Publish 120 Feedback!

Community Manager

Publish 120 to Test Center 1

Posted on June 5, 2025 by UO Dev Team

6/5/2025

Greetings,

We are pleased to announce that Publish 120 is now available for testing on TC1.  We are excited to bring you “The Rifted Crown” which is certain to test the mettle of even the bravest of adventurers!  Patch up your client and review the publish notes for full details.

See you in Britannia,

UO Team

ForeverFun

Please reduce this cooldown from 30 minutes to 10 or 15 minutes, thanks:

Once the defense fails, players will be removed and the event restarts after 30 minutes

Grimbeard

It's great if it's NL mechanics involved here they should include manticore to introduce them to production shards and kill the market from the influx that's going to happen with the shattering 

Pawain

The Clydesdale does 100% physical damage.  They should have a damage mix or 100% other damage.

Hisoka

Only High Seas can craft the items for the event.

Grimbeard

New boots nice but won't replace minax need better mods ... also replace crystalline blackrock either with regular blackrock or maybe fire fish to include fishers. the cost too high supply too low and terrible drop rate small shards will not be able to blow up stuff @Kyronix @Parallax

Drowy

I second the replacement of crystalline blackrock and even the fuse cord and black powder, as I have seen someone using around 50 explosive barrels to break the first two barriers. No idea how much ammunition is needed to break next wall. But it will be alot of resources of black powder, fuse cord and crystalline blackrock.

Hippo

I would keep the explosives as they are but reward the Alchemist/Craftsman with a huge reward for the amount of expensive materials used. Craftsmen need to be rewarded in some way.

Lokea

Grimbeard said:

 the cost too high supply too low and terrible drop rate small shards will not be able to blow up stuff @ Kyronix @ Parallax

This concerns me about smaller shards.

Otherwise, this is a far bigger publish than I expected, so kudos to the live team.

King

@Kyronix a lot of people were making a suggestion about the mage version of the sash, that is just a cheap version of lt sash. so the suggestion was to have FC1

Kaz

We saw the boss fight in the town last night - it spawned the riftborne monstrosity.  

This particular boss will be extremely difficult to deal with on less populated shards; I would seriously consider reviewing this mechanic for production.  

The buff to this boss on NL made it particularly nasty and on some shards it will be next to impossible. 

ForeverFun

Cannot enhance the "Veilkeeper's Branch" shield/wand, using the forged metal of artifacts tool. (*)

(checked a couple of the other new rewards, they can be enhanced).

(*) some would consider not allowing enhance to be an "own goal".

ForeverFun

Cannot enhance the "Veldritch Vambraces", using the forged metal of artifacts tool. (*)

The "Veldritch Vambraces" seem vastly inferior to the "Cuffs of the Archmage" -  consider at least boosting the SDI to 20+.

(*) some would consider not allowing enhance to be an "own goal".  It seems there may be a hesitancy around allowing mage oriented items to be enhanced?  (Shugenja's raiment, ...).  Whereas warrior/etc items appear to be more open to this...

Violet

Kaz said:

We saw the boss fight in the town last night - it spawned the riftborne monstrosity.  

This particular boss will be extremely difficult to deal with on less populated shards; I would seriously consider reviewing this mechanic for production.  

The buff to this boss on NL made it particularly nasty and on some shards it will be next to impossible. 

I would not be surprised if they adjusted a few of the mechanics on this, but once the void clones are down as long as you have an aoe warrior or two this fight becomes much easier.  Also helps if people stack.  I was *lucky* enough to do the same Champion earlier today and it was actually easier when a bunch of archers and/or throwers weren't running around and there.  

I imagine it's hard to balance off the very first run as people have no experience with the mechanics and there is no coordination.

Grimbeard

Ankous soul binder useless the fighter version far better make it FC 1 fcr 1 and 5sdi literally no one needs LMC or LRC.. I've already offered opinion on boots all the other rewards kick ass !!

Katherine

Suggestion:

Please consider increasing the drop rate of materials — especially Crystalline Blackrock — or significantly reducing the required crafting materials during Phase 1: The Siege, to support smoother gameplay flow and encourage active participation.

While the current setup may work in the early stage of the event, material shortages are likely to become a serious issue as the event progresses into the mid-stage. Each war battle demands a large quantity of crafting materials to produce essential items needed to break through city walls. Without sufficient resources to craft these items, the event may lose momentum and fail to maintain player engagement.

Felipovisk

Crystalline blackrock should just be needed for the elixir/potion that we use to coat weapons and books and get 200% void slayer. For the explosives Crystalline blackrock needs to be replaced to something like void orb or void core. Void orb should be a better target since its not so easy to farm like void core, and not so hard as crystalline blackrock. Another option should be to keep crystalline blackrock, but create a recipe for alchemy to transmute crystalline orb. Something like:

Transmute Recipe: Crystalline blackrock.

materials needed: 15 piece of blackrock, perfect diamonds and something else. Anyway make a list of 3 material needed to transmute and a cooldwon, that a an alchemist could only transmute 1000 crystalline blackrocks for each 24hrs. Need to be close to a soulforge, and this could be a recipe from the vendor at humility gate, same price as the void slayer elixir recipe.

Jade

The amount of Crystalline Blackrock to create the siege equipment is going to make this even in June 2025 impossible to do.  10 is way to many and it takes too long to farm 10.  the drop rate on elementals is like 7%.  Either the drop rate from elementals and mining needs to increase by 100 to 200% or there needs to be more sources like shadow iron ingots and some gem like diamonds for an alchemist to create or the amount needed has to drop to like 2 or 4.  This event will fail if this glaring issue is not addressed 

Grimbeard

Jade said:

The amount of Crystalline Blackrock to create the siege equipment is going to make this even in June 2025 impossible to do.  10 is way to many and it takes too long to farm 10.  the drop rate on elementals is like 7%.  Either the drop rate from elementals and mining needs to increase by 100 to 200% or there needs to be more sources like shadow iron ingots and some gem like diamonds for an alchemist to create or the amount needed has to drop to like 2 or 4.  This event will fail if this glaring issue is not addressed 

I was in your camp but was able to gather ten just killing shadow elementals in less than a hour so feel it's not going to be an issue 

Jha_dur

I will echo others feedback on the issue of Crystalline Blackrock (CB). The cost to break into the cities is very high. Having it use other more readily obtainable items would be nice. If that is not an option, even halfing the cost would be a good leap forward. Somewhere in the 2-3 per would be nice. Still has some cost, but not something that is going to completely deplete your often small stash of the resource. I play on a lower population shard and can see this turning into a "wait for someone to get on who has blackrock" situation very quickly once the first couple weeks pass and people burn through theirs at 150-180 blackrock per instance.

Edit: I spent a while down in Yomotsu (spelling bad probably) mines killing shadow elemental this morning. I got around 1 CB every 10 shadow elemental  (killed 182 and got 18) on average. It takes roughly 20 seconds per shadow elemental to kill, loot, and wait for re spawn. Roughly 1 CB every 3.5 minutes. At that rate, assuming I had to farm for the resources, it would take me roughly 8.75 hours to collect the 150 CB needed to break into the city with low end estimate of 150 CB. It is just A LOT of time.

Jha_dur

Kaz said:

We saw the boss fight in the town last night - it spawned the riftborne monstrosity.  

This particular boss will be extremely difficult to deal with on less populated shards; I would seriously consider reviewing this mechanic for production.  

The buff to this boss on NL made it particularly nasty and on some shards it will be next to impossible. 

This is one of the concerns I have after playing on TC. With some of the low population shards this could extremely difficult if not impossible to deal with unless you get the whole shard online. I think setting them up to be workable by a small group and then having the boss scale in damage and or reduce damage would help the situation. 

Jha_dur

Thoughts on the rewards

Dreadguard Talisman - Very nice and will want more of these than I will likely have points for.

Voidwoven Strand - I could see this getting fit into some of my suits.

Ankous Soul Binder - I will echo some other thoughts and say seems a bit under whelming. I think FC 1 may be to much. Some SDI in the 5-7 range would not be bad. As it stand now, I doubt I would claim points for one.

Tabard of the False Prophet - Not sure where I would use this. To many other solid robe slot items. Just underwhelming. I might grab a couple if I had points as a "just in case"

Shadowweavers Embrace - Really cool item my theif is looking forward too.

Veilkeeper Branch - Another cool item. Will grab a couple likely

Voidskipper Boots - I like this and think as is they are good. I know some people think they will not get the play time in comparison to minax sandles. I think they balance okay though. You have to have some tradeoffs. I need the LMC and LRC on sandles or I take more luck on the boots.

Void Touch Cuirass - Balron Bone armor with a new skin. For RP purposes I could see getting a couple to match up armor. I personally do not like bone armor. Nice to have option for though as it is a good all around tunic.

Riftbreaker Quiver - pretty solid and will be getting one for each of my archers. 

Enchiridion of Blackthorn - Ill grab one or two. As I rarely use spellbooks Ill have one if I need one and one to lock down as deco.

RE: The deco items, I like them all. I can see needing far to many points for them to get what I w

Mit

Provocation doesnt seem to take effect.. it works but the spawn ignores that its been provoed.

Pawain

Yes Crystalline Blackrock is not a good choice or greatly reduce the amount.  It was/is over 20M for 100 on Atlantic.  One of the more expensive ingredients.

Shadowmane is too expensive.  It builds to less than a Pre Patch Nightmare.

Can buy an equal PP Nightmare for 50M, this dude would be 500M at the end of the event.

Dapeekas

I played for hours yesterday after work and made it to when the champion spawned. Today I took on the challenge to break through the barriers, phase 1. The amount of materials required seems pretty over kill. (The below numbers do not include failures.)

qty 4 - Barrels of explosives
*40 Black Powder (240 saltpeter, 40 charcoal(40 boards), 40 sulfurous ash))
*40 Fuse Cord (40 black powder (above), 40 ball of yarn, 40 potash (40 logs)))
*40 Crystalline Blackrock
*4 Reinforced Barrels (400 boards, 40 Ingots, 200 Cloth)


qty 3 - Siege Deployment Kits 
*600 Boards
*300 Ingots
*150 Cloth

qty 10 - Ammunition Kit  
*1000 Ingots
*500 Boards
*10 Cystalline Blackrock
*10 A Small Piece of Blackrock

Total Standard Mats:
*1620 Boards
*1340 Ingots
*350 Cloth


I'm sure the idea is that its this portion of the event is not meant to be put all on one person, but as most crafters know,  it will all fall on a few crafters (just like the Artisan Festival) and the best part THEY GET NOTHING for all of their hard work. 

Once the barriers are down, its now time to defeat the Commanders...Good luck with that if you're only a handful of people, it will take hours. Your reward will be 1-3 drops into your pack upon death of each commander. Most of these commanders are very difficult for a small group of people with lots of deaths...and now the healer is gone from the front gates. 

I've seen others discussing the rewards, having a lot of opinions on if they're good or not. I think the issue is actually getting the points for the rewards. Has anyone actually gotten enough reward points to get anything? I have not had the pleasure defeating the champion, let alone the next two phases. 

For the positive, I do enjoy the idea of the phases and not just a wack um style even. I really like the idea of including the crafters and coming up with new crafting items to assist the warriors. I think its a great concept to make a multiphase/multi-type event that can encompass a lot of things. It just seems that it needs to be tweaked a bit. 

Pawain

@SkuLover ;    I think we are on TC right now together.  Yes too much Crystalline Blackrock.  May be too much black powder required since we also need to make fuses with it.

I'm ok with the wood and cloth, but others may not be.

@Community Manager  ask about reducing the CB amount and maybe black powder.  The post above shows the required resources for 1 session.

Dapeekas

The thing about the regular mats is, the ammunition and deploy kits weigh 30 stone, so you can't carry the required amount on one person (again I assume they think multiple people will be involved). My crafter can barely carry the required 200 boards and 100 ingots just to make one. Would be great if they could reduce the weight of boards in general. 

Grimbeard

Mit said:

Provocation doesnt seem to take effect.. it works but the spawn ignores that its been provoed.

This an old bug that @Kyronix was able to fix for last event 

Mit

Hopefully it gets fixed for this one too..

Grimbeard

The branch can not be enhanced @Kyronix @CM_Fenneko

Jha_dur

SkuLover said:

I played for hours yesterday after work and made it to when the champion spawned. Today I took on the challenge to break through the barriers, phase 1. The amount of materials required seems pretty over kill. (The below numbers do not include failures.)

qty 4 - Barrels of explosives
*40 Black Powder (240 saltpeter, 40 charcoal(40 boards), 40 sulfurous ash))
*40 Fuse Cord (40 black powder (above), 40 ball of yarn, 40 potash (40 logs)))
*40 Crystalline Blackrock
*4 Reinforced Barrels (400 boards, 40 Ingots, 200 Cloth)


qty 3 - Siege Deployment Kits 
*600 Boards
*300 Ingots
*150 Cloth

qty 10 - Ammunition Kit  
*1000 Ingots
*500 Boards
*10 Cystalline Blackrock
*10 A Small Piece of Blackrock

Total Standard Mats:
*1620 Boards
*1340 Ingots
*350 Cloth


I'm sure the idea is that its this portion of the event is not meant to be put all on one person, but as most crafters know,  it will all fall on a few crafters (just like the Artisan Festival) and the best part THEY GET NOTHING for all of their hard work. 

Once the barriers are down, its now time to defeat the Commanders...Good luck with that if you're only a handful of people, it will take hours. Your reward will be 1-3 drops into your pack upon death of each commander. Most of these commanders are very difficult for a small group of people with lots of deaths...and now the healer is gone from the front gates. 

I've seen others discussing the rewards, having a lot of opinions on if they're good or not. I think the issue is actually getting the points for the rewards. Has anyone actually gotten enough reward points to get anything? I have not had the pleasure defeating the champion, let alone the next two phases. 

For the positive, I do enjoy the idea of the phases and not just a wack um style even. I really like the idea of including the crafters and coming up with new crafting items to assist the warriors. I think its a great concept to make a multiphase/multi-type event that can encompass a lot of things. It just seems that it needs to be tweaked a bit. 

I think you forgot a zero in the ammunition kit totals. Each ammunition kit takes 10 CB, not one. It takes one regular blackrock.