Patch 5 – Achievements Launch + Early Game Rework

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Achievements have been activated, and players can now access a wider range of Abilities earlier in the game!

Hello Pioneers,

Welcome to this Thursday’s patch notes, and we’ve got some exciting news for you all: achievements are back! Unlocking an achievement creates a dedicated notification icon in the quick access menu, and we’ve optimised performance so that your achievement progress will update quickly as you play! If you find any issues with the achievement system, please contact us through in-game support so our support team can track down the issue for you!

We’ve improved the dungeon experience so you can try out new relics. If you enter the dungeon with empty ability slots, reaching the level to unlock that slot’s ability will let you select from a random ability instead of a normal relic. This means you can experiment with abilities you haven’t unlocked yet and reach a full loadout even without a full set of abilities!

• Players with all ability slots already filled will get a normal relic selection, as usual
• FOR HIGH LEVEL PLAYERS**: we know that some of you have optimised builds requiring fewer than the max number of abilities, and we’ve got an item just for you! Complete the new quest in Lunar City to earn `The Vacan-Sealer` item, which prevents random ability selection from appearing even if you have empty ability slots.

We’re also enabling globally unique usernames, which ensures that your chosen username across all of our regions are unique. Going forward, when new users register characters, the username must now be unique across all regions.

• For existing users: This means we have had to de-duplicate existing usernames when they collide with another character in another region. We have used the policy of the earliest account wins. The later character’s username now has a number appended to the end to make it unique. We apologise if anyone has been unable to keep the username they wanted because of this.
• For those who have had their usernames changed: A new quest is available (Identity Manager – Name Changer) in Virelda that lets you select a new username if you wish to change it. You can also choose to show your original display name or your new name via the key items menu. In places where the distinction is important, such as the Player Search in the friends list, you will see both the display name and the username listed in “<display name> / <username>” format, to help identify the right player.

We also added aim support for gamepad players. Plus, lower-tier gear no longer has any skill level requirements, so the weapon choices for early-game players have expanded dramatically. We also squished a host of bugs, made fixes and improvements, and more. See below for more details:

Dungeon Ability and Early Game Updates

• Players that have empty ability slots when starting a dungeon run will now get an ability selection option at the levels they would normally unlock the usage of each ability slot. The ability selection is random and includes abilities players haven’t yet unlocked. This change aims to create a more engaging onboarding experience, as new players can try out all the abilities in the tutorial dungeon and the early Virelda dungeon.
  • Players with abilities already equipped will receive a normal relic upgrade instead, per usual.
  • Players who deliberately want to run fewer than the max number of abilities can complete a new quest in Lunar City to earnThe Vacan-Sealer item, which prevents random ability selection from appearing even if you have empty ability slots.
• Pyrosphere has been removed from the Tutorial Dungeon and is now a reward from Granny’s Gumbo.
• Granny’s Gumbo no longer requires planting and waiting for crops. Gather the ingredients, cook the Gumbo, and carry on.
• Tier 1 and Tier 2 gear no longer has skill-level requirements
• Early gathering costs less stamina: Tier 1 nodes cost 0 stamina, Tier 2 cost 1, and Tier 3 cost 2.

Gear, stats, and progression

• Primary stats and major secondary stats that were incorrectly hidden are visible again – and count properly toward gear score. This includes crit, cooldown reduction, attack speed, dodge, AoE radius, and damage types.
• Character Sheet and Advanced View stats should once again show the information they were missing.

Fixes and quality of life

• Play Now and Launch Game on the account dashboard now open the full Soulbound Steam app instead of the demo.
• Potion stacks can no longer be pushed beyond their pack limit through bank interactions, preventing broken bank states and related performance issues.
• Lootflies should no longer fly off and settle in unreachable locations.
• Sow of Hope III now progresses from harvesting soybeans instead of from repeatedly watering them.
• Event-ability visual effects now display correctly in the death camera.
• Dungeon room transitions are more resilient when projectiles or entities are still being created or cleaned up, avoiding a client crash.
• DoT Potency now works: for damage-over-time-tagged abilities, it can add ticks, shorten tick intervals, and increase impact power through capped scaling.

Gamepad Aim Support

• Gamepad players can now aim primary weapon attacks with the right stick in dungeons. To set this up, follow the steps below:
  • Right click on Soulbound Online in your Steam library and select Properties
  • Select Controller from the properties menu
  • Select Controller Configuration and choose the input device you want to use, in this case, Gamepad.

Loading, Connection and Recovery

• Startup, room changes, and dungeon entry now show clearer loading progress, so you can see what the game is actually waiting on.
• When loading fails, you’ll get an error message that says what went wrong and an option to retry instead of a dead end. Failed automatic sign-in now offers a “Retry Sign In” option.
• Login, queue, maintenance, and world loading now handle slow or dropped connections properly, with timeouts and retries instead of an indefinite wait.
• Loading screens should no longer get stuck forever when an asset fails to load.
• Failed room transitions and world loading now recover more reliably instead of leaving you stranded

Stability and Smaller Fixes

• Improved server-side resource handling and dungeon cleanup should help keep long-running sessions and busy shards more stable.
• Added extra safeguards around dungeon extracts, room transitions, and world-state recovery to reduce crashes and failed recoveries.
• Placed furniture such as smelters should no longer become permanently stuck or impossible to pick up.
• A collection of smaller UI, inventory, achievement, and visual fixes smooths out rough edges across the game.

Known Issues

• Achievement pip notification can be slow to clear – fix coming soon
• Achievements can sometimes be slow to show as completed in the achievement book
• Disconnecting in a dungeon without all abilities equipped and missing ability unlock levels can result in missed ability slots