Absolver Downfall - September 25, 2018
---New Content---
Downfall PVE mode
Battle deep in the mines of Adal as a solo warrior or in online cooperative play, collecting Gleam from Prospects infected by Arcell, an Etheran bent on breaking the Fold’s containment.. The more Gleam you capture, the more powerful you become in your struggle to defeat the Corrupted, and even Arcell himself. Each run through the Mines and Temples is a unique path through a variety of challenges and situations, facing upgraded enemies, and three epic boss fights.
This mode is available in the Combat Trials menu to all players that reached the Absolver rank. Collecting Gleam in Downfall runs will allow you to unlock new items in the Essence Shop, as well as the Faejin Combat Style.
Faejin Combat Style
Inspired by Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, the Faejin Combat Style blends defense and offense with percussive strikes and fluid power. The new approach is a complex style for experienced Absolvers, featuring different defensive abilities that depend on both input and stances. Faejin has 26 attacks for bare hands and wargloves, alongside 15 sword attacks.
This Combat Style will be unlockable in Downfall PVE mode.
New Powers
Sharp Impact – Bare-hands deal cut damage during 20s
Unbreakable – A protective barrier coats your body during 5s. Protection level is increased, and enemy attacks don’t stun or interrupt your own attacks. All weapons hitting the barrier break on impact
Snatcher – A short burst of Tension released from the Shards stuns briefly and disarms your opponent, pulling their weapon towards you
Shadow Avoid – Enter in resonance with your Tension Shards and avoid all incoming attacks for a short duration. Enemies hitting your Shadow will be slowed down for 2s
You’ll be able to buy these new powers in the Essence Shop once your Gleam Level is high enough.
Schools
Absolvers who have reached the Disciple rank in a school (or who are Mentors of their own) can participate in School Challenges, by equipping all their School Content before heading to 1v1 Combat Trials. All wins representing one’s school count in the School challenges, with individual and collective performances of the schools bringing rewards every three weeks, at the end of the season.
For the occasion, the overall UI of the School system was revisited and we hope you’ll like it!
New Gear
Here are the names of the new sets you’ll be able to purchase from the Essence Shop.
Sets
- Karshi Leader
- Tear Tyrant
- Tear Commander
- Forest Healer
- Adalian Carpenter
- Essence Prospector
- Guide Scholar
- Guide Witness
Weapons
- Tear Tyrant Sword
- Witness Sword
- Scholar Sword
- Arcell’s Sword
- Carpenter Wargloves
- Prospector Wargloves
- Gleam Crystal Wargloves
Our Mask Design Contest Winner, Ripan Assassin Mask will be available in this patch too :)
New Emotes and Intros
Emotes
- Confused
- Mia Dance
- Make it rain
- Rock
- Paper
- Scissors
Intros
- Backstrike
- Warmup
- Leghold
- Duelstart
AI rework
All AIs in game have been reworked, so the changes detailed below will also impact the original NPCs and Bosses in the World!
Non exhaustive list of changes:
AIs fighting behaviours have been improved
AIs can now use Powers, they can also use Stagger and Faejin combat styles
AIs’ movements outside of combat have been improved: they can now use drop-downs and won’t try to attack players above them anymore
Misc
- New loading screen!
- Reward Screens have been updated in both 1v1 and 3v3
- AIs’ health gauge color feedback its difficulty
- Players can now toggle “Switch target on attack” in gameplay options.
- Resilience mechanic has been added. Player will not be interrupted by an attack if his Resilience Level is superior or equal to the attack power level.
- Attack power level is displayed in the attack details panel.
- New ways to earn fragments :
- Dropped by AIs in the open world
- Earnt in rift coins & disks
---Debug---
Combat
Revive has been reworked and the issue below shouldn’t appear anymore:
Reviving player should not become stuck if the revived or reviving player disconnects or is interrupted by hit.
A bug where you could skip a part of the Absorb to attack faster was fixed
Advantage frames had an overall debug to improve consistency
Guarding should be more reactive to player’s inputs
We also worked on the parried animation to improve the visual feedback indicating the timing when the player can launch an attack after
Quadrants overall usability has been improved: we put a lot of efforts into making the changing quadrant feature more intuitive and reliable
A lot of involuntary quadrant changes have been fixed, for example when the player was hit by an enemy, or when the player was not moving while the enemy moved around him
Character’s position is less misleading in specific situations
Front-left stance is now forced on all situations when changing target (except when you’re attacking or using a special ability at the same time)
Fixed various issues with stamina
Fixed the bug where the stamina could get stuck at 0
Fixed the bug where the stamina bonus could be gotten before spending stamina
Avoid: There are two states with the Avoid Special Ability
When avoiding at the right timing, and a “Ghost” of yourself appear, you made a successful avoid, have a Stamina refill and your opponent cannot goldlink
When avoiding at the wrong timing, it can happen that you still don’t get hit by the attack but if the ghost isn’t here, the special ability is not considered as successful, no stamina refill happen and your opponent can goldlink
Weapons: When dropping your weapon during a fall, the weapon won’t stay floating in the air anymore. It will either fall on the ground, or go back to the last “walking position” of the player if the ground is too far away
Parry: Feint into parry bug has been fixed. When feinting and quickly parrying, the parry was sometimes made in the wrong direction.
Shards: Shards sometimes not refilling when sheathing weapon bug is now fixed.
Other
Overall navigation in the map improved: no more assets missing lights, better collisions
Character illumination is now better managed, visibility is thus improved in low luminosity areas (like the night 1v1 maps)
Improved overall stability for both the World and Combat Trials (crashes on some specific PC configurations, infinite loading screens)
Text typos were fixed
The character won’t be changing skin color randomly anymore
Remapping menu
Fixed a bug where the player couldn’t access the Social Wheel after changing its input
Players can now switch the bindings to both Analog Sticks on controller
Fixed a bug where the Wargloves wouldn’t be displayed correctly in the Essence menu
---Combat & Balancing---
The major balancing changes made are the following:
Powers:
- Earthquake: Buildup increased from 12 to 15 frames
- Shockwave: Stamina bonus removed
- Heal:
Effect last 10s instead of 15s
Damage dealt to HP conversion coefficient decreased from 0.75 to 0.3
Instant 50 health points and 10 HP/s regeneration have been replaced by 100 “ghost” health points.
- Shield:
Buildup decreased from 29 to 22 frames
Recovery decreased from 10 to 8 frames
Add 1 level of Resilience
Blunt & cut protection decreased from 40 to 30
Duration decreased from 20s to 12s
- Silence:
Buildup decreased from 32 to 20 frames
Recovery decreased from 10 to 8 frames
Affect the target and its surroundings
- Exhaust: Exhausted character has almost no stamina refill during 4s
Combat styles:
- Forsaken: Parried duration decreased from 16 to 14 frames
- Kahlt:
Absorb active window duration: 6 to 5 frames
Increase recovery: 4 to 6 frames
Absorb successful add 1 level of Resilience during 1.5s
- Windfall: Avoided minimum duration is 14 frames for all avoids (side, duck, jump)
- Stagger:
Increase adv. on hit of Stagger Front (+1)
Stagger Back doesn’t avoid thrust attacks anymore
Attacks:
- Parry & strike: Parry only high/mid attack
- Avoid active window of avoiding attacks is more consistent and shorter
- Frame datas:
Adv. on hit (and on guard) increased
+1: Knife Hand Strike, Light Thrust, Ram Thrust
Adv. on hit (and on guard) decreased
-2: Pulmonary Palm, Ankle Stamp, Parry Shove
-1: Straight Punch, Back Fist, Pushed Elbow, Roll Back Fist, Pushed Back Kick, Rising Slash, Pommel Bash, Back Thrust, Curled Up Uppercut, Body Blow, Tetsuzanko, Liver Knee, Crouching Elbow
Post edited December 17, 2018 by xKeiro
