BARNACLES & BLACK POWDER

A dark tide rises in Aeternum with the arrival of Admiral Blackpowder and his dastardly crew! Quest givers in the Cutlass Keys settlement and the new docks on the territory’s eastern shore will be looking to offer you loot and renown for defeating the despicable evil within the new Barnacles & Black Powder Expedition — unlocking one week after the release of this update. Rumors suggest there might be an even greater power within the Admiral’s hold. Not to mention, more than meets the eye…

• Expedition Mutators

  • Barnacles & Black Powder will be mutated 2 weeks after its release

  • 3 new Mutations will also join the mutation rotation:

    • Icebound: Icebound features mutations that deal Ice damage, apply slow, and spawn glacial crystals with area effects.

    • Oppressive: Enemies gain powerful abilities like mana drains and zones of silence, which prevent ability usage for a short period of time.

    • Frenzied: This variant applies Curses to players that dodge. Curses stack up and deal damage over time. When Frenzied reaches 3 stacks, it detonates. This explosion deals additional damage to the player and leaves an elemental damage area of effect.

EXPEDITION ENHANCEMENTS

New quality of life features have been introduced to alleviate some points of friction for our Expedition explorers.

EXPEDITION GROUP FINDER

Finding a group to run Expeditions with while solo isn’t always easy when you need to ask through chat. So we are excited to release our first version of the Group Finder tool for Expeditions! With this feature, you’ll be able to access a specific Group Finder for each Expedition (accessed through Expedition entrance UI or related Expedition map icons), browse listings created by other players, or post your own request to join other players on your server. The tool allows players to declare their preferred team role — such as DPS, Tank, or Healer — and recruit based on those roles. You can also set recruiting requirements like minimum Gear Score and level, then inspect members to learn their average GS, weapons, and mastery levels. This feature will release alongside the new Barnacles & Black Powder Expedition.

EXPEDITION TUNING ORB REMOVAL

We’ve removed Expedition Tuning Orbs and replaced them with daily limits for Normal and Weekly mutated Expedition runs to make all Expeditions easier to access. Players can participate in:

• 15 Normal Expedition runs per player per day or 105 per week, per player.

• 25 Mutated Expedition runs per week.

In order to honor the value you’ve put into acquiring existing Tuning Orbs, any orbs in your inventory upon the update will be replaced with caches that give loot appropriate for their Expedition. While you won’t get a full run’s worth of coin and drops, the rolls will include boss drops for weapons and armor in addition to opportunities for Expertise bumps.

• For Normal Expeditions, caches will reward a roll from the sub-boss and main boss found in that specific Expedition, and grant coin equal to 50% the cost previously associated with buying that specific type of orb from the Faction Shop.

• For Mutated Expeditions, caches will reward 4 boss rolls off the final boss of 4 eligible Mutators, and coin equal to 50% the cost previously associated with buying that specific type of orb from the Faction Shop.

LOOT REBALANCE

With the accessibility changes to Expeditions, we’ve moved roughly 50% of coin generated from Expedition bosses and have instead spread it out to coin drops from Elite Chests and Darkness Breaches completion bonuses to help compensate for the reduction. Twice a day, players can loot elite chests in the open world or complete minor or major darkness breaches to earn a bag of coins. Each bag contains 500 coins. Along with that, we have introduced a new method to help the player overcome the randomness of Expedition Loot. Materia is a new type of resource that can be used to craft your desired drop. There are two ways to obtain this resource. Any named item obtained from an Expedition can now be salvaged into Materia of its corresponding Expedition type in addition to receiving Materia when defeating the main boss of an Expedition.

MUTATOR LOOT SHIFT

We’ve shifted the difficulty levels at which loot will unlock. The system was originally intended to give players a sense of rewarding progression as they play through the different difficulty levels but lower levels didn’t feel particularly good due to sparse rewards. We’ve therefore changed what items unlock at which difficulty level, which should result in a wider variety of lower level rewards. In addition, we’ve also added another accessory to each Mutator. Previously, each Mutator dropped 2 of the 3 types of accessory. Now every Mutator can drop all available types.

INSTANCED WARS

Previously while one or more wars were ongoing, server performance could become degraded. This could result in latency spikes for players in the war and surrounding areas. We have rebuilt the underlying technology to improve performance.

LOOT, PERKS, AND TRADE SKILLS

PERK REBALANCE

After examining the meta and its issues regarding endgame viability, we’ve adjusted over 150 perks to help make them more useful and competitive compared to some of the best perks in the game. Skill-specific weapon perks are now more powerful, with some receiving substantial rework. We’ve also tweaked how perks are calculated, to provide players with more options for better perk combinations. For example, the trade skill drop chance on earrings now has a very low chance on drops to increase the combat focused perks players get from earrings. These perks can still be controlled via crafting, using their specific craft mods to make specific items.

LOOT QUALITY

The overall quality of drops have been improved based on player/expertise level. This means at level 60, players should earn more Epic and Rare loot instead of Uncommon loot. Epic and Legendary loot also have a higher chance of receiving more viable stat combinations (e.g. increased chances for Keen, lower chances for Beast Bane). Perks that roll are all still random for non-named items, but players should see better combinations of perks overall. We’ve also improved the chances that higher Gear Score items can drop from lower level creatures, giving a small chance 600 Gear Score items can come from level 59+.

BONUS LOOT DROPS

We feel that loot obtained from Gypsum Casts was not very rewarding, so we’ve improved the likelihood of Epic and Rare loot rolls. We’ve also reworked the range at which Expertise can be gained off these rolls. The potential bump range to Expertise has been increased for all Gear Score expertise levels between 500 - 600. In addition, Lower Expertise levels now have a higher range of potential Expertise bump to gear.

PERFECT SALVAGE

We’ve made salvaging more rewarding through the introduction of Perfect Salvages. Whenever players salvage items they will now have a chance to perform a Perfect Salvage, which can reward them with:

• Research materials (such as Weapon Scraps) that can be used to gain crafting trade skill experience.

• Special orbs that can be converted into gypsum casts that bypass the normal daily limit.

• Materials to fabricate special items.

• Other valuable resources.

TRADE SKILL CHANGES

Trade skills have been updated to reduce friction and speed up leveling for many Gathering, Refining, and Crafting trade skills:

GATHERING

• Reduced Logging XP required to level from 1 to 50 by 15%.

• Reduced Logging XP required to level from 51 to 200 by 20%.

• Reduced Fishing XP required to level from 1 to 200 by 50%.

• Reworked experience curve of first 26 levels of Fishing.

REFINING

• Removed tiers from reagents (Tannins, Fluxes, Sandpapers, Weaves, and Solvents) with the goal of simplifying these into a single tier, giving potency of Tier 5 reagents to help players progress trade skills more efficiently and reduce friction of converting.

• Reduced Leatherworking XP required to level from 1 to 200 by 10%.

• Reduced Smelting XP required to level from 1 to 200 by 10%.

• Reduced Weaving XP required to level from 1 to 200 by 15%.

• Reduced Woodworking XP required to level from 1 to 200 by 15%.

• Reduced Stonecutting XP required to level from 1 to 200 by 20%.

CRAFTING

• Improved the trade skill XP on Tier 4 and 5 crafted items for all skills.

• Reduced Furnishing XP required to level from 1 to 200 by 20%.

• Reducing the trade skill XP required for Weaponsmithing and Furnishing for levels 1 to 200.

CRAFTING, GATHERING & REFINING CLOTHING

• We’ve rebalanced the drop chance and locations of all trade skill clothing to better improve their availability.