Tasks and achievements

Tasks

Tasks are a new way to earn gold from the skills you already train. Open Quests and pick the new Tasks tab for six short tasks chosen for your levels: two monsters to defeat, and something to mine, chop, catch and pick, each about five minutes of work.

Pick one and press Start task, work on it anywhere, and get paid in gold when it's done. Chat tells you how you're doing every quarter of the way, and Show the way draws a path to the nearest place to do it.

Every skill and combat pay the same for the time a task takes at your level, and the pay rises as you level up. Better levels, tools and gear make you faster, so they earn you more. From level 30, tasks pay as well as smithing armour for the blacksmith, and more after that, whatever you like to do.

• Every 5th task pays double.
• Only what you can do. You're only offered gathering tasks you have a tool for, one you carry or keep in your bank.
• New tasks. Don't like your tasks? New tasks deals a fresh set for a small fee, about half of one task's pay.
• Abandon drops the one you're on. It stays on your list, and finishing a task is what brings a new one.
• Fighting together. When you fight alongside other players, each kill counts for whoever dealt the most damage to it.

Tasks open once you've finished First Steps.

Achievements

There are 96 goals to chase on the new Achievements tab of the Quests window:

• Skills: Novice, Expert and Master in every skill, and total level.
• Gathering and crafting: tiers for ore mined, logs chopped, fish caught, food cooked, gear smithed and logs burned.
• Combat: monsters defeated, damage dealt, Gel King and Lich kills, and rare drops. Giant Slayer is for beating a monster 20 or more levels above your combat level (you need to deal the most damage).
• Enchanting: getting gear to +5, +8 and +10.
• Everything else: Collection Log slots, hours played, First Steps, tasks finished, and Questmaster for finishing every quest.
• Completionist, for the truly dedicated, asks for every monster's Collection Log. It keeps up with the game: when an update adds a monster, it's yours again once that one's log is done too.

They're all in one scrolling list that shows how close you are to each, with the nearest first and the ones you've finished in green, and the Skills, Combat and Other tabs narrow it down. Goals with tiers, like a skill's Novice, Expert and Master, share one row that shows your next tier and how many you've earned, and you're told the moment one unlocks.

Everything you've already done counts, including gear you've already enchanted, so you'll find some unlocked the first time you look.

Hollow King hunts

Wisps offered at the Veil Gate now buy a hunt for the Hollow King instead of a single ride. Every 150 Wisps buys an hour in which he rises again about 30 seconds after each defeat, so you can fight him as often as you like.

• Keep it going. Anyone can offer more to keep the hunt going, and the gate shows how long the hunt has left.
• Paid for your time. Each kill pays you for your own time in the fight: Wisps at the usual 150 an hour, and a chance at his rares that adds up to one full roll for every hour you spend fighting him.
• Bring friends. Bring as many as you like. They share the cost without thinning anyone's chances.
• His Witching Hour rides are unchanged.

October 24 also opens Veilfall's next chapter, as planned in the Veilfall patch notes: more souls come home, fallen players linger as ghosts, the Skeleton Dungeon becomes the Hallowed Crypt, and the Hollow King brings out his hoard.

Quicker on your feet

Walking and riding are quicker, and look it. You walk about 30% faster, and your mount speeds up with you, while monsters keep their pace so you can walk away from them.

Your character moves with a lighter, snappier stride, and characters and mounts step in time with the ground instead of sliding along it. Slowed players and the Headless King take slower steps to match their pace. Footstep sounds and the dust, splashes and prints under your feet land with each step, one clean footfall each instead of a double scuff.

Also new

• Faster loading. "Loading game files..." finishes much faster when you start the game or after an update. The game now fetches many of its small files at once instead of four at a time, and loads the ones it already has without waiting between them. In the browser, the game now keeps its files saved like the apps do, so coming back later loads straight from your device instead of downloading or checking every file again, and an update only fetches what changed.
• Shops pay less for a surplus. Selling a load at a time is unchanged, but when a shop is holding a big surplus of something (more than a full inventory of gear beyond its usual stock, or as much again of things it stocks by the hundred, like feathers), each extra one sells for a little less, down to a quarter of the usual price, until the shop sells off the surplus over the next while. The price in the shop shows what the next one sells for, and chat tells you when a sale paid less.

Fixes

• Switching devices no longer breaks the store. Logging in on the web or desktop shortly after leaving the app (up to 10 minutes) showed the app's Gem packs, and no pack or membership could be bought. Going the other way, from the browser to the app, broke purchases in the app too. The store now always matches the device you're playing on.