New Updates Live: Fog of War, Blessings, Pets, and More

Today’s patch brings several quality-of-life improvements and fixes that directly impact your gameplay across Shroud of the Avatar. The most visible change is the expansion of fog of war to all adventure zones at tier 5 and above—67 zones now start hidden and gradually reveal as you explore, with a 50-meter outdoor reveal and the familiar wall-aware detection underground. This adds a fresh layer of discovery to your journeys.

The gathering skill has been refined: now that it can progress past Grandmaster level, the harvest swing meter continues to narrow at a slower pace, rewarding persistence beyond level 100. Meanwhile, the blessings system has been rebalanced—most attunement blessings now drop at reduced values (e.g., Blessing of Agility, Greater now gives 25 Dexterity instead of 45), and stacking between Agility tiers has been fixed to prevent unintended bonus accumulation.

Pets are now fully active in player-versus-player scenarios—no more standing still during duels or arena matches. They’ll attack players again when ordered, restoring consistency in combat behavior across all situations.

On the technical side, several long-standing issues have been resolved. The Options menu now correctly reflects its settings, with Reticle Brightness and Highlight Strength each having their own dedicated rows. Accounts with spaces in their names can once again be granted tester or tracker access. Additionally, the store and game shard were syncing from different database copies since August 20, but a clear migration path has now been documented to ensure all purchases are properly recognized.

PvP arenas have been updated too: the Castle Arena (Teams) towers now fire with line of sight and a 30-meter range, making combat more tactical. Powerups now spawn on the arena floor, and GMs can manage them live via a new Arenas panel.

Finally, achievements now track when they’re earned and store their rewards—65 bosses now have mounted trophies, with 27 newly activated from previously unused art. Achievements can also be edited in a new in-game editor, preserving custom entries through rebuilds.

All these changes aim to make your world more consistent, rewarding, and immersive.

Summarized from Chris "Atos" Spears' work log at Catnip Games.