Patch Notes/August 10th, 2021

Update Size | N/A

First, on behalf of everyone at Counterplay Games, I want to extend a thank you to all the fans of Godfall who have supported us since our release back in November of 2020.

Today’s update represents the largest content update to the game since the initial launch in November. It includes a continuation of the Godfall story in our Fire & Darkness expansion and a brand-new game mode as part of our free Lightbringer Update! Players will enjoy new loot to pursue, enhancements to core game systems that will enable greater build variety, and the introduction of the PlayStation 4 version allowing more fans to experience Godfall.

As we move deeper into the second half of 2021, we will continue to strive for excellence so you can have a truly enjoyable experience. We appreciate and thank you for your continued feedback and support. We cannot wait for you to dive in and enjoy all this new content!

Sincerely,

*Keith Lee*

CEO, Counterplay Games

# Fire & Darkness Expansion

The Fire & Darkness content is only available for players with access to the Expansion.

**Continue the Fight in the Fire Realm...**

The expansion introduces a brand-new realm for players to explore: The Fire Realm, with new, challenging enemies to fight and new bosses to overcome.

* The Fire Realm
	+ 4 new Story Missions
	+ 5 new Hunt Missions
	+ 1 new Explore the Realm Mission
* 12 New Enemies
* 5 New Bosses

**... and into the Endgame**

Expansion players will be able to access Fire Realm content in the Endgame:

* New Fire Realm Dreamstones
* Fire Realm enemies and bosses can spawn in the Ascended Tower of Trials
* Lightbringer can be played in the Fire Realm
* 30 new in-game earnable cosmetics exclusive to Expansion players
* A powerful new Amulet and new Charm with double primary traits

# Lightbringer Update

The Lightbringer Update content is available to all Godfall players for free.

**Fight back the Darkness in Lightbringer**

An all-consuming darkness threatens to spread throughout Aperion and choke the world of all light…

Lightbringer is a new game mode for level 50 players to take on new challenges and collect a new type of loot – Cursed Items – which can only be found in Lightbringer missions.

In Lightbringer the Earth, Water, Air, and Fire Realms have been corrupted by the Heart of Darkness. In this mode players will:

* Explore the Darkness to defeat corrupted enemies and locate Dark Tears, manifestations of the Heart of Darkness in the realm that must be destroyed to release the Sanctum’s Light that has been sealed away within.
* Escort the Sanctum’s Light back to the Amplifier, a powerful weapon in the fight against the Darkness.
* Eliminate the Heart of Darkness in an epic final battle!

Note - Fire Realm Content can only be accessed by the player if they own the Fire & Darkness expansion.

# Matchmaking

**Matchmaking Beta**

Matchmaking has come to Godfall! Connect with up to two other players on the new Matchmaking tab for Ascended Tower of Trials and the new Lightbringer mode.

**Ping System**

A ping system has been added to enable better communication in multiplayer. Use pings to help coordinate on mission objectives and powerful enemies.

# Ascended Tower of Trials

**Primal Items**

The chance for Primal Items to drop in the Ascended Tower of Trials has been doubled.

**Intense Banes**

A new type of bane has been added to the Ascended Tower of Trials - Intense Banes. These have stronger, more difficult effects, but a higher Loot Bonus.

**Ascendant & Exalted Realm Bosses**

The Ascended Tower of Trials will now spawn the more challenging Ascendant & Exalted versions of Realm Bosses as you progress higher in the Tower.

# Loot

## Cursed Items

Cursed Items are powerful new weapons and equipment that can only drop in Lightbringer. Cursed Items have one or more curses, which reduce the strength of the item and replace the secondary traits with negative traits. Cleansing curses from Cursed Items also allows you to extract the curse as a resource. Curses can then be used in Lightbringer to apply additional challenges in order to increase your rewards.

Curses can be cleansed from Cursed Items by completing specified objectives in the Ascended Tower of Trials and in Dreamstones while using the Cursed Item. Each time a curse is removed, the item becomes more powerful and a negative trait is turned positive.

Once all of the curses have been cleansed, the Cursed Item becomes an Awakened Item, and will be among the most powerful items that you can obtain in Godfall.

There are a total of 42 Cursed Items available.

## Ailments

The ailment system has been revamped, improving the gameplay of ailments and adding more variety to how you can interact with the system.

**Ailment Effects**

Ailments now have more differentiated effects:

* Bleed – Increases the damage taken by the target and applies a damage-over-time effect
* Poison – The target gains a long duration damage-over-time effect with a high total amount of damage
* Chill – Slows the target’s movement and attack speed and applies a damage-over-time effect
* Shock – Increases Breach damage taken by the target and applies a damage-over-time effect
* Curse – Decreases the damage dealt by the target and applies a damage-over-time effect
* Ignite – The target gains a short duration, high intensity damage-over-time effect

**Applying Ailments**

Ailment Chance traits have been removed. Effects that apply ailments are now guaranteed to apply the ailment when specific attacks are performed (e.g. “Shield Throws inflict Ailments”).

Ailments can now be applied to enemies multiple times, giving you the ability to apply multiple stacks of an ailment on an enemy at the same time for increased effect.

**Ailment Strength**

The strength of ailment stacks are now relative to the strength of the attack you use to apply the ailment. High-damage attacks will apply stronger ailments stacks, with stronger effects and increased damage over time.

Additionally, you can gain Ailment Power traits to increase the effectiveness of ailments you apply to enemies, and you can gain Ailment Duration traits to increase the duration of ailments you apply to enemies. Both of these traits will increase the total damage over time dealt by the ailments.

## Consuming Ailments

Some items will now allow you to consume ailments from enemies. When you consume ailments from an enemy, all ailments stacks are removed from the enemy and any remaining damage from the ailments is dealt to the enemy instantaneously.

## Valorplate Cosmetics

86 new Valorplate cosmetics have been added to better customize your favorite Valorplates. Complete new challenges to earn cosmetics and show them off to your friends in the new matchmaking modes! Check the cosmetics section on the Equipment tab to see what’s been added and how to unlock them.

* 56 new in-game earnable cosmetics available to all players
* 30 new in-game earnable cosmetics exclusive to Godfall: Fire & Darkness

# Quality of Life Enhancements

* Mission Level Scaling - Story and Hunt Missions have been updated to support level scaling based on the selected mission difficulty.
	+ Easy Difficulty: Missions stay at the recommended level
	+ Normal Difficulty: Missions start at the recommended level and scale to near your level
	+ Hard Difficulty: Missions start at the recommended level and always scale to your level
* Expanded Explore the Realm – Players can now interact with multiple Twilight Springs in Explore the Realm to keep pursuing new objectives.
* Item Keywords – Get more detailed information about loot effects on the Armory and Equipment screens via keywords. Press the info button to display them.
* Resistances on the Stat Screen – The Stat Screen has been updated so that capped resistances are highlighted in green.
* Dreamstone Sorting – Standard Dreamstones are now sorted by level (from high to low). Volatile Dreamstones now sort by level (high to low), then rarity (legendary to rare). Players can also change Volatile Dreamstones to sort by Recent/Rarity/Level/Name.
* Enemy Levels on Nameplates – Enemy nameplates have been updated to always show enemy levels, even when enemies are more than 10 levels higher than players.
* Improved Augment Navigation – The augment screen has been updated to keep you on the Augment Constellation screen after setting/updating augments, making augment management much faster.
* Improved Forge Navigation – The Forge will now remember which item you had selected for upgrading after you leave the upgrade screen.
* Improved Weakpoint hit detection for Keyboard/Mouse controls - Hitting weakpoints with keyboard/mouse has been improved.

## Balance changes

* Overhealth revamped: The rate that Overhealth drains now depends on the amount of Overhealth that you have. Overhealth drains quickly while it is nearly full, and the rate slows down as your Overhealth depletes. Additionally, new traits have been added to the game that slow down the Overhealth drain rate, and these traits have replaced any traits that completely stopped Overhealth drain.
* Rampage revamped: Rampage now drains while it is active but you can keep damaging enemies to maintain it longer.
* Balanced Items:
	+ We have slightly reduced the strength of three items that were too powerful compared to other items. We feel that after these changes the items will still be effective when used in your builds, but they will be more in-line with other options in the game.
	+ Surety (Augment): Weakpoint damage bonus has been reduced.
	+ Archon’s Tear (Life Stone): Critical Hit chance bonus has been reduced. Critical Hit damage bonus has been reduced.
	+ Mesa’s Banderole (Banner): Critical Hit chance bonus has been reduced. Critical Hit damage bonus has been reduced.
* Due to the Ailments 2.0 changes, we have modified a number of ailment-related items so that they function properly with the new system. Some of these items had small balance tweaks, while other items had their traits modified to work with the new ailment mechanics.

# Bug Fixes

Updates with a sword (**(sword)**) are based on player feedback collected from our various communities and through support tickets.

## Weapon Related Items

* Solved an issue where Soulshatter buildup would stop functioning after taking damage, being knocked down, or swapping weapons.
* Solved an issue where the Longsword Southern Technique’s Timing Attack scaled off Might instead of Spirit. **(sword)**
* Solved various issues involving Dual Blades where they could clip or appear unexpectedly in several animations.
* Solved an issue where Armistice’s Archon Fury trait would not apply damage to breached enemies correctly.
* Solved an issue where banner skill bonuses (besides Charge Speed) could stop functioning after death.
* Solved an issue where players could desync when placing a banner at the same time they died.
* Solved an issue that would prevent players from using their Shield Throw abilities if against a wall or pillar.
* Solved an issue that would prevent Shield Throws and Arcing Shield Throws from using Critical Hits.
* Solved an issue where enemies knocked down by a Weak Point hit from a Shield Throw were not valid targets for Takedowns.
* Solved an issue where the game could hitch when using Shield Throw for the first time after starting the game.
* Solved an issue where the player character could get stuck in a perpetual Shield Block position after repeatedly parrying attacks.
* Solved an issue where the player would not resume their block stance if they dodge a second time while holding the block input.
* Solved an issue where the Shield Ground Slam would be cancelled early if the input button was not held long enough.

## Skill Related Items

* Included several missing tutorials that should appear after unlocking their respective skill.
* Included Takedown input priority over Archon Mode activation to prevent accidental activation while sprinting. **(sword)**
* Solved an issue where attempting to perform a Takedown with multiple valid targets could delay input commands.
* Solved an issue where certain enemies were unaffected by the Spectral Takedown ability and received no damage.
* Solved an issue where performing a Spectral Takedown could deactivate Archon Fury.
* Solved an issue where skill bonuses from the Polarity Attacks would stop working after death.
* Solved an issue where the first rank of the Breach Skill would not increase the damage dealt by Leaping Shield Base against full-health ranged enemies.
* Solved an issue where the Rampage Charge Speed bonus (from ranks 2 & 4) could stop working after player death.
* Solved an issue where Weak Points that appear after a parry (or revealed by traits) would remain for their full duration instead of disappearing once struck.

## Multiplayer Related Items

* Solved a multiplayer issue where takedowns could deal no damage to enemies.
* Solved an exploit that allowed party members to replay Dreamstone missions while collecting loot and stacking boons infinitely.
* Solved a multiplayer issue where repeatedly attempting to climb a ledge with high latency could disable use of that ledge.
* Solved various issues with elevators in multiplayer.
* Solved a multiplayer issue where certain Ascension Powers were not working correctly.
* Solved a multiplayer issue where changes to the player’s loadout could revert after closing their inventory.
* Solved a multiplayer crash issue that could occur when a player attempted to place a banner without a banner equipped.
* Solved a multiplayer issue where players may not be able to see other player banners.
* Solved a multiplayer issue where the Warhammer’s Heavy Attack combo finisher would not trigger Soulshatter damage.

## Enemy Related Items

* Adjusted Combat Weight of certain enemies to further balance encounters. **(sword)**
* Included new tutorials for boss fights with obscure game mechanics (such as Lunara)
* Updated Abyssian Bonecrusher AI to prevent it from using its Rage Grab if players move out of range.
* Solved an issue where a Vargul Warrior could become unkillable if the player was stunned out of their takedown animation. **(sword)**
* Updated boss encounters to die automatically if left unattended in their Takedown state. **(sword)**
* Updated boss health bars to show a visual flare when they have reached their Soulshatter damage cap.
* Solved an issue where bosses could queue attacks during their cinematics, giving no grace period when the fight starts.
* Solved an issue where bosses could snap to face players instead of using their turn animation when on their last health phase.
* Solved an issue where certain bosses could aggro before the player entered their arena.
* Solved an issue where players grabbed by Lunara could lose their ability to dodge. **(sword)**

## Game Mode Related Items

* Solved an issue where players were unable to access Dreamstones through the Holomap while using a gamepad after completing the main story.
* Solved an issue where the Free Roam red bonus objective beam would remain visible if a Treasure Hermit managed to escape. **(sword)**
* Included new Boons to the Tower of Trials.

## Menu, UI/HUD and Inventory Related Items

* Included a new KeyArt as a loading screen.
* Solved a crash issue that could occur by waiting several minutes in the defeated screen and then attempting to respawn. **(sword)**
* Solved a crash issue that would occur when attempting to switch to a different character while the Rampage Skill was still active.
* Solved an issue where players who rebound their interact key could not use the Boon selection menu in AToT due to the menu using the buffered input to select the default boon. **(sword)**
* Updated Polarity Codex entry to explain that Polarity Attacks deal Soulshatter Damage.
* Solved an issue where Augment traits that scale and benefit from connected Augment attributes would not display the bonus they grant.
* Improved HUD elements to provide better clarity for Archon Fury and Weapon Art meters.
* Updated on-screen tips to clear after a minute of uptime, regardless of (in)completion.
* Previously the tip will remain on screen until the player fulfills its conditions.
* Solved an issue where item descriptions could overflow from their textbox.
* They will now wrap into multiple columns.
* Removed the titles from holomap nodes that aren’t selected to reduce visual clutter.
* Solved various missing or incorrect text localization issues.

## Animation Related Items

* Solved an issue where enemies could be seen walking in place during their patrols.
* Solved an issue where enemies would revert to a T-Pose if killed with a takedown after being knocked down.
* Solved an issue where enemy animations would flicker or stutter when viewed from a long distance.
* Solved an issue where the enemy AI would only play the first Taunt animation in its pool, instead of selecting one at random.
* Solved various issues with armor clipping for enemies.
* Solved an issue where the Sanctum could lose lip sync with its voice lines.
* Solved an issue where the player character could flicker or shake during cinematics.
* Solved an issue where the player character would excessively ragdoll after death.
* Solved an issue where the player character’s head would not follow to look at the current camera direction.

## Environment Related Items

* Optimized biome landscapes by removing unnecessary geometry.
* Solved an issue where players could experience interference when entering a boss arena.
* Solved an issue where Spirit Tethers could become untargetable or indestructible in the Water Realm. **(sword)**
* Solved various collision issues with the environment where players could get stuck. **(sword)**
* Solved various issues where Chest event objects (such as pistons or plants) could become permanently invisible if the player opened their inventory or traveled out of rendering distance. **(sword)**
* Solved various issues where loot chests were clipping incorrectly with the environment.
* Solved various issues with low poly environment pieces would not update based on distance.

## SFX and other Audio Related Items

* Improved audio feedback for Light Attack SFX against armored enemies, to reinforce using other attacks. **(sword)**
* Solved an issue where certain keyboard inputs would not produce the associated SFX that can be found when using a mouse or gamepad.
* Solved an issue where no background music would play after loading into a mission.
* Solved an issue where no SFX would play whenever a player attempted to use a Life Stone (with 0 charges left) to notify the player they had none left. **(sword)**
* Solved an issue where the intro logos would not respect the volume settings saved by the player.
* Solved an issue where the SFX of the last hit in a Longsword combo attack would either be delayed or not play at all.
* Updated UI SFX to prevent abrupt audio cuts.

## VFX and other Visual Related Items

* Added a fade effect to foliage whenever it intersects with the camera to avoid visual obstruction.
* Optimized VFX components to use less expensive materials.
* Solved an issue where certain boss attack VFX would not render when playing on lower graphical settings.

## Miscellaneous Items

* Players could creatively move Zenum Earthminder around the Sanctum against his desires. Please, no bully.
* Solved an issue where the camera would clip under the ground if the player died to an enemy grab attack.
* Solved an issue where the Standard & Ascension level up animation, fanfare, and stat replenishment would not occur after the first trigger in a mission.
* Solved various text and Input Reminder issues located in the Codex.