Update (12.19.2022)
After reviewing player feedback, we decided to make a few adjustments to our announced content for this week’s release. While we can’t address every suggestion made by the community, we are listening. Here is the list of adjustments.
- Purification is no longer innate to T8 Troops and is only be acquirable from Divine Legion Research, which reduces the overall Purification effect and gives players more time to accumulate T8 Troops. So, instead of 5% Purification (with no Research) and 15% at (Max Research), Purification now scales from 0% (with no Research) to 10% (at Max Research). You have access to at least some Purification from Academy Level 43 on.
- We have removed the small amounts of Faith from most activities and put a much larger amount in the Temple for daily collection. Now, instead of 0.25m Faith per Wish, you earn 1.25m Faith per Wish.
- Faith remains in the Divine Blessing event for the time being.
- A total of 500m Revive Herbs are being added to the Divine Blessing event.
- We are not returning AP Potions to the Temple, but are now including 500 AP x3 Potion in the daily Free Package. So, instead of charging you Gold or 20 minutes of painful Ad-watching, all you’ve got to do to get that AP is claim it from the Recommended Tab each day!
We believe in the changes we’re making and are very happy to incorporate player feedback into the final balance of these new features.
Hello Descendants, WrongThinker here.
2022 is coming to a close, but for the Rise of Firstborn team, it feels more like a beginning than an end. Big things are coming to Rise of Firstborn with next week’s release and these items are building out a foundation for the coming year. So, as we send 2022 out with a bang, make sure you stay buckled up for 2023.
Citadel 50
Oh, yes, Descendents. It’s time for Citadel Level 50. And it’s a big deal.
First off, every Interior Castle Building (this includes the Wall and everything inside it) is having their Level Cap increased from 45 to 50. In addition, your Lord’s maximum Level has been increased up to 200, increasing maximum AP and Skill Points. Increasing Building Levels from 45 to 50 requires Quartzite, which are available through in-game Activities and via Packages. But these numbers increasing is not cause for excitement, it’s what’s coming with them. We’ll hit some highlights here.
First, all of the Troop Production buildings (Archery Range, Siege Workshop, Stable, and Training Grounds) are getting a new innate Buff. Each Building grants 2% additional Training Speed to the Troops they produce every Level. So, for example, the Archery Range at Level 40 boosts Ranged Troop Training Speed by 80%. To be clear, this Buff is not ONLY for players who are upgrading past 45, but it is added retroactively to all Levels of the Production Buildings for all players.
Secondly, we’ve massively reworked Wishes. You’ll find those old, low-resource payouts gone, replaced with more premium rewards.
- Old Rewards
- AP Potions (5 AP)
- 1-Hour Time Speed-Ups
- Common Resources (Food, etc.)
- New Rewards (per Wish)
- Faith x250,000
- Divine Tomes x4
- Note: Divine Tomes are used for Divine Research… more on that below.
- 24-Hour Construction Speed-Ups x25
- 24-Hour Research Speed-Ups x25
- 24-Hour Troop Training Speed-Ups x25
But we haven’t stopped with merely massively increasing the prizes per Wish. As you may already know, the best way to get Temple Rewards was to dump endless amounts of Gold into them or watch Ads. But not anymore. Now, you get 1 Wish every day for every Temple Level you have, and that’s it. No Gold. No Ads. If you have a Level 41 Temple, you get 41 Wishes a day. This means players have access to massively increased rewards per Wish and the number of available Wishes has been effectively doubled! Players at all Citadel Levels benefit from this change.
We have removed one outdated Feature from the Temple, which is Contracts. As we seek to bring new players into Rise of Firstborn, we have to look for features that aren’t actively utilized by the community or don’t provide a meaningful impact to the game and clean them up or remove them so that the game can be better understood by beginners. The removal of Contracts is one such feature. This does not affect the balance of the game in any meaningful way.
Our third major feature is so big it’s getting its own heading…
Divine Legion Research
Divine Legion Research is here, allowing for massive improvements to Tier 8 Troops. Divine Legion Research costs Divine Tomes, which are available through the Temple (via Wishes), Activities, and Packages.
You don’t need to get your Academy to Level 50 to gain access to Divine Legion Research. Instead, Divine Legion Research unlocks at Academy Level 42, with additional Nodes unlocking each Academy Level up through 50. In this way, a large number of players are able to access this powerful Research. This is, of course, helped along by our recent major update to the Superpass system, which is helping lower level players reach the best parts of the game!
And what does Divine Legion Research offer? Unsurprisingly, you can get major boosts to Divine Legion Attack, Defense, and HP. In addition, Divine Legion Troops can gain additional Attack when in combat with Lower Tier Troops, Reductions in Tier 8 Revive Costs, Reductions in Tier 8 Faith Costs, and (last, but definitely not least) significant increases to Purification’s effectiveness.
Which, of course, brings us to…
Purification
The final promised piece of Tier 8 functionality is here: Purification. This was discussed in the previous WrongThinker Thinks and is, of course, not gated by Citadel Level 50, but it’s a critical piece of the combat landscape.
As a reminder, the Purification effect causes a percentage of all casualties caused by Tier 8 Troops (referring to Troops they Injure or Kill) to be Destroyed. Destroyed Troops are permanently lost and can not be Healed or Revived.
All Tier 8 Troops start with 5% Purification, but this can be increased to 15% through Divine Legion Research.
Attacking Rules
Players now can only attack targets 9 Citadel Levels lower than them. Most players in the game are in a pretty tight Citadel Level band, so this primarily just restricts high-level players from harassing much, much lower level targets.
Growing in power and attacking down will always be a part of Rise of Firstborn strategy, but if we want the game to grow, we have to constrain this slightly, to ensure newer players don’t have an unfair, frustrating, terrible experience.
As mentioned above, it is our intention to bring fresh blood into RFB, which will make the game better for everyone, but we have to look for things that might get in the way of newer players having a good time, and this is one example of a change that needed to be made.
Conclusions
We really wanted to make sure that we weren’t just adding in content for content’s sake. It’s important to us that what we release really gives you value and keeps the game fresh and interesting. With this release, we send off 2022 with a mountain of content that we believe does just that. Further, it begins building out the foundation of 2023, which will offer much more in the way of new content (and features). We’re happy to have you along for the ride!
Until next time, Descendants, this is WrongThinker signing off.
-WT