Good morning! Last night we put the server into maintenance to upload the big update patch that goes live today.

Today at 8 PM, we will reopen the server with everything we have been working on over the last few days. Since some of these systems are closely tied to each other, we had to hold the updates back and release them all at once.

The number of changes is huge (more than 500 items), so this post sums up the main ones:

🎨 Sprites and Interface

• The vast majority of the game's sprites has been redone, and the ones that haven't been yet will be.
• The Erebos project aims to create an experience completely different from what other servers based on the Tibia engine offer. We don't want to be just one more among hundreds of projects with the same proposal. Besides all the unique systems we have already built and the ones still to come, the change in the graphics is an extremely important step towards that, so we have already started this journey, which is long but necessary. With that in mind, more than 95% of the graphics have been redone, and the rest is still being reworked.
• Almost every UI window has been redone with a more modern and pleasant look, as part of building the Erebos project's visual identity.

🤖 AI Systems

• This update brings what may be the most unique system we have offered so far: players and NPCs mostly controlled by AI.
• NPCs no longer work only with pre-defined keywords: they really interact and talk with players about the world of Erebos, and may even let valuable secrets slip, depending on where the conversation goes.
• AI-controlled characters now actually play the game and live alongside the players day to day. It is a highly complex system that covers almost every part of the game (combat, market, rifts, forts, world bosses, chat with players, party, professions, craft, PvP, etc.).
• How the AI Players work: they are all commanded by an AI Brain, which decides what each one does.
• It sends each character to hunts that match its strength and works out the supply for each trip from the history of that hunt.
• Each AI Player has a profession, and they depend on each other for the resources they need. That is why they actively use the Market to sell and buy materials and equipment.
• They organize groups for rifts and events, and players can also invite them to explore the game or do a specific piece of content, such as hunting in a group, killing a boss or doing a rift.
• Each one's behavior changes with the conditions, the strength, the context and the personality of each bot, so expect all kinds of situations when you interact with them!
• This system still has many points to improve and learns more about the game every day, so we ask you to be kind to these new players, as you would be with a child learning to play.
• We have a set of very interesting systems planned for the AI Players. The idea is to keep growing this system until it becomes an extremely important part of the ecosystem of the world of Erebos.

💰 Economy

• These adjustments were made a few days ago, but they are worth making official: we did a first rebalance of the player economy, with a deep review of the prices of the Mayor's acquisitions and of the gold the Prystals generate.
• Now comes the complement to that rebalance: the price of every loot has been reviewed (most of them got a higher NPC value). This covers both monster loot and gathering materials, balancing the hunt × gathering relation more precisely, according to our view after all the data collected during the beta.

👥 Party

• A new Share Loot option: when a group member takes an item from a monster's corpse, any player within a certain range may receive it (the split is random).

⚔️ Combat and Spells

New Shielding
The shielding system has been reworked. Shields now have three attributes, which vary from shield to shield:

• Defense: now reduces the damage taken directly, physical or magic. So with a shield of 10 Def, every direct hit is reduced by 10.
• Block Chance & Block Mitigation: after the Defense reduction, there is a chance to block the hit, reducing the damage by the Block Mitigation percentage.
• The shield's total reduction (Defense + Block Mitigation) never goes over 50% of the total damage.

Magic Resistance

• Every monster in the game got a new attribute, next to Armor, that reduces the elemental damage it takes.

Cooldowns

• A new cooldown system for spells has been introduced, with the class specialization system being developed for the continent in mind.
• Each spell has its own cooldown, and some share a cooldown with each other. Every spell in the game, as well as some usable items, applies a 1 s global cooldown.
• The action bar shows the spells' cooldowns. A new, simpler window will be developed for those who don't play with the action bar.

Class Balance

• New level 15 spells for Hunters and Warriors, to balance against the Mystic's Elemental Impetus: Brutal Strike (Warrior) and Ethereal Spear (Hunter) can now be used from level 15.
• The damage gap between the classes has been reviewed to be fairer. The balance still has Mystic > Hunter > Warrior in damage, but in a more controlled and coherent way.
• Strong Haste (celer ingens) has been removed from the Aurora stage. On the continent it will no longer be a Mystic-only spell: it becomes a situational spell with a long cooldown, available to every class.

📈 Skills

• The skill leveling curves have been completely recreated, following the goals of the Erebos classes.
• An important note: none of the starting classes was designed to reach high skill levels. The Aurora monsters themselves were balanced for a skill range of 20 to 35; we just didn't apply that "cap" when the beta opened.
• With the coherence of skill growth after the player changes class on the continent in mind, and since very high skills get in the way of our analysis during the beta, we decided to apply that limit now instead of waiting for the continent.
• That is why every skill has been recalculated to the right range, already on the new curve, and players will find it harder to raise skills from 30 on.
• Magic Level has also been reworked to sit on the same scale as Melee, Distance and Shielding: a Magic Level of 100 is as plausible as for the other skills.
• This does not unbalance the damage, because every formula in the game has also changed to deliver the damage designed for each class.
• Magic Level now trains at the same speed as Melee and Distance when the player keeps spending mana (for example, burning mana with a wand on a training monster).
• A new boost control also came in: Magic Level can no longer be raised by spamming mana potions, since its sister skills (Melee and Distance) have no such trick.
• Along the same lines, Distance now trains at the same speed as Melee (and therefore as Magic Level). In short: if the three classes train for exactly the same time, they will have the same skill, which keeps the classes balanced and every player's effort comparable.
• There is no longer a penalty for training with a shield. With the real learning curves in place, the system itself will control the leveling of each path (DPS / Support) when the continent arrives.
• Training weapons (Training Sword, Spear and Wand) have been added to the NPC Durgan for 1,000 gold each.

🔨 Professions and Craft

• Effort has been reviewed in regeneration and limit.
• The Smithing, Alchemy and Cooking learning curves have been rebalanced and got easier in the early game.
• The price curves for raising a profession skill have been reworked and are now much cheaper at the start, when players have a harder time gathering gold.
• The Scale and Stone set recipes have been made easier, so these items are more accessible on the starting island.
• The number of tries each craft item gives has been reviewed, together with the rework of the learning curves.
• Skill 0 recipes and some auxiliary materials no longer give skill tries (and no longer consume Effort).

🛒 Market

• The Market got a complete rework and many new features.
• Along with the new look, tabs for the latest offers have been created.
• The buy offers feature is now more complete.

📌 Other

• Stamina has been removed from the game; for the launch, an alternative system will be implemented.
• Boots give Speed again.
• Backpacks, Bags and Quivers are now equipment and can have Refine and Attributes.
• The Aurelius boss Raid now isolates the boss in the cemetery and spawns only Skeletons.
• The Scroll of Identification has been split into Tiers, to help new players.
• Some Profession and Item Devotion Tasks have been rebalanced.
• A new emotes system has been implemented and will open to the public soon.
• World Bosses now return to their starting point after 10 minutes without a valid target.
• Many performance and UI adjustments in the Android client.