Game Update Notes: April 19, 2022

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

04/19/2022—April 19 Release Notes

Living World Season 1: Flame and Frost

In the wake of the climactic events of the personal story, the world begins to shift. A dangerous new faction has formed in the Shiverpeaks, and the Pact commander steps in to help as refugees pour into the Black Citadel and Hoelbrak. Team up with Rox and Braham Eirsson for the first time, and confront the menace of the Molten Alliance!

After years of being unavailable, the "Flame and Frost" episode of the Living World story has been restored and restructured as a linear Story Journal episode. This episode is permanently available to all players with no unlock needed. Over the coming year, four more episodes of Season 1 will be released to chronicle the commander's battle against a lurking evil between the end of the personal story and the beginning of Living World Season 2.

• The original Flame and Frost achievements, along with a set of new achievements, are now in the Flame and Frost category in the Achievements section of the Hero panel.
  • Completing the new achievements will progress a new Flame and Frost Mastery meta-achievement to earn new rewards.
  • Existing achievements will retain their completion status if you earned them during the original Flame and Frost events.
  • Some existing achievements have been updated with additional goals or revised goals to ensure that they can still be completed.
• Some open-world content from "Flame and Frost" has been returned to Diessa Plateau, including Molten Alliance events, refugees, and the Alliance's sonic periscopes.
• The Cragstead and North Nolan Hatchery missions have been retired from the Scrying Pool. Their associated achievements are now completed by playing the Story Journal version of the mission.

Living World

• Fixed an issue in the Bjora Marches in which failing the "Defeat the Eagle Champion," "Defeat the Ox Champion," and "Defeat the Wolverine Champion" events while the trial's buffer timer existed would cause a stall and cause the bosses to exist outside the events.

General

• Updated the Jade Power Charge enhancement to be persistent between public open-world maps.
• The Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge effects will now persist between public open-world maps.
• A laurel merchant has been added to Arborstone. Players who have completed the Commercial Hub tier of the Arborstone Revitalization Mastery can find them at the point of interest called The Exchange.
• Fixed an issue in which some of the attacks from the final boss of The Battle for the Jade Sea meta-event were instantly killing pets and other summoned creatures.
• Fixed a rare, long-standing crash that occurred when using the Looking for Group tool.
• Fixed the overzealous spawn count, enemy scaling, and respawn rate for enemies related to the "Help the archaeologists extract relics from their magical wards" event. Made minor improvements to the Historical Society Steward's behavior across events.
• Added a second waypoint to Arborstone. This waypoint can only be obtained after completion of a specific chapter of the End of Dragons story.

Fishing

• Added new messaging while fishing to let players know when they have used up their last piece of bait or lure charge.
• Added a fishing rod skill, Modify Tackle, to allow players to more quickly access their fishing panel to change out bait or lures.
• Moved the Angler Sense fishing rod skill from the fifth skill slot to the sixth skill slot to make room for the Modify Tackle skill and to align it to the same key it is on when piloting a skiff.
• Added new fishmongers and fishing supply merchants to a variety of locations around Tyria that sell bait preferred by their local fish.
• Renamed the Oceanic Trash Collector and Oceanic Treasure Collector collections to Aquatic Trash Collector and Aquatic Treasure Collector to better represent the items coming from many types of water.
• Fixed an issue in Sandswept Isles in which fishing node locations intended to have offshore fish incorrectly had shore fish instead.
• The Rata Sum Port Authority is now open to fishing after a recent discovery of fishing nodes there.
• Fixed a bug that could sometimes prevent players from anchoring their skiffs.
• Added a new Flight of Sushi recipe to vendors found throughout Cantha.

Profession Skills

Guardian

• Whirling Light: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to only hit the arc in front of the player instead of in a full 360-degree radius.
• Heaven's Palm: Updated the description to indicate that this skill incorporates a shadowstep before its impact.

Thief

• Well of Silence: Updated the skill description to indicate that if all other conditions are present, it will apply cripple.
• Dark Sentry: Updated the trait description to indicate that Rot Wallow Venom cannot be applied to yourself.

Improvements and Updates

• The contents of the Vintage Black Lion Weapon Box have been updated.
• The [REDACTED] Dye Kit will now be known as the Soo-Won Dye Kit.
• The fishing supply merchants in the Thousand Seas Pavilion now sell bulk bait of every variety normally for sale from vendors.

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

04/19/2022—Late Notes

World Polish

• Fixed an issue in the Aetherblade Assault meta-event in Seitung Province in which the Aetherblades would occasionally steal from previous event locations, resulting in no turn-in credit for the player.

General

• Fixed a bug in the final boss encounter of the Battle for the Jade Sea meta-event in which the bite sequence could sometimes skip over some behavior, resulting in more frequent biting.
• Added a cooldown on Jade Bot Recycler module messaging.
• The Jade Bot Scavenger modules will now work in WvW.
• Fixed an issue in which players would sometimes see other players' skiffs as entirely red instead of seeing the correct dyes.
• Added an extremely rare chance for a Glob of Dragonvoid Aether to drop from Bounties of Dragon's End.
• Fixed a bug that caused some players to get stuck in a loading screen when they switched characters.

Strike Missions

• Challenge Mode for Strike Mission: Aetherblade Hideout is now available.
  • Players may activate Challenge Mode at any time by interacting with the Challenge Mote inside the instance.
• New rewards are available from Zazzl in Arborstone.

Profession Skills

Mesmer

• Signet of Humility: Fixed a bug in which this skill would not transform specters that were in shadow shroud.

Improvements

• Updated the Black Lion Statuette merchant's General Offerings tab to include each of the 2-week lounge passes.

Thousand Seas Pavilion

• Fixed an issue in which the Mystic Forge would transform mounted players that were just passing through.
• Greatly increased the duration of random transformations made in the Mystic Forge.
• Fixed an issue in which the Mysterious Waters Fish nodes could sometimes become invisible.
• Heavy Target Golems are no longer champions.
• Indestructible Target Golems are now champions.
• Added the Eye of the North to the list of fast-travel destinations.

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Removed a note in the revenant section that was added in error. The Mist rift responsible for this has been closed.

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that allowed one of the enemies in the Strike Mission: Aetherblade Hideout challenge mode to die sooner than intended.
• Fixed a bug that prevented certain treasure chests from appearing when players interacted with an open-world rock gadget in the Echovald Wilds.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Strike Mission: Aetherblade Hideout achievement eligibility effects from remaining active.
• Fixed a server crash.

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused Molten Alliance events in Diessa Plateau to become stuck with their Flame Legion Portal or Dredge Carrier in an invulnerable state.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players who started the "Flame and Frost" story while in Super Adventure Box from receiving the initial mail.
• Fixed a stall that occurred in the "Flame and Frost" story if players switched to a different story after receiving a quest mail but deleted the mail before reading it. To fix this for affected players, story steps requiring that a mail be read will now also complete if a player enters a new map.
• Fixed an issue that prevented an announcement from displaying correctly in "Flame and Frost."