Alpha 5 patch notes

Highlights

• Doomsday Bunker. New endgame content. Collect 3 Intel from Legión Sangre Invasions and discover the location of the Doomsday Bunker. The most difficult content in the game… but the most rewarding.
• Build Mode Overhaul. Move your buildings. Move your whole Ranch. Every building is now editable. Four new premade houses to choose from. A new Furnish menu with tons of new decorations!
• World Updates. Introducing two new Strongholds: Apex Oil Works (Large) and Depot (Small). Also, an overhaul of Modoc and updated rivers throughout the island.
• Changes to Comfort and Ranch Decorations. Furniture has real gameplay effects. You can sit in chairs. Fish, animal heads and weapons can be mounted on your walls.
• Research & Salvage Stations. Learn recipes from items you find, or melt items down into their components.
• Quality Crafting. Uncommon, Rare and Epic items now come from their own recipes, replacing item upgrades.
• New Horse Traits. Medic, Warhorse, Gatherer, Wild/Tamed and more.
• Tougher World. Named enemy leaders with better loot, Stronghold chests that unlock with kills, more challenging enemies and higher-tier wildlife during Ancient Grove events.
• Harvest Fest and Reworked Challenges. A seasonal event, new challenge sets, account-wide rewards and Legacy Collectibles.
• Improved World Movement. Overhauled ladders (again) and added sliding to player movement.

Build Mode

Move Buildings

• You can now choose to move a building on your Ranch using the Build Mode menu.
• Furniture, stations and vendors come with the building.
• Once a building has been moved, it will appear to be under construction until you contribute to its stockpile. The contents of the building are restored once the stockpile is complete.

Move Your Ranch

• You can now move your Ranch. Open the Ranch Management Panel and select “Pack Up.”
• Your finished buildings, furnishings, decorations and crafting equipment will be moved with the Ranch.
• Packing up the Ranch the first time costs 1,000 gold.
• Once you find a new place to settle, select “Found Ranch” again from the Ranch Management Panel.
• To “unpack” each building, you’ll have to contribute to that building’s construction stockpile. The construction materials required to unpack each moved building are significantly less than the initial construction cost.

Furnish Menu & New Decorations

• You can now furnish and decorate your buildings directly from the Build Mode menu.
• Newly unlocked furnishings are tagged NEW.
• Some furnishings have a crafting cost (shown in the menu), and you will incur the cost at the time of placement. You cannot place a furnishing if you do not have the materials on you or in your storage cabinet.
• You can also place items that are in your inventory directly through the Furnish menu.
• The Build Mode user interface is temporary, and we are working on a complete overhaul for a future milestone.
• You can also now find “Legacy Collectibles” in various Strongholds. When you discover one of these, interact with it to add it to your collection. Back on the Ranch, you will be able to place any Legacy Collectible you have unlocked. These Legacy Collectibles are unlocked at the account level, meaning they will exist on any server you join, regardless of persistence resets. (Note: before Early Access launch, we will reset all Legacy unlocks once Alpha and Beta testing conclude.)
• Furniture, decorations and lights that used to be crafted at the woodworking table are now placed through the Furnish menu in Build Mode.
• There is now a cap on the number of items and decorations that can go on your Ranch.

Four New Premade Houses

• Four new premade houses are now available to choose from and place on your Ranch.
• For now, they all cost similar amounts to build and are more of a stylistic choice.
• We encourage you to edit these and redesign them to suit you and your company.

Buildings Are Editable

• All buildings are now built with the same kit pieces players use.
• You can edit the kit pieces of all of the buildings except the Lumber Mill (coming in a future milestone).

Other Build Mode Changes

• When you delete kit pieces from a building, the materials will be refunded.
• Added the ability to remove building materials from stockpiles. The UI for this is temporary and will be redone.
• Added a Withdraw All button to stockpiles.
• Destroying a building refunds all building materials in a stockpile.
• If you delete a building that has placed objects in it (like a bed in a house, or a candle in a mine), a box will now spawn with all your stuff in it once the building is gone.

Tents

• If you do not visit your tent for 48 hours, your tent is packed up for you. You can re-place it the same way you move it.
• After initial placement, you can move your tent using the Ranch Management Panel (bound to the U key by default).

Comfort, Furniture & Decor

Comfort / Wellbeing Update

• Wellbeing has been removed from the game.
• Increasing Comfort will increase your maximum health and your chances to find additional gold and items.
• Comfort comes directly from your Ranch, your tent and any buffs, such as those from meals.
• Your Ranch and tent each benefit from placing items that provide comfort, with only the top items contributing. The number that can contribute increases each tier on your Ranch.
• Each type of item can only provide comfort once at each location.
• When in the Furnish menu of Build Mode, a bar will be displayed along the top of the screen representing your current comfort and Ranch comfort, as well as a comfort change preview when pulling out a comfort-based item.

Furniture

• Added new gameplay to different types of furniture to go with the new comfort updates:
  • A piano bench adds comfort to the piano, and a coffee table adds comfort to nearby couches and armchairs.
  • Dining chairs add meal comfort, and eating at a table makes meals last longer. Banquet tables add the most time.
  • A nightstand makes Well Rested last longer.
  • Cabinets speed up stoves.
• You can now sit on chairs and benches.
• For multi-person seats (benches/couches), multiple people can sit, and you’ll sit at the nearest open spot.
• Chairs and benches are now sittable in Outposts.
• Strongholds occasionally have sittable seats as well. Not all seats are sittable in Strongholds, as we don’t want to interfere with combat gameplay too much.

Trophies & Mounting

• Fish, weapons, tools and animal heads can now be mounted on the wall.
• Click the item you wish to mount and choose the “Place Mounted” option.
• Fish provide significant comfort based on their size and rarity.
• Weapons and tools provide a small amount of comfort when displayed.
• Animals now rarely drop their heads for mounting if skinned with a Tier 2 or higher skinning knife.
• Legendary animals always drop their heads for mounting and provide significant comfort.
• You can craft a bear hat from a brown bear head. Rawwwr!

New Player Experience

• Removed the Medium Backpack from the game.
• Players now start with 30 inventory slots.
• The closest General Store to a new player’s spawn is now revealed (but still undiscovered) on the map.
• If you leave Tier 1 during the tutorial, a “Head Back to Safety” objective now appears.

Horses

New Horse Traits

• Gatherer (Positive): automatically picks plants you ride past while not galloping.
• Medic (Positive): when downed, you can whistle and your horse comes to revive you. If it’s hurt on the way, it runs off.
• Warhorse (Positive): trampling an enemy gives +15% gallop speed and agility for 30 seconds.
• Quick Recovery (Positive): fast travel cooldown is 25% shorter.
• Soft Hooves (Negative): 5% slower gallop unless the horse wears horseshoes.
• Wild (Negative): occasionally refuses to be mounted and runs a short distance away. Becomes Tamed at max bond.
• Tamed (Positive): grants +1 stat point. Only comes from Wild.
• The Smooth Gait and Harsh Gait traits have been removed.

Other Horse Changes

• Saddles crafted with a sheep pelt now reduce fall damage to the rider while mounted.
• We no longer require the horse to be close to you when equipping items via the Horse Panel.
• Loyal and Resilient are no longer rewarded as Bond Level 8 bonus traits.

Combat & Weapons

Weapons & Ammunition

• New Wellington Double Action mods:
  • Light Grip (faster aiming and faster movement while in ADS).
  • Counterweight (less recoil, faster fire).
• Lowered black powder ammo damage from 120 to 110.
• Lowered breech rifle damage multiplier from 0.85 to 0.7.
• Ammunition has been renamed:
  • Pistol Ammunition is now Bullets, Copper Bullets and Steel Bullets.
  • Shotgun Ammunition is now Shells, Copper Shells and Steel Shells.
  • Rifle Ammunition is now Rounds, Copper Rounds and Steel Rounds.
  • Bow Ammunition is now Arrows, Iron Arrows, Copper Arrows and Steel Arrows.
• Weapon durability now goes up with quality.
• Rare and Epic weapons and tools you loot have a chance to be made from special woods.
• Fire Bomb ground fire burns for less time.
• Picking up, looting or crafting a weapon only equips it automatically if you’re unarmed.

Special Woods

• Redwood now provides weapon durability instead of additional comfort.
• Eucalyptus now provides bonus throwing damage on tomahawks and melee damage on melee weapons (axes/pickaxes).
• Cypress now gives “Weapon Handling”: faster rate of fire, reload and aiming, and faster movement while aiming. This replaces its damage bonus.

Death & Damage

• Updated timing on death flow, especially noticeable in PvP.
• New full-screen effects for taking hits, low health and damage over time.
• Spear, axe and pickaxe hits now draw blood.
• Exploding barrels react to physics and take damage from hard hits.

Movement

• Sliding is now in the game. Sprint, then crouch to slide. You also slide down steep slopes.
• Ladder climbing has been improved. You can now press Interact to grab a ladder going down in front of you.

Crafting, Items & Economy

Research & Salvage Stations

• The Research Station has been added to the game. Place items in the station for a chance of learning recipes.
  • The Research Station is sold at Tier 3 and higher General Stores.
• Salvage Stations have been added to some of the Strongholds throughout the map. Travel to these locations and bring unwanted items to break down into their components.
  • Salvaging an item gives back materials from that item’s own recipe. Items with mod slots can also return a compatible weapon mod, mod recipe or component.

Crafting

• Crafting higher-quality items is now done through bespoke recipes, rather than using an item quality upgrade system. Harder to obtain components are now required for these recipes and are found in the most challenging endgame content.
• Every crafting menu (handcraft, stations, autocrafters) can search, pin and show other crafting stations’ recipes.
• Item tooltips have been rebuilt. They now show stats, sell value, installed mods, a comparison with what you have equipped, and a preview of what a recipe makes.

Loot & Vendors

• Increased the Legendary drop chance from events and Medium/Large Stronghold chests.
• PvP Vendor update:
  • No longer sells weapon mods.
  • Weapons on the PvP vendor are now missing some durability/repairability, but can include special woods and weapon mods.
• Converted all gold rewards in Outpost Defense to bucks.
• Player Trading Posts: you can now limit transaction amounts, as well as provide capital that is separate from your profits for sell orders seeking gold.

Hunting, Gathering, Fishing & Food

Plant Spawning Updates

• Updated plants to spawn in more specific areas to simplify where to find each plant, and to give different zones a more distinct identity:
  • Grapes now only appear in Pacific Riviera.
  • Yarrow now only appears in South Coast.
  • Beans now only appear in the Sierras.
  • Potatoes now only appear in Modoc.
  • Onions now appear everywhere, but only in mountains.
  • Corn no longer appears in Mojave.
  • Strawberries are now significantly more common under the redwoods in Klamath than elsewhere.

Lumberjacking

• Tree stumps now give 50% more wood and other loot than before.
• Ancient Grove World Events are now more dangerous. Higher-tier predators now stalk players during these events.

Hunting & Wildlife

• Animals are now “tapped” for skinning. You can only skin an animal you have loot rights for.
• Legendary animals have new spawn vocalizations. These can be heard from very far away, so you know when a Legendary is in your general area.
• Many behavior and damage changes to wildlife across the game.

Fishing

• Basic fishing bait is now learned from a regular recipe that can be purchased from the store for 5g.
• The Crude Fishing Rod recipe price has been lowered to 10g.
• Many fishing challenges have been updated.

World, Strongholds & Enemies

Enemy Leaders

• Wandering enemy posses now include a “named leader” with additional and better loot.

Strongholds

• Two new Strongholds: Apex Oil Works (Large) and Depot (Small).
• There is a new mining section in the Quarry Stronghold.
• Stronghold chests now require a minimum number of kills to unlock.
  • The kill count is per Stronghold, not per player. So if you come upon a Stronghold that’s been mostly cleared, you’ll have access to the chest.
  • A Stronghold interface now shows how many more enemies you need to defeat.
• The number of Hideouts across the island has increased by 20%.

Doomsday Bunker

• The Doomsday Bunker is new endgame content, and the most difficult fight in the game.
• Gather 3 Intel from Sangre Élite Invasions to discover the location of the bunker.
• You have 48 hours to complete the mission when you discover the bunker’s location.
• Once your party goes in, the bunker entrance seals behind you.
• Your party gets 4 respawns inside, shared between your company members. Reviving downed players does not count as a respawn, but the Wounded debuff lasts for the rest of the bunker run.
• Players do not drop a coffin in the bunker.
• The bunker is extremely rewarding. Each player can loot 3 War Chests and your company will receive mail with rewards if you win.
• Doomsday Bunker mission progress is currently restricted to you and your company. Someday we would like to add a more “temporary grouping” system to allow you to group with non-company members to do this content. For Alpha 5, you’ll need to test within your company only.

Tougher Enemies

• The Doomsday Bunker features Gatling guns that Sangre Élite soldiers can man. (Note: we will make these usable by players as well for the next major testing milestone.)
• Sangre Élites are tougher. They take less damage and can’t be staggered again right after a stagger.

World Events

• World Events now give you 15 minutes of warning instead of 10.
• The Outlaw Crate event now ends once the crate has been looted, instead of always waiting 4 hours.

The World

• Modoc has been overhauled. Explore Pit River Canyon, the Warner Mountains and the Lava Beds, and find the new Modoc Falls on the east coast. The Modoc Woodlands also have green meadows again.
• Rivers have been updated throughout the island, including the new Lake Cachuma and the Santa Ynez, Santa Ana and San Diego Rivers.
• Mt. Whitney has new terrain detail.
• Sunrises and sunsets now vary in color.
• Grass now grows back around ranches and other built-up areas instead of leaving the ground bare.

Challenges & Progression

Harvest Fest

• Harvest Fest is a TEST seasonal event. Complete the Harvest Fest challenges to earn the Blow Kiss, Brandish and Amigo emotes as Legacy Rewards. (Note: this isn’t a “real” event, but rather a test of the interface and the internal systems we use to run an event.)

Challenge System

• The Player Challenge interface has been reorganized and now features sections for Summary, Harvest Fest, Explore, Weapons, Enemies, Hunt, Gather, Strongholds, Horse, Cooking, Fishing and PvP.
• The new Summary tab lets you quickly find a challenge across all Company and Player challenge sets.
• Progressive challenges now show as a single row, and you can pick which stage to view.
• Most Player Challenges have been reworked and/or rebalanced.
• Many Legacy Rewards have been moved to different challenges.
• Note: Legacy Rewards are meant to persist as account unlocks across servers and through server resets. However, because we are in a testing phase, we plan to reset Legacy Rewards sometime after Alpha or Beta for Early Access launch.

UI, Social & Settings

Ping

• Pings have been overhauled:
  • Pings now last longer, either 10 or 20 seconds depending on the ping type.
  • Pinged enemies are outlined, except PvP players outside your company.
  • Player ping outlines now only show for players in your party.
  • Pings are easier and more consistent to select quickly.
  • Releasing the ping wheel back at the center now does a context ping instead of repeating the last ping.
  • Removed the “Help” ping.
  • Pings can now be bound to hotkeys (unbound by default).

Chat

• Chat can now be turned off in Settings (on by default).
• Whispers now show as “To: {name}” and “{name} whispers:”.
• Chat now has a light background so it’s always readable.
• A Kintsugiyama Admin icon now appears next to names of admins.
• New emote icon picker.

Interact Cleanup

• You no longer see “Pickup” and “Customize” on objects that aren’t yours, or loot prompts on corpses you can’t loot.
• Ammo no longer shows an Equip button that does nothing.

Menus & Screens

• New Settings screen, with tabs for Display, Gameplay, Controls, Keybinds, Audio, Graphics, Interface and Accessibility.
• New Server Browser. Sort, filter, search and favorite servers, and double-click a server to join it.
• Character Creation now shows preview thumbnails, and beards and mustaches have their own panels.
• Customization now shows a live preview of the item you’re customizing.
• The Social panel has been redesigned.
• The HUD features new health, horse health and food bars.
• Party members always show their distance on the compass.
• When a game update is required, the main menu shows “New Version” instead of letting you join.
• You can now report player signs, horses and Trading Posts. Names and signs are filtered for inappropriate text.

Performance & Graphics

• Added Intel XeSS upscaling and XeSS Frame Generation.
• Added Lumen Lite for improved performance on medium settings and improved fidelity on low settings.
• Additional performance improvements from graphics tuning and art polish.
• Reduced network traffic: about 80% fewer packets and 20% less data sent per player.
• Servers no longer accept logins until they have finished loading.
• Various server performance improvements and memory optimizations.