In order to bring joy to new as well as old players we've been hard at work on a new patch. Although it might not seem like it, we've been enjoying Warband and cRPG for over four years now. Naturally, we've experienced both great highs and lows in this time. Recognizing that more than mere item tweaks are necessary to keep cRPG healthy we have focused heavily on sustainability.

We are still fine-tuning a few things and there might be some changes here and there. Once the patch has settled in we need your help to spread the word so it can live up to it's internal working title - "Revival".

https://i.imgur.com/kCSi6JA.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/U47h7vH.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TvMlICP.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6kAbS2z.png
https://i.imgur.com/uiB2Th4.jpg

1. Levels & XP

The required XP to level up will be considerably lowered. Less grind for new players, more options for old ones. You will keep your current XP and your level is adapted accordingly. If you have a retirement title it will be grandfathered. Every character gets a free respec without penalty.

2. Items and game mechanics

The arrival of new members to our team has allowed us to compose a long list of feature updates, balance improvements, implementation of some 40+ new items and roughly 30 mesh and texture improvements. All marketplace offers will be removed when the patch arrives.

• Aggressively improved balance of mounted ranged mechanics.
  
• Improved horse balance to better reflect the survivability–offensive capabilities trade-off.
  
• Several tweaks to the wpf and weight penalties have been made to better establish balance between Strength and Agility builds.
  
• Reduced damage values for bows and throwing weapons to maintain current effectiveness with increased levels.
  
• Raised difficulties for weapons at risk of being abused with large stacks of Agility and Weapon Master. More improvements can be expected on this subject in the future.
  
• Adjusted frames in the polearm overhead and right-to-left swing animations to minimize "insta-hitting."

https://i.imgur.com/iCdHb16.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/sntVy5S.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WMEE6Tk.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iWg4Y9w.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XIIVGO9.jpg

3. Respec

The respec will become a lot less restrictive, allowing players to change their builds more often.

• Penalty lowered to 20%.
  
• A free respec without penalty once every 7 days (subject to change).
  
• The free respec cannot be used on your current strategus hero.

4. New players

One goal was to make it easier for new players to catch up to us oldies. They should not have to become no-life-grinders to kick our +3 asses.

• The first character of a new player will receive a "starter kit" (exact content TBD).
  
• New characters will now generally start at level 25.
  
• On retirement you will still start at level 1, but your peasant life will be drastically shorter.

5. STF

The level for STF will be increased to 35 and they will not come with 10k gold anymore. This allows us to lift the various restrictions we had to put in place for them to avoid abuses.

6. Auctions

The "Training Lesson" auction will show up more frequently and it can still be used to respec any character without penalty (e.g., your current strategus hero). The "Blacksmith Services" auction will be replaced by an immediate action you can execute anytime on one of your masterwork items, giving you 2 LP.

7. When

Very soon.