Update 1.0.8 Notes

We’re preparing a new, updated Roadmap to showcase just how packed Update 1.1.0 is, as well as a full trailer and mini video series on everything to come. This Patch represents a pinnacle milestone for RavenQuest, bringing a slew of new competitive systems, a heavily reworked reward pool to better reward adventurers who’ve invested their time and resources, brand-new content, a seasonal event, a massive new access point for new Adventurers, and so much more. We’ve been cooking many parts of this milestone patch over the last month and have steadily expanded its scope to include more of what our Adventurers want. Patch 1.1.0 will be the next evolution of RavenQuest.  

But as the team works hard towards the massive Update 1.1.0 (Release Date not yet announced) we have another packed and impactful patch coming today with the new Guild Wars System, Tradepack Changes, Slight Balance Adjustments, and many additional changes, bugfixes & improvements to RavenQuest.
 

The long-awaited revamp of Guild Wars has arrived! Update 1.0.8 brings a host of improvements aimed at increasing participation, competitiveness, and clarity. Previously, Guild Wars allowed only 15 players per Guild to compete for Fame and Warforging Shards, with rewards shared across the entire Guild. While effective, this system left many members sidelined — that all changes now.

Introducing: Warbands

At the heart of this update is the introduction of Warbands — customizable teams that Guilds can create ahead of each Guild War. This new system allows multiple teams from the same Guild to participate on Guild Wars, dramatically increasing player involvement and tactical depth.

Warbands are fully customizable — you can give them a unique name and icon. Each Guild starts with 1 Warband unlocked for free, and up to 19 additional slots can be purchased using Silver. Players with a Guild Crest can join a Warband, and the maximum Warband size is 10 players, to encourage broader Guild participation and more competitive team-based play.

Key details about Warbands:

• A player can only belong to one Warband at a time.
• Leaders, Vice-Leaders, and Commanders can assign or remove any members from Warbands.
• Officers and Champions can assign or remove themselves freely.
   

With more teams on the battlefield, war becomes a chessboard. Which Warbands do you send? When everyone can play, leadership, planning, and execution matter more than ever.

Strategic Bidding & Matchups

Once Warbands are built, they are bid on individually during the Bidding Phase. The Leader will decide which teams to deploy and how much Silver to invest in each Warband’s entry. Once Guild Wars begin, Warbands lock in place.

While Warbands from the same Guild will never be matched against each other, each Warband is assigned a temporary Matchmaking Rating (explained below) based on its members and how they perform in the War. If a Warband finds no suitable opponent based on the MMR, its bid will be refunded.

Matchmaking Rating System (MMR)

To bring true competitive balance, we’re introducing a dynamic MMR system for Guild Wars. This system ensures that your team faces opponents of similar skill — creating better, more rewarding fights.

Each participating player now has a Personal MMR, and every Warband has a Team MMR calculated from its members:

• All players begin at a base rating of 1500 MMR.
• MMR shifts after every match based on personal and team performance.
• Defeating stronger Warbands yields greater MMR gains.
• Winning with a large point gap grants bonus MMR.

Note: Placement Matches during the first few weeks will accelerate MMR changes to quickly establish accurate rankings. However, these bonuses are time-limited. Guilds that begin participating after the placement period will not receive accelerated MMR gains.

This system adds real stakes to every match and makes climbing the ranks a true reflection of your skill and consistency. Build your legacy, one win at a time.

Rewards & Participation Changes

To make participation matter more than ever, we’ve restructured how Fame and Warforging Shards are earned and distributed:

• Only players who participate in a Warband now receive rewards. This makes fielding multiple Warbands even more important.
• Fame rewards have been significantly increased, especially for high-performing Warbands.
• Reward scaling is now more directly tied to MMR and match performance.

Additionally, increasing an existing bid now requires a minimum of 200,000 Silver, preventing minor bid spam and ensuring higher bid placements are earned with real investment.

With Update 1.0.8, Guild Wars enters a new era. Strategy, skill, and leadership are more important than ever. Whether you're a small Guild aiming to disrupt the rankings or a powerhouse looking to cement your legacy, the battlefield is open — and glory awaits.

Rally your Warbands. Prepare your bids. The new age of Guild Wars has begun.
 

Since the launch of RavenQuest, one of the most frequent community requests has been for a way to refund Augmenting Stones — allowing players more flexibility to experiment with different builds and reinvest in new gear. We're happy to announce that this feature is now being introduced!

You can now refund 80% of both the Silver and Augmenting Stones invested into a piece of gear! The refund amount is based on the current tier of the item, and once the refund is processed, the item remains Soulbound.

To support this addition, a new “Augment Refund” toggle has been added to the Infusion UI under the Augmenting Stone tab. This allows you to preview both the changes to your item and the resources you'll receive back.

These changes aim to make the system more dynamic and player-friendly, opening the door to greater build diversity and creative experimentation!
 

Metas are a tricky thing. While we’ve seen certain builds dominate in Rifts, chasing a "perfectly balanced" meta often just shifts the spotlight to a new set of dominant builds. This happens in nearly every competitive game — from League to WoW Arena being the most comparable example — where there’s always a strongest class at any given patch as well. Top competitive players will always find a new meta class, and within days it's mainstream.

That said, a stale meta isn’t healthy either. And while our primary focus since launch has been on economic systems and foundational improvements, we recognize the need to start addressing Rift balance more directly.

In this patch, we’re making four targeted changes. On paper, they may seem small — but as we’ve seen time and again, even subtle tweaks can dramatically increase viable counterplay. Rather than simply swinging the nerf bat, our approach is to elevate options that directly counter overrepresented meta classes.

These adjustments come after significant discussion, gameplay analysis, and competitive testing from our veteran QAs. We believe these changes open up new strategic windows for those who know how to take advantage of them.


Feasting Strike (Warfare)

• Increased the cooldown from 20 → 23 seconds.

Shield Throw (Protection)

• Increased the range from 4 → 6 tiles.

Havoc (Wizardry)

• Reduced the Spell Power gained from 7% → 6%.

Purify (Holy)

• Changed Purify from a Tier 4 → Tier 3 skill.
• Reduced the point cost from 4 → 3. This also reduces the skill upgrade cost by 1 skill point per upgrade as well.

We’ll continue monitoring class and win rates in Rifts after the patch lands, and make further refinements if necessary. Sometimes, all it takes is a slight shift to breathe fresh life into the battlefield.
 

Aether Echoes

As more adventurers journey through Aether Echoes, we've noticed a significant increase in creature product drops, which has started to overshadow the rewards from Open World hunting. While Aether Echoes are meant to serve as a supplementary source of creature materials — particularly before Level 75 — we want to ensure that Open World content remains valuable and rewarding. With that in mind, we’ve made the following updates:

• Reduced the minimum number of materials that can be obtained from 2 → 1.
• Reduced the maximum number of materials that can be obtained from 6 →  4.
• Adjusted drop chances to better match those of Binding Aether.
• Introduced a new material table for players below Level 40, offering more appropriate early-game materials such as Ripper Fangs, Shell Fragments, and Sea Cured Leather.

These changes are designed to maintain the integrity and value of both systems, and ensure that Open World hunting continues to feel exciting and worthwhile throughout your journey.

Tradepacks

Recently, we made significant improvements to the Primed Tradepack system — and the results have been very positive. Primed Tradepack value has gone up several fold. Primed Tradepacks now take far less Effort, as well as time from your adventures to run in meaningful quantities, and you no longer need to guesstimate whether it’s better to run them for Silver or $QUEST, leading to decision paralysis for many.

Recently, we also introduced new, longer-distance Tradeposts — between this, and the Primed Tradepack enhancements, we’ve seen a sharp increase in total Silver generation from Tradepacks. While Patch 1.1.0 brings several new Silver sinks to RavenQuest, it’s clear that the current profit margins on Tradepacks — especially with these new extended trade routes — are outpacing what we feel is healthy for the long-term economy.

To address this, we’re making a few key changes to the Tradepack value formula:

• Reducing the distance multiplier on Traderoutes.
• Increasing the base value of all Tradepacks.

Previously, Tradepacks sat in a fairly balanced place. However, with some of the newer long-distance routes, we’ve seen profit margins hit up to 400% on the material cost to plant — far beyond our target. These changes are designed to keep older Tradeposts feeling roughly the same, while gently reining in the extremes of the newer, longer routes. There will still be increasing Silver rewards for traveling further — just with a bit of diminishing return on the longer routes. This also is aimed to better improve the impact of Tradepack & Tradepost demand as well.

As always, we’ll be closely monitoring the data over the coming week and will make additional adjustments if necessary to keep the in-game economy strong.

Professions

To ensure all profession skills are balanced and viable in different crafting scenarios, we're rolling out adjustments aimed at aligning their strength and utility across the board. These changes are designed to promote fairer crafting strategies and more diverse builds across professions.

Steady Hand (Weaving)

• Number of actions increased: 2 → 3.
• New Description: Your next 3 actions will not reduce Item Condition.

New Tools (Carpentry)

• Number of actions reduced: 5 → 2.
• New Description: Your next 2 actions will not reduce Item Durability.

Stabilize Mixture (Alchemy)

• Number of actions increased: 4 → 5.
• New Description: If you critically strike in the next 5 actions, the Durability of the item will be restored by 3.

Distill (Alchemy)

• Critical strike chance increased: 30% → 50%.
• Number of actions reduced: 5 → 3.
• New Description: Enhances your critical strike chance by 50% for the next 3 actions.

These refinements should help make each skill feel more rewarding and aligned with its profession’s intended rhythm. Let the crafting experiments continue!

Artifacts

Swapped the order of the 2nd and 3rd Artifact rewards for the Deadlands to improve the pacing and thematic progression of exploration in the region:

• New 2nd Artifact Reward: The lobby of the Eternal Night Society in Sombershade is now open to you, offering opportunities for trade and cosmetic obtainment.
• New 3rd Artifact Reward: Creatures of the Vampire family will no longer attack you unless provoked or if you gather resources near them.

This change only applies to players who have unlocked 1 Deadlands Artifact or fewer. If you've already unlocked the original second Artifact, you’ll keep its benefits.
 

Misc

• Adjusted the Effort Patron benefit description.
• Adjusted the maximum number of Vice-Leaders in Guilds to be limited to 5.
• Added several new sound effects to enhance the overall experience when engaging with Aether Rifts.
• Increased the drop chance of Corsair’s Ambrosia. This change should provide a more consistent experience for players working toward important milestones tied to this item.
• Removed the following items from the list of items that can be sold to NPC Vendors: Oversized Flea, Perfect Bloodstone, Dwarven Coin and Troll Heart.

• The "Basic Sail" effect icon now properly disappears upon character death.
• Corrected the categorization of many Alchemy materials that were previously classified as junk items, ensuring they now appear in their proper categories.
• Fixed visual issues with the Rested Experience: the progress bar now behaves correctly and accurately displays the current percentage of Rested EXP.
• Fixed an issue where Cosmetic Materials were dropped in varying quality grades, preventing stacking. All Cosmetic Materials are now correctly assigned a single rarity grade, allowing them to stack properly.
• Fixed an issue where triggering Trader's Safeguard or Fortified Convoy passives did not properly put players into combat.

Tell us what you think about the Update 1.0.8: Join the discussion in our Tavern on Discord and share your thoughts!