The next chapter of Persist Online begins now!
This update introduces our biggest progression overhaul yet, featuring reworked item requirements, redesigned Safehouse progression, new consumables, harvesting experience, new Elite enemies, improved spawn mechanics, and countless balance, quality-of-life, and technical improvements across the entire game. Based heavily on community feedback and playtest results, these changes lay the foundation for a more rewarding, intuitive, and engaging game experience.
1. New Feature
- Added new feature: Faction Quests.
- Developer Comments: Read more in our Feature preview.
2. Content Changes
- Multiple areas in and around Ashwater have been expanded and populated.
- Added several changes regarding character progression. Summary of changes:
- Item level requirements reworked from skill to character level.
- Added specific character level ranges for item and weapon qualities.
- Added New Badge Distribution System for Skills.
- Reduced HP gain for character level ups as well as HP boosts gained from item mods.
- Reworked on how items can be upgraded in Safehouse.
- Adjusted the time and costs of tasks, room upgrades, and room expansions in the Safehouse.
- Removed skill level requirement for tasks in the Safehouse.
- Harvesting now grants Character Experience (fishing excluded).
- Added several new consumables.
- Added new Elemental Elite enemies.
- Adjusted the spawn and respawn mechanics of zombies, mutants, and elite enemies.
- Adjusted how enemies enter a “protected” state.
- Nodes are now unlocked at Character Level 15 (was 12).
- Developer Comments: We felt that unlocking Nodes at Level 12 was too early, due to Node difficulty starting on Ring 3.
- Rearranged the order of Nodes shown in the Nodes tab.
- Developer Comments: Nodes that have been claimed by character are now always listed on top of the tab list.
- Reworked Part 3 of the Tutorial (Open World Tutorial – Bonus Quests) into three separate batches to not overwhelm new players with too many quests in the beginning of the game.
- Added a new item type: Family-Bound.
- Developer Comments: Items that are marked as Family-Bound are not tradeable and can only be used by characters of the same family – for example the Login Starter Bonus Items.
- Added an option for player characters to disable the “Are You Sure?” message by selecting the “Don’t Ask Me Again” option in the skill point confirmation pop-up.
- Developer Comments: This option is also available in the game settings.
- Added Remarkable Fishing Spots throughout the world.
- Developer Comments: We also corrected already existing fishing spots with their correct difficulties. This means, that player characters can now fish for higher quality rewards (fishes, junk items etc.).
- Added a new faction, “Forum Transcendum”, in the southwest – including their stronghold and NPCs.
- Added a new icon for Labor.
- Added more melee weapon crafting knowledge for newly created accounts/characters in the Safehouse.
- Added a new visual effects for Elite enemies plus Decayed Zombies (in Ring 6 or higher).
- Added a new visual icon for NPCs with special functions, such as Repair, Trade, Auctioneer, Faction Shop and Sickbay, as well as for interactables such as Faction Quest Boards, Mailboxes, Leaderboards and Guild Podiums.
- Added a new visual effect for neutralize and cleanse abilities on player characters, NPCs or creatures in the world.
- Developer Comments: This new visual effect should make it more clearer, when a status effect or buff was removed.
- Added a visual effect for augmentation on items.
- Added multiple new journal entries and updated outdated ones.
- Added an option to hide login details (email address) on the login screen.
- Added and updated several Journal entries
- Added a “Stack All” button to the Safehouse storage that moves consumable items from the character inventory to partial stacks in the storage.
- Added Junk Knight armor set.
- Adjusted the position of the mailbox in Junction so that new players can better spot it when entering the world.
- Adjusted the positioning of various NPCs in and around Junction..
- When targeting harvestables without the required tool or sufficient tool quality, the E key is now displayed in red.
- Harvestable Pristine spots received a new particle effect color.
- Starter bandages are unsellable again.
- Removed the Wirecutter item from the game.
- Removed “Identify Future Mods” expansion from Safehouse rooms.
- Removed survival perk “Reduced noise emission from weapons”.
3. Balance Changes
- Adjusted the character and skill level curves.
- Increased skill XP gain slightly in the early game.
- Increased the inventory slot count for the following junk items: Bolt, Cog, Hexnut, Screw, Spring, Washer.
- Adjusted junk loot drops from enemies on higher Ring difficulties.
- Developer Comments: From now on less low level junk items should drop from enemies on higher ring difficulties.
- Reduced the duration of the debuff “disgusted” from Spitter attacks in Rings 3 and 4.
- Reduced the damage of ranged Rotworms.
- Reduced the time for the common quality tool expansion in the Safehouse.
- Reduced the labor costs for building new rooms in the Safehouse.
- Reduced raw material rewards from training missions in the Safehouse.
- Cooking ingredients should now drop more frequently. Also ingredients from lootable items are distributed more evenly.
4. Graphic, Sound & other Technical Changes
- Added a visual update to Grass.
- Increased Outline Shader intensity by 15%.
- Optimized Outline Shader scaling depending on display resolution.
- Increased the camera distance for characters when sprinting by 1.0 meters.
- Increased the outdoor camera distance for player characters when using a melee weapon by 1.5 meters.
- Increased the indoor camera distance for player characters when using a melee weapon by 0.35 meters.
- Increased the indoor camera movement speed by 50%.
- Reworked camera collision handling to avoid camera glitching through walls.
5. Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug with the special attack “Scream” used by Wraith Mutants — it now drains 35% of a player’s stamina.
- Fixed a bug where the stamina regeneration of the skill “Rainproof” did not function correctly.
- Fixed a bug where hit animations of enemies were not shown correctly.
- Fixed a bug with incorrect line breaks in mouse-over tooltips.
- Fixed a bug where Legacy guards could fall down through containers at the main entrance.
- Fixed a bug where some harvestable spots around Junction had the incorrect quality.
- Fixed a bug where the cooldown enhancer ability for “Sixth Sense” would not reduce the cooldown correctly.
- Fixed a bug where the harvesting action would be interrupted from friendly fire.
- Fixed a bug where the workshop expansion “Superior Quality Improvement” could cause items not appearing correctly in the task overview.
- Fixed a bug where, under certain circumstances, sent mails could not be delivered correctly by the mail system.
- Fixed a bug where the Mining Skill “Orebreaker” with the specialization “Way of the Ghost” did not work correctly.
- Fixed a bug where the Woodworking Skill “Sap Rush” with the specialization “Way of the Shieldbreaker” did not work correctly.
- Fixed a bug where the Thievery Skill “Chloroform” did not work correctly.
- Fixed a bug where opening the storage in the Safehouse would always open the last selected tab.
- Fixed a bug where the maintenance text block in non-English game launchers would not be displayed fully.
- Fixed a bug where the Dazed debuff would not work correctly when a player character uses autowalk.
- Fixed a bug where attacks from ranged NPCs could not be evaded.
- Fixed a bug where item mods could be leveled from fall damage.
- Fixed a bug with flickering wall textures.
- Fixed a bug with a missing quest objective compass marker for the quest “A Stronghold Bones – Current Calibration”.
- Fixed a bug with incorrect character animations after harvesting Pristine Node spots.
- Fixed a bug with female character pistol aiming positions. j
- Fixed a bug with the kill counter for the quest “Defending our home”.
- Fixed several bugs with visual glitches for outfits.
- Fixed several bugs where players can become stuck in certain areas in and around Ashwater.
- Fixed several bugs where enemy creatures could fall through the terrain on some bridges in and around Ashwater.
- Fixed several bugs with missing or incorrect texts in English and non-English clients.