Season III: Soldiers of Fortune update

New Content:

Added a new Weapon Class: Maul
Added new Units:
- Tier 3: Condottieri Guards (available from Season III Unit Challenges)
- Tier 4: Fortebraccio Pikemen (available from Season III Unit Challenges)
- Tier 5: Falconetti Gunners (available from Season III Unit Challenges)
- Tier 5: Pavise Crossbowmen (available from Season III Unit Challenges or Honour in the Unit Tree)
- Tier 1: Martellatori (available for 4900 Sovereigns or 700,000 Silver)
Added Seasonal Doctrines

New Warlords Login Event:

To help new warlords grow stronger we have prepared a login-event. New and old players alike can claim rewards by pressing “O” and selecting “Activities”. The rewards include:

A permanent 3-star Unit of your choice.
A permanent 4-star Unit of your choice.

The choice of units only contains those which can be unlocked by Honour.

Seasonal Doctrines:

Introducing a new Doctrine system: Seasonal Doctrines, these Doctrines are easier to come by compared to common and rare Doctrines which can be excavated from the War Scholar. The differences between these are normal Doctrines are the array of new abilities they contain along with their short usage times. Things to keep in mind:

Seasonal Doctrines will be sealed to the unit you equip them to, meaning they cannot be taken off a unit and put onto another unit, the same as normal Doctrines.
You can use a Doctrine of the same name and type to extend the duration of a currently equipped doctrine.
These Doctrines cannot be salvaged.
Regardless of if the Doctrines are equipped or in your inventory, they will expire at the end of the Season.

Availability:

Village, Fief and City Ownership
- 1 to 12-Day Rare and Epic Doctrines.
Nobility Titles for Free Houses
- 1 to 12-Day Rare, Epic and Legendary Doctrines.
Seasonal Store
- 3-Day Rare Seasonal Doctrines for 25 Barbutes.
- 1-Day Epic Seasonal Doctrines for 35 Barbutes.

Imperial Restorationist Martial Title System:

Similar to Nobility Titles exclusive for Free Houses, Imperial Restorationists will now be able to get titles for their respective Legion, the titles differ depending on the land the Legion resides in.

How to obtain Martial Titles:

The Acclaim system for the Imperial Restorationists has been upgraded.You can earn acclaim by participating in Territory War and achieving combat objectives set by the Legion of your region. Your Legion will also gain influence depending on the amount of fiefs owned by your legion. Both of these points will be added together to give you a ranking and depending on that ranking you will receive a Martial Title.

Please note: Some Martial Titles can only be distributed to a set amount of warlords, these are distributed based on ranking, if two warlords have the same rank it will be given to the warlord with the higher Acclaim.

Martial Titles are granted every week at 2am CEST on Sundays (5pm PDT on Saturdays) , if you fail to meet the contribution point and faction point requirements, you will be demoted in rank. Completing weekly combat quests will grant basic rewards and advanced quests will grant additional rewards.

Rewards:

If you possess a Martial Title, every week at 6pm CEST (9am PDT) on Sundays, you will receive a salary depending on your rank, the higher your rank, the more you will receive.

Martial Title Ranks:

These titles are only available if you are part of the Legions which are in Ostaria or Ungverija, they are ordered highest to lowest:

Lord Commander
General of the West
Praefectus
First Legate
Deputy Legate
Centurion
Optio
Tessarius
Hastilarius
Decurion
Draconarius
Decanos
Aquilifer
Legionary
Venator
Munifex
Veles

These titles are only available if you are part of the Legions which reside in Liangyun or Maoyang, they are ordered lowest to highest in rank:

Lord Commander
General of the East
Imperial Prefect
Lord Minister
Minister
Major
Adjutant
Captain of Guards
Captain
Lieutenant
Sublieutenant
Patrol Leader
Flagbearer
Legionary
Ranger
Corporal
Trooper

New Season:

Deployed Season III Interfaces, players can access Season III by heading to the top of their navigational bar or by pressing F5. (Players must be level 20 or above to access this interface).

Activated the following Season III content:

Seasonal Levels
Maul Challenges
Seasonal Unit Challenges for Season III and Season II.
Weekly Challenges
Campaigns
Season III Battle Pass
Season III Battle Pass Bundles
Seasonal Store

Seasonal Schedule:

Unit Challenges:

Martellatori (Tier 1): Available from the 21st of April
Condottieri Guards (Tier 3): Available from the 21st April
Fortebraccio Pikemen (Tier 4): Available from the 5th May
Falconetti Gunners (Tier 5): Available from the 19th May
Pavise Crossbowmen (Tier 5): Available from the 2nd June

Campaign Stages:

Drill Wars: 21st April - 4th May
The Baron’s War: 4th - 21st May
- Conquer the fiefs in your region for the glory of your House.
Crossing Frontiers: 22nd - 28th May
- Conquer a Border post to open the road into the Borderlands.
Heart of the World: 29th May - 18th June
- Invade the Borderlands and conquer a fief for the glory of your House.
Conqueror’s Crown: 19th June - 2nd July
- To become world-conqueror, you must overcome the ultimate challenge and take over Conqueror’s City.
Imperial Dawn: from 3rd July
- Rewards for the final battle will be distributed during this phase.

Weekly Challenges:

Week 1: 21st - 27th April
Week 2: 28th April - 4th May
Week 3: 5th - 11th May
Week 4: 12th - 18th May
Week 5: 19th - 25th May
Week 6: 26th May - 1st June
Week 7: 2nd - 8th June
Week 8: 9th - 15th June
Week 9: 16th - 22nd June
Week 10: 23rd - 29th June

Warlord Balancing and optimisation:

Optimised cooldown for skills that had multiple steps in their attacks.

Skills that have multiple steps of an attack by repeated button-pressing had relatively long cooldowns, which were made even longer when then the skills were terminated or interrupted. Due to this, we have adjusted the cooldown mechanisms for these skills so they provide a better experience.

We have reduced the cooldown duration for all skills that have multiple attack steps, the cooldown will start every time a step of the skill is cast, so you will no longer need to wait for a long amount of time when the skill is interrupted.

Affected skills:

Shortsword and Shield:

Shield Bash:

I: Changed from 18 seconds to 14 seconds.
II: Changed from 18 seconds to 14 seconds.
III: Changed from 18 seconds to 14 seconds.

Kick:

I: Changed from 16 seconds to 12 seconds.
II: Changed from 16 seconds to 12 seconds.
III: Changed from 16 seconds to 12 seconds.

Glaive:

Breaker of Shields:

I: Changed from 14 seconds to 13 seconds.
II: Changed from 13 seconds to 12 seconds.
III: Changed from 11 seconds to 10 seconds.

Charge:

I: Changed from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
II: Changed from 24 seconds to 19 seconds.
III: Changed from 22 seconds to 17 seconds.

Longbow:

Sharp Exit:

I: Changed from 32 seconds to 30 seconds.
II: Changed from 30 seconds to 28 seconds.
III: Changed from 27 seconds to 25 seconds.

Bodkin-Tipped:

I: Reduces piercing damage multiple from 0.96 to 0.672 and extra piercing damage from 1646 to 1346
II: Reduces piercing damage multiple from 0.96 to 0.672 and extra piercing damage from 1775 to 1475
III: Reduces piercing damage multiple from 0.96 to 0.672 and extra piercing damage from 1904 to 1604

Exploding Arrow:

I: Reduces piercing damage multiple from 1.8 to 1.53 and extra piercing damage from 3280 to 2875. Increases max hit targets from 5 to 7
II: Reduces piercing damage multiple from 1.8 to 1.53 and extra piercing damage from 3569 to 3164. Increases max hit targets from 5 to 7
III: Reduces piercing damage multiple from 1.8 to 1.53 and extra piercing damage from 3859 to 3454. Increases max hit targets from 5 to 7

Longsword & Shield:

With Valour:

I: Changed from 32 seconds to 28 seconds.
II: Changed from 28 seconds to 24 seconds.
III: Changed from 24 seconds to 20 seconds.

Sally Forth:

I: Changed from 50 seconds to 47 seconds.
II: Changed from 45 seconds to 42 seconds.
III: Changed from 40 seconds to 37 seconds.

Spear:

Hurricane's Edge:

I: Changed from 24 seconds to 22 seconds.
II: Changed from 22 seconds to 20 seconds.
III: Changed from 20 seconds to 18 seconds.

Return of Jangar:

I: Changed from 16 seconds to 14 seconds.
II: Changed from 16 seconds to 14 seconds.
III: Changed from 16 seconds to 14 seconds.

Poleaxe:

Bec de Corbin:

I: Changed from 30 seconds to 28 seconds.
II: Changed from 28 seconds to 26 seconds.
III: Changed from 26 seconds to 24 seconds.

Grim Harvest:

I: Changed from 18 seconds to 17 seconds.

II: Changed from 18 seconds to 17 seconds.

III: Changed from 18 seconds to 17 seconds.

Nodachi:

Samurai’s March:

I: Changed from 12 seconds to 11 seconds.
II: Changed from 12 seconds to 11 seconds.
III: Changed from 12 seconds to 11 seconds.

Dual Blades:

Butterfly:

I: Changed from 15 seconds to 14 seconds.
II: Changed from 15 seconds to 14 seconds.
III: Changed from 15 seconds to 14 seconds.

Optimisations and bug fixes:

Fixed a bug with Warlords where when they were standing on narrow steps and slopes, when using offensive skills, they were mistakenly flagged as if they were falling and the skill was interrupted. Please note: Warlords will still be flagged when falling when they use offensive skills on high platforms and cliffs, and the skills will still be interrupted, this change is only for slopes and steps.
Fixed a bug where Warlords could avoid taking fall damage when sliding down walls, summon horses after rolling, using roll skills or casting skills.
Added animation to horses which shows them taking damage when they fall from a high up area.
Updated the physical simulation system so soldiers will now be knocked back or up into the air when they are killed by Warlords.
Optimised situations where skills were interrupted by base attacks due to network synchronization.
Fixed a bug which prevented escape skills (such as “Light-Footed” for Longbow, and “Rolling Escape” for Shortbow) and melee skills (such as “Push Back for Poleaxe and “Shield Bash” for Shortsword and Shield) from being cast correctly and ignoring stunned status caused by base attacks.

Set Balancing and optimisation:

Adjusted Set Effects:

We have found that the effects for some sets were lower or higher than we wanted them to be, so we have made some adjustments for Season III. We changed the effects of the 4-piece sets for the following sets and effects:

Set	Effect in Season II	Effect in Season III
Carnifex Set	Adds 100 Leadership	Adds Strength, Agility, Armour and Toughness by 10 respectively
Desert Hawk Set	Increases duration of damage bonus after rolling by 50%	Increases armour penetration effects of the rolling buff from 3% to 5% and extends its duration by 50%
Fearless Paladin Set	Increases Bec de Corbins final step of damage by 40%	Increases attack steps for Bec de Corbin from 3 to 4

Unit Balancing and optimisation:

Adjusted Cavalry:

We received a large amount of feedback from players during Season II regarding cavalry being the main units players used to dominate the battlefield. In ancient times, cavalry were central to winning battles in open-areas as they had advantages such as improved mobility.

We found that cavalry were able to dominate the battlefields regardless of terrain in all modes, whether that be Free Battles, Territory War, or standard Matched battles. Cavalry would repeatedly crush most unit types, except anti-cavalry units such as spears and pikes in narrow-areas. After reviewing your feedback and looking through information collected from the game we have identified issues with the overall design of cavalry units, such as their abilities to change their initial speed and course, being unable to be stopped by most obstacles and being able to reach top speed within narrow-areas where they had a small field-of-view. Due to these issues, we have decided to make the following changes:

When cavalry crashes into walls and big objects (such as shelters) at a high speed, they will take some damage, stop charging and get frightened.
When cavalry charge is interrupted by brace weapons, muskets, and bolts, the cavalry cannot enter the charge status again.
Reduced initial speed and acceleration, these units no longer need a duration of time to pass to reach max speed. The following units are affected:
- Coutiliers
- Dagger-Axe Lancers
- Yeomen
- Winged Hussars
- Cataphract Lancers
Reduced initial speed and acceleration for the following units:
- Ironcap Scout Cavalry
- Prefecture Heavy Cavalry
Altered the turning animation to be more smooth and slightly reduced turning rate for all cavalry units.

Due to the above changes, we will be issuing the following compensations:

Items to reset cavalry units will be offered so you can rebuild your cavalry units according to the above changes. Honour will be refunded in the form of items.
An item will be distributed to you to remove your Doctrines from your cavalry.

Khevtuul Cavalry:

The skills “Charge” and “Hunting Time” can now be launched at the same time.

Adjusted Unit Formations:

In Season II, we found that the density and the shape of many formations were inconsistent when there were too many or too few soldiers left alive, there were also cases where 1 soldier was added or removed from a formation due to unreasonable distributions. We have made the following changes to resolve these issues:

“Dispersed” Winged Hussars could get more intense when there were not enough soldiers. Some players exploited this fact to gain unfair advantages. We’ve increased the intensity level for the Dispersed formation so it’s scale remains when the number of soldiers decreases.
Fixed a bug which caused formation points to disappear when there was less than 3 Prefecture Guards around a Warlord.
Removed the “Bull Horn” formation from the game as it was almost identical to the “V” Formation.
Fixed an issue with the “Column” formation with Shortsword and Shield when there were too few soldiers.
Fixed a bug which gave Ironcap Spearmen one extra soldier when in the “Turtle” formation.

Altered Unit Control Logic once Warlords die in battle:

In Season II, operating units proved difficult when your Warlord perished in battle. It was not clear which units could still be controlled and when viewing the battle it was difficult to direct your units to a specific fight. We have made the following changes:

When your Warlord dies, your units will attack freely or follow the Warlord you are spectating.
When your Warlord dies, units cannot line up or use unit skills.
When your Warlord dies, you will be able to control your view instead of being forced to spectate and follow another Warlord.
Units in the retreat status will no longer be able to take orders.

Open-World:

Territory War

Declaring War:

Added a function where ruling houses can set battle participants on the Declare War screen.
Added a function where ruling houses can set participants for each line in the Join Battle screen.
Adjusted required House levels to attack cities, towns, forts and villages, the level requirements will vary depending on the village, town, fort or city, for example near the capital cities of each region the house level required to attack villages will be higher than those further away from the cities.

Improved Value for Cities and Fiefs:

In Season II fiefs and cities didn’t feel like they held much advantages, other than their geographical differences, dividends and resource points. This made some fiefs not very interesting to capture and own, so we have decided to make the following changes:

Unit kits can now only be created in specific fiefs, not all fiefs will have all kits.

Eastern kits for Feudal, Chivalric and Silver Eras can be forged in all fiefs in Maoyang and Liangyun.
Western kits for Feudal, Chivalric, and Silver Eras can be forged in all fiefs in Ostaria and Ungverijan.
Eastern and Western Kits for the Golden and Heroic Eras can only be forged in a few fiefs around their respective regions (Maoyang and Liangyun for Eastern, Ostaria and Ungverijan for Western), including the Borderlands. The Borderlands fiefs will offer both Eastern and Western Kits as Unit Weaponsmiths, over a long period of time some fiefs kit choices may change as Unit Weaponsmiths will want to relocate to safer places.

Adjusted Territory War Fief Stages:

In this Season we have added high tier units to high-level fiefs. When you level up a fief, the defending NPCs Units will be upgraded to higher tiers such as Tier 4 and Tier 5. The NPC Units will now join in the battle to defend a fief, however the more players in the battle, the less NPC units will defend.

Adjusted Fief Locations:

Ostaria:

Swapped the locations of Alter Westberg and Wildenhag and changed the related resource points. We replaced the Upper Ostar that blocked the west path of Augolia with a line formed by Edelsee, the mountain to its north and Altar Westberg, making Altar Westberg an even more important place.

Relocated Hunting Lodges, making it a bigger threat to the fiefs in north-west Ostaria.

Relocated Segespaene to the east exit of Ostaria, changed it into a fort and deleted its associated resource points.

Ungverija:

Added a bridge to the north-east of Borona, allowing warlords to easily march towards Ostaria.

Changed Herceg Vára to a city.

Moved to Vajkfalva to where Arany Pajzsok was located and changed related resource points. Moved Arany Pajzsok into a fort and relocated it beside the river.

Maoyang:

Relocated Kieft’s Commune.

Relocated Desert’s Edge so it is somewhat closer to Zaifu, making it a bigger threat to Zaifu.

Changed Hargana into a city, increasing its strategic value in the lower-central area of Maoyang. Moved its associated resource points to the range of Futao and Zancheng.

Liangyun:

Relocated Zhao’s Manor to increase it’s threat to Gao Qiang and reduced the geographical effects of Gao Qiang. Deleted the stone resource points and moved its station to reduce the strategic value of Tiekuang, making the geographical position of Zhao’s Manor less favorable.

The Borderlands:

Changed Ihlov into a fort that blocks the path connecting Old Prospect and Genseric.

Changed Baruun into a river-side fort that blocks the path connecting Bixi and Fujian. Removed all associated resource points of Baruun..

Changed Schaken into a fief to clear the path leading to the capital in the north.

Optimised the Food system:

In Season II, to replenish food you needed to take food out of your wagons and interact with fiefs or wayside inns frequently and when your food was low you needed to manually replenish every time you left a fief. The penalties caused when you lacked food was restricting players, shackling them from being able to do things in the open-world, due to this we have made the following changes:

Food is now FREE and will replenish automatically.
Your warband will not consume food and replenish food slowly when they move around the capital cities and in lands controlled by their House or Alliance.
Your warband will consume 50% less food in friendly regions (lands controlled by friendly Houses and Alliances).
When your warband returns to their fiefs (Capitals or lands controlled by their House or Alliances), their food will fully replenish.
If the amount of replenished food isn’t enough to support your warband, load up your wagons with food. When there is no food left, your warband will eat food loaded on your wagon to keep their combat power unreduced.
If you run out of food, your warband will be able to collect food from farmland (food resource points) around the world map. This can only be done when you have no food.
Your warband is unable to fight in Territory War or pursue others when they have no food.
Each time you replenish food manually, you have to replenish at least 1,500 food.

Optimised the Resource system:

Resources collected from the open-world were designed to play a key role when making equipment and siege engines as well as finishing fief quests. In Season II, resources were supposed to be one of the key reasons to fight in Territory War, however the resource points in Season II were not attractive enough, we also had the following issues.

Requisition Orders were designed for players to pillage resources in regions occupied by enemies, however, it’s extra function allowed warbands to collect resources when they had none, meaning there was an infinite amount of food.
Low-quality resources were almost useless, making them unattractive.
There were too few horse ranches.

Due to the above, we have decided to make the following changes:

Common and uncommon resources can now be used to refine processed Epic materials.
Exhausted resource points cannot be requisitioned with Requisition Orders.
Collecting resources with Requisition Orders increases resource output.

Added a new function: Transport Goods:

You are now able to check available resources of any fief and stronghold in the Market menu and receive it via a delivery. You no longer need to travel to the fief to collect the purchased resources, but you can if you wish. Delivery will incur a fee which will increase depending on how far away the resources are and how big the package is, the further away and the bigger the package, the more expensive the fee will be.

There are some limitations for this system:

Resources purchased in a fief using Goods Delivery will automatically go into your wagon. If you are in the open-world and buy resources from the Auction House Resource Market, you can choose whether they are delivered to your camp (for a fee), or to collect from the resource pile where they are located. They will remain in resource pile for up to 72 hours.
Resources that exceed 200,000 cannot be delivered to you via Transport Goods.

Added a new function: Receipt Delivery

When the Season III starts, players will need to reselect their region and the Borderlands will be closed off from travel. Due to this, we have opened Transport Goods delivery to allow you to reclaim your items from the various regions.

Transport Goods delivery will generate when your resources for sale expire in the Market, head to the Watchman in your fief and select “Transport Goods”, you will then be presented with a list of items. Select the items you want to claim and pay a small fee to have them transported to your current fief. This system only works to transport expired resources from the Market.

When resources expire in the market, you will receive a mail containing a list of all of your receipts. Receipts only last for 72 hours, so make sure you claim your items as soon as possible. Once the 72 hours has passed, the items will be deleted and will not be returned to you. Make sure you claim your items ASAP!

Purple Mounts:

As there is an increased demand for purple mounts, in Season III purple-grade Stud Farms will respawn in any land whereas before they were exclusive to the Borderlands.

Disconnection Penalty:

If you disconnect from the game while in the open-world when you are being pursued, half of the items in your wagon will be dropped and half of it can be picked up by other players. The dropped items will stay in the open-world for 10 minutes.

Map Adjustments for Siege and Field Battles:

Removed the “Storming the Great Wall” PVE Event.

Field:

We found that cavalry has been almost unstoppable on the majority of field battle maps, so we have decided to make the following changes:

Added brace weapons and shelters around fiefs to weaken cavalry’s advantages. This will make it more challenging and make cavalry less aggressive in the environment. We have added more infantry friendly elements to diversify the map.

Respawn Points:

Fixed the issue with respawn points being too far away from objectives on larger maps by adding a new mechanic.

When a side captures Flag A or flag C it will activate a closer respawn point on their route to this flag which will allow the side to get to the front lines quicker. The side which failed to capture either flag has to respawn from the default point in their base. The default respawn point remains activated and can still be selected when Flag A or C is not captured.

We found that some players could not make it out of their respawn points in some Field Battle maps if they were killed repeatedly in a short period of time, due to this we have added several respawn points for players to choose from instead of a single respawn point.

Siege:

In Season II, warlords could jump to rooftops on open buildings from the ground by using skills or when mounted to reach areas where they could obtain unfair advantages on the battlefield. This was very annoying for warlords which lacked specific skills and affected the balance of these maps, so we have made the following changes:

We have sealed off rooftops which cannot be accessed through standard jumping, this is especially the case with buildings near flag points, supply points or main crossroads.
Sealed areas adjacent to accessible walls will now be blocked by obstacles to indicate that no entrance is allowed.

Battlefield Statistics:

Providing siege equipment for other warlords to use now awards points, this should encourage warlords to work together to fight against stronger foes. When a warlord uses someone else's siege equipment they will receive 70% of the overall points gained and the owner of the equipment will receive 30% of the overall points gained, the owner of the equipment can receive a maximum of 75 points.

When a warlord destroys newly deployed siege equipment he will receive additional points, destroying siege equipment which was deployed in the previous 10 seconds will grant 25 points, up to 50 points may be gained at a single time.

Damaging allies will now be recorded in the battlefield statistics but it will not affect your overall score.

Miscellaneous:

Upgraded the graphical design of the entire game to make the environments look smoother and more realistic.
Added two new Leaderboards in the Hero Ranking section of the Hall of Fame, data is displayed by Season:
- Acclaim Ranking
  - Martial Title ranking for the Imperial Restorationists
- Ennoblement Ranking
  - Nobility Title ranking for the Free Houses
Added a function to save weapon attires when switching weapons. For example, if you equip Jade Star to your Dual Blades and switch to Bow, when switching back to Dual Blades the Jade Star weapon attire will still be equipped.