Following up our massive success of the last Dracona Season, we have a new Dracona Season coming in 2 weeks, and we cannot wait to share what's coming new with it We have some new content coming at you all, some big changes, reworks, fixes and improvements. So sit back, and enjoy the read!
Wargates - PvP & PvE Content
Wargates are a new 1v1 PvP & PvE content coming to the new Dracona Season. By killing creatures in the world of Archlight, you will be able to obtain access to a wargate. Entering a wargate will generate a map with random traps, chests, creatures and bosses that are scaled to your strength. These creatures will drop a significant amount of experience, some of the chests will have wargates currency inside them (beware the traps!), and by killing the boss you will obtain a significant amount of wargates currency as well.
However, you are often not alone inside these wargates. Wargates have a chance to have an opposing gate-crusader inside them as well, fighting over creatures, chests, and the boss. While you will not always have an opponent when you are inside a wargate, if you do, they will be someone within your power bracket.
While a wargate may look similar, every wargate is a unique experience. Not only with the map, chest & traps, but also with Power Ups & Affixes. Power Ups can spawn when a creature inside the gate is killed, by standing ontop of the power up you will absorb it, strengthening you for 60 seconds after. There are 10 different Power Ups you can obtain, from causing healing reduction to your opponents to adding bleeds to any source of your damage done.
Affixes will be additional challenges to a Wargate that are generated when the Wargate is opened. Obstacles inside the Wargate that explode doing damage to nearby inhabitants, A crippling damage over time to everyone inside the Wargate, these are just a couple of the possible Affixes to keep each Wargate a unique experience.
Side Bonus: Killing Wargate Bosses also will contribute to the Wild Boss Achievement
Wargates Shop
While many forms of progression on Archlight currently have an element of randomization to them, wargate rewards will not! Wargate currency can be spent at the Wargate NPC on the second floor of the depot to get various progression or exclusive rewards! Here are a couple of the many rewards you are able to purchase with Wargates Currency.
Gem Exchange Token
Using this token on 7 gems will allow you to turn them into another Gem Type of your choosing.
New 3 Tier Universal (PvE) Spell
Tier 1 - Pulls all monsters around you into you.
Tier 2 - Paralyzes all monsters around you and prevents them from leaving your radius
Tier 3 - Deals large damage to all creatures around for you 5 seconds
Layering System
Over Population has obviously been a large concern on Dracona in the last couple era's, last era actually forcing us to have a queue, which at peaks was around 8 hours long. Archlight is a very heavy server to run, with how customizable and interactive characters are, there are many many things to calculate and that can cause issues when we're hitting 800+ players. We have made dozens and dozens of improvements to hopefully mitigate these issues since last Dracona season, however, there is still only so much we can do without drastically changing/dampening gameplay.
While this system is not currently finished and will not be in for this Dracona season, we fully plan to have it in for the next or near future if before then. The reason we mention this is we feel it's important for the playerbase to know that we are actively working on a remedy to allow thousands to connect and play together, and wont be limited to queues and player caps.
Our layering system is very similar to what Blizzard implemented in World of Warcraft classic. Essentially, players will be able to play all off the same world, however, with multiple layers they can login to and play on seamlessly allowing them to switch layers depending who they are playing with. Yes, houses will be able to be interacted with no matter what layer you are on. This will also help address launch week craziness allowing for slightly less congested spawns on other layers (granted, each layer will still support minimum 600 players, so there still will be alot of craziness). Layers will only be available as they are needed however, so you will not be able to simply hop onto a layer with 50 people on it. This new system will allow thousands to play on one world at once!
Ramparts Improvements
All of Ramparts has been increased in width to allow for easier movement and killing.
The mob density has been reduced by 50% to make it less of a crawl.
Reward scaling has been increased at higher difficulties.
Health scaling at lower difficulties has been lowered
Health scaling at higher difficulties has been slightly increased.
Damage of creatures has been increased significantly (primarily to account for 50% decrease in creatures).
Fungus boss has been slightly nerfed
Overall all bosses other than fungus have been slightly buffed.
Sigil Dungeon Changes
Fixed an issue where Frost Shield didn't properly work on Sigil Dungeons.
Players will no longer get rewards if they don't partake in the boss fight.
Hive Set wasps received a speed boost.
Jadis equipments will no longer have a chance to draw Strength stat, as well as Ox and Ra will no longer have a chance to draw Intelligence/Focus stat.
Aaron will now buy sigil equipments for 50 forgotten gold.
Spawn Revamps
Archbot Improvements
Re-added "use on self" healer option.
Fixed issue where Auto Haste executed even with the check box untoggled.
Soul Rune is now prioritize on the casting order.
Targetting now has a 10 tile range limit.
Miscellaneous fixes.
Misc Changes
Fixed issue with players getting stuck with temporary outfits.
Added a 5 seconds cooldown to "!mail" command.
Alchemy elixirs will now cleanse users.
Poseidon effects is now under "misc" options on client instead of player's.
Fixed an issue where ballistas could target companions inside Sieges.
Solo Misty Mountains bosses have had their health pool lowered.
On events like CTF and TDM, teams will now force enter a party.
Training Dummies will now properly display a player's DPS.
Fixed an issue where a spell from the boss Null from Team Boss Arena could still move players even when they got teleported back to the depot.
Fixed an issue where the bounty window wouldn't open.
Fixed miscellaneous issues with the new UI revamp.