Albion Online January 8 Update: Full Patch Notes Listed

We’ve got a big new update in Albion Online! Here are the full patch notes for the Crystal Raiders update for Albion Online.

Albion Online January 8 Update: Full Patch Notes Listed

Albion Online has seen a big new update today, with new features like Territory Raiding, Crystal Weapons, and an entirely reworked Conqueror’s Challenge. So, let’s dive right in.

Territory Raiding

Territory Raiding is a new system which allows guilds to steal Siphoned Energy from rival guilds’ territories in the form of Raw Energy Cores:

• Each day at prime time a territory’s storage can be raided
• Each Raid unlocks 50% of the territory’s stored energy in the form of four Raw Energy Cores
• Once the Cores are unlocked, 49% of the stored energy remains, and 1% is destroyed
• Raw Energy Cores can be carried to another territory on foot and added to its storage, or defenders can claim and return it to the original territory
• If a Raw Energy core isn’t delivered to a new territory within 30 minutes, it reverts back to its original territory
• A territory can only be raided once per prime time
• For further changes to territories, see “Territory and Hideout Changes” below.

Crystal Weapons

Crystal Weapons can be crafted from new Artifacts which are awarded at the end of each Guild Season via the new Conqueror’s Chests (see next section):

• Higher-level chests award higher-tier Artifacts
• Each Guild Season will introduce three new Crystal Weapons, with older Artifacts still given out but in decreased quantities
• Unlike other weapons, the usage and crafting of Crystal Weapons benefits all other weapons in the same Destiny Board tree (Warrior, Hunter, Mage)

This update introduces the first three Crystal Weapons, each with its own unique spell:

• Infinity Blade (Sword): Limitbreaker makes you unstoppable for a time, finishing with a devastating double strike that also silences
• Rift Glaive (Spear): Razor’s Edge pierces through crowds, dealing massive damage and knocking back enemies within 10m
• Astral Staff (Arcane Staff): Starfall rains a shower of deadly stars down on enemies; can’t be interrupted and increases your Resilience Penetration

Reworked Conqueror’s Challenge

The Conqueror’s Challenge has been reworked, with guaranteed Battle Mount rewards replaced with new Conqueror’s Chests. These chests contain the Artifacts to craft Crystal Weapons, and other valuable rewards including Battle Mounts. The value of these chests increases in two separate ways:

• Individual progress in the Conqueror’s Challenge gives access to increasingly more valuable chests
• Guild progress (Season Ranking) upgrades the chests earned, expanding their loot pools with higher maximum item tiers
  • To unlock Guild-based upgrades, players must qualify for season rewards (be part of the guild for at least 51% of the season)
• Players are thus incentivized to advance both their own and their guild’s progress
• 10% of the rewards from weekly reward chests have been moved into the new Conqueror’s Chests

Territory and Hideout Changes

Along with the new Territory Raiding system, changes have been made to territories, energy storage, and Hideouts.

• Prime Time Changes
  • Region Prime Times reduced from four hours to one hour
  • Siphoning Mages now can only be attacked during a region’s prime time
    • Mages now also take twice the time to respawn
  • Territory Attacks can now only be declared during a region’s prime time

• Territory Attack Costs
  • Now scale with Region Quality and Tower Level
• Energy Storage
  • 50% of all generated energy now goes directly into storage
  • At the end of each region’s prime time, a portion (roughly 10%) of a territory’s stored energy is converted into Season Points and Siphoned Energy based on region and tower level
  • Giving up territory ownership no longer reduces Stored Energy
  • Siphoning Mages now despawn when a territory is lost due to nutrition without a follow-up owner
  • Conquering a territory no longer affects storage
• Season Schedule
  • At the beginning of the season, each territory starts with some Stored Energy, the amount of which depends on the Region Quality Level
  • The last weekend of a season is a now fourth Invasion Day, after which a percentage of stored energy becomes Season Points
  • Prior Invasion Days no longer pay out Stored Energy
• Energy Production
  • Daily Siphoned Energy and Season Point output from territories increased, with greater weighting towards the inner circle of the Outlands:
    • Quality Level 6: 120 → 240
    • Quality Level 5: 104 → 180
    • Quality Level 4: 88 → 120
    • Quality Level 3: 72 → 80
    • Quality Level 2: 56 → 60
    • Quality Level 1: 40 (unchanged)
• Territory Control Cost
  • The Alliance-level Siphoned Energy Drain penalty has been reworked
  • Each territory now has a Control Cost associated with it
  • The closer a territory lies to the Portal Towns, the higher its Control Cost; the closer to the center of the Outlands, the lower its Control Cost
  • This punishes large power blocks for holding too many outer-ring territories, and increases the incentive for competitive guilds to move towards the center
  • If a guild/alliance exceeds a Control Cost of 15, the Energy Drain penalty applies
  • If their Control Cost is above 25, a Fame and Silver penalty is applied to every alliance member
  • As before, these penalties also apply in cases where those territories are controlled by a single guild that isn’t in an alliance
• Changes to Territory Mages and Guards:
  • Territory Guard and Sentry Mage respawn time: 20 minutes → 60 minutes
  • Siphoning Mages:
    • Improved warnings when Siphoning Mages are under attack (i.e. for the owning guild)
    • Now despawn when territory ownership is dropped
    • Health reduced by 25%
    • Iceblock ability:
      • Channel duration: 20s → 10s
      • Mages now remember which Iceblock phase an attacker reached, and reduce their own health back to that state after de-aggroing
      • Ability can no longer be triggered after its threshold is surpassed
    • Players hit by Tornado are then immune to its knockback for 2 seconds
  • Sentry Mages:
    • Health reduced by 25%
    • Spell damage reduced by 15%
    • Sentry Mages remember each 20% of their health lost, and reduce their own health back to that state after de-aggroing
    • Adjusted behavior of Fork Lightning:
      • Now does significantly less damage
      • No longer targets same enemy

• Hideout Changes:
  • Cost to attack a Hideout now scales with how long the Hideout has existed
  • Power drain of Hideouts (used to maintain HQ protection and crafting bonuses) doubled if owning guild does not also control the local territory
    • Does not affect Hideouts in Roads of Avalon
  • Most Local Hideout Production Bonuses are shifted to the bonus given by the Hideout’s Power Level (Max. crafting bonus unchanged)

Daily Might Bonus

Once per day, players can claim a Daily Might Bonus – an amount of Might based on the amount of Siphoned Energy their guild gained from territories over the previous day.

• This can be claimed in a new submenu in the Conqueror’s Challenge UI
• Might that is not claimed by a player each day is lost
• This is personal only, and does not contribute to Guild Season progress

Might Level Changes

Might Levels have been adjusted to make it easier for smaller guilds to earn Season Points from instanced PvP content:

• Corrupted Dungeons
  • Might needed per level: 3,000 → 2,000
  • Season Points per level: 30 → 40
• 2v2 Hellgates
  • Might needed per level: 4,000 → 3,000
  • Season Points per level: 40 → 50
• 5v5 Hellgates
  • Might needed per level: 5,000 → 3,500
  • Season Points per level: 80 → 100
• 10v10 Hellgates
  • Might needed per level 9,000 → 7,500

It is now more difficult to max out Might Levels for larger objectives:

• Castles
  • Might needed per level: 36,000 → 45,000
• Territory Power Crystals
  • Might needed per level: 35,000 → 50,000
• Hideout Power Cores
  • Might needed per level: 45,000 → 60,000

Tracking Changes

Tracking has been expanded with new targets that drop Silver and Black Market loot rather than Artifacts and Ingredients:

• Fame from these targets progresses a new “Rare Quarry Tracking” Destiny Board specialization node
• The target will be one of the following:
  • Earthdaughter (Keeper)
  • Harvester of Souls (Undead)
• In extremely rare cases, these mobs will also drop their corresponding faction’s T8 mount upgrade items
• Additional target types will be added in future updates

Changes to original Tracking Targets (e.g. those that drop Artifacts or Ingredients):

• Small Group Targets:
  • Loot +25%
• Large Group Targets:
  • Loot +150%
  • Respawn Time +100%
  • Hunt Duration reduced by ~30% on average

General Tracking changes:

• Fame from all completed Tracking quests now rewards Might and Favor
  • Might from Tracking is added to a guild’s Gathering Might Level

Difficulty adjustments:

• Shadow Panther
  • Leap damage: 300 → 270
  • Enrage damage: 50% → 40%
• Sylvian
  • Barbed Roots radius: 12m → 10m
  • Piercing Root cast time: 1.4s → 1.6s
• Werewolf
  • Tear Open damage: 450 → 405
  • Drenched in Blood healing effect (Large Group version): 25% → 20% of Max Health
  • Frenzied Swipes damage: Small 80 → 72; Large 160 → 144

Other Changes and Improvements

• Added new World Map Overlays:
  • Region Quality
  • Energy Storage
• Personal Island costs have been reduced for the first island you buy, or the first time you upgrade an island to a certain level, as follows:
  • Level 1: 20,000
  • Level 2: 500,000
  • Level 3: 1,125,000
  • Level 4: 1,312,500
  • Level 5: 1,500,000
  • Level 6: 2,000,000
• Potion item icons updated to better match new rare potions and to align better with their visual effects
• Fully harvested carcasses now despawn faster: 50 min → 10 min
• Further Guild Season changes:
  • Guild participation requirement to be a eligible for Guild Season rewards and Conqueror’s Chest upgrades:
    • 75% of a season → 51% of a season
  • Your guild’s ranking within a bracket is now displayed in the Season Rankings in addition to the global guild ranking, e.g. 1st Bronze guild
• Castle Chests now appear an hour earlier – this does not effect when they can be opened, but gives players a longer window to decide which chests to contest
• Energy Crystals / Vortices renamed to Power Crystals / Vortices to avoid confusion between Power used to keep a territory running, and Raw or Siphoned Energy that generate Season Points
• Proximity tooltips added to Power Crystals and Power Cores
• Shapeshifter Artifacts Marketplace category changed from “Melee” to “Magic”
• Translation of “Pristine” (e.g. .4 Enchantment) updated in some languages

Combat Balance Changes

With this update, various underused melee abilities and items have been improved to increase build variety across different types of content.

Arcane Staffs

• Enigma Blade (all Arcane Staffs)
  • Damage: 165 → 185

Axes

• Rending Bleed (all Axes)
  • Now triggers AoE Escalation (if multiple enemies are hit at once, as with Halberd)
• Rending Spin (all Axes)
  • Close Range Damage: 65 → 70
• Rending Rage (all Axes)
  • 3rd Hit: Removed Rending Bleed Charge
• Bloody Reap (Infernal Scythe)
  • 1st Hit Delay: 1s → 0.5s
  • 2nd Hit Delay: 0.5s → 0.4s

Daggers

• Ghost Strike (Deathgivers)
  • Damage: 173.75 → 167.5

Holy Staffs

• Divine Protection (Divine Staff)
  • Heal: 115.3 → 160
  • Energy Cost: 16 → 19

Maces

• Shrinking Curse (Incubus Mace)
  • Hit Delay: 1s → 0.6s
  • Standtime: 1s → 0.9s
  • Adjusted hit area to match indication area

Quarterstaffs

• Soaring Swipe (Double Bladed Staff)
  • Cooldown: 18s → 20s

Shapeshifter Staffs

• Shift Charges (all Shapeshifter Staffs)
  • Buff Duration: 30s → 15s

Spears

• Inner Focus (all Spears)
  • Channel Time: 1.8s → 0.8s (Ticks 10 -> 5)
  • Move Speed per tick: 5% → 8%
  • Damage Buff per tick: 4% → 8%
  • Buff Duration: 6s → 4s
  • Added a new Multispell if the channel is completed
    • Your Move Speed is increased by 30% and you become immune to slow, root and stun effects for 2s. After the spell is over you lose the effect of Inner Focus
    • Cooldown: 20s

Swords

• Heroic Strike (all Swords)
  • Now leaps towards the enemy target landing 2m in front of them. (The leap can be interrupted by Forced Movement effects like Fire Wall)
  • Cast Range: 3m → 4m
  • Standtime: 0s → 0.2s
• Blade Cyclone (all Swords)
  • Range: 7m → 9m
• Charge (Claymore)
  • Dash Speed: 35m/s → 50m/s

War Gloves

• Purifying Combination (Fists of Avalon)
  • Damage: 245 → 232

Offhands

• Mistcaller
  • Cooldown Reduction Factor: 14% → 12%

Helmets

• Emergency Shield (Guardian Helmet)
  • Shield Duration: 3s → 4s

Shoes

• The following Gathering Gear spells now drop any objects you are escorting
  • Ethereal Path (Harvester Workboots)
  • Flee (Miner Workboots)
  • Motivating Pain (Quarrier Workboots)
  • Scent of the Wilderness (Skinner Workboots)
  • Splash Wave (Fisherman Workboots)
  • Sprint Shield (Lumberjack Workboots)

Capes

• Fey Barrier (Brecilien Cape)
  • Buff Duration: 3s → 4s

Fixes

• Quick Sell now sells to same or lower-quality Buy Orders
• Fixed issue where changing zones closed Party invite popup, but didn’t cancel invite
• Fixed incorrect order of Hunter weapons on Destiny Board
• Fixed issue where chat window could disappear while being adjusted
• Fixed issue where it was not possible to copy or import island access rights
• Adjusted S Hotkey (“Stop Action”) to no longer unintentionally cancel channeling spells before other actions – now behaves like clicking the recast button
• Fixed an inconsistency in Item Value of T5 and T8 Avalonian Weapon Artifacts (total increase is less than 1%)
• [MOBILE] Fixed issue where zoom mode and Close button covered zone name in Upcoming Battles UI
• [MOBILE/CONTROLLER] Fixed issue where Whirling Strikes (Quarterstaff) auto-targeted allies
• Numerous additional graphical, UI, terrain, animation, audio, and localization fixes.