Empire War v3.3.3
Greetings Empire Warriors! I can not put my into words how excited I am for this update. Everyone has been exceptionally patient, but the 3.3.3 release date has finally come. This update is the last large update before 3.4 (The Rohan Update, on which our staff team have already been working on for a few months now). In this patch of the Mordor Update, we have decided to revise a little bit the following maps: Minas Tirith & Osgiliath West.
Additionally, we have been working very hard on adding new quality of life (QoL) features, class balance updates and resource-pack updates. There is a lot more to it than you might think. Let's dive straight into it.
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Promotions & farewells
Welcome, @Cyptrax , to the developers team! Cyptrax will join Cotander, StealWonders, sjoerdtim, miho47_dwa and me to work on new exciting features for Empire War!
At the same time, we are announcing the step-down of @MrDrewSky and @lee_yam11 who have served as moderators on Empire War for around 7 years each. On behalf of the entire community, we thank you for your work, all the memories you've created and for the warm atmosphere that you helped maintain in this community.
New features:
Map features:
- Minas Tirith: Significantly overhauled
- Osgiliath West: Overhauled & fixed
- Osgiliath East: Use a new Gondor team lobby
- Readded Moria Gold event map
- Readded Thorin's Halls event map
- Added the LemonDaf provisional HQ to the main lobby
- Added a new passageway through a wall in the main lobby
- Opened the second floor in the main lobby tavern
- Added staff room in the main lobby
- Added Discord NPC to main lobby
- Helm's Deep: Ladders are now built flat on the ground and pivot up when built (with an animation)
- Helm's Deep: Ladders can now be destroyed by defenders by bashing (same as gates). They can be repaired and raised again.
- Added /sit command for Lord+
- Added /startvote <map> for Marshal+
- Allows to start a vote to play a specific map
- The map has to be in rotation
- Global cooldown of 30 minutes to use this command
- Added /spectate for Captain+
- Also added a main lobby sign for spectating
- Added donor-specific smoke pipe (more info below)
- Added Heroes Obtained statistic
- Added attributes to class/kit info
- Added Spell Casting abilities (for Gandalf)
- Added Gandalf The White hero class
- Currently available on Minas Tirith & The Black Gate
- Trolls now play a hurt animation when damaged
- Trolls now play an attack animation when they swing
- Hammerer Ability: added a visual seismic blast in the form of a block shockwave effect
- Added Sneak Hide ability
- Makes you invisible for enemies for a short amount of time when sneaking in tall grass)
- Rock Throw Ability: thrown rocks now damage gates
- Throw Ability: Added a proper descripton for what the ability is
- Setton: Added Constructor class for the Orcs of Angmar
- Helm's Deep: Berserker class now has a TNT head when carrying TNT
- Helm's Deep: Only one person can carry TNT at the same time
- Edhellond: Added Haven Guard, a new Umbar parry point class of Black Numenorean nobility
- Osgiliath East: Added healer classes for both Mordor and Gondor
- Black Gate: Added Black Uruk
- Black Gate: Added Shieldmaiden
- Minas Tirith & Osgilath East: Added Murgash hero class (spear hero)
- Minas Tirith & Osgilath East: Added Huritz (scythe hero)
Other features:
- Added teammate spectating during Deathmatch
- Added formations (more info below)
- Added smoking pipes (more info below)
- Improved /map info UI and added gamemode information
- Added a /nextmapvotes command to see the current next map vote status
- Added a damage breakdown hover on player death messages
- This shows the contribution of all damage sources (including non-player sources) to that player's death
- Kill Assists requirements have been lowered:
- You need to have dealt 20% of the damage to the victim in order to receive an assist instead of a fixed 10hp lowerbound like before
- The time requirement of 5 seconds since last damage dealt has been removed
- Added a silver breakdown hover on player kill messages
- This shows where silver comes from i.e. killstreaks, boosters, etc.
- Forums now show the current map being played
- Forums now show number of players online
- MVPs are no longer rewarded if the game was too short
- Added Walls Breached statistic and rewards for blowing up Helm's Deeps Deeping Wall
- Added /feedback command that directly opens a new forum thread
- Added /bug command that directly opens a new forum thread
- Added /report command that directly opens a new forum thread
- Players who died in mid-air now spawn falling corpses
- MVP message now displays player heads
- Players now drop wood on death
- New colour scheme: chat, game messages, kit info, the lobby and join messages all use one consistent Middle-earth themed palette
- Boss bar: the bar now drains as the game clock runs down and changes colour as time runs out. You can switch back to the classic bar in /settings
- Flag capture: capture messages show a progress bar with a percentage, and you can turn the bar off in /settings
- Team and staff chat: the [T] tag is now a clearer TEAM labels
- MVP summary: redesigned end-of-game MVP screen. Stats are now shown directly instead of hidden behind a hover
- Kit info: cleaner layout split into Equipment, Armour, Blessings and Abilities. Gold classes now show the correct currency, and there's a click-to-purchase prompt
- Broadcasts and tips: links and commands can be clicked and show a tooltip when you hover over them, and they display the real web address instead of [BUTTON] labels
- Votes now reset at 5am (05:00) local server timezone (CET)
- Some votes are now broadcasted in chat to encourage and remind others to vote as-well
- Projectiles to ignore invulnerability frames
- Revert 1.21.6+ projectile hit margin change (enabled)
- Synchronise client-side ticking with the server
- Send player movement every tick instead of every two ticks
- Remove random spread of projectile launch vectors (enabled)
- We will be experimenting with these changes and enabling different settings to see how they behave
Bug Fixes & Balancing:
- Moria Great Halls: Added lore (use /map lore moria_gh)
- Edhellond: Fixed Switch Team sign in Gondor Lobby
- Edhellond: Added lore (use /map lore edhellond)
- Edhellond: Set up City Gate animation
- Edhellond: Set up Portculis animation
- Edhellond: Set up Second gate animation
- Edhellond: Set up Third gate animation
- Edhellond: Set up Fourth gate animation
- Edhellond: Set up Fifth gate animation
- Osgiliath Conquest: Revamped Camp Flag
- Osgiliath Conquest: Revamped various buildings around the city
- Osgiliath Conquest: Added lore (use /map lore osgiliath)
- Osgiliath East: Give 3 wood instead of 2 on the Bridge
- Osgiliath East: Start giving wood when the Eastern Bank flag is neutralized, instead of waiting for full capture.
- Eoford: Reduced "Tombs" flag radius (8 -> 6)
- Eoford: Rebalance the team ratios (50/50 -> 47/53 (Defenders vs Attackers respectively)
- Black Gate: Changed the biome in Gothmog's Tent (to remove rain particles)
- Black Gate: Removed duplicate wood material pile behind the Old Fortress flag
- Black Gate: Added Body Bracing to both Rhun Camp gates
- Black Gate: Added a missing wood material between the Mining Camp flag and the Rhun Camp flag
- Black Gate: Fixed Mordor team lobby biome
- Setton: Added fortification placement ability to Breeland Constructor (and added fortifications)
- Setton: Fixed Windmill animation not playing on game start
- Setton: increased capture speed by 75%
- Grimslade: Added map border
- Helm's Deep: Rohan spawns closer to the wall before its blown up
- Helm's Deep: Wall explosion effect fixed (rocks fly further and deal more damage to nearby players)
- Bannerman Ability: fixed placing the banner against the restock block when restocking
- Wood blocks in the inventory now drop on player death
- Fix duplicate AFK warnings
- Throw Ability: fixed the item being thrown when restocking
- Fixed material pile drops not being centred on the block
- Fixed material pile holograms not being centred on the block
- Removed references to "v3" in game text
- Fixed tutorial spawn wool colour
- Fixed tutorial spawn wool initial text
- When you are buffed by a bannerman's banner, an actionbar message will now show including the name of the player that placed the banner
- Fixed /kill sometimes not working
- Fixed /kill not working in the lobby
- Fixed command aliases being filtered out in tab complete
- Fixed map borders
- Fixed online leaderboard (https://empirewar.org/stats)
- Fixed being able to pick-up enemy trident whose owner died
- Fixed Kit percentage limits being ignored
- Fixed the damage of critical projectiles being random
- Fixed kits with different scales getting stuck on blocks
- Fixed troll showing rock pick-up message when in lobby or when cooldown is active
- Fixed restock cooldown being bypassable
- Fixed items put in offhand returning to hotbar when restocking or applying the kit again
- Also fixes being able to duplicate items via the same method
- Fixed kit descriptions sometimes showing armour twice
- Fixed kit descriptions showing attributes that were the default Minecraft value
- Half Troll: Increased range (0.3 -> 0.4)
- Half Troll: Increased knockback (0 -> 0.4)
- Easterling Prince: Daggers are now stackable
- Uruk Crossbowman: Increased arrow velocity (1.1 -> 1.2)
- Gondor Spearman: Fixed restocking spear into the helmet slot
- Mordor Spearman: Fixed restocking spear into the helmet slot
- Moria Great Halls: Replace Troll with Cave Troll
- Cave Troll: Reduced health to 54 (since it can't sprint)
- Minas Tirith: Rename Troll to Olog-Hai
- The Black Gate: Rename Troll to Olog-Hai
- Troll: Changed class limit (15% -> 25%)
- Uruk Bannerman: fixed missing banner
- Uruk Bannerman: Changed Uruk Pike to an Uruk Mace (6.25 damage, 0.2 knockback)
- Amanyar Swordmaster: Changed parry ability cooldown (15s -> 20s)
- Amanyar Swordmaster: lowered damage & armour
- Fixed Gimli (now it can be played as a hero class)
- Half Troll: Increase range (0 -> 0.4)
- Half Troll: Increase knockback (0 -> 0.4)
- Corsair Captain: Dagger is now throwable
- Firebeard Crossbowman: Increased cooldown (50s ->30s)
- Firebeard Crossbowman: Increased damage (3.6 -> 4.4)
- Firebeard Crossbowman: Inrease movement speed (0.07 -> 0.1)
- Firebeard Crossbowman: Remove Active melee effect ability
- Rock Throw for all troll classes cooldown increased (20s -> 60s)
- Ruffian: Added power 1 to the bow
- Ruffian: Increased arrow count (6 -> 12)
- Ruffian: Increase sword damage (6 -> 7)
- Barrow Wight: Halved the ability cooldown down to 7.5s
- Barrow Wight: Added weakness effect to the sword
- Dunland Brigand: Spear damage increased +4.5, range +0.5
- Dunland Brigand: Increased armour (12 -> 15)
- Dunland Barbarian: Increased Barbarian armour (7 -> 8)
- Dunland Barbarian: Increased damage (8 -> 9)
- Easterling Shieldman: Increased range (0 -> 0.75)
- All shieldman classes: Increased armour (13 -> 16)
- All shieldman classes: Increased shield durability (varied depending on class)
- Westfold Axeman: Increased armour (11 -> 14)
- Dwarf Legioneer: Increased armour (13 -> 15)
- Corsair Handbow: Added piercing 1, quick charge 2
- Legolas: Added Quickshot ability
- Legolas: Increased Bow power enchantment (2 -> 3)
- Aragorn: Increased damage (8 -> 10)
- Aragorn: Increased Knockback resistance (0 -> 0.5)
- Gimli: Increased health (40 -> 50)
- Ring-Wraith: Added skull detailing effect on kill passive
- Lurtz: Increased damage (6.5 -> 8)
- Arathorn: Add Resistance 1
- Ori: Added advanced crossbow ability
- All crossbow classes (except Firebeard): Decreased cooldown (3s -> 1.5s)
- All crossbow classes: Increase firework damage to be the same as arrows
- Longbeard Veteran: Removed resistance from the potion
Longbeard Veteran: Decreased damage by 1 - Warchief Muglug: fixed speed
- Warchief Muglug: changed bloody potion
- Carn Dum Warrior: Increased health (20 -> 28)
- Angmar Commander: Changed horn effects (Resistance 1 for 8s -> Resitance 1 for 4s & Speed 2 for 15s -> Speed 1 for 15s)
- Arnor Remnant: Increase arrow count (16 -> 24)
- Umbar Crossbow: rename to Umbar Handbow to establish unique identity
- Angmar Soldier: rename to Angmar Orc
- Royal Guard: Changed parry ability to Absorption 3 for 4.5s and 12s cooldown
- Royal Guard: Decrease damage (6 -> 5.5)
- Uruk Pikeman: Increased damage (4.7 -> 5.5)
- Dunlending Farmer: Increase range (0.5 -> 0.8)
- Dunlending Farmer: Increase damage (5.5 -> 6.5)
- Centered text lines up properly now
- Potion names show spaces instead of underscores
- Count gate braces live instead of only when bashed
- Don't let captured or neutralized flags add time if the game is in Deathmatch mode
- Fixed bug where switching a team would count the switching player twice, thus significantly affecting balance in the event of team switches
- More behind-the-scenes workflow and staff environment fixes and improvements
Minas Tirith
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Minas Tirith has been significantly overhauled. The city is now facing the East, as it should. The mountains have been completely redone and expanded, making the experience a lot more immersive. 35 eastereggs have been revised, with with 38 eastereggs making their comeback from the EW v1 and EW v2 Minas Tirith versions. About 20+ new eastereggs have been added during this revamp process
Almost every house has been refurbished, even beyond the combat zones. The city now feels a lot more alive and fun to explore. @the_pharaohs_cat has also revamped the 5th level flag, and I redesigned the Main Gate to match the one in the movies.
Last but not least, the team lobbies have been revamped as-well.
We will be working on a video that showcases the difference visually, and include a narrated explanation of the revamp process.
Osgiliath
While certainly overshadowed by the Minas Tirith, some small changes have also been made to Osgiliath West, primarily to ensure parity between it and Osgiliath East. When we worked on Osgiliath East, we spent a lot of time updating the bridge, the centre island, and the eastern side of the city. However, this caused some parity issues between the existing western side of Osgiliath. As such, we’ve gone back and updated the old bridge design to be consistent with that of Osgiliath East, and updated the buildings around the bridge. This means that the bridge and camp flags have been updated. Several smaller changes have also been made through the rest of the city in order to bring everything stylistically closer with the work we did on Osgiliath East. (e.g trebuchet bit, the hideout flag, buildings near the theatre, etc.).
We have also updated the Mordor team lobby to be situated in the Eastern half of Osgiliath, the same one as the newly built Gondor lobby for the map Osgiliath East.
Helm's Deep
In a burst of activity, @sjoerdtim has added a more interesting siege ladder system to the Deeping wall, and conducted changes to make the battle at the wall feel more important. As explaiend earlier in the changelog, Rohan team now spawns closer to the wall before it explodes, and orcs now build the ladders laid on the ground. Once a ladder is built, it's raised up in a smooth rising ladder animation, mimicking the movies.
Moria Gold & Thorin's Halls
The two event maps originally setup by @sjoerdtim have made their comeback into the events map list! On special occasions, those maps will be brought out of our pocket to be played.
Formations
Formations are designed to incentivize roleplay and teamwork. When players, arrange themselves in a special position relative to one another, they form a tactical formation. This provides buffs to all of the players in the formations, that remain active up to 7 seconds after leaving the formation. The buffs scale with the number of players. Let's break it down.
How to form a formation
3 or more players need to hold SNEAK next to each other (±2 block radius) while looking in the same direction. A sound effect will play, along with particles, when the server detects a formation.
A formation can only be formed by players with the same kit.
What's the catch
Formations include both pros and cons (but mostly pros).
Before we jump into the perks of being in a formation, we must establish the definition of when a player is considered to be part of the formation. A player is part of a formation up to 7 seconds after they've been actively sneaking with 2+ other players. Now let's look at the buffs:
- Kills made while in formation grant from +0.1 to +0.5 silver based on the formation size
- Assists gotten while in formation grant from +0.1 to +0.5 silver based on the formation size
- SHIELDMEN in formation receive Resistance I for 3-5 players, Resistance II for 6-8 players, and Resistance III for 9+ players.
- ARCHERS in formation receive Resistance I for 3-5 players, Resistance II for 6-8 players, and Resistance III for 9+ players.
- PIKEMEN in formation receive Strength I for 3-5 players, Strength II for 6-8 players, and Strength III for 9+ players
- CONSTRUCTORS receive Haste I AND Absorption I for 3-5 players, Haste II AND Absorption II for 6-8 players, and Haste III AND Absorption III for 9+ players
- All other formations give Absorption I for 3-5 players, Absorption II for 6-8 players, and Absorption III for 9+ players
While some effects may seem op, remember that:
- ALL players in the formation must have the same kit
- Good luck coordinating your teammates to form a formation
- If you do manage point 2., then you deserve a rewarding buff
- The buff lasts only 7 seconds
- Cannot use shield bash ability while in formation
Disclaimer: Smoking is harmful to your health and may cause serious diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses. We do not encourage nor endorse smoking. Smoke at your own risk.
We've added pipe weed to the game! All players can now use /pipe to that opens a menu with different weeds and pipe designs to use. They are, however, not all unlocked right away for you. You need to fulfill certain criteria to be able to use some of the weeds:
| Unlock | Requirement |
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| Pipe + Longbottom Leaf | 10 active minutes on a team + 1 contribution |
| Old Toby | 3 battles → 150 silver |
| Southern Star | 10 battles or 7 vote days → 300 silver |
| Isengard Blend / Firefly Waltz | 10 battles → 400 silver |
| Mirkwood Moss | 3 different maps or 25 battles → 500 silver |
| Erebor Ember | 25 battles → 750 silver or 8 gold |
| White Tree | 25 battles → 10 gold |
| Beacon of the West | lent for 24h after each vote, kept forever at 30 vote days |
| Dragon's Passage | own all 6 core blends + 75 battles |
| Patron's Aurora | only while a subscriber (monthly donations) |
| Artisan's Pipe (look) | 25 battles |
| Carved Pipe of the Master (look) | own all 6 core blends + 75 battles |
| Supporter's Pipe (look) | donor rank (see below) |
Each weed has a different smoke pattern. You can track your progress for each item in Collection Journal inside of the GUI. We will be going over them in an upcoming video. As a side note, we couldn't get the achievements to work properly, so we didn't explicitly bind these unlockables to quests in the quests menu. We'll be trying again in the coming weeks.
All players get the default pipe design, but donors get a silver pipe. Monthly donors also get their unique pipe. Reminder to donate here to support the survival of this server: https://ko-fi.com/empirewar
Healing Update
We're introducing a small healer update. For a long time, v3 has been neglecting the healing capabilities present in some rare classes, and we've acknowledged a downgrade in the healing system compared to Empire War v2. With 3.3.3, we're bringing default (iron) healing classes to both teams on Osgiliath East. Over the coming weeks, we'll be observing how it affects gameplay and its performance, with the end goal to gradually add this class to more maps.
The Healer Class is a medium armored, 6 damage, melee class with the bandage ability! As you can guess, like constructor, it is a support class with not much survivability. So protect these valuable assets!
Here's a few pictures of the class design worked on by @Distraction
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Resource-Pack
Items:
- Foe Hammer (Gandalf)
- Gandalf’s Staff (Gandalf)
- Uruk Mace (Uruk Bannerman)
- Uruk Dagger (Uruk Archer)
- Umbar Parrying Dagger (Umbar Captain)
- Umbar Tipped Arrow (Umbar Handbow)
- Umbar Spear (Umbar Spearman, WIP)
- Umbar Cutlass (Umbar Spearman/Handbow/Deepsourge/Captain)
- Umbar Dagger (Umbar Archer)
- Umbar Boarding Axe (Umbar Soldier)
- Umbar Handbow (Umbar Handbow)
- Smoking pipes (regular, briar, and silver, by Distraction)
- Angmar Axe (Angmar Crossbow/Spearman)
- Angmar Club (Angmar Commander)
- Angmar Arrow (Angmar Archer/Crossbow)
- Angmar Crossbow (Angmar Crossbow)
- Angmar Scimitar (Angmar Soldier)
- Rohirric Spear (Rohan Spearman)
- Rohan Dagger (Rohan Archer)
- Rohan Arrow (Rohan Archer)
- Rohan Battleaxe (Westfold Axeman)
- Rohan Soldier Sword (Rohan Soldier)
- Rohan Shieldmaiden Sword (Rohan Shieldmaiden)
- Dunlending Spear (Dunlending Brigand)
- Dunlending Arrow (Dunlending Archer)
- Dúnedain Spear (Dúnedain Spearman)
- Dúnedain Dagger (Dúnedain Archer)
- Dúnedain Shortsword (Dúnedain Spearman)
Armour:
- Black Uruk Armor
- Mordor Healer Armor
- Gondor Healer Armor (by Distraction)
- Angmar Armor
- Gondor Captain Armor
- Dol Amroth Knight Armor
- Sprites for Gondor, Dol Amroth, Lossanach, Captain, and Citadel Guard Helmet
Fixes:
- Fixed Gondor Mace
- Fixed Mordor Battleaxe display on ground and hotbar
- Fixed Gothmog Mace hotbar
- Adjust Rhudaur Claymore shape and readded to Rhudaur Blackwold
- Fixed Haradrim Archer Arrow json and texture
- Changed cake cross to a green cross
- Sharpen Mithril Sword
- Redesign Ithilien Shortsword
- Redesign Ithilien Arrow
- Redesign Dunlending Sword
- Fixed Crossbow Animations
- Gondor Bow became a regular long bow while Gondor gets unique longbow
- Replaced Steak with Dumplings for the easterling vote classes (same stats)
Closing
I can't put into words how much work was put into this update. Everyone involved; builders, moderators, devs, texturers, and others - has put a lot of effort and passion into all of these new features and fixes. We have a lot of bugs to fix still, ahead of us, and a lot of polishing to do. But we also have big and ambitious plans. As I've explained in this announcement, we have the Rohan Update ahead of us. Between now and then, we will be rolling out more quality of life updates, and maybe a few other surprises.
We have A LOT of work ahead of us, and a lot has been achieved already. As I've mentioned earlier, we're already working on the Rohan Update and a lot of progress has been made towards that goal in the past few months.
I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who has been actively playing on Empire War in the past 2 months. The server has felt super alive, with many new suggestions, ideas and bug reports also appearing on forums. We continue working at the pace we're comfortable with to build a better server. See you soon, on the One server, to Rule them all.
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