Patch Notes - March 4th, 2021

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HEADLINES
  • The Dream, overhaul and zone replacement.
  • Tarhansar deity completion.
  • Sunken Cathedral announcement, 6 man experience zone.
  • Fast recovery state, an out of combat recovery enhancement.
  • Weapon Squish, a high tier rebalance to weapons and raid bosses.
  • An Enchanter class refactor.
  • Fletching, a tradeskill overhaul.
SEASON
Seasonal Characters will be converted to standard on March 31st 2021. Players will have until the start of Season 2 to spend their seasonal currency.

TARHANSAR
The final encounter for the Tarhansar Deity Quest "Tides of Blood" is finally live. Be sure to review the quest before attempting it!

THE DREAM
The Dream has gotten a complete overhaul, including a replacement to the zone itself. Changes include: a streamlined entrance to the game for old players as well as a highly detailed tutorial for new players. It is filled with great information that was previously unavailable.

SUNKEN CATHEDRAL - 6 MAN EXP ZONE
Follow the trail of Consumerist Coyote into the deep depths of the Sunken Cathedral! Keep a watchful eye in the next few weeks for this new zone's arrival!

RESTING OUT OF COMBAT RECOVERY
We have implemented a new resting recovery feature. Here are the key points:
  • The state of your character's recovery synchronizes with the client icon in the player health window:
    • Crossed Swords - You are in combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to in-combat recovery.
    • Poison Icon - You are weakened and cannot rest currently.
      • The player has a debuff that is preventing them from entering the fast recovery state.
    • Yellow Swirl - You are resting and recovering health, mana, and endurance at an increased rate.
      • A player will enter the resting recovery rate while sitting.
    • Hour Glass - You are recovering from combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to out-of-combat recovery. Indicates the player will be able to enter a rested state shortly
  • A player's out of combat status is now tracked separately from the group.
  • Raid groups will receive a lockout timer after engaging with a champion enemy, and cannot enter a rested state until this timer expires.
  • The fast recovery rate is a zone by zone setting. We will be manually adjusting this as time progresses.
AA SQUISH
To work around a client restriction, we are combining and refunding the following AAs:
  • Innate Strength and Advanced Innate Strength
  • Innate Stamina and Advanced Innate Stamina
  • Innate Agility and Advanced Innate Agility
  • Innate Dexterity and Advanced Innate Dexterity
  • Innate Intelligence and Advanced Innate Intelligence
  • Innate Wisdom and Advanced Innate Wisdom
  • Innate Charisma and Advanced Innate Charisma
  • Innate Fire and Warding Of Tarhyl
  • Innate Cold and Blessing of Shojar
  • Innate Magic and Shiri's Protection
  • Innate Poison and Shroud of Kaezul
  • Innate Disease and Gradalsh's Gift
  • Healing Gift and Advanced Healing Gift
  • Healing Adept and Advanced Healing Adept
  • Combat Fury and Fury of the Ages
  • Finishing Blow and Coup de Grace
  • Combat Ferocity and Unerring Precision
  • Combat Agility and Lightning Reflexes
WEAPON SQUISH
The next balance section consists of two parts: A linear balance pass on all tier 7 to tier 15 weapons and a reduction in health for late game content. The power of particular items was creating a roadblock for future item creation and melee class balance. By smoothing this progression, we are one step closer to allowing melee class rebalances. To offset an average raid's damage loss, the maximum health of content balanced on the existence of these items will be reduced.

1 - TIER 7 TO TIER 15 WEAPON BALANCE
The following items have been balanced for raid content; to address exponential growth and class disbalance. We removed the slow spell effects from area of effect procs as the threat generated from these was too great. Overhaste was removed from all weapon procs as the power of this modifier scaled too sharply. Rogues will see the next class balance to offset the void created from this loss.
Buffed
  • Fidelity
  • Peerless Raptor Talon
  • Icegouge
  • Bludgeon of Brutal Panacea
  • Mace of the Leechblood
  • Antediluvian Axe
  • Sihk's Hidden Hand
  • Mindlash
  • Massive Beak
  • Blade of Green Mist
  • Transcendent Ritual Blade
  • Caex, Axe of Brutal Valiance
  • Mercy, Destiny of the Father
  • Flame-Forged Kalis
  • Pock Marked Obsidian Geofact
  • Aquos, Blade of Command
  • Searfist
  • Flamescar
  • Ortaninam, Fall of the Dragonkin
  • Xenelaqui, Muse of the Fallen - Weapon Proc moved to Slot 9, Rate increased
  • Elael-ihn, Massive Ember
  • Render of the False
  • Hand of Twisted Magics
  • Nail of Festering Decay - Weapon Proc increased, stun added.
  • Calcified Perfection - AC increased.
  • Fist of the Dawn
  • Curveblade of Ancient Kings
  • Bane of the Fallen God (1h) - AC Lowered
  • Ysar, Blasphemer's Bite
  • Khukri of the Plague
  • Cloudbreaker - Spell damage also increased.
  • Immorvo, Immaculate Fist - Ammo slot removed.
  • Acid Tongue
  • Ravenclaw
  • Agni
  • Ansaag's Skullsplitter
  • Divus Sicarius
  • Ragecaller
  • Halbred of Killing Frost
  • Obsidian Spiked Greatstaff
  • Confounding Sphere of the Prime Enchanter
  • Yclistinite Alloy Dreadblade
  • Tower of Deathly Cold
  • Perditrix, Truncheon of Undoing
  • Bane of the Fallen God (2h)
Shifted
  • Stoneculler - Overhaste removed. ATK and duration increased.
  • Whirlpool - Tank classes added, damage lowered.
Nerfed
  • Dagger of the Chosen
  • Baton of Frenzied Strikes
  • Sceptre of Supreme Rituals
  • Sword of Seeping Shadow
  • Unfortunate Pickaxe
  • Spirit-Harvest
  • Yclistinite Gavel
  • Galeforce, The Eye's Edge - Slow spell component removed
  • Brainsucker
  • Runeaxe of the Gruploks
  • Spear of the Szithri
  • Architeuthis Tentacle
  • Ortaninim, Rise of the Dragonkin - AC decreased.
  • Ortananoch, Custodian's Demise - Overhaste removed.
  • Blade of a Bygone Era
  • Horok, Reality's Kaleidoscope
  • Dissonatatus, Bladedancer's Enmity - Overhaste removed, proc duration and ATK increased.
  • Digger's Shovel - Pet haste spurt spell narrowed in scope, haste reduced.
  • Lute of Al'Kaba'Ng
  • Bamboo Rod of Entanglement - Slow spell component removed
  • Sanctus
  • Apocalypse - Slow spell component removed
  • Craedyl, The Frozen Blade of Shojar - Spell damage lowered.
  • Venandi, Spirit's Envy
  • Soulsong
  • Stave of Mist
  • Eo, The Tide - Overhaste removed, melee ratio increased.
  • Os, The Sword - Overhaste removed, melee ratio increased.
  • Ank'Ai, the Corporeal Curse
  • Sharn'rees Verdict - Spell damage lowered, heal component removed, self damage increased.
  • Summoned: Fist of Gurok - Stats removed from item.
  • Beguiler's Belittling Barrage - Somatic Surge proc removed.
  • Staff of Molten Rage
  • Staff of Shifting Shadows
  • Screamblade
  • Entropy's Spine
  • Windworn Boka
  • Core of Ygg'sar
JYRE
Jyre suffers from three issues we are currently addressing: Items that a player cannot discard with progression, addressing ammo slot items that are not ammo, and content having to be balanced around 100% deathsaves. As such, the following changes have been made:
  • Jyre will now only apply it's specialization penalty when worn.
  • Embodiment of Jyre's unique deathsave has been reduced to 30%.
  • Embodiment of Jyre's DS has been reduced.
  • Consuming Flame lifetap proc has been reduced.
  • Ammo slot has been removed.
2 - RAID MOB HEALTH
The following have had mob health reduced proportional to difficulty; later content will see a bigger reduction in health.
  • Silent Halls
  • Thazeran's Tower
  • Overgrowth
  • Bloodstorm Tunnels
  • Individual Bosses
    • Umbriel`Arkhe
    • Altar of Bones
    • Thenn`ayr`duun
    • Nalansar, Agent of Chaos
    • Blazewind
    • Taeshlin, the Fallen Guardian
    • Warchief Rujik Moktar
    • Sharn`Ree, Blood's Justice
  • 6-Mans
    • Rohk
    • 4.3
    • Overgrowth
    • A Gnarled Taldorian
ENCHANTER - CLASS REFACTOR
Based on player feedback and internal review, the following issues continually creep up and need to be addressed moving forward.
  • An enchanter's DPS is too high in the last few tiers of the game.
  • The play style of an enchanter is not dynamic/fun in raids.
  • The viability of an enchanter diminishes in duo and solo situations.
  • Enchanters are impacted the most from spell slot limits.
As such, the following changes have been made to the enchanter class.

GENERAL
  • Enchanters now have access to the Group Invisibility spell at level 40.
  • Enchanters can purchase three ranks of a new memory blur AA at level 65, Becloud Memories.
  • Trickster's Augmentation has had it's levitation component removed.
AVATAR, BOND, BOON
The following spells now have a 1 minute duration, and a 1 minute shared cooldown.​
  • Incarnate Bond - A new level 44 spell, replacing Boon of the Vulfwere.
  • Somatic Bond
  • Corporeal Bond I - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond I.
  • Corporeal Bond II - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond II.
  • Avatar of Destruction - Mimicry has been lowered to 50%.
MAGIC DIRECT DAMAGE
The following spells all have had their cast time lowered to 1.6s:​
  • Chaotic Feedback
  • Sanity Warp
  • Chaos Flux
  • Anarchy
  • Discordant Mind
  • Dementia
  • Dementing Vision - 0.001 stun added.
  • Insanity - Base damage increased to 990.
  • Chaotic Visions - 0.001 stun added, base damage increased to 1360, Recovery time lowered to 2.5s.
MAGIC DAMAGE OVER TIME
The following changes have been made to smooth out the spell line progression:​
  • Suffocate damage over time increased. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
  • Gasping Embrace mana cost and cast time lowered.
  • Torment of Gnyrt damage over time and mana cost increased.
  • Asphyxiate direct damage and damage over time increased, cast time lowered. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
  • Chokehold direct damage and damage over time increased
MESMERIZE
The following changes have been made to mesmerize spells:​
  • Glamour of Astris is a new level 24 Enchanter mesmerize with the additional effect chance to memory blur your target.
  • Glamour of Nalia now has an additional effect chance to memory blur your target. Max enemy level increased to 59.
  • Minimum duration increased to 4 ticks for Enchanters on all mesmerize spells.
  • Overpowering Calm properly reduces enemy mitigation to mesmerize duration rather than adding a flat duration before mitigation.
CONTROL ENHANCEMENT
  • Control Enhancement is now applied to mesmerize spells against all mob levels (previously below level 63 only).
  • Control Enhancement now grants a dual effect to charm spells:
    • Adds a flat duration to charm effects on durations less than or equal to 19 ticks.
    • Adds a percentage duration to charm effects on durations greater than or equal to 20 ticks.
  • Transfixiating Armlet Control Enhancement focus effect lowered to IV.
JINX
The following changes have been made to the jinx line of spells:​
  • Hex - A new jinx spell available at level 34. Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (50%) of the potential power back into them.
  • Vex - Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (90%) of the potential power back into them.
DISPELL DETRIMENTAL
Enchanters now have access to the dispel detrimental spell line. These powerful spells allow a chance to dispel a snare, root, fear, and mesmerize from your ally. Stronger spells increase the success of removal but require more expensive reagents.​
  • Taper Tethers - Available at level 24. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 44.
  • Cancel Constraints - Available at level 44. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 63.
  • Break Bindings - Available at level 63. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 70.
CHROMATIC REPERCUSSION
Enchanters now have access to the chromatic repercussion spell line, featuring the new resist type: Chromatic. These spells nuke your target with a chromatic nuke, dealing direct damage against your targets lowest resist. This spell line will also cast a shimmering rune on the target of your target. These spells are learnable at the following levels:​
  • Chromatic Gleam at level 20.
  • Chromatic Burst at level 29.
  • Chromatic Barrage at level 39.
  • Chromatic Refraction at level 49.
  • Chromatic Fusillade at level 58.
  • Chromatic Aberration at level 65.
Chromatic focus effects and worn chromatic damage have been implemented and will become available to players in the future.

DRUID
Druids can now purchase the following spells:
  • Call to Shojar at level 65.
  • Call to Tarhansar at level 61.
BEASTLORD
Beastlords will now get an introductory pet in The Dream (also available on the spell vendor):
  • Spirit of the Dream at level 1.
FROGLOK
Racial bonus while in rain has been lowered to 2%.

FLETCHING
Fletching has been reworked as follows:
  • The cost of fletching materials has increased.
  • The number of combines per skill-up has been decreased.
  • The container "Quiver" has been replaced with a new stackable item "Empty Quiver"
  • All recipes that previously combined inside "Quiver" now combine in a fletching kit, but require the additional "Empty Quiver".
  • All quiver recipes have had their required large quiver quantity reduced to one.
  • Small quivers no longer produce arrows.
Example combine in a Fletching Kit:​
Large Bundle of Varnished Arrows + Mild Humanoid Monster Agent + Empty Quiver = Quiver of Humanoid Monster Arrows​
ITEMS
  • Bangle of the Sleepless Night vendor price reduced.
  • Wand of Altered Mana delay has been increased, but ratio remains the same.
  • The clicky effect on Benediction of Zeshan has been removed.
  • Deepmetal Plate, Deepmetal Chain, Imphide, and Shadow Silk tradeskill items have received a balance pass.
  • Robe of Flowing Water, Mantle of the Forest, Torment-Forged, and Searing Deepmetal items have received a balance pass.
  • Mid tier and above tailoring and blacksmithing armor has received a cosmetic overhaul.
SPELLS
  • Elemental Swagger is now flagged as a beneficial spell and should work as intended.
  • Ranger level on Soothe has been correctly set to level 25.
COSMETIC
All of the tradeskilled creations will have armor textures and weapon graphic updates to go with their improved stats. Anything higher than 100 skill will display the 'velious' textures on old model player characters. In cities across the land look for newly dressed citizens and bartenders to appear in these stylish velious textures as well! So far you can see evidence of this in Athica, Oggok and Grobb. In the coming weeks, look for this trend to spread to more cities, quest items, and older loot! There is a beta test fix for the long-standing issue of robes not displaying on some of our races. Drape of Virulent Scales and Thrice-Woven Mesh Robe should now show as a velious Chain Tunic on races which cannot display a robe. If an illusion is cast you may re-equip your item to refresh the appearance. Be aware that purposefully clicking the item on and off rapidly will cause a disconnection on your character.
 
Any mechanic that forces players to continue running old content is generally not cool. ie, augments that need to continually be re-acquired.

It seems like you have an issue with item permanence and not an issue with hardmodes. I have fond memories of doing the hardmode custodian and having seen the difficult curve that comes with 4 tower I now have a nice memory of that too. Marza knocked it out of the park and I wish more fights were like this in general.

Its also a weird complaint in a game where we are required to kill trivial raid targets to progress the mainquest or acquire valuable cat based clickies. Unless you are suggesting there will never be an upgrade to color swords idk why it was even brought up.

Regardless thanks for your work and I hope the fix can come soon!
 
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What if the said augment's didn't get deleted upon removal? Also, this entire game is full of running old content in order to progress and fully maximize your character's potential.
 
I was going to make a hardmode fight. But the fight was already hard. and it tends to take a lot of work. I like the idea of it also if it is done well. I am just reiterating a guideline I guess.
 
The fight mechanics governing the progressing difficulties of Thazeran the Great Guardian have been adjusted.
 
I'm not against hardmodes in general. I think that removing hardmode is going to be the only way to really find a good solution to this specific issue. Though I do agree with the staff's aversion to them because of overlapping content. If we were in a pre-vision version of the game, I would tend to agree that this game caters somewhat to competition and would stick by the original vision of the game. However, suddenly and without warning the vision for this game changed after a decade or so. In this new game where we aren't just classic EQ with a new coat of paint, I don't think we need to keep the old ways of getting mad at each other because of spawn timers.

I kept my first post in this thread pretty brief and it seems to have caused some confusion as to what I intended/hoped would happen. Since Cole has apparently added some changes, there's little point of elaborating now.
 
Hardmode should be removed. Get the swords by doing a quest (in the vein of nz/custo swords). Chance of dropping bonus loot scales with bosses alive or raid kill flags.
this is honestly super lame to suggest. the single hardest fight in the game scales by allowing more mechanics to be involved and the end result is an actual hard fight that requires literally everyone to not suck at the game. It's one of the few fights in the game when you beat it makes you feel like you've accomplished something other than not being sad you didn't wipe. The difference in zero tower thaz vs 4 is literally like two tiers worth of gear. Imagine wanting to actually have less content in the game? One fight has ~3 very distinct feels/difficulty/rewards to it based on what you encounter and it's a super well done fight.
 
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We haven't had a force to test this new mechanic you added, but just thought I'd chip my two cents. The fight doesn't need additional trash - all 4 wings are the pre-requisite and the trash which is already the most trash for a single fight in the game. Let's leave it at that.

I feel like this could be made much simpler while still remaining within the lore/structure of other similar pre-requisites.

Option 1: Have each UT wing be a flag similar to ToT wings, which eventually flags you for The Well aka Thaz (Tarhyl). An NPC is sitting at the Thaz lightning dick, you hail him, if majority of you pass, you can flag it to spawn 1-4 Tower. Can even add a layer to it where you need to kill successive towers for additional flags, i.e. can't do 4 tower until majority kills 3 tower.

Option 2: Each UT wing drops an item, which you turn into same NPC at the lightning dick to create a key that allows you to flag it to spawn 1-4 Tower.

This still allows people to kill "trash" aka the four wings, but only initially for flags/keys. This leaves the content for other guilds not quite up to par with 1-4 Tower yet, but still leaves the availability of 1-4 Tower open as well. Also, people doing 1-4 Tower still do want regular UT wing loot, so in addition - people would stop competing with themselves for once too.

Ill bring up the death fatigue conversation with Jumbers next time we speak.
If anything, I'd just really like resting stance to work while in DF. At least being able to be full mana at the end of it fading would be a good thing.

Any mechanic that forces players to continue running old content is generally not cool. ie, augments that need to continually be re-acquired.
Maybe make the LOIO safe aug remover a thing again? ;)
 
Any mechanic that forces players to continue running old content is generally not cool. ie, augments that need to continually be re-acquired.
Can mob dropped augs just be quest flagged please. As exhilarating as it is to kill Rohk on spawn forever it would be nice not to.

Or add a supersolvent that costs 10k (or whatever) that can remove an aug without destroying it.

Or add the Lake aug remover back into the game.
 
make the rujik quest we did for tomes count towards being able to remove augs safely that way all the time we put into it has a purpose
 
Any mechanic that forces players to continue running old content is generally not cool. ie, augments that need to continually be re-acquired.
I feel like this entire game involves killing content you've progressed past for quest pieces / clickies / bane items / different utility items and procs / augs. Its unfortunate there was a solution in the game to not have to kill the same mobs to re-acquire augments that was then removed for some unknown reason.

its unfortunate hard-mode mechanics are frowned upon. its one of the few ways i've seen genuinely difficult content exist long-term within the game. Looking at upper thaz as an example, i think almost every single boss has been nerfed in some way (with the exception of the earth wing and maybe magma?) on top of the zone being blanket nerfed by the MoTS fix (even though MoTS didnt work for a while, the damage was tuned as if it was working, making every mob end up doing significantly less spell damage than intended).
 
also on the list of "continually running old content / content you outgear" theres very little progression in terms of xp zones in SoD meaning you typically spend ur entire life in kaesora cause harder exp zones never get better.
 
RESTING OUT OF COMBAT RECOVERY
We have implemented a new resting recovery feature. Here are the key points:
  • The state of your character's recovery synchronizes with the client icon in the player health window:
    • Crossed Swords - You are in combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to in-combat recovery.
    • Poison Icon - You are weakened and cannot rest currently.
      • The player has a debuff that is preventing them from entering the fast recovery state.
    • Yellow Swirl - You are resting and recovering health, mana, and endurance at an increased rate.
      • A player will enter the resting recovery rate while sitting.
    • Hour Glass - You are recovering from combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to out-of-combat recovery. Indicates the player will be able to enter a rested state shortly
  • A player's out of combat status is now tracked separately from the group.
  • Raid groups will receive a lockout timer after engaging with a champion enemy, and cannot enter a rested state until this timer expires.
  • The fast recovery rate is a zone by zone setting. We will be manually adjusting this as time progresses.
I just want to take time to put down on paper what the current issues with this system are. Please feel free to contribute as people see necessary.
  • Buff Changes
    • 10 minutes is still a very short amount of time to have these buffs fade. 20 minutes would be much more favorable. Some events / fights take upwards of 10 minutes and if you're one of the first to wipe, you're asking for rebuffs constantly. Take in to consideration if the buff caster dies first, the entire raid is without that buff now for the difference in that fight.
      • 10 minutes also makes Soulbound very ineffective aside from the caster. An increase in buff duration would help this.
    • "Buff duration" AAs have very little value now.
  • Resting/Combat Recovery
    • Please, for the love of god remove the 5 minute boss timer. This quickly defeats the benefit of having this resting feature. Why implement a fast recovery feature but you're then throttled for the main purpose of it, which is boss fights and wipe RECOVERY. I mean really, how did this even come into consideration?
      • Please do not make killing subsequent monsters restart this timer.
      • Being in this state also prevents you from using Silent Halls totems. Again, another recovery mechanic added to the game that's negated by this rested recovery change.
    • I still think Death Fatigue should be removed, reduced in duration, or at least allow rested meditating. Really a horrible mechanic.
I think most people understand the direction you're trying to head in with these changes, but please stop adding small quirks in them to make it 10x more miserable than it has to be. Raiding is TIME INTENSIVE. Wipe recovery does not have to be some 10-15 minute process every time you die. Please.
 
We discussed all of these points.

Next patch will have a feature to address buffs and raid wipes.

Death fatigue is remaining as it is.

The 5 minute timer is still new. I am myself learning how it works. First thing is we need to do is research reports where it might be broken and fix those. Most of that seems to be done. I have been getting some false positives though.

Players should still have old regeneration rates inside death fatigue and the 5 minute timer. Correct?

Buff duration and soul bond are good points.
 
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