Hey hey peopleWithin the next hours, we will launch a test season. The parameters of the test are as follows:
- There will most likely be item wipes, but no character wipes.
- The season will end and proper season 3 will be launched, once all features listed below have been implemented and are working properly
- The point of the test season is mostly to test the new global economy, as almost all other aspects like factions, zc, dungeons, tech progression and items are deeply integrated into it.
- It is not planned to take down the server for any extended periods of time between this test season and proper season 3
- As listed below, while many new frameworks are in place, they need to be filled with content which will happen as the test progresses.
- Church and Hounds have been temporarily removed as a joinable faction
Changelog summary:1. PvE
1.1 The WildernessThe world map is replaced with 31x31 "wilderness" maps, dynamically generated upon start of the season, traversed through green grids like the core, which hold a set amount of resources that are not being respawned throughout the season. From a players perspective, there is no "world map" anymore. The core is a 7x7 block sat in the center of the wilderness and accessed through the gates.
Cosmetic work, as well as implementation of critters and loot will progress throughout the test season.1.2 Tech ProgressionAlmost all ingame items are placed on a tech tree that is 10 tiers deep. The season starts at the bottom of the tree, with an available bracket of 5 tiers, meaning if the server is on tier 3, items from tiers 1 through 5 can be encountered in the world. The server will continuously advance through the tiers, with increased speed in lower tiers and a smooth progression.
This test season will remain at tier 7 throughout its run, meaning there will be items from tiers 5-9. Energy weapons are rarely found on npcs as they are laregely reserved for high tiers (8+). For big guns, it's normal that tiers 3 or 4 are found, due to gaps in individual tech trees.1.3 CraftingRaw materials are gathered in the wilderness in different biomes and dynamic mines underneath mountain maps. In terms of crafting components, there are 3 eras, roughly spanning tiers 1-3, 4-6 and 7-10. Raw materials and lower quality components have to be processed through core-based and/or homebuilt processing plants. Crafting is the only way to obtain the higher tier items in the current bracket, referred to as t+1 and t+2 items. This is done through blueprints found in higher difficulty dungeons and core-events, and require the use of core facilities.
Wilderness resources will be patched in in the coming days/weeks, starting with an underground mine layer.1.4 EconomyAll monetary prices and resource craft prices are based on their weight and their components, which is then modified by the current tech level, resulting in high tier items being very expensive, with their price and crafting cost dropping as the tech level progresses. Most raw materials found in the wilderness are finite, the only stable source of items is loot dropped by npcs.
1.5 The CoreA 7x7 area of bigger, handmade maps sat in the center of the game world, featuring lots of strong enemies and an increasing amount of dungeons, basements, caves and upperfloors, which generally have better loot and stronger enemies than the surface core. The Inner 3x3 zones around the central hospital also have better loot and stronger mobs than the outter maps.
1.6 Dungeons RevisedProcedurally developing dungeons which become stronger as time passes and are able to influence its surrounding by raiding population and faction stockpiles for resource and scavenge.
Old dungeons like Hell Hole, Maryland and Robco are only partially functional, others like Warmart Level 2 and Adams School are left unchanged as they will slowly migrate to using the new system. However, many other new dungeons have been added throughout the core.
2. PvP2.1 Zone ControlZC is now disconnected from score gains and focusses solely on core ownership. Each zone has a monetary value which increases the payout pool referred to in the following point. ZC is only possible on neighboring maps of already controlled zones or the gate, and there are different levels of control based on how long a zone has been held, making it harder to capture overnight and affecting the amount of patrol spawns and faction recon (see 2.3)
2.2 ClashesThe clashes system includes a redesigned scoring system which takes all kinds of data into account to reward players for all pvp that is happening on the surface core as well as inside dungeons and sewers, making sure combat is always rewarded. The reward is paid out in faction specific currency and is to a large extent based on ZC-dependant zone income and is distributed among all players of a faction depending on their pvp activity. As usual, rewards come in the form of paychecks that have to be collected from a faction clerk as a regular income.
2.3 Faction ReconTracks all hostile player movements on faction-owned maps and adjacent zones to make early alarm / safe space / usable intel advantage to faction participating in ZC. Tracks Clashes and ZC happening in core and provides on-map icons for that.
2.4 Combat MechanicsAside from new additions in the low- to medium tier weaponry to allow more specialized builds in lower tiers, there are no new mechanics or major changes introduced and the gameplay is based on previous seasons and tournaments. Almost all work between seasons 2 and 3 went into PvE aspects or global mechanics like economy.
3. Global Conquest3.1 Personal claimsAll players can purchase a personal claim which is an item that can freely be placed anywhere in the wilderness, creating a buildzone for that player, allowing him to construct his own safe home with respawn points, containers and workbenches.
This will be introduced later on during the test season.3.2 OutpostsAs part of the endgame, platoons can purchase outpost claims, granting them the sole ownership of a whole wilderness map and preventing other outposts from being established in the surrounding area. Outposts are more secure, offer a lot more room for storage and are an important part of future larger scale features. Both outposts and personal claims might be subject to attacks on certain event times during the weekend.
This feature will be implemented later during the test season.
Additional smaller features include:- Updated and 100% accurate FoV display, activated with ctrl + F
- Extended sewer network and new dungeons
- Extended functionality of FMOD sound engine, moving more sounds from fonline to fmod, adding direction
- Updated behavior of flames
- Critter shenanigans
New features first in the pipeline:- Addition of on-map cross-core Bandit raids, which are currently only virtual. This means dungeon npcs leaving the dungeon to raid surrounding coremaps.
- Addition of cross-core faction caravans to transport resources produced by the zone back to the faction HQ
Other features on the list for Season 3 proper:- Vehicles
- Weapon mods
- Neutral factions, both inside and outside the core
Known issues as of now:- Core containers deleting items as they are being looted. This happens when a respawn tick happens just after a player opened a container.
- Missing blockers and broken looking buildings in the wilderness.
- All critters spawning with roughly half their HP and with low healing rate
- Occasionally strange AI behavior
Client Link:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-S8IPo6uHFVRkuepGClOqqy_vE3AaXHiThe HQ Outposts are 2 maps away from the gates, check the message log as you cross zones to find the direction to the core.