Greetings, brave adventurers! The gates of Winterforge are now open in this massive update, bringing new content, balance tweaks, bug fixes, and quality-of-life improvements. Dive into the changelog below and prepare for epic adventures in Ancient Kingdoms!

Major Features

• Winterforge is now open! Explore this new area and conquer its challenges.
  
• New Armor Sets: Equip multiple pieces to unlock bonus stats and unique skills based on the number of pieces worn.
  
• New Veteran Skills: Master Guard Break, Alacrity, Celerity, and Natural Balance to dominate in combat.
  
• Staff of Flowing Waters upgraded to Legendary status.
  

Balance Changes

• Armor Class (AC) Block Chance: Adjusted to grant +0.25% Block Chance per 10 AC (from equipment and buffs).
  
• Block Chance Cap: Increased from 70% to 80%.
  
• Combat Advantage: Now boosts hit success probability by 20%.
  
• Slam (Warrior Skill): Reverted changes; now stuns as it did originally.
  
• Wildheart Blessing & Savage Surge: Max level increased to 20.
  
• Mercenary Skills: Continue improving from veteran levels 100–200.
  
• Respawn Rates:
  
  • Increased spawn probability for Nivalis, Chief Lizardman, and Skeleton Emissary.
    
  • Decreased respawn time for most standard mobs.
    
  
  
• Drop Rates: Slightly reduced gem drop rate from mobs.
  
• Sage Renewal Cost: Increased for higher-level dungeons.
  
• Nyxarion Follow Distance: Extended to prevent fight resets due to fear effects.
  
• Item Stacks:
  
  • Primal Essence max stack increased to 9,999.
    
  • Bags of Gems max stack increased to 10.
    

Quality-of-Life Improvements

• Elven Village Lighting: Reduced light intensity for a better ambiance.
  
• Leadership Skill: Added detailed tooltips explaining stat increases.
  
• Tooltip Enhancements: Improved size and readability for items and skills.
  
• Combined Backpack:
  
  • Increased size and number of backpacks that can be added.
    
  • Fixed bug preventing non-backpack items from moving to Combined Backpack slots.
    
  
  
• NPC Shouts: Improved randomness for more immersive dialogue.
  
• Experience Bar: Now displays two decimal places for precision.
  
• Combat Targeting: Added a red blink effect to clarify selected targets.
  
• Vignette Effect: Removed post-processing vignette for a clearer screen.
  

Bug Fixes

• Chieftain Grukk Quote: Fixed incorrect dialogue when calling orcs.
  
• Tide Fatecharms: Fixed issue where they weren’t consumed when used on Avatar of Water.
  
• Block Chance Bonus: Now correctly accounts for buffs, not just equipment.
  
• Boss Pet Summons: Addressed a bug affecting some bosses’ pet summoning (hopefully resolved).
  
• General Fixes: Squashed various bugs and made performance improvements.
  

Technical Updates

• Game Engine: Updated to the latest version for improved stability and performance.
  

Thank you for adventuring in Ancient Kingdoms! Share your feedback and report bugs in the Steam Discussions, and join our community to discuss v0.7.0. Stay vigilant, and may your blades strike true!

~ The Ancient Kingdoms Team