UPDATE XXVII – Breakdown: Part 2 – Anarious Productions

CONTENT UPDATE XXVII – Breakdown: Part 2

Greetings everyone!

Continuing from where we left off in Part 1 of the breakdown, we’ll be tackling new content as well as answering a few questions about the Alliance and Honor Systems.

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!)

QUESTIONS REGARDING NEW SYSTEMS

Here are a few questions from the community regarding the Alliance System and Honor System.

Q: What happens if we previously had all 6 Factions unlocked, will we only be able to have 3 now?
A: Gold Tokens will still be available and can be distributed at the Admin’s discretion. The Gold Tokens will grant the associated feats like before, but they will not choose a Main Faction nor will they change and/or add to the Honor System. In short, the Gold Tokens will work as before, but won’t take the new systems into account. Updates are currently ongoing so there may be further changes to this towards launch.
Q: If I’m part of a faction, say, Stormhold, will I no longer be able to Thrall/Knockout Stormhold NPCs?
A: Obtaining your own Faction Thralls and Allied Faction Thralls is now approached in a different way. Faction Merchants will offer the NPCs that otherwise had to be knocked out. You can still thrall your own Faction or Allied Faction NPCs, however, it will decrease your Honor standing with them. Enemy Faction NPCs can still be captured like before. We’re working on more ways to obtain thralls.
Q: What about the Faction camps that are in areas that you traverse, like the Stormhold camp in Sepermeru?
A: We will be updating Faction Camps with these new systems in mind. If any area is required to be accessible, Faction camps won’t stand in the way. In the case of the Stormhold camp in Sepermeru, this shouldn’t block any base content as it can easily be avoided.
Q: What about Relics being held by certain Factions? If I’m Cold Embrace and need to defeat Nekada to get the Relic, will I become hostile to the Vanghouls?
A: The Relics are being reworked with this update and will no longer be obtained by defeating Faction NPCs.
Q: What happens to the Sanguis Unit being locked to Female Characters only? Will that change in this update or will we still be excluded from that sub-faction?
A: When it comes to the Sanguis Unit, Male Characters will be joining the Brotherhood of the Raven. In AoC lore, the Brotherhood of the Raven is a group of assassins that are allied with the Sanguis Unit. However, for all intended purposes, the Brotherhood of the Raven will be considered as the Sanguis Unit in the mod, not a new sub-faction. That said, some content will be tweaked for Male Characters. We aim to get this in together with the rest of the update.
Q: What happens to the dungeons that have Faction NPCs, like the Goreclaw Elves or the Vanghouls of the Forsaken Mountain?
A: Dungeons will not take the Faction System into consideration. All dungeons will be hostile, even to the same faction despite this going against lore.
Q: Will there be repercussions for playing with friends from the opposite alliance?
A: Not besides the fact that enemy NPCs will attack the player who is part of the opposite alliance. (This doesn’t count for owned thralls). Players can still play together as usual without having to worry about being part of the same alliance. The only aspect that does come into play is how NPCs will treat the player, and access to the opposite alliance quests and faction hubs will be restricted. That said, there will be some benefits to playing the same alliance, like being able to do the same quests, access faction hubs of allies, and not being attacked by their NPCs when out in the world.
Q: Will we need to start over to experience the new changes?
A: As the Faction System has been reworked, currently existing players should reselect their desired faction at the Faction Hall. Everything from Feats, Faction IDs, and Quests will need to be reset due to the significant overhaul. However, any content already obtained from a faction, like weapons and armor, will not be removed. However, no wipe should be required.

NEW ARMOR & CLOTHING

With Shadaerion Dominion becoming its own Main Faction, we’ve decided to start creating unique Armor and Clothing to accompany this. Right now, we have the Shadaerion Dominion starter outfit (showcased as the header image of this post), which new Shadaerion Dominion players will unlock upon joining this faction.

Additionally, despite this update dropping later than anticipated in regard to the Summer season, we’ve been working on a Summer Set Collection for the Main Factions. Back in the day, we introduced the Faction Panties that had a different color and texture, but with these new outfits, we’ve created full unique sets. You can see WIP teasers of the Summer Sets on our Patreon page, link at the bottom of the page.

Our goal is to have the Summer Sets and the Shadaerion Dominion starter outfits ready by the launch of this update.
Moving forward, we plan to tackle unique starter outfits and end-game outfits for every faction!

NEW SKILL SYSTEM

With this update, we aim to introduce a new Skill System to AoC! This will allow you to level up your preferred Weapon Type, including Tools. Each Weapon Type has its own progression, allowing the player to get stronger with their preferred style. There will be quite a few Skills available at launch, including Sword, Greatsword, Battle Axe, Greataxe, Daggers, etc.

How it works:

Every Weapon Type starts at level 1 and can go up to level 100.
Stats such as DMG, Armor Pen, Knockback, etc. will gradually increase as the player levels up their skill.
Faction Unique Weapons will be getting additional benefits, such as Bonus DMG, Buffs/Abilities, etc. For Faction Weapons, the Tier is tied to the Honor Standing. By improving your Honor Standing with your preferred Faction, you’ll be able to get higher Tiers for your weapons, allowing them to become more powerful.
Comparison Example: The Knight Blade of Stormhold in the current build is locked to 20dmg. However, the same weapon using the Skill System will now be able to perform at 40+dmg. Every weapon will see a significant increase in DMG compared to the set base values. That said, when a Skill is Low Level, the weapons will reflect that.
New UI Display allows the player to see Light and Heavy Attack DMG, Armor Pen, Tier, and Weapon Type directly in the inventory with dynamic updates. Additionally, the Information tab that opens up a long description of the weapon has now been revised. This window will now allow players to monitor their weapon stats, faction bonuses, etc.
Tools will also utilize this new Skill System, allowing the player to level up their skills in Mining, Woodcutting, Skinning, etc. The tools will gradually get better and better, allowing for higher and higher resource-gathering rates. A Stone Pick, as an example, can now output much higher values if the skill level is sufficient.
A Skill Level for a non-faction weapon/tool will control the Tier through milestones. As an example, Skill Level 1 = T1, Skill Level 30 = T3. Tiers now play a more prominent role in gathering resources. We’re now introducing new Nodes, such as unique Gem Nodes, such as Sapphire ore, Amethyst ore, and even Diamond ores. However, gathering different types of nodes will require a specific tier. This doesn’t apply to base resources, so gameplay progression won’t be hindered by this. Instead, these are new ways to obtain rare resources in new and different ways.
There will be a Server Setting to disable this system for those who don’t want to use it. This will then revert all stats back to their current state.

There is more to this system, but we’ll be sharing more information on that at a later date.

NEW RIFT GATE SYSTEM

With this update comes a new content addition, the Rift Gate. A Rift Gate is in essence a Portal, but unlike the normal Portals around the world, Rift Gates are more advanced. They’re inactive by default and will need to be powered using Rift Energy. When you interact with a Rift Gate, you’ll be greeted with the Rift Gate UI display. From here you can access different Rift locations you’ve discovered around the world, allowing you to quickly go from one place to another. Any Rift Gate can communicate with any you’ve already unlocked. As an example: If you’re in the Mounds of the Dead, and come across a Rift Gate, you can use that to travel to any location you’ve unlocked, like the Faction Hall.

As mentioned before, Rift Energy is used to power a Rift Gate. There are hundreds of Rift Energies scattered all around the world. There are 5 Tiers of Rifts, and the amount of Rift Energy will be significantly higher the better tier Rift. Tracking these Rifts down doesn’t only award Rift Energy, but also additional bonuses, including XP. Rift Energies are also tailored to the player’s current level.

Rift Gates also supports cooperative play, allowing 1 player to summon a Rift to a different location regardless if nearby friends have unlocked that location. This will allow friends to travel together. This goes for Rift Energy as well. When traversing the world in search of Rifts, they will be obtainable for all players. As an example, if player 1 picks up a Rift, it will disappear for player 1. However, the Rift will still be there and accessible for player 2. This allows a group of friends to hunt Rift Energies together, unlocking mysterious rewards… and possible dangers.

And with that, we will conclude Breakdown Part 2! There is loads more coming in this update and we’re just scratching the surface. Stay tuned for more information!

However, one note before we end this newsletter. As we’re almost done with September, it likely means the new Age of Heroes is just around the corner for Conan Exiles. With that in mind, we’re trying to wrap up everything in this update as fast as possible, but we’d like to state that when the update for the base game drops, we are most likely going to have to patch, regardless of bugs and polish where our own content is concerned. We will, however, strive to make sure this update is as stable as possible upon release. Once the core features are ready, we aim to push this update out as a Public Development Build, which will be accessible to everyone in our community. We hope you’ll have the time to help us troubleshoot and find any issues related to the new content before it goes live!

Thank you all for your time and support of The Age of Calamitous mod!
Oh yeah, there was one more thing…
Since we’re now entering the spooky season, here’s a little teaser!

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