News

Hi, fellow gamer and MMO enthusiast!

I’m sure you’ve been eagerly waiting to know the launch date of Alpha 2 – Test 3 – unless you’ve already seen it on Discord, the forum or the FAQ, that is 😛 So, here it comes:

Thursday, July 16, at 4pm CEST (10am EDT)!

This new test is likely to be the most feature-rich in our development history, beating even Alpha 2 – Test 2, which back in March brought to life new player onboarding (starting area + tutorial), the Vale of Shadows and a lot of related content.

So, without further ado, let’s see what’s new!

Player Cities

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The largest addition going live in Alpha 2 – Test 3 is without a doubt one of the most awaited by the community – player cities!

If you own a Governor pack or above, you can claim a city territory right now on the world map. If not, you’ll be able to apply as governor in game by paying a gold fee (5,000 for a small city, 15,000 for a large city) and claim the area once you have the support of enough fellow players (4 for a small city, 14 for a large city).

Once the city territory has been claimed, citizens should repair the Town Hall, which gives access to all the city management features. After that, you are able to build roads and place personal land parcels connected to those roads. Those parcels can then be claimed by citizens, allowing them to build their own houses within the city.

Other than private land parcels, a governor is able to build the following public structures in the city:

• Tavern, where everyone can rest and set a new spawn point.
• Tailor, where all armor crafting now takes place (the generic Workbench has been removed from the game).
• Carpenter, where you can craft the following new items: Wooden Club, Quarterstaff, Shortbow, Longbow.
• Magic Shop, where you can craft the following new items: Mage Staff, Ice Staff, Fire Staff, Shock Staff.

Please note that some of the more advanced city features like the Tech Tree, sieges and resource nodes are not implemented yet, but they’re considered high priority for the following testing phases.

The Talent Tree

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They’re finally here, the talents to further customize your playstyle!

The Talent Tree adds a ton of variety to your character builds and strengthens the feeling of character progression by allowing you to exchange Knowledge Points for Talent Points instead of spending them to learn discovered abilities. The current conversion cost is 1,000 Knowledge Points : 1 Talent Point.

Each character can unlock up to 60 Talent Points, which can be assigned on a tree consisting of 90 different nodes, which each node providing a different bonus and accepting a different amount of points. In sum, a classic RPG talent tree, with the peculiarity that you can create multiple talent presets and memorize a different one each time you rest – just like with abilities, no timed or paid respecs!

Survey Feedback

The survey we released after the May Open Playtest made it clear that balancing in Fractured had a long way to go, particularly in PvP. In this section, we’re going to focus on criticisms and how we’ve addressed them in Alpha 2 – Test 3.

Feedback on PvE and character progression revealed that:

• Roughly half of the players considered progression too fast, particularly in a group, while most of the others found it appropriate.
• PvE could be hard as a new player due to the lack of guidance on creature power…
• …but it was also frequently reported as too simple due to how easy it was to stun-lock monsters and exploit “leashing”.

Feedback on social features revealed that:

• Not having icons on the minimap for fellow party members sucked. This was the single most frequent feedback of the whole survey.
• The lack of knowledge sharing in a party made parties way less useful.
• Many of you would like to be able to invite other players in your guild/party without them being near.

Feedback on PvP revealed that:

• TOK (time to kill) was too low. This made builds based on burst damage the only viable options.
  • Critical Damage was the obvious culprit there…
  • …and Ice Spikes + Word of Power: Kill a worthy accomplice.
• Warriors could easily reach 100% in different magical resistances, giving them a huge advantage over mages.
• The duration of hard CC (e.g. Stun) was generally too long. This made group PvE too easy, burst damage even stronger, and soft CC spells obsolete.

Balancing Changes

And now, let’s get to the changes!

First, here are the two most significant changes that are going to reshape PvP in Fractured:

• Non-physical resistances now function like physical ones. This means their value now ranges from -1,000 to +1,000, which is then converted into a % of damage reduction using the armor formula. This change makes it easier to get to a decent level of magical damage reduction and harder to get to high levels. Also, since 1,000 converts to an 80% reduction, achieving total immunity is now possible only through spells such as Protection From Fire.
• Critical Damage now applies only to the base weapon damage, which means it no longer stacks with other damage bonuses (Strength, Melee Damage Increase, etc). Conversely, it’s easier to get passive Critical Chance from attributes and enchantments.

Attributes have been rebalanced as well:

• Strength had its bonuses/point changed as follows: Melee Damage 10 => 8, Endurance 100 => 50, Endurance Regen 1.2 p/s => 1 p/s, Carry Weight 5 kg => 6 kg. An overall nerf to the strongest attribute by far.
• Dexterity now provides a 1% Move Speed modifier per point.
• Perception now provides 2% passive Critical Chance per point instead of 0.5%.
• Constitution now provides 50 Endurance per point, but no longer provides passive Life Regeneration (which is now fixed at 0.02%/s) and no longer raises Carry Weight.

Abilities in the game have also received a ton of changes, so listing them all here is impossible. On average, they’re simpler (each has fewer effects) and the highest damages / longest hard CCs have been nerfed.

Last but not least:

• You can now see fellow party members on the minimap.
• Monsters become immune to damage / CC and regenerate Endurance faster when leashing.
• The number of kills required to complete the knowledge of monsters has been increased overall.
• Each monster now has a difficulty rating (DR), which represents the ideal size of the group that should be facing it. If the number of players getting loot rights is higher than the DR, each player gets less knowledge (and vice-versa).
• If a player gets loot rights (thus knowledge gains) on a monster, all fellow party members nearby get it too.

Useful Resources

Are you new to Fractured and don’t know where to start? Here’s a very helpful and comprehensive Fractured newcomer guide written by our community member Silynx. It’ll tell you everything you need to know to survive your first hours in the game!

Would you like to know more about city building and our plans for the future? The content creator Oxfurd has recently hosted a few Q&A sessions with the CEO of Dynamight Studios, discussing various aspects of Fractured including city building! You can find the the recordings here:

• Fractured MMO – Generic Q&A
• Fractured MMO – Q&A on Player Cities
• Fractured MMO – Q&A on Politics , Progression and Sieges

That’s all! Let us hear your feedback and see you soon in game!

Enjoy Fractured!

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