Albion Online’s Dragonfire Patch 3 Makes Ancient Lands Portals Much Easier to Find

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Sandbox Interactive is rolling out Dragonfire Patch 3 for Albion Online on October 12 at 10:00 UTC, with all servers going offline during maintenance. Albion Asia will need some extra downtime, and the patch is already available on the test server.

The main change is a big increase in access to the Ancient Lands, especially through non-lethal Small Portals in Yellow Zones. Those portals should appear often enough that players can see them on the World Map much more consistently and chain runs together without waiting around as much.

  • Yellow Zone Small Portal average spawn time drops from 45 minutes to 15.5 minutes.
  • The chance for a portal to appear in a region rises from 25% to 33%.
  • Portal lock time drops from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.
  • Players will have 10 minutes to enter after a portal unlocks, up from 8 minutes.
  • Fame and loot from Yellow Zone Small Portals are being reduced by 30% to offset the extra availability.

Small Portals in Red and Black Zones are keeping their higher rewards, while also getting the increased spawn chance and longer entry window. Medium and Large Portals are not getting loot changes, though Large Portals will be 50% more likely to spawn and should show up more during prime time.

The patch also tweaks Ancient Lands rewards and difficulty. Some value from the four regular Drake chests is being shifted into the central Fire Drake chest, which will also have a better chance to drop the newer artifact items. Mob health and damage are being lowered by 10% in Small and Medium Portals and 20% in Large Portals. Small and Medium islands will now require players to kill their Drake to complete the quest.

Dragon fights are getting a few anti-frustration changes too. Maeve in the Dragon Sanctuary should be less punishing below 40% health, with fewer boulders, lower Primal Dragon Flame damage, and longer gaps between Storm Spires. Open-world dragons will no longer fully heal when reset, instead returning only to the last 20% health threshold reached. Their Might reward is going up by 150%.

Mobile players are getting new targeting filters and a Double Tap to Self-Cast option. The patch also includes combat balance changes for several weapon lines, including Crossbows, Daggers, Holy Staffs, Quarterstaffs, Shapeshifter Staffs, and the Rotcaller Staff.

Further reading: Official Albion Online Dragonfire Patch 3 test server notes