Patch Notes - June 12th, 2020

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PATCH NOTES
June 12, 2020

CLASSES
  • WARRIOR
    • Bloodlust no longer heals from spell damage.
    • Juggernaut's Rage stance and tome line have been renamed to Reckless Fury.
      • Accompanying abilities have also been renamed.
      • Juggernaut's Warcry has been renamed, and its overhaste has been reduced.
      • Reckless Strike's self-damage has been moderately increased.
      • Physical damage taken in this stance has been significantly increased.
      • Aggro generated in this stance has been moderately reduced.
    • Tales of Rapid Recovery application to Warrior cooldown reduction has been reduced.
  • PALADIN
    • A new Paladin self-heal spell has been added to the game.
    • Spells in the Blessing line (e.g., Blessing of Light, Blessing of Althuna) have been given level scaling.
ITEMS
  • Adversity has been given lore text.
  • Ambient Accumulator messages are now visible only to the owner rather than everyone in the vicinity.
  • Animation Blade worn slot has been adjusted.
  • As long as you have already added Vaporous Crystalline Key to your keyring, interacting with A Vaporous Projection no longer requires you to have the key in your inventory or bank.
  • Blade of Mimickry's proc has been modified:
    • It works only while the wearer is in his or her true form.
    • It will no longer work on gigantic, fixed-size targets (e.g., classic dragons).
    • The size component is now capped at size 3 (default GNM size) on the low and and size 10 (default OGR size) on the high end.
  • The following items have had their proc rates reduced to account for the healing spell changes (see below):
    • Chestguard of Clear Thought
    • Gelida, Tundra of the Razad
    • Sanctus, Piety of the Razad
    • Venenum, Scourge of the Razad
  • Haversack of the Winds and Gust of Wind are now usable only by classes with access to the Throwing skill.
  • Item models have been added to the following:
    • Fishing Net
    • Treble Hook
  • Many AoE weapon procs have been toned down.
  • Mug of Endless Gravy now summons gravy only for the person who clicks it (although the gravy can still be freely traded).
  • Sensei's Gift will now disappear after its charge is used.
  • Shoulder items intended to proc via Slam have, for one reason or another, never worked. As such, all procs intended to work via Slam have been removed from their respective items.
    • Items that are equippable in the shoulder slot as wlel as other valid proc slots, such as Sopping Bar Rag and Thingy of the GODS, will continue to proc from those valid slots.
  • The spell scroll for Runic: Denon's Dissonant Duet now has the correct name.
  • The spell scroll for Runic: Veil of Kaezul now has the correct name.
  • Staff of the Charismatic has been renamed Alluring Staff.
  • Triumvir has had its AC removed.
NPCs
  • A kind lady has decided to take up the traveling life once again. She no longer spawns indefinitely in certain city zones, but she will make random appearances (announced via OOC chat) and will offer her usual services for those willing to make the journey to find her.
    • Note that the kind lady's usefulness has changed in light of the ongoing buff revamp; while this may seem like a loss, bear in mind that class monopolies on certain buff lines have changed and will continue to change for the better!
  • A number of lizardman NPCs are more colorful than before.
  • The flame NPCs associated with Zir, Spirit of Fourstones should no longer have a buggy appearance determined by when or where you enter the zone.
  • The word "Vah" is now capitalized in NPC names.
QUESTS
  • Tavax Darkblood now allows Warriors to undertake his quest as well as Shadowknights; this was the intention all along, but only the latter was able to advance his dialog. Additionally, the quest's rewards are now usable by both classes.
SPELLS
  • Apocalypse (the spell) has been changed to a single target DD with AoE debuff, as originally intended. The DD component has been raised slightly.
  • Elixir of Experience (the spell) now lists its duration as 20 minutes instead of 20 seconds.
  • The following spells (and their accompanying scrolls) have been renamed to reference Shards of Dalaya lore:
    • Atol's Spectral Shackles -> Yinazra's Spectral Shackles
    • Gangrenous Touch of Zum`uul -> Gangrenous Touch of Grindrun
    • Garrisons Mighty Mana Shock -> Galadian's Mighty Mana Shock
    • Quivering Veil of Xarn -> Quivering Veil of A`han
    • Relic: Til's Elemental Ward -> Relic: Del's Elemental Ward
    • Scent of Terris -> Scent of Dis
    • Talok's Taunting Echoes -> Mantak's Taunting Echoes
    • Til's Elemental Recomposition -> Del's Elemental Recomposition
    • Til's Intervening Enchantment -> Del's Intervening Enchantment
    • Torbas' Acid Blast -> Tishkaal's Acid Blast
    • Torbas' Poison Blast -> Tishkaal's Poison Blast
    • Torbas' Venom Blast -> Tishkaal's Venom Blast
    • Zevfeer's Theft of Vitae -> Sytha's Theft of Vitae
  • Healing spells from Minor Healing to Superior Healing have been changed to scale faster.
    • This should soften the gap between Clerics and other classes while also providing better scaling at all levels.
  • Muddy Runes of Healing is now classed as a Focus Effect instead of a PBAE, and its description now correctly lists the crit heal boost as 6 percent rather than 7.
  • Protection of the Leaf has been added to the game as a precursor to Protection of the Cabbage.
    • Its accompanying spell scroll is scribable by Druids at 44, and Rangers at 58.
  • Rangers now get Shield of Barbs at level 39.
  • Runic: Veil of Kaezul is now flagged as a level 65 spell rather than level 30.
TRADESKILLS
  • 10 Dose Alchemy potion combines have been removed. (With potions being stackable, there is no reason for these to exist anymore.)
  • Meat combines for Tinkering have been changed to preserve the Oil Press.
  • The combine for Lemonade has been added (or readded?) to the game. This has been broken for at least a decade based on the wiki.
ZONES
  • Several othmir NPCs throughout Wyvernfang Coast were previously spawning underneath the world; their spawnpoints have been fixed.
  • The Razadian statues scattered around the Mountain Crags of Tarhyl are no more.
  • Sellable items from Overgrowth Deep Tunnels have had their prices increased.
  • Bloodfire loot has had it vendor price slightly reduced.
  • Citadel of the Claw has had it rank two tome drop chance increased. The Old Veteran can now drop rank two class tomes at a higher chance.
  • Current global opus drop rates have been increased by 10%.
MISCELLANEOUS
  • Fixed a bunch of memory errors which should make the server more stable overall.
  • Fixed Death Fatigue being incorrectly removed upon resurrection.
  • Fixed vendors charging double for items.
  • Lore discrepancies over the spelling of Caretaker Torsh / Torsch have been merged into Torsch.
  • New tradeskill tables have been added to Pocket Plane for all tradeskills (except Tinkering). These act like their respective combine containers, without the need to shuffle your bags around!

BUFF REBALANCE PHASE ONE

The following changes will be the first to address buffs. Phase one will weaken class monopolies on certain vital buff lines by introducing additional class spells and alchemy recipes that achieve similar effects.​
ALCHEMY
  • New recipes have been added to the game.
HASTE
  • Most single-target haste spells now target the group.
    • Mana cost has been increased to account for this.
  • Celerity now scales from 47 to 55% haste (from 47 to 50).
  • Wonderous Rapidity increased to 69% haste (from 64).
    • Duration also increased.
  • Shaman Ancient: Gift of Celerity increased to 65% haste (from 55).
    • Range and mana cost also increased.
  • Beastlords can now scribe Quickness at Level 49.
  • Helt's Berserker Formula has had its haste increased to a range of 20 to 25% (from 10).
    • Recommended level increased to 15 (from 0).
  • Helt's Wild Berserker Formula has had its haste increased to a range of 33 to 38% (from 20).
    • Recommended level increased to 30 (from 0).
  • Helt's Beserking Insanity has had its haste increased to a range of 44 to 49% (from 30).
    • Recommended level increased to 45 (from 20).

HEALTH
  • The following Druid spells have been added to the game:
    • Heart of the Seed; available at level 19.
    • Heart of the Sprout; available at level 34.
    • Heart of the Sapling; available at level 51.
    • Heart of the Tree; available at level 65.
  • The following Shaman spells have been added to the game:
    • Inner Strength; available at level 14.
    • Inner Force; available at level 24.
    • Astral Fire; available at level 39.
    • Astral Strength; available at level 53.
    • Astral Force; available at level 65.

MANA REGEN
  • The following Enchanter spells have been adjusted:
    • All single-target mana regeneration spells (e.g., Breeze, Clarity) now target the group.
      • Mana costs has been increased to account for this.
    • Breeze increased to 2 - 3 mana regen (from 2).
    • Clarity increased to 5 - 7 (from 5 - 6).
    • Boon of the Clear Mind is 10 mana regen at all levels (wiki was incorrect).
    • Gift of Pure Thought increased to 14 mana regen (from 11).
    • Garos's Endless Intellect increased to 16 mana regen (from 14).
  • The following Charisma line of Shaman spells have been renamed and adjusted to have [Slot 2] mana regeneration:
    • Alluring Aura -> Allure of the Snake:
      • +2 mana per tick.
      • Memorization level reduced to 24 (from 29).
    • Glamour -> Allure of the Kaleidoskink:
      • +5 mana per tick.
    • Charisma -> Allure of the Frilakh:
      • +8 mana per tick.
      • Memorization level increased to 51 (from 49).
    • Talisman of the Serpent -> Allure of the Serpent:
      • +11 mana per tick.
    • Unfailing Reverence -> Allure of the Basilisk:
      • +13 mana per tick.
      • Memorization level increased to 65 (from 59).
      • The scroll now drops alongside other Level 65 spell scrolls.
  • The following Lich line of Necromancer spells have been given a group recourse, granting [Slot 2] mana regeneration with a slight health degeneration:
    • Allure of Death Recourse:
      • +2 mana per tick.
      • -1 HP per tick.
    • Call of Bones Recourse:
      • +5 mana per tick.
      • -2 HP per tick.
    • Lich Recourse:
      • +8 to +11 mana per tick.
      • -3 HP per tick.
    • Arch Lich Recourse:
      • +12 to +14 mana per tick.
      • -4 HP per tick.
      • Confers Ultravision.
    • Master of Death Recourse:
      • +16 mana per tick.
      • -6 HP per tick.
      • Confers Ultravision.
      • Confers See Invis.
    • Note that any item with a proc, clicky, or worn effect from the Lich spell line continue to use the old version of the spell without the recourse.

LOW-LEVEL REBALANCE
  • Most quests listed in the Level 1 - 5 range of the wiki's quest timeline article have had their rewards buffed. If the quest progresses to higher levels, the rewards through the entire questline have been buffed, often ending with a stronger [EXPABLE] final item.
  • Loot in the following zones has been buffed:
    • Blackburrow
    • Cesspits
    • Fearstone Keep
    • Halls of Mielech
    • Newport Sewers
    • Southern Waste of Tarhyl
    • Warrens
    • Western Badlands
  • Many adept items have been adjusted.
    • This includes a more consistent pattern for estimating how much total exp will be needed to reach the item's maximum level:
      • Adept loot from the Level 1 - 9 range requires approximately 1,000,000 total exp.
      • Level 10 - 19: 2,000,000 exp.
      • Level 20 - 29: 3,000,000 exp.
      • Level 30 - 39: 4,000,000 exp.
      • Level 40 - 49: 5,000,000 exp.
      • Level 50+: 6,000,000 exp.

KNOWN ISSUES
  • [NO DROP] items are currently appearing as [PRISTINE].
 
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I agree with this. I personally would prefer the current effort going towards putting in more buffs instead be put towards removing longterm buffs.
I also agree with this. As long as buffs are long duration, immune to dispel, and persistent through death they will never be interesting. Even "short" duration buffs like cunning and savagery are uninteresting.
 
Any buff with the ability to restore HP/mana should probably retain casting time and costs or they may be exploited. but other that that don't see a ton of reason for buffs to cost/or have cast time.
 
Any buff with the ability to restore HP/mana should probably retain casting time and costs or they may be exploited. but other that that don't see a ton of reason for buffs to cost/or have cast time.
I agree that's a reason for cost and mana, but the other option is to put them on a relatively long cooldown and turn them into emergency heals for no mana.
 
Lowbie Paladin self-heal Blessing of Light could use a look -- was talking with a lowbie pal wondering why his self-heal healed for half of what light healing does.
 
Hopefully a lot of these changes get reverted someday. A lot of the "fixes" are just removal of fun IMO. I don't know anyone who's going to come back to play their characters in a worse, weaker state and go back to spending 30 minutes to buff themselves. Hopefully it works out for you guys but I really just don't see the audience this is trying to target.
 
Please take this dagger out of my back whoever decided to go this route without a complete rework of buffs in place and ready to go. Your killing me and us ! On behalf of my guild and Probably a good majority of the sod community this is a plea to reinstate kind lady untill this is ready to go. In some form or w/e like hell idk put her near thurg bounty npc's and have her charge bounty tokens or some other option beside spawning her via a stream in some obscure zone sometimes.
 
Please take this dagger out of my back whoever decided to go this route without a complete rework of buffs in place and ready to go. Your killing me and us ! On behalf of my guild and Probably a good majority of the sod community this is a plea to reinstate kind lady untill this is ready to go. In some form or w/e like hell idk put her near thurg bounty npc's and have her charge bounty tokens or some other option beside spawning her via a stream in some obscure zone sometimes.
You should be used to half finished content by now. For me thats basically the ranger class in a nut shell so Im fairly used to it. Several devs starting reworks then quiting before they're done leaving it a hodgepodge. Tons of other examples in game.

And from what Ive been seeing in other games as of late its becoming standard across the industry. Half finished content left for long periods of time.

In all the years I don't think they've managed to piss off so many players at once. My hats off to them.
 
cognitive dissonance.
You should be used to half finished content by now. For me thats basically the ranger class in a nut shell so Im fairly used to it. Several devs starting reworks then quiting before they're done leaving it a hodgepodge. Tons of other examples in game.

And from what Ive been seeing in other games as of late its becoming standard across the industry. Half finished content left for long periods of time.

In all the years I don't think they've managed to piss off so many players at once. My hats off to them.

this. even if a kind lady returns i would still need to really consider if it's worth it to invest my time on a server where awful changes are closer to intentional than a mistake.

to the staff: please play the actual game. if you can't, at the very least, form your ideas into user/player stories and see if they make sense. i will provide an example using a legitimate system that currently exists in game:

as a player, i want to stream for two hours in order to have a staff member spawn "a kind lady" in an unknown location. then, i want to play where's waldo to buff my characters.

next, ask yourself if that sounds like something the majority of your player-base would ask for. if not, don't implement it.

if you're consistently wrong, then consider resigning. or, continue to run your server into the ground. you own it.
 
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Man, I just want to play some SoD 1.0... the game looks indistinguishable to me compared to what it was a few years ago. Will that ever be a possibility? Does a server backup and source code still exist from back then?

I'm interested to hear how the ownership of the server has changed hands over the years.
 
Thank you for addressing the newb quests/newb adepts. I roll/reroll hardcore characters because its hard to find any groups at 65 and it was annoying that I would have to farm adepts for a day or two rather than playing the game in a more organic way. It was even worse advising new players to do the same.
 
Just dropping my head in out of curiosity how SoD is developing.

It sure was nice to see a front page and this post just loaded with all kinds of wonderful polish. Normalizing spelling, changing spell names to make some kind of in world sense, etc... is ten+ years overdue, so kudos to whoever is taking the time to care. I wish more game devs cared enough to polish, but halfassed seems to be the modern industry mantra.

Very cool to see low level content revisited. Now if you could implement some kind of shrouding/down leveling system so leveling isn't so lonely. Or have you?

Trying to fix buffs, eh? Long duration buffs and lots of exclusive class buffs are bad game design. It's swell to see that at least half of the problem you inherited is being addressed. Hopefully this buff fix keeps heading toward an end to in city buffing and buffers having more in group value.
 
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RIP warriors. Glad i stopped playing Crynel cause now i'd just be sad playing her now.
RIP a.o.e weapons (maybe?). God forbid we get exp at a decent rate when people have 60+ tomes to do.
spell changes are at least decent i think.
In any case im curious how things play out. I dont play anymore but someday the itch may come back.
 
Maybe I am out of touch but warriors still seem like the best tanks, at least in terms of actually tanking damage. I don't feel like they need to RIP yet.
 
Just dropping my head in out of curiosity how SoD is developing.

It sure was nice to see a front page and this post just loaded with all kinds of wonderful polish. Normalizing spelling, changing spell names to make some kind of in world sense, etc... is ten+ years overdue, so kudos to whoever is taking the time to care. I wish more game devs cared enough to polish, but halfassed seems to be the modern industry mantra.

Very cool to see low level content revisited. Now if you could implement some kind of shrouding/down leveling system so leveling isn't so lonely. Or have you?

Trying to fix buffs, eh? Long duration buffs and lots of exclusive class buffs are bad game design. It's swell to see that at least half of the problem you inherited is being addressed. Hopefully this buff fix keeps heading toward an end to in city buffing and buffers having more in group value.

I second these remarks. I do not mean to pick on anyone, but complaining about how things were, without considering how things could and should be is regressive, just try the new stuff! They need to test the changes, so try them out and help make the server better. They are actively developing, and issues that arise should be pointed out constructively. That you MUST have certain buffs to play, is junk. That a characters entire purpose for existing is to log, buff and log, is junk. Alchemy really does take the sting off, and if you want certain buffs bring pots! I can already tell you having played my buffer chars (enc and sha) that the changes are amazing for actually playing those chars. I felt more like an enchanter, I felt more like a shaman while playing. I wasn't flipping pages every 5 mins and doing spell gems. I was involved in the events taking place around me. EQ is a group based game, not a bot based game at it's heart, even if it stumbled over there at some point. I don't know, I know this thread is a little older now, but tell me what you think.
 
I second these remarks. I do not mean to pick on anyone, but complaining about how things were, without considering how things could and should be is regressive, just try the new stuff! They need to test the changes, so try them out and help make the server better. They are actively developing, and issues that arise should be pointed out constructively. That you MUST have certain buffs to play, is junk. That a characters entire purpose for existing is to log, buff and log, is junk. Alchemy really does take the sting off, and if you want certain buffs bring pots! I can already tell you having played my buffer chars (enc and sha) that the changes are amazing for actually playing those chars. I felt more like an enchanter, I felt more like a shaman while playing. I wasn't flipping pages every 5 mins and doing spell gems. I was involved in the events taking place around me. EQ is a group based game, not a bot based game at it's heart, even if it stumbled over there at some point. I don't know, I know this thread is a little older now, but tell me what you think.

Lots of people tried it and don't like it. We even got half the active server to sign a petition saying it was crap. We got ignored par for the course. It creates a weird imbalance that doesn't need to be in the game. Simplest solution to the buff problem was the Kind Lady. Fixed the buff bot problem and fixed the buff problem. The major concern for people and this has become true that everything outside of raids will take longer. Having a war/dru combo I can say this is true. Mainly from the warrior side of the duo. If I was a Paladin not only would I hate myself but I'd have better self buffs. SKs even get some nifty self buffs. During the golden time with the KL it was log in get buffs go about my business. Then things started down a weird path with buffs until we reached this point. KL fixed the problem of characters existing to just buff.

Your comments about actually playing your class don't make sense to me. I don't think I've ever grouped with an enc/sha that was flipping through pages every 5mins but each persons experience is different. With the longer buffs/KL you could spend 9hrs(at 65) just playing ur class not worrying about swapping your pages/gems for buffs so idk maybe I'm missing something from your post.

I do agree they are developing but many wonder why this change? The communication isn't very clear and they wanna keep everything secret(at least some). We don't have a clear defined goal here just "the vision". Many would also like to see dev time put into new content and perhaps fixing some of the time sinks already in the game. Which I believe some of the MQ was fixed so good on that part. Buff changes don't really create more player engagement like a new raid or quest zone. Perhaps if we knew said vision it would make sense but right now we're just fumbling along until that new shards server gets released.
 
Shards has always been unnecessarily secretive and it reduces my enjoyment of the game some. I really don't understand why they won't release how things work. What exactly does stamina do? Is 30 stamina worth 30AC? Who knows.

If you look at a game like EVE online they release all the info. You have the exact hit probability formula so you can make good decisions. The game hasn't fallen apart because people know what's going on.
 
THE most annoying part of this change is the constant need to rebuff people after they had accidents. Feels like I'm casting GoE/JB after every other pull on raids now, which is not enjoyable.
@jumbers If you want to have buffs work like auras, please go the full length and code something like 3 aura slots a caster can fill that act as permanently active buffs on anyone in his group/raid, automatically (re)applying themselves when joining the team/zone. Constant rebuffing of people in a raid is no fun.
 
I second these remarks. I do not mean to pick on anyone, but complaining about how things were, without considering how things could and should be is regressive, just try the new stuff! They need to test the changes, so try them out and help make the server better. They are actively developing, and issues that arise should be pointed out constructively. That you MUST have certain buffs to play, is junk. That a characters entire purpose for existing is to log, buff and log, is junk. Alchemy really does take the sting off, and if you want certain buffs bring pots! I can already tell you having played my buffer chars (enc and sha) that the changes are amazing for actually playing those chars. I felt more like an enchanter, I felt more like a shaman while playing. I wasn't flipping pages every 5 mins and doing spell gems. I was involved in the events taking place around me. EQ is a group based game, not a bot based game at it's heart, even if it stumbled over there at some point. I don't know, I know this thread is a little older now, but tell me what you think.

You've gotta understand that most of these players on this game have been playing for 5-15 years. It's deeper than just being upset about a patch.

TLDR: Player base has been dwindling forever. Any QoL changes that we've asked for have been put in, then removed and then some. Server promotion is non-existent. Catch up mechanics for new players have yet to be seen (some recently). Staff couldn't be more non-transparent. But 8 years after 2.5 released, LET'S CHANGE EVERQUEST'S CORE BUFF STRUCTURE IT'S ALL IN THE WORKS!

Full thoughts:
Buffs in general are a shitty mechanic to any game, but it's been the fundamental of Everquest forever. Most vanilla-based progression servers still hold on to the core buffs that don't have nearly the duration that Shards did, but they're still in every emulated server. I think most of the outrage about this patch was that there are so many other issues and things that needed rework, that as players of 10-15 years, it's depressing to see that this much time and work was devoted to something that didn't need changing over some of the other issues.

Kind Lady was added and the server rejoiced, literally the most positive I've seen the player base in years. But then somehow we managed to not only revert Kind Lady, but go in the completely extreme opposite direction. All the while, this was never really ever given much notice. It's been hinted at in the past, but for the most part the active developing that goes on in this game is 95% caged and unknown to the player base. This has always really been the ruination of this server. Thoughts are rarely listened to, there's generally been a pretty stringent rule mentality, and staff has always been reappearing bi-yearly at best and implementing these crazy changes that nobody asked for.

The way we EXP is unlike most other EQEmus in the fact that we build these mass-AoE groups and pull entire zones just to rinse and repeat. EXP zones should be more like raid zones, where a group is going in to actually do challenging content and not bash our skulls in Kaesora or FR just to fill bars. There's dozens of unused raid zones from about tiers 1-6 that could've been reworked to utilize this. Perhaps with the AoE weapon nerf, maybe this is in the forecast but who knows. Not to mention we were on a record of engaging new content being pumped out by a few devs who eventually got the boot because of being blocked from releasing anything else.

I had mentioned in a previous post that got deleted by staff, which is creating such a toxic environment in itself, that there was such little work needed to get buffs into a permanently good situation, that is now eclipsed by all of the work needed to make this "vision" viable in the population and environment we find the server in now. All of this work could've been focused into so many different existing lanes, but now will be consumed by cleaning up this mess and making all of the dependent mechanics work around it. We can beat around the bush all we want, but in order for this change to work it's very apparent that you either need a population big enough to find EXP groups on a whim, or just raid log. A population that big hasn't been around since pre-2.5. People used to get excited for patches, but lately it's felt like a nightmare every time patch notes get released.
 
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Those points are well taken. Thank you for taking the time to explain to me. I admit groups are rare, but I tend to prefer breadth to overwhelming power (being able to buff, heal and damage, even if each is not top tier). And buffs that don't need nearly as much rebuffing and that incentivize my chars inclusion have been nice. Maybe there's a better to accomplish it and I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes. I can only see through my own eyes and experiences
 
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