RtW 2.1 Update: What Will Change? - Pt.1

With the big update coming on Wednesday there are a lot of questions around on what are the changes, how does it affect us and how should we use or change what we have as commanders. How do we prepare? What and when should I do to improve my account? - Let's have a look. 

This article has only few pictures due to the fact that we do not have any pictures of items etc. available nor can I show you "live" screenshots on how to use items etc. - this will only be available once the update has been patched in.

This article includes access to the NEW Lady Death's Commander 2.0 Tool © (v.1.1)

Commander Respect Changes

The main changes are in the lower levels' respect requirements and in the value of respect items after ascension. 

Respect requirements OLD vs NEW

T1  R0 -> R1  400 -> 200
T1  R1 -> R2  400 -> 320
T1  R3 -> R4  560 -> 800
T1  R4 -> R5  600 -> 1,520

T2  R0 -> R1  1,000 -> 500
T2  R0 -> R1  1,000 -> 800

T3  R0 -> R1  3,000 -> 1,500
T3  R0 -> R1  3,000 -> 2,400

Value of Respect Items OLD vs NEW

Legendary Items: before Ascension 100 -> 100
Legendary Items: after Ascension 30 -> 70

Epic Items: before 1st Ascension 40 -> 40
Epic Items: after 1st Ascension 12 -> 40
Epic Items: after 2nd Ascension 12 -> 28

This will lead to a shift in respect levels. You will not get any items back, but instead the amount of total respect that your commanders have will be calculated down to how many items this equates according to the old system and then it will be converted to the output in respect in the new system.

Example: 

Let's assume Haldir Respect like mine: 
This means I have a a total respect of 29,040 + 749 on him. This equates to 2049 + 62 items (and some stray respect) = 2111 items, which will be just shy of Z1 after the update.

So you dont have to calculate all that yourself, I made a spreadsheet where you can simply look it up. 

Here are the three Quality overviews. Please mind that I do not have information on all the higher Zenith levels' requirements. 
The changes are marked with a darker color so you can easier see where there are differences.

Epic Commanders - T1 

Legendary Commanders - T2

Mythic Commanders - T3

Commander Ascension Changes

The devs made Ascension a little bit cheaper and more obtainable by some changes to that system as well. 

OLD

• Commander respect item of the designated Commander 
  - Original Epic commanders: 50 for ascension to Legendary
  - Original Epic/Legendary commanders: 150 for ascension to Mythic
• 10 Designated respect item of a T2 commander to ascend to Legendary
• 40 Designated respect item of a T3 commander to ascend to Mythic

NEW

• Any Commander respect item of the commander's original rarity: 
  - Original Epic commanders: 30 for ascension to Legendary
  - Original Epic commanders: 150 for ascension to Mythic
  - Original Legendary commanders: 100 for ascension to Mythic
• Any Legendary respect items: 10 items
• Any Mythic respect items: 40 items

Level for Ascension

OLD vs NEW

• Epic commanders to Legendary: R5 -> R4
  
• Epic commanders to Mythic: R10 unchanged
• Legendary commanders to Mythic: R10 unchanged

On commanders which you ascended you will receive the respective amount of respect items back. If you have ascended an Epic commander (t1) to Legendary or Mythic, you will receive 20 items of that commander. If you ascended a Legendary (t2) commander to Mythic, you will receive  50 items of that commander. 

Commander Relic Changes

All Relics will now cost 10 Mithril to unlock them. Originally they cost 40/50/60 Mithril depending on the commander's original rarity.

This means you will receive back the following amount of Mithril:

• Epic Commander's Relic crafted: 30 Mithril
• Legendary Commander's Relic crafted: 40 Mithril
• Mythic Commander's Relic crafted: 50 Mithril

The Mithril costs to upgrade the Relics remain the same as before:

• Epic Commander's Relics: 40 / 40 / 80 / 80 / 120
• Legendary Commander's Relics: 50 / 50 / 100 / 100 / 150
• Mythic Commander's Relics: 60 / 60 / 120 / 120 / 180

Commander Respect Reversion Vouchers

To allow you to adjust your commanders according to the new system and skills, you will receive a certain amount of Respect Reversion Vouchers. Requirement for these vouchers are that the commander is at least Respect Level 5 AND at least Legendary. This means you will not receive any vouchers for Purple Respect 5 Commanders.

Every Voucher you receive allows you to pull out up to 10 Respect Items out of the commander that you use it on. You cannot draw more respect than down to Respect level 4.

You will receive the vouchers via in game mail and they are valid for 30 days.

CAREFUL!
If using respect vouchers would reduce your R10+ commander far enough, it will also revert the Relic that you might have. It appears that you will get back all Mithril. However, any items used to strengthen the Relic would be returned as Worn-out items instead of the items you used originally.

My advice: Do NOT pull more items on commanders that are R10+ and have a strengthened Relic.

Commander Ascension Material Exchange Vouchers

The wording is a bit awkward for this one, but this is how I read it:
For every Ascension that you performed before the update you will receive a voucher to "exchange" if  required.
With these you can exchange the Designated Respect items that have been consumed during Ascension into Any Respect Items of the same quality.
You can apply 1x Voucher per commander.
e.g. You used Saruman items on Lurtz. You can now exchange these items against a collection of other items like Gil, Gala, Sunind, etc. 

It does NOT sound like you could fully undo the ascension.

You will receive these vouchers via in game mail and they are valid for 30 days.

How to Prepare

To get as many Respect Reset Vouchers as possible you want as many commanders as possible at Respect level 5 & Ascended to Legendary.

But when is it worth it to use items on commanders and when is it a waste?

As we heard above, you get one voucher per each legendary commander with respect 5 that you own. This means you will want to level up some commanders in order to get more tokens. 
*Disclaimer: These are general suggestions. You will always have to evaluate based on your individual account development and spending pattern. 

• t1 for majority of players worth it including opposite side commanders for RP players (where else do you use your t1 tokens and vouchers?) -> you will need to ascend the commander and here is where you need to be mindful: if you have to use tokens of a commander that is in your main army, you are better advised NOT to do it.
• t2 depends already a bit on what you're planning to do. It will likely be worth it if you do not need the respect items for other things. 
  As most people would likely use their reset vouchers on t3 commanders, it will often be worth it to level up at least if you are close.
• t3 is very dependent on situation
  -> if you need 10 or less items to get to r5, definitely do it
  -> if you need more than 10 items, but plan to use that commander in the future anyway, definitely do it now to get the extra tokens
  -> if it requires you to trade other t3 items for this commander, definitely DONT do it as you lose value, not worth it
  -> everything else has to be looked at on a case by case basis

If you are unsure whether or not to level up your commander, ask a friend or trusted member of your team who has a good understanding of the game in general and of the changes to come. Better ask than be sorry.

DO's and DONT's

A few general words of advice:

• Do NOT trade any respect items at this point. It is a waste of value.
  Gain for trade vs cost for trade at the example of t3 items:
  1x t3 items gets you 16 t3 vouchers
  1x t3 items costs you 40 t3 vouchers
  This means you lose a lot of value if you trade. Especially now with the requirements for Ascension you can make use of ANY item until you have all your commanders ascended to Mythic. Of course some commanders you might never want to ascend, but you get the idea. 
• Do NOT rush anything after the update
  Make sure to create a solid plan before you make any decisions that you cannot reverse. 
  You can enhance the value of your account by a lot with these changes, but you can also lose a lot of value if you do things rushed and without proper basis of information.
  
• Do inform yourself on the new commander stats and suggested army setups.
  There are a lot of theorycrafters and testers and math geniuses out there. Make sure to get input from a multitude of sources BEFORE you do anything irreversible in game.
• You will get the most value out of the vouchers if you use them on T3 commanders. Don't use them on your lower tier commanders unless you are really sure you need those respect items for another commander of that level.

I can't stress it enough: Take your time. Do not rush anything. You have 30 days time to make your decisions. No need to do anything within the first 10 minutes. You can do it in the last 10 days instead.

Commander Spreadsheet

You have seen some screenshots above from my Commander 2.0 Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is not yet updated with the new skills and some numbers are missing in the respect table at higher Zenith levels. However, in order to give you the full access to what is there, here the link to it. I hope it helps you when making your decisions and calculations.

 NEW ! Lady Death's Commander 2.0 Tool © (v.1.1)

Summary & Evaluation

Looking at all these changes, overall the game is going back to being more accessible for F2P players and low spenders. A number of changes are being made that will benefit these players and bring them closer en par to "Dolphin" level players, which means they will be enabled to hold their own better in PvP fights.

Another huge thing is the Respect Refund Tokens, which allow you to undo mistakes from the switch to 2.0. This is also why you should definitely take your time. You get the chance to enhance the value of your account by making smart decisions based on your individual situation. Every account is unique. This means that with all the suggestions and tips in this article or on any other source, you always have to apply it to your own situation and make possibly adjustments to these tips. 

Last time to repeat it: don't rush things. Take your time. May the Valar's wisdom guide you in your decisions. 

RtW 2.1 Update: What Will Change? - Pt.2 will include information to further changes on Respect Levels and Skills.

Opinion - [The New Age] PBE: Changes

In my article Basics - [The New Age] PBE: Changes I introduced the changes to game mechanics as introduced in PBE [The New Age]. To get a full picture on what I'm talking about in below article, I strongly recommend to read that article first. This holds true especially for readers who do not have access to the PBE test server where these changes are introduced by the game team and tested by a limited amount of players.

Recap

To reiterate in short, the changes introduced in PBE [The New Age] are: 

• complete gear rework, 
• major commander skill tree changes, 
• new battle mechanics 
• Energy pool instead of Stamina/AP

as main changes and the introduction of 

• multiple conscription queues for same troop type, 
• exp leveling past 40 only via PvP, 
• unique item as separate slot 

as the smaller ones. 

Many Discussions

Now, the past three or four days the discussions went wild. From first spontaneous statements like "I'm quitting" about 2 hours after PBE got launched (even by players who don't have access to the test environment) to some more in depth discussions - you can find pretty much everything. The main argument that I see is that these changes are messing too much with the individual investment into the game and that people are afraid of losing value on their game safe.

While I can see how some "value" in terms of time and effort spent on optimizing the account for the current Meta might be rendered as "useless" or "wasted", I cannot agree with the notion that the actual monetary value spent gets reduced by these changes (barring the lost skill points from Impart Wisdom, which I mentioned in the article).

Requested Changes

Many players are unhappy with the idea of the current special effects being scratched completely. However, for many months numerous players, including those now unhappy ones, have been remarking on some of these effects being "broken" or "OP" and the necessity to nerf them. Personally, I don't see the huge issue with losing the special effects we have known for that long - aside from the fact that we are simply used to them and know what they do without having to scratch our head anymore to find a good solution for a fight we can win.

Realistically, this change affects literally every single player, which makes it for once a decently fair adjustment in my opinion. In contrast to that, every prior change to gear items or commander skills has been "unfair" as it always only hit a few people who had focused on this commander or gear piece and then suddenly couldn't use it feasibly anymore (e.g. Haldir's unique as many might remember).

If Frenzy would be taken out for example, we'd have a lot of unhappy Khaldoon players (and others of course). We would have people at a major disadvantage who worked for this for months maybe and hunted down every single Gigantic Hammer they could lay their hands on. Meanwhile the rest of the community could laugh and rub their hands because they haven't been affected. I can think of no way of "nerfing" that item which would have resulted in the owners of the item being happy in the end. Whether it be a direct or indirect nerf. And this holds true for so many items in the game.

By changing the whole setup of items, the problem gets ripped out at the root: special effects that are only available for some items and not for others, especially the gold gear ones. One might get the idea that the uproar against these changes could also stem in the fear of not being at a big enough advantage over others anymore. With every effect available to every gear item and thus to every player at every spending level, the special effects of gold gear are not something that only one spending type has available anymore. 

However, while this change to the special effects evens out the chances for good special effects throughout every layer of player type, gold gear still brings enough advantage in order to have decidedly higher value than purple items or lower. Personally, I would think that should make everyone happy - aside from the required effort needed for a short time of adjusting to the new "rules".

The Level of Upset

So, why are people so extremely upset about it? Mind you, the anger is about a bunch of changes of which we do not know at this point how many of these will actually make their way into the game or in what way, nor do we have any idea on a timeline in which they will be implemented into the game. Are people just upset because of change in general? 

I can see the argument about having to get used to the new mechanics. It will require a little bit of effort to get to know the new mechanics (unless you want to play mediocre and wait for the smart guys to come up with ready made solutions for you) and some players might have a certain fatigue related to the game and not want to put that amount of effort in it - fair enough. 

You have to try and test etc., but wait - isn't that exactly what a vast amount of people like so much about the game? Countless players theorycraft for hours on end, test commanders, swap troops, gear, recharge, test again, rinse & repeat. 

"Loss of Investment"

All that being said (and I have hinted at the following already), the argument that I am struggling with the most is the notion that you lose your investment. For one, we don't lose anything. If these mechanics get implemented into the game, we will still have the same shiny toys in our game safes. Just with different names and features, but the same value (in terms of quality/rarity) and number (you get all used pieces back as basic).

Yes, in some cases having known about such changes ahead of time might have caused you to hold on to some pieces instead of scrapping them for that one special effect you wanted to strengthen, but it is still not a loss because the value is on your account - nothing changed in that regard. (*Secret Tip: before it gets implemented, use an elven hammer to get that one piece out that you really want to get back)

More importantly though - why are we so fixated on the term "investment"? Investment is the process of using money with the aim to profit (=financially). Never have I played a game, paid for it (big or small amounts) and in the end gotten any money back. At that moment when you pull your credit card your money is gone. Of course you want good quality service for the money you spent - and I believe a game team who attempts to make the game enjoyable across the player base (not just for some of them) is good quality service. But thinking of it as an "investment" is too far fetched in my personal opinion. 

Perceived Value

So, what is it that we believe we gain when we pay money for (or "invest" into) a game like this? We make the transaction to buy a digital service in order to enhance the experience which we otherwise can enjoy for free as well. We buy ourselves an advantage over other players who either don't want to or who cannot spend (that amount of money). 

For some it might maybe carry the impression of "prestige" within the community or even power, but realistically we buy to get that instant gratification from progressing just a little bit faster and on top of that the satisfaction of being "stronger" than others.

Real Value

We established, what you get for spending on the game is extra service in terms of digital goods. The basic service provided by the game developers is that we can use their assets and enjoy your free time while doing so. This is for free. And here we come to, what I believe is (and in my opinion always should be) the real value we should consider as exchange for money spent: the opportunity to spend our time doing something we enjoy - you could call it a hobby. On top of this we are enabled to meet numerous people across the globe who have the same interests as we do, the option to find friends among them and at the very least the shared time while playing together and having fun. 

Can we gain these values otherwise than by spending on a mobile game? Of course. No doubt about that. However, we chose to play a mobile game. We chose to play this game specifically. We chose to stay in the community that came along with the game. In fact, we choose to do so every single day and every single time we log into the game - over and over again. And once we do not enjoy the process anymore - once we cannot get this value out of our "hobby" anymore -, it is probably time to find something else we enjoy better. Nothing wrong about that. That's how things go.

If that happens to be the case, we cannot blame anyone. There is no one to blame. And unless the game team changes the graphics into obnoxiously poor quality or anything the like, they are still providing us with the same service that we chose in the beginning. 

For me this PBE server and the changes implemented into it show that the game team still cares about the game. There is still the needed passion to make things better along the road. To value this effort and passion I do not have to agree with all of their ideas. I have always the option to give positive feedback (which may very well be criticism) and bring sound arguments why I think it is a bad idea to bring idea x, y, z into the live servers.

Conclusion

Personally I believe it is not worth to get upset about these changes. Do I like them all? Certainly not. Do I hate them all? Certainly not that either. For the time being, let's just give it a try and if the game is really terrible after these changes were made and pushed into the live servers and we played it for a while, then we can maybe get upset. Or, instead we could also just see if we can find something else to occupy our minds with and maybe we can do it even with some of the friends we met in RtW. But for now, let's just keep playing and see where things go - or like younger folks than me might put it: "chillaaaaaxxxx". 

* Disclaimer:
This article is my personal opinion based on the impending changes to the game as implemented in the test environment PBE server [The New Age]. Unless stated otherwise, these features are not available in live servers at the time of publication.

Basics - [The New Age] PBE: Changes

This week the new Testing Server "[The New Age] PBE" launched and a limited group of people have the opportunity to test out new game mechanics and different game play.

Enroll for PBE

You can't enroll for PBE at the moment. There was a timeframe within which you could apply for it between July 26 and August 6 this year. If you were chosen, you received a message in game.

The server was meant to go live a few weeks ago, but got delayed and finally launched this week on Thursday, Aug 31. 

First Login

If you have been chosen as a tester, you can now use all your commanders and inventory from the account you used to apply for it and test the new game mechanics.

Basically your complete game safe was cloned for the test server and acts now independently from your main account.

Here is where you can log into the PBE server: it is listed in the server list options on your login interface when you open the game.

The "clone" for PBE will be deleted after the testing period. Any changes you make to this version of your account will be lost eventually. There will be no option to spend money on it, so no reason to worry about this.

Before we head into the changes introduced to the test server we have to clearly know one thing:

• This is not going to be the final version. Theoretically anywhere from everything to nothing could be implemented as final content.
  However, if we're being realistic, a good part will be implemented and we also know that these changes are not all the changes that are waiting for us.

At the end of the day, the status of current changes in test server will not be the final version. So everything should be taken with the knowledge that nothing is set in stone. 

What are the major changes in PBE?

1. Gear

The gear has been changed completely. The basic stats of every piece are changed, though somewhat resemble previous stats. The biggest change with gear is the refinement of special effects. In PBE there is no refining (currently we can also not strengthen any pieces). You received for every refine level the amount of pieces into your inventory that have been used for that level. Example: If you had a 5* refined Mirkwood Bow, this means you have now a 5* strengthened Mirkwood Bow with one random special effect from the new list plus additionally 9 Mirkwood Bows with random special effects from the new effect list - all of them in basic status. 

Let's have a look at the basic stats by example of the Mirkwood Bow.

 

As you can see, the stats changed. This is to cater to the new way of fighting (see more below).

But most important to know: You still have the same value/amount of items in your inventory, only with other effects. 

N.B.: I will release an article within the next days which lists all the special effects and some basics on how to read gear as well as how to use it. All of that would be too much for the scope of this article. - Stay tuned!

2. Commanders

Another big change affects the commanders. Or rather more than one change concerns them. Most important: also here all respect levels were retained, which means you still have the same value in your game safe. 

2.1 Skill Trees

Their skill trees have been completely overhauled, although the basic titles were retained in most cases from what I could see so far. Although some have changed title skills, which seems an improvement towards usability of the respective commander in the cases that I found (e.g. Hirgon's bottom R0 tree).

However, all the subskills were scrapped. Instead you can now level the commander titles (as usual 2x R0, 1x R3, 1x R5) up to level 10. Each level requires 3 points, which means to max out one title you need at 30 points from respect levels or experience levels.

By reaching level 5 and 10 respectively with your title you get another extra skill/buff for both milestones, depending the commander and title. See here a random example:
 =>

Hirgon's R5 tree and subskills to the left compared to the new R5 Title to the right

If you did your math along the way, you noticed how the maxed title requires now 30 pts. while the title plus both subskills mixed in the traditional version costs 29 pts. This is a change I personally am not fully happy with as I believe the cost per skill-level are too high. There is definitely some room for improvement.

2.2 Leveling your commander

The maximum EXP level for each commander that you can reach with PvE, scrolls or mind sharpener is level 40 in PBE. After that you can only gain more EXP by fighting in PvP.

2.3 Combat role of your commander

The Commanders are now active part of the fight, which means they take damage like troops (see more later). To enable this the commanders now have also attack, defense, HP etc. - like your troops do. Let's pick a commander that I have at the same level in both games to see the difference better. I stripped them both of their gear to show the raw stats at this level: 

* I imply that the effects of all stats are known for the traditional version.

In the descriptions for the commander stats in PBE you can see which stat affects a commanders formation (i.e. himself and his army) and how. 

What does the commander page look like in the game? - Pretty much the same, except that the stats are displayed additionally to what was there before and in line with the changes needed.

2.4 Unique Items

As you can also see, there is a 5th gear slot now. This is reserved for your commander's unique, which means that you now can make use of the gear piece even if it wasn't BiS before, now it will definitely be useful and for those who made "poor" decisions prior, they can now at least throw it in and put it to use.

Now, this can be arguably an advantage for spenders - and ofc for the game team. Though, considering how many complaints there were on how many uniques are not really viable to try them out, this feels like a good change for me personally. I am sure there are counter arguments available. 

2.5 Other Commander-related changes

Now, if you paid attention to the screenshots, you might have noticed two other things. 

One of them is definitely a grievance for those who had it on all (or almost all) their commanders: Impart Wisdom / Gear Familiarity. This is not a thing in PBE. It also means however, that the 4 skill points are lost. I wrote already a feedback to the game team on this one and I could imagine that many people might not be happy as we dunked a lot of gear into this.

Another point, might also be a grievance, though pure speculation at this point. The indicator is subtle and we cannot be 100% certain what it means: the arrow next to the respect level. It suggests, that the respect level will go beyond 25 in future. We do not know if that is going to happen, but many already predicted it to happen at some point and here goes my "well played" to those who collected the items already in preparation for this because I am almost certain a respect level increase will roll out into regular servers rather sooner than later. Personally I would not happy about this, others might. What it would mean for sure is that it could land Netease more money if the player base bites and actually works towards higher respect, which at least the big whales and kraken who keep playing are likely going to do. (* Disclaimer: This is speculation on my part.)

3. Army Formation

This is by far one of the biggest changes together with the gear and skill tree overhaul. These three changes also go very strongly hand-in-hand as they build on each other.

Your army in PBE looks vastly different from what you know. In short: your commander leads one army within his formation (= one single unit type/troop type). Your whole march is led by one commander who can lead up to three other formations, each with one commander and one troop type respectively. 

So the new setup of your whole march is:

• Formation 1: Leading commander + 1 troop type
• Formation 2: Supporting commander 1 + 1 troop type
• Formation 3: Supporting commander 2 + 1 troop type
• Formation 4: Supporting commander 3 + 1 troop type

To give a visual on what this looks like, here the reinforcement screen: 

What you now have to do is, find the best synergy between leading and supporting commanders as well as their respective troops and the gear they are wearing. I find it challenging, interesting and a fun thing to do. From what I understand however, I am not a majority speaker on this one.

To go into this topic in depth would be way out of scope for this article. However, most important take away are these points:

• Validation of your commanders that have been warming the bench because they just didn't cut it
• Racial synergy is going to be very important to have feasible combinations
• Army type bonuses are very important to synergize with your commander and their buffs towards their own and allied formations
• Gear synergy is very important now

At the end of the day the new game mechanics will require some new game play by players, thinking outside the box and the ability to adapt to the new settings.

4. Other Changes in PBE

4.1 Stamina => Energy

Another big change is the "merge" of Stamina and Ability Points. Your commanders to not have any stamina anymore and you also do not have any Ability Points anymore. Instead you have a big pot of Energy, which allows you to use this energy on your commanders or any other type of moves at your discretion. 

What this means is that you can path with whatever commander you use, it has no negative or positive impact on your commander's availability for fights. 

In below table you can see which action costs energy and how much. The original maximum of your energy is 300. By giving ring points you can raise this to 600 maxed. For testing purposes we get the cap raised by another 300 in PBE, which usually you would get only in the first 24h.

The energy replaces Stamina and AP. Accordingly also the level 10 Ring tree was adjusted. Where you would usually raise the cap for AP you now raise the cap for energy in the same way. 

This has different aspects to consider. You now have a limited amount of moves you can make. However, it doesn't matter with which commander you make these moves. You can just keep going with that one commander. This results in the fact that it doesn't matter if you're a lower spender and don't have as many commanders unlocked. You can still make the same amount of moves as a big whale who has every single commander unlocked. 

Endless tile wars will be significantly reduced - because it doesn't matter if you have 20 or 30 commanders sitting in your base while the opponent is trying to fight you with his or her 4-6 commanders. They have the same amount of moves available as you have.

4.2 Multi Queues

Quality of Life - multiple queues of the same troop. In short: I absolutely fricking love it. 

No more crutching on t2 troops or having to wait for ages to refill your queues with the risk of forgetting them. You fill four queues of the same (or different, just as you like it) troop type and a few hours later your barracks are filled with fresh and shiny new troops in a nice number, that let's you actually work with them. Especially those using DD with e.g. Guardians will be hyped about this. 

5. Changes unrelated to PBE ...

... that you might have missed so far. These changes are already in live servers, but some of you might never have seen some of them at play. That's why I'm mentioning them shortly.

5.1 The Mist

When you log in first, you see your settlement in a sea of mist. This mist can be dispersed at no cost (aside from your effort to click the buttons) and it reveals some map events that you have to solve similar to the "Surprise" gifts that have been introduced a while back. 

While the dispersing of the mist is a bit tedious, given the fact that it presents you with a bunch of resources, troops, ring power, gold, a mathom coin and a stamina potion - no complaint from me.

5.2 Exp Scrolls

Anyone still in a server that doesn't have this? I'll mention it in case you haven't.
This has been rolled out across all (new) servers a few weeks ago, so most people should already know about it: once your server has progressed to a certain level, every day at server reset you get a specific amount of mobs, which will reward you with EXP scrolls in your tavern. To get them all you have to kill 9 mobs of a certain level daily.

5.3 Map/Region Control

You don't start with one or more regions owned on server start, but rather have to take over keeps first and a capital to start "painting the map". 

Summary

To recap the changes introduced in PBE: complete gear rework, major commander skill tree changes, new battle mechanics the introduction of Energy pool in place of Stamina/AP as main changes and multiple conscription queues for same troop type, exp levels past 40, unique item as separate slot as the smaller ones. 

Please read Opinion - [The New Age] PBE-Changes for my personal take on all these changes and the uproar connected to them that is surging across the community.

* This Article is about the changes implemented in the test environment PBE server [The New Age]. Unless stated otherwise, these features are not available in live servers at the time of publication.