Changelog/2022/April 20

Hello,
Today the Blazing Fortress is emerging from its chrysalis, finally born anew in the form of the Crimson Isle. Many memories were forged on this island but it is time for new stories to be told.
In this thread, we will present the largest SkyBlock release to date.
► The Crimson Isle
Centuries of eruptions from the Volcano turned this island into this infernal landscape. The island inhabitants regrouped into two opposing factions on each side of the Volcano. While their relations have been mostly peaceful since the treaty, trouble is starting to brew on the island.
► Factions
The requirement to enter the Crimson Isle is Combat level 24.
Near the island entrance, you'll find Elle of the Nether in a predicament. Help her, and she will tell you more about this place and the two factions.
The Taika people compose the Mage Faction in Scarleton, while the Piglins are on the opposite side of the island in Dragontail, home of the Barbarian Faction. Somewhere along the questline, you’ll be able to join either of those factions and progress in their respective quests.
What is a Faction?
This update introduces new Quest and NPC mechanics such as improved objective systems, dialogue systems, NPCs moving, and more. Each Faction has its own questline and story for you to play through.
On top of that, you will get access to the Town Board of your Faction, giving you Daily Missions. You will need to gain reputation to move up the ranks of your Faction, giving you access to new shop options, better daily missions, and more.
Choosing a Faction isn’t a strategy, so feel free to pick whichever fancies you the best. You can always change factions later if you feel like it by talking to Elle. You will need to lose all your current reputation to amend and restore your trust with the other faction before you join them.
► Enemies
The Crimson Isle is an extremely hostile area with tons of new enemies, and 5 of them stand above the others both in strength and in their reward. Those 5 mini-bosses are known as:
Bladesoul: A giant wither skeleton who rules over the stronghold after defeating the strongest of the Blazes in it, now wearing his body as a crown.
The Barbarian Duke X: A Piglin who consumed way too much Sulphur and gained immense strength at the cost of his sanity, now ruling over his people on the outskirts of the city.
Mage Outlaws: Imbued in their search for power, they got banned from Scarleton and are always up to demonstrate their power to anyone who challenges them.
Ashfang: A mighty Blaze that resides behind the wastelands, in the ruins of an old bastion.
The Magma Boss: The mightiest of them all... This titan can is found in the magma chamber, in the depth of the Volcano.
When defeated, each one of those creatures drops essential material, and each has a chance to drop Kuudra Keys.
On top of that, Vanquishers are monsters that rarely spawn when you kill another monster on the island, similar to Special Zealots in the End. However, we improved the pity system to make it scale even more than the one used with Special Zealots. If you ever spawn a Vanquisher, make sure other players help you take them down, as they will benefit from loot sharing, and sharing is caring!
Honorable mention to the Matriarch, mother of all Hellwisps. You can find this dreadful creature in the depth of the Volcano. Come close to it, and it will try to eat you alive. While that doesn’t sound great, it’s the only way to obtain Heavy Pearls, and it only creates 3 of them every IRL day.
► Kuudra
Kuudra is the name of a massive lava kraken that appeared on the Crimson Isle. You can access this monstrous anomaly from the Forgotten Skull. It will require you to have completed at least one of the Faction Questlines.
There are five tiers of difficulty to this boss fight, but only two will be released today. We are planning significant changes to this part of the content, so we will not give any ETA for the release of the last three tiers.
You will have to make a party to start a fight, as there won’t be matchmaking until a further release. Win or lose, players will be able to open a free chest at the end of each fight, but the content of this free chest will be smaller if you lose.
Winning, however, spawns an extra chest that can only be opened using a Kuudra Key. Those players will be able to obtain new armor pieces, as long as other valuable items.
► New Armors
Among all the new armors released with the Crimson Isle, the best ones are found inside the Key Chest at the end of the Kuudra Boss fight.
The Crimson Armor: An armor perfect for melee DPS that extends the range you can hit enemies from.
The Aurora Armor: This mage armor will see some changes in the future. It is closely tied to the Aurora Staff, which you also get from Kuudra.
The Terror Armor: This set makes anyone look like a natural-born archer with its devastating passive.
The Fervor Armor: Among all the tank armors in SkyBlock, this one rules them all.
The Hollow Armor: A support armor that will give interesting choices to the players. (This armor will release at a later date)
Each one of those armors is using the new Set Bonus system. Even if you are only using two pieces of those sets, you’ll still benefit from their passives, but the effects will get stronger with each extra piece.
► Essence Changes
Until now, various essences obtained from Dungeons were used to turn items into Dungeon gear and then apply stars on them. From now on, stars will give extra stats not only in Dungeons but instead give 2% additional stats on gear pieces, as opposed to the 10% they still give in Dungeons.
On top of that, some of the new armor items in the Crimson Isle can have more than five stars, up to 15 for some of them. But those will require Crimson Essence, obtained from defeating bosses and salvaging nether gear. You can see all the details on that system at the Blacksmith of each Faction.
► Attributes
Attributes are a new gear system exclusive to the Crimson Isle.
When obtaining a piece of gear on the island, they will spawn with Attributes, which are extra passives. Each Attribute can be fused by simply combining two pieces with similar attributes. You can think of them as extra enchantments in a way. They go all the way to level 10 and, once again, can be fused at the Blacksmith of each Faction.
► Equipment
For the first time since we initially talked about equipment in our design threads a few months back, we will finally release these 4 new armor pieces (Gauntlet, Necklace, Cloak and Belt) with the Crimson Isle.
You can equip them by simply right-clicking them like any other piece of armor, and they can be found in your Profile menu inside the SkyBlock Menu.
Equipment has its own reforges that you can obtain from new reforge stones, and they can also have their own set bonuses. We will add more equipment pieces to earlier parts of the game in the future.
► Dojo
Between the tension between the Mage and Barbarian Faction, one man called Master Tao has dedicated himself to conjuring peace and tranquility within the island. As a martial arts sensei, he has derived his teachings in a handful of tests, open to whoever thinks they are worthy of the Black Belt.
► Accessory Bag changes
We’ve also made some changes to the Accessory System. Moving forward, you will no longer be able to reforge accessories individually anymore; instead, reforges can only be applied to the accessory bag itself using Power Stones. By default, you’ll be able to select any of the Starter Powers to apply to your accessory bag, but as you continue progressing within the game, you’ll get access to Power Stones which will allow you to modify your stats more precisely.
Speaking of precision, you’ll also be able to tune your stats further using the new Tuning System. Every 10 MP will grant you 1 Tuning point, which you can spend on whatever stat you’d like. Accessories will now grant Magical Power (MP) based on their rarity. The total amount of MP determines the amount of stats gained through reforges.
You can talk to Maxwell in the Hub to learn more about it.
Spoiler: Some explanation on why we made those changes
► Collections
What would be a new island update without new collections?
There are now four new collections:
Mycelium: This can be obtained in the Mystic March in front of Scarleton
Red Sand: Can be shoveled from the Burning Desert.
Sulphur: A new magical material emanating from the Volcano during eruptions. It can also be dropped from corrupted mobs.
Magmafish: Obtained from Lava Fishing.
► Blaze Slayer
This 5th slayer category is even more challenging than the Voidgloom. Still, if you are up the task, there are a lot of interesting and gabagool rewards to obtain. This content is best played in the Smoldering Tomb, in the back of the island.
The Smoldering Tomb also has large veins of Opal, a new Gemstone.
► Lava and Trophy Fishing
If you climb your way to the top of the Volcano, you’ll find a little hut where a goblin lives. Odger isn’t very smart, but he’s smart enough to teach you about Trophy Fishing.
Trophy Fishes are special Fishes you can only catch by fishing in particular ways. There are 18 of them than can be found in different tiers of quality; find all Diamond Trophy Fishes to unlock all the rewards!
On top of that, there are tons of new lava fishing content, including bosses, armors, and plenty of loot.
► Loot Sharing improvements
You might remember the Loot Sharing System we used for Ghosts in the Dwarven Mines; we’ve since made some improvements to this system and are happy to announce that Loot sharing will work all across SkyBlock. The system shares loot with other players if they deal at least 1% of damage to the mob up to a maximum of five players per mob.
Part of this is a new system we call “Shared Loot” which allows us to modify how many drops a loot-shared player will obtain on participating in a mob kill. In some instances, like slayers, fishing, and the mythological event, loot-shared players will receive much less rewards in comparison.
► Abiphone
The mage faction is the inventor and leading producer of the Ability Phones. Abiphones can be used to call various NPCs, but not all NPCs have Abiphones.
You can walk to any NPCs compatible with this feature and right-click them with your Abiphone. Most of the time, they will accept to give your their contact only if you help them, but once you do, you’ll be able to access their features directly from your Abiphone.
► Future Plans
First off, we would like to thank everyone who helped test the update on Alpha. The update entered development hell during testing because of multiple performance issues puzzling the team for weeks. Your support really kept us fully motivated the whole way.
In the next few months, we plan to:
Release a post update patch to fix any issue that arises from this update.
Work on the Kuudra fight and release the last three tiers and change the first two.
Spend some time “fixing” the game, including many bugs and minor/major quality of life improvements like Rusty changes.
Release the next gear balancing patch.
Release a secret update.
Start working on SkyBlock Levels and other 1.0 features.
► From Hypixel to You
The Crimson Isle isn't just anether update; it is the biggest update the Hypixel Team has ever worked on for SkyBlock, even surpassing the Dwarven Mines. From game designers to developers to artists to quality assurance, the team has spent countless hours working on this update to bring you the best gameplay. We are looking forward to seeing players play it finally. We will be providing updates to the island after release to ensure it is in the best state possible.
Credits:
@TheMGRF : Achievements, Volcano eruptions, Collection Performances, and more!
@Dueces : Kuudra Boss fight, items, mobs, daily missions and more!
@TheBirmanator : The Dojo, Rescue Missions, and more!
@Dctr : Lava fishing content, Ashfang, and more!
@Relenter : Main quest, many mobs and items, and more!
@JacobRuby : Multiple mobs and minibosses, and more!
@aPunch : Faction system, Attributes and essence, and more!
@Minikloon : Blaze Slayer, accessory bag changes.
@LadyBleu : NPC Skins and item arts.
@ShinkoNet - Crimson Isle Music.
@Sylent, @Bloozing, @Citria, HPC and Bugs Team - Testing/QA
@xHascox and @Jayavarmen - Game Design Team
@Vinny8Ball, @fudgiethewhale, @Cheesey, @Plummel, @DEADORKAI and @Rozsa - Crimson Isle
Remember that this list is not exhaustive. Developers on this list are often working on other projects.
Thanks for reading!