I must say, I am not excited for this new chapter 
⢠I did not watch the dev stream (sorry, some people work and have other hobbies than this broken game)
⢠I havenāt bothered installing the beta client again
So no, havenāt played the new version.
⢠I have read the patchnotes, and Iāll talk about my first thoughts on this whole mess:
ā Main highlight was at the very end for me: āUsers can no longer duplicate items by exploiting slow connectionsā. Itās good to read that this kind of exploit has been taken care of (but afaik it was an exploit enabled by lagswitch, much like skybases are, so why arenāt those also fixed???)
ⳠI am not a PvP player, and the best thing I noticed was a change that mostly affects PvP⦠Concerning
ā Purge Rework⦠So now purges are entirely optional? Then uhhhh, I hope Gulzan, the dialog NPC that explained the purge, got changed accordingly; because the purge is no longer looking to steal whichever artifacts you have to escape the Exiled Lands or whatever the justification was 
ā³ I think the new purge system with treasures could be optional yes, but that in more brutal areas in the North of the map or the Jungle, some purges should still come periodically whether you like it or not. Personal opinion.
ā Purges are triggered through the coffer interface? Okay I read the patch notes so I know about it, but think about it from a new playerās perspective⦠How will they figure it out? Have you made this information genuinely accessible in-game in some way? I hope so, but I think not 
ā The coffer can let you sell treasures for Gold Coins⦠Ok but Gold Coins are basically useless, they arenāt rare, you can farm gold in the Volcano or near Vaults on Siptah, and you can cast gold bars into coins for free⦠So you basically introduced treasures, didnāt make them particularly interesting or useful, and then made them into a new source of gold instead of making them unique⦠Design failure as far as Iām concerned.
ā Assigning Thralls to doors/gates sounds good, will have to check if it actually is, but it sounds like a fine idea.
ā You lose some treasure, the purge stops⦠Hope the coffer is going to be a locked container (like sorcery rituals) through the purge so that you cannot manually take the stuff out and end the purge whenever you want
You probably overlooked that didnāt you?
ā New Battering Ram weapon? Is it Purge exclusive? Can we players use it, to finally add a new mechanic to raiding??? Would need minimum 3 people using it, or thralls ā Forcing solo players to use the War Party attribute to use the Ram!
ā Mercenaries? Will have to look further into it, but I hope theyāre more useful than thralls, and if theyāre just disposable, I hope theyāre more useful than Zombies 
ā The rest of the Purge Rework doesnāt mean much, there is a āboss campā to end the purge and claim rewards that seem to be underwhelming, except you can buy bombs which is pretty stupid for PvP, but itās not like anyone is expecting any sort of PvP balance any longer at this point, sadly.
ā Loot Rework!!! NPCs now have a chance of dropping their actually worn equipment and weapon/s. This makes sense, and on one hand Iām glad itās not a 100% chance because looting high-end gear instead of crafting it makes the early game trivial (look at Legendary Weapons lmao), but on the other hand I dislike that itās once again randomness deciding stuff for you all the damn time 
ā Loot chest grant more interesting loot? Sounds okay thus far.
Loot is more contextual? Yes, thatās how it should be, weāre on the same page here.
ā Interactables in-camps sound interesting, I hope their design is challenging, but Iām not sure youād be the best at making a puzzle game; I hope these are balanced between how difficult it is to use them and the reward granted; because if there is one half-naked idiot guarding a lever that gives you a legendary weapon, thatās not balanced 
ā Dungeonsā loot is more interesting? Sorry but Iām very doubtful, and you cannot blame me for that!
ā Optional bosses? Cool idea, I hope they fit well in the dungeons, and I hope they arenāt all just a dumb armored human with high damage 
ā Loot from bosses is adjusted? I am again doubtful, but will have to see if there is anything actually interesting in there 
ā Traps, and so forth
Now the thing is, itās all going to be a one-time change. The first time you venture in a newly changed dungeon you walk carefully and identify the traps, then you know the locations by heart and they arenāt interesting or challenging anymore, much like the rest of PvE content 
ā The Archives and Voidforge grant new recipes instead of being fully random! Now thatās a good change for once, finally removing some dumb RNG 
ā Black Ice Weaponsā recipes adjusted⦠So instead of balancing the damn weapons for them to be better than hardened steel, since they were a direct upgrade, you simply removed the hardened steel component altogether? This sounds quite dumb, but on top of that it looks extremely lazy in my eyes.
ā Steel Thewed nerfed to ā
of max HP instead of ¼, why?
ā Last Stand nerfed from 6s to 3s, very good idea, that was too much for PvP really.
ā Bows do less damage the further the arrow travels⦠How does that interact with the Dead Shot Perk which deals 15% more damage to distant targets? Did you actually just kill the perk? Did you make bows into a blank-point weapon for optimal damage? Does the damage only start dropping-off after a certain distance?
ā Javelins and āmissileā weapons got increased damage? For javelins, are you only talking about the projectile being buffed, or the weapon as a whole? Riptide best weapon Soonā¢?
So you nerfed long-range for bows, but buffed other projectiles without giving them the damage falloff? Iām not sure youāre being coherent here 
ā No more God Bubbles? Not sure about this one chiefā¦
ā Ć10 Avatar time, ā
Avatar damage? Ok so you have more time to move around and attack but Iām not sure youāll be doing enough damage when you need it? It just sounds a bit weird idk, will have to see.
ā Trebuchet are more tanky and super fast to craft. You probably had a fine base idea but pushed the button waayyyy too far (much like you did with stamina changes) 10mn to craft a full trebuchet that now has double the HP?
ā³ However, the usual bombs havenāt been changed or nerfed, so all you did was make them throwable with thebuchets with the demon-fire barrage ammunition⦠Really need to change bombs, especially the range of placement, but also probably the crafting recipe for dragonpowder?
ā Siptah crash supposedly fixed⦠Took way too long, but at least you did it 
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ā Damage from Wight Minibosses in the Winecellar has been reduced⦠Sad to see the game once again get easier in one of the most end-game dungeonā¦
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ā Warmaker Klael is no longer sitting. He wasnāt the only one, so I hope Gulzan if fixed too, caught him lacking a few times!
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ā āThe slashing visual effects of one handed swords is now properly aligned with their model during sprint attacks.ā Since I reported this, Iām glad to see it fixed. It shows bug-reports are not always useless 
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ā Tools no longer damage resources that they cannot harvest 
My question is, do religious tools harvest anything that isnāt a human body?
There is a very uninteresting exploit with them, so if they only damage human bodies anymore, the exploit is fixed 
More importantly, where are the stamina adjustments?
⢠Chapter 1 increased stamina costs, also increased stamina regen, and decreased delay before regenā¦
This was a fine idea, but it was taken too far, be careful how hard you push the button!
⢠For an actually proper experience, find a middle ground between the previous stamina system and the current one!
ā Go back to the previous system.
ā Increase stamina costs, but half of what you did.
ā Increase stamina regen, but half of what you did (decrease regen time)
ā Decrease delay before stamina regen, but less than what you did (should solve the infinite rolling issue)
ā Keep the exhaustion effect and penalty, but decrease it just a little bit.
Boom, you have a decent system again 