Talent System

The main highlight of the new patch is the Talent System, which we previously covered on our blog in two in-depth blog posts. So be sure to check those out if you haven’t already to get the overview.

We’ve been tweaking the talents via testing the last few days and have made some additional changes. The current state of each talent and details on its specifics can be found on each classes’ Wiki page: https://wiki.orbusvr.com

Please note that although we have done a fair amount of testing for these, we will be continuing to make changes to them based on observations as far as balance and other community feedback.

To select your talents, just go to the new “Talents” tab from the Inventory screen. You can choose your Talents from anywhere (as opposed to needing to go to a particular NPC as we originally planned), and resetting them will require imbibing a Potion of Forgetfulness, which can be purchased from the “Odds and Ends” NPC in Guild City for 500 dram each. There will be no penalty for resetting your talents more often, other than the need to have a potion handy.

We still have quite a bit of polishing work that we’ll be pushing out on this as we continue to iterate on it, including notifications for new players leveling up reminding them to choose their Talents, but for now it should be in a state where you can begin playing with it and giving us feedback on it.

New VoIP System

We’ve completely re-worked our VoIP system from the ground up. It should be much more reliable and higher-quality now. In addition to that there are no longer any limits on the number of party members of fellowship members who can be talking at once.

This change should be pretty much seamless, with a few small exceptions:

- Currently there’s just one Voice volume slider, not a separate slider for Party and Fellowship, so you can’t control those volumes separately.
- Currently there is no “effect” added to the Party of Fellowship chat, other than it not being 3D like the proximity chat is.

We’re excited about this improvement and would love your feedback on if the chat is better and more reliable for your group!

Fishing Gear

There’s now additional fishing quests available from Ernest Trimm, which rewards cosmetic fishing gear which is quite creative and fun to wear.

Musketeer Battle Resurrection

The Musketeer class can now cast their Lifewell orb at their turret to Resurrect a nearby teammate, even if they are in combat. Note that this still requires a Reagant, and can only be done once every 20 minutes.

Other/Miscellaneous

If you cast a spell as a Runemage, and then switch to another class, your active spell will be canceled.

Audio Chat indicators should work much better most of the time with the new VoIP system. There is a bug where sometimes an indicator won’t work at all for a single person though and we are tracking that down.

The Runemage’s Resurrection ritual now obeys the same rules as the player Reawaken button, and will not work if allies nearby are in combat, even if you yourself are not. This is to prevent players from logging out and back in and then resurrecting teammates in combat.

Spells should no longer go through enemies.

Warrior should no longer be able to use Sword Rush to charge to the practice dummies in the Tournament of Mages area or the stalactites in the Cave Dungeon.

The Indestructible Affix should now work properly for for the ring slot.

See you in-game!

Talent System

The main highlight of the new patch is the Talent System, which we previously covered on our blog in two in-depth blog posts. So be sure to check those out if you haven’t already to get the overview.

We’ve been tweaking the talents via testing the last few days and have made some additional changes. The current state of each talent and details on its specifics can be found on each classes’ Wiki page: https://wiki.orbusvr.com

Please note that although we have done a fair amount of testing for these, we will be continuing to make changes to them based on observations as far as balance and other community feedback.

To select your talents, just go to the new “Talents” tab from the Inventory screen. You can choose your Talents from anywhere (as opposed to needing to go to a particular NPC as we originally planned), and resetting them will require imbibing a Potion of Forgetfulness, which can be purchased from the “Odds and Ends” NPC in Guild City for 500 dram each. There will be no penalty for resetting your talents more often, other than the need to have a potion handy.

We still have quite a bit of polishing work that we’ll be pushing out on this as we continue to iterate on it, including notifications for new players leveling up reminding them to choose their Talents, but for now it should be in a state where you can begin playing with it and giving us feedback on it.

New VoIP System

We’ve completely re-worked our VoIP system from the ground up. It should be much more reliable and higher-quality now. In addition to that there are no longer any limits on the number of party members of fellowship members who can be talking at once.

This change should be pretty much seamless, with a few small exceptions:

- Currently there’s just one Voice volume slider, not a separate slider for Party and Fellowship, so you can’t control those volumes separately.
- Currently there is no “effect” added to the Party of Fellowship chat, other than it not being 3D like the proximity chat is.

We’re excited about this improvement and would love your feedback on if the chat is better and more reliable for your group!

Fishing Gear

There’s now additional fishing quests available from Ernest Trimm, which rewards cosmetic fishing gear which is quite creative and fun to wear.

Musketeer Battle Resurrection

The Musketeer class can now cast their Lifewell orb at their turret to Resurrect a nearby teammate, even if they are in combat. Note that this still requires a Reagant, and can only be done once every 20 minutes.

Other/Miscellaneous

If you cast a spell as a Runemage, and then switch to another class, your active spell will be canceled.

Audio Chat indicators should work much better most of the time with the new VoIP system. There is a bug where sometimes an indicator won’t work at all for a single person though and we are tracking that down.

The Runemage’s Resurrection ritual now obeys the same rules as the player Reawaken button, and will not work if allies nearby are in combat, even if you yourself are not. This is to prevent players from logging out and back in and then resurrecting teammates in combat.

Spells should no longer go through enemies.

Warrior should no longer be able to use Sword Rush to charge to the practice dummies in the Tournament of Mages area or the stalactites in the Cave Dungeon.

The Indestructible Affix should now work properly for for the ring slot.

See you in-game!

Beginning today (Friday) and lasting until 11 PM CST on Sunday, we're giving out a 50% Bonus for XP gained from all monster kills!

So if you're looking to level up to max level on your first Character, or have an alternate class you've been keeping your eye on, now's a great time to jump in and play with everyone and get that done.

For more information check out the forum thread: https://community.orbusvr.com/t/bonus-xp-weekend/8232?u=riley_d

Beginning today (Friday) and lasting until 11 PM CST on Sunday, we're giving out a 50% Bonus for XP gained from all monster kills!

So if you're looking to level up to max level on your first Character, or have an alternate class you've been keeping your eye on, now's a great time to jump in and play with everyone and get that done.

For more information check out the forum thread: https://community.orbusvr.com/t/bonus-xp-weekend/8232?u=riley_d

Our new patch is coming out this morning which represents our first “sprint” of content. Without further ado, here’s the details:

New Dye System

The highlight of this patch is the new armor dye system, which allows you to change the primary and accent colors of your chest, gloves, shoulders, and helm. As of right now there are 16 Primary and 8 Accent dyes available in-game, and we have plans to continue adding in more colors in the future. The dyes themselves can be found across various activities in the game world, including Alchemy recipes, enemy monster drops, etc. In addition, there is a new NPC in Highsteppe who will sell you some of the base dyes as well as an accent dye for dram.

The Dye NPC will also sell you Major and Accent Dye Washes, which can be used to remove the dye coloring from an already-dyed piece of gear.

To use a dye on a gear piece, just select the dye, then select the gear to dye with it, then confirm.

Right now there is not a way to preview a dye before you use it, but we are working on adding that in a future update when we add in further customization options for avatars.

Have fun collecting and hunting the dyes!

New Warrior Hit Detection – Beta Branch

I’ll posts more details about this in the Beta forum thread, but there is a new Warrior hit detection system which is available to test out if you are running the beta version of the game. So check that out if you’re interested.

https://community.orbusvr.com/t/new-beta-available-for-testing/7977/46?u=riley_d

Streamlined Tutorial

We’ve gone back and streamlined the tutorial so that you get out into the world sooner, with the option to go back and learn more later. If are able to create a new character and try that out we welcome your feedback.

New Quests

There are new quests which can be done for Level 16+ characters, seek out Ludwig Sarrow in the town of Fisherman’s Crust, Hulthine Servant in Lucian Plateau, and the Brotherhood to get started on those.

Other than the highlights we’ve also:

Fixed the Runemage missile collision detection so that it should no longer “go through” objects such as the training dummies in the Tournament of Mages area.

Main Story Quests will now be designated by “MSQ” in the Journal next to their title.

The glowing orbs in the Mist Keeper fight will no longer cause you to get stuck in combat.

You can no longer use your Teleportation Device in the Wilds, even if you are not a bandit.

Fixed a bug with the Potion Keeper fight where the box wasn’t showing up sometimes.

Spriggs (and other spawned-in boss minions) should no longer give XP or loot drops.

Non-weapon items can now show their rarity in their tooltip. So things such as potions, ingredients, dyes, etc will now start showing up with different tooltip title colors.

Thanks and enjoy!

Our new patch is coming out this morning which represents our first “sprint” of content. Without further ado, here’s the details:

New Dye System

The highlight of this patch is the new armor dye system, which allows you to change the primary and accent colors of your chest, gloves, shoulders, and helm. As of right now there are 16 Primary and 8 Accent dyes available in-game, and we have plans to continue adding in more colors in the future. The dyes themselves can be found across various activities in the game world, including Alchemy recipes, enemy monster drops, etc. In addition, there is a new NPC in Highsteppe who will sell you some of the base dyes as well as an accent dye for dram.

The Dye NPC will also sell you Major and Accent Dye Washes, which can be used to remove the dye coloring from an already-dyed piece of gear.

To use a dye on a gear piece, just select the dye, then select the gear to dye with it, then confirm.

Right now there is not a way to preview a dye before you use it, but we are working on adding that in a future update when we add in further customization options for avatars.

Have fun collecting and hunting the dyes!

New Warrior Hit Detection – Beta Branch

I’ll posts more details about this in the Beta forum thread, but there is a new Warrior hit detection system which is available to test out if you are running the beta version of the game. So check that out if you’re interested.

https://community.orbusvr.com/t/new-beta-available-for-testing/7977/46?u=riley_d

Streamlined Tutorial

We’ve gone back and streamlined the tutorial so that you get out into the world sooner, with the option to go back and learn more later. If are able to create a new character and try that out we welcome your feedback.

New Quests

There are new quests which can be done for Level 16+ characters, seek out Ludwig Sarrow in the town of Fisherman’s Crust, Hulthine Servant in Lucian Plateau, and the Brotherhood to get started on those.

Other than the highlights we’ve also:

Fixed the Runemage missile collision detection so that it should no longer “go through” objects such as the training dummies in the Tournament of Mages area.

Main Story Quests will now be designated by “MSQ” in the Journal next to their title.

The glowing orbs in the Mist Keeper fight will no longer cause you to get stuck in combat.

You can no longer use your Teleportation Device in the Wilds, even if you are not a bandit.

Fixed a bug with the Potion Keeper fight where the box wasn’t showing up sometimes.

Spriggs (and other spawned-in boss minions) should no longer give XP or loot drops.

Non-weapon items can now show their rarity in their tooltip. So things such as potions, ingredients, dyes, etc will now start showing up with different tooltip title colors.

Thanks and enjoy!

Spriggs and the Donkey Cart should finally be fixed to not give XP or loot. If you see this still happening please let me know.

Bandits will now drop tradable loot if they are killed in a safe zone.

We’ve added a new Leaderboard to the website for “PvP Arena Wins.” In addition we’ve added a link to the Leaderboards to the main site. Note that we just start tracking this from today forward.

Fixed a bug which could keep you stuck in combat when attacking the floating orbs in the Mist Keeper fight.

Added prevention against people using the OpenVR Advanced Settings tool to change their height and/or playspace offset, which was leading to some exploits.

Spriggs and the Donkey Cart should finally be fixed to not give XP or loot. If you see this still happening please let me know.

Bandits will now drop tradable loot if they are killed in a safe zone.

We’ve added a new Leaderboard to the website for “PvP Arena Wins.” In addition we’ve added a link to the Leaderboards to the main site. Note that we just start tracking this from today forward.

Fixed a bug which could keep you stuck in combat when attacking the floating orbs in the Mist Keeper fight.

Added prevention against people using the OpenVR Advanced Settings tool to change their height and/or playspace offset, which was leading to some exploits.

Tradu Mines: 2 More Wings!

The highlight of this patch is the opening of the last two wings of the Tradu Mines, the Tradu Skywalk and the Tradu Forest. As with the previous wings in the Tradu Mines, each of these dungeons features two new bosses that will challenge your group with new, unique mechanics and should provide ample entertainment for many, many hours.

Each of these wings also follows the new loot system, meaning there are now a potential of 4 guaranteed drops that each player could get per day if they were to run all the wings fully.

Keep in mind that in terms of tuning and balance, these bosses have some interesting new mechanics, but they are tuned assuming a fairly “fresh” Level 20 group, so especially if your group has already spent their time farming entire sets of Epic gear, once the mechanics are figured out the difficulty of the fight itself may be somewhat easy. On the other hand, if you’re Level 20, even if you’re new to end-game, you should feel confident hopping into all the wings of the Tradu Mines, they’re designed with you in mind!

Super Re-Balancing

The Supers of all the classes have been re-balanced to be more even. This means that for some classes (like the Runemage) the super will be slower than before, while for others (like the Ranger) the super will charge faster. In general we have “squished down” the spectrum of possible super charge times for all classes. Previously, for example, if you got everything “just right” as a Ranger – used your ability arrows and Charged Shot as often as possible,shot from max distance, and never missed – you could charge your Super very quickly. But if any of those things were missed, your Super charged extremely slowly. We’ve kept those same bonuses, but we’ve basically made it so that the “floor” is higher and the “ceiling” is a little lower.

We’ve also applied the same type of “maximum Super charge per second” scaling to the Runemage and Warrior as we did to the Ranger, which should smooth out the Super charge time much more.

Runemage: The Super is still dependent on alternating your spells (although the penalty is not as severe), and on not missing spell casts (although, again, the penalty/bonus is not as severe). Casting 1 spell every 1.5 seconds will allow you to generate maximum Super.

Ranger: Pretty much the same as before, with bonuses granted for not missing and shooting at a distance, but the penalty for close-up shots has been greatly reduced, and the base Super per shot was increased.

Warrior: As long as you are blocking a hit and making a strike at least once per second, you are generating maximum Super now. Emphasized sword hits over blocks (although both contribute), so Super generation should now happen much more quickly in solo DPS play. Combos add additional Super but are not as vital as they were before.

Musketeer: Increased the value of the Super per each Orb hit. There is still a bonus for hitting multiple enemies, but the bonus has been reduced so that it’s nice but not vital, so your floor of Super generation (e.g. in Solo play) should be much higher. If you are hitting 5 or more enemies with an Orb, you are generating maximum Super, but again the difference between hitting 1 enemy and 5 enemies is not nearly as large. Finally, the Super is tuned around using an Orb around once every 2.5 seconds.

Bug Fixes

Fixed the Charged Strikes affix only procing every 11 times rather than 10 as intended.

Tradu Mines: 2 More Wings!

The highlight of this patch is the opening of the last two wings of the Tradu Mines, the Tradu Skywalk and the Tradu Forest. As with the previous wings in the Tradu Mines, each of these dungeons features two new bosses that will challenge your group with new, unique mechanics and should provide ample entertainment for many, many hours.

Each of these wings also follows the new loot system, meaning there are now a potential of 4 guaranteed drops that each player could get per day if they were to run all the wings fully.

Keep in mind that in terms of tuning and balance, these bosses have some interesting new mechanics, but they are tuned assuming a fairly “fresh” Level 20 group, so especially if your group has already spent their time farming entire sets of Epic gear, once the mechanics are figured out the difficulty of the fight itself may be somewhat easy. On the other hand, if you’re Level 20, even if you’re new to end-game, you should feel confident hopping into all the wings of the Tradu Mines, they’re designed with you in mind!

Super Re-Balancing

The Supers of all the classes have been re-balanced to be more even. This means that for some classes (like the Runemage) the super will be slower than before, while for others (like the Ranger) the super will charge faster. In general we have “squished down” the spectrum of possible super charge times for all classes. Previously, for example, if you got everything “just right” as a Ranger – used your ability arrows and Charged Shot as often as possible,shot from max distance, and never missed – you could charge your Super very quickly. But if any of those things were missed, your Super charged extremely slowly. We’ve kept those same bonuses, but we’ve basically made it so that the “floor” is higher and the “ceiling” is a little lower.

We’ve also applied the same type of “maximum Super charge per second” scaling to the Runemage and Warrior as we did to the Ranger, which should smooth out the Super charge time much more.

Runemage: The Super is still dependent on alternating your spells (although the penalty is not as severe), and on not missing spell casts (although, again, the penalty/bonus is not as severe). Casting 1 spell every 1.5 seconds will allow you to generate maximum Super.

Ranger: Pretty much the same as before, with bonuses granted for not missing and shooting at a distance, but the penalty for close-up shots has been greatly reduced, and the base Super per shot was increased.

Warrior: As long as you are blocking a hit and making a strike at least once per second, you are generating maximum Super now. Emphasized sword hits over blocks (although both contribute), so Super generation should now happen much more quickly in solo DPS play. Combos add additional Super but are not as vital as they were before.

Musketeer: Increased the value of the Super per each Orb hit. There is still a bonus for hitting multiple enemies, but the bonus has been reduced so that it’s nice but not vital, so your floor of Super generation (e.g. in Solo play) should be much higher. If you are hitting 5 or more enemies with an Orb, you are generating maximum Super, but again the difference between hitting 1 enemy and 5 enemies is not nearly as large. Finally, the Super is tuned around using an Orb around once every 2.5 seconds.

Bug Fixes

Fixed the Charged Strikes affix only procing every 11 times rather than 10 as intended.