Greetings! Earlier this week, I posted a rundown of the big Update that’s hitting on February 7. Now that the contents of the patch are locked in, I’m back with a follow-up on a few items that missed the cutoff and will be included in Version 1.1 a few weeks after the initial patch.
What’s in the Update??
If you’re curious to see how the game will look after the Update, point your game client to the LiveTest server from the login screen. You can access the Community Testing Event galaxy from Sol, where all player-obtainable gear is accessible for your testing enjoyment. We are also working on updating stat tables on the wiki so that theorycrafters have easy access to this information. I’ll post on Discord when the wiki update is complete.
Jey worked extra hard and got several late changes into Version 1.0. These include the changes to shields that make balanced shields more useful and the work on shield transference weapons that introduced greater variability in healing output and weapon range and tracking. The quality changes to the loot of Bana King and Black Nightfury are also included in Version 1.0.
What’s Waiting Till Version 1.1?
Due to Jey’s hard work, all major components of the project are included in the first patch. However, we do have an assortment of side projects and one-off changes that will have to wait till Version 1.1. I want to make sure you feel able to get out there and explore the Update from the start, so I’m going to grant another universal augmenter reset upon release of Version 1.1. Just as the first one, this reset will be activated using the command /freeAugreset, and will be available on every ship that pre-exists the release of Version 1.1. Make sure you use up the one you’re granted on February 7, as any ships that still have their reset from the first round will not accumulate a second one with Version 1.1.
Here’s a rundown of biggest components of Version 1.1:
- Market Check command support added for wildcard and spelling errors, yields interactive list of matches.
- Ultimate Art class augmenters will remain Exotic but their stat distributions will be adjusted to better reflect their pre-Update stats.
- Perilous Augmenter’s quality tier will be increased to Exotic.
- All solar panels will be converted to hybrid functionality.
- Transference weapons with low tracking (20 degrees) will be adjusted for greater usability.
- Adjustments/script improvements to Twisted, Bana King, and Black Nightfury (see next section!)
In addition to these scheduled items, Version 1.1 will also contain any adjustments and fixes that result from player feedback on Version 1.0. It’s my highest priority to address any issues with Version 1.0 without delay, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep Version 1.1 on the fast track.
Endgame Boss Improvements
Thanks to some great testing work from players, we learned that certain bosses got a bit too easy at some point along the way. The ones that concerned us most are Bana King, and Black Nightfury, and the three top bosses of Twisted, as these bosses are the sources of some of the highest quality loot in the game. When we first got the reports, we could have simply cranked up the stats of the bosses and called it a day, but this wouldn’t really have addressed the root problem. These bosses just aren’t designed in a way that goes well with the Healing/Support Update: they all involve high pressure damage and are pretty oriented toward tank-and-spank. Going forward, we want bosses to rely less on pressure damage and more on burst effects with clear tells. We also want to pack more tactical moments into boss encounters and cut down on the average time to kill. For this reason, we’ve decided to substantially rework these five boss encounters, for release with Version 1.1. In fact, three out of five reworks are already complete as of today, but unfortunately it’s not possible to incorporate that work into the February 7 patch at this late stage.
As with the Healing/Support Update as a whole, it’s our responsibility to justify any disruptions we make to existing content (especially when the content has been around for years). I believe that these five bosses are going to be much more enjoyable to fight without being inappropriately challenging. As a side benefit, Bana King and Black Nightfury will also have increased drop rates of their highly coveted loot, enabled by some improvements I made to the dev tool for drop rates.
Since these five bosses are not currently in an acceptable state and are slated for revision in the very near future, I have decided to lock their zones upon Version 1.0 release until Version 1.1. I understand that this means missing several valuable lockouts, and have the following special event prepared to compensate. Starting with the Update launch and until the release of Version 1.1, we will have double augmenter drop rates, double item modification rates, and a major prospecting event. I picked these bonuses because they will make the rest of PvE content substantially more rewarding while you wait for us to unlock the five bosses in question.
