Greetings, wanderers! The 15.4 update is here, and it brings exciting changes including the Feast of Bears seasonal event, a revamp of waystations’ crafting stations and recipes, improvements to tournaments rewards and the pickaxe harvesting mechanic, brand new flairs so you can express yourself and show a lot more of your personality to others, and more! View the 15.4 trailer and check out the list of changes below:
Feast of Bears
The leaves are falling in the Crosslands, which means we’re approaching the time for the yearly bear hibernation, and the Feast of Bears celebrations starting on September 30th!! 🍂
During this seasonal event, Bears, Humans and Spirits alike express their gratitude for surviving another year, and Bears try to eat as much food as bear-ly possible to celebrate the traditional hibernation throughout the winter. It is also a time to reflect on their ancestors and honor the Bears’ origins.
So gather your friends and help the bears in your life observe the Feasting season as they harvest rainbow corn, build offering tables, light candles, and celebrate with dancing and feasting aplenty! If you belong to a waystation, you can also contribute to the Bear Feast Fund to receive additional rewards. Or simply visit the Feast of Bears Merch Store in the Village to buy your very own bear-themed decor and clothing!
Crafting Stations Rework
Since the tool enhancements are now 100% guaranteed to happen, some use cases of the crafting stations’ happiness system became obsolete. It also felt redundant having to have multiple of the same crafting stations, but in different levels, with different (or duplicate) recipes, which was chaotic to coordinate. For that reason, we’re applying a complete rework to crafting stations, based on your feedback and to set the groundwork for upcoming balancing changes before the game is released:
Waystation Crafting Stations
- 🌟 We are unifying Waystation’s crafting stations to simplify and reduce confusion, redundancy and streamline crafting in waystations – meaning they no longer have “upgraded” versions
- 🌟 Crafting stations no longer have recipe limits or require recipe fragments to install crafting recipes on them
- 🌟 This will allow for anyone to add recipes to crafting stations, without needing to collect “votes” (in the form of Recipe Fragments) to make them possible – you added them, they’re there;
- Now Waystation Crafting Stations can only contain basic Common and Uncommon recipes
- Seasonal event exclusive Recipes are no longer allowed in waystations crafting stations;
- Active members of waystations will all receive Recipe Fragments and Beacon Sparks to compensate for the Recipes that are no longer allowed in waystation crafting stations;
- With the removal of recipe caps simplifying installation, we felt this limitation was necessary. Otherwise, Waystation crafting stations would likely end up having every single recipe in the game, which would undermine an individual player’s sense of progression.
- We’ve also removed the “Happiness” levels from crafting tables;
- 🌟 Crafting Stations descriptions now mention that the Architect Role is required to purchase them and is locked for lower roles;
Crafting and Recipe Fragments
- Recipes can be bought with Recipe Fragments, instead of Beacon Sparks. Now is a good time to take the dust off of your unused Recipe Fragments!
- Recipe Fragments can also be obtained by:
- Purchasing them from Joule, Rudi, in the Decorologist’s Decor Shop or in the Waystation Vending Machine;
- Finding them in Wilderness Pots and Chaos Shrines;
- Repairing decor items to complete Waystation Goals now grants Recipe Fragments instead of Beacon Energy (Communal Goals will still give out Beacon Energy);
- Recipe Fragments can be recycled for 3 Coins each;
- We have reviewed Decor Item Rarities for consistency; for example, we increased the rarity of some reward drops, and we decreased the rarity of more mainstream Recipes (such as Driftwood)
- We have added new Recipe Bundles and Recipes in Crosslanders’ Shops!
Spark Nails
- We have added a new crafting resource – Spark Nail – that is required to craft Epic and Legendary items
- Each Epic decor requires 1 Nail Spark, and each Legendary one requires 3 Nail Sparks;
- There’s a small chance to find Nails in Wilderness Pots and Chaos Shrines;
- You can purchase Nail Bundles from Joule’s, Mr. Kit’s, and Deconneciour’s Shops, or from your Waystation Vending Machine
- Available in bundles of 5 for 1 Beacon Spark
- Joule sells bundles of 3 for 30 Shrinework Parts
Wilderness Activities
Tournaments
- 🌟 Fishing and Blot Tournaments now run multiple times on the days they are scheduled, matching the Foot Race Tournament.
- Major Tournaments Rewards have been added for “Top 25%” and “Top 10%”, replacing the old “Top 15%” and “Top 10”.
- 🌟 Now, when you turn in Fish or Blot for a tournament, you will automatically receive the amount of Paper or Ink you would have received from purifying it!
- Please note: you need to have space available in your inventory to receive it. If you don’t, it will be sent to you via Mail.
Economy Balancing Changes
- 🌟 We made hairstyles tradeable once again!
- 🌟 Lunar Rocks and Spore Wood Nodes now work with Tool Enhancements, meaning you can get more resources (with tools with the Bounty enhancement) or more Coins (using tools with the Riches enhancement) from each harvestable node;
- A small number of Patterns were marked as tradeable incorrectly – this was fixed with this update and all Patterns have been made not tradeable;
- 🌟 We have added 4 new Tuber sources to each Wilderness;
- You can also trade Furniture items from the “Simple” Set;
- Clothing Beacon Spark costs are now based on item type, not just the rarity of the item, to make the cost more balanced.
- This means that Hats, Shoes, Glasses, Headcoverings, and Legs items got a lot cheaper
- Most Mythic items also got cheaper
- Rare Dresses, Torsos, Hats, and Backpacks got a tiny bit more expensive
- Epic Dresses, Torsos, Hats, and Leg items got a bit cheaper
Wilderness Pot Loot Changes
- 🌟 We have heard your feedback that you would rather have fewer Pots but better rewards from Wilderness Pots, so now each Pot can now be harvested once per Wilderness, instead of daily.
- 🌟 As a result, you are much more likely to get Decor, Clothing, Recipes, and Gifts from Pots than before – 45% of Pots will yield one of these types of items.
- 🌟 Small Salvage has been completely removed from the Wilderness Pots loot pool. You’ll also get a higher quantity of Shrineworks Parts, Fluffalo Treats, Blot Bells, and Recipe Fragments per drop.
Songs
- We have removed the “Maple Tree” and “Ten Tea Trot” songs from the Village Vending Machine. “Apple Blossom Time”, “Significant Snowperson”, and “Spiral Song” were also removed from Guido’s shop.
- Candlewic’s Level 15 song reward is now “The Art of Fugue”
- The original reward, the “Frosted Fugue” song, had been incorrectly assigned to him. Players who are already at Level 15 with Candlewic can recover the Frosted Fugue Song in the Entry Lands or Wilderness.
- These songs will return in future world and waystation-exclusive events that are planned for upcoming game updates. We’re doing this clean up now to make sure rewards are exciting throughout all activities, and so that you have things to look forward to!
Player Houses & Build Mode
Player Houses
- 🌟 You can now place the main Wilderness Traversables (jump pads, launch pads, lift fans, and ladders) in your Home for all of those hard to reach nooks and crannies!
- 🌟 You can also dye Potted Plant Pots to achieve that matching indoor jungle looks you’ve been looking for!
- 🌟 Home crafting tables can now be accessed by players with the “Guest” permissions or higher (it was previously “Decorator” and above)
- We’re reviewing how Potted Plants work, and while we are investigating better solutions, Potted Plants will no longer die, only wither. They can be watered as usual to recover fully 💧
Build Mode & Decor Changes
- We did some Autumn Cleaning with the Fences to simplify and remove redundant fences (why did we have three different Stone Fences???)
- All Building Fence Kit items and furniture tagged as Fence are now in the Structures tab instead of Decor to simplify and avoid confusion;
- We have retired both the City Stone Wall Fence and National Park Stone Fence because they looked too similar to the other Stone Wall Panel, but not as versatile;
- The Stone Wall Panel now has the “Natural” tag to make sure you have Fences that fulfills your Tree Happiness needs;
- All City Stone Wall Fences or National Park Stone Fences placed in homes and waystations will automatically be replaced with the Building Kit Stone Wall Panel (no need to rebuild! They’re the same size), and any place you found those craftable or for sale will now have the Stone Wall Panel instead
- 🌟 You can now place objects and decor on top of any flat top Fences!
- We also renamed some fences-that-were-actually-railings to “Railings” (for example, the Metal Fence is now called Metal Railing);
- We have added two brand new Decor Sets that will be available as rewards for progressing your Friendship with Major Spirits or by purchasing them in their shops;
- September Major Spirits Decor Set including 5 large statues and 17 turnip-themed decor items for all of your haunting decor needs.
- November Major Spirits Decor Set, including 5 statues
- The Pirate Decor Set now includes 11 new Pirate Decor items
- 🌟 We also updated the Talavera Set to include some additional Wall Tiles
- 🌟Lunar Ceiling Stickers are now easier to select and move after initial placement
- We have added Fire and Candles to Decor Sets as interactive decor
Socialization and Customization
Flairs
- Want to add a little bit more ~Flair to your character, and show others more about your personality? 💅 Flairs are a new type of equipable “tags” in-game, alongside Moods. They will appear in your profile when other players interact with you.
- Flairs can be obtained from:
- Leveling up Friendship with Major Spirits
- Leveling up Friendship with Crosslanders
- Completing specific Errands
- Executing specific actions 👀 (try out some shenanigans!)
- You can add or remove Flairs by accessing the Menu > Character > Text Bubble icon (same spot the Moods are!)
- You can select up to 3 Flairs at once, and they will show up in your Profile when inspecting players or by clicking “View Friend” in the Friends List
- If you have already completed the requirements for a certain Flair but by any chance don’t see them as unlocked, you can go to Dusty’s in the Entry Lands or the Wilderness to recover them;
- 🎁 Beta Testers – meaning you, the players who joined the playtest or played through this Beta stage! – will unlock the exclusive “Beta Tester” Flair! Thank you all for being a part of this! 💝
- Keep your eyes peeled because we’ll be adding more Flairs in the future!
Friends List Improvements
- The Friends List received a new and improved look!
- Now you can sort your friends by Friendship level and online status, or filter by location
- You can also mark them as Favorites, and they will show up on the “Favorites” tab
- Your Connections – meaning players you have automatically met by playing music or doing activities together – now show up in a separate tab as well. Increase your friendship level with them to Level 2 to make them a Friend.
- Blocked and Muted players now show up in separate tabs – you can manage them, unmute or unblock them from there if you wish to.
Expression Menu Changes and Features
- We have changed the UI for the Expressions Menu to bring improvements and new features!
- For example, now you can set up Custom Expression Presets to have all of your most used expressions on hand more easily!
- To set up Quick Expressions, access the Expressions menu (press X on KB&M or click the Emote icon on Mobile), then select “Edit”.
- You can also access your emotes more easily with the vertical emote sidebar – let us know what expressions you’d like to see here!
Customization
- Season Exclusive categories can now be found in the Stylesmith’s Clothing Store and the Chromatist’s Dye Shops – this means that these items are only available for the current season.
- Two brand new Clothing Sets have been added to the rotation!
- You can find the Spa Clothing Set in Taylor’s Clothing Store, and the Witch Clothing Set in Stylesmith’s Clothing Store as an Autumn Exclusive set
- 🌟 New color variations of Rudi’s Armor are available in his shop (did someone say dyeable Buckets? 👀)
- Luna now has an exclusive Clothing Dye Station that you can use while she is in the Wilderness
- 🌟 By popular demand, the Fall Femme dress with the Sweater and Scarf now has a torso variant available – with just the Sweater and Scarf, but without the skirt!)
- We’re removing Backpacks from most Shop rotations, as they will be returning as purchasable items in world scenarios and waystation-exclusive events
- For now, we’re keeping 1 offer of Backpack available per day in the Waystation Vending Machine so you can still obtain them. Get them while you can!
Narrative & Quests
Friendship Quest Arcs
- As you may be aware, Villagers unlock special friendship quest arcs at friendship levels 2, 5, 9, and (still in development) 13. As we prepare for launch, we are revisiting and updating these arcs to bring them all to a consistent standard and ensure the narrative is still consistent.
- We have replaced some Villager Quest arcs for Hardtack, Kasu, and Roomie at friendship levels 9, 5, and 9 respectively.
- All players who reach the appropriate Friendship level (or have passed it) with those Crosslanders will get the new versions of these quest arcs, even if they have previously completed the old quest arcs.
- We have also updated or polished multiple older Villager friendship quest arcs. These are more minor changes, so players who already completed the old versions of these quests will not be re-offered the changes.
- Amano (Friendship level 9)
- Candlewick (Friendship levels 2 and 9)
- Joule (Friendship levels 1 and 2)
- Kasu (Friendship levels 1 and 2)
- Marj (Friendship level 9)
- Nibbit (Friendship level 9)
Major Spirits Progression
- We have completely revamped some Major Spirits friendship progression so it matches most of the Crosslanders – this means that you can now give Gifts to spirits, and each has their own shop with different offers!
- How does it work now?
- Each Spirit now has 10 Friendship levels now. New conversations and transformations are unlocked as your friendship progresses
- Reaching Friendship Lvl 7 and Friendship lvl 10 with them will grant you special rewards!
- This change only applies to this month’s Major Spirits. You’ll be able to finish the questline for the Spirits that show up in September without the new progression system integrated. Spirits released in future updates of the game will have the new progression track.
- Friendship progression with this month’s Major Spirits, and all Spirits previously encountered during the playtest (except August’s Major Spirit Family) will be reset in 15.4.
- Why? Our long-term playtest participants have re-experienced content that was only meant to be experienced once prior to launch, and this has caused certain things to break. This wouldn’t be an issue if we were doing regular progress wipes like most MMOs do during development, but we’ve been trying to avoid doing that. This limited reset enables us to avoid future problems and edge cases, while continuing to preserve most of your progress.
- August’s Major Spirit Family will be available throughout September without the new track.
Art & UI
- The Settings menu was slightly reorganized. Now the Streamer Mode is separated from the General Settings to make things easier to find!
- 🌟 We have polished the First Person camera, improving position and angle based on your feedback!
- 🌟 You can check out placed proposals in the Decor Management (Storage) UI!
- 🌟 We have added some more textures, foliage and colors to the Wilderness based on your feedback
- There is now a lot more foliage on the terrain in the Wilderness, as well as materials for caves and forest areas. Foliage can be turned off by turning Foliage Detail to Low in the Video Settings Menu
- 🌟 Winter and Autumn Season visual updates – we have polished both seasons to make them more vibrant and add more variation
- We also applied some changes to the lighting and shading 🌞🌚
- We have adjusted nighttime visuals – now nighttime is darker, but a little bit shorter in overall length
- Ceiling lights provide a more cozy ambient lighting at night: to offset the darker nighttime visuals, ceiling lights have been adjusted to illuminate interiors spaces appropriately
- Now Campfire decor items light up when you sit by them 🔥
- We have resized the Wilderness Lift Pad visually – it looks a little bit smaller in size to match game dimensions, but the lift area is still the same
Quality of Life Improvements 🔧
- 🌟 We have increased the options for the Motion Sickness reticle in the Settings
- 🌟 Your Beacon Sparks are now visible in the Inventory header bar
- 🌟 Nibbit’s sign was moved so you are less likely to accidentally interact with it when trying to talk to her
Game Tech Optimizations🔧
- 🌟 We know there’s been more server lag and disconnects than you (and we!) would like in the past couple of updates, so we made an effort to optimize the server and hopefully improve both of those issues. There’s more work to be done; we will continue to focus on this as we prepare for launch.
- 🌟 Further optimization work to speed up server loading and reduce the amount of time you spend looking at loading screens. (Hopefully we’re 2-3s faster now. Every little bit adds up!)
- Reduction in the amount of data we transmit from server to client. So if you’re playing on a mobile device, we’ll use less of your bandwidth.
Bug Fixes 🐛
- Fixed a bug where Roomie couldn’t be picked up in Build Mode;
- Fixed the thickness of the Photo Mode line at higher resolutions;
- Fixed situations where the chat translation button fails to appear even when you’re looking at chat text in another language
- Fixed bugs that caused music to not play sometimes;
- Fixed a bug where harvestables would remain blocked the day after a Raging Spirit was nearby
- Fixed a bug where Legendary Chaos Shrine coin rewards were not granted
- Fixed a bug with unlocked items still appearing in the Locked section of Shops
- Fixed a bug where Waystation tree stumps couldn’t be harvested
- Fixed a bug where Strangers couldn’t see each other’s chat if they were both sitting on a fishing pier
15.4 Known Issue List
- Mobile players username may persist in the Friend List even after the player migrated to PC under a different username;
