CONTENT UPDATE XXVII – Breakdown: Part 1

Greetings everyone!

Content Update 27 is on the horizon and it’s shaping up to become one of the biggest overhauls to AoC yet!
As we’ve already mentioned on the Official Discord Server for The Age of Calamitous, we’re changing up a few factions, one major change being The Order of Felgarth being replaced by The Shadaerion Dominion. However, there is much more to it and today we’ll be doing a deep-dive into two of the new major features coming to AoC!

First of all, a huge thanks goes out to our Patrons for their immense support. With your help, we’re able to continue developing the AoC mod for Conan Exiles. Any and all support is greatly appreciated!

Without further ado, let’s get into the new content!

(DISCLAIMER: This update is a work in progress, all content is subject to change!)

THE ALLIANCE SYSTEM

We’re introducing a new Alliance System, which will expand and replace aspects of the current Faction System.
This system will divide the factions into 2 alliances:

THE SILVERLIGHT ACCORD

This Alliance includes the following Factions:
– The Kingdom of Stormhold (Sub-Factions: The Path of Justice / House Stormcaller)
– The Elven Covenant (Sub-Factions: The Vyrithian Veil / The Sentinels of Ancaelon)
– The Order of Elvanor (Sub-Factions: The Order of Felgarth / The Holy Syndicate)

THE FORSAKEN LEGION

This Alliance includes the following Factions:
– The Cold Embrace (Sub-Factions: The Knights of Empyrus / The Sanguis Unit)
– The Shadaerion Dominion (Sub-Factions: The Cult of the Nethermyst / The Rangers of Thaelyndor)
– The Vanghoul Clans (Sub-Factions: The Forsaken Vanguard / The Blood Hawks)

The player will be selecting their main faction like before, but the chosen faction will now matter in terms of the alliance it is part of.
With the introduction of this new Alliance System, players will finally be allied with their respective factions.
This means that the player no longer has to worry about being attacked by their own people while traversing the world or exploring camps.
The Alliance System rewrites the original code for the Factions as well as establishes a new system for AoC NPCs.
Unlike before when the player joined a faction, they just unlocked a feat. This new approach establishes a completely new code system for Factions, allowing for much more customizability.

THE HONOR SYSTEM

To go alongside the Alliance System, we’re introducing a new Honor System.
This system allows the player to accumulate Honor Points with different Factions, which will replace various aspects of the old Faction System.
Honor Points can be accumulated through various types of activities, allowing players to decide what type of content they wish to engage with.
Sub-Factions will no longer rely on the player’s level to be unlocked, instead the Honor Points accumulated with the Faction will determine when a Sub-Faction is unlocked.

A key part of the Honor System is the ability to obtain Honor Points across Factions and Sub-Factions. This will allow players to work within their alliance to build Honor with their allied factions.
Here’s an example scenario to demonstrate how the system works:

If a Player selects The Kingdom of Stormhold as their Main Faction, they will now be part of the Silverlight Accord alliance.
This will make The Elven Covenant and The Order of Elvanor allied factions, which the player can now carry out jobs for.
When the player selects their Main Faction, they will start off with 1,000 Honor Points with that specific faction. Allied factions will have 0 Honor Points, which means they’re at a Neutral Standing with the player. At a Neutral Standing, activities such as Quests will become available. This will allow the player to accumulate Honor Points with the faction they’re doing work for. Once the player reaches 1,000 Honor Points with a faction, they will be able to unlock that faction and its content. The player can continue to accumulate Honor Points with all 3 factions of an alliance, allowing them to unlock Sub-Factions. Sub-factions will become available to the player once they reach a specific milestone with a specific faction. Moreover, if the player is able to build their Honor standing to the max with a faction, they will be able to unlock the second sub-faction.

In summary, the player now has the ability to unlock 3 out of 6 factions (this being within their chosen alliance), and 9 out of 18 sub-factions through the Honor System.

The Honor System will include a host of rewards that players can unlock as well, including access to faction-unique Merchants, Shop Discounts, Faction Resource Hubs, and more!
Now that we’ve covered the Positive Standing of the Honor System, let’s take a look at the Negative Standing.
While the player will be able to increase Honor Points with factions, they will also be able to decrease Honor Points, which can take the players into a Negative Standing with that specific faction. All enemy factions (the factions opposite of the player’s selected alliance) will start with -100 Honor Points, which will put them into the State of Aggressor. When a player is in the state of Aggressor, they will be hostile towards that faction. The faction will attack the player on sight. The higher the negative standing is, the more dangerous that faction becomes. This means that by attacking enemy factions, the player will gradually build negative Honor Points with that specific faction. Additionally, the player can attack their own allied factions, which in return will work the same way. As an example, if the player is part of Stormhold and they attack Elvanor, Elvanor will become an enemy faction.

Key Notes for the Alliance System & Honor System

• The player can only be part of 1 Alliance. An Enemy Alliance will always be hostile. The same applies to a player without an Alliance.
• A new way to reset your Faction choice will be introduced in the Faction Hall. Players can now interact with an NPC that will remove their standing with a Faction. This will allow the player to change their Faction without recreating the character. However, all aspects of the Faction System will be fully reset, including Honor Points. This will allow players to keep their current characters and reset and/or select a new faction.
• Honor Points can currently be accumulated through Questing. However, we’re working on more ways to obtain Honor Points for the players who are not interested in doing quests.
• Playing With Friends: NPCs will engage enemy factions/players so do note that if a Stormhold player is playing with a Cold Embrace player, visiting each other’s camps will result in the NPCs attacking the enemy player.
• Players who have previously been Felgarth will be able to reset and select a new faction at the Faction Hall. As Felgarth is now part of Elvanor, players can now choose Elvanor to play Felgarth as a sub-faction.

We hope that this insight into what we’re currently working on was exciting! There is much more in store for this update, so stay tuned for the next part of our Breakdown! We don’t have an ETA for this update yet, but we’re planning to release a Public Development Build for those who would like to help us test these new systems. Given the nature of this system, we’ll need to conduct some stress testing. If you’re interested in helping us identify and fix any bugs, we’ll be posting a Dev Build for testing once the update is ready. Any and all help is greatly appreciated! More details on this will be shared further down the road.

CONSIDER SUPPORTING US ON PATREON

In order to offer our players/community the highest quality content and the best gameplay experience, we ask for your help.
We hope you will consider supporting the development of the AoC mod moving forward!
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts, and we hope that you will enjoy the future of AoC!
Link to Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/espengjohansen