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Matia
01-12-2006, 07:33 AM
*** Headlines ***

- Mentor your friends without needing to change your hotbars!
- Adventure writs are now more convenient to obtain and offer clearer rewards!
- The Norrathian Express expands its coin and item delivery service between Qeynos and Freeport!
- Enjoy a plethora of enhancements to the user interface!
- House vaults gain some extra space!


*** Mentoring ***

- Your high level spells are now useable (at a reduced effectiveness) when you mentor a lower level player. No more messing with your hotbar when you want to help out a friend!
- Most spells will no longer drop or suspend when you start mentoring a lower-level player. Instead, they now adjust themselves accordingly.


*** Writs ***

- You can now select from a list of all writs you are eligible to embark upon when speaking to a writ giver.
- Characters who are not in a guild can now do writs for their city's faction.
- The amount of status awarded by writs is now based on your level in relation to the writ's level rather than your guild's level.
- Writ givers will now display quest icons appropriately.


*** The Norrathian Express ***

- Much to the chagrin of both Antonia Bayle and the Overlord, the Norrathian Express has expanded its services.
- Citizens of Qeynos and Freeport can now mail each other items and coin.


*** New Character Progression ***

- The Alpha test for the new character progression changes is now on the Test server in order to ensure existing below-20 characters will function properly.
- Full notes, along with more new character progression updates, will be on the Test server in Test Update #19b.
- You are welcome to play through the new content, and please send /feedback if you do, but expect a larger content update next week.


*** Desert of Flames ***

Quests
- Players that destroyed the Seeker's Notes before being offered the quest "I Seek Knowledge" can now return to Seeker Abdeef in Maj'Dul and ask him for a replacement note to begin the quest.
- You can now spawn the Ghost of Hadal on the final quest stage of "Secrets of a Used Skull."
- Page 15 of the exciting book "The Desert Beasts" can now be found in the Pillars of Flame.
- Players that completed "Wrapping It All Up" before completing "Delving Into Darkness" should now be able to speak to Seeker Abdeef and update the latter.
- The goblin documents will now highlight properly for those on the "Raid the Goblins!" quest.


*** Gameplay ***

- You can now jump off a flying carpet or griffon at any point along your path by hitting your jump key. Beware, as you may take considerable falling damage.
- Small obstacles and minor changes in elevation should now be less likely to prevent attacks from landing on a target. As long as your character has line of sight to most of a target's body, attacks should be likely to hit it. Please note that having the camera in first-person mode provides the best way to judge whether your character has clear line-of-sight to a target.
- You should now be able to attack NPCs that are touching or partially inside a wall.
- By popular request from those unfortunate souls who are prone to meeting an untimely demise, potion, poison, and totem effects will now persist through death.
- When a character successfully uses Safe Fall, the falling sound and "ouch" animation will no longer play.
- Going more than 50 meters away from an encounter will cause the active Heroic Opportunity for that encounter to disappear for you, freeing you to perform other Heroic Opportunities on other encounters. Returning within range will cause the Heroic Opportunity to reappear as long as you aren't participating in any other Heroic Opportunities.
- You can now see how many personal status points you have in your Persona window and earn more of them while you are not in a guild.


*** Items ***

- All creature Lore and Legend items now stack. These items are also no longer Lore.
- Language items are no longer Lore and No Value and can stack.
- Reading is fun! Share (most) of your book page finds with your friends, as they are no longer flagged as No Trade.


*** Quests ***

- You will now see how much status a Heritage quest will award when accepting the quest as well as in your journal.


*** Zones and Population ***

- Guard Waters was getting a bit chatty despite being dead off the coast of Antonica. He will no longer speak because, you know, he's dead.
- Shard recovery agents have all retired and have given up their short-lived potion business.
- NPCs just got smarter. They will now use abilities only from their subclasses and have a larger selection of abilities and spells to choose from as they level.
- The following changes were made to Darathar's island:
* Wandering orc scouts now see invis (they're scouts... they should be alert).
* The Rujarkian orcs have taken over in place of the old world's weak species.
* Rawg, Traitor of Zek and Er'aithe the Broodmother are now more challenging, drop appropriate treasures, and can see invis.
* Darathar has been practicing: He is now a little more challenging overall.
* Darathar is now aggressive toward any adventurers he sees.
* He will no longer break from an encounter to fly away.
* Be sure to pay heed to your Wands of Discordant Winds.
- Changes are afoot in Solusek's Eye, as a gnomish expedition has recently been sighted within.
* Note: Work on this zone is still in progress and will be completed in a subsequent Test update. Quest rewards are not yet in place, so you may want to wait a while to complete them.


*** Housing ***

- The Qeynos Exchange and Freeport Reserve have expanded their business and now allow those with more prestigious homes access to expanded vault facilities.


*** Spells, Abilities, and Combat Arts ***

- If you cancel the effect of someone's group maintained spells for yourself, it will not reapply after zoning.
- The examine info for damage spells will now show the type of damage that they inflict.
- Invisibility should properly reapply to your pet after zoning or logging out.
- Spells that summon items will now report to the caster if the target could not accept the item.
- Dumbfire pets will now receive damage from AoEs that do not explicitly target them.

Berserker changes:
- Open Wounds will no longer fizzle.

Rogue changes:
- Snoop will now properly grant the ability to see stealth.


*** Tradeskills ***

- The tradeskill UI will now display the stack count in the component choice window.
- You can now search for a particular recipe by name from the recipe window.
- The crafter's name will now display on stackable items as long as every item in the stack was created by the same character.
- The maximum stack size of all tradeskill-used fuels is now 100 instead of 20.


*** Art ***

- The first-person camera height for Erudites will now be at the eye level rather than their chest area.
- Halflings now appear slightly more youthful. Perhaps they obtained a certain unmentionable ring that preserves their youth...
- Particle effects will now appear on crocodiles.


*** Commands, Controls, and User Interface ***

General:
- Scout tracking abilities can now be filtered more specifically by name.
- The examine info for a spell will now say if the spell requires you to be sneaking.
- There is now a /load_uisettings command that allows you to load the UI settings from one of your existing characters. If you type the /load_uisettings command with no arguments, it will prompt you with a list of UI files to select from. You may also specify a specific file as an argument when using this command.
- Have friends on other servers or in other games? Great! You can now add friends from other games or other servers in much the same way you would send them a tell (For example, you can /friend unrest.blackguard to add Blackguard from the server Unrest to your friends list).
- Have enemies on other servers or in other games? Great! You can now ignore players from other servers or games in much the same way you would send them a tell (For example, you can /ignore unrest.blackguard to add Blackguard from the server Unrest to your ignore list).
- For those who want to see shorter combat messages, there is now a Hits Mode option (similar to EverQuest) for your chat windows in Options -> User Interface -> Game Features -> Hits Mode.
* Minimal: Shows just the damage numbers or in the case of a miss it shows miss/block/parry. Heals will also just show as numbers.
* Medium: Cuts down on the combat text a bit by removing the damage type and giving you strict basics.
* Full: This is how it exists today.
* Note: Full combat info will continue to be sent to your log file. The Hits Mode option only affects what you see in the Chat window.
- Anonymous and Roleplaying players will now be filtered properly when others perform a search:
* Anonymous characters will not show up for any specific searches made by players.
* Roleplaying characters will not show up in class, level, or race searches, but will still show up in LFG and LFW searches. They will also appear in guild and name type /who searches.
- You can now quickly change to a different character on your account by using the following command: /camp <character_name>
- Faction rewards from quests now give out the proper faction messages in the Chat window.
- There is now a short pause on the revive window (around 3 seconds) before it accepts any input to prevent accidental revives (or reviving in the wrong location) during combat.
- If you hear something in a language you haven't learned, you are now told what language was spoken.
- There is now a context menu option to select what language you would like to speak in if you right click the Chat window.
- Using the Collect Contents button in your house will no longer incorrectly report that you have no more space in your inventory if it encounters a Lore item that is already in your inventory.
- Ammo that is purchased will automatically be placed into empty slots in your quiver before going into other bags.

Information:
- Poison tooltips will now display the remaining proc count of your poison.
- Haste, DPS, and run speed are now displayed in the Persona window.
- Crush, Pierce, and Slash mitigation values will now appear in the mitigation tooltip on the Persona window.
- Examining a melee weapon and viewing the weapon's tooltip will now display its damage type.
- You can now view the amount of status reduction you currently have from the Housing window.
- When examining an item, your character's class will be highlighted in green if the item is useable for your class.

The Broker Window:
- The Broker window will now show real-time item quantities. If you buy an item, everyone who has that item on the page they're viewing will see the quantity decreasing. To avoid potential purchasing mistakes that might arise if items you see in the window are bought by someone else, items will show zero quantity instead of disappearing entirely.
- You can now Buy Stacks or Buy Quantities of items on the Broker window.
- The Broker window will now perform a search if the Enter key is pressed while the Item Name or Store Owner fields have focus.
- Class information is now displayed for items in the Broker window tooltips.
- Searching for food and drink should now be a bit simpler. For example, if you search for level 40-49 foods, you will now only see food that is appropriate for that level range.
- There is now an option to pop up a confirmation box when making expensive purchases from the Broker window. The default price is 10 gold, and the slider for the minimum price can be set from 1 gold to 5 plat. This is to prevent the accidental purchase of an expensive item. The option is available in Options -> User Interface -> Game Features -> Broker Window.

Groups and Raids:
- Raid leaders who have set group loot options to leader-only will be able to distribute loot to any member of any group in the raid.
- Raid leaders can now move a raid member to an empty slot in another existing group by dragging the character name to the desired group.
- Raid leaders can now swap raid members between groups by dragging one member's name on top of the other raid member's name.
- Selecting a raid member multiple times will now toggle between the raid member and their pet if they have one.
- Group and raid invites will no longer take focus if you are typing in the chat window.

kieroth_whiteleaf
01-13-2006, 03:22 AM
WOW.

That fixes almost all of the lingering /feedback issues I'd had regarding gameplay. I still have a few TS/class balance type issues, but I :heart: the stuff like /camp [charactername] and such.

Woot :)

SFG

Lordebon
01-13-2006, 10:26 AM
Yeah... /camp charname is nice, it replaces a 3 line macro that you had to use before to do that.

I really like the raid leader abilities... that'll save a LOT of time and hassle when I'm leading raids or in raids -- and it's something I've feedback'd several times. It's nice to see our feedback being read and used.

I like the broker warnings even more... the broker is just so laggy on AB, and its very possible to think one's buying item X for this much but instead buy something a page before for a lot more.

dahna
01-15-2006, 02:29 AM
Sneaky Test update include also a no more subcombine tradeskill change, you can read this here :

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=testfeed&message.id=41075

Guess I will stop updating until it will be done, because this will have an huge impact on the db.

kieroth_whiteleaf
01-15-2006, 09:29 PM
Oh bloody hell.

This is bad. On SO MANY levels.

I kinda like the idea conceptually, BUT -

1) Writs will be able to be done MUCH faster - which in T5 means a flood of cash/status. God help us all when T6/T7 writs come out.

2) Items don't require subs, so subcomponent market goes completely bye-bye

3) Flooding the market with finals is quick and easy

4) Botter heaven, yo!

COMPLETELY retarded. I realize subs (especially inks) are tedious, but this is NOT the answer.

SFG

Lordebon
01-15-2006, 10:52 PM
Woah.

Wooooah.

I don't particularly care for the sub market... never used it myself (except for the occasion lower teir WORT or something like that)... but still Woah. I certainly don't mind be able to do writs faster... I hate how slow it is for me to build up guild status (and ironforge faction). But still Woah.

As for botters... not even going to talk about that.

What annoys me is that I've heard nothing of this. I've not seen this in the test updates. That really makes me mad... are TS something so little cared for that they don't even mention such a <b>fundamental</b> change in the test notes?

Or could they at least wait until they have their whole new idea worked out to push it to test and tell everyone about it so we can see how it goes? From what I've read in that thread its very confused and only seems to make half sense.

kieroth_whiteleaf
01-16-2006, 02:44 AM
Just seems like far too drastic of a change to me.

IMHO: Retarded.

If this goes through it'll completely trivialize tradeskills. Might as well just take away levels entirely and let everyone combine whatever the h#$% they want.

I'm normally not a "sky is falling" type, but this can't be good. My only hope is that they think it through before letting it go live.

SFG

Liandra
01-16-2006, 04:27 AM
my understanding is that this is an unfinished idea that accidentally made its way onto test early. Potentially it could be VERY bad though

Mithas
01-16-2006, 11:56 AM
Wow, what a change.

I think this change, like most others, will be good for many people, and bad for others.

I think it has the potential for slowing down the rate of tradeskill levelling. Yes, I can hear the typing of replies already to the gist of "What are you talking about!?!?!". Here is why I think that will be the case:
1. No more discovery for refines and subcombines. Discovery of these recipes, especially in the lower levels accounts for a lot of the experience gain.
2. No more exp grinding on refines and subs. I don't remember for the lower levels, but in the last few tiers, over 50% of the experience I gained for each final product came from making the subs.
3. Most finals don't stack. With subs, you can grind out hundreds at a time for exp before having to go to the bank or the vendor to restock. Final products will have to be done in smaller batches.

Of course, we also don't know all the details about the new system. Other changes might be in the works, such as more overall progress needed to finish the product or a smaller range of durability before the product goes from pristine to normal. Heck, it could easily be made so that it takes as long or longer to make a single final in the new system as it did to make all the subs and the final under the old one.

No change can be made without an outcry that it will be a godsend for botters. I actually think such a change would hurt them more than help. Botters benefit from drudgery and tedium because they don't feel it. This change would remove extra steps and tedium from the process, making it more approachable to honest crafters and level the playing field a bit.

The sub-component market? Dead and buried already since the cross class skills came out. Sure, it's still possible to sell some subs, but I would be surprised if those sales were more than isolated cases and provide a fraction of the income from selling final products.

I believe that T6 crafting writs have been held up because of the potential the new system would have to make them quick money machines. T5 writs and tasks likely won't be abused too much under the new system since you still have to get the raws, and at least on my server, the tier 5 raws are either low in supply on the broker or extremely overpriced. There's also a timer on them as is. I am hard pressed to make all the subs and the finals for a writ before the timer expires anyway, so I don't think the ability to make the finals right off will make it possible to do any more over time than is possible now.

Will more people craft now who didn't before? I'd say some will, yes. But the faster exp gain was supposed to flood the market with high level crafters too, and I just haven't seen it. I am constantly getting requests for products even though I never advertise that I'm LFW and I have brisk sales on the broker. I don't think the new system would have much more of an impact than the exp change did.

Any detailed discussion at this point is moot anyway, as we don't know all the details of what might be implemented. It would have been nice for SOE to give some information about what was coming before just shoving it out to Test. Liandra probably has it right though, that the system wasn't ready yet and was inadvertently released too soon.

Prrasha
01-16-2006, 04:11 PM
(Pardon my derailment to a concept that's being talked about in the Primal Scream room, but it's a response to Mithas' 7th paragraph...)

T5 raws are rare and expensive on the broker because the T5 zones are wall-to-wall farmers, at least on my server. The same couple dozen toons are on 24/7, some harvesting, some grinding T5 workshop tasks in the scholar instances. Add T6 (T7) writs, and T5 will become common and cheap on the broker, while whatever the highest task level is will become rare and expensive, as all these locked-at-level-50 scholar types will become level 60 or 70 overnight. Unless SoE makes workshop tasks an inefficient way to make money, or decides to kick all these folks off the server (yeahright), it'll always be this way.

Elendorn
01-16-2006, 04:59 PM
Hum I think the main impact is that you will need 2 to 3 times more harvested items to gain the same amount of experience. For t6 now it's not an issue, since every adventurer and their mother is harvesting in Sinking Sands, so the market is flooded. But earlier levels will be much tougher.

Also, the t5 writs are protected with a timer now, but the Workshop tasks aren't. So if you can harvest, it's going to be great money in no time. That's of course if they don't change the workshop and writs at the same time, which I bet they will.

On a related note, I felt some bigger change was being worked on. SoE was ignoring all the stuff that's been lacking in t6 (t6 writs, workshop tasks, advanced furniture). At the same time, they were spending the time fixing some of it (t6 food duration, the event reactive skill mismatches, ...). I'm starting to think that if SoE is apparently not working on an area, it means they're changing it completely in the background. Couple examples:
- t6 adventurer writs: instead of adding new writs with the old system, they had us wait for a couple more LUs, and added t6 writs that work differently.
- guild patrons: instead of fixing all the exploits, they removed them.

So all in all, I'm thinking they're working on changing the system, then they'll fix the 'details' like t6 writs, and add the t7 stuff at the same time.

And by the way, so far, I've been very happy with all the 'big' design changes they made, as well as all the small fixes that make the game more fun. I have a feeling this one is gonna be good in the long run, too.

Lordebon
01-16-2006, 05:11 PM
my understanding is that this is an unfinished idea that accidentally made its way onto test early. Potentially it could be VERY bad though

My thinking exactly... just kinda annoys me that I haven't heard a word about the changes from it. IMHO not know that something was pushed to test isn't an excuse... if they don't even know what code they push out to the servers, then something's wrong.

Niami DenMother
01-16-2006, 11:00 PM
Today was enough of a U.S. holiday that I don't think there was anyone around to respond to this ... nor is Test often something urgent enough that they'd pull someone in on a paid holiday to back something out that doesn't belong.

Hopefully we'll hear more tomorrow.

kieroth_whiteleaf
01-17-2006, 12:04 AM
IF they make final combines not do as much xp as the previous final + subs that's actually a BAD thing - #1 it slows progression (which I'm actually ok with but many - soe seemingly included - are against), #2 it floods the market with an excess of goods.

WIth regards to botters - it's better for them. MUCH better. Making final combines (in bulk) requires making stacks of different kinds of subs, then combining them all together. Writing a script to do this would generally also require some way of moving your character between crafting stations (since alchemy and provisioning are the only two that can be done without changing tables). Not to mention the fact that you'd have to rotate which subs were produced at each, and you've got yourself a difficult to handle macro. I realize products that do this DO exist, BUT -

Under the "new" system, assuming you were loaded with the appropriate raws and fuel, any cheap macro keyboard coupled with one of the eq2interface TS skins (one of the ones that allows you to hit enter to do "repeat" and "create") - map your buffs to hotkeys and just have the thing do 1,2,3,enter over and over and over again and you've got your own bot. Walk over to the station, select a recipe, activate macro and you're good to go. It's actually easier to macro than when they switched to the 1-click TSing of EQ1.

Hopefully the devs think it through.

SFG

Niami DenMother
01-18-2006, 12:16 AM
Beghn's started responding to the thread on the SoE forums about this. Since it's important that the entire community see the information, I've grabbed all the quotes from him (so far) regarding it, and put it in a thread in General:

http://www.mboards.eqtraders.com/eq2/showthread.php?t=5551