[DE translation]
[RU translation]
[FR translation]

Hello everyone!

Today we want to share with you some preview on Content Patch 2. As a reminder, CP2’s deadline is internally planned for July and will include:

• The new “Wrath of Sarisel” Cooperative Game mode: specific enemies designed to push cooperation between players.
  
• “World Modifiers”: add different mods in random dungeons, including monsters and reward spawns, increasing its challenge, but also increasing its rewards. (example: All enemies of the dungeon are Specialists and Elites...)
  
• Player customization for male characters, including alternative skin colors, heads, beards, hairs and eyes.
  
• New active skills and new passive skills sections

We have set the list for the new skills, and here is a preview of their concept:

Whirlwind
Requires Rage. Your character spins in the cursor’s direction and deals damage to everything in its path.

Bull’s eye
Requires Rage. This skill will allow you to mark creatures or spots around your character. Upon release, the marker targets the enemy's last placement, if the mark is on the ground the projectile will target its direction.

Turret
Requires Rage. Creates a turret that shoots projectiles. A quick tap creates an automatic turret that will shoot in the direction of the cursor at the moment of its creation. Maintaining the skill allows you to control the turret and use it as a channeled skill.

Charge
Requires Rage. Your character performs a charge in the cursor’s direction, bumping creatures on his way and dealing a bit of damage. When the target is reached, it deals AOE damage based on the distance traveled with it.

Devastation
Requires Rage. This skill is a 3 steps attack. Your character performs a cleave that will grow and deal more and more damage at each blow. Upon reaching 3 attacks, the loop starts over.

We will develop more about these skills as we approach Content Patch 2. We want this patch to offer more options to warriors and ranged shooting archetypes since they have less variety than mages archetypes at the moment.


Passive Skill Tree

We are still progressing well on Content Patch 1 and we are now finalizing the Passive Skill Tree’s improvements. All 252 nodes types and positions are defined and we will tell you more about these changes in a future news.

You can already have a glimpse of what this addition will look like:



Of course, more points will be allowed to your character to fully enjoy this new PST.

Character wipe
We have discussed a lot about a possible character wipe for the next patch. We didn’t want a level 20 character to start the story mode with full gear and full skills leveled, that would make the game experience trivial for the first experience with this mode.

We also need you to test the progression in the game since there will be balancing changes. In addition to this, our programmers needed to make some changes that would eventually require a character wipe.

We came to the conclusion that is was better to make this as soon as possible and used that opportunity to add the technical modifications needed for character saving, in order to prepare for different game modes coming in the future.

Therefore, characters and stashes will be wiped with Content Patch 1.

Thank you for your support and see you soon for more news about our progress :)

Useful links :
Wolcen's Official Website
Wolcen's Gameplay Beta Roadmap
Wolcen's Bug tracker
Wolcen's Community Suggestions

Social media
Wolcen's Official Discord server
Wolcen's Twitter page
Wolcen's Official Facebook Page
Wolcen's Instagram Page

Community websites:
German Fan Site : http://www.wolcen-game.de/

[DE translation]
[RU translation]
FR translation

Hello everyone!

Like every week, we want to keep you informed on the progression of Content Patch 1 and the overall development of the game.


We are adding three new areas for Content Patch 1/Act I.

Burning camp





Coast of Wrecks



Random dungeon Forest

We heard your feedback regarding the lack of light in environments, so we wanted to add an environment with much more daylight and wild creatures. This environment will be available in the story mode and in expeditions as a new random dungeon.








We’ve selected three new modifiers to show you this week :) Keep in mind that these previews are always showing a work in progress.

Toxic annihilation

We’ve added a toxic damage modifier to Annihilation.



Shadow’s Flurry

We’ve added a Shadow modifier to Slayer’s Flurry.



Winter’s Call

We’ve added the possibility to cast Winter’s Grasp under the cursor.




The internal date for Content Patch 1 release was set to May 30th. After reviewing our progress and considering the amount of work still needed for the 20 cutscenes and 46 dynamic scenes associated with the Act I, we have decided to set the release date for Content Patch 1 to June 13, 2019. We want to offer you a good game experience and not just settle with an overall “good enough”.

We plan to use this additional time to make the game experience even better by adding a professional voice over for the English version.
Content Patch 1 is a very important release for us and we want to make things right.

Once again, we want to thank you for your support :) See you next week for more information about our progress!

Useful links :
Wolcen's Official Website
Wolcen's Gameplay Beta Roadmap
Wolcen's Bug tracker
Wolcen's Community Suggestions

Social medias
Wolcen's Official Discord server
Wolcen's Twitter page
Wolcen's Official Facebook Page
Wolcen's Instagram Page

Community websites:
German Fan Site : http://www.wolcen-game.de/

[DE translation]
[RU translation]
[FR translation]

Hello everyone!

Here is a quick follow-up on our progress for Content Patch 1 planned for May 30.


Cultists



The Cultists of the Sleeper are led by Demons of Souls. They are gifted with soul magic, using it to freeze their foes and raise the deads.
They have 3 types of attacks, including two different types of summoning.

Lost Souls



Lost Souls are forced out of their after death journey to serve followers of the Sleeper. Souls are fundamentally very cold, that is why their attacks can freeze you.

Alastor



The Alastor is an assassin of the Republic. Unseen, unheard, deadly, he comes straight from the shadows to end you. The Alastor has 5 skills, although his specialty is to kill at close range, he can easily evade and attack you from the distance as well.


We’re currently adding depth to the Passive Skill Tree to offer more options.

Ring 1 talents will be upgraded from 15 to 24 nodes.



Ring 2 talents will be upgraded from 15 to 30 nodes.



That change will go with an increase of the passive points that you will be able to attribute at each level, although the level cap remains level 20. Along with these additions, the major nodes will be much more impactful since reaching them will require a more important investment in points.


We have three more skill modifiers to share with you this week.

Shadow’s Grasp

You will be able to inflict shaded to your enemies with your Winter’s grasp transformed into a Shadow’s grasp.



Sacred Spear

One of the new modifiers from Content Patch 1 will allow you to change frost damage from Arctic Spear into Sacred damage.



Toxic Blades

Phantom Blades will also have its damage type modifier and allow you to poison your foes.



And that is all for today! Thank you for reading and see you next week for more news about our advancement :)

Useful links :
Wolcen's Official Website
Wolcen's Gameplay Beta Roadmap
Wolcen's Bug tracker
Wolcen's Community Suggestions

Social medias
Wolcen's Official Discord server
Wolcen's Twitter page
Wolcen's Official Facebook Page
Wolcen's Instagram Page

Community websites:
German Fan Site : http://www.wolcen-game.de/

[DE translation]
[FR translation]

Hello everyone!

Today we would like to share the progression on the story and cutscenes, on some Active Skill Tree new modifiers, and some in-game implementations. But first of all, let’s set a date! You can expect the Content Patch 1 in about a month. Our internal date is set for May 30!


Content Patch 1 will allow you to discover the beginning of the game until the Act I boss. We want you to live the adventure with quality as close as possible to the final release version. This represents a colossal work, and all our efforts are directed to the goal of providing you an epic experience.

17 cutscenes from various lengths are planned for Act I, along with various dynamic scenes. And just in case you feel more interested in the next slaying, our programmers have added the possibility to skip these :)

Here is a small preview of two cutscenes so you can have a glimpse on the level of quality we are aiming for the game:

[SPOILERS]
Operation Dawnbane
https://youtu.be/qreL-vxtlMU

Svriir Raid
https://youtu.be/TIyBprOpI_Y


We’re also working on dialogs implementation, we’ve improved it a bit compared to the Alpha.

NPC dialog



Talk-to dialog



Gameplay dialog




We’ve improved the character visibility when passing through environments that could prevent from seeing it. This will be implemented with Content Patch 1 as well. The character outline system also works with big creatures, so you never lose track of your character.




Finally, the work on new modifiers is also progressing well. We decided to focus on skills that were lacking major modifiers compared to the other ones. A minor modifier is a passive bonus granted to the specific skill (willpower or rage cost / more or less damage...). A major modifier changes drastically the skill and opens other possibilities (multiple projectiles, damage type...).

Here are some skills we’re currently working on:

Bulwark of Dawn - Recast




Bleeding Edge - Follow



Stings of Krearion - Ghosts



We will share more elements in the next few weeks to keep you updated on our progression :) Stay tuned!

Useful links :
Wolcen's Gameplay Beta Roadmap
Wolcen's Bug tracker
Wolcen's Community Suggestions
Wolcen's Official Website

Social medias
Wolcen's Official Discord server
Wolcen's Twitter page
Wolcen's Official Facebook Page
Wolcen's Instagram Page

Community websites:
German Fan Site : http://www.wolcen-game.de/

[DE translation]

We wanted to share with you some story elements so you can understand the context surrounding the main character and his companions before you start the story, in order to give you keys that will improve immersion. Although the “spoilers” term is always subjective and related to an intimate perception, I’ve ensured that these elements only give you contextual information that your character already has when the game starts.




Wolcen is a world of magic with some technological hints, with Enneracts at the heart of each practice.
Energy crystals are fueled with Enneracts energy to power pistols and engines in some parts of the world, while others rely on a more religious, mystical, or even scholarly approach of these artifacts.



Yet, magic is rather uncommon and often associated with witchcraft. The knowledge of the occult is even more rare: people have heard of spooky stories and yet the average person wouldn’t know what a demon is, aside from a concept to scare children.

This is due to the fact that supernatural evil forces almost always plot from the shadows, corrupting and enthralling mortals rather than using bruteforce. Only rare world crisis trigger open-roaming evil creatures like undead, monstrosities or demons.




In Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, you, Valeria, and Edric, are the three only survivors of the slaughter of Castagath. Rescued by Grand Inquisitor Heimlock, you were drafted into the Republic’s Army of the Purifiers at a very young age to be trained in the military academy and become perfect soldiers. You also had the chance to benefit from Heimlock’s occasional advice and training. This special treatment led you and your childhood friends to be named the “Children of Heimlock”.



The United Republic of Mankind is a kingless warmongering faction that aims to conquer mankind under a single banner to “protect it” from the supernatural and witchcraft. They are at war with all their neighbours, pushing the frontiers back as much as they can. You, along with Edric and Valeria, grew in that nation and were exposed to a very strong propaganda against the use of magic, kings and worship of individuals whether it’s politicians or rulers. You were also raised in the idea that your nation is the most advanced society, and that being part of the army is bringing salvation for all mankind.

Grand Inquisitor Gerald Heimlock



Grand Inquisitor Gerald Heimlock is one of the most respected figures of the United Republic of Mankind, he leads the Army of the Purifiers against the supernatural threats. Like Valeria and Edric, you see him as a father figure and have utmost respect for him. Although your trio is called the “Children of Heimlock”, he’s never taught you anything else but survival and strength through merciless trainings, and the most valuable feeling he could express to you is pride, which he doesn’t share much to push you harder.

Heimlock’s story is notorious in the United Republic of Mankind. He is one of the many men left behind during the military debacle that was the Battle of Carrion Keep. Among the Mud Marshes nearby the enemy Kingdom of Varg, the Purifier’s army has known its most significant defeat. But he made his fame by resurfacing alone several months later in the Republic’s Senate, with the heads of the two enemy leaders as an offering.

Historians quickly praised his bravery and rewrote the battle of Carrion Keep as a victory for the United Republic of Mankind, Heimlock was then promoted as an Inquisitor. Even if to this day, there is still no obvious explanation on how he managed that extraordinary feat.

His ambition and the numerous military success following these events led Heimlock to be raised as Grand Inquisitor in record time.


Valeria



Valeria was groomed, like you and Edric, to become Justicar of the Republic, the highest rank a field soldier can achieve. She can be passionate, edgy, explosive, and she has an unorthodox thinking that tend to look rebellious.
But she places family values above all. Although you are not technically siblings, she is loyal to you, Edric, and Heimlock, and would do anything for you. Her foes, on the other hand, she treats with an irrational fury and a pinch of insanity.

You are very close to “Val”, and you’ve been through enough with her to understand that the Republican training and the horrors of war have altered her personality, giving her anger issues and a short temper, as well as a really wild and rough side that clashes with an otherwise concealed gentle heart.


Edric



You have a kind of sibling rivalry with Edric, both of you tried to make Heimlock proud through combat skills, and he always pushed you to give your best. Despite that, he’s always been the strongest, you learned it the hard way during your numerous trainings.

Edric is like a big brother to you and Val, he’s always been the most serious and rigorous of the three. Sure, he can be narrow-minded and his faithfulness to Heimlock’s words and orders can sometimes be disconcerting, but he’s always had your back and you know you can rely on him, no matter the odds.




The Brotherhood of Dawn has recently infiltrated the Crimson Keep, a mysterious republican fortress lost among the northern deserts known as the Red wastes. While the purpose of the attack was unclear, the republican Senate voted a retaliation act against all known locations of the Brotherhood. Led by Grand Inquisitor Heimlock himself, troops are soon deployed on the Coast of wrecks, near the city state of Stormfall, to terminate a camp of Brothers. You are, with your two childhood friends, part of operation Dawnbane under the supervision of Justicar Maëlys.




After growing in this antimagic society, you are about to discover tremendous powers that could sign your death warrant. For you and those you consider family, nothing will ever be as it once was.

[DE translation]
[RU translation]

A hotfix has been deployed today, it will be automatically applied, no maintenance is required. However, you will need to relaunch the game if you are currently connected.

TECHNICAL
• You can now reset your passive skills and character attributes from your character sheet window.
  
• Heavy performance improvements regarding status ailments.
  
• News panel is now displayed by default on the main menu.
  
• A "Play offline" button now appears in multiple error message windows if the game fails to connect to online mode.
  
• Fixed several client & server crashes.
  
• Fixed an issue causing a potential loss of character progression.
  
• Fixed an issue causing players to start the game with their health globe not full.
  
• Fixed an issue with the computation of the damage bonus given by physical resistance.
  
• Fixed issues related to in-game chat fading.
  
• Fixed visual issues when using the "decoy" variant of Aether Jump.
  
• Fixed an issue causing a desynchronization in the total amount of Force Shield.
  
• Fixed an issue causing ranged weapons projectiles to be misplaced.
  
• Fixed loot drop sounds spatialization.
  
• Fixed the "invalid character name" error at character creation.
  
  
  GAMEPLAY
• Changed item types for some uniques.
  
• Fixed Health Regeneration Rate so they now behave correctly. This created a legacy version of “The Thing” unique shield.
  
  
  AUDIO
• Pistol fire sound (and dual pistol) modified to reduce fatigue.
  
• Pistol fire now has a distant sound.
  
• Bow fire sound modified to reduce fatigue.
  
• Overhauled sound attenuation falloff for coop player melee and skill sounds, now softer compared with the player's actions.
  
• Fixed certain big enemy attacks not being affected by the low health muffle effect.
  
• Added Passive skill tree 'confirm' sound.
  
• Added Archivist 'trade' enneract sound.
  
• Rare and Legendary items now have distinct sounds.
  
• Rare items no longer duck the music volume down.

[DE translation]
[RU translation]

Hello everyone,

We heard your feedback and we want to address your concerns.

We are currently working on a temporary quick solution to allow you to reset your Passive Skills and Characteristics. This option will be implemented in one of the next hotfixes very soon.

We will then move to a patch cycle. We would like to be a bit more transparent with our internal patch schedule and story mode, so let’s talk about this:


Content Patch 1 internal date is planned for May 2019 and will include the following :

• Story implementation. You will be able to test the Act I and help us polish it. It will introduce the plot, some cutscenes and a dreadful Act Boss.
  
• Passive Skill Tree improvement, adding more meaningful and rewarding elements to give you more options.
  
• New modifiers for each Active Skills (target is 4 new modifiers per skill).

Content Patch 2 internal date is planned for July 2019 and we want it to include :

• The new “Wrath of Sarisel” Cooperative Game mode. Specific enemies were designed to push cooperation between players in this mode (even more than the current elites).
  
• “World Modifiers”. add different mods in random dungeons, including monsters and reward spawns, increasing its challenge, but also increasing its rewards. (example: All enemies of the dungeon are Specialist and Elites...)
  
• Player customization for male characters, including alternative skin colors, heads, beards, hairs and eyes.
  
• New active skills and new passive skills sections

Content Patch 3 internal date is planned for September 2019, we want it to be the last patch before official release. We’re planning these features in it:

• Competitive Mode (daily / monthly challenge including “World Modifiers”)
  
• Pets with the loot filter.
  
• Apocalyptic Forms

We want to be clear on the fact that Content Patches 2 and 3 details can vary, but we will keep you updated on these evolutions.

We still cannot give a precise date for the official release, but our objective is to release the game before the end of the year.


Post-release, our internal plan is to release one free major gameplay extension every 4 months, and 1 new story expansion every 8 months. It will allow us to bring new exciting game modes, enemies, items, skills in the game, and also extend the story of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem.


Some of you expressed concerns about microtransaction mentioned in our EULA: First, let’s be clear, there will be no pay-to-win at all in the game.

We are going to provide free DLC and content after the release, we need a way to fund this, cosmetic microtransactions allow us to generate revenue on top of the base game price. The studio employ 40 people and we need a strong business model to ensure that we can maintain the game long term.

In the shop, you will find things like new haircuts, faces or cool character effects, but no pay-to-win related elements.


Now let’s talk about the Passive Skill Tree.

We took the decision to simplify the PST on the Beta for balance purpose, bringing the most meaningful choices in the third rings with advanced classes.

Since Ring 3 is not ready yet, the current PST seems a bit empty for some of you. We will correct that in Content Patch 1 by adding more density in it, so you will have meaningful and rewarding choices to fit your playstyle.

The list of all the future classes will be presented on the Trello roadmap soon, so you will be able to track our progress on this. The third ring is about ultra-specialization, here are a few examples of what you can expect (these are not the final names):

• Necromancer: specialized in toxic damage and summoning pets.
  
• Spellblade: generates willpower with attacks instead of rage. Specialized in hybrid melee-mage combat.
  
• Berserker: melee combat based on life leech. Enrages and grants buffs when hitting or when killing a foe.
  
• Champion: a defensive/support class that can act as a tank for their party by taunting and debuffing enemies(weaken enemies to reduce their defenses) or buffing their allies.

Also, some of you regret the visual style of the alpha. When we redesigned the art of the game, we wanted to bring more readability, we also wanted the visuals to fit the ambiance players should experience. Since Act 1 has a very dark and grim mood, we designed a lot of dark environment, putting aside the beautiful shiny(and corrupted) style of the forest you discovered in the Alpha. We will bring back some light in the Content Patch 1, as we decided to rebalance a bit the “dark vs shiny” mood of the game.




Finally, our website is currently being improved, you can already discover our new main page on https://www.wolcengame.com and learn some details about Wolcen’s story. The official forums are temporarily redirected to Steam forums while we’re working on significant improvements (to make the website a complement to the game).

Once more, we want to thank you for all your feedback, we will see you very soon for a new hotfix.

Addition: We just deployed a hotfix, you can read the changelog on the Steam forums on this post.

Useful links :

Wolcen's Official Website
Wolcen's 2019 Roadmap
Wolcen's Official Facebook Page
Wolcen's Twitter page
Wolcen's Instagram Page
Wolcen's Official Discord server
Wolcen's FAQ

Community websites:
German Fan Site : http://www.wolcen-game.de/
French Fan Site : Wolcen France

[DE translation]
[RU translation]

Hello everyone!

We've worked on important issues today and we are now pushing the Hotfix 1.0.1.8.

Here is the Changelog:

TECHNICAL
• Fixed a lot of client & server crashes.
  
• Fixed an issue where you could get stuck by reviving a player who just left the game.
  
• Slightly tweaked Annihilation tip VFX behavior.
  
• Chat fading has been temporarily removed while we fix issues which prevent players to send messages.
  
• Chat is now displayed by default when you arrive in the game.
  
• The "+" sign on skills is now correctly moved when swapping icons in the skill bar.
  
• Fixed a bug that could result in the player chest been reset and character progression lost.
  
  
  GAMEPLAY
• The Devourer's belly attack's stun duration has been decreased.
  
• The Bandit Trappers will punch less often.
  
• Raised Martyrs can now drop health globes like other specialists.
  
• The drop frequency of health globes has been improved. Elite monsters will now always drop a health globe when under 50% health and upon death. Specialists will drop globes more often too.

We continue to work on other issues and another hotfix will be deployed early next week :) No interruption of service will be needed for the hotfix to be applied, if you were currently in the game you will just need to relaunch the game.

[DE translation]
[RU Translation]

It’s been a long year since the last update on the Alpha, and our team went through a lot to offer you this new experience with Wolcen: Lord of Mayhem.

It’s a new game.

One year ago we made the risky decision to redesign the game entirely. We had much higher quality standards, and we were aiming to support the game for many years with regular content updates. We asked patience from you, a lot of it, while we reworked every aspect of the game: art direction, monsters, skills, animations, levels, visual effects, level design, artificial intelligence, game systems… We added a lot of enthusiastic people to the team to make it possible and now there are about 40 very passionate people working on this project.

And it led the game now to offer much better performance, polished gameplay, more readable actions and…4 players Multiplayer/Coop!

Today, we can finally share this Gameplay Beta with you, and yet it’s only the beginning of a new era for Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem and Wolcen Studio.

There are still some bugs in the Gameplay Beta that we know of and will fix with regular hotfixes in the next few weeks. Balancing will also be closely monitored and tweaked based on your feedback and what we can observe. Finally, there will be content patches, one you already know of is the Wrath of Sarisel content patch that we will present properly in future news.

We still have a lot to reveal, our teams are currently working on the other acts of the game and we will continue to share our progress with you through the Trello board.

Now, it is time to take a look at our new trailer and enjoy the Gameplay Beta! You can check the Changelog on our previous news.

Thank you once more for your support. And most of all: have fun!

https://youtu.be/yWQQaodRJ0E

[DE translation]
[RU translation]

Hello everyone!

Tomorrow will be the day of all of you to enjoy the Gameplay Beta and say goodbye to Wolcen's Alpha!

All known bugs will be added to the Trello bug tracker. You can report bugs by using the Steam Bug reporting forum or on Discord, just check if they are not already reported on the Trello Bug Tracker first.

You can also provide feedback on the Steam forums or Discord, we have a special channel for this. We will use the Trello suggestion board to track suggestions, you will be able to vote for your favorite ones there.

Here is the changelog for the Gameplay Beta!

GENERAL:

• It’s a new game.
  
• There are too many changes to detail them all so here’s a basic rundown of the most important elements.
  
• Multiplayer is now implemented. You can create a party or join an existing one, with up to 3 other players.
  
• You can now use the matchmaking to start a public game session with unknown players around the world.
  
• WolcenTag added, it gives you a unique tag separated from Steam to be added as a friend.
  
• FriendList added to allow party invitations and private messages. Friends are directly imported from your Steam friends list if they own the game.
  
• In-game chat added to allow communication between players of a same party in the game, or to friends. The chat supports party and private messages.
  
• A direct-news system has been added to broadcast important messages to live game sessions within the chat window.
  
• Camera rotation has been disabled, allowing us to create higher quality visuals, better readability and improved performance.
  
• Housing, the arena, daily dungeons, character customization (including female) and leaderboards are now temporarily disabled. These features will come back at a later date.
  
• You can now select a starting archetype when creating a character. This will only give you default weapon and starting skill, and won't force you to stick to particular gameplay during the rest of your progression.
  

VISUALS:

• Every aspect of the game’s visuals have been remade from scratch with much higher quality standards.
  
• New rim-shader on monsters and player to improve the readability in dark environments.
  
• Ragdolls physics has been improved.

UI:

• Revamped main menu.
  
• The Active Skills window has been revamped to fit the new Skills design.
  
• You can now filter skills from their weapon requirements in the Active Skills window.
  
• The Character Sheet UI has been reworked a bit to fit the new attributes design.

QUESTS:

• The game now features the Soldier of Fortune mode. (detailed below)

TECHNICAL:

• Very strong optimizations have been done. The game runs much more smoothly now.

AUDIO:

• Many new sound effects have been added.
  
• A complete Original Soundtrack is being recorded for the game, from which several tracks can already be listened to.
  
• Each enemy type can now have a random voice variation.
  
• Sound specialization has been reworked.
  
• On-hit sounds (ex: skill impact sounds) are now correctly positioned in space.
  
• Final-hit sounds are now mixed differently depending on the hit intensity.
  
• Enemies now have different impact sounds given their skin type (flesh, metal, etc.).

ENVIRONMENT:

• The game now features completely new environments from the re-defined world of Wolcen.
  
• Level Design has been significantly improved and should provide a better player experience as well as increased replay value.
  
• Random dungeons generation has been overhauled, following strict level design rules
  
• New player hub: Stormfall’s palace district. Discover the upper ring of the majestic city-state of Stormfall, Jewel of the sea.

GAMEPLAY:

Soldier of Fortune mode
• Players can now partake in bounty-hunting activities across random areas from act 1 of the game.
  
• “Dashing” Eugene will teach you the ropes with contracts of increasing difficulty, for a balanced experience.
  
• After reaching level 15, talk to Alexander Ivakin. He will give you access to harder dungeons where monster spawns are shuffled. You cannot go back to town in those missions, but killing the boss will give you the option to go further and increase your potential reward or return to Stormfall to collect it. Success will unlock even harder challenges, which increases the potential rewards.
  
  General changes
  
• When your health reaches zero, your character will now go into a “down but not out” stance. In multiplayer, other players are able to revive you for a limited amount of time. If you are playing in single player, pressing space will use a “second wind” token and bring you back on your feet. You only have a limited number of second wind tokens, so be careful!
  
• Health regeneration rate is now based on a frequency stored in the player characteristics.
  
• The Defense mechanic has been removed.
  
• Mage and Rogue armors pieces now provide Force Shield. FS acts as barrier that needs to be depleted before your Health can be damaged. Once depleted, FS will start recharging rapidly after not taking any hit for a few seconds.
  
• Character attributes have been revamped.
  
• Dodge-rolling now operates with a fixed distance and direction.
  
• A very subtle hit-lag has been added to most powerful attacks to increase the impact feeling.
  
• Shield-block has been revamped and has now a chance to trigger a raw damage-reduction on all hits, regardless of the attack direction.
  
• Shields can now have either a damage resistance value or a force shield value as their main attribute.
  
• Resistance formula has been revamped in favor of a system that relies on a higher points pool.
  
  Weapon changes
  
• Every weapon stance has a new reworked combo animation.
  
• You can now combine a melee weapon and a pistol for a hybrid melee/range style. Holding shift will allow continuous fire of the pistol.
  
• You can now combine a pistol and shield to turn it into a shotgun-style short range weapon.
  
• Crossbows have been removed as a weapon type.
  
• Staves attacks now always do baseline physical damage.
  
• Attack speed is not displayed in weapons tooltips as it is not used anymore.
  
• Allowed skill casting now depends on your weapon configuration. Mix and match weapon type to enable hybrid gameplay, or focus on more classic archetypes.
  
• New Stances (animation and game effects):
  
  • One Handed Melee (1H Sword, 1H Axe, 1H Axe, Dagger, 1H Hammer)
    
  • Dual Wield : One Handed Melee x2
    
  • One Handed Melee + Shield (allowing to use melee and tank skills)
    
  • One Handed Melee + Pistol (allowing to use melee and several ranged skills). Default attacks are melee, using both weapons. Press Shift + Attack to perform ranged attacks with pistol.
    
  • One Handed Melee + Catalyst (allowing to use melee and mage spells)
    
  • One Handed Ranged + Catalyst (allowing to use a ranged weapon and mage spells)
    
  • Two Handed Sword
    
  • Two Handed Axe
    
  • Two Handed Hammer
    
  • Bow
    
  • Pistol
    
  • Dual Pistol
    
  • Pistol + Shield (Short range “shotgun”)
    
  • Staff
• New Damage Types, divided in 3 families:
  
  • Material:
    
    • Physical
      
    • Toxic - can inflict Poison, dealing damage over time.
      
    • Rend - can inflict Bleeding, dealing damage over time.
  • Elemental:
    
    • Fire - can inflict burning, dealing damage over time and burning nearby enemies.
      
    • Frost - can Freeze enemies.
      
    • Lightning - can inflict Shock, which zaps enemies that are also Shocked.
  • Occult:
    
    • Sacred - can inflict Weakness, which reduces enemy resistances and damage.
      
    • Shadow - can inflict Shaded which allows other ailment to spread.
      
    • Aether - can inflict Stasis which slows all actions.
• New unique Damage Type visual effects for each weapons and shields, including weapon trails, projectile tracers, impacts and criticals.
  
  Status Ailments changes
  
• The effects of the Weakness and Frailty have been merged into a single ailment. Weakness increases damage taken and decreases inflicted damage by the afflicted entity, and has a chance to proc by Sacred damage.
  
• The effects of Shock have been changed from an AoE on proc to a low damage-over-time effect that has a chance to trigger additional damage between all allies affected by shock.
  
• Burning now has chance to burn enemies in a certain radius around the target.
  
  Potion changes
  
• Consuming a potion now requires charges. Those charges are refilled by killing monsters.
  
• There is now two potion slots.
  
• Using a potion is now a full active action.

MONSTERS

• A completely new roster of monsters now populate the world of the game, and almost each of them packs unique abilities. Fight against three factions with a completely distinct feel: the primal ‘Svriirs’, the cruel ‘Wildling Flayers’, and the eerie ‘Cult of the Sleeper’.
  
• The game now uses a content management system, which ensures that monsters spawns are spread and balanced across an entire dungeon. In the future, this system will affect other systems like destroyable placements.
  
• Monsters can now have a frozen-status cooldown, to avoid them being frozen permanently.
  
• New enemy: Demon of Souls (Elite, 5+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Devourer (Elite, 5+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Specter. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Soul Spawn. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Tormentor. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Raised Martyr. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Frost Martyr. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Frost Tormentor. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Forsaken.
  
• New enemy: Shadow Spawn.
  
• New enemy: Abyssal Spawn.
  
• New enemy: Nightmare.
  
• New enemy: Anomaly.
  
• New enemy: Deathcloak.
  
• New enemy: Husk. (+ several visual variants)
  
• New enemy: Frozen Husk. (+ several visual variants)
  
• New enemy: Armored Husk.
  
• New enemy: Tainted Primordial Guardian.(Elite, 5+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Tainted Primordial Armor. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Svriir Alpha. (Elite, 5+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Beta Spawner. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Beta Screecher. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Beta Spitter. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Misshaped Infected.
  
• New enemy: Misshaped Svriir.
  
• New enemy: Misshaped Mangler.
  
• New enemy: Omega Svriir.
  
• New enemy: Svriirling.
  
• New enemy: Sadistic Thug. (Elite, 5+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Staggerer. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Saper. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Kennel Master. (Specialist, 2+ skills)
  
• New enemy: Bandit Dog.
  
• New enemy: War Hound.
  
• New enemy: Raider.
  
• New enemy: Archer.

ITEMS

• All items have been revamped, and most of them have new high quality visuals.
  
• Left and right shoulder armors are now a single item that can be placed to both left and right slots, like rings. The visual of the item will adapt to which side it is equipped in. The same change applies to arm armors.
  
• 28 unique items have been added, each with a unique combination of powers that can inspire different playstyles.
  
• You can now equip Catalysts. These off-hand caster items allow hybrid players to cast magical spells.
  
• Skill Tomes have been replaced by Enneracts to fit the lore of the game. You can still right click to learn their associated skill.
  
• Every piece of armor now gives two defense stats, one primary and one secondary: Heavy armors provide ‘all resistance score’ and ‘health’, warrior armors ‘health’ and ‘all resistance score’, rogue armors ‘health’ and ‘force shield’, mage armors provide ‘force shield’ and ‘health’.
  
• Gems do not have item-level requirements anymore.

AFFIXES:

• Itemization has been remade and overhauled. A new set of effects can roll on items, and their distribution has been improved.
  
• Gem sockets are generated in addition to items affixes instead of taking their places.
  
• Magic-find has been refactored to improve its impact on rare loot drops.

PASSIVE SKILLS:

• The Passive Skill Tree has been entirely remade. The first ring now holds three classes, the second six, and the third will hold twelve, for a total of 21 classes. The gameplay beta features the first 9 classes.
  
• You can now travel sideways between two classes of same ring, starting at the second ring.
  
• Each class gives you access to two subsequent trees, although you can still rotate the PST to change these two trees.
  
• Classes have been streamlined and navigating the trees should be easier.

ACTIVE SKILLS:

• The game now features a new selection of skills with a much higher quality standard in design, effects and animation:
  
  • Arrows Wail
    
  • Havoc Orb
    
  • Anvil's Woe
    
  • Thunderstrike
    
  • Mark of Impurity
    
  • Slayer's Flurry
    
  • Consuming Embers
    
  • Tear of Etheliel
    
  • Arctic Spear
    
  • Winter's Grasp
    
  • Tracker's Reach
    
  • Bleeding Edge
    
  • Annihilation
    
  • Wings of Ishmir
    
  • Bulwark of Dawn
    
  • Stings of Krearion
    
  • Aether Jump
    
  • Sovereign Shout
• Each skill have 4 variants in the Beta. Full game will feature 10 to 20 variants per Skill.
  
• You can now select and activate any skill modifier provided you have enough points and that the modifier has been unlocked.
  
• Signature skills have been removed.
  
• There is now five skill slots available.

MISC:

• Every major passive node, skill, skill variant and unique item now has a lore description, giving you insights into the world of Wolcen.
  
• Umbra (as the resource) is now called Willpower.
  
• Umbra (as the damage type) is now called Aether.

Also, don’t forget to check our gameplay explanation videos!
Active Skill Tree Revamp
Elemental Affixes
Enemies Archetypes
Ranged Weapons
Melee Weapons
Resource Opposition System

See you tomorrow on the game servers!