Hello everyone! We are so excited to announce details about our upcoming expansion Overdrive: Reforged. We have looked at every aspect of our shard and asked ourselves: “How can we improve the player’s overall experience and give them the shard they deserve?” and this is the result! We want to thank our community from the bottom of our hearts. We wouldn’t be doing this without your support and passion for Overdrive!
Keep in mind that anything written in this announcement is subject to change.
We look forward to releasing Overdrive: Reforged on OCTOBER 5th, 2024
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
Out with the Annoying!
We have listened to your most common feedback and have removed restrictions which have caused a lot of annoyance to the community. We hope these changes provide a more casual experience to our players.
- Removal of all restrictions as a criminal such as recalling, walking through gates, and ressing at a healer or ankh
- Removal of gold weight
- Items returns to your pack when resurrected on top of your body (bodies can be chopped to prevent)
- Shields stay equipped while casting
- Allow meditation while moving or when weapons are equipped
- Banking added to Houses
- Pets do not require Animal Lore to ride or control
- Added “home home home” to quickly teleport to a Britain or Bucs healer
- Cutting corpses now drop all the items
From Character Creation to Action in Less than 10 Minutes
We’re all older and busier now and the idea of macroing yet another character and setting up those dreaded macros is sometimes enough for a player to not give a shard a shot no matter how appealing the content is.
Our goal is removing all time related barriers and get you fully playing within 10 minutes of downloading our client through the following changes:
- Seamless launcher that takes 1 click to login
- 1 character on each account receives 8x GM PvP skills
- All common macros already set up in Options so you just need to assign a key
Weekly Safe Dungeon
Every week one dungeon will be designated as the Weekly Safe Dungeon and this dungeon will have PvP disabled. Our vision is to provide a space where new players can hunt safely while getting used to Overdrive or veteran hunters can have a more relaxing hunting experience. Rare drop rates in the Weekly Safe Dungeon will be significantly less than a traditional dungeon.
Vendor Bazaar (Vendor Mall)
We have created a new, conveniently located, area where you can rent a vendor located on Community Island. You can access the gate right out front of West Brit Bank. This will create a one-stop-shop for the community.
You can rent Plots and place as many vendors as you wish within your plot in any open tile space. Keep in mind that some plots vary in size so some will have more than others.
A plot takes up your account’s house slot and costs 100k a week. If you lack sufficient funds, your plot will be lost, the vendors will be removed, and the items on the vendor will be sent to your bank. Please keep in mind we will likely be increasing the weekly cost of vendors significantly in the near future.
Mailbox System
We are implementing a new Mailbox system which allows you to send messages as well as send or sell items to players. Sending items will have a small fee and selling items will have a fee which is a percentage of the total sale.
Translation to Spanish
We have fully translated the entire game into Spanish thanks to some very generous players. This includes all gumps, tool tips, item descriptions, NPC dialogue, and more. Overdrive is such an amazing shard we want to make it accessible to as many players as possible. We are also open to translating the shard into additional languages if native speakers are willing to assist!
CRAFTING
Mining Update
Mining has been updated to where each mineable tile will randomize one ore and you will continue to mine that same ore until the tile is empty. So, if you mine a tile and obtain Cobalt, you’ll continue to mine Cobalt on that same tile until it is empty. If you return to that same tile a few hours later, it will likely be a different ore.
You must meet the minimum mining requirements of an ore in order to have the ability to pull it, but keep in mind that your probability of pulling that ore is still very low until your Mining skill is higher. For example, it takes 102 Mining skill to have the ability to pull Phosphorus. At 102, it’s possible to pull Phosphorus but it will be very rare. If you’re Mining is 120 your likelihood of pulling Phosphorus is much higher.
Smeltery & Alloys
The Smeltery System is a new way to process and refine ingots from ore. You can still do it the old fashioned way; however, the benefits of using the Smeltery are too good to pass up!
The Smeltery can be upgraded 7 times, each level making you more efficient at creating ingots. This means as your Smeltery levels you will create more ingots per ore.
Additionally, the Smeltery system is the only way to make Alloys. Alloys are a combination of two ores to create a new metal. For example, if you combine Mercury and Lead into the Smeltery, you’ll create Lava Rock. If you combine Nickel and Tin, you’ll create Velvet.
Total Armor Revamp
The existing armors have been replaced with a revolutionary new system with 40 craftable armors. 24 of the armors are created from mined Ores and 16 of the armors are created from Alloys. Each armor has resistances and weaknesses to 4 different categories:
- Fire
- Cold
- Electric
- Physical
***NOTE*** Before you read this section, all values shown are not finalized and are only for example purposes
Each armor piece provides resistance or weakness to different elements. Let’s take Aluminum for example: Each piece of Aluminum armor reduces Fire damage by 1.4%, increases Electric damage by 1.4%, and has no impact on Cold damage. So, Aluminum makes you more vulnerable to Electric, stronger to Fire, and Cold does normal damage.
If you wear at least 6 pieces of the same armor, your weaknesses are reduced by 25%. We’ll use Aluminum as an example again. Based on the individual piece value, your Electric weakness should be 9.8% if you were to wear 7 pieces of Aluminum; however, wearing a Full Set will reduce your weakness to 7.35%. We are stipulating 6 pieces as the minimum so people who PvP without a shield will still get the reduction
Resistance/Weakness Sum of 7 Pieces of Aluminum Armor
Full Set Reduction Bonus
We also encourage players to mix armors and create the perfect resistance balance. In this example, we mix Brass and Velvet to balance out their weaknesses;
Physical damage will be tied to your Armor Rating (AR) which we will provide more info in the future.
Shrink Potions
We are very excited to announce we’ll be adding the beloved Shrink Potions to Overdrive. Shrinks are a craftable potion which allows you to convert non-bondable animals into an item which you can store in your pack, house, or bank. Shrinks make animals easier to store, transport, or deploy to surprise your favorite enemy in a fight.
FOREVER CLASH EVENT & DUELING SYSTEM
Forever Clash is our new Event and Dueling System. The Dueling system will be similar to what you are used to now but with better user experience, more arena options, and a revamped leaderboard with prizes. Set up the duel exactly how you want it – with or without resistances, melee, certain spells, healing, mounts, etc.
One of the coolest features about Forever Clash is it allows us to schedule automated events.This includes PvP related events but it opens the possibility of us triggering non-PvP events such as paintball, races, pet fights, bomberman, PvM and crafting.
At launch, only standard PvP tournaments such as 1v1-5v5 and Last Man Standing will be available.
Clash Tickets
Participating in a Clash event will net you one Clash Ticket which can be spent at the Clash Vendor for rare items. Additional Tickets are obtained as you progress into further rounds of the event and where your final placement is. So, the more rounds you go in the tournament, the more tickets you get.
Clash Points
Clash Points are received from participating in Clash Events or Duels and are also purchasable with Donation Coins. You can use these points to upgrade the aesthetics of your Personal Arena as well as fun add ons like special finishing move / kill animations.
Dueling Leaderboard Prizes
The #1 monthly ranked player or teams in each major category will receive a blessed belt for bragging rights. Don’t get too comfortable as the belt will transfer if you don’t keep your spot at the top!
Forever Clash Seasonal and World Championship
Championship Points
Championship Points are gained from final placement of Championship Point eligible tournaments in each category. Championship Point eligible tournaments will be on a consistent schedule and Championship Points reset every season.
Season Champion
The top 10 players or teams with the most Championship Points in each category will qualify for biannual Season Tournaments (Spring & Fall) to battle for the title of Season Champion and in-game prizes.
World Championship
The top 4 players or teams from the Spring & Fall Season Championship (8 players/teams total) will face off in the annual tournament to be crowned World Championship and win a cash prize.
NEW RARE LOOT
Treasure Bags
One of the most frequent and popular requests! Treasure Bags are a new rare drop system which are obtained from killing mobs. They have the chance to drop from any mob, but the probability increases with the mob’s difficulty. If you’re lucky, you will find an ice colored Treasure Bag on a mob as loot. WIthin that bag can be one or more of the following items:
Rare Cloth, Animal, or Leather Dye Tubs
- 100 different rare color hues that are available in either a cloth, animal, or leather tub form. Cloth tubs can dye an entire piece of clothing, not individual pieces of cloth, and come with 10 charges. Leather tubs dye one entire piece of leather armor and come with 10 charges. Animal dye tubs dye one pet and come with 5 charges. Items dyed by rare cloth tubs cannot be blessed
Dye Tub Recharges
- Recharges dye tub to maximum amount (10 for cloth & leather and 5 for animal)
Weapon Balls
- Randomly generated a weapon with a damage modification (Ruin, Force, Power, Vanquishing). This includes Mythic weapons from the Antique of the Artisan
Weapon Modification Hammers
- Randomly reroll a weapon’s damage, accuracy, or durability level
Animal Balls (Rides only able to be obtained from Treasure Bags)
- Randomly generates a mount that is dyed an armor hue. Options include Horse, Llama, Desert Ostard, Forest Ostard, and Frenzied Ostard. This creates 195 options.
Prestige Mastery Gear (Add Ons)
Prestige Mastery Gear are equipable items that raise your Skill while wearing them. Many of the new aspects of the Recharge expansion require your skill to be beyond 120 skill so these additional items are needed to make the system work. Here are the Skills that will have Add Ons at launch:
- Taming
- Blacksmithing
- Mining
- Tinkering
ANIMAL TAMING
Pet Control Update
Animal Lore will no longer be required to ride and control non bondable pets. This means you can ride and control your favorite mount without having these skills! Animal Taming and Animal Lore will continue to be required for Meta Pets as well as being able to bond with pets.
New Tameables
We are releasing 74 new rare mounts which can be found randomly in the wild. These mount’s strength vary from Frenzied Ostards to the most powerful mounts in the game. Taming requirements will range from 80-160.
We’re also introducing 10 mustangs which will be on different spawners than the new tameables we will be releasing. Mustangs are about the speed and strength of a Frenzied Ostard.
CHAOS
Explosion Potion Update
We are reworking explosion potions in ways to cause more fun & mayhem. There will be no cap on the number of explosions you can throw, you can chain react explosions, and you can pick up and load armed explosions into containers. Yes, that means you will be able to load 100 armed potions onto a pack llama and all drop it on your target. Just like the good old days!
PVP
***NOTE*** Before you read this section, all values shown (spell damage, spell timings, skill balancing numbers, etc) are NOT finalized. We will balance these as needed while testing.
Stamina Update
Outside of attack swing speed, Stamina was basically a useless stat. We want to make it more impactful, in a fair way. But first let me give you some context:
Some of you may not be aware but currently if your Stamina is reduced to 20, you will start losing 1 Stamina per step you take until you reach zero. At this point your character will walk until you regain 2 Stamina but it will drop right back to zero once you start moving again. It’s a vicious cycle. The way you get out of this pickle is you drink a Refresh or Restore potion to bring your Stamina above 20.
What reduces Stamina currently? Melee or Archery damage done to you. It’s not significant (about 1-6 damage per hit) but if you PvM you know it can add up over time. Melee/Archery damage is not a source of consistent damage with our style of PvP so you probably have never experienced being below 20 stamina in one of your duels.
The Stamina rework allows Physical damage spells to reduce Stamina in addition to Melee & Archery. The amount of Stamina reduce will be a percentage of damage done (ex: E Bolt will reduce more Stamina than Harm). We are going to start low and see how that goes and possibly increase the amount if needed.
How do you handle this new change? Simply carry Refresh or Restore potions on you. Yes, it’s one more item you need in your load out with but we feel this change makes a smart and needed change to basically a useless stat.
Melee & Archery Updates
Missing sucks. It is one of the most frustrating things that can happen when you’re playing UO – especially in PvP. Accuracy has been adjusted to a flat 75% hit rate for all weapons at GM for both PvP and PvM.
We have also adjusted the mechanics of swinging by changing it from an instant hit to the traditional way where your swing animation happens first then the hit strikes.
Spells Update
With the introduction of resistance based armors, we need to group spells into elemental categories and add spells to support the system. We have also reviewed all other non-elemental spells and provide quality of life and improvements to make as many as possible usable in PvP. This section will review the major changes to Magery.
Clumsy (UPDATE): -20 DEX
Feeblemind (UPDATE): -20 INT
Clumsy & Feeblemind have been buffed so that they can compete with Weaken as your 1st circle debuff. Weaken (-12 STR) is just too powerful to pass up so they needed some love. We now offer 3 options players can choose from to sync with their style:
- Clumsy = Stamina advantage (due to Stamina rework)
- Feeblemind = Mana advantage
- Weaken = HP Advantage
Poison Nova (NEW): 4th Circle / 12 DMG & Poison / 2 Second Cast Time / AOE 3 Tiles
Damage + Poison can only be cured with a Greater Cure potion (4 ticks maximum).
We wanted to create a poison mechanic that was incurable unless you blew your potion cooldown and felt a short ranged AOE spell would be more fair versus a targeted spell. Balancing will be done by either adjusting the tile range of the spell or the maximum tick rates if you do not drink a greater cure potion.
Frost Nova (NEW): 4th Circle / 21 DMG / 2 Second Cast Time / AOE 3 Tiles
We wanted to create a quick casting AOE Cold spell that does decent damage. It does more damage than a typical 4th circle spell as it is not a targeted spell.
Ice Strike (NEW): 4th Circle / 21 DMG / 2.25 Second Cast Time / Single Target
Single target Cold spell that does slight more damage than Lightning but takes .25 seconds longer to cast so it does a little more damage.
Glacial Burst (NEW): 5th Circle / 2.75 Second Cast Time / 25 DMG / Single Target
Single target Cold spell that does slight more damage than Mind Blast but takes .25 seconds longer to cast so it does a little more damage.
Magic Echo (NEW): 6th Circle / 3 Second Cast Time / Self Target
Cast Magic Reflect on yourself but it holds the charge for 30 seconds. Magic Reflect is activated for 3 seconds once Magic Echo macro is pressed again.
For the longest time, I had wished I could hold my Magic Reflection charge and use it when I wanted to for a game changing play. That is exactly what Magic Echo does. We think this could be the single most powerful spell on Overdrive if used properly. Don’t like the idea and want to keep it traditional? Not a problem. Regular Magic Reflect will still be there! For balancing purposes, we’ll start Magic Echo in the 6th circle so it has a slightly longer cast time.
Mass Curse (UPDATE): 6th Circle / 3 Second Cast Time / -20 All Stats / 60 Second Duration
Buffing Mass Curse to make it more useful and rewarding to cast. Mass Curse does not stack with other debuffs. EX: If you’re already debuffed with Clumsy, you will not have your Dex reduced another -20.
Friendly reminder that Dispel removes all debuffs so be sure to keep that macro handy.
Flamestrike (UPDATE): 7th Circle / 3.5 Second Cast Time / 42 DMG / Single Target
Slightly reducing Flamestrike’s damage for balancing purposes
Thunderclap (NEW): 7th Circle / 3.75 Second Cast Time / 44 DMG / Single Target
Single target spell that does massive damage with a slightly longer cast time (3.75 seconds)
We wanted to create a second nuke option that rivaled Flamestrike. It has a slightly longer cast time which is massive when trying to pull off a 7th circle spell.
Chain Lighting (UPDATE): 7th Circle / 3.5 Second Cast Time / AOE
Summon a thunderstorm that follows and protects you if you are attacked by more than one player. The storm will randomly shock targets around you once it has detected 2 or more players have damaged you.
We wanted to rework Chain Lightning because it was too similar to Meteor Swarm. We thought it would be awesome if we could provide a tool that could be useful in team fights or could be used if you’re brave enough to take on a gank.
Skills Update
Poisoning: Poisoning amplifies your poison tick damage from 3 to 15 at GM and additional deathly poison charges when you apply Poison to a weapon at GM.
Currently, specing into Poisoning is useless for PvP so we wanted to reward people who allocated points to it.
Parrying: GM Parrying provides a 10% chance to negate a spell, even without a shield equipped
Given we are primarily a Magery focused shard, it makes sense to provide some defensive options against spells besides Resisting Spells and Magic Reflect.
Inscription: 40% mana reduction with scrolls when GM Inscription, 50% at 120 Inscription, 25% mana reduction with scrolls without GM Inscription
Scrolls are another controversial subject. Some can’t imagine not using them, some say it ruins the game because you don’t have to worry about mana management anymore. We feel, for the betterment of the shard, you need to make a conscious decision if you want to prioritize having a mana advantage.
If you’re having a strong reaction to a 25% reduction, I want to remind you that would make Flamestrike cost 30 Mana instead of 20. So, its not that significant of a change.
Builds
Reforge’s changes to Skills will offer the opportunity to have 3 main builds or ideologies for PvPing. We know you craftier players will create more specialized builds but for purposes of this Expansion summary we’ll keep it more simple:
Hybrid:
For the player who loves both Magery and Melee.
- Advantages: Full damage for Magery and Melee
- Disadvantage: Require much better mana management, less powerful poison ticks
Pure Mage:
For the player who wants to solely PvP with Magery and have a mana advantage
- Advantages: Full damage for Magery, mana advantage, more powerful poison ticks
- Disadvantage: No melee option
Warrior:
For the player who loves Melee
- Advantages: More survivability and wants to utilize poisoned weapons
- Disadvantage: Less Magery damage efficiency
