Hello all!

Today, we released an updated client package for the Steam version of SWL--we haven't updated the Steam client since launch, so this release forces Steam users to re-download some game data through Steam (~4 GB) and then update the client through our own launcher (~8 GB).

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this additional download may cause! Thank you!

Hello all!

Today, we released an updated client package for the Steam version of SWL--we haven't updated the Steam client since launch, so this release forces Steam users to re-download some game data through Steam (~4 GB) and then update the client through our own launcher (~8 GB).

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this additional download may cause! Thank you!

Behold a winter wonderland! Starting December 12th through January 2nd, Krampusnacht descends on Secret World Legends! New daily event rewards await, including a free pet and emote for logging in! Get in on the fun with snowball fights with your friends and earn achievements!



Who’s that dancing on the icy roof – stamping on the ramping with a cloven hoof?  The Krampus Gate has swung open, ushering an invasion of a foe most hairy and vile: The Krampus! These enemies spawn throughout the world, seeking to sow yuletide dread--defeat them and take the battle to Niflheim itself!



Hel, queen of Niflheim, has arrived in two forms: one as the guardian of her realm, and another as a grand encounter within Agartha. Those that summon her in Niflheim can try their hand in two difficulty modes, while those in Agartha may fight the giantess in all her glory through hourly public raids.  Overcome the odds and earn seasonal rewards!



Introducing the Winter Cache
The new Winter Cache is now dropping across the world! This arctic and frost-themed cache features a new Outfit, Pet, Mount, and a full set of Extraordinary Weapons! Winter Cache replaces Haunted Cache drops in the world. Haunted Cache, as with all previous caches, may still be traded and opened for their advertised contents.

Happy Holidays! 
-the Secret World Legends team

Behold a winter wonderland! Starting December 12th through January 2nd, Krampusnacht descends on Secret World Legends! New daily event rewards await, including a free pet and emote for logging in! Get in on the fun with snowball fights with your friends and earn achievements!



Who’s that dancing on the icy roof – stamping on the ramping with a cloven hoof?  The Krampus Gate has swung open, ushering an invasion of a foe most hairy and vile: The Krampus! These enemies spawn throughout the world, seeking to sow yuletide dread--defeat them and take the battle to Niflheim itself!



Hel, queen of Niflheim, has arrived in two forms: one as the guardian of her realm, and another as a grand encounter within Agartha. Those that summon her in Niflheim can try their hand in two difficulty modes, while those in Agartha may fight the giantess in all her glory through hourly public raids.  Overcome the odds and earn seasonal rewards!



Introducing the Winter Cache
The new Winter Cache is now dropping across the world! This arctic and frost-themed cache features a new Outfit, Pet, Mount, and a full set of Extraordinary Weapons! Winter Cache replaces Haunted Cache drops in the world. Haunted Cache, as with all previous caches, may still be traded and opened for their advertised contents.

Happy Holidays! 
-the Secret World Legends team

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

• The new Winter Cache is now dropping across the world! This arctic and frost-themed cache features a new Outfit, Pet, Mount, and a full set of Extraordinary Weapons! Winter Cache replaces Haunted Cache drops in the world. Haunted Cache, as with all previous caches, may still be traded and opened for their advertised contents.
• Behold a winter wonderland starting December 12th through January 2nd! Defend the world from an icy invasion in groups and hourly public raids! Earn new daily login rewards, including a free pet--just for logging in! Exclusive seasonal achievements, legends, and cosmetics abound. Happy Holidays!
• Ockham's Razor (Barbershop) is now open for business, allowing players to make changes to their hair, makeup, and facial features!
• Modern Prometheus (Plastic Surgeon) is now open for business, allowing players to make changes to their head, skin, and eyes!
• Name changes are now available for purchase in the character selection screen! 

 
GENERAL

• Increased the amount of distillate XP gained when opening Purified Distillate Reward Bags gained from caches. The amount gained increases based on your highest achieved Item Power. The goal is to make the amount of distillate XP more relevant as the amount of XP required to level up items increases.
• Added an animation that will play when the player unlocks a new title.
• Added a new Interface Option to disable title unlock notifications.
• Added an animation that will play when the player unlocks a new emote.
• Added a new Interface Option to disable emote unlock notifications.
• The reload UI command has been disabled while in character creation.
• The Login Rewards window will now close itself when you switch to a character who has not unlocked it without closing the window.
• Added support for opening multiple lootboxes in succession.
• Fixed a case where the lootbox interface could remain visible but not actually offer loot.
• The Mission Items inventory bag will now default to the top left corner of the screen. This should make it more noticeable for players who have not customized its placement. Note: This change is not retroactive and will only affect characters created after this patch.
• Added missing flavor text to the Jade Komainu.
• Fixed a typo on the Repair Broken Data confirmation dialog.
• Map waypoint for Seoul Fight Club is now properly labeled.
• Barber Shop and Plastic Surgeon waypoints have been added to the London and New York maps, respectively.

 
GAMEPLAY

• Museum items will now drop from killed monsters while in a raid group. This will make it easier to get museum items from some open-world bosses.
• Fixed an issue during Killers on the Road where it was possible to complete certain objectives earlier than intended.
• The Agitated Deep One will now give credit towards Slimy Shallows.
• Super Charged Seeder will now give credit towards Shocking Infestation.
• The Desecrated Relic in Sacred Protection can now be picked up if you have paused the mission.
• The Syringe for Crying Wolf will no longer be deleted when pausing the mission.
• Enraged Custurii fighting the Dark Woods Horror are now level 50.
• Fixed an issue with the distribution of certain distillate types from Kaidan shipping container bosses which caused a certain value of distillate to have a significantly higher drop chance than others.
• Filth-Encrusted Container Keys now have a chance to have become corrupted beyond use. Using one of these items no longer results in a guaranteed usable key. If you do not get a usable key you will instead gain Anima Shards.
• Added a missing region value to the missions Inner Peace and Lights Out. These missions will now properly show in the Kaidan section of the completed mission log.
• Added missing tracker FX to When the Hatchet Falls.
• Fixed a bug during The Bank Heist where mission abilities would vanish while still wielding the Droid Arm.
• To fix an issue during The Bank Heist where mission abilities would not be visible when returning to the mission area, the Droid Arm can no longer be equipped outside of the Faust Capital instance.
• Seasonal emotes will now display their seasonal icon when the seasonal event is active, regardless of whether they are already owned or not.

 
COMBAT

• Made it easier to target and attack larger destroyable objects such as Ak'ab Burrows, Statue of the Voice of Aten, and many others.
• Fixed an issue where the bonus healing from Timeless Watch was being applied to the heal which triggered the bonus rather than the heal which came after the bonus effect was active.
• Fixed an issue which caused the Spectre from Spectral Essence talismans to not work with the Revenant from the Shadow-Bound weapons.
• Increased the base heat generated by Chain Lighting and Fire Bolt to 14.
• Increased the base heat generated by Mjolnir and Inferno to 21.
• Fixed an issue where the leech healing provided by Unveil Essence was bypassing the Blood Magic healing penalty from high Corruption or Martyrdom levels.

 
DUNGEONS and RAIDS
Hell Raised

• Fixed a bug that caused Triggerthings in the Recursia, Many-in-One encounter to not scale with difficulty. This change will reduce the difficulty of this encounter at all difficulties except 10.

Hell Eternal

• Reduced the Prime Maker's basic attack damage.
• Reduced the damage scaling effect of Arcane Peak on the Prime Maker.

Manhattan Exclusion Zone

• All Difficulties

• Eldritch Guardians are now immune to crowd control.
  • Fixed the victory music sometimes looping.
  • Tweaked the way targeting works with The Unutterable Lurker. It is now easier to target adds that are close to the boss.
  • The Unutterable Lurker has slightly adjusted his Final Resort ability placement.

• Elite 1+

• Fixed a series of miscalculations that caused enemies to have too little defense rating. Hit rating appropriate for the difficulty is now needed to reliably hit these enemies.
  • Fixed a case where dying could trap the player in Story Mode's Subway Station.

• Elite 10

• Fixed Mouths of Montauk (aka "pod") not applying Inevitable Doom to the targeted player.
  • Restored the visible in-world indicator over the head of Mouths of Montauk's target.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Abominated Soldiers and Wave of Filth to deal damage from a previous age.
  • Dying to Shadow Out of Time will no longer permanently reduce damage dealt by 75%.
  • Gaia Incarnate buff tooltips now display the correct damage boost of +125%. The damage increase has not changed - this was a tooltip-only fix.
  • Wave of Filth damage has been rebalanced (greatly reduced).
  • The Unutterable Lurker has slightly adjusted his Personal Space ability placement. GIVE HIM HIS SPACE!

 
DRESSING ROOM

• Updated the color value of The Black Watchmen hoodie in the Dressing Room to indicate it is grey and red.
• Updated the color value of Suit pants, dark green in the Dressing Room to match their actual color.
• Updated the thumbnail and preview of the Latex vampire mask to match what it actually looks like.
• Added a missing thumbnail to the Goon boots in the Dressing Room.
• Fixed an issue where the prices for the male Cosmonaut helmet and spacesuit were backwards.

 

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

• The new Winter Cache is now dropping across the world! This arctic and frost-themed cache features a new Outfit, Pet, Mount, and a full set of Extraordinary Weapons! Winter Cache replaces Haunted Cache drops in the world. Haunted Cache, as with all previous caches, may still be traded and opened for their advertised contents.
• Behold a winter wonderland starting December 12th through January 2nd! Defend the world from an icy invasion in groups and hourly public raids! Earn new daily login rewards, including a free pet--just for logging in! Exclusive seasonal achievements, legends, and cosmetics abound. Happy Holidays!
• Ockham's Razor (Barbershop) is now open for business, allowing players to make changes to their hair, makeup, and facial features!
• Modern Prometheus (Plastic Surgeon) is now open for business, allowing players to make changes to their head, skin, and eyes!
• Name changes are now available for purchase in the character selection screen! 

 
GENERAL

• Increased the amount of distillate XP gained when opening Purified Distillate Reward Bags gained from caches. The amount gained increases based on your highest achieved Item Power. The goal is to make the amount of distillate XP more relevant as the amount of XP required to level up items increases.
• Added an animation that will play when the player unlocks a new title.
• Added a new Interface Option to disable title unlock notifications.
• Added an animation that will play when the player unlocks a new emote.
• Added a new Interface Option to disable emote unlock notifications.
• The reload UI command has been disabled while in character creation.
• The Login Rewards window will now close itself when you switch to a character who has not unlocked it without closing the window.
• Added support for opening multiple lootboxes in succession.
• Fixed a case where the lootbox interface could remain visible but not actually offer loot.
• The Mission Items inventory bag will now default to the top left corner of the screen. This should make it more noticeable for players who have not customized its placement. Note: This change is not retroactive and will only affect characters created after this patch.
• Added missing flavor text to the Jade Komainu.
• Fixed a typo on the Repair Broken Data confirmation dialog.
• Map waypoint for Seoul Fight Club is now properly labeled.
• Barber Shop and Plastic Surgeon waypoints have been added to the London and New York maps, respectively.

 
GAMEPLAY

• Museum items will now drop from killed monsters while in a raid group. This will make it easier to get museum items from some open-world bosses.
• Fixed an issue during Killers on the Road where it was possible to complete certain objectives earlier than intended.
• The Agitated Deep One will now give credit towards Slimy Shallows.
• Super Charged Seeder will now give credit towards Shocking Infestation.
• The Desecrated Relic in Sacred Protection can now be picked up if you have paused the mission.
• The Syringe for Crying Wolf will no longer be deleted when pausing the mission.
• Enraged Custurii fighting the Dark Woods Horror are now level 50.
• Fixed an issue with the distribution of certain distillate types from Kaidan shipping container bosses which caused a certain value of distillate to have a significantly higher drop chance than others.
• Filth-Encrusted Container Keys now have a chance to have become corrupted beyond use. Using one of these items no longer results in a guaranteed usable key. If you do not get a usable key you will instead gain Anima Shards.
• Added a missing region value to the missions Inner Peace and Lights Out. These missions will now properly show in the Kaidan section of the completed mission log.
• Added missing tracker FX to When the Hatchet Falls.
• Fixed a bug during The Bank Heist where mission abilities would vanish while still wielding the Droid Arm.
• To fix an issue during The Bank Heist where mission abilities would not be visible when returning to the mission area, the Droid Arm can no longer be equipped outside of the Faust Capital instance.
• Seasonal emotes will now display their seasonal icon when the seasonal event is active, regardless of whether they are already owned or not.

 
COMBAT

• Made it easier to target and attack larger destroyable objects such as Ak'ab Burrows, Statue of the Voice of Aten, and many others.
• Fixed an issue where the bonus healing from Timeless Watch was being applied to the heal which triggered the bonus rather than the heal which came after the bonus effect was active.
• Fixed an issue which caused the Spectre from Spectral Essence talismans to not work with the Revenant from the Shadow-Bound weapons.
• Increased the base heat generated by Chain Lighting and Fire Bolt to 14.
• Increased the base heat generated by Mjolnir and Inferno to 21.
• Fixed an issue where the leech healing provided by Unveil Essence was bypassing the Blood Magic healing penalty from high Corruption or Martyrdom levels.

 
DUNGEONS and RAIDS
Hell Raised

• Fixed a bug that caused Triggerthings in the Recursia, Many-in-One encounter to not scale with difficulty. This change will reduce the difficulty of this encounter at all difficulties except 10.

Hell Eternal

• Reduced the Prime Maker's basic attack damage.
• Reduced the damage scaling effect of Arcane Peak on the Prime Maker.

Manhattan Exclusion Zone

• All Difficulties

• Eldritch Guardians are now immune to crowd control.
  • Fixed the victory music sometimes looping.
  • Tweaked the way targeting works with The Unutterable Lurker. It is now easier to target adds that are close to the boss.
  • The Unutterable Lurker has slightly adjusted his Final Resort ability placement.

• Elite 1+

• Fixed a series of miscalculations that caused enemies to have too little defense rating. Hit rating appropriate for the difficulty is now needed to reliably hit these enemies.
  • Fixed a case where dying could trap the player in Story Mode's Subway Station.

• Elite 10

• Fixed Mouths of Montauk (aka "pod") not applying Inevitable Doom to the targeted player.
  • Restored the visible in-world indicator over the head of Mouths of Montauk's target.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Abominated Soldiers and Wave of Filth to deal damage from a previous age.
  • Dying to Shadow Out of Time will no longer permanently reduce damage dealt by 75%.
  • Gaia Incarnate buff tooltips now display the correct damage boost of +125%. The damage increase has not changed - this was a tooltip-only fix.
  • Wave of Filth damage has been rebalanced (greatly reduced).
  • The Unutterable Lurker has slightly adjusted his Personal Space ability placement. GIVE HIM HIS SPACE!

 
DRESSING ROOM

• Updated the color value of The Black Watchmen hoodie in the Dressing Room to indicate it is grey and red.
• Updated the color value of Suit pants, dark green in the Dressing Room to match their actual color.
• Updated the thumbnail and preview of the Latex vampire mask to match what it actually looks like.
• Added a missing thumbnail to the Goon boots in the Dressing Room.
• Fixed an issue where the prices for the male Cosmonaut helmet and spacesuit were backwards.

 

Hi all! Please note that this is the FINAL WEEK that the Haunted Cache will drop in the world.

Replacing it is a new Winter-themed cache beginning next week with Krampusnacht! ❄❄❄

Hi all! Please note that this is the FINAL WEEK that the Haunted Cache will drop in the world.

Replacing it is a new Winter-themed cache beginning next week with Krampusnacht! ❄❄❄

With the release of the Anima Allocation system, we understand you may want to experiment with glyphs and signets in your builds. For a limited time, all costs on removing glyphs and signets from gear are reduced by 80%!  This is in addition to the scaling cost changes in this update.  Discount ends the Monday after Thanksgiving (November 27).

--

Quality of Life Improvements
Your feedback means a lot to us. This update features many improvements based on what you’ve been saying and telling us over the past several months.  We have no intention to just stop here, either--we’re always listening and always willing to adapt to your needs.  There’s a ton to cover with this update, so you can read all the patch notes HERE, and we’ll hit on some key highlights: 


ANIMA ALLOCATION
The major feature of this update is the new Anima Allocation system.  We ended up designing ourselves into a corner with the way talismans were set up prior to this update; due to the way SWL’s character progression simply functions, it turned out that Healers and Tanks were in a less-than-ideal situation if they wanted to tackle any challenging solo content.  To counter this, we’re introducing a system that allows you to customize and fine-tune your stats to your liking.  In order to make this work, we had to make some major changes to Talismans and stats--for a deep dive into how the system works, please read the blog post here. 

XP TRANSFER ON EMPOWERMENT
Something we’ve been asked for on numerous occasions was to allow for a way to transfer or otherwise recoup some of the XP invested in items when used for Empowerment.  Previously, no matter how much you pumped up an item, it gave the same fixed amount of XP when used as fodder; now, all weapons, talismans, signets, and glyphs which have gained XP grant a portion of their invested XP when used as fodder in empowerment. This value is currently set at 40% of invested XP, but please note that Signets of the same slot (Neck -> Neck) will now qualify for the 2.5x bonus XP multiplier for Empowerment. All talismans of the same slot will now also provide 2.5x bonus XP when used in Empowerment. 

IMPROVEMENTS TO ELEMENTALISM
We found Elementalism to be overly challenging when starting out due to the lack of heat management tools and underperforming at high levels.  Heat generation on damaging fire and lightning abilities are being reduced, and heat dissipation from cold abilities is being increased. Additionally, several passive skills were reworked to be valuable for damage in addition to heat management, and cold abilities generally deal increased damage.   

LOOT CHANGES
In an effort to increase the efficiency of each activity in terms of increasing your character's power, we've added some of the loot from various activities into each activity's loot chest.  

• Added Glyph Distillates to dungeon final boss loot chests.
• Added a chance to gain a signet when opening dungeon final boss loot chests.
• Added Anima Shards to dungeon final boss loot chests. The amount gained increases based on the difficulty of the content.
• Added Talisman and Weapon Distillates to all Lair loot chests.
• Added Anima Shards to all Lair loot chests.
• Added Glyph Distillates to all Lair loot chests.
• Added a chance to gain a signet when opening Scenario loot chests.
• Added Talisman and Weapon Distillates to Scenario loot chests.
• Added Anima Shards to Scenario loot chests.

We’re taking some of the Anima Shards from doing Tokyo shipping containers and spreading them around various activities instead. We’re also adding the potential for blue quality items to drop in scenarios, elite dungeons, and the Manhattan Exclusion Zone. The chance increases based on the difficulty of the content.

OTHER STUFF
At this point, I may as well just copy and paste all the patch notes, so just read them all HERE and consume all that knowledge.  Thanks for reading!

With the release of the Anima Allocation system, we understand you may want to experiment with glyphs and signets in your builds. For a limited time, all costs on removing glyphs and signets from gear are reduced by 80%!  This is in addition to the scaling cost changes in this update.  Discount ends the Monday after Thanksgiving (November 27).

--

Quality of Life Improvements
Your feedback means a lot to us. This update features many improvements based on what you’ve been saying and telling us over the past several months.  We have no intention to just stop here, either--we’re always listening and always willing to adapt to your needs.  There’s a ton to cover with this update, so you can read all the patch notes HERE, and we’ll hit on some key highlights: 


ANIMA ALLOCATION
The major feature of this update is the new Anima Allocation system.  We ended up designing ourselves into a corner with the way talismans were set up prior to this update; due to the way SWL’s character progression simply functions, it turned out that Healers and Tanks were in a less-than-ideal situation if they wanted to tackle any challenging solo content.  To counter this, we’re introducing a system that allows you to customize and fine-tune your stats to your liking.  In order to make this work, we had to make some major changes to Talismans and stats--for a deep dive into how the system works, please read the blog post here. 

XP TRANSFER ON EMPOWERMENT
Something we’ve been asked for on numerous occasions was to allow for a way to transfer or otherwise recoup some of the XP invested in items when used for Empowerment.  Previously, no matter how much you pumped up an item, it gave the same fixed amount of XP when used as fodder; now, all weapons, talismans, signets, and glyphs which have gained XP grant a portion of their invested XP when used as fodder in empowerment. This value is currently set at 40% of invested XP, but please note that Signets of the same slot (Neck -> Neck) will now qualify for the 2.5x bonus XP multiplier for Empowerment. All talismans of the same slot will now also provide 2.5x bonus XP when used in Empowerment. 

IMPROVEMENTS TO ELEMENTALISM
We found Elementalism to be overly challenging when starting out due to the lack of heat management tools and underperforming at high levels.  Heat generation on damaging fire and lightning abilities are being reduced, and heat dissipation from cold abilities is being increased. Additionally, several passive skills were reworked to be valuable for damage in addition to heat management, and cold abilities generally deal increased damage.   

LOOT CHANGES
In an effort to increase the efficiency of each activity in terms of increasing your character's power, we've added some of the loot from various activities into each activity's loot chest.  

• Added Glyph Distillates to dungeon final boss loot chests.
• Added a chance to gain a signet when opening dungeon final boss loot chests.
• Added Anima Shards to dungeon final boss loot chests. The amount gained increases based on the difficulty of the content.
• Added Talisman and Weapon Distillates to all Lair loot chests.
• Added Anima Shards to all Lair loot chests.
• Added Glyph Distillates to all Lair loot chests.
• Added a chance to gain a signet when opening Scenario loot chests.
• Added Talisman and Weapon Distillates to Scenario loot chests.
• Added Anima Shards to Scenario loot chests.

We’re taking some of the Anima Shards from doing Tokyo shipping containers and spreading them around various activities instead. We’re also adding the potential for blue quality items to drop in scenarios, elite dungeons, and the Manhattan Exclusion Zone. The chance increases based on the difficulty of the content.

OTHER STUFF
At this point, I may as well just copy and paste all the patch notes, so just read them all HERE and consume all that knowledge.  Thanks for reading!