Archlight: Champions of Arena
Launches December 6th at 8:00am PT / 11:00am ET / 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CET
Character Name Reservation & Creation Opens November 30th at 8:00am PT / 11:00am ET / 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CET
EU Server going offline on November 25th
After our largest EU Season ever, which reached nearly double any previous records on our EU Server, we are very excited to follow that up and grow the EU server to be an even larger success. Generally this is sooner than we would do a new EU Season, however, with christmas break soon approaching, we want to kick the season off before that begins so players have all christmas break to enjoy a fresh new European Season and enjoy all the festivities we have planned for the Christmas Season!
We are super excited to share all the stuff coming to make this EU season fuckin epic and the most competitive season yet! Let's see if we can surpass all of last EU season's hype and records
Arch Client v2.0
This is something we've been quite excited about as a team for awhile, but have been biting our tongues from sharing anything about it outside of a small beta testing group (however, of course i'm sure some has been leaked about it!).
At the start of this latest NA season we launched a fundraising event to attempt to raise money towards purchasing the source for many massive improvements to our existing client, however, unfortunately, while many do use Global Potions, they were barely a drop in the bucket in raising what we needed. To be more accurately, about 1/3rd of what we needed to raise.
However, as a team, we felt that this would be a huge breakthrough for Archlight, and I took out a company loan to purchase the source code. Obviously quite the investment and ultimately risk for our team, but it will allow 100's if not 1000's that couldn't play Archlight previously due to the heaviness of the client (primarily us drawing multiple X more tiles than the cipsoft client), as well as will make the experience significantly more enjoyable for everyday players - having an auto updater, smoothened connection and player walking at any ping levels up to even 250ms, significantly improved FPS performance and so much more...
This is something we have been working very hard towards as a team, as well as merging in the purchased source, to make a powerful new version 2.0 of our game client.
Without further delay.. here are the features of the new ArchClient 2.0.
Features of v2.0 ArchClient
Rewritten and optimized rendering (60 fps on 11 year old laptop)
DirectX9 and DirectX11 support
Adaptive rendering (automated graphics optimizations)
Rewritten light rendering
Rewritten path finding and auto walking - smoother, cleaner, faster.
Rewritten walking system - smoother, cleaner, faster.
HTTP lua API with JSON support
Auto updater for new client patches
New filesystem
File encryption and compression
Automatic diagnostic system
New crash and error handler
New HTTP login protocol
Updated hotkey manager
Updated and optimized battle list
Crosshair & extra health/mana bars/panels
Removed a lot of useless and outdated things
[WIP] Mobile App for quick login authentication
[WIP] External Bot Protection & Detection
[WIP] Support for inclient proxies to further lower ping connection by up to 40% with direct routes to our servers based on your location
*WIP things are not finished yet, but will come in the future
Here you can see on an old laptop, the before and after with our new client (FPS and Ping)
Class Balances
A huge topic for our team over the last month and a half has been doing a very large class balance, trying to rework or rebalance every single class on Archlight.
For those of you who dont know, class balance is far, far, from as simple as many of the top tier game designers we have in our discord general chat may think. It requires alot of foresight, brainstorming, constant reworking, reiterations and feedback for future reiterations.
In October we put together a balance committee, which was a group of players we felt could give good insight and feedback on our planned changes. This process was quite a lengthy one, where we initially had all players fill out a questionaire on every class rating them on their pvp ability, solo ability, team ability, farming ability, and more. After that, we compiled the results and targetted any extreme weaknesses, extreme "broken" aspects, and ultimately worked on bringing the weaker classes up to par, and "op" classes down a bit. After that, each day we would as a group discuss balance changes to a single class, some days resulting in 10000+ words of discussion. From there we created planned balance changes, tested them, and then presented them for final feedback. This was quite the serious undertaking of time for our team, but something we felt was very important to helping cater a competitive environment for
all classes in Archlight.
The following changes are still somewhat subject to change as we do further tests, but will likely be what will be in on launch of the new season. Theres alot of them... so hold on tight..!
All Classes
All legendary spells now have a 90 second base cooldown (before any CDRs).
All Artifacts will now properly scale their effects (this seems to be the primary reason some felt trash).
The minimum healing (to health and/or mana) amount on Silver Mage, Fighter and Specialist rune emblems has been increased by 100%, the max has not changed.
Sorcerer Changes
Infinite Runes Avalanache and Great Fireball now able to be used in the Archbot as an alternative to Infinite Sudden Death Rune.
Sorcerers will now have a new spell called Arcane Shield giving them +10% Resistance in exchange for -10% Damage. It is toggleable like mana shield.
Sorcerers will now have a new spell called Fire Shield, giving them +5% Damage and -10% Resistance. It is toggleable like mana shield.
Druid Changes
Vine Beam now has 3 square longer range.
Hell Artifact will no longer give a paralizing effect to frost grenade, but will rather apply a DOT that deals 50% of the base damage as a dot to all targets hit after 0.5s.
Subzero now applies a snow effect around the caster for 5 seconds, any creature that is hit will be slowed by 50%. If hit, they will also receive a 5 second DOT that will apply 50% of the spells based damage over the duration.
Archer Changes
Soul Rune has been changed to Flaming Split Shot - Shoots an arrow at a target, splitting when it hits them into 3 arrows hitting other targets for fire damage. After use will also increase the Archers movement speed by 20% for 5 seconds.
Archers base attack speed has been increased by 20%.
Archers Grace cooldown has been increased by 3s.
Berserker Changes
When a berserker uses their lifesteal spell, all forms of damage (attacks, spells, etc) will deal 20% less damage. Meaning berserkers will have to decide if they want to output the maximum amount of damage, sacrificing their sustain, or leaning towards sustain and tankability in leu of maximum dps.
Guardian Changes
Enflaming will now always deal a base damage of 2x the players power.
Guardian Legendary Spell is now invulnerable however will only last for 5 seconds.
Bard Changes
Party Buff Spells will no longer require all party members to be in the vicinity, and now can still be used if players from the party are not nearby, however players not nearby will not receive the buff.
The Legendary Spell Summon Scaling has been buffed by 300%
Music Strike has been buffed by 40%
Monk Changes
Fire Spirit Absorb will now apply the damage around the user, rather than just in a t shape infront of the user.
Resistance and Attack speed from Absorb spirit have been nerfed by 50% - This is because of a fix to the Artifact Scaling which will scale these up to where they are balanced to be.
Monks have received a new spell called Channel Spirit. This will function the same as Absorb Spirit, where it will absorb a spirit, and based on the spirit will apply a buff for the entire party. With 5 minute uptime and a 5 minute cooldown on use.
Channel "Water spirit 10% Haste to team
Channel "Earth spirit 5% resistance to team
Channel "Fire spirit 10% Strength to team
Channel Energy Spirit 10% Arcane to team
Multiple monks in the same party can all buff the party but they must be different channels, the same wont stack.
The cooldown to cast Summon Spirit spells has been increased from 2 seconds to 6 seconds.
Auto Attacks Damage has been buffed by 10%
All Kick spells (Normal and Backkicks) have had their damage increased by 15%
Necromancer Changes
Witch's Hourglass now properly does 50% damage in pvp.
Damage of Witch's Hourglass, Witch's Cauldron and Mind Seizure have been increased by 30%.
The Necromancer Legendary Summon has been buffed by 300%.
The scaling at different parts of the game for Necromancer's Summons have been rebalanced as well.
Rogue Changes
Throwing Knife will now bounce to two targets, dealing 50% damage to bounced targets.
Shadowstep and Blinkstep Damage has been buffed by 35%.
Smokebomb now also applies a 60% slow, giving it utility in PvP situations.
Fan of Knives cooldown has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds, but the damage has been increased by 12.5%
Corsair Changes
Dice roll will now tell you what your party received when the roll happens, either saying
BUST +RESIST +EXP +JACKPOT
Diceroll will now BUST on a 1, on a 2-3 Resistance buff, 4-5 Exp Buff, 6 Damage Buff, Exp Buff and Resistance Buff (Party Gains all 3).
Attack speed buff spells (Flask of Gin, Extra shot of Gin) will now instead be cooldown reducing spells for Corsairs. Their effectiveness has been lowered by 30% however their cooldown has been reduced from 120s to 60s.
Corsair Legendary Spell has been buffed by 300%
Gunslinger Changes
Outlaw ammo damage bonus has been lowered by 20%.
Summons will now return to the gunslinger after they are 6 tiles away instead of 8 tiles away.
Heaven Artifact will now scale at 2.5% to start, and increase by 0.5% per level up, like how all other artifacts will now behave.
Auto Attack Damage has been lowered by 10%
Attack Speed has been lowered by 10%
The paralyze of Disengage has been increased by 15%
The damage of Gunslinger Soul Rune, Combo Shot, Concussive Shot have all been increased by 15%
Damage of Clear Shot buff from Trickster increased from 5% to 10%
Addressed an issue with T2 Soul Rune not being much stronger than T1 Soul Rune.
Tamer Changes
Boar Stun has been changed to be a 50% paralyze for 2 seconds
When Bolas spell is used it increases your pets movement speed by 60% for 2 seconds.
All pets have had their damage reduced by 10% other than boars
All pets have had their health lowered by 20%
The scaling at different parts of the game for Tamer's Pets have been rebalanced as well.
On Saturday December 28th at 10:00am PT we will be having a $500USD Prizepool 3v3 Arena Tournament on Archlight EU.
For anyone who hasn't tried our new Arena System - We have implemented a new Arena 3v3 Arena system where players can team up and challenge eachother in a 100% balanced PvP environment, where nothing is carried over and everyones character is completely even with eachother allowing for a purely skill based competitor battle.
This means this tournament will prove and reward the truly best Archlight pvp-er and pvping team. It will be the ultimate claim to fame. The Arena is available right on EU Launch, so players and teams can start practicing for the tournament as soon as they want!
The prizepool of the tournament is as follows.
1st Place - $300USD & Exclusive Santa Immortal Outfit (T4 Outfit) & 12 Cosmetic Tokens & Arena Tournament Champion Rank on Discord
2nd Place - $200USD & 6 Cosmetic Tokens
All teams who show up and compete in the tournament will receive 1500 Coins & a Seasonal Santa Knight Outfit (T3 Outfit)
*Players can opt to receive 1.5x the prizepool value in coin bundles (comes with living tokens, cosmetic tokens as usual) instead of USD.
*Players will be paid tournament winnings via Paypal.
Any player attempting to play on multiple teams, whether with the same character or an alt, will be permanently banned (on all accounts they possess) as well as any team members that we prove to be aware of them attempting this. We will be looking into all players during and after the event.
Players can register a team for this event starting on December 21st simply by posting in the Discord Channel - Arena Tournament - with their Arena Teams Name as well as all 3 members in-game names (Make sure you have first registered a team in the Team Arena in-game).
Players have until December 28th 8:00am PT to register a team for the Tournament.
All teams competing will be required to have ALL MEMBERS "check-in" by latest 30 minutes prior to the event starting at 9:30am PT, check-in will be open 60 minutes prior at 9:00am PT. If any member is not present before 9:30, the team will not be able to compete.
Arena Tournament Champion Rank - This role is displayed seperately from other roles in our discord, and will give the user a Gold Title in our Discord.
Global Potion Changes
After gathering alot of data from Global Potions, we have made changes to the following potions.
Monster Essence Potions have been changed from 20% server / 35% guild / 50% personal buff, to 25% / 35% / 50%
Energy Potion has been changed from a 100% / 200% / 300% energy regen buff to 500% / 1000% / 1500% buff.
Gathering Potion potion has been changed to be 25% / 35% / 50%.
Darksteel Lever Mechanics
Darksteel lever mechanics will be reset to a new combination every season moving forward. We found this added a fresh spin to the mechanic for the new season. However, 6 s is alot to figure out every single season for a lower-mid level quaest. We have changed the amount of levers from 6 to 4.
Olympus Quest Box Changes
T7 Quest Boxes from Olympus have had all normal soils/upgraders removed, and their chance of dropping a surging gem increased from 15% to 33%. They will now always drop an awakened stone, large stat stone, relic stone or surging gem.
We didn't implement these gems to be something endgame players simply run the quests 3-4 times and have full surging gems slotted. These are meant to be rare and limited.
New Ingame Obtained Cross-Server Cosmetics for Our Christmas Events!
We have a very large christmas event planned this year again, which will include over a dozen different decorations players can obtain, a Yeti Mount, a Christmas Snorlax, a Santa Hat Knight and so much more! With new in-game obtained cross-server cosmetics, make sure to hop on EU and obtain these new cosmetics during the festive season!