In two days, Albion Online’s Nimue update will go live, bringing with it an array of new features, such as the new Crystal Realm PvP battles and the Party Finder, as well as a bunch of quality-of-life improvements. A new page on the game’s official site lays out all of the new additions players can expect from the update. In addition to displaying the features that Sandbox Interactive has already announced and discussed in detail, the page also reveals a few less-talked-about features, including improvements to the game’s farming and furniture placement systems, which should make it much simpler and more efficient for players to plant crops, tend to livestock, and decorate their personal territories.
But of course, one of the most-hyped features of the Nimue update is the new Crystal Realm PvP, which is also the subject of the final developer update video before Nimue’s launch. In the video, Game Director Robin Henkys details exactly how Crystal Realm PvP battles will work and what kinds of rewards players can look forward to earning by participating in them. In short, for each watchtower territory a guild holds, that guild will get one daily opportunity to join a Crystal Realm battle. Half of the territories’ battles will be scheduled on North American time, taking place at 2:00 a.m. UTC (9:00 p.m. EST), while the other half will be schedule on European time, taking place at 7:00 a.m. UTC (2:00 a.m. EST).
Matchmaking for the battles is fairly straightforward, with only two governing rules: First, a guild will never be matched against another of its own teams or against allied guilds, and second, matches will try to be made based on the watchtower’s tower level, which is a new mechanic being introduced alongside Crystal Realm battles. As a guild’s team wins fights in the Crystal Realm, the associated watchtower’s tower level will increase, and conversely, if the guild loses fights in the Crystal Realm, the tower level will decrease. In addition to affecting matchmaking, the tower level also determines the rewards earned from Crystal Realm battles, with higher tower levels granting larger rewards.
The fights themselves will play out much like standard GvG battles, with each team attempting to kill the other’s members to earn points. The team with the most points at the end of the battle wins, of course. A team’s reward will be based on its score, so if a team absolutely steamrolls the opposition without allowing it to score a single point, that team will walk away with the full trove of goodies, but if it’s a close fight, then the rewards will be split between the victors and the vanquished, though Henkys emphasizes that the winner of the fight will always take the majority of the reward.
As for the rewards themselves, victorious Crystal Realm teams will earn rewards that are valuable to the guild as a whole as well as personal rewards. Guilds will earn season points for successful Crystal Realm battles, allowing them to rank up and “unlock more powerful rewards throughout the season,” while individual players will get a mixture of siphoned energy, fame tomes, and silver, plus the possibility of black market loot, depending on how lucky they get with their loot rolls. If you want to hear all of the nitty-gritty details on Crystal Realm battles in preparation for Nimue’s release on November 21st, you can check out the full dev talk video just below.
