The Path of the Slayer update (OB 0.7.1) unveils massive improvements to the world of Dauntless, including a new Mastery system, progression flow, Hunt Pass, and End of Hunt screen. Estimated number of changes: Over 6,000.
NEW TO DAUNTLESS
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Mastery system. Master objectives, prove your skill, and be rewarded. Look for Mastery in the Main Menu. Keyboard users can open it with ‘N.’ Mastery messages. Slayers will see a brief pop-up message when unlocking a Mastery card or completing a Mastery objective.
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Alternate weapon specials. Mighty Landbreaker (hammer), Ardent Cyclone (sword), Savage Wellspring (war pike), and Cruel Riftstrike (chain blades) can now be unlocked through the Mastery system. Alternate specials for the axe and repeaters are in the works and will arrive in a later patch.
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Weapon mods. These new combat modifiers are unlocked through the Mastery system and equipped on the Loadout screen.
- Progression flow. Slayers will experience a new quest flow, new quests, and a bunch of other QOL improvements as they move from the Sheltered Frontier to the depths of the Maelstrom.
- Tutorial cards. New tutorial slates offer fresh art and clearer explanations of Dauntless’ features.
- Hunt board. The hunt board has a new look and interface. Pursuits are sorted by element group and new types of patrols are available. . Hunts will detail rewards and offer tips for fighting specific Behemoths.
- Renamed Rogue Behemoths to Lesser Behemoths and added two new ones: Lesser Boreus and Lesser Drask.
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Added new audio and visual effects to flower- and mushroom-gathering actions.
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Voice chat. Slayers can now use built-in voice chat when partied up or hunting together. This can be toggled on and off in the Options menu.
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Options overhaul. Replaced the existing options menu with a new, more functional one, and replaced the keybindings screen with a more customizable, intuitive one. Slayers will have much more control over audio options and should be able to more easily rebind keys.
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Hunt Pass Season 4. Burndown brings barbarian style to the Shattered Isles.
- Guild changes. Guilds are now free to create! Slayers who purchased Guild Charters in the past will receive a platinum refund. This includes Slayers who got their Charter from a Founder’s Pack. Read more about guild changes here.
- Guild names will be capped at 15 characters.
- Guilds are now limited to 100 members, including the GM.
- Any Founders who had unopened Founder Cores will receive platinum in lieu of a Guild Charter.
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Finished removing Patron Boosts from the game. Anyone with an active boost will be refunded.
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Increased the total number of stims (self-revives) available to Slayers during a hunt. Each Slayer will now receive three total stims (up from one).
- End of Hunt. Introduced a new End of Hunt screen that shows Slayer progress toward Mastery objectives, quest objectives, and weeklies. Break part rewards are better detailed as well. You can see an example in our Path of the Slayer blog.
- Freedom. Resolved a bug that caused Slayers to sometimes get stuck on an island after a hunt.
- Bonus rolls. There are now three ways to earn bonus loot rolls.
- Staying alive. Slayers will now get three bonus rolls if they complete a hunt without being downed. Being downed once subtracts one roll from the total, being downed twice subtracts two, and being downed three or more times means that you won’t receive any bonus survival rolls.
- Elite Track. Hunt Pass Elite Track owners will receive a bonus roll at the end of each hunt.
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Daily Patrols. Each day, Slayers will earn a certain number of Patrol Chests that can be unlocked by going on patrols. There will be a limit of one Patrol Chest per day with a total of three Patrol Chests that you can have at one time.
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Reworked the Style Menu and renamed it to the Personality Menu. Keyboard users can still access it with ‘K.’
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City clean-up. Soldiers and citizens have cleared the last of the Ostian ship wreckage from Ramsgate, and the sun is shining once again. Take a stroll around the freshened city and keep an eye out for questgivers; some have abandoned their usual spots to take in the sunshine.
- Skraev weapons will now drop three frost mines after a successful evade. This special effect will have a 30 second cooldown.
QUALITY OF LIFE
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Dire versions of gear have been removed and rolled into a single piece of gear for each Behemoth. As part of this change, we’ve done a big pass on power and resistance balancing and have raised all gear scores to a possible +15. If you had a Gnashaxe and a +10 Ragecleaver, you now have a +10 Raging Bite with the potential to raise it to +15.
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Slayers can now mash the dodge button to more quickly break out of Frozen status.
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Progression tracks have been replaced by a new set of weekly quests that can be completed to gain hunt pass XP.
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Fixed a bug where the Stormclaw would build fences like it was 90% Off! Everything Must Go! at the fence factory.
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Fixed a bug where the Sentinel’s Mask would clip when wearing a chest armour that had a bare neck.
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Iceborne cells no longer play VFX or attempt to heal the player for 0 when attempting to lifesteal at 50% health.
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Fixed a bug where certain helmets would remain visible when transmogging from the Shrowd Hood.
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Fixed a bug where the camera could get stuck to the player if they were hit while using the war pike’s Pike Blast.
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Fixed a bug where the camera could get stuck in its zoomed-in mode when using the hammer’s Concussive Salvo blast on Shrike.
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Removed a redundant button in the cell exchange’s “speed up” sequence.
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Fixed a bug where chain blades would sometimes be “stuck” in a Slayer’s hand during their hunt arrival animation.
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Fixed a bug with the background on the cell dusting button. (It was making the button text hard to read.)
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Fixed a bug that could cause Dauntless to crash on exit.
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Improved the audio mixing infrastructure on hunts. Music and sound effects will now scale more accurately relative to priority and distance.
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Fixed a bug where Slayers’ names would show up left-aligned throughout their menus.
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Fixed a bug where the Craft button wouldn’t update until long after the animation finished.
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Updated the in-game credits.
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The Wildland Flute emote sound is now easier for other players to hear and will no longer stop when becoming inaudible (e.g. when walking away and coming back to someone playing the flute).
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Emote preview audio will now stop playing when you leave the Emotes menu or select another emote.
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Fixed a bug where the Wildland Flute would not properly disappear when switching emotes.
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Added new in-game survey questions that will show up every once in awhile.
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Fixed a bug where lantern crafting text could be incredibly small and hard to read.
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Added new animations for Max and Bruna (Ramsgate’s dogs) and gave the rams some new idle animations.
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Fixed a bug where the war pike’s Pike Charge would not consume stamina.
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Improved performance across Ramsgate and the Shattered Isles. As part of this change, we’ve decreased the load that is put on CPUs when fighting Behemoths.
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Improved controller usability across all of Dauntless. All menus and aspects of the game should now be navigable via controller.
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Added new audio cues and sound effects to the Loadout menu.
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Slayers will now see separate weapon and armour gear scores in the Loadout menu.
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The radiant meteors that signalled the arrival of Valomyr have finally subsided. The skies are clear once more.
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Fixed a bug where controller users could lose focus when navigating the Hunt Pass interface.
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Fixed a bug where the Confirm button would randomly disappear from the new cell claim screen.
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Trying to exchange an Epic cell when you don’t have enough Rams will now show you how many more you need.
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Fixed a bug where the “getting hit” animation would sometimes play in the wrong direction.
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Fixed a bug where transmogged weapons could take on the texture and material of the original weapon.
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Fixed a bug where Rezakiris weren’t correctly affected by Overpower cells.
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Dr. Priyani has undergone a makeover and donned some fresh new threads.
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When a Slayer in your party goes offline, they will be more quickly removed from the party.
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Did a polish pass on Ramsgate to touch up lighting and city assets.
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Aiming the Godhand will no longer break if the wielder is hit by a Shrowd’s umbral pools.
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Getting knocked down while activating a lantern skill should no longer prevent you from using lanterns in that fight.
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Improved performance when fighting Quillshots, Deadeye Quillshots, Rezakiris, and Valomyrs.
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Fixed a bug where killing a Shrowd clone would count toward “Slay a Shrowd” objectives.
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Smoothed out the flow in the character creator. It should be a little easier to understand now.
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Fixed an issue where converting war pike ammo at the very last second could store a 0% quality ammo, causing it to deal no damage when fired. The minimum ammo quality is now 1%.
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Fixed a bug where rumble might not trigger on being hit. Damage over time effects should no longer cause continuous rumble.
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Fixed a bug where the camera could stay zoomed out after a heavy hit reaction.
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Rebalanced cores that give multiple cell types. Slayers now have an equal chance of receiving any of the core’s cells.
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Fixed a bug where banners could sometimes be planted sideways.
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Players are now able to view the combo list through the main menu. Go to Main Menu > Move List to see details for your current weapon.
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Removed the inventory cap on cores and made them stackable. When visiting the core breaker, Slayers with multiples of the same type of core (e.g. Gold Slayer Core, Bronze Alchemist Core) can now easily see how many they have (e.g. 15x Silver Slayer Core).
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Added a sparkle effect to Hunt Pass gatherables (e.g. Aethersprouts, Burning Braziers) to make it easier to distinguish them from other environmental objects.
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Island gatherables have been marked with a sparkle effect to let Slayers know that they can be collected.
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Fixed a bug where Valomyr’s rage VFX would incorrectly play when its horn was broken.
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Slayers will now encounter a greater variety of weather and light when out on hunts.
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Fixed a bug that caused the VFX for the Shrike Lantern’s held ability to detach from the user if they died while it was active.
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Helmet sound effects (e.g. for The Skullforge, Frostfall Bells) will correctly turn off when the user has their helmet hidden.
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Quests with “either/or” objectives now properly show their progress in the quest log.
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Fixed a bug where Slayers using repeaters could rotate and spin while frozen in ice.
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Slayers on 21:9 monitors will be able to see more of their character in the Loadout screen.
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Fixed a bunch of typos, grammar crimes, and confusing text snippets.
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Weapon sounds will no longer continue to play if a Slayer is hit and interrupted.
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Replaced the art for cores in the Hunt Pass tracks to make them match the actual cores that you will see at the core breaker.
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Fixed a bug where the Bosun had extremely bloodshot eyes. Late night, Bosun?
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Exotic blueprints will now show up as a shiny orb drop when slaying a Behemoth.
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Polished up the Embermane’s fire VFX.
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Fixed a bug where interrupting a Valomyr wouldn’t stop its VFX.
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Fixed a bug where rams would disappear on Low settings, but the collision would remain.
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Fixed a bug where a Charrogg’s lava orb might not spawn.
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Decreased loading times when transitioning to/from Ramsgate.
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Fixed a bug where the Harvester’s Head helmet transmog wouldn’t glow.
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Fixed a bug where, under high latency, the repeaters could have to reload twice before receiving ammo.
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Fixed a bug where repeaters couldn’t hit Kharabak bugs (personal debuff) if the wielder was turning and/or moving in any direction.
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Players will no longer see mysterious trees when creating/changing their head in the character creator.
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Behemoths will now appear on a variety of islands instead of being limited to just one or two.
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Renamed a number of break parts. It should now be much easier to identify which Behemoth they came from. RIP.
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Fixed a bug where Gnasher flees displayed the wrong smoke VFX.
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Reduced the time it takes for the Quest Log to open. It should now come up almost instantly, and should no longer cause the game to hitch if you’re opening it for the first time.
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Fixed a bug where some Behemoths would flee by “burrowing” above ground, rather than digging into the floor as intended. Get down, get down.
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Fixed a bug where Slayer names could be doubled up in the party interface. As part of this change, we’ve also fixed a bunch of other bugs with the hunt party interface. I can see my friends again!
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Fixed some bugs that could cause the landscape on Frostmarch to pop in and out.
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Fixed a bug that caused the Skarn’s jaw to hang open during its roll attack.
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Polished the Stormclaw’s fence VFX.
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Fixed a bug that prevented Slayers from dying large portions of the Boreal March leg armour.
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Fixed an issue where using Flight of Ruin under high latency and spamming the special key could make it look like you threw your axe multiple times.
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Taking damage the instant that you throw your axe (Flight of Ruin) will no longer cause the recall animation to play.
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Fixed a bug where the axe meter would light up white at 99% instead of 100%.
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The Valomyr’s rage entrance audio will now better match its visuals.
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Removed the Ostian Arrival cinematic from progression since it no longer fit in with the quest flow.
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Repeaters should now be in your hands (as intended) when viewing them in the Loadout screen.
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Trimmed up the Flared Bob hairstyle. It should look less plastic now.
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Increased camera distance in Ramsgate and tightened up the transition between walking and running. Let us know how that extra distance feels.
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Made it easier to see which weapon is selected when you’re in the Crafting screen.
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Frost elemental debuff effects will now be visible on all Behemoths.
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Fixed a bug where Stormclaw wouldn’t leave its aether state. I like it here. It’s warm.
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Fixed a bug where Koshai’s tail projectiles would occasionally spawn at random.
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Fixed a bug where Slayers had to click twice to close the Social panel.
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Toned down the VFX for Boreus’ frost shield.
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The cost to speed up a cell cook/exchange should no longer display as “0 Ace Chips.”
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Made the bushes on Iron Falls (island) smaller so that they don’t block Slayers’ vision in combat.
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Fixed a bug where selecting the Double Buns hairstyle could cause Slayers to get stuck in the character creator.
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Sheathing your weapon while running is now much smoother.
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Fixed some bugs that could cause Slayers to lose focus while navigating the Middleman’s UI.
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Toned down the hammer impact VFX for non-local players in a party.
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Removed the “aether wisps give you a boost of energy” voiceover tutorial to prevent it from constantly. Triggering. Forever. Mark his words: The Bosun will teach you about aether wisps if it’s the last thing he ever does.
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Slayers will now get a message when trying to join a full party. (It used to fail silently.)
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Epic break parts will now drop more frequently for Behemoths that don’t have Dire variants.
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Quests that have one objective will no longer display a “0/1.” They will instead show up as either “Complete” or “Incomplete.”
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Fixed a bug where the repeaters could be invisible to players who hadn’t changed weapon parts for a while.
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Removed Shrike’s ability to use personality animations during its enraged state.
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Fixed a bug where pylons would blink out of existence when they expired. They should now fade nicely into non-existence.
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Added hints and tips to the airship screen so that Slayers can better prepare for their hunts.
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Fixed a bug where the Kharabak wasn’t turning to face players on combat start.
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Fixed a bug where the Skraev wasn’t dropping the correct break parts when its head/beak was broken.
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Trying to change your Loadout or Personality settings while out on a hunt will now serve you a more informative message.
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Fixed a bug where login menu buttons would disappear after a matchmaking failure.
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Fixed a bug where opening your Loadout shortly after entering Ramsgate or starting a hunt could show base-level items with no dyes or transmogs applied.
BALANCE CHANGES
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Reduced the damage window at the beginning of the Pangar’s roll attack. Damage now starts later.
- Increased the frequency of the Kharabak’s aether charge (in order to make its interruptible attack more available).
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Increased the size of Pangar’s and Hellion’s enrage entrance.
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Increased the Drask’s head part health.
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Reduced the Valomyr’s base health.
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Fixed up the Valomyr’s aether exit visuals.
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Tuned down the Rockfall Skarn’s armour health pools.
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Reduced damage on most of the Valomyr’s attacks.
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Reduced damage and increased knockback on Valomyrs’ teleports.
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Reduced the health of Valomyrs’ parts.
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Decreased the Valomyr’s rage frequency.
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Increased the number of shield pickups available during the Valomyr’s aether charged cycle.
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Improved the Valomyr’s headbeam targeting. It should no longer fire backwards at Slayers.
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Reduced the amount of damage required to interrupt the Valomyr’s aether charged cycle.
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Updated hint text for interrupt mechanics. Text should now instruct Slayers to use “heavy” attack damage.
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Increased the frequency of the Stormclaw’s fence placement (on purpose this time).
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Flight of Ruin (thrown axe special) can now interrupt if the user is using Weighted Strikes +6.
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The Storm Hammer (Stormclaw hammer) will now provide lantern charge on hit instead of increasing weapon meter gain.
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Non-Heroic Koshai now has a chance to drop rare break parts.
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Tuned down the part health on the Deadeye Quillshot’s limbs and tail.
- The Skarn will now regenerate armour on flee only after it has re-entered its aether vent camo mode.