For the entire month of August, take the Divine Challenge to collect limited-time rewards. Earn points for open-world activities, unlock chests to get valuable loot, and claim your very own mount skin, avatar border, and more.


NEW MOUNT SKIN: This month's Challenge introduces a brand-new mount skin: the Divine Stag. Once obtained, this mount skin will permanently unlock the pure white Divine Stag for all characters on your account. (Note that this skin requires an Adep's Giant Stag base mount to use.)


NEW AVATAR BORDER: Adventurers who rack up enough total Challenge Points will also earn the Divine Challenge avatar border to frame your avatar in glowing divine light. This non-tradable item permanently unlocks this avatar border for one character.


SEASONAL SPECIALS: All month long, reach weekly goals to unlock Divine Challenge chests. In addition to valuable rewards like Adventurer's Tomes, Silver, and other loot, you'll also have a chance to unlock three furniture items - the Mage Statue, Magic Rune Circle, and Glass Sphere.

As always, you can earn Challenge Points by gathering, fishing, farming, and killing monsters. Points count simultaneously toward a daily bonus, a weekly unlockable chest, and the monthly mount skin / avatar ring reward. So log in, head out into the open world, gather points, and claim these exclusive rewards while they last!


A new referral season starts today! Refer your friends to Albion Online and get three fantastic rewards, including the first-ever mount skin referral reward. For 1, 3, and 5 referrals respectively, you'll receive:the Recruiter's Storage-Barrel, the Recruiter's Pile of Tomes (worth a total 100,000 Fame), and the Sheepdog mount skin. (Note: like all canine mount skins, the charming Sheepdog requires a Direwolf base mount in order to be displayed.)

The current referral season lasts until maintenance on September 1, so you've got until then to refer your friends and claim your rewards. As a reminder, with the shift to free-to-play the referral system has been streamlined and simplified:

• Send your referral link, which you can find here, to a friend. (You must be logged into your account on the website to view this page.)
• Your friend registers an account and starts playing Albion Online (preferably along with you!).
• The first time your friend purchases at least 30 days of Premium, they will trigger a reward for you.

• On top of that, for your very first referral ever, you'll receive a T8 Recruiter's Pile of Tomes, worth a whopping 200,000 Fame.

• Guild Challenge: guild members can now earn Challenge Points by gathering, killing creatures, fishing, and farming, as with Adventurer's Challenges. At certain thresholds, these points will provide Season Points to the member's guild.
• Number of tower levels in Crystal Realm Battle system: 3 → 7
• GvG attack times have been consolidated to make it harder for one team member to fight multiple GvGs in a day
• GvG notification messages now more clearly state conditions leading to counterattacks, decisive victories, and whether or not Silver is returned
• Changes to Siphoning Mages:
  • Channel duration of Ice Block increased to 20 seconds
  • When channel is started, three Summoned Guardians appear
  • Guardians are normal mobs if less than 8 players are attacking the mage, Veteran mobs if 8 or more players attacking
  • Guardians drop an area that replenishes player energy
  • Additionally, a tornado is summoned that throws unwary players into the air and deals some damage
• Mercenaries have been disabled for regular GvGs. Mercenaries can still be used in Crystal Realm Battles.
• Castle Outposts (smaller versions of castles) now appear in the open world. These can be claimed by guilds for season points. They appear four times as often as regular castles, but only give one-fourth of the points.
• The time window in which a castle can be captured has been greatly reduced (time between castle mob spawns: 15m → 3m)
• Item Power Softcap for 20v20 City Fights:
  • Thetford, Bridgewatch, Martlock: 50% softcap above 1000 IP
  • Fort Sterling, Lymhurst: 50% softcap above 1200 IP
  • Caerleon: no IP cap
• Maximum City Tax level (set by guild in control of the city): 25% → 10%

• Updated Guild Season Rank brackets:
  • Crystal Rank Threshold: 180,000 Season Points
  • Gold Rank Threshold: 60,000 Season Points
  • Silver Rank Threshold: 15,000 Season Points
  • Bronze Rank Threshold: 3,500 Season Points
  • Iron Rank Threshold: 1,000 Season Points
• Castle Scoring Times (UTC):
  • Thornbush Mire 19:00
  • Flesheater Morass 01:00
  • Heart of the Forest 01:00
  • Stonegrass Steppe 01:00
  • Charhide Steppe 19:00
  • Hill of Hollow Earth 19:00
  • Edgerock Sink 01:00
  • Bleak Moor 19:00
  • Eskdale 01:00
  • Armboth Fell 19:00
  • Creag Ard 19:00
  • Creag Uchag 01:00
  • Creag Bron 19:00
  • Creag Rudd 01:00

For more information about these changes, as well as some of the reasoning behind them, please see this forum post: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/115466

Blue Army's Season 6 winner statue now appears at the front gates of Conquerors' Hall near the Caerleon Realmgate. Anniversary decorations have been removed from cities.

Access Rights

• Alliance members can now be given similar access rights to chests, islands, etc. as guild members
• Access rights can now be copy-pasted from one object to another
• "Withdrawal from Account" rights have been split as follows:
  • Withdrawal from Silver Account
  • Withdrawal from Energy Account
• "Attack Territory" rights have been split as follows:
  • Attack Territory
  • Pacify Warcamp (new)
• "Manage Banks" rights have been split as follows:
  • Manage Banks
  • View Chest Logs (new)
• Co-Owners of Banks tabs can now view the tab's logs

Item Sort Improvements

Pressing the "Sort" button in any inventory display (chests, banks, personal inventory, etc.) will now sort items as follows:

• Item Type (see additional "Item Type" sorting below)
• Item Name (e.g. "Hunter Jacket")
• Tier
• Item Power
• Stack Size
• Durability

Item Types are sorted in the following order:

• Equipment items, further sorted by slot (Two-Handed Weapon, One-Handed Main Weapon, Offhand, Head, Chest, Feet, Capes, Bags)
• Mounts
• Consumables
• Consumable-from-inventory (e.g. Tomes of Insight)
• Farmables
• Simple items (e.g. resources, cooking ingredients)
• Furniture
• Journals

Loot Table Updates

• Castle chests can now drop Level 1 Artifacts
• Treasure sites (chests/lockers) can now drop Level 2 and 3 Artifacts

Other Changes

• Confirmation message added when attempting to use Tomes of Insight while not wearing any relevant gear
• Earthdaughter spell changes:
  •  "Thunderslam" cast time increased from 1.84 to 2.5 seconds, and now more accurately strikes the indicated position
  • Summoned Pebbles are now of the correct tier

• Fixed an issue where customized party member order would reset on cluster change
• Fixed an issue where party markers could sometimes not be placed on mobs
• Fixed an issue where incorrect guild logo would sometimes display after zoning
• Spell fixes:
  • Rejuvenating Breeze and Raging Blades can no longer be used prior to being unlocked
  • Battle Frenzy no longer removes shrine buffs
  • Time Freeze can no longer circumvent an immunity bubble
• Fixed an issue where terrain would sometimes display incorrect textures (water, etc.) when logging in after disconnect
• Fixed an issue where Personal and Guild Bank Tabs would slip further down each time "Save" was clicked or a new tab was purchased
• Additional graphical, UI, audio, animation, terrain, and localization fixes

Michael Schwahn, AKA Retroman, has been a part of the Albion Online team since 2015. Prior to joining Sandbox, he worked on Spec Ops: The Line at YAGER (also based in Berlin) and created an indie shoot-em-up called Teslapunk for mobile, Xbox One & Wii-U. As Combat Designer for Albion Online, Michael is responsible for keeping a huge range of weapon and armor skills up-to-date, and ensuring that the combat meta remains fair and vital with each game update.

With the next Guild Season starting this Saturday, we took the opportunity to talk to him about his approach to game design, what makes combat in Albion unique, and the games that have influenced him.

You've worked at Sandbox since the very early days of Albion Online. How has your work on the game evolved over the years?

The first big task I had was to overhaul the combat balance for the first beta. That was a very exciting, but frankly also a bit intimidating time, since I had never worked on an MMO before and Albion Online’s game design is quite a complex beast.

So, how to best approach the balancing of a sandbox MMO? Well, the game has PvP and PvE. Each of these aspects requires quite a different balance approach. But since Albion's endgame is heavily focused on guild warfare and PvP, I really wanted to focus on the PvP balance first and foremost. Of course PvE can’t be ignored, but all items are first designed around PvP and then after their PvP role is settled we can look at their performance in PvE.



I also want to see how far we can push the skill cap, to make the game less about numbers and stats, and instead increase the importance of group coordination and individual performance. With these requirements, I was more interested in MOBAs as a reference than other MMOs. There are a lot of similarities: MOBAs share the same perspective, also have a few spells active at a time, have a very high skill cap, and are often 5v5 like our GvGs.

As my forum name suggests, I am a gamer of a different era, and one of my absolute favorite game genres is fighting games. I played them semi-competitively and even held small tournaments back in school. With Albion Online, I wanted to bring this sense of excitement and personal mastery that I felt with these games to a new generation of gamers. That is the reason we have no random elements in PvP, because I always appreciated the super-deterministic mechanics of fighting games with no RNG. And on an abstract level, some of the concepts found in fighting games also translate surprisingly well to MOBAs: things like trying to bait enemies, the importance of positioning, and counterplay options.

Okay, so now I could decide on the first set of abilities and roles for the items. The next thing was to get the actual numbers into the game. To adjust so many numbers, you create a mathematical model with formulas with certain assumptions about the gameplay in mind. Things like how damage and stun translate. So every spell gets a certain power which comes from cooldown, cast time, AoE radius, etc… and also a ‘situational’ factor on top (for instance, skillshots have increased power because they can miss). This spell power is then split into the spell’s effects. For example, you could split the spell power to have 70% damage and 30% slow. This is a very useful approach to create a baseline for all abilities. However, it is just a tool to help you guide the values.



In the early days I sometimes followed these values even when they felt a bit off, which is not the intention. Because there are spells that are really hard to put a number on, like Blink. The original balance approach for Blink was, "you save so much time moving X meters, how much more DPS can you get out from the time you save". Which is one way to approach it, but it really doesn’t translate well into the actual value. It doesn’t consider, for example, that you can dodge abilities, make up for a positioning error, or secure a kill. The truth is this approach doesn’t cover all utility or synergy effects, which are so crucial. So nowadays I still use the math model to get a basic idea of the spell’s worth, damage, heal, CC, or energy values. But is is really just a first baseline. Playtests and meta observations play a very important role in changing the actual values.

Balancing combat and introducing new skills is a multistep process that involves multiple playtests. Can you give an overview of this process?

So first I start with a rough idea and a concept of an ability. Then I produce a prototype with our internal spell scripting system, using existing effects and animations. The first iteration of the ability will also use numbers from the above-mentioned math model. Then I try to get as much early feedback from players as possible. For this process we have the NDA playtests, to get the feedback of experienced players, because I often trust their feedback on PvP even more than our own feedback. Simply put, this is because many of the high-level players are better players than the devs.

I have to stay aware that all players are human beings, and so their feedback might be biased towards a specific weapon or activity in the game. But if many players from competing guilds complain about the same issue, it is very likely that they are on to something. We also record the gameplay sessions and I sometimes also join the playtests to directly talk to the players for feedback. But recently, FuS has been doing a great job covering the playtest responsibilities, which leaves me with more time to work on the game. After each playtest I keep making adjustments and performing more playtests until we reach a patch deadline. And after one patch ends another begins, so I'm often already working on the next patch as soon as the current one goes live.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently during development?

My biggest mistake was the Grudge meta. The main problem wasn’t that the spell was so crazily good that it dictated the meta (which it did), but rather that I didn’t try to push a balance patch out earlier. I remember this was after release, and I was kinda hesitant to make meta adjustments on the fly. I originally intended to have fix update cycles, so all players could rely on their team compositions for a season. But I think this approach was a bit outdated and came from my old-timer gaming experience from an era without patches. Now when I have the impression the meta is getting too unhealthy, I try to fix it as soon as possible.



What do you think are the biggest challenges when working on Albion Online?

Like I mentioned earlier, this game is a design beast. It has a lot of complex systems which are interwoven, which really makes it unlike anything else I've worked on. The whole player-driven economy and the the sandbox nature of the game impacts all design decisions. This goes down even on the combat level: for instance, fights can be 1v1, 5v5 or 100v100, they can be in different situations in the game: gathering, ganking, in Hellgates or dungeons or castles.

So while I mentioned earlier I tried to get as much influence from MOBAs as possible, there are of course a few crucial differences in Albion Online. First off, this is an open-world game, so mobility is extremely powerful. The one who has more mobility in the open world dictates the engage or disengage. Which is why I needed to tone down a lot of the early mobility options like Haste or the kiting potential of Warbow.

Another difference is that the introduction of traditional healer roles for MMO PvE really changes the PvP dynamic. If the healer has a lot of impact in a 5v5 fight, he becomes potentially very strong in 1v1 fights. Another difference is, because of the full-loot nature, in general the combat should not as bursty as a MOBA, so one-shot builds are not encouraged, which made finding the right balance for assassin builds always a bit tricky. Or how in ZvZ fights the big Wombo Combos are actually also a bit against the general idea of preventing one shots. On the other hand, these combos enable a smaller group to win against a big group, which is pretty cool. And I also consider players engaging in big ZvZ fights aware of that risk.



At first I thought "balanced" meant every item should be used the same amount. While it is true that every item needs a purpose, and ideally something it excels in, I don’t think the balance question is so easily answered. Because what does "balanced" in a game even mean? If everything is equal or very similar you get a very balanced game, but it won’t be very exciting to play.

I think a good balance for a game means it offers a variety in playstyles and interesting decisions, where weapons excel at one thing but feel equally strong. You can also bring up the mathematical model for game balance here again. I think if your game can be easily broken down in numbers, then players can enter your game into Excel and find the strongest composition. But if it is more about situational plays, synergies and counters, it is much harder to "solve" for players. And it will actually keep them interested longer.

Of course, trying to give everything a unique role makes it quite difficult to keep all the options viable in high-level play, but I think in the long run this approach creates a way more interesting and dynamic game. Ideally all abilities feel OP when used with the right setup or synergy. This is at least the direction I want to push the game further into. Abilities with potential high impact and outplay potential, but with counterplay options.

What are some of your favorite parts of working on Albion Online?

Definitely the community feedback. It can sometimes be harsh, but seeing our players so engaged with the game, on streams, videos and discussion on the forums and reddit is really an immense payoff for the hard work. It reminds me of when I was on the player side and was totally engaged with a game. The other thing I really enjoy working at SBI is the sense of personal responsibility and freedom I have. Being a small team means we are not very corporate and an individual can have a lot of impact on the game. And although I have been working here for more than four years, I still learn new things all the time. Recently I got involved with new topics like the Randomized Dungeons and the Season 7 adjustments. It can be a lot of work and stress, but seeing the result in the end is really fulfilling.



What are some of your all-time favorite games? Which games have you learned the most from?

I have no single favorite game. But I can list some of my favorite franchises:

Fighting games: Street Fighter, Tekken, Garou (and currently Samurai Shodown). Shoot’Em Up games, which probably no one knows: Dodonpachi, Giga Wing, Gradius V, Einhänder.

Apart from that I love all the From Software games since Dark Souls (Bloodborne & DS3 are my favorites), lots of retro games like Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI, Castlevania games, Contra games, Zelda games, Advanced Wars and Tetris Attack. And a lot of other games that I'm sure I forgot to mention.

Anything else to add?

Maybe a bit out of the blue, but if some of you readers are considering becoming Game Designers yourself, you can do it. Just be aware it is a lot of work, it is not the most secure job and it won’t be easy. But if you really want to do it, it is possible. I remember as a kid I wanted to work in the game industry and the dream seemed almost impossible, all the grownups around me tried to talk me out of it. So I didn’t talk about it anymore, but inside I just couldn’t give up the dream. And in the end I found my way in the industry, even if it wasn’t the most direct way, but passion and dedication made it possible. And even if it is not the most rational decision, if your passion really lies with making games then give it a try. Maybe build a small game in Unity, Game Maker or even a board game. If you don’t end up in the industry, I think trying and failing feels much better than not trying and wondering “what if” your whole life.

Stay tuned for more Dev Spotlights in the coming weeks.

As part of our ongoing Second Anniversary Celebration, we've released the Official Albion Online Soundtrack on all major digital platforms! Now you can listen to the game's 22 award-winning tracks whenever and wherever you want. Whether you use Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, or Deezer, we've got you covered - click here to see all the links in one place.

And for those who prefer to listen on YouTube, we've also uploaded the whole soundtrack to the Albion Online YouTube Channel, where you can listen to individual tracks or the full playlist.

Check out the dark and moody "Forest Theme" here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4oFELNC2gc&list=PLvJxnupyVHJi_sR_uPMlyA1G_U9zFu9pk&index=9

In our latest Dev Talk, Robin Henkys, Game Director of Albion Online, discusses the changes coming with GvG Season 7 and gives a preview of the roadmap beyond Percival.

Please note that you can find a detailed description of the Season 7 changes as well as a description of our roadmap in the forum or simply by following the links in the description below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdQFZjzaWdU
Season 7 Changes: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/115466
Roadmap for Percival and Beyond: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/104122

No time to watch the video? Read on for a written summary of his talk.

In this season, we’re introducing a number of changes and features which aim to achieve two primary goals:

• Allow more players to contribute to their guild's Season Points in a wider variety of ways
• Limit the ability of a few guilds and players to dominate the GvG and castle gameplay, allowing a wider range of guilds to compete in the season

First Goal: Allow More Players to Contribute

To achieve the first goal of having more players contribute, we’re introducing Guild Challenges. Starting with Season 7, every player will be able to collect Challenge Points for their guild. When the guild hits certain challenge point goals, it will be rewarded with Season Points.

Challenge Points are generated for killing mobs and other open-world activities, just like in Adventurer's Challenges. This means you can now contribute to your guild’s season success, even as a non-PvP focused player. The guild challenge also comes with a ranking, so guild leaders and other guild members can see how many points everyone is contributing to the guild’s goals.



Second Goal: Leveling the Playing Field

To achieve our second goal of limiting the ability of a few players to dominate the game, we’re introducing a number of different changes.

First off, we’re introducing Castle Outposts to the Outlands. These outposts are capturable in a similar way to castles, and will also be paying out a daily Season Point reward as well as loot chests on weekends.

These will be four times as common as castles, but only give a quarter of the rewards. They will pay out their rewards at the same time as castles, opening more opportunities for smaller guilds to claim an outpost for themselves, while larger guilds will tend to fight over the big castles.

In addition, we’ve rebalanced castle capture times to be much shorter. This makes it harder for an alliance to move their army from one castle to another in response to an attack, and forces them to split their forces if they want to contest multiple castles.

We’re also making some changes to GvG and Crystal Realm fights:

• First, we’ve consolidated GvG attack times so more territories now share the same attack times, making it harder for the same players to cover multiple GvGs in one day using alts.
• In addition, we’ve deactivated mercenaries for GvG fights, which limits the projection ability of elite GvG teams onto their own guild’s territories, and makes it less likely for them to show up unexpectedly. (Note that mercenaries are still allowed for Crystal Realm Battles.)
• Finally, we’ve reworked the crystal realm system to include more tower levels and to put more emphasis on the win bonus, decreasing the incentive to “stomp” your opponents. This makes it more rewarding to play at the higher end of the tower levels, and as a result should make it easier to compete at the lower end of the tower levels.

That covers the main changes coming with Season 7, though I encourage you to read the full forum post if you’re interested in all the details.



For the most part, we’re still following the roadmap we published with the release of Oberon. Essentially, we’re aiming at a completely reworked Outland experience, where guilds actually live in the Outlands in secret bases we’re calling “hideouts”.

The goal of this roadmap is to solve the issue of large alliances being able to dominate the map, and at the same time fulfill Albion’s dream of allowing as many guilds as possible to build up their own base in the Outlands.

We’re already deep in planning the new Outlands map, and our plans for the hideouts are also proceeding nicely, but it has become clear that we’ll need to make quite a large number of changes and improvements in order to make living in the Outlands an exciting and fun experience. Therefore, we’re currently planning to split the rollout of this change over the next two content updates as well as upcoming patches.

We’ll soon be ready to share more details of our plans and what changes you can expect to happen when. That's all for now - we wish you the best of luck for Season 7, and we'll see you ingame!

Today marks two years since the official launch of Albion Online! Along with our retrospective of the past year, we're also celebrating ingame with a week-long party. Read on for all the details!

The Mists of Albion buff will be active for one week, giving an additional 25% Fame for all activities! Boost your combat, gathering, and crafting stats and get ready for the upcoming GvG season with this automatic buff. Here are all the details:

• Duration: July 17 10:00 UTC (after maintenance ends) to July 24 10:00 UTC
• Does NOT affect Fame earned through Tomes of Insight
• Does NOT affect the rate at which Challenge Points are earned

To take advantage of this powerful boost, just log in and play all week long!



To spread the celebratory mood, we've placed decorations in all cities, and sent out special gifts including the Anniversary Banner - a festive new furniture item - and three different colors of fireworks. Let's start Albion's third year with a bang!

Here's how to get your free gifts:

• Items are automatically sent to all players with accounts created prior to July 17.
• In addition to having a previously-created account, players must log in between July 17 10:00 UTC and July 24 10:00 UTC to trigger the reward. (It can then be claimed any time after that.)
• To claim, click the gear icon at the upper right, and select "Claim Rewards".

Thanks to our community for being a part of the world of Albion, and for making the game what it is today. And in case you hadn't heard, the award-winning Albion Online Soundtrack has now been officially released - click here to learn more!

Today marks two years since the official launch of Albion Online! We're celebrating with free items and a week-long Fame Boost (click here for all the juicy details), and have just released the Official Albion Online Soundtrack across numerous digital platforms.

Anniversaries are also the perfect time to look back on the prior year, and take stock of everything that's happened. And what a year it was...

With the Merlyn update on July 31, 2018, Faction Warfare came to the Royal Continent. This new feature allowed players to join one of five Royal City factions and fight alongside other allied faction members to take outposts from the other cities' fearsome protectors, earning powerful rewards like city faction capes and faction mounts in the process:

https://youtu.be/VJX-QLYKXsc
Beginning with GvG Season 4 in September 2018, members of guilds that ranked during the season received exclusive rewards. The higher the guild's final rank, the better the reward, culminating in an extremely powerful, crystal-armored version of an exclusive mount that changed with each season, starting with the epic Battle Rhino.



Season 4 also saw the introduction of Conquerors' Hall, a new building near the Caerleon Realmgate that serves as a museum of past GvG seasons. Each season's top three teams are immortalized in statue form, with the most recent winner stationed at the building's main entrance.

On October 1, 2018, the first Adventurer's Challenge began. Each of these month-long "personal seasons" has its own unique theme, and offers players a chance to gain points for open-world activities and use them to unlock rewards. The highest-level rewards include epic mounts with unique skills, such as the Spectral Bat.



In November 2018, the Nimue update arrived, bringing a new type of GvG: Crystal Realm Battles. These fights took place in an entirely new setting, and opened up Albion's guild warfare system to newer and smaller teams. With the recent Percival update, Crystal Realm Battles can now be fought during the off-season as well, providing even more opportunities for those looking to break into the GvG scene.



The Oberon update launched on March 20, 2019. Among other features and upgrades, Oberon brought a huge new Randomized Dungeon system to the world of Albion. Oberon brought group versions of these procedurally generated dungeons, while solo dungeons arrived with the Percival update in July.

Robin Henkys, Albion's Game Director, describes the current and future impact of this system on the game:

"In addition to the group dungeons that arrived with Oberon and the solo ones that came with Percival, this system holds the potential for other kinds of open-world content in the future. With this system already in the game, we will have the ability to add new types of content: hidden resource nodes, special event dungeons, guild hideouts, and more."



On April 10, 2019, Albion Online became completely free to download and play. This brought in tens of thousands of new players from all over the world, and opened up Albion to a much greater percentage of the gaming world.

The massive influx of new players, while great for the overall health of the game, presented a new level of technical challenge for the game. For the first few days after the F2P launch, login queues were put in place to avoid overloading the game's starting zones. These were gradually phased out as players finished the tutorial and began making their way into less populated zones, but problems still flared up during peak hours, as well as during large-scale fights. "We knew it would be busy," says Christoph Hombergs, Head of Operations, "but we had no idea of what scale to expect. It definitely exceeded our expectations."



As the player counts began to normalize, login queues were able to be phased out, and performance issues for large fights were fixed. The post-F2P era continues to present challenges for the game, but these are a welcome result of the higher player counts this switch has brought.



The transition wouldn't have been possible without our founders and long-term supporters of the game, who, with the F2P launch, were thanked with ingame gifts. The most notable of these was the unique Specter Wolf.

The Percival update also brought the first stages of a wide-ranging new customization system. Players could now choose from a wide range of hair, beard, face, and underwear options, and could also change their appearance at any time and from anywhere in the world. The options introduced with Percival are only the beginning of character customization in the game. "We're planning on increasing the variety of customization options in different areas over time, including features that aren't present yet," says Lino Claudius, UI Designer for Albion Online. "We want to give players more ways to express and identify themselves with their characters."



As a companion system to character customization, mount skins allowed players to show off rare and valuable mounts that had previously been collecting dust in storage, and a range of new skins were available for those who wanted some wilder options.



Albion's third year will bring numerous changes and improvements, following the major roadmap that was announced alongside the Oberon update. Its major goals include a complete rethinking of the Outlands, a greater variety of open-world activities for all experience levels and group sizes, PvP "hotspots", improvements to Faction Warfare – all of which will mean more opportunities throughout the world of Albion for all player types. Stay tuned for an updated roadmap coming soon.

For now, though, we want to thank our community for helping us reach this milestone. Happy second birthday to the world of Albion – here's to many more!

Solo Randomized Dungeons

Randomized Dungeons balanced for solo players will now appear throughout the open world, and will be distinguishable from group randomized dungeons by their portal-like appearance. Higher-tier solo dungeons can be accessed via special Dungeon Maps, which can be obtained from mob drops or bought from other players through the Marketplace.

New Character Customization Options

Players now have a larger number of customization options for their characters, including numerous hair, beard, face, and underwear options. Character appearance can now be updated at any time, from anywhere in the world.

For more details on character customization, please see this forum post: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/112754

Mount Skins

Mounts skins can now be used to alter the appearance of a player's active mount. Once unlocked, a mount skin is bound to the account and can be used by all characters. With Percival, numerous rare mounts will be converted to skins, and additional new skins will be unlockable with Gold.

For more details, including a list of pre-Percival mounts that will be converted to skins, please see this forum post: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/112754

New Mobs and Shrines

New mob types have been added to solo and group Randomized Dungeons for all factions. These include new trap- and nest-type opponents, as well as environmental hazards like explosives. Solo Randomized Dungeons introduce small combat shrines, which give a random combat buff to the first player who activates them, offering advantages in both PvE and PvP.

New Weapon Skills

Seven new skills have been added to a range of player weapons:

• Axes: Spinning Blades
• Frost Staffs: Ice Shard
• Hammers: Inertia Ring
• Nature Staffs: Rejuvenating Breeze
• Quarterstaffs: Rising Blow
• Spears: Impaler
• Swords: Parry

For details of these skills, see the Combat Balance Changes section below.

Upgradeable Bank Tabs

Additional tabs can now be added to both personal banks (i.e. those found in cities) AND guild / territory vaults, with the following specifications:

• City Banks: up to 14 additional personal tabs can be purchased for Silver
• Guild Banks: up to 14 additional personal tabs AND 14 additional guild tabs can be purchased for Silver
• Territory Banks: new private tabs are not available, but 5 guild tabs can be purchased for a total of 14 tabs
• Homeplot Banks are now structured like Guild Island Banks (same total weight and slots)
• Siege Camps and Guild City Banks do not receive any additional tabs
• The first personal bank tab is always the first to open in banks and guild vaults

Audio Improvements

• Polished and updated spell effect sounds for Quarterstaffs, Axes, Spears, Daggers, Hammers and Maces based on spell intensity
• Master Volume fader added to Audio Settings UI
• Added new voiceovers to Artifact Foundry NPC

Other Improvements

• Character appearance has been greatly improved for unclothed male and female character models
• New language channels have been created for every supported language - players will join the channel that matches their client language
• Date formats can now be set via the "Language" UI
• Up to five emotes can now be assigned to Hotkeys in the Settings menu
• Reworked character location markers and random dungeon markers on worldmap
• Players can now choose whether to automatically transfer newly-purchased items directly from the Marketplace to their inventory (in cases where inventory is full, items will be sent to the "Completed" tab as normal)
• New terrain and level templates created for Solo Randomized Dungeons have been added to Group Randomized Dungeons as well
• Seven new achievements based on Randomized Dungeons and Customization have been added

Crystal and City GvG Changes

Crystal Realm GvGs are now available between seasons. These between-season fights do not generate season points, but still offer loot and rewards.

The threshold for which money invested in 20v20 city GvGs is returned has been adjusted from 149 points to 195 points. Since points are scored on a subtractive basis, this means that attackers now need to score fewer points to get their Silver back. Additionally, match length for city GvGs has been increased from 25 minutes to 30 minutes.

City GvGs have been added to the practice GvG "scrims" available. To initiate a practice city fight, one party of 20 must invite another party of 20 using the regular chat commands (see here for more info). The new map name is "city".

Mob Changes

Higher-tier mobs now have more armor instead of more health to compensate for the player's Reaver bonus damage. This means player damage dealt to mobs will be more or less equal across tiers - for example, if you deal 100 damage versus a tier 4 mob you will deal 90 damage versus a tier 8 mob. Previously, if you dealt 100 damage versus Tier 4 you would deal 400 damage versus Tier 8.

Along with this change, the damage of poison potions versus mobs has been reduced to one-third of its previous value. Other mob changes:

• Fame rewarded by standard open-world ("roaming") mobs has been increased by 25%
• It is no longer possible to prevent Siphoning Mages from casting Iceblock
• The Undead Reaper's Summoned Shades no longer die after their target leaves their follow range, but their health and damage will both be decreased
• The Keeper Earth Aspirant now uses her spells sooner after summoning her aides
• The Morgana Elite Demon Prince now correctly summons Tier 8 portals and demons when he himself is Tier 8
• The Morgana Archfiend will now use his spells as intended
• Rhinos have evolved and learned Charge, a dash at the current target

Mount Changes

• Salvaging Guild Warhorses now grants their original gold cost
• Adjusted crafting recipes for Spectral Bonehorse (now requires T8 Riding Horse + the T8 Upgrade item) and T8 Morgana Nightmare (now requires T8 Armored Horse + the T8 Upgrade item)
• Morgana Mare and Bonehorse skin-unlock items can no longer be crafted at the stables, and have been moved to the Vanity Store
• Clicking a mount multiple times to get into mounted state no longer cancels the initial mounting action

Other Changes

• Removed Item Power cap for Blue and Yellow Zone open-world clusters, including all fixed and randomized dungeons within those clusters
• Increased the Fame reward from chests in 2v2 Hellgates
• Disabled furniture placement on entrances to random dungeons, as well as some small dungeon entrances that were missed with the last patch

Changes to Life Steal Mechanics

Rather than granting the attacker a set amount of HP, Life Steal now steals a percentage of damage dealt. Additionally, Life Steal no longer counts as healing, meaning it is now unaffected by Heal Modifier or Healing Sickness.

• Life Leech (passive, numerous weapons):
  • Returns 15% of damage dealt to caster as HP
• Life Steal Aura (Hellion Jacket) and Vampiric Strike (One-handed Axes): see changes in respective sections below

Arcane Staffs

• Arcane Purge (all Arcane Staffs):
  • Cast Time: 1s → 0.7s
• Void (Malevolent Locus):
  • Cast Time: 0s → 0.5s

Axes

• Added new W-Spell: Spinning Blades
  • Caster is surrounded by magic blades for 2.5s. Every 0.5s the blades deal 24 magic damage to all enemies in a 6m radius. Each hit also increases the caster's damage by 4% for 3s. (Stacks up to 10 times.)
• Life Leech (Passive):
  • Steals 15% of damage dealt
• Vampiric Strike (One-handed Axes):
  • Removed the Self Heal - the ability now uses the new Life Steal mechanics:
    • 1 Rending Strike: steals 30% of the damage dealt
    • 2 Rending Strikes: steals 60% of the damage dealt
    • 3 Rending Strikes: steals 100% of the damage dealt

Cursed Staffs

• Enfeeble Blades (Lifecurse Staff):
  • Cast Time: 1.5s → 1s
  • Hit Delay: 0.4s → 0s
  • Standtime: 0.6s → 0s
  • Damage per tick: 31.3 → 33.0

Daggers

• Life Leech (Passive):
  • Steals 15% of damage dealt

Fire Staffs

• Magma Sphere (Wildfire Staff):
  • Cast Time: 1s → 0.6s

Frost Staffs

• Added new Q-Spell: Ice Shard
  • Drop a big Ice Shard at a ground target. The impact deals 140 magic damage to all enemies in a 3m radius.
  • Cast Time: 1.2s
• Shatter (all Frost Staffs):
  • First Area Damage: 93.60 → 80.00
  • Second Area Damage: 93.60 → 100.00
  • Third Area Damage: 93.60 → 120.00
• Avalanche (Hoarfrost Staff):
  • Cast Time: 0.7s → 0s
  • Hit Delay: 0s → 0.2s
  • Standtime: 0s → 0.4s

Hammers

• Added new W-Spell: Inertia Ring
  • Creates a ring of tar in an 8m radius around the caster. This ring lasts for 4s and has a 2.5m width. When enemies pass through the ring, their move speed is reduced by 90% (ignores crowd control resistance).
  • Cast Time: 0.5s
• Life Leech (Passive):
  • Steals 15% of damage dealt
• Bash Knee (all Hammers):
  • Slow Strength: 32% → 30%
  • Slow Duration: 3s → 4s
• Giant Steps (Forge Hammers):
  • Now also increases attack range by 50%

Holy Staffs

• Holy Blessing (all Holy Staffs):
  • Removed the Heal Over Time effect
  • Added a Physical Armor increase of 0.85
  • The buff now gives immunity to any displacement effects
  • Duration: 8s → 5s
  • Cooldown: 10s → 15s
• Desperate Prayer (One-handed Holy Staff):
  • Cooldown: 15s → 10s

Maces

• Life Leech (Passive):
  • Steals 15% of damage dealt
• Deep Leap (normal Mace):
  • Close Range Damage: 147
  • Mid Range Damage: 184 → 203
  • Max Range Damage: 258 → 275
• Vendetta (Camlann Mace):
  • Stun Duration: 1s → 0.8s

Nature Staffs

• Added new W-Spell: Rejuvenating Breeze
  • Increases the resistances of an ally by 0.44 for 2s and spreads Rejuvenating stacks to up to 10 allies in a 15m radius. The number of Rejuvenation stacks depends on the amount of stacks active on the targeted ally.
• Protection of Nature (all Nature Staffs):
  • Healing Increase: 50% → 40%

Quarterstaffs

• Added new W-Spell: Rising Blow
  • Hits enemies in a frontal cone, knocking them in the air for 1.25s and dealing 50 physical damage
• Life Leech (Passive):
  • Steals 15% of damage dealt
• Cartwheel (all Quarterstaffs):
  • Armor Increase: 0.2 → 0.1
• Separator (Quarterstaff):
  • Instead of being knocked in the air, enemies are now knocked back 14m (creatures are immune). Also applies a 40% slow for 5s.
  • Radius: 5m → 7m
• Hurricane (Iron-Clad Staff):
  • Channel Duration: 3.5s → 3s

Spears

• Added new W Spell: Impaler
  • After 0.4s a giant spear will pierce through the ground. Deals 170 physical damage and slows enemies by 50% for 3s within the 2.5m radius impact area.
• Life Leech (Passive):
  • Steals 15% of damage dealt
• Rooting Smash (Pike):
  • No longer consumes Spirit Spear charges
  • Cast Range: 4m → 5.5m
  • Standtime: 1.4s → 0.7s
  • Energy cost: 16 → 14

Swords

• Added new W-Spell: Parry
  • For 0.8s you become immune to damage and reflect all incoming damage back at the attacker. At the end of the channel you hit all enemies around you in a 6m radius, dealing 104 physical damage and silencing for 0.8s.
• Heroic Charge:
  • Attack and Move Speed Increase: 10% → 12%

Armors

• Frost Shield (all Cloth Armors):
  • Cooldown: 60s → 40s
• Inferno Shield (all Leather Armors):
  • Cooldown: 60s → 40s
• Life Steal Aura (Hellion Jacket):
  • Now the lower the health of the caster, the more damage the aura deals to enemies. Caster now steals 100% of damage dealt.
    • Min Damage: 20
    • Max Damage: 40
• Fury (Soldier Armor):
  • Cooldown: 30s → 40s

Shoes

• Wanderlust (Soldier Boots):
  • Duration after Max Stack: 9s → 7s
• Spectral Run (Specter Shoes):
  • Now IF the caster moves 20 meters or more, they can't attack other players for 3s after invisibility ends

• Fixed an issue where, after crafting an item, the crafting UI would reset to the top
• Fixed an issue where changing to equipment with a cooldown-reducing buff could be incorrectly used to shorten an existing cooldown
• Fixed an issue where attempting to switch equipment with high ping would lock spells in cases where switching equipment is not allowed
• Fixed missing GvG connection between home territory and farm territory in Elmcopse
• Corrected the cooldown modifier in the Royal Banner tooltip
• Fixed inconsistent display of Focus points between crafting and studying UI
• Fixed an issue with sorting by category and enchantment level in the Marketplace UI
• Fixed an issue where onscreen nametags would sometimes disappear when offscreen nametags were disabled
• Fixed an issue where using mount spells caused durability loss on boots
• Fixed an issue where players with "visitor access" level could add other players to the "no access" list
• Fixed an issue where nametags would appear over UI windows in areas with many players
• Numerous additional visual, animation, audio, terrain, and localization fixes

Percival, the seventh major post-launch update for Albion Online, is here! This update brings Randomized Dungeons balanced for solo players, a new vanity and customization system, mount skins, new creatures, shrines, and spells, numerous quality-of-life improvements, and much more. Watch the trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGXQLDHkKN0
Read on for more of what's coming with Percival:



Whether you're a solo adventurer or a group player waiting for your friends to come online, Solo Randomized Dungeons are the perfect activity. These new dungeons balanced for single players offer challenging adventures that are never the same twice. Take on a wide range of classic and new enemies, unlock chests, discover new small combat shrines, and descend as far as you dare, or use new solo dungeon maps to reveal high-tier dungeons with powerful enemies and valuable loot.



Set yourself apart with a wide range of character customization options, including new hairstyles, beards, and faces. Update your looks at any time from anywhere in the world to give your character its own unique personality. Travel the world in style with new mount skins that offer appearance upgrades for all major mount types. Choose from dozens of free customization options, or unlock wilder styles with Gold to truly stand out from the crowd.



Percival introduces a host of deadly new creatures, from ghostly critters to fiery demons to explosive traps, which come with a wide variety of spells and attacks to keep adventurers on their toes. Send them packing with seven new spells for hammers, spears, staffs, and other weapons that will offer new combat options to a wide range of playstyles and builds.

Other improvements include:

• Expandable Personal Banks
• 20v20 City Practice Battles
• Ingame Language Channels
• Extended Crystal GvGs
• New Level Templates for Randomized Dungeons
• ...and much more

For a detailed list of changes, read the patch notes here.

The Percival update arrives on July 10, bringing a host of new customization features to the world of Albion. As the development process for customization has progressed, our art team has taken the opportunity to make improvements to the basic character models for both male and female characters. These changes are visible both in the classic character creation screen and the new appearance customization UI, as well as in the game itself.



According to Marcus Koch, Art Director for Albion Online, the time was right to update the game's characters. "As new assets for the game had an increased level of detail," he explains, "we wanted to bring the older assets up to date as well." The old character models had approximately 500 polygons, while the new ones have between 1500 and 2000. "We were able to equalize the poly count between "naked" and "clothed" characters without any negative effect on game performance, so this seemed like the perfect time for an upgrade."



Improvements to the so-called "naked" character models aren't just visible when the characters are unclothed (though in a full-loot game, every character will likely end up naked sooner or later). They're also visible any time a character's face, hair, and beard are exposed, which is the case with numerous armor builds. The original character models are some of the oldest artwork in the game, having been untouched for almost seven years, so this update was the perfect opportunity to bring them up to date.

Check out the improved character meshes when Percival goes live on July 10 - and be sure to take the new character customization system out for a spin!