This is the largest patch for Afallon yet. It brings the full memory system rewrite, a brand new playable class in the Druid, the Orc race, a complete talent system overhaul, a new dungeon, and a huge amount of crafting, questing, and world content. Many of the internal dev tools I have been building are now paying off and speeding up development considerably.
A note before the patch: Thank you to everyone for the support. As of September 1st I am finally working on Afallon full time. Until now I have been studying at university full time and also working 20 to 40 hours a week alongside development. With more time, I can bring this project much closer to the vision I have for it, with more frequent updates. This build also includes the final rebuild of the memory management system, which gives me the tools to combine all the outdoor scenes into one large seamless world. That will arrive in a future update.
Performance and Engine
Full memory management system rewrite. Game size has dropped from 20.6 GB to 11 GB, a reduction of 9.6 GB, almost half the size.
Peak VRAM usage dropped from 7.2 GB to 4.1 GB, a 3.1 GB reduction. RAM usage is down by around 3 GB as well. This means faster load times and better performance.
Fixed two issues that could gradually reduce performance over long play sessions.
New Playable Class: The Druid
A shapeshifting hybrid of the wilds. Wield the twin magics of Nature and Arcane as a caster, stalk and maul as a great cat or bear, or channel the forest's power as a healer. The Druid's forms are earned through its three talent webs, and each form changes your attacks, your strengths, and your role.
The Druid introduces two new magic schools, Nature and Arcane, each with its own damage bonuses and resistances. The auto attack is Nature Bolt, a dart of living nature energy. All abilities below are earned by spending talent points across the three webs. Roughly 300 talent ranks span the three webs, including stat passives, per-ability tuners, and proc talents such as Eclipse procs, Bloodletter bleeds on form auto attacks, Living Seed on your heals, and Celestial Momentum haste.
Stellar, caster of sun, moon and stars
Solar Wrath, hurls a spiraling bolt of living sunlight (Nature, cast)
Lunar Strike, draws down the fury of the stars in a single crushing bolt (Arcane, cast)
Moonflare, an instant shaft of moonlight that keeps searing the target
Sporeswarm, engulfs the enemy in a cloud of biting spores (Nature damage over time)
Stellar Flare, ignites a flare of stellar energy inside the target
Gale Burst, a violent blast of wind hurls nearby enemies away
Galestorm, channels a raging storm of wind and leaves over an area
Fey Mark, marks the target with fey light, weakening its armor
Starshower, stars fall from the heavens onto the marked ground
Call of the Grove (keystone), the forest answers and treants rise to fight beside you
Deep talents awaken the Eclipse, where Solar and Lunar spells empower one another
Primal, claw and hide
Cat Form, swift, sharp-clawed and silent: +20% Movement Speed, +10% Critical Chance, +5% Strength, and the Clawstrike auto attack
Bear Form, thick-hided and unshakable: +15% Stamina, +15% Armor, and the Maulstrike auto attack
Cat path: Shred, Rake (bleed), Savage Bite (bleed), Stalk (stealth), Savage Pounce (opener from hiding), Primal Frenzy, Feral Rush (sprint), and the keystone Primal Rampage
Bear path: Maul, Menacing Growl (taunt), Thrash (AoE), Heavy Bash (stun), Ironclad Roar (AoE taunt), Frenzied Mending (self-heal), and Survival Instinct (emergency defense). A true tank kit with real threat generation.
Verdant Restoration, regrowth and renewal
Renewal, wraps the target in gentle regrowth (instant heal over time)
Bloom, a surge of healing that keeps blossoming
Budding Life, a quick-blossoming charm of restoration
Barkhide, your skin hardens to living bark (damage reduction, usable in forms)
Wildmark, the mark of the wild watches over the bearer (long ally blessing)
Quickening, consumes your Renewal to bloom its healing instantly
Bramble Guard, thorned brambles coil around an ally, biting back at attackers
Nature's Mending, a slow surge of deep renewal (big cast heal)
Wild Bloom, the ground itself blooms, mending all who stand upon it
Circle of Calm, kneel and channel the forest's peace over your allies
Elderwood Form, a horned satyr mystic and living conduit of wild magic: +15% Intellect and full casting animations
New Playable Race: Orc
The Orc race has been added to the game.
Talent System Overhaul
New talent web. All of a class's talents now live in one zoomable, pannable radial web around a class hub. Left-drag pans, scroll zooms, and learned paths glow. This replaces the old per-tree menu, and the talents button has moved to the toolbar.
Multi-rank bonus talents must now be fully maxed before the talents beyond them unlock.
New talent economy. Every talent rank costs 1 point, and you earn 3 points per level. A full class web is 360 ranks, so a max-level character can fill about half. Build choices matter.
Ability modifier webs. Abilities now have their own clusters of talents: flat and percentage damage, cooldown reduction, healing boosts, and on-use effect talents.
Learned and maxed talent paths genuinely glow. The starfield background shifts subtly with pan and zoom for a sense of depth.
The HUD hides while the web is open, except action bars, so you can still drag abilities onto them.
New stat: Buff Power. Adds a flat value to every stat your buffs grant (with 10 Buff Power, a +20 Strength blessing becomes +30). Rollable on gear and talents, and tooltips reflect it live.
Class talent build-outs
Wizard and Necromancer talent webs are now fully built out, matching the Assassin and Shieldmaster, with dozens of new passives, ability improvements, and on-use effects across all eight branches.
12 new Wizard abilities, including Volatile Ember, Kindled Burst, Hailstorm, Storm Orb, Static Cataclysm, Prismatic Bolt, and new self-buff cooldowns like Overcharge and Infernal Focus.
8 new Necromancer abilities, including Grave Coil, Bone Ward, Festering Blight, Plague Nova, Soul Siphon, Umbral Nova, and Reap the Soul.
New spell type: ground-channeled abilities. Hailstorm now works like a true blizzard, where you choose a spot on the ground and channel while it pelts the area. Moving interrupts the channel.
Assassin full build-out (125 nodes, 403 ranks): 7 new abilities (Vital Rend, Sever Veins, Blade Tempest AoE, Fleetfoot, Phantom Guard, Killer's Tempo, Killer's Edge) and 68 new talents.
Shieldmaster full build-out (113 nodes, 360 ranks): 4 new heals (Light's Mending, Radiant Burst, Beacon of Dawn, Sanctified Ward, plus Healing Light converted to smart targeting), 5 tank abilities (Shield Crash, Rallying Strike, Bulwark Slam, Defiant Shout, and Guardian's Challenge taunt), 4 Blessings (Fortitude, Vigor, Warding, Devotion), and 56 new talents including healing tuners and Buff Power passives.
Two new Shieldmaster tank talents increase all threat you generate (Defiant Presence in Guardian, Iron Provocation in Aegis Mastery), and the new Consecrated Strikes talent makes your auto attacks sear nearby enemies with holy damage that generates heavy threat.
Necromancer pet talents rebalanced. They were up to +30% and are now +2% per rank.
Combat Systems
New stat: Luck. Increases drop chance, crit chance, and the chance that enemy attacks miss you.
Dual wielding reworked. Off-hand weapons now swing on their own timer at their own speed. Off-hand attacks deal 50% damage, and auto attacks miss 19% more while dual wielding (abilities are unaffected). Off-hand swings use proper off-hand animations, train the off-hand weapon's skill, and 12 existing off-hand weapons work immediately.
Bleeds and poisons reworked. DoT ticks can no longer miss, be dodged, parried, or blocked. Avoidance is rolled once when the DoT is applied. Resistances still reduce ticks.
Positional combat. Attacks from behind can no longer be parried or blocked (dodge still works from any direction). This applies to players and NPCs.
Avoidance feedback. Dodging, parrying, and blocking now play distinct sounds for all combatants, and your character visibly sidesteps, deflects, or braces.
Smart friendly casting. Heals and blessings cast on your target if friendly, otherwise on yourself. They can now be cast on allies you are not facing, though line of sight is still required.
Casting a spell on a target that dies mid-cast now cancels the cast immediately instead of finishing a wasted cast.
New ground telegraph visual effect for damaging abilities.
Enemies now show a pulsing red glow on their nameplate when you have aggro.
Fixed Guardian's Ground Slam sometimes leaving the character stuck in a running animation until jumping. Its tooltip now also shows the damage it deals on landing.
Ability tooltips on tank abilities now reflect your threat talents.
Balance
Every leveling-dungeon boss retuned. An at-level group kills each boss in roughly 1.5 to 2 minutes, and boss damage is threatening but survivable for a tank. Vaelgorath no longer one-shots players.
Rare creatures tuned to 15 to 30 second group kills. Normal world creatures die noticeably faster.
Level scaling improved. Fighting below your level grants heavy bonus crit, and lower-level enemies miss you far more often. Enemies grow properly stronger with level, and over-leveled groups now melt old dungeons instead of slogging through them.
New Dungeon: Barrowdeep
A new dungeon, Barrowdeep, with 4 bosses, level 26 to 30. An underground catacombs-style dungeon with undead bosses and enemies.
Enemies and NPCs
Added an info display when hovering over NPCs. It shows name, level, creature type, and quest info.
Creature types added: Beast, Humanoid, Undead, Demon, Dragonkin, Elemental, Giant, and Mechanical.
Clearer quest tracking on NPCs. An icon appears next to the nameplate if the target should be killed or looted for a quest.
Fixed camera clipping into objects.
Adventurers ("Simulated Players" Pass)
Adventurer damage overhauled to match a real player of the same level. They pull their weight in a group and scale as they level.
Adventurers and NPCs now step out of dangerous ground effects and path around them instead of fleeing back and forth, and adventurers dodge telegraphed attacks while they charge.
Adventurer loot rolls now judge gear by caster or melee stats, so rings and necklaces count.
Adventurers now jump around like real players. Each spawns with its own jump personality, and some spam-hop while traveling. They wave at you and each other (and wave back), take sit-down breaks, and burst into one of three dances, all shown in chat as orange emote text (for example, "Name waves at Name."). Jump 4 times next to one and the jump-happy ones will hop along with you.
Healer adventurers improved. Passers-by now get 1 to 2 courtesy heals instead of being healed to full forever. Healers walk to a casting spot instead of gliding in circles, close the distance to enemies instead of freezing in place, and no longer attempt resurrects mid-combat. They keep healing and revive the fallen after the fight.
Closing an adventurer's trade window no longer leaves the cursor stuck on screen.
Quests and Tracking
Quest tracking overhaul. Quest targets, turn-ins, quest areas, and gathering spots now show map icons automatically across all zones.
Quests in other areas now guide you to the right cave or portal entrance, including multi-step routes across zones.
Portals with several quests behind them show one map icon per quest, and hovering over stacked map icons lists every quest name at that spot.
NPC tooltips now show the drop chance of quest items (for example, "Collect Wolf Pelts 3/8 (50% drop)").
Quests now show a colored level range like [15-30] in the offer, journal, and tracker (red above you, yellow in range, green below), and no longer have level requirements.
Dungeon quests are tagged [Dungeon] with a button straight into the Adventure Guide.
Quest reward window redesigned in classic MMO style. Quest lists highlight on hover with a gold selection outline.
New quest content
New Barrowdeep quests from Brother Aldric: recover four forbidden tomes (each tracked separately) and collect cursed amulets from the undead, with a choice of caster or melee rare rings and necklaces.
New dwarven questline: a delivery for Thorin Greypine, then Balrik Emberbeard and Sigrun Deepdelve's dig in Tidefallen Grotto, ending in a choice of epic gems and the Brinecrest Shell Shield.
New hunting quest chain at Thorin's Expedition: 7 new quests continuing Thorin Greypine's story. Track the beast behind the giant paw prints and bring down Gorehide the Maw.
Breadcrumb quests now connect the zones (Aradia Stormweaver to Elira Dawnweave to Brother Aldric).
Crafting and Professions
Crafting window redesign
The crafting window has been completely redesigned. Recipes are shown as a list sorted into collapsible categories, with names colored by difficulty: orange gives full skill experience, yellow full, green half, and gray none.
Added a search box, a "Have materials" filter, a profession skill bar, and a craftable count next to each recipe.
Added a quantity selector and Create All, which crafts repeatedly until you run out of materials or bag space.
Recipes now require the shown skill level to craft (this also gates high-tier smelting).
Recipe scrolls show MMO-style tooltips: requirement, what they teach with a full item preview, materials, and "Recipe already known."
Crafting plays your character's work animation with unique sounds per profession, and each station's window has its own open sound.
Recipe items are now labeled by profession, warn in red when already known, and can no longer be wasted. Using a known recipe is blocked instead of consuming it.
Mining
Mining overhaul. Ore veins across the world are now dynamic spawn points that can spawn any ore type.
8 new ores with unique vein visuals: Silver, Gold, Cobalt, Duskmetal, Emberite, Frostsilver, Starmetal, and Aetherium (Mining skill 20 to 150, rarities Uncommon to Epic).
2 more new ores: Deepiron (Mining 125) and Runite (Mining 150), with unique veins, bars, and recipes.
Higher-tier veins appear more often as your Mining skill grows, though iron remains the most common. Veins above your skill still appear now and then as a preview of what is ahead.
Mined veins respawn after about 10 minutes as a fresh, possibly different, vein.
Herbalism
Herb spots are now living spawn points by biome. Mushrooms grow where mushrooms grew, swamp herbs in the swamp, snow herbs in the cold, and Tomb Tulips keep to graveyards.
15 new herbs (Herbalism 20 to 150): Dawnpetal, Honeycap, Mournweed, Wildroot, Bogbell, Crimsonthorn, Phoenixbloom, Glimmergill, Winterbud, Stormleaf, Vipervine, Duskcap, Glacierbloom, Ghostbloom, and Runeleaf, including Rare and Epic jackpot herbs.
Fishing
Fishing now levels from 1 to 150, with unique fish in four water types: lakes and rivers, caves, swamps, and frozen waters.
11 new fish to catch, from the swamp's Bogscale Gulper to the legendary Mirefang Leviathan. Higher skill unlocks richer fishing holes.
Rare golden swirls can appear on any water. Hooking one lands the prized Goldwhisker Catfish.
Fishing holes now appear and respawn dynamically around waters across the world, including the frozen Icelakes, the Chillwind ice cave, and the swamp caves, and open the loot window like other gathering.
Cooking
Cooking now levels from 1 to 150 with 17 new dishes: fish from every biome, bear steaks, wolf roasts, and yeti ribs.
Well Fed: only one food buff can be active. Eating a new dish replaces the previous one.
New recipes are sold by the fisherman and the Oakenvale bartender. Five rare recipes drop out in the world, up to the Feast of the Deep (+40 Strength/Intellect/Stamina, +15 Luck).
Bears, wolves, and yetis now drop fresh meat for cooking.
Blacksmithing
Expanded to skill 150: the Emberforged plate set (known from the start), then learnable Deepiron weapons, Runite plate, Starforged pieces, and the epic Aetherium Breastplate. Endgame stats, Luck on the top pieces, with recipes from the black iron merchant or as rare world drops.
Search
Added a search bar to the crafting window and a toggle to only show recipes you have reagents to craft.
Gathering and Looting
MMO-style gathering. Herbs and veins open the loot window, and the node is only consumed once you take everything. Closing the window or walking away keeps the node and its loot.
Your character crouches while looting (all loot windows) and plays a gathering animation during herb casts (now 2 seconds, like mining).
Taking damage interrupts gathering, and loot windows auto-close when you walk away.
Treasure chests take 4 seconds to open, with a lock-fiddling animation and jingling keys before the lid creaks.
Items and Loot
New: Heroic gear. Equippable items dropped by enemies while the Heroic World Tier is active are empowered with +50% stats and a green "Heroic" tag.
20 new gems added, from Common up to two Epic gems. Half are sold by the gem merchant, and half are found as world drops from enemies up to level 30 (the rarest only drop from high-level enemies).
Gem tooltips redesigned. Stats now display automatically in green like gear, with a hint showing which socket color the gem fits.
Tooltips are now generated from actual effect data: "(Right click to use)" plus exact lines like "Buff: Increases Strength by 10 for 10 min."
Potion healing no longer scales with Intellect. Potions restore exactly what they say.
All consumable buffs extended to 10 minutes.
Fixed: Minor Potion of Holy Damage did nothing when used.
World and Sky
Real starfield night sky. 11 high-res space skyboxes cycle daily, crossfading at noon. Faint by day, brilliant at night.
Night ambient light subtly takes on the current sky's color, and day/night ambient brightness can be tuned separately.
World time. The day/night cycle is saved with your character and continues where you left it across scenes, caves, and play sessions. A new clock under the minimap shows the time of day (AM/PM).
Region names now show their designed level range, colored by your level, for example "Coalway Woods (lvl. 15-30)." The tutorial cave is marked 1 to 5.
Zone level scaling
Coalway Swamp and its caves: 1 to 20 (enemies never scale past 20 there)
Coalway Woods and its caves: 15 to 30
Chillwind Heights and its ice cave: 20 to 30
Coalway Swamp is now the starting zone. The current system of choosing between 3 starting areas is gone for now and will return in another form once the world map has been expanded.
Economy
Quest gold and experience, and coin drops from enemies, now scale up with your level to match the stronger enemies.
Audio
Fixed the game-wide issue where sounds cut each other off or never played. Every sound now plays on its own channel, and combat is audibly fuller.
Fixed a bug where sound settings defaulted to 0 when starting the game. Sound is now on for new players.
Avoidance actions (dodge, parry, block) play distinct sounds, as noted above.
Pets
The pet panel is now an MMO-style pet action bar: Attack, Follow, and Stay commands, your first pet's abilities as clickable slots with cooldowns and real tooltips, and Aggressive / Defensive / Passive stances with a glow on the active one.
New Passive stance. Pets never engage on their own, but the Attack command still sends them in.
UI, Interface and Settings
All game windows now fade quickly in and out when opened and closed.
Character panel stats are now split into Offense and Defense pages.
Bags can now be searched by typing and filtered by item type.
Clickable nameplates that stack neatly.
Heroic World Tier is now shown as a buff on your buff bar. Right-click it to return to the normal world at any time (the world console still works too). Dying no longer removes you from the Heroic World Tier.
The quest log has been redesigned. Your quests are listed at the top and the selected quest's full text is always shown below, with Abandon and Track in their own row.
Quest names in lists now show their level and are colored by difficulty relative to your own level.
The experience bar now shows your progress in numbers, in the style of 85/850 (10%).
New settings: Grass Density, Grass Distance, a Show DPS Meter toggle, and Quest Tracker background transparency.
Ability tooltips
Damage and healing lines now show where your power comes from, for example "(38 (Base) + 12 (Talents) + 148 (Stats) = 198)," with the full expected total shown in red for damage and green for healing.
Onboarding
Hint windows redesigned: a fixed on-screen spot, fade in and out, and show/dismiss sounds.
Toolbar hints now light the button with a red glow lit by real bloom, with equal brightness on every button. The talents hint points at the Skills button.
Every hint window has a "Don't show hints" checkbox, plus a Show Hints toggle in Settings > Controls.
Character Creation and Customization
New unique animations for all races and genders.
New character customization options added to all races and genders, including hair color.
Your character now performs a weapon swing or spell cast when you pick a race or class, with weapons in hand.
Race and class descriptions list their stat bonuses in green (or red for penalties), plus new racial and class skill bonuses. For example, dwarves start with +10 Mining.
Controls
Q and E now strafe by default (rebindable). Interact has moved to F and the quest log to L.
Holding the right mouse button with A/D turning now makes the character strafe when pressing A/D.
Quality of Life
Drag an enchantment or gem onto a piece of gear, in your bags or equipped, to open the enchanting or socketing window with everything pre-selected, or be told "That doesn't fit."
A new character's first equipment drop is always something they can equip.
Other Fixes
Fixed dying to fall damage leaving you stuck at 0 HP with no death window.
Placeholder visuals for Corruption affixes have been replaced with real effects.
Action camera: the over-the-shoulder view no longer breaks after shapeshifting or dying.