We Need Another Support Weapon Stuff in Albion Online?

Let’s discuss about the topic. I think the only support weapon arcane stuff is not enough to fill that whole support role. Or does someone think it’s enough? Let’s first discuss generally and lets go for details later. If we get multiple good proposals we can always start new threads for each of those. I know there is some people who has already something good in their sleeves, so bring it on.

Now what kind of build you would like to see?
What kind of weapons?
What kind of abilities?

I got my inspiration from another thread where people were talking about broadswords. I have thinked role like this before, but now I got my final inspiration. If that suggested inspire ability wont suit there maybe it could get own whole build or be its own weapon. So a “captain” role was something i got in my mind. Abilities are buffing allies different kind of way. Where inspiring shouts are couraging allies to resist cc and maybe battlehorn giving some attack or defence buff for few seconds. This could suit well in swordline, and maybe glaive away from there and move claymore to .3 place and brings this “captains sword” to .2

I think something like sage or bard from Ragnarok online would be a cool support class for this game. Sage and his advanced class have some spells I could see working in this game.

1) Spell Breaker – interrupt with mana siphon that has short cast. Also deals small amount of dmg.

2) Magic Rod – the spell that absorbs single target spell used on sage and gives to sage some mana. Good defensive spell.

3) Magnetic Earth – the most important one I thought might work well here. It is anti AoE spell. You cast it on the ground and that place is a safe heaven against AoE spells. How it worked in team fights was you had to recast it and your team had to move on it so they wouldn’t get eaten by AoEs. In a game where AoEs are so good this could work pretty well.

4) Blinding Mist – an AoE where characters inside it have blindness on them – chance to miss theirs attacks.

5) Indulge – sage sacrifices some of his health to give his friendly some energy.

6) Soul Exhale – exchange of energy by sage and the target. Can be used to restore energy to your friendlies or take energy from enemy when sage is down on energy.
Bard is AoE support with musical instrument as a weapon. He had spells that are active around him and you have to stand inside it to get the effect of it, spells like increasing damage, casting speed, health or attack speed.

I love support classes and would love to see one perhaps two more support weapons in the game. There could be even Paragon like class from GW 1 or Mesmer like debuffer class. I know devs said they want to balance weapons in hand first, which I understand. But seeing more support weapons would be amazing.

Balancing Issues New Skills in Albion Online

Today I will share with you the balancing issue in Albion Online.

Great Hammer 6.3 brand new tackle skill

description: travels in straight line dealing 48 dmg and stunning for 5.7s energy cost 65 cooldown 15s

Polehammer 7.2 (same rough tier) Groundbreaker

description: travels in straight line dealing 297 dmg and stunning for 9.14s energy cost 67 cooldown 15s even the 4.2 polehammer skill is better than the great hammer

Please start posting full descriptions of potential new skills FAR prior to placing them in game. Something this obvious should have been common sense.

To put it bluntly this isn’t the first time:

Movement ability on Armor (why make it so medium is better than light and heavy when prior to this it was balanced passives are fine it is the active skills that unbalanced game)
Movement ability on Weapons (they should all be roughly the same…if you need help calculating there are a number of us capable on forums ask…please)
Aoe dmg on Bow (like really you nerf the 1 skill that was sort of “ok” and totally ignore the 3 second spammable that can hit everyone in a cone?)
Meteor being useless (i.e. remove the knockback no other aoe makes it so that it ruins everyone else’s aoe in game)

A New Give Away Started by Albion Online Alliance Members

A new give away started by several [EX] alliance members distributes their lands.

The guilds Undead Lords, Ominous and La Croisade have recently announced something remarkable: they are giving away guild territories for free! As reported in the latest Albion Gazette, these members of the [EX] alliance have been very successful in their latest endeavors in the East and have seized a lot of land.

What is going on behind the scenes? Why would these guilds suddenly give up their newly conquered assets? Pest, leader of the Undead Lords, explains the thinking behind their charitable actions.

“Our goal is to shake things up this beta, and maybe keep some guilds playing,” he declares. “Give smaller guilds a chance to get territory and try out Guild vs Guild this Beta.”

Only smaller guilds are eligible to join this give away. This decision was made for a very specific reason, Pest elaborates.

Pest: “We took all these territories as very small, competitive guilds from three different very large zergs. We dismantled the [FEAR] alliance, defeated the [EAST] alliance (KDS/Aegis), and fended off Brasil Forces. We feel it is only right to give these territories to other small guilds that might be struggling against zergs!”

As of writing this article, they have already given away 10 of their territories, with about 30 more remaining. Want to get your hands on some land? Check out Pest’s forum announcement here for more information.

What do you think of this sudden give away?

Detailed Features in Albion Online Update Darian

Darian is the last content update throughout this phase of Beta. The game designer is now working in full force on preparing the next phase of beta on which you can expect more details soon. Now is the feature details in Darian.

Features

Study items

In crafting buildings, you can now “Study” crafted items.
You can study multiple items, and even multiple types of item, at once, provided other requirements are met.
Studying an item destroys it.
Studying an item grants you Fame towards the same Destiny Board unlocks that crafting that item would.
Studying an item is intended to be equivalent to repeatedly salvaging and recrafting it: you can spend Crafting Focus on it, Premium status improves the Fame gained, and the overall Fame gain should be equivalent.
The main limitation on what you can study is that you must be able to craft any item you want to study; it does not matter who crafted it, in much the same way that it doesn’t matter who gathers the resources you use to craft.
It is also necessary that the item is at full durability, and that the building you’re using can craft that item.

LP spending improvements

You can now use LP to unlock Mastery Levels on the Destiny Board from the beginning, rather than only after 20% of the Mastery Level is completed.
It costs 8 times more LP per Fame to unlock the first 20%, so it’s still more efficient to unlock that section through normal gameplay.

Player Spell Area Visualization

To further increase the readability of PvP, we implemented a pre-visualization of player AoE spells. This means on any AoE spells, the area will be highlighted on cast start.
The area will be filled with a gradient, this fill shows the exact time when the spell will hit the area.
The color of the area indicates the type of spell: enemy damage, friendly heal, enemy heal or friendly damage.

Improvements

Names of deleted characters will be freed for use upon deletion. Names are reserved for the deleting account for 72 hours. After that time they can be claimed by anyone. Note: this change only affects characters deleted after this release.
New riding animations for Direboar and Direbear mounts.
Improved many animations.
Animations when crafting have been improved by swapping weapons out for building-appropriate tools.

Changes

Access rights can now have a maximum of around 50 individual settings per object.
Threat Generation on player spells has been reworked, to make the tank gameplay more interesting it is now more challenging to keep aggro.

Balance Changes

Arcane Staffs
Arcane Staffs Arcane Protection did not really shine as a slot 1 ability so far. The shield was quite weak and had a long cast. This has now been changed to an instant ability, allowing a more reactive playstyle.
The invulnerability on Enigmatic Staff was changed to a damage shield in the last content update, which fixed the staffs scaling per tier. However the damage absorbed per tick was too low, which hurt the Enigmatic Staff’s core role.

Arcane Protection

Damage Absorbed increased by 6%
Cast Time: 1s -> 0s
Base Energy Cost: 7 -> 6
Shield Duration: 5s -> 4s

Invulnerability

Damage Absorbed per tick increased by 60%

Bows
The biggest change is on the Frost Shot. This spell should allow for good mobility, but the distances covered on high tiers was never intended and was actually a bug. Therefore the knockback distance is now always fixed to 11m.
Bows where also a bit too strong in dishing out instant AoE Damage, so Multishot damage was toned down a bit and the Rain of Arrows now have a 1s delay before they hit.
The Poisoned Arrows seemed a bit weak compared to the other slot 1 choices, so the dot has now 6 ticks. Making it easier to stack up the dot, as well as dealing more damage overall.

Poisoned Arrow

Number of Damage Ticks: 5 -> 6
Base Energy Cost: 5 -> 4
The Poison deals now magic damage.

Multi Shot

Damage Reduced by 8%

Frost Shot

Knockback distance is now fixed to 11m

Rain of Arrows

Added a delay of 1s before the first wave of arrows hits the ground

Crossbows
The Caltrops used to be a combination of damage and some cc. With the new spell Sunder Shot on slot 2 being now the best choice for damage, the focus of the Caltrops has been shifted stronger on the cc aspect.

Caltrops

Area Size: 1m -> 1.5m
Base Energy Cost: 3 -> 4
Slow Strength: 22% -> 50%
Damage Reduced by 44%

Cursed Staffs
Due to the heavy armor reduction the Armor Piercer has been extremely strong in group fights. To make Cursed Staffs a bit less mandatory the AR/MR reduction has been reduced and the damage increased. This way the spell’s damage output stays still high, but the effectivity doesn’t multiply in groups as much anymore.

Armor Piercer
AR/MR Reduction decreased by 38%
Damage increased by 75%

Daggers
Infiltration’s long hit delay made the spell too hard to hit against other players. The hit delay has now been reduced to make the spell viable for pvp.

Infiltration

Hit Delay: 2.5s -> 1.5s

Holy Staffs
With the changed, faster executions, the 2s cast time was too long to successfully resurrect an ally. So the cast time has been adjusted.

Resurrection

Cast Time: 2.s -> 1s

Maces
After Cador we saw less Mace line items in the game, because without the help of the old armor spells the Hammer offered the better straight forward cc. With this patch we define the sub roles of the different mace line items stronger. While also offering Maces a strong cc spell on slot 2.

Pull Area

Hit Delay: 0.2 -> 0.6s
Area Size: 5m -> 7m

Silencing Strike

The spell now also purges enemy buffs on hit.

Battle Howl

Silenced duration increased by 17%

Root Prison

Enemies hit will now stay rooted for 2s after the channel ends.
Channel Duration: 4s -> 3s

Nature Staffs
The Well of Life heal was a bit too low, considering how risky it is to stay in place in the circle against another player team. To make up for the risk, the heal strength has been increased.

Well of Life

Heal increased by 10%

Spears
Increased the Dash Speed of the Reckless Charge to make it easier to hit and be useful for repositioning.

Reckless Charge

Dash Speed: 0.2 -> 0.6s

Swords
The Heroic Strike charges have been buffed to give the sword line more mobility and stickyness to the target. Also the Cleave ability now also applies the Heroic Strike charges, so it is possible to get the max out of the slot 3 abilities, independent from the Q choice.
To further increase the swords mobility, players can now also freely move during the whole Mighty Swing animation.

Heroic Strike

Speed Buff per Stack: 6% -> 10%
Speed Buff Duration: 5s -> 6s

Cleave

Now also applies Heroic Strike Charges on hit

Mighty Swing

Standtime: 1s -> 0s

Cloth Armor
Frost Shield was making the squishy armors a bit too tanky, which outshined the other spell choices and also made the Cloth Armor users bypass their weakness a tad too good. Therefore the AR/MR buff strength has been reduced.
The penalty on the Speed Caster was removed, because picking this spell already has the drawback of sacrificing any defensive ability from the chest. Considering how squishy Cloth Armor is, this is already a big commitment.

Frost Shield

AR/MR Buff decreased by 33%

Speed Caster

Spellpower Reduction Removed, the cast speed bonus now has a penalty.

Mighty Swing

Standtime: 1s -> 0s

Cloth Helmet

The cleanse has been removed from the Ice Block, because the damage immunity alone is already a very strong choice for this slot.
The Speed Caster has been way too niche so far. With this update it also offers a 20% cast speed to make the spell more useful.

Ice Block

Removed the Cleanse
Can’t be used when silenced anymore

Disruption Immunity

Added an additional 20% Cast Speed buff to the spell

Leather Helmet
To make cleanse more valuable and encourage using cleanses in team composition the spell now also cleanses allies in close proximity.

Cleanse

Now also cleanses allies in close proximity

Plate Shoes
The Shield Charge was capable of absorbing too much damage. Especcially in comparison with other shielding abilities like Sprint Shield.

Sprint Shield

Damage Absorbed increased by three times

Shield Charge

Damage Absorbed decreased by 15%

Misc
To allow for more possible combinations of damage buffing builds, the max damage buff height has been increased.

Max Damage Buff: 150% -> 200%