Greetings, Taernians!
In this update, we are introducing the previously announced roguelite mode — Trials of the Lodge. Take up the challenge, make risky decisions, face more and more powerful opponents, and earn rewards!
In the Trials, you will gain not only experience and psychoexperience. Each victory gives you a chance for a synergetic, drif, rare gear, set gear, or even an epic. By choosing the right path, you will also be able to obtain utility item packages and boss tokens. But that’s not all!
You can also gain a new currency known as aithars. You will be able to use them to change the difficulty of a run by buying various modifications but also enhance your characters. Aithars will give you the option to obtain additional attribute points that work only during the Trials, but they can also be used for a completely new feature — infusions. It will enhance a chosen parameter to make fights against stronger opponents easier across the rest of the game.
If you have not seen the previous information about the Trials of the Lodge, we encourage you to read our articles here and here. In the meantime, take a look at the changelog below.
Introduced as an element of the Trials of the Lodge:
- Portals leading to the Trials of the Lodge — they can be found in Alaril, Khold Mountains, University District, Hvar’s Wastelands, Dmorther Garrison, and Beirn. Each of them will take you to their dedicated difficulty level.
- The five difficulty levels are dedicated to level ranges as follows: 35-54, 55-74, 75-109, 110-139, and 140. Completing a difficulty level requires defeating 13 enemy groups, except for the last difficulty where 16 groups must be beaten. There is a limit of three player deaths per party per Trial — the fourth death will result in the player getting teleported out of the instance.
- Aithars — a new currency obtainable during the Trials of the Lodge. Depending on the difficulty level, each completed arena except for the last one will give you: 3, 5, 8, 12, 20. Completing the last arena has a guaranteed higher reward: 15, 25, 40, 60, 100.
- Two types of Trials:
- individual (for one player)
- party — for at least three players with the following limitations on party composition: min. 1 damage dealer (Fire Mage or Barbarian), min. 1 debuffer (Archer, Sheed, or Voodoo), and min. 1 support (Druid or Knight).
You can attempt each of the types up to four times a week. In both cases, three first entries can be paid for with gold (depending on the difficulty level: 50k, 150k, 500k, 1.5M, 5M), but the fourth requires an extra payment in aithars (respectively: 10, 25, 50, 75, 150). The entry limit is reset every Monday at 4 AM server time.
- At the beginning, each player will be assigned to the difficulty level one lower than their current level range. After completing it, they will permanently ascend to the one dedicated to their level. Ascensions are separate for each type (completing an individual Trial will not ascend you in a party Trial) and reset the entry limit.
- Pets — each player will be able to choose one pet before each Trial in the entry window. The other pets will be unavailable for all the fights.
- Trial instance structure — between the first and the final arenas, various arenas are generated at random. Their number is greater than the number of fights required to complete the Trial. Every time, the layout is different and players can decide which path to follow. The composition of mobs groups is randomized from among most of the opponents in Broken Ranks. The types of arenas that players can visit on their path are as follows:
- Arena of Strife — a normal arena, nothing extra.
- Arena of Malice — an arena where a player (or players) receive the debuff from the arena’s description. In a party Trial, the leader has to assign the effect to their party members. In addition to that, this type of arena may contain a special, more difficult enemy party. Defeating it lets each participant choose one of the packages:
- experience and psychoexperience
- boss tokens
- upgrade flasks, dviggs, and reols
- essences and shards
- Arena of Power — an arena where a player (or players) are affected by the buff from the arena’s description. In a party Trial, the leader has to assign the effect to their party members.
- Arena of Rebirth — once the arena is completed, the death limit resets.
- Arena of Bargain — an arena which features a special Shop. After completing it, you will be able to purchase various modifications of the path or obtained effects.
- Progress attributes — can be gained by participating in the Trials of the Lodge, and then purchased and invested into attributes or resistances in the Lodge enhancements window accessible when speaking with one of the NPCs standing by the portal. The distribution fee is one-time only — after resetting, you will be able to distribute them without any additional cost. These attributes are active only during the Trials of the Lodge. Investing into one progress attribute usually gives more than one attribute point. It depends on how much you invest into a single progress attribute (investing into multiple progress attributes gives more attribute points in total). More details will be available in the tab where you invest them.
Progress attributes can be gained by completing Trials or, if the Trial is failed, for completing a certain number of arenas. The number of arenas you have to complete to obtain points is shown in the table below:
The cost of purchasing subsequent progress attributes is as follows:
- Modifications purchasable for aithars before entering the Trials of the Lodge: increased level of buffs, decreased level of debuffs, collecting two reward packages instead of one. Only one modification can be purchased before each Trial.
- The Might of the mobs (visible also outside of the Trials of the Lodge in the party overview window) denotes the approximate strength of the opponents. Using it as the base, mobs are joined into groups — the farther the arena, the higher their total Might. To make the enemy groups more varied, empowered versions of easier mobs can also be found. The empowerment increases their level, weapon damage, and attributes.
- Mobs will not kill players with Face of Death in one round during the Trials of the Lodge — tactics with one-round Face of Death will use Energy Spike instead.
- Trials Ranking and Weekly Trials Ranking — both divided into difficulty levels (level brackets) and arena types (individual and party).
- Achievements: Mastery of the Trials (1st place among your class in the Weekly Trials Ranking), Leaders of the Trials (top10 among your class in the Weekly Trials Ranking), Conqueror of the Trial Arenas (for finishing arenas in the Trials of the Lodge).
Introduced as an element of Infusions:
- The feature lets you enhance a chosen parameter:
- damage — increases damage dealt
- reduction — reduces damage taken
- reflection — provides a chance to reflect incoming damage and also reduces damage taken when the effect triggers
- accuracy — increases the chance to hit by providing accuracy points*
- defense — increases the chance to defend yourself by providing defense points*
*Accuracy/defense points are components of the formula used when calculating accuracy. They are the combination of: character level, AP used for the attack or in that defense zone, attributes affecting accuracy and defense (Dexterity or Knowledge), skill modifiers, and additional effects (e.g. drifs and orbs).
Detailed values of the enhancements are shown in the table below:
- Division of bosses, champions, and elites into seven distinct groups called aspects - the aspect of an opponent will be visible in its party overview window. The opponents are divided as follows (with the seventh aspect currently not having any members):
- Requirements for activating the enhancements of a parameter:
- Obtaining mastery level — defeating opponents with the aspect (both in the Trials or outside them) provides its mastery points, which unlock subsequent levels. The number of points required for each level:
- Obtaining mastery level — defeating opponents with the aspect (both in the Trials or outside them) provides its mastery points, which unlock subsequent levels. The number of points required for each level:
- Infusing mastery level — can be done in the Lodge enhancements window accessible by speaking with one of the members of the Lodge standing by the portals. Requires a payment in aithars. Infusion costs are as follows:
In addition to that, you cannot keep infusing only one enhancement even if you have enough resources - each subsequent level requires infusing a certain number of levels of any enhancement:
- Equipping a rare, set, epic, or legendary weapon. Infusions will be capped at the level equal to the rank of the equipped weapon.
All of the above conditions must be met for the enhancement to work.
- Infusions work as follows — their power scales with the difference in Might between the mob and the players:
- when the Might of the opponent is below 70% the Might of the player — the infusion is inactive
- when the Might of the opponent is between 70% and 130% of the Might of the player — the infusion works proportionally to the difference in Might
- when the Might of the opponent is above 130% the Might of the player - the infusion works at 130%
The effectiveness of the infusion against an opponent is visible in its party overview window.
Miscellaneous:
- Various UI changes and changes to some mob names related to the introduction of the Trials of the Lodge and infusions.
- Added the display of player Might in the party overview window.
- Changed the Might provided by orbs: overall reduction of Might (by ca. 50%) for orbs by decreasing category multiplier (A — from 30 to 16, B — from 15 to 8, C — from 9 to 4), changed the category of some orbs: Fu’at — from A to B, Ge’ed — from B to A, Lu’ed — from A to C, Po’at — from B to C, Mi’ed — from B to C.
- Due to the changes in Might for orbs, decreased the value of the condition that triggers difficult tactics in the Greater Hawk instance when there is a difference in Might between players — from 8000 to 7000 on the Path of Adventure and from 12000 to 10000 on the Path of Challenge.
- Changed the special skill Furious Reflexes — instead of nullifying DoTs, it will now reduce the HP lost due to them by an amount for the given level.
- Fixed a bug causing drifs not to drop from the Greater Hawk on the Path of Adventure.
- Changed Trainer Stones to Minerals Cases in weekly challenges.
- Added the ability to increase the FPS limit in settings — the option available will depend on the refresh frequencies supported.
- Miscellaneous changes to graphics, mechanics, texts, and AI.
