Fight for the Fallout

The island has started throwing things

Cindermaw was already an unreasonable place to go shopping. Now the mountain erupts, the best new gathering spots announce themselves to the whole island, and a perfectly ordinary delivery can make you somebody else's payday. We also built an arena, in case the rest of that sounded too peaceful.

v176 reached the game servers and launcher on October 24. It follows v175, which opened Cindermaw and Jump In on October 16. If you read our last post while that update was still in testing, the boats have since left the dock. The level-30 exile route is available, too.

This update gives you more reasons to stay on the island: organised fights, contested resource races, courier work, dungeon equipment and a town garden. Yes, a garden. Even the person with the enormous flaming weapon has to eat.

Step into the pit

Open the N menu on Cindermaw to enter the arena. Queue for another player, choose a champion to challenge, or bring your party. The fight takes place on its own map, with a dwarven ring, starting rooms, gates and cover. Nobody has to arrange a duel in the middle of the shopping district.

The champions use real class kits. Expect shield work, arrows, healing and fire rather than a single target obligingly standing still. You can pick an opponent to test a particular matchup. A quiet queue can also supply a champion, so practising does not depend entirely on someone else arriving at the right moment.

Party arrivals stay together. The gates wait for the fighters to load before the starting countdown, and the result screen counts down the return home. Fights have a five-minute limit; if neither side settles it, the result is a draw.

Arena deaths do not create the island's death bags, take gold or report a crime. That makes the pit a useful place to try the build you have been talking about. The other fighter may have some feedback.

Give the fight room to breathe

The arena has also been a place to work on combat. Player-to-player damage now has a twenty-percent reduction. Walking backwards is slower than moving forwards, with a smaller penalty for strafing. Keeping distance still matters, but retreating at full speed while facing your pursuer is less of a permanent arrangement.

Several burst combinations have been trimmed. Multi Shot can land at most three arrows from the same volley on one body. Fireball no longer gives its direct target an extra helping of splash damage; the splash cannot crit, and its damage falls towards the edge. Bear Trap no longer doubles its damage against players.

Cleric spell damage now scales with Wisdom. Larger Pyromancer spells and several Cleric healing spells demand more mana, making the next cast a choice worth thinking about. Radiant Orb keeps its 24 base mana cost. Fire Wall has a ten-second cooldown; Cone of Fire has fifteen.

Berserker Leap has had a practical pass as well. It clamps to range, shortens for walls and avoids trying to land inside another body. Ground-target rings disappear while their ability is on cooldown. A targeting circle should mean you can do something with it.

When the mountain wakes

Cindermaw now has recurring volcanic eruptions, with a random interval of twenty to thirty minutes. The rumble and eruption announce the event, then one or two meteors arc out across the island. Follow the fall. Other people can see it, too.

Each landing creates a temporary Star-iron site with three to five ore nodes and a contested zone around it. The HUD and island map show the event's countdown information. Bring the right gathering tool and pay attention to who is approaching while you work.

The sites last up to twelve minutes and can clear sooner after their ore has been exhausted. These are brief opportunities, not permanent additions to your usual mining circuit. A detour that looks tempting from town may be a rather different proposition once you reach it.

The familiar contested warning and participation rules apply. This is valuable ore placed where several people may want it at once. Decide whether you are going to mine, escort someone who is, or stay well clear of the smoke.

Special delivery. No refunds from the road.

Orm now sells sealed parcels. Take a satchel, strongbox or chest across Cindermaw and hand it over to Signy in Eldvik or Ketil the Fence in Brandstadir. The market is available from your first visit; the courier quest chain gives you more work to do along the way.

You can carry two parcels at a time. Heavier parcels add to your load, so the most ambitious order can also be the slowest walk home. Strongboxes and chests have restock timers. You cannot buy an endless stack and pretend you have invented a transport company.

Here is the important difference from the old letter errand: these sealed hauls engage contested participation outside sanctuary. They cannot be put down or tucked into a chest for safekeeping. If you die, the haul drops into your death bag, regardless of what killed you.

The job is getting it there. Plan the route, choose the buyer and think about the second parcel before buying it. The profit is much less impressive from the floor.

The hoard has a wardrobe

Emberdeep now has named dungeon equipment with its own Unique rarity. Steinvard, Eldhand, Undergard and Askrune cover plate, leather, chain and cloth, alongside signature rewards and regalia. The dungeon has something more distinctive to offer than another anonymous replacement for your boots.

Dvalin calls Stonechanters into the fight. Fafnir guards the hoard, and defeating the drake rearms its treasure chests. The hold's enemy drops, boss rewards and chests now feed the dungeon loot system, with equipment, gems and crafting materials giving you reasons to make another trip underground.

There has been work on the things between the fights, too. Dwarves fight with their proper routines, creatures chase with running animations, and the throne dais and pack stairs have had navigation repairs. The inhabitants should spend less time negotiating the furniture and more time objecting to your presence.

Put the island to work

Wyrmsteel and Star-iron now extend the equipment climb with weapons, shields, recipes and distinctive finishes. Tier 4 and Tier 4.5 gear has new inventory artwork, and the island bosses have more equipment to drop. The tools from v175 were the opening of that progression; now there is more to make and more to bring home.

Creature processing has been pulled into a shared tiered system. The body you collect determines the materials you get at the butcher's table, including higher-tier hides and silk. Thick Hide joins the chain, and the Master butcher table can process every corpse tier.

Cindermaw's creature profiles and gatherable rewards have had a pass alongside that work. Corpse names show their tier clearly. Bring the useful remains back to town rather than assuming every creature is simply a loose bundle of finished leather.

Grow something that does not attack you

The town garden gives Cindermaw a shared place to farm. Plant into an empty cell, tend the crop and return for the harvest. Thora sells seeds for every Tier 1 and Tier 2 crop, and the town well supplies water. You can start a small agricultural operation without first assembling a house.

A ripe town crop belongs to its farmer for thirty minutes after it becomes ready. During that window, another player cannot harvest it. Once the window ends, anyone may collect it. Growing crops are protected from other players uprooting them. The garden can be shared without making every fresh seed an invitation to grief.

Personal planters on the other islands keep their existing ownership rules. Cindermaw still does not permit player building, including personal planters. The town beds are provided for everyone; they are not the start of a surprise building free-for-all.

Remember lunch

Hunger is now part of preparing for a trip. Being well fed helps health regeneration. Becoming hungry stops it, and starving cuts maximum stamina in half. Hunger does not directly drain your health, but arriving at a fight hungry is still a fairly avoidable disadvantage.

Food restores hunger, with raw ingredients and prepared meals giving you different amounts. The HUD condition strip makes your state visible. Farming, hunting and cooking now have another practical connection to the next expedition.

There is also a separate item quick bar down the right edge of the screen. Items no longer have to fight your class abilities for every convenient button. Quick-bar labels show the bound keys, making a remapped control easier to recognise when you need it.

Fewer fights with the screen

HUD scaling now follows the viewport and has its own setting. Text, condition tiles, equipment slot labels and inventory layout have had another readability pass. Panels beside the backpack leave room for the item bar, and chat keeps its selected tab.

Gameplay settings now include separate permissions for attacking innocents and aiding outlaws, both off by default. Active permissions appear on the HUD. Those are choices with consequences; they should be visible before your next enthusiastic click.

Graphics options now include supported NVIDIA upscaling, frame generation and Reflex controls, along with smoke and hair settings. The performance work also reduces distant effect, cloth, guard and hair activity. Available graphics features depend on your hardware; there is no one frame-rate promise for every machine.

Back-stowed weapons and shields now catch the light correctly. Travel loading coverage also keeps input blocked through the controller handoff, instead of letting a covered screen accept actions before the world is ready.

Pick your kind of trouble

Update through the launcher, then decide where the evening is going. Test a matchup in the arena. Follow a falling star. Take Orm up on a business opportunity. Head into Emberdeep. Or plant something and let the louder people sort themselves out.

Main-game characters and Jump In exiles still keep separate progress. Faction Island remains unavailable. This is the next early-development update to Cindermaw and the wider game, with plenty still to tune.

The arena has opponents. The mountain has ore. Orm has a parcel with your name on it. Bring lunch.