Calling All Adventurers to The Scalding Abyss in Dark and Light!
Bel’Xahl, the Scorched, Lord of Elemental Fire, is summoning a fire army in the NEW high-level dungeon located inside the volcano at World’s End, The Scalding Abyss.
Those brave enough to stop this formidable demon will experience:
- New Creatures: Ashen Fist Goblin, Molten Artificer, Emberling, Scalding Wyrm, Orthrus, a 2-headed hellhound pet, and, of course, Bel’Xahl the Scorched himself
- New craftable items: Flame Armor set that provides unparalleled cold resistance and Searing Edge, a flame axe that leaves a burning debuff on anything it hits
- New Spells: Healing Light, a true healing spell and Winding Roots to immobilize dangerous creatures temporarily
- New Feature: Hot Springs with soothing waters to replenish health and focus
In addition, the Festival of Graciousness arrives in Archos, bringing Wild Turkeys and new food items.
Greetings Adventurers! We’re going to be rolling out a major update for Dark and Light at around 1:00AM PST on Thursday, November 16th. This update includes Archos’s second PvE dungeon, The Scalding Abyss, as well as new creatures, items, weapons, armor, and more! As always, be sure to log out before the update hits to reduce the risk of data loss.
Deep within the earth, underneath the volcano at World’s End, a terrible power has awoken.
Bel’Xahl, the Scorched, Lord of Elemental Fire, has manifested in The Scalding Abyss, where he has begun to summon forth an army of Flame Elementals. A call has gone out to all able-bodied Adventurers – venture forth into the heart of The Scalding Abyss, and defeat Bel’Xahl before Archos is completely engulfed in flame!
New Creatures in The Scalding Abyss:
- Bel’Xahl the Scorched – A powerful demon residing at the heart of The Scalding Abyss, the Lord of Elemental Fire and protector of the Smoldering Workbench. Adventurers will need to be prepared with a variety of weapons if they hope to stand a chance of bringing him down.
- Ashen Fist Clan Goblins – A powerful and ruthless tribe of goblins that have made a home in The Scalding Abyss. They won’t think twice before tossing an unsuspecting Adventurer into the molden lava that flows through the Abyss, so stay wary!
- Molten Artificers – Sturdy Elementals only found in The Scalding Abyss. They aren’t much of a threat on their own, but they have the ability to spawn numerous Emberlings, which can quickly become overwhelming.
- Emberlings – Weak Fire Elementals summoned by Molten Artificers. In large numbers, these Elementals can demolish entire groups of Adventurers.
- Scalding Wyrms – Roosting in the heart of The Scalding Abyss, these Wyrms are infused with the power of fire. They can attack extremely quickly before flying away, so it might be a good idea to be prepared with ranged weaponry in case you encounter any.
- Orthrus – Bel’Xahl’s loyal pets, these 2-headed hellhounds deal heavy damage and can inflict a strong burning debuff that can quickly deplete an Adventurer’s health.
Tips for taking on The Scalding Abyss:
- Dress Accordingly – It’s called The Scalding Abyss for a reason – Craftable Icewind Robes will provide enough Heat Resistance to nullify the effects of the extreme heat.
- Come Prepared – Water Bottles, Runes of Healing and Chilling, and powerful weapons and armor will make your trek through The Scalding Abyss much more bearable.
- Loot Everything – Some creatures in the Abyss will drop items essential to your party’s success; don’t leave anything behind!
We’ve made a few adjustments to the conditions of the area around the volcano in World’s End to make life a little easier for Adventurers who want to settle down there:
- The ambient temperature in the region has been reduced.
- Two large, buildable areas have been added.
- Adjusted the terrain throughout the region, fixed several spots where creatures and players would get stuck.
- Vegetation in the area has been rearranged.
- Added Hot Springs near the entrance to The Scalding Abyss. Any Adventurer that enters the soothing waters will have their Health and Focus replenished. These springs are so hot that some Adventurers have even started bringing eggs to boil in the water while they bathe! I wonder where you could find some eggs in the area…
By conquering The Scalding Abyss, Adventurers can access the Smoldering Workbench and craft new, legendary armor and weapons!
- Searing Edge – A heavy, flaming war axe that leaves a burning debuff on anything it hits.
- Flame Armor – A durable set of armor that provides unparallelled Cold Resistance.
- Winding Roots – This powerful binding spell can immobilize dangerous creatures for a short period of time.
- Healing Light – Finally, a true healing spell! This spell fires a long-range projectile that heals a significant amount of health, then continues to heal the target for a short period of time afterwards.
Just as soon as Gobboween has ended, another one of Archos’s festivals has begun! This simple festival coincides with the sudden explosion of Turkey sightings around Archos. Do your best to capture one of these cunning birds to put together an incredible feast!
- New Creature – Wild Turkey
- New Consumable Item – Roast Turkey
As part of our ongoing optimization efforts, we’re making some adjustments to each race’s main city. In particular, the Stables for each city are going to be moved outside city walls. Large blue indicator circles have been added to areas around the map that are going to be affected by the adjustments. Make sure not to build too close to these areas to reduce the risk of losing your structures!
In addition to the new points system being added for Chaos Servers, we’re also making some server-specific adjustments to improve the quality of life for players who enjoy PvP.
- Projectile Weapon Improvements: We noticed that players have a hard time using projectile weapons in PvP, so we’ve made a few improvements for Bows and Crossbows to make them a bit more appealing.
- Bows and Crossbows can now load and fire faster than before.
- Increased projectile speed for Bows and Crossbows.
- Reduced the physics weight for arrows and reduced the effect of gravity on the projectiles, to make it easier to hit targets in the distance.
- Arrows now have a set maximum flight distance – they will instantly disappear after reaching maximum range.Armor Improvements: Poor armor durability has been a major pain for players across all server types. We’re making some improvements to all armor sets on our Chaos servers first to see its effect on the game.
- Improved damage resistance for all armor sets.
- Improved durability for all armor sets, and reduced durability loss when taking damage.Horse Nerfs: No joke. Horses seem to be head and shoulders above other creatures in terms of riding and item transport abilities. We’re going to be giving other creatures more specialized utility abilities in future updates to give players more options when selecting a transportation-focused creature.
- Horse base health reduced from 1600 > 600, health increase per level increased by 20%.
- Reduced the spawn rate for high-level Horses in cities.
- Adjusted Horse Saddle base armor from 25 > 22, and reduced the effectiveness multiplier from higher-rarity saddles.
- Increased the respawn time for Horses in cities from 5000 seconds > 7200 seconds.Player Respawn Adjustments: To help reduce instances of suicidal base-rushing and endless sieges, we’re adding a feature where respawn timers are increased by a period of time every time a player dies to another player.
- When killed by another player, respawn time is increased by 15 seconds for a duration. This increase can stack, and caps at 5 minutes.Additional Balance Changes:
- Goblin Clubs no longer affect Mythical creatures.
- Rune of Recall cooldown increased slightly.
- Added knockback when taking damage – knockback strength is determined by the power of the attack.
- When a House occupies a Soul Node or Workbench, their name will be displayed on the occupied object’s tooltip.
- Optimized a number of creature’s movement and attack hit detection parameters to make their attacks more accurate.
- Reduced the number of aggressive creatures around Talos, Estel, and Ironfast to help improve the survival rate of novice Adventurers.
- Arrows reclassified from “Equipment” to “Weapons”.
- Added new SFX for axes and sickles.
- Optimized the Forging interface.
- Dark Altars will now only explode after a set period of time on PvE servers.
- Fixed a bug with transformation spells that would cause a character to turn invisible and untargetable.
- Fixed a bug with transformation spells where entering a large body of water would cause a character to be unable to interact with the world.
- Fixed a bug where it was impossible to use a Rune of Darkvision.
- Fixed a bug where creatures were unable to attack corpses.
- Fixed a bug where parts of Talos, Estel, and Ironfast would be missing on some servers.
- Fixed a bug where Small Spell Towers would inflict incorrect debuffs on damaged targets.
- Fixed a bug where some building parts would have gaps after snapping together.
- Fixed a bug where creatures were getting stuck on Human Manor structures.
- Fixed a bug where Fire Elemental Cores were unharvestable.
- Fixed a bug where Ice Elementals wouldn’t drop any loot.
- Fixed a bug where one-handed weapons would be automatically sheathed when dismounting a creature.
- Fixed a bug where Werewolf models were being displayed incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug where certain boss creatures would be unable to target anything after respawning.
- Fixed a bug where Centaur Chieftains wouldn’t drop any loot.
- Fixed a bug where Elite Goblins wouldn’t drop any loot.
- Fixed a bug where Guardian Trees would stop gaining experience.
- Fixed a bug where Farming Sickles would be craftable from the wrong location.
- Fixed a bug where some icons were swapped between several items.
- Fixed a bug where female character attacks were too easily-interruptible.
