Hello Paxians,

We hope you liked the previous Spotlights we shared, which shed some light on the changes coming in our next content update, Proving Grounds – releasing on November 5. We’re continuing our journey through the upcoming content and today we’ll  focus on crafting, gathering, and other small improvements. 

Crafting/Building

Alongside the introduction of the Journal, we are also working on several significant changes to crafting, bringing more structure to the progression of resources you use and ensuring professions align with that structure. We will initiate the change with the upcoming update and continue improving and adjusting throughout Early Access. 

On a side note, we heard your feedback asking for a “recycling” feature. We have the design for it, but unfortunately, we did not have time to work on it for this update. However, it’s in the plans for the future.

Here’s what you can expect from Proving Grounds:

Resource Distribution Revamp: As previously mentioned, the world has been resculpted, its geography has been changed, and the biomes have been redistributed. The resources will be redistributed to follow the biomes’ progression alongside PvE progression. As a closing note, we did not make many changes to pure iron nodes. They can still be found outside of Lyonesse, but there are fewer nodes compared to Lyonesse itself.

Recipe Updates: Most professions will see an update to their recipes according to the new biomes’ progression, ensuring that crafting stays relevant and rewarding. Here are some examples:

• We will start to add a ‘bronze age’ before iron;

• Starting Leatherworking and Tailoring should be much easier;

• The first pieces of magic gear will be easy to find and craft.

Recipe Unlock Mechanics: We will adjust the unlock mechanics for recipes based on the skill and items needed, ensuring a more balanced and logical progression. This will also prevent new players from being overwhelmed by the number of recipes they can unlock within the game’s first hour.

Storage management: We will add the ability to move all stacks of an item at once.

New building pieces: Curved beams and decorative grapevines are coming!

Resource Gathering

In response to community feedback, we will improve the resource gathering process.

One-click Chopping and Mining: Your character will chop and mine continuously until the tree is down, the node is empty, or your stamina is depleted – so you won’t need to use the ‘open the map’ trick anymore.

Plus, with the improvement of the targeting in melee combat, you won’t need to place your character precisely in front of the tree you want to chop down. You will just need to be close enough.

Impact of Skills: So far, your Mining and Woodcutting skills have not affected gameplay. We’re changing this and the level of these skills will now impact your character’s damage output. The more proficient you are, the faster you will gather resources.

New Skill, Skinning: Skinning will have its own skill. The level will determine the quality of hides you can process from an animal. Apologies, you will have to level it up from scratch.

Miscellaneous

Loot Permissions: We’ll be making changes to loot permissions to prevent ninja looting. When an NPC dies, loot permissions will be assigned based on the players or party who inflicted the most damage since the NPC’s last behavior reset. This means the group or individual responsible for the highest amount of damage will gain temporary access to loot the corpse.

If a player joins or leaves the group after these permissions are assigned, the right to loot will remain unchanged and is retained by the original group or player who earned it.

Additionally, if an NPC corpse remains unlooted for five minutes, it will become accessible to anyone, regardless of who initially had loot rights.

In PVP, however, loot permissions do not apply. Any PVP corpse is available for anyone to loot, making them free-for-all.

Clan Permission Changes: We’ll update the clan permissions to plots and items so you can restrict access to the Alderman or Elders only.

New Magic Gear: As mentioned above and in the Combat spotlight, we will add 3 new easy to unlock magic items.

Updated Gear Design: We have reviewed the designs of some of the magical highest tier items.

Other things are being worked on, and might be ready in time for the patch. A comprehensive list of all changes and additions included in the Proving Grounds content update will be published in the Discord Patch notes section on patch day.

However, note that one thing for sure that will NOT be fixed: trees growing back inside your plot. We know this is an issue, but, as stated already, it’s a complex one to fix. We hope to fix it in an upcoming update. Thank you for your patience!

We can’t wait for you to experience these changes firsthand on November 5!

Pax vobiscum,
The Mainframe Team

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