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February 27th, 2024

From Drifter's Wiki

Link to Patch Notes
Back to Game Updates


This month's patch includes the tech required for our free trial, a new solo loop, and item categorization! Additional quality of life improvements include a lock toggle on self/offensive/defensive nameplates (via context menu), a lock button on chat windows, and numerous improvements to NPC positioning. If you have friends who are on the fence about trying our game March 1st is the perfect time for them to try it out with no monetary commitment. Thank you all for your continued support!

  • Tech
    • Fixed an issue preventing some lights and particle systems from turning off during the day.
    • Continued improvements and toggles to help with the server memory leak cleanup.
  • NPC Tech
    • Bats, Gaunts, Ravens, Drolscs, Redmanes, Terrodiles, Nocturnes, Stonecoats, Blights, Mandrakes, Mires, and Rats can now enter the water. Some have swim animations while other do not (more improvements to come). This should reduce the likelihood of a player encountering "Undone's Wrath" near water.
    • Made substantial improvements to NPC movement while in combat. Their position and move back positions should be far more accurate, which in turn should reduce the ice skating effect along with further reducing any remaining cha-cha-cha.
    • Adjusted the pivot point for large creatures such as the Bear, Raven, Drolsc, and Ridgeback so that their visuals look more natural while roating.
    • Tweaked turn animations for a number of creatures to look more natural while roating.
    • Added "alternate target points" for large bears to make them easier to fight from behind or the sides.
    • Refactored how we scale NPC sizes to be more reliable and consistent.
    • Improved how we assign nameplate positions for scaled NPCs.
    • Offensive target reticles now resize based on your target size.
  • Environment / Art
    • Knuckles now use dagger attack animations instead of sword.
    • Adjusted a number of prop LODs.
    • Fixed some prop issues in Dryfoot, Grizzled Peaks, and Newhaven City.
    • Fixed a number of stuck spots in Dryfoot, Grimstone Canyon, Ember Veins, Forgotten Depths, Grizzled Peaks, Redshore Ridge, and Newhaven Valley.
    • Fixed a nav issue in Undercroft causing some resources to spawn out of reach.
    • Fixed Gaunt howl animation event not firing off.
    • Added a new death animation to the large bear.
    • Removed moss from Dryfoot rocks.
    • Closed off some underutilized areas of Dryfoot to allow us to increase creature density in other areas and move the zone towards feeling less empty. Most of the spawns **from these regions have been relocated to another part of the zone.
    • Adjusted Smoldering Ash animation to better match execution time.
    • Adjusted crafted gold armor color.
    • Updated visuals for imbued crossbows.
    • Updated visuals for various rare crossbows.
  • UI:
    • Added 4 pixel padding between slots in bags/banks/etc.
    • Subscriber slots are now indicated by a purple background highlight rather than changing the frame color.
    • Bulletin Boards now have their name shown on their map tooltip.
    • Added a context menu option to lock or unlock self, offensive, and defensive nameplates.
    • Added a lock button to chat windows.
    • Added new window resize cursors that more clearly indicate a window is locked and cannot be resized.
    • Moved the time icon from chat windows to the upper right corner.
    • Next sunrise/sunset times now also display the time remaining before these events.
    • Loot roll active highlight (blue background that indicates "current" roll) is now a gradient covering the need/greed/pass buttons.
    • Augment confirmation window now uses the item confirmation dialog (similar to destroy).
    • Added a search filter to merchant windows.
    • Fixed a bug preventing the bulletin board tutorial from showing up in the tutorial log.
    • Fixed a bug preventing the required specialization from showing on a reagent tooltip when you had no specialization.
    • Added more exception protections in the crafting UI
    • Added a red overlay to abilities when they cannot be used because you are out of range and/or not facing the target.
    • Improved primary/secondary weapon slot display on the inventory UI. The background panels now turn red when an incompatible weapon configuration is equipped.
    • Border of applied effects are now colored blue/red to more clearly indicate buffs/debuffs.
    • Warlord ability Open Wound proc effect icon now matches the skill icon.
    • Added a new /help global channel which is intended for those in need of help (new players, trial players, or anyone else).
    • Reduced /world, /trade, and /help slow mode to 10 seconds.
    • Disabled slow mode from the /subscriber channel.
  • Design:
    • Reduced the adventuring experience required for levels 1-5.
    • Increased wilds spawn density in Dryfoot.
    • Moved Ember Veins Basilisk Run entrance in Dryfoot.
    • Moved some Ember Drift and Ruptures as to not spawn so close to one another in Meadowlands.
    • Moved Ember Veins Shrieking Barrows entrances to lower level areas so they are more accessible to players of that level in Grimstone Canyon.
    • Corrected required level on Necklace of the High Ranger to match other rewards from the same quest.
    • Corrected name on Hobfly mask.
    • Corrected name on Dissolved Tin Helm (was previously a rare drop Polished Tin Helm).
    • Added basic cloth hood recipes to Newhaven Vendors.
    • Increased Vale Armor drop rate.
    • Increased Exile Looter rare drop rates.
    • Increased Daggers/Knuckles range to 3m.
    • Reduced power of Ashen Rat self-heal.
    • Reduced level of Nocturnes outside of Forgotten Depths.
    • Updated Frog/Toad Toxic Shot ability to scale with mob level.
    • Sentinel's Alchemy II Resuscitate updated to heal wounds before health.
  • Tasks
    • Reduced kill counts for Dryfoot & Redshore "Wilds" tasks.
    • Reduced kill counts for Ashen tasks.
    • Reduced kill counts for Grizzled Peaks "Bird" tasks.
    • Reduced kill counts for Meadowlands southern river Ridgeback tasks.
    • Reduced kill count and added location information to Grimstone Canyon Raccoon task.
    • Additional location information added to various tasks.
    • Rigid Mires added to Redshore Ember Drift spawns and Flooded Ruins.
    • Grizzled Peaks Raven kill objective changed to generic "Bird" to include Thrush.
    • Increased odds of Exile Looters and Scavengers to spawn in Redshore.
    • Increased presence of Exile Hunters, Woodsmen, and Patrols in Redshore.
    • Increased presence of Hungry Wolves in Redshore.
    • Increased presence of Snatchscale Stalkers in Redshore.
    • Removed Kill Wolves task from Northreach due to the difficulty of completing during the day.
    • Redshore task for killing Emberflies now include any Emberfly type.
    • Tasks for killing Ember Drift creatures should now mention Ember Drifts or Ember Veins.
    • Insects and arachnids now count as animals.
    • Removed Redshore task that had identical objectives.
    • Meadowlands' Southern Quillback tasks have been split into two different tasks:
      • Southern Quillbacks found in the wilds south of the river.
      • Quillbacks found in the forest plateau region.
    • Ants spawned from ant hills now have the title "Swarming" to help identify them as not being valid task targets.
    • Highland Hills has been split into two separate Bulletin Boards. One for the north (lvl 40+) and one for the south (lvl 20-25). If you had a level 40+ task previously it MUST now be handed in at the North Bulletin Board. If you had a level 20-25 task it MUST now be turned in at the Southern Bulletin Boards. This should address issues with players level 37-39 getting tasks much lower than them.
    • Added new "Commission" tasks to Newhaven Valley, Northreach, and Meadowlands. These are non-kill objective tasks that will have you exploring or traveling to specific destinations. Similar tasks will continue to be added in the coming months.

New Stuff New Ember Vein Solo Loop

A new solo loop has been added to the Meadowlands' Noxious Bog Ember Vein. Frog legs anyone?

Itemization Alignment and Categorization:

One of our major goals this year is to organize and categorize our items in order to better communicate to players how they relate to one-another, have clearer indicators as to when a valuable drop shows up in the loot window and to help prevent accidentally selling rare items.

To fully support this categorization all rare drops and quest rewards in the game have undergone an alignment. Any items substantially outside of this new categorization have been designated as "Legacy" and will continue to have their existing stats. The number of alignment changes are too many to mention in details and the vast majority are extremely minor with no consistent direction and should have the same impact as they did previously.

Items have been categorized into the following categories: Basic -> Advanced -> Superior / Imbued -> Relic -> Mythic -> Legendary. Items that may fall anywhere within the above item power progression are labeled as Legacy; the unique qualities of these items frequently, but not always, indicates greater power. It is important to emphasize that these categories do not necessarily correlate to the rarity of an item, merely their relative power.

Holding ALT while a tooltip is active for one of these items will show a reminder of the item category power progression near the bottom of the tooltip.

New Behavioral Status VFX We have unified the look for behavior status effects to better communicate when one is applied.

  • Confusion is pink question marks
  • Enrage is red exclamation marks
  • Daze is white asterisk-like marks
  • Stun is yellow Zs
  • Lull is purple Zs

Free Trial Tech Starting March 1st we plan to open our free trial. Unlike previous free weekends this trial will be unlimited in time but come with some gameplay adjustments such as:

  • Can only access Newhaven Valley, Central Veins 1, and Newhaven City.
  • Can speak in the global /help channel.
  • Cannot speak in /world or /trade
  • Cannot trade with anyone.
  • Cannot send friend requests. They can however, receive friend requests.
  • Cannot participate in guild functionality. This means they cannot start or join a guild.
  • Cannot access the shared bank in Newhaven City
  • Titles will be colored tan.
  • Limited to 1 character at a time (the same as a non-subscriber)