New World Major December Update Introduces New End-Game Changes

Amazon Games is ready to deploy the new and huge major update for its MMORPG title, New World. New World is supposed to become a lot better game, thanks to the latest end-game update that should introduce major changes to the High Watermark System. Starting today, the high watermark system drowns, as it’s being replaced by Expertise which players would be able to monitor on their UI. The New World Servers are currently down for the deployment of the new patch, and it should be up and running very soon.

Nevertheless, we have to remember the slope New World faced in the last period. It all went down since the dupe glitch, resulting in thousands of players leaving the game for good. While this item looks peculiar, it doesn’t guarantee the return of the player base, so we have to put that behind us and hope for the best.

The December update is definitely something exciting, as it also adds the Winter Convergence Festival. The north of the map should now be covered and snow. According to the developer:

Ice Caves are appearing all over Aeternum because of the Winter Warrior’s desire for a Forever Winter. They are snowy and icy caves that the yeti use their powers to freeze up and make snow fall. The rest of Aeternum will look like these Ice Caves if the onslaught of the Warrior is not stopped!

These caves will remain behind after the event as scars on the land, sources of wintry magic that refuse to melt even if the Winter Warrior is somehow defeated.

The event will also add seven new quests that will round up the story. The new Questline starts at level 25 and concludes at 60.

New World Winter Convergence and End-Game Patch Notes

WINTER TOKENS

The player takes on the cause of the Winter Wanderer to collect Winter Tokens from repeatable events across the island and is able to turn them into a Holiday Shop containing rare and cosmetic items. The Winter Wanderer’s positive aspect grows in power with each Token collected and turned in.

NEW ITEMS

Icy winds and the Winter Wanderer bring with them new armors, weapons, furnishings, skins, consumables, and a delightful “present gifting” emote; all themed to match the wonderful holiday.

HOLIDAY VILLAGES

The Winter Wanderer has set up four villages to facilitate the joy and cheer of Winter Convergence. Visit these villages in Everfall, Monarch’s Bluffs, Weaver’s Fen, and Brightwood to meet the Winter Wanderer and carry out his holiday quests!

With that past us, the end-game changes coming with this update are even more exciting, as we mentioned above. The list of changes is abnormal and huge, so I would advise you to read them below. There’s a lot!

END GAME UPDATE

We renamed High Water Mark to Expertise and now display Expertise values in the UI.
- Each slot on the character model in the inventory will now display what the current Expertise level of that slot is.
- An average Expertise value is also shown above average Gear Score on the inventory character model.
- Players will get a level up banner whenever they increase their Expertise.
We’ve added a new resource called Gypsum that can be acquired each day by doing a variety of activities (open world named bosses, Expedition bosses, Outpost Rush, Arenas, Corrupted Breaches, etc.). Each activity rewards a different type of Gypsum that can be crafted into a Gypsum Orb. These Orbs can then be crafted into Gypsum Casts of any weapon, armor or trinket type. Opening a Gypsum Cast will guarantee an expertise bump and gear of that type.
- Obsidian Gypsum – defeating level 60+ open world named bosses, typically found in Elite Landmark.
- Sapphire Gypsum – defeating the final bosses of The Lazarus Instrumentality and Garden of Genesis.
- Ruby Gypsum – found in Outpost Rush Caches.
- Emerald Gypsum – found in Trade Skill Aptitude Reward Containers.
- Citrine Gypsum – found in Arena Caches.
- Amethyst Gypsum – found in Breach Caches.
- Topaz Gypsum – found on hostile creatures Level 55+, but only after consuming a special Attunement Potion that can be crafted at a Tier 5 Camp. Craft the potion, drink it, and start defeating Level 55+ hostile creatures anywhere in the world to find them. This potion can only be crafted once per week!
- Diamond Gypsum – found only during major events in Aeternum. For the Winter Convergence Festival, level 60 players can earn this rare Diamond Gypsum the first 3 Trees of Light they interact with in settlements during the event.
Introduced a Kiln station in all end game zones that allows players to craft Gypsum Orbs from the various types of Gypsum.
Tuned down the general chances of getting an Expertise bump to compensate for the guaranteed bumps that were added with Gypsum. Elite chest odds were reduced a little and open world bosses were reduced a lot. Expedition Bosses remain the same.
Adjusted the potential range of an Expertise increase based on the Expertise level. In general, the ranges stay slightly wider for further up the progression range, which translates into less overall “increase moments” required to reach the cap (so on average most people will get there with fewer bumps required).
Increased the rewards for Expeditions
- In addition to gypsum drops, each expedition boss will guarantee a random Expertise bump (note Arena bosses also guarantee a bump).
- Fixed all chests in Lazarus and Garden of Genesis so they have a chance to provide end game Expertise bumps.
- Added Timeless Shards to Expeditions (see below for details).
Introduced Timeless Shards – a new crafting ingredient that can be used to guarantee specific stats on weapons and armor.
- A Timeless Shard is a Crafting Artifact that enables the player to craft an item with a specific Attribute Bonus on it while still being able to use a Craft Mod to guarantee a perk.
- Timeless Shards are guaranteed to drop from Expedition Bosses and have a chance to drop from Elite Chests in Expeditions and Elite points of interest (POIs)
Adjusted 2 POIs to become end-game content
- The Malevolence Elite POI in Edengrove was upleveled to level 66 content and now has 6 Elite chests that can all provide end game Expertise bumps.
- The Imperial Palace & North Dynasty Shrine Elite POIs in Ebonscale reach were upleveled to level 66 content and how have 8 Elite chests that can all provide end game Expertise bumps
Increased the level of end game Corrupted Breaches to 66.
Made a number of adjustments in the end game difficulty to compensate for some accidental overtuning we did in the November patch. Our goal is to find a middle ground between the end game content being too easy before November and the overtuned HP sponges we had afterwards.
- Myrkgard Difficulty Adjustments – reduced the difficulty of Corrupted Acolytes, Cooks, Priests, Ogres, and Commanders.
  - Added an Elite Chest to Upper Harrow in Myrkgard, near the named Commander “Archos Imperator”.
- Ebonscale Reach Adjustments – reduced the difficulty a variety of named AI in the open world, including: Alligators, Boars, Bears, and Withered Grunts.
- Imperial Palace / North Palace Shrine Difficulty Adjustments – reduced the difficulty of the named Bear, Corrupted Tigers, Dynasty Spearmen, Dynasty Summoners, and Dynasty Warriors.
  - Relocated Daisy the Dancing Bear.
  - Renamed and moved Morgolf.
  - The “Forbidden Ritual” POI has been discontinued and replaced with a Fast Travel option.
  - Several Elite chests were moved into the final boss encounters of Imperial Palace and North Palace Shrine.
- Scorpius Difficulty Adjustments – reduced the difficulty of the Elite Tendrils and Hellmouths, and the named Corrupted Heavy.
- Ambusti Superior / Inferior POIs – replaced 2 Large Supply Chests with Elite Chests
  - Additional Corrupted Musketeers were added to both POIs.
- Deadman’s Cove POI – reduced the difficulty of the named ghost.
- Brightwood Isle POI – reduced the difficulty of the 2 named ghosts.
- Periville POI – reduced the difficulty of the named alligator, ghost, and undead hunter.
- Mangled Heights POI – reduced the difficulty of the named Corrupted elk and Corrupted acolytes.
- Eridanus POI – reduced the difficulty of dryad shamans.
- Caminus – moved an existing Elite chest into the boss encounter with Caminus Gate Lord.
- Svikin’s Stand – reduced the difficulty of the two named acolytes and the named workman.
- Eternal Pool POI – reduced the difficulty of dryad shamans.
  - Also added a new platform, stairs, and walls so that Viridulon the Rootbound can navigate to players outside of combat area.

WORLD EXPERIENCE

QUESTS

Improvements added to Main Story Quests:
- “Destiny Unearthed” has received a solo-able option.
- “The Nose Knows” has improved level design, and new tasks associated with actually acquiring the “ingredients” for Bear repellant.
- “Triumphant Return” now requires players to extinguish fires in Fort Alazar before rescuing Rima.
Added supplemental Territory Quests:
- 16 new quests added to Mourningdale.
- 13 new quests added to Restless Shore.
New “Housing” Quests
- 7 new quests added that are unlocked as players progress in their Territory Standing. These quests allow players to assist an idealistic architect as he undertakes a bold mission to construct new houses out in the wilds of Aeternum. The architect will extol the virtues of Home Ownership and reward players with new furniture and decor.
- Seek out Giacomo Altovoli in the Settlement in First Light, Everfall, Monarch’s Bluffs, or Windsward to get started (completion of “Encroaching Corruption” required)

NOTABLE FIXES

Added more info to tell players that PvP Faction Mission player kills don’t reset on death.
Fixed an issue where killing Corrupted Tendril AI did not progress the “Adiana’s Fountain” quest.
Removed many Elite Quest Prereqs for level 40 Weapons & Armor Quests.
Added better displays for the Spirit shrine icons on the map like other POIs in the world.
Quest marker for “Visions of Invaders” is now shown on the Map.
Fixed issues where certain Mourningdale NPCs didn’t have Map markers for quest acceptance and turn-in.
Fixed issues with
players farming Captain Thorpe after clipping through Myrkgard Cathedral.
Fixed issues where players were able to clip through the walls of the attacker War camps.

COMBAT & AI

COMBAT

Due to an issue in our initial PvP damage formula that caused lower gear to be more beneficial in damage mitigation, we have updated our formula. We look forward to hearing your feedback on these changes.

PVP damage formula update
- Adjusted the way armor mitigation was calculated to use enemies’ gear score value instead of your average gear score.
- To adjust for the difference in armor mitigation we increased damage low level players do to higher level players, and reduced the damage that higher level players due to lower level players.

Crit damage application

- Critical damage bonuses from masteries or perks are now applied additively instead of multiplicatively. On average, this will reduce the extra damage they provide by 3-5%.

Buffer Windows

- A general consistency pass has been done across all weapons to adjust the buffering windows for dodges, abilities and basic attacks. The updated buffer windows starts on the first frame of the attack that would deal damage or on the first casting frame in the case of abilities that do not deal damage.

DODGE

Fixed an issue where you could repeatedly dodge while in the exhausted state if you weren’t pressing any directional inputs.
Abilities which previously only prevented dodging (such as Ice Shower) have been updated so that they now also prevent jumping.

NAVIGATION

Crouch and prone can no longer be toggled while holding the block button.
Fixed an issue where traversing with Auto-Run and Auto-Traverse had a slight movement pause.
Fixed an issue with character leg animations when sheathing staff weapons.
Fixed an issue causing weapons to sometimes not equip properly when players quickly switched between crouch/stand into prone.
Fixed an issue where players could clip through outcropping collision by using certain abilities while prone.
Fixed an issue where players could desync their unsheathed weapon by repeatedly using prone and dodge commands.

PERKS

Exhilarate (Gem Perk)
- Updated description to clarify that the damage bonus applies when the gem owner’s health is below the specified percentage rather than their target.
Retaliate (Gem Perk)
- Updated description to clarify that the effect provided by this perk only lasts for a specific number of hits.
- Added a status effect icon that will appear while the effect is active.
- Also increased the number of hits player can perform while retaliate is active from 1 to 3.
Keen Berserk: Fixed an issue where the perk tooltip was displaying inaccurate HP percentages.
Additional perks added:
- Logging Efficiency – Logging speed increased by 5% – 25%
- Mining Efficiency – Mining speed increased by 5% – 25%
- Skinning Efficiency – Skinning speed increased by 5% – 25%
- Harvesting Efficiency – Harvesting speed increased by 5% – 25%
- Plagued Crits – Critical strikes against targets below 50% health inflict Disease for 6s, reducing the healing effectiveness of the target by 10% – 25%.
- Plagued Strikes – Heavy attacks against targets inflict disease for 8s, reducing healing effectiveness on the target by 10% – 25%.
- Thwarting Counter – Deal 5% – 15% additional damage against targets with active Grit. (Melee weapons only)
- Thwarting Strikes – Deal 3% – 12% additional damage while you have active Grit.
- Trenchant Strikes – Fully charged heavy attacks deal 3% – 15% additional damage. (Melee weapons only)
- Trenchant Crits – Fully charged heavy attacks deal 5% – 20% additional Crit damage.
- Trenchant Rend – Fully charged heavy attacks apply rend for 7s, reducing target’s absorption by 4% – 15%. (12s cooldown)
- Trenchant Recovery – Fully charged heavy attacks heals the player for 10% – 30% of the damage dealt.
- Physical Aversion – You take 2% – 4% less damage from ranged physical light and heavy attacks.
- Elemental Aversion – You take 2% – 4% less damage from ranged elemental light and heavy attacks.

OUTPOST RUSH

Initial spawn areas now have barriers preventing enemies from entering.
Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting Outpost Rush.

MISCELLANEOUS

Using a consumable will now cancel aiming.
Weapon mastery descriptions: Adjusted some naming conventions and fixed multiple grammatical errors in our descriptions.
Fixed an issue where players could drop below 0 mana.

WEAPONS

RAPIER

Tondo: Fixed a typo in the description.
Fleche: Updated how this ability interacts with gravity to prevent it from being used to traverse up steep inclines.
Heavy Attack: Slightly reduced recovery time.
Swiftness: Fixed an issue where the haste granted by this passive ability was applying at a shortened duration with each use.

FIRE STAFF

Burnout: Updated how this ability interacts with gravity to prevent it from being used to traverse up steep inclines.
Meteor Shower: Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to deal damage to targets through Fort Gates and War Camp gates.
Watch It Burn: Fixed an issue that prevented this passive ability from functioning.

WAR HAMMER

Charge: Updated how this ability interacts with gravity to prevent it from being used to traverse up steep inclines.
Path of Destiny: Reduced hit stun from 1s to .33s.

BOW

Rain of Arrows:
- Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to deal damage to targets through Fort Gates and War Camp gates.
- The bleeding effect from Rain of Arrows can no longer be stacked by multiple players using the ability on the same target. This change was made to keep the ability consistent with other AoE skills that can be stacked on top of each other.
Penetrating Shot:
- Blood Soaked Arrow: Fixed an issue that caused this upgrade to increased damage with each hit instead of after each hit.
Surprise Attack: Updated description of this passive ability to specify that its effect is per target.
Improved all Aim Down Sights transitions between abilities and primary shot. This also addresses an issue that prevented Penetrating Shot and Poison Shot from being canceled after exiting the shots.
Mark upgrade: Fixed an issue where the damage increase would not cap, it will now cap at 30% damage increase against enemy with debuff.

HATCHET

Aimed Throw: Increased recovery before being able to cancel out from the first .1s of the attack to the first .45s of the attack
Heavy Attack: Reduced recovery time by .15 seconds.

MUSKET

Fixed an issue where the musket would reload slower when stamina was depleted.
Fixed an issue where the player’s back warped unnaturally while sheathing the musket in the prone position.
Fixed an issue where the shoot animation could be skipped, which unintentionally increased the Musket’s rate of fire.
Fixed an issue that caused Musket charged shots to not be expended while firing from the crouched position.

LIFE STAFF

Splash of Light:
- Purify: Updated description to specify that the target must be healed for debuffs to be removed.
Beacon: Fixed an issue where the healing buff would persist on the caster after leaving the circle.

ICE GAUNTLET

Ice Pylon:
- Pylon Dodge: Updated tooltip to better describe the functionality.
Ultimate Chill
- Updated Ultimate Chill’s status bar debuff tooltip to be consistent with the Weapon Mastery tooltip.
- Fixed an issue that caused Ultimate Chill status effect icon to appear to stack.
Blocking Stamina: Fixed an issue that allowed this passive ability to give stamina when the player was out of mana.
Heavy Freeze: Updated the description to more accurately describe the cooldown.
Ice Tomb: Increased Ice Tomb health from 50% to 75% of casters health.
Entombed Burst: Reduced mana cost from 20 mana to 10 mana.

SWORD AND SHIELD

Heavy Attack: Reduced recovery time by .15s.

GREAT AXE

Enduring Strike: The Grit windows for attacks empowered by this passive ability have had a consistency pass to make sure that they only last until the end of the strike windows.
Blood Lust: Updated description to clarify the correct effective range of 15m.
Light attacks and non fully charged heavy attack: Reduced homing range detection from 4.5 meters to 3.5 meters.
Base Crit Damage: Reduced from 40% to 30%.
Bloodlust: Haste bonus reduced from 30% to 20%.
Reap: Damage on initial pull reduced from 110% weapon damage to 70% weapon damage.

VOID GAUNTLET

Putrefying Scream Perk:
- Reduced the max percentage it could scale up to from 50% to 30%.
Voidcaller:
- Fixed an issue where Voidcaller passive could trigger with regular basic attacks.
- Fixed an issue where the Voidcaller cooldown would reset when swapping weapons.
Glimpse of the Void: Fixed an issue where the Glimpse of the Void cooldown would reset when swapping weapons.
Orb of Decay:
- Detonating Orb: Fixed an issue where Detonating Orb could trigger backstabs.

SPEAR

Increased hit-shape size and attack homing on all thrust attacks.
Skewer: Increased lunge distance by 50%.
Perforate: Increased rotation speed during the ability.
Strong Conditioning:
- Fixed an issue where the Strong Conditioning buff could be canceled by using a Honing Stone.
- Strong Conditioning no longer shows a text pop-up when triggered.

AI

GENERAL AI

Abominations
- Fixed an issue with bite and swipe attacks on larger, scaled Abominations that made them miss.
Ancient Guardian Mage
- Fixed an issue causing the Mage’s Rolling Spell to sometimes hit behind the mage.
Ancient Guardian Reaver
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Reaver to die at the end of his retreating state.
Big Cats
- Fixed an issue causing cat-type AI to not respect level disparity for perception.
Brutes
- Removed the “Gravity Vortex” ability from the Outpost Rush Corrupted Ogre.
- Fixed an issue preventing Outpost Rush Corrupted Ogres from being staggered.
- Fixed an issue preventing Invasion Brutes from being staggered.
Dynasty Musketeer
- Fixed an issue causing the Musketeer to sometimes choose retreat positions that required them to run long distances to a position that is nearby.
Entropy
- Fixed an issue preventing Entropy from being gathered.
Heavy
- Fixed an issue causing Heavy AI characters to not properly play their stagger animation.
Spring Stag
- The Spring Stag has cleaned up its diet and will no longer drop motes while it moves.

EXPEDITION AI

General Expedition AI
- Fixed a rare issue that allowed Boss enemies to prematurely use their group wipe ability to kill all players.
Amrine Excavation
- Simon Grey
  - Fixed a rare issue allowing Simon’s Consume ability to deal damage to himself.
The Depths
- Fixed an issue causing AI to get stuck in the retreating state in The Depths.
- Archdeacon Azamela
  - Fixed an issue that rarely allowed the Archdeacon to see and target players outside of his room.
Captain Thorpe
- Darkness Calls fire ring will now apply a single tick of damage and burn when players run into it.
- Fire Charge will now more rapidly apply 3 stacks of Burn.
- Burn is now capped at 3 stacks (down from 5).
Dynasty Shipyard
- Isabella’s Tigers
  - Fixed an issue causing Isabella’s cannons to not properly deal damage on impact.
  - Fixed an issue causing Isabella’s wave beam attack to hit players twice.
  - Increased the aggro radius for Isabella’s Musketeers so that they always target a player.
- Empress Taiying
  - The Empress will now dash to players who are far away.
  - Fixed several issues that allowed the Empress to accidentally kill players who were in Death’s Door.
  - Fixed an issue allowing the Empress’s Corruption Wave to hit a player twice if they were standing between two waves of corruption.
Lazarus Instrumentality
- Demos
  - Fixed an issue that could cause Demos’ lunging spear attack to miss players in melee range.
- Cilla
  - Fixed an issue causing Cilla’s Arcane Wave attack to hit players twice.
  - Fixed an issue causing Cilla’s Arcane Snares to execute players who were in Death’s Door.
  - Fixed an issue causing Cilla’s Arcane Bomb spell to continue casting after she is dead.
    - Note: There is still another issue that allows this to happen and we’re continuing to look into solutions.

AI AFFIXES

Adjusted Slicer
- Decreased spawn rate from 1 slicer every 5 seconds to 1 slicer every 10 seconds.
- Increased duration from 10 seconds to 20 seconds
- Fixed issue where standing on top of the slicer would not continue to apply damage

ECONOMY, PROGRESSION, & LOOT

TRADE SKILL APTITUDE

We want to continue rewarding the efforts you make to craft items for yourself, your friends, or to make some coin on the Trading Post, so we have introduced Trade Skill Aptitude.

Upon reaching level 200 in a Trade Skill, the leveling circle in the UI will update to show 3 markers equidistant from each other on the circle.
Earning Trade Skill XP will begin progressing you again, and when you reach one of these markers, you will be awarded with a container of useful items that are (mostly) trade skill relevant, such as Craft Mods, special ingredients, and even schematics and recipes!
Each subsequent marker awards a more spectacular container with more rewards than the one before.
Gaining enough XP to go all the way around the circle will increment the Aptitude Counter by 1. This counter will keep counting so you can keep track of how many times you’ve wrapped your progression around the top level.
We have also introduced a new type of reward with this system: Equipment Patterns.
- Equipment Patterns are Crafting Artifacts that enable you to craft a guaranteed Gear Score 600 item that has a specific appearance.
- Patterns require a significant amount of powerful crafting resources to create, but guarantee a GS 600 item.
- Patterns still roll perks and players have the normal amount of control over their outcome with Craft Mods and Azoth.
- Equipment Patterns have a small chance to drop from Arcana, Weaponsmithing, Armoring, and Engineering Aptitude Reward Caches.

REFINING

Added refining recipes that let you refine 250 of a T5 raw ore, wood, fiber, or rawhide into 1 legendary material. For instance, you can now convert 250 Orichalcum Ore into 1 Tolvium.
Orichalcum Ingots can now be crafted with Platinum as well as Starmetal.

LOOT

There are a number of Knights in the game that have valuable named items for level 20-25 players. Seek them out and take their treasures from them!
The Gash Named Ring previously had the incorrect gem slotted into it (a weapon gem), it now correctly has an armor gem in it.
Added Tier 5 Amulet, Ring, and Earring drops that randomly roll all stats and gear score to all Level 60+ content. Previously, there were only named trinkets dropping at this tier, so this should accelerate Trinket Expertise, as well.
Faction shields no longer have a damage perk on them (Enchanted). Round shields now have Refreshing Ward, Kite Shields have Keenly Fortified, and Tower Shields now have Hated.
The “Moonless Night” void gauntlet was renamed to “Wine Dark Night”
The Primordial weapon set was previously missing a Tower Shield and Ice gauntlet. These have been added and drop from the same activities as other Primordial weapons.
Boots of Channeled Energy previously had an incorrect perk (Siphoning). This perk is only available on weapons and has been swapped out for Afflicted.
The Unhallowed Soul of Myrkgard Named AI erroneously did not have any have any drops. It now drops 3 named items, a spear, a life staff, and an amulet.
More feminine armor appearances have been added to the game as world drops.

CRAFTING

We removed corrupted shards and lodestone as required ingredients to craft Arena Keys, and added 5 runestone. We did this to make Arena keys not compete for the same resources as Expedition keys.

FISHING

Madtom Fish now breaks down into Madtom Toxins which can be used in alchemy (with a chance of fish oil on breakdown).
A number of fishing armor items are now eligible to be bought and sold on the trading post. These are all items that a player could potentially not get during fishing quests as the reward boxes sometimes roll 1 piece out of 2 or 3 at random. This update ensures that all players have access to all pieces of armor to complete every set, if they wish.

NOTABLE BUG FIXES

The token and coin cost of the Tier 2 Faction Health and Mana Potions for Syndicate now match the other factions: 50 & 30 tokens respectively instead of 100.
War previously did not drop a War Void Gauntlet. A Void Gauntlet has been added in as a possible reward.
Fixed an issue that was causing Void Gauntlets to not naturally roll their ability-specific bonuses when dropped and crafted.
Fixed an issue that was causing chests in Lazarus Instrumentality and Garden of Genesis to not respect the Gear Score value of the Expedition.
Fixed an issue that was causing the Outpost Rush end-of-game overview to display 0 for all assists.
Fixed a display issue with Outpost Rush compass icons that could cause them to disappear, which should also address some other compass-related issues.
Fixed an issue causing Trading Post purchase taxes to go to the settlement at which an item was listed for sale instead of the settlement where it was purchased.
Fixed an issue that was causing the Nothingness Void Gauntlet to require Eternal Ice instead of an Empty Heart to be crafted.
Fixed an issue preventing forms of tallow from being used as a crafting mod when crafting items. (The relevant perks are: Accuracy, Mortal Refreshment, and Refreshing Toast).

UX, UI, & SOCIAL

UPDATED LOADING SCREEN SYSTEM

Adjusted system so that it loads in different screens depending on where the player is loading into.
Added tips to the loading screens, which will be a mix of general tips and tips specific to your destination.

UPDATED SOCIAL AND NAVBAR UI

Updated the art and layout of the menu for improved readability.
Updated notification numbers to be more noticeable.
Added room for social panel and made it more readable.

NOTABLE FIXES

Improved logic of Azoth cap warning so that it only occurs at certain thresholds, to avoid notification spam.
Fixed a number of issues with the compass that should make it more reliable when switching game modes.
Fixed the icons for town project crafting. They now show the town project blue icon not the standard yellow quest icon.
We now only show the message stating that you can not damage other players when not PvP flagged once. These messages got annoying doing PvE content with other faction members.
Added audio to a bunch of UI actions to help provide feedback the action was successful – repairing gear, entering housing sub menus, changing sub menus in the company section, expanding/collapsing lists in crafting stations, from filter boxes, and when changing chat feeds.
Fixed an issue that was causing pings within some Expeditions to display underground.
Added ambient audio to various crafting and refining stations.
Added better support for multi-monitor setups.
Fixed a rare issue that caused the game to incorrectly salvaged a random item of the type your cursor was over when rapidly salvaging items.
Fixed an issue that sometimes caused players to stop receiving banner notification for friend, group, and company invites.
Gave players more descriptive options when reporting abusive chat. Now players can choose between abusive text or voice chat.

PTR NOTES

The following notes were added or changed as a direct result of internal testing efforts and players submitting feedback in the PTR. Thanks to all those who participated!

WINTER CONVERGENCE

Each day, the first three interactions with the Tree of Light in settlements will grant presents that will also grant a lockbox with a gift of appreciation for participating in the festivities!
Daily interactions with the Tree of Light have the rare chance to drop event weapon and armor patterns as rewards.
- As with any openable container, luck does not apply here.

DECEMBER END GAME UPDATE

Introduced a new type of Gypsum. Diamond Gypsum can only be found during certain events in Aeternum. During the Winter Convergence Festival, level 60 players will earn this Gypsum when interacting with their first 3 Trees of Light each day.
- Our goal is to give players even more options to progress their Expertise, as well as improve the rewards of the Winter and future events
Reduced the cost of crafting a Gypsum Orb from 100 coin to 2.5, and Gypsum Cast from 475 coin to 5. We decided there was no need to add another coin expense for our level 60 players, but kept a minimal amount so end game territory owners can earn a little more tax income.
Reduced cooldown on Topaz Gypsum Attunement Potion from weekly down to daily, which means players will now be able to earn enough Topaz Gypsum to craft an orb each day. We also reduced the crafting ingredients to make it less difficult to craft and increased the drop rate of Topaz Gypsum when the potion is in effect.
Reduced Gypsum earn cooldown timers from 22hrs to 18hrs just to give a little more leeway to people’s play schedules.
Adjusted the way Expertise bumps work so there is a minimum, as well as a maximum. The minimum is set to 2, and maximum starts at 5 and ramps down to 2. Our goal is to average around 35 bumps required to get from min to max Expertise.
Gypsum is now rewarded for completing an event, rather than given in the reward cache from the event. A few activities such as Outpost Rush, Corrupted Breaches, Arenas, and Aptitude granted Gypsum in the reward cache in the PTR. This leads to hoarding and uncertainty if using a cache is past the cooldown timer. This change should resolve both of those concerns.