Public Beta currently in progress (it is available thru Steam if you want to participate)
• Patchnotes available here (thanks, Iggy). The patchnotes do a very good job describing the core updates so this recap will focus on the images and the discussions that aren’t quite captured in the official notes (or were and I’m being redundant).
Wherever there are quotes, a timestamp relative to the start of the twitch stream is shown after the introductory 15 min and includes time that commercials played during the recording as I watched it. I then ran the stream thru transcription software which is not always the best at capturing dialogue, so if there is a discrepancy between the actual stream or these notes, the stream of course is the final say.
Age of War Release on June 22, 2023
The stream again featured Dennis and an Andy in heat, with a disembodied Nicole kicker.
The stream began with a lookback at the Age of Sorcery.
Looking forward to the Age of War, the focus will be on a new “Purge” system (reworking the Purge from the ground up) and major changes to the combat system in keeping with the theme. The roadmap for the 3 chapters to the Age of War is as follows:
00:15:33 Dennis
That will be a completely different experience in the purge as it exists now. We’re looking at something that’s a lot more warlike, like a base will form outside an enemy forward operating base. Theey’ll set up catapults and attack with waves towards key points in your base trying to breach that treasure room so they can steal the treasure away from you. You’ll be able to spend that treasure to buy things to help reinforce your base and go up higher and higher difficulty in the purge, so it will be kind of like a a progression of sorts where you fight weak ones and then you fight stronger and stronger ones and it all kind of depends how much money you have and the reason for that.
Clan Hoard System
The first highlight focused on the new Clan Hoard system. Your clan hoard is contained in your coffer, where you can place your treasure.
The Purge will change over the coming chapters to be integrated with the size of your hoard. Purges will be summonable and higher tier Purges will require a larger hoard. Certain items will have higher value than simply stored gold, as depicted by the ancient Lemurian Statue and Derketo Cat Idol. These larger pieces of treasure will be found in camps throughout the world and will have to be carried back to your base (represented by a new carrying animation at walking pace), and not simply stuffed in your backpack.
00:25:30 Dennis
We have kind of some stretch goals to be able to let thralls or mounts carry them later down the road.
Clan Emblems
Adding to the focus of your clan, there is also a new Emblem mechanic:
Certain items like shields, banners, horse barding, etc will have the clan emblem enabled. Changing the emblam at the workbench will immediately propagate the emblem to all clan property that supports it. New emblems will become available over time and as long as the player creating the emblem has permission to craft it, the emblem will propagate to the rest of the clan, regardless of whether or not the other members have access to the emblem. The emblems will also be moddable within the devkit.
Combat Changes
The Age of War is coming with significant changes to the combat system:
With the changes to combat, the camps on the Exiled Lands and Siptah have all been touched to reduce the amount of enemies that will attack you at a given time. There are also changes to the “call for help” range on NPCs to mitigate engagement of too many enemies at once. This was done in light of the increased lethality of the combat system.
00:49:12 Dennis
I think I’ve spilled the beans several times on stream that one of our design guidelines for exiles is that nothing is permanent and you know you should basically always have to work to maintain and keep things up so that you know the world is pushing back.
Large NPC Lock Points
Certain NPCs/Creatures like Mammoths, Giants, etc will have new lockpoints added to them. This is to avoid the undesirable visual effects that can occur when fighting large creatures (the screen pointing up at their undercarriage and giving a sense of vertigo).
Here you can see a lockpoint specifically located on the mammoths leg.
Nearsight in darkness
Another feature that’s coming is nearsight at nighttime.
While the image quality is not the best, what this means is that at night or in darkness, there is an area close to the player which is dimly illuminated so that the character will not be in complete darkness. A torch is still superior, but if your torch breaks, you won’t be completely blind in some areas.
Odds and Ends
New diving emote! You can “Scrooge McDuck” in your hoard all day long if you want.
Armor’s Showcased
New Build Set
Battlepass Images
Random Comments and Q/A
Clan Alliance
00:38:35 Dennis
We actually have a plan right now in the third chapter to allow people to be able to make an alliance, but it’s still going to require some play testing and and stuff like that too. The whole idea is just that you’d be able to make a temporary alliance with another person or clan and that would just reduce the amount of PvP damage they deal and you deal to them, and it would remove target locking just like if you’re in a normal clan with someone. And then after some period of time or some event that would get broken.
Goomba Change
01:08:30 Dennis
Q: Will you fix double jump Goomba builds?
01:08:32 Dennis
Yes, actually we have a change going into this update that will come in chapter one that that changes it from requiring one person standing on the head to two. So you really have to coordinate to get the achievement now, but it will stop people from… unless, unless it’s like a teleporter squash… which could still happen.
01:13:38 Contextual emotes discussed regarding, emotes specific to the weapon you are carrying
Possibility of Mods on Consoles
01:14:02 Dennis
Someone asked about mods on consoles. It’s not on our road map right now. It definitely won’t happen during this age. It’s the thing that we all would love to do because we all recognize the value that mods brings, exiles. But it’s it’s a big, big, big, big task and I’m not sure when it will happen, but we would like it to.
01:15:03 No update on character transfer at this time.
01:18:00 Discussion about paired emotes and more weapon emotes in the future.
Wisp update
01:20:17 Andy
So like find, find resources and wisp Wall instead of being a duration based buff effect, it’ll just you just turn it on and then you cast it again to turn it off so it just stays with you indefinitely until yeah, until you recast it.
Battering Ram
01:25:42 Dennis
Yeah, there should be a battering ram in chapter 2, like a handheld one.
On server wipes (never happening)
01:29:45 Dennis
Taking away people’s progress in the game is the number one fastest way to make them stop playing the game, so we will do everything in our power to prevent that from happening.
01:32:01 New setting that allows not just drop all on death or keep all, there is also an option to just drop backpack
01:34:59 Andy
Stay tuned also for winners for our Mystic Masterpieces Art Contest, which we ran.
Nicole still, free from captivity…
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