Public Beta Client - Age of Heroes Chapter 1 (03/09/2024)

WORK IN PROGRESS BUILD AND DOCUMENT
This is a work in progress build and as such, neither of the changes and implementations found in it are final. Neither is the patchnotes document, which will be updated, corrected and completed over the Public Beta Client period to better reflect the work in progress nature of this build.

Exiles of the Public Beta Client lands!

Brace yourselves Exiles as the Age of Heroes is upon us! Your settlements will never be the same! In this major free update, your followers will act on their needs ~for a change~, new companions with the promise of adventures, and much more to discover! Tidy up your tavern, warm up by a campfire, and summon the bards to sing about this new journey ahead.

You can test out the new content in our public Beta. Remember that this is an early access build and you will experience bugs. Your feedback, as always, is massively appreciated.
Thank you for showing interest in our public beta, and don’t forget to send us feedback if you try it out!

Living Settlements

It is time Exiles that we allow our followers and workers to live their best lives. They worked hard, many times under the scalding sun of the desert, and it’s their turn to show you what’s what!

With this new feature, your workers will have a needs system that guides them into a better work-life balance, seeking rest and feast!
Watch as your settlement comes to life with new animations, a new UI for bonus selection on workbenches, and move them around to see new interactions with placeables! Be the follower for a while to discover what’s truly in their hearts and with whom they prefer to sit for their meals.

Companions

What’s best in life than the friends we made along the way?

With this update we introduce two new companions, but don’t be fooled, they are not quite like regular followers. To earn their loyalty you must hear their stories and adventure on new quests!
First, you will need to scavenge the Lands to find them. Then, understand what troubles them and how to assist. New perks follow them along the way and your decisions might change their fate.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING MODS

Please remember that updates can mess with the functionality of your installed mods. We suggest taking a backup of your current database before updating to any new patch if you have mods installed. For the purposes of testing, we recommend not using any mods when playing on Public Beta Client.

Living Settlements

• All-new functionality for crafter thralls and crafting stations throughout your settlement!
• Crafter thralls now fully functional NPCs.
• A brand-new GUI has been added for all crafting stations allowing you to select which crafting bonus you would like to apply to your crafts as well as displaying the details of those bonuses.
• Crafter thralls will now go about their lives within your settlement fulfilling their daily routines, including work, relaxation, and entertainment as they see fit.

Companions

Rescue and recruit new unique followers who will join your pursuit to dominate the Exiled Lands. Help them overcome challenges through multi-day quests across various locations and encounters.

• Disembodied voices summon you to a perilous situation east of the Celestial Plaza. Hear the plight of the sorcerer Liu Fei and aid him in his struggle to survive.
• Billowing black smoke will lead you to Freya’s Hovel in the Highlands. Discover what tragedy has befallen the warrior Freya and help her overcome her demons.

Each Companion has several unique Perks to unlock. The perks they receive are based on the decisions you make during their questlines.

General

• Servers will reset every 12 hours instead of every 24 hours for the Public Beta.
• Barkeepers can now be found and rescued from cages across the Exiled Lands
• Crafters now have a chance to appear in prisoner cages upon successfully completing a Purge.
• Male character model hands no longer clip through Bloodletter Shield.
• Large crystal nodes can now be harvested by axes, pickaxes and picks.
• Engaging in combat with a Tavern Patron will now kick them out of your tavern
• All beds now work as smart objects for players and thralls.
• NPCs no longer teleport far away from their chair when attacked.

Thralls

• Thrall Status is now hidden in nameplates when the thrall is not Following/Guarding/Scouting.
  • Combat thralls set to Guarding/Scouting retain showing their current orders.
  • Thralls which are not Guarding/Scouting now have their nameplate status hidden by default.

• Nameplates of thralls actively following you have been expanded to display more useful information
  • Thralls now display their engagement behavior on their nameplate, e.g. Passive, Defensive, Aggressive…
  • …or their current orders, e.g. Attacking, Moving, Waiting/Defending, Returning, Fleeing
  • The exception to this are Pacifist followers such as mounts, and will continue to display as “Following”.

Mod DevKit

• Delving now works more reliably and has been restructured internally to use gameplay tags.

Inventory Management

• (Gamepad) Sorting type and/or its filter can be reset with a long press on R3/L3.

Note these issues will be fixed for the full release. Some issues are experienced more frequently on dedicated servers, testing in single-player may allow you to progress through each quest more reliably.

• Disconnecting during Liu Fei’s ritual may break the functionality of the Circle of Power for all server players until the server reset.
• If a group of players completes Freya’s final fight quest together, when talking to Freya the dialog for recruitment may not open for server players until the server reset.
• Freya may be missing her sword after recruiting her.
• If a player completes the forge battle around another player they may be unable to start it.
• Forge mobs may not de-spawn during the forge fight quest.
• Companions may have assorted issues with perks:
• Liu Fei’s “Corrupting Curse” perk doesn’t deal damage over time to any enemy.
• Companions may have no perks if the player recruiting them is part of a clan.