Hotfix Patch 1.5.4.b Notes

Bug fixes:

  • Itemized blueprints (aka “single-use recipes”) have been changed to only produce mods, which should prevent them from appearing bugged. The issue occurred because we’ve changed the crafting results of station crafters to be always usable by the player in the previous patch.
  • The cube recipe which produced a two-handed gun for your class out of three two-handed guns failed on Templars, because they don’t have such an item. The recipe will produce a one-handed gun in this case for Templars from now on.
  • The recipe which produced a focus item out of three foci occasionally resulted in a focus item type that doesn’t have a Legendary, Double-Edged, or Mythic quality level, turning the resulting item normal quality. To prevent this, we’ve excluded these item types from the result.
    • To be specific, these focus item types are Coreslicers, Coreslashers, and Riving Radiants. 
      • The reason for this grade discrepancy is that Coreslicers and Coreslashers were the non-Abyss counterparts to Ripshards, and Riving Radiants were the non-Abyss counterparts to Bloodshards. Flagship had these “lower” types restricted to Rare and lower grades, while the “higher” variants were restricted to Legendary and above.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Korosukuma’s Claw to spawn a lot less than its intended drop rate.

Quest related changes:

  • Repeatable Wanted quest chains around London must now be completed in order within the repeat interval (= one hour). 
    • To clarify; the first repeatable quests in quest chains start a 1-hour (in-game) timer on initiation. Any following quests on the same chain require that you have completed their prerequisites and must be initiated within this hour, otherwise the chain resets. Once you’ve successfully started the final (3rd) quest within the timeframe, the chain “reset” will not impede your ability to complete this quest.
  • 5 Analyzers were added to the rewards of 1st-step repeatable quests in quest chains.
  • 2 adrenaline pills were added to the rewards of 2nd-step repeatable quests in quest chains.
    • These new rewards are in addition to the existing Nanoshard rewards.
  • The item level of legendary mods rewarded in every 3rd-step repeatable quest in quest chains got increased to 55, making them suitable for the item level 58 legendary weapons rewarded for completing the Parliament Square daily quest. 

Patch 1.5.3b Notes

General changes:

  • Added a load balancer which should reduce network lag.
  • The Necromantic Talisman got a description that states its functionality.
  • Fixed the quirk that the backpack would start to collect 1×1 items even before it was actually in your possession, while still in the quest reward slot.

 

Item changes:

  • Drop chance for Vipers, Id Pulsars, and Puppet Masters got reduced.
  • Drop chance for recently added world drop Uniques got reduced.
  • Drop chance of Dreadmasks, NavShells, and Spiked Guards got reduced.
  • Empyreal Cannon and Contagion Delivery Device are now tradeable.
  • The Rate of Fire of Templar nova guns was increased to 60/min from 30/min.
    • This change excludes the Unique Novastorm and all Starburst nova guns.
  • Thermo Cannons’ interaction with Ravager Rounds got fixed, and each missile will only damage the same target once from now on.
  • Reduced the chance for extra pellets on Jackhammers to 25% each from 66% and 33%.
  • Reduced the attack speed of Shock Rail Pistols to 80/min from 120/min.
  • Increased the splash radius on Core Magnums to 1m from 0.5m including their unique variations.
  • Increased the splash radius of Vigilantes to 1.5m from 0.5m including their unique variation.

 

Cube and crafting changes:

  • Armor and guns that crafter NPCs and blueprints produce will always be for your class. 
    • Focus items, swords, and shields may still be produced, regardless of your class.
  • The essence requirement for the Cube’s Mythic recipe got reduced to 25 Spectral and   Demon essences from 100 Spectral and Demon essences.
  • The Enhanced boss ring recipes were renamed to “Upgraded” for clarity.
  • You can now reforge 3 identical legendary boss rings into a new one in the Cube, without the chance of it becoming unique.
  • A new Mythic mod reforging recipe has been added to the Cube. The results will still be random.
  • New crafting recipes were added to the Cube, which won’t show up in your recipe list. Specifically: 
    • 3 identical types of armor/weapon with a quality of Double-Edged, Legendary or Mythic can be combined into a new random one for that slot type, e.g. 3 legendary helms will create a new legendary helm, 3 one-handed weapons will create a new one-handed weapon, etc. The resulting item will always be for your class regardless of the ingredient items’ class requirement. These recipes can occasionally roll a bunch of nanoshards for you as a result, instead of producing an item.
      • In the case of focus items, swords, and shields, the resulting item will be the same as the ingredients regardless of your class.

 

Shields got reworked:

  • Each type of shield got reworked in a specific role in mind. Lower base damage ones got splash damage, while higher base damage ones remained direct; some of them spawn with high critical chance others with high critical damage; some come with an uncommon amount of slots.
    • The base damage type, inherent sfx attack strength type and value, and the inherent sfx defense type and value of each shield type got modified to provide a unique character and purpose for each shield type.
  • All shields excluding your initial one can now spawn with mod slots.
    • The overall inherent sfx attack strengths on shields got lowered to counterbalance the existence of slots, and to promote maxing shield skills, which grant you increased sfx attacks strengths.
  • The base damage of all shields was increased by 100%.

 

Skill changes:

  • The Summoner’s Spellstorm and Spectral Strike skills incorrectly stated their passive behavior, therefore this tag got removed from the skill description. They now correctly state these buffs only strengthen your Demon during the skill effect.
  • Reduced the size multiplier for Carnagor under the effect of Meat Shield.
  • Reduced the character size multiplier of Great Defender.

 

Evoker skill changes:

  • Firestorm’s damage per level was increased to 10% from 5%, and its ignite attack strength was increased by 100%. Damage was converted to splash from direct.
  • Damage of Spectral Lash was increased by 67%.
  • Damage of Arc Legion was increased by 67%. Changed the bonus per level from shock attack strength and damage to 3% Armor Penetration per level. The default shock attack strength got adjusted to make up for the old bonus. Power cost increased by 25%.
  • Damage of Drain Power was increased by 166%.
  • Damage of Drain Life was increased by 275%. 
    • This change also affects the Summoner version of this skill.
  • Damage of the initial explosion of Hellfire was increased by 100%. Field damage was increased by 33%.
  • Phase attack strength calculation of Spectral Lash got reworked to better match with the shock attack strength of Arc Legion.
  • Phase attack strength of Spectral Nova was increased by 100%.
  • Ignite attack strength of Flameshards was increased by 100%.
  • Ignite attack strength of Hellfire was increased by 150%.
  • Poison attack strengths of Venomous Spirit and Venom Armor were increased by 500%. 
    • This change also affects the Summoner versions of these skills.
  • Wall of Bone can be targeted by monsters from now on, and attackers suffer thorns damage which scales with player level.

 

Guardian skill changes:

  • All shield attacks gained Shield Master’s 70% increased damage bonus by default.
  • Shield Master no longer has a skill pre-requirement, and it no longer grants increased damage of shield skills. Instead, it provides increased critical chance and critical damage to all offensive shield skills.
  • Shield Throw no longer grants critical chance per level, but increased range instead. Base shield throw range reduced to 15m from 20m. Changed the maximum retarget count to 8 from 2.
  • Decreased the shield bonus granted by Shield Wall. The skill now also grants an increasing shield recharge delay reduction per skill level.

 

Marksman skill changes:

  • Overshield now also increases your shield regeneration and decreases shield regeneration delay while active.
  • Multishot’s skill description now correctly states the 45% base damage multiplier on grenades and strikes while the skill is active.
  • EMP Blast is now a lv10 skill, and its cooldown was reduced to 30 seconds.
  • White-Out Grenade is now a lv30 skill.
    • The skill tokens Nesmith’s Blast Cell and ElectroMag, which unlock White-Out Grenade and EMP Blast respectively, had their sources swapped to account for the respective skill level changes.

 

Engineer skill changes:

  • Medpak Retrofit’s description now correctly states that its bonus also applies to shields.
  • Molotov Assault’s description changed to make it more in-line with other skill descriptions.

 

Blademaster changes:

  • Templar Restoration now also restores shields for the same % amount it does for health. The skill’s description changed accordingly.
  • The Thorns skill got reworked and it’s now called Holy Instinct, instead of physical thorns it grants you Melee Evasion. 
  • Grammatical changes were made on Crusader Wrath’s skill description.

 

Monster changes:

  • All Champions’ SFX fields on death have had their SFX attack strength lowered by 50%, and the state duration of the physical one by 50%.
  • Gatekeeper should only take 2% damage per ignite tick instead of the default 5%.
  • All Juggernauts got the Unyielding affix which increases their armor rating.
  • All Morphoids got the Overloaded affix which increases their shield overload value, and their ignite attack strength also increased.
  • The Mindripper got new affixes, and can drop its first-time loot any time you kill it.
  • The following early-game Named mobs got new affixes to make them more challenging or unique:

 

Fat Bully

Typhoid Mary

Sleestak 

Big Ben

Fangsnort

Mini Dynamo

Zeder

The Harrow Witch

The Sandman

The Phantom

 

 

 

  • Fat Bully can now drop some low-level Named Rare items which were meant to be quest rewards by FSS, but remained unreleased. These are the following:

 

Hand of Manos

Gambeson’s Hellcat

Griswaldo’s Lament

Gulliver’s Slicer

Infernal Halo

The Bleeder

The Burnshredder

Zeus’s Fist

 

 

 

 

 

Level changes:

  • Savage Fiends in Physical Rifts were replaced by Razor Carnagors.

 

Quest related changes:

  • The item level of daily quest rewards in Parliament Square was increased.  You can now get Abyss-specific weapons and armor as a reward, and they can spawn with a higher tier of properties.
  • Repeatable and Daily quests state this in their name from now on.
  • Quest Firesnaps got replaced by Chimeradons.

 

New items:

  • A new tier of Thermal Bolters, called XM44 Palladium Bolters, got introduced, and can drop from lvl33. They can fire 2 additional missiles at 33% rate for each at a cost of lower base ignite strength and higher accuracy feed than their lower-tier variants.
  • A new tier of Thermo Cannons, called XM271 Thermo Cannon, got introduced, and can drop from lvl32. Their base damage is fully physical splash unlike the lower tier ones, and they come with an increased accuracy feed cost compared to them.
  • A Unique variation of XM271 Thermo Cannon, named Withering Tube, got introduced, and can be acquired as a world drop.
  • One-handed variations of the XM666 Bladesaw and Bladefrenzy got introduced called XM333 Bladesaw and XM333 Bladefrenzy (nightmare version). Instead of armor, they have shield and evasion as their inherent property.
  • New Legendary items can be acquired through a rare encounter in Savile Row or St. James Park. These are:

 

Blackheart (XM333 Bladesaw)

Rebellion (XM333 Bladesaw)

Korosukuma’s Claw (Darkclaw)

Daybreak (Firebrand)

Mr. Steven’s lazer sword (Lightning Sword)

Necrobro (Viper)

 

 

Achievement changes:

  • Added a new achievement related to Fat Bully which grants you a new title and a passive skill.

Beta Roadmap

We are pleased to present the roadmap to the imminent Beta. This roadmap draws from insights you provided in the survey, the results of which you can see here.

Critical bugs

Bugs that have been reported as hindrances on the way to a stable Beta include the following:

  1. Disappearing mods from weapons stored in the shared stash.
  2. Items disappearing from the Consignment House and mail system.
  3. Mod feeds increasing once inserted into weapons.
  4. Drone issues; the need to re-equip gear, skills/bonuses that do not apply, etc.

Other bugs do persist, as well as balance/design concerns. While those will also be addressed in due time, the listed bugs will have to be addressed before the transition to Beta.

Possible additions

Bugs will remain our first priority, but additions that may need to be tested before a full transition to Beta may occur. At the moment those mostly include QoL features, but may come to include features/assets of other types as well.

Beta wipe

A wipe will occur when the aforementioned critical bugs are addressed and Alpha is completed. At the moment this is the only wipe that is planned to occur, and further wipes will be avoided unless they are absolutely unavoidable or necessary to progress.

Donations

Once Beta has started, we will begin accepting donations for server costs. The exact means by which you will be able to donate, if you so wish, will be announced in due time.

Note: In the survey and elsewhere, many of you asked if there would be a cosmetic cash shop or similar platforms, or even suggested that there could be one. As appreciated as this was, let us once again assure you that there will never be any such transactions; London 2038 will never charge you for anything, and will never have potential donations resemble transactions in any way.

Future development direction

The survey let us know that the most popular preference (36%) in regards to future content is “encounters, boss fights, and maps”. Other options were also very popular, but this one is also arguably the most technically challenging one.

So while we will strive to provide changes, tweaks, and additions of all kinds, this will become our first priority from Beta onwards; we will direct our development efforts towards creating additional content, primarily in the form of maps and bosses.

We hope this roadmap pleases you as much as it pleases us, and that the eventual results of this journey live up to your invaluable, continued patience and support.

 

Beta Survey Results

The team at London 2038 appreciates the responses given to the recent survey.

See below for a simplified synopsis of the results; we believe that publicizing them should provide valuable community insight, as well as highlight how the project will progress based on your feedback.

Current/ongoing issues that may prevent moving to Beta.

  • 83% say there are no significant bugs that would prevent the transition
  • 17% say there are.

The most common bugs in response to this question were:

  1. Disappearing mods from weapons stored in the shared stash. 
  2. Items disappearing from the Consignment House and mail system. 
  3. Mod feeds increasing once inserted into weapons. 
  4. Drone issues; the need to re-equip gear, skills/bonuses that do not apply, etc. 
  5. Summoner skills’ cooldowns and power costs misbehaving.

Wipe preference

  • 55% say they would prefer a wipe before Beta
  • 21% say they would prefer one during or after Beta
  • 24% say they would rather not see a wipe at all.

The first 2 groups argue the following in favor of wipes:

  • They refresh the game and increase player retention.
  • They provide an equal playing field, where changes affect everyone equally.
  • They assist with tracking new/early-game bugs, as players play through the game again.
  • They are inconsequential as the game is not competitive.

The group that is against wipes argues the following:

  • Loss of progress can be demotivating.
  • Unless major changes demand it there should not be a need for one.

Priority of future content types

Player preference in this section was quite varied, but a majority also elaborated on their answer.

Note #1: The “encounters/boss fights” and “maps” answers are merged here, both for the sake of convenience and because the two seem to overlap for most players.
Note #2: The “other” category has varied somewhat, but most answers fall in line with existing answers; those have also been merged or simplified.

  • 36% say they would like to see encounters, boss fights, and maps.
  • 18% say they would like to see rebalanced classes, class additions, or new classes.
  • 18% say they would like UI/QoL features.
  • 15% say they would like to see new systems, such as the Messenger or crafting systems.
  • 7% say they would like to see new or Set items.
  • 6% responded “other”, mainly with variations on the available answers.

Potential future donations

  • 84% say they would donate
  • 16% say they would not.
  • The first group says they would donate amounts that are reasonable, in line with donations to other current games, and sufficient to cover server costs.
  • Many also suggested recurring donations through such platforms as Patreon.

Note: Many of the first group asked if there would be a cosmetic cash shop or similar platforms, or even suggested that there could be one. As appreciated as this was, let us once again assure you that there will never be any such transactions; London 2038 will never charge you for anything, and will never have potential donations resemble transactions in any way.