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Across the Vast Divide |
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| Aluvians | Event Teaser - From the Turbine Site “In the
course of our travels to other worlds, it has become apparent that we are
not the only entities that are aware of the place that exists between these
worlds. It can be theorized that we are not the first race to pass through
these portal wells, nor will we be the last.” – Asheron Realaidain, Master
of the Lyceum at Knorr
Roll Out Article - From the Turbine Site The sound of porous bone
drawn across supple flesh presages the appearance of blood-soaked words.
There is no quill writing upon the page, nor is there light in this chamber,
far removed from the surface of the world. No footfalls in the hallways, no
being working over the tome, only a whisper of a woman’s voice endlessly
speaking, followed by the sound of bone carving the flesh of the book. So it
has been since the coming of the dark ones, since the world grew cold and
darkness consumed darkness while the light whimpered and watched its
children fall.
Yaraq Developer's Notes - From the Turbine Site New Functionality and Content
March
Letter to the Players -
From the
Turbine Site
Welcome to the March 2004 Letter to the Players! This
letter was initially intended for Monday, March 1st, but we held it so that
we could include additional comments regarding the treasure changes.
In Dereth, we were reminded that not all threats to
civilization need come from outside. Near Zaikhal, an entire force of
Zharalim fell to corruption and madness, and strange small statues were
found in several towns, encouraging the citizens of Dereth to refuse
Asheron’s protection and battle one another. Now let’s take a look at some of the changes coming in the
March event. Last month, we introduced the first part of sweeping
changes to our treasure system, and we received a great deal of negative
feedback. One thing that the feedback made clear is that we failed
to properly prepare you for both the long-term and short-term impacts of the
change. In addition, your feedback has alerted us to a number of issues with
the change that we are working to resolve. What is the long-term goal of these changes? Essentially,
it is to resolve a number of limitations in our loot system. The old loot
system had a number of issues. There were four generic levels of loot that
we could give to creatures intended for characters below level 50, but only
two levels of loot for characters above level 50. This made balancing loot
for the most uber characters very difficult – almost anything that we added
for the most difficult monsters would start appearing in monsters intended
for all 50+ characters. This was the largest flaw, but there were other
issues across the board. Our goal is that creatures intended for a specific level
range should be more likely to drop loot that is useful for that level
range. For example, newbie characters should not find 325 wield req weapons
that they can’t use, and Uber characters should not find weapons with no
wield req. Also, there should be no creatures that always drop “useless
loot”. There will always be a range of loot, but that range should be more
reasonable than it has been in the past. The first phase of our changes tied the six levels of loot
directly to the six target levels of characters that have existed in the
game for some time: Newbie (1-20), Low (20-40), Mid (40-60), High (60-80),
Extreme (80+), and Uber (100+). Creatures intended for characters in a
specific level range should drop loot appropriate for characters in that
level range. This improved loot overall for many creatures – many Tuskers
are a good example – but also decreased the average quality of loot found on
other creatures – such as many Olthoi. Many types of Olthoi had been given
loot well above their target level. This was good for players who just
wanted to loot a lot of peas easily, but was annoying for the players who
were intended to fight these Olthoi. These low-level players tended to get
weapons and items as loot that they wouldn’t be able to use for some time. How do you know where to find creatures for your level?
The best place to look is at our Creature Distribution Map, which can be
found on our
Download page. This map shows how the creatures were laid out during the
landscape redistribution last year. The levels given are suggested player
levels, so that gives you a place to start hunting and see how it feels.
Now, just to be very clear about this – AC is a
skill-based game, not a level-based game. The ranges on that map are
suggestions based on assumptions we have made about average skill levels and
hunting styles. We suggest that you start with the range that that
corresponds to your level and see how you like it. If you've pumped more XP
into your combat skills, or if you like to live life out on the edge, you
may want to go up a range and see how that feels. If you have spread your
experience out more, or you're a more conservative sort, you may be happiest
trying out the range below your actual level. Our goal with this map was
merely to make some useful suggestions about where to start. I cannot overemphasize the fact that the changes to
creatures are not done yet. Due to the size and scope of these
changes, it was not possible to make all of them in one month. As we
mentioned in last month’s Rollout Article, there are still a number of
issues. Some of these issues will be resolved in this month; others are
pending for April and later. The following issues will be resolved in the March event: Does this mean that there is a chance to find level 7
scrolls on creatures and in loot? Yes. Yes it does. Does this mean that there is a chance to find level 7
spells on loot items? Sorry, not at this time. In addition, some chests have been adjusted so that they
have a chance of providing better loot than other sources within the same
target level range. Runed Chests and the Virindi Troves are good examples
of this. The Singularity Trove deserves its own comment. The
Singularity Trove used to be in the class with the best possible loot in
the game – but the troves and keys could be found by characters at a lower
level. The Singularity Trove is now in the 80+ target range of loot. At the moment though, the 80+ and the 100+ ranges have a
lot of overlap. In addition, many of the issues that were reported with
Singularity Troves in February – such as scroll levels and weapon
modifiers – will be resolved this month. The following issue should be resolved in the April event: Starting in April, creatures that are designed for
characters within 5 levels of a difficulty break will have the treasure
intended for the next highest difficulty. For example, creatures that are
intended to be fought by level 36 characters will have loot intended for
characters from 40 to 60. In addition, some creatures that are completely outside
the system will be brought in, and other creatures will be adjusted as
necessary. It is important to remember that a creature’s level is
not a direct correlation to the level of character that should be
fighting it. In general, you should be able to take on creatures that are
higher level than you are. When we rebalanced creatures last year we tried
to line up the display level so that there is an obvious relationship
between that and difficulty – so that a level 110 monster is harder than a
level 100 monster. However, some creatures are easier for one type of
character – mages, say – and harder for another – melee, say. So if you're
a melee, a level 100 mage-oriented creature may be tougher for you than a
level 110 melee-oriented creature. The following issue will be resolved in a future update: Does balancing armor include introducing new types of
armor? Probably, yes. Another issue that has resulted in a great deal of
feedback is the value of items – many players have reported difficulty in
making enough pyreals through hunting to pay for their components, mana
charges, and other consumables. We are watching the situation closely, but
at this time we have no plans to directly change the value of loot items.
Many of the other changes that we are making – both in treasure and
elsewhere – may change the situation considerably. In particular, the scroll
changes may resolve the issues reported with mages not being able to afford
scrolls that they needed. We understand that a large number of you were very
surprised and upset by these changes. We believe that this was caused by two
main factors. The first is that the changes are not complete, and you are
seeing an incomplete system at work. The second is that I personally did not
properly explain the goals and phases of these changes – I hope that this
letter explains things to your satisfaction. What do these topics have in common? The two changes are
being made primarily from a PvP point of view, but they also impact NPK
players. In the past, there has been no means of buffing or
debuffing another player’s armor. Negative armor Item Enchantment spells
such as Lures or Brittlemail were only useful on a target wielding a
shield. PK and PKL players have never had a means of countering, or
“breaking through,” the positive effects cast upon an opposing player’s
armor. Starting in March, you will now be able to do so – with some
limitations. Beginning in March, Item Enchantment armor buffs or
debuffs cast upon a player who is not wielding a shield will redirect
to whatever armor is worn on that player’s chest. If the player is not
wearing armor, the spell will fail. Clothing, such as a shirt or Asheron’s
Raiment, does not count in this situation – but robes do, as they are
considered armor. When cast on a player wielding a shield, these spells will
redirect to his or shield, as they have for several months now. This allows for several new options for players. NPK
players can assist a friend with armor buffing, so long as their friend is
not wielding a shield. However, we expect these changes will be most useful
to PKs and PKLs, who can now debuff the armor of their opponents. It is important to note that the dynamics associated with
buffing or debuffing a target’s armor will work similarly to that of a
target’s shield or weapon. If the targeted item is not wielded at the time
the spell is cast, the spell will fail. If the targeted item is
unenchantable, the spell will also fail. This change is intended to provide a method to directly
counter the ability to debuff another player’s weaponry. Without the
ability to negate a player’s positive armor Item Enchantment spells, it was
often very difficult for a melee or missile attacker to inflict meaningful
damage on an opponent. A player could always debuff a weapon, tilting the
combat advantage in his or her favor – yet the player using a physical
attack had no equivalent tactic available. For some time, the low-level transfer spells have been
unbalanced at high levels, and not as effective as hoped at the low levels
for which they were designed. For example, a high level mage can often cast
Stamina to Health I and restore almost all – if not all – of his health.
This seems inappropriate for a first-level spell. Why is it so much better
than Heal Self I, for example? Let us define what is meant by Life Magic transfer spells:
Health to Mana, Health to Stamina, Mana to Stamina, Mana to Health, Stamina
to Health, and Stamina to Mana are all of the spells that we consider to be
part of the Life Magic transfer class of spells. These spells traditionally
take a portion of one secondary attribute (health, mana, or stamina), and
convert some amount of that portion into a different secondary attribute. Starting in March, the first three levels of transfer
spells will have their percentage returned increased, to improve their value
for low-level characters. In addition, to reduce the imbalance issue, the
first four levels of transfer spells will have their maximum transfer
capped. Please see the table below – bold numbers represent new
values: Level of Transfer Spell Percentage Drained Old Percentage Converted New Percentage Converted Old Maximum Transfer New Maximum Transfer I 50% 75% 90% None 50 II 50% 90% 100% None 100 III 50% 105% 110% None 150 IV 50% 120% 120% None 200 V 50% 135% 135% None None VI 50% 150% 150% None None VII 50% 175% 175% None None “Maximum Transfer” refers to the maximum value either
drained or converted. For example, Stamina to Health I, when cast by a
character with 150 Stamina, used to drain 75 points of Stamina and provide
56 points of Health. Now, it will only drain 50 points of Stamina, and
provide 45 points of Health. No level I transfer spell will drain or
provide more than 50 points of any pool. This change is intended to increase the value and usage of
low-level transfer spells for low-level characters, while decreasing their
power when used by high-level characters. Since their introduction, arc spells have used the same
spell words as bolt spells, due to the fact that they use the same
components when not using Foci. For example, both Flame Bolt and Flame Arc
use the words Zojak Quaguz. In today’s PvP arena, this means that one aspect of player
skill – knowing what the spell words mean so you can know what your opponent
is casting at you – cannot be used when trying to distinguish Bolts from
Arcs. Starting in March, Arcs will have a different formula –
they will use Amaranth instead of Hawthorn. Players who use Foci will not
notice a difference – they will still use prismatic tapers and scarabs – but
the spells will now have Kedrack as their first word instead of
Zojak. If you aren’t using the War Magic Foci, you will need to buy
Amaranth before you will be able to cast Arc spells. So now, if you see your opponent say Zojak Quaguz,
you will know that he’s casting a bolt and not an arc. As we stated in the February Letter to the Players, we are
taking a closer look at a number of PK and PKL issues. In the near future,
you may see changes to: I can’t provide a specific ETA for any of these changes,
but we want to let you know what we are working on. The feedback threads
that we’ve run on our forums have given us a lot of great information about
what you do and don’t like about PvP combat in Asheron’s Call. We’ll be
using that information to make PvP better for the folks who play it most. In March we are continuing our ongoing process of updating
out-of-date quests and areas. This month, you’ll see Yaraq and its
surroundings receive an update similar to Shoushi’s update in January. The
Invoker, or Portalspace, quest will also be updated. One of the new quests this month has as a key part of it a
quest dynamic that you’ve not seen before – fellowship quests and “locked”
fellowships. A fellowship quest means that your whole fellowship is on the
quest, not just an individual. If you drop out of the fellowship, you will
not be able to complete the quest. A “locked” fellowship is one in which new
members cannot be recruited for the length of the quest. Fellowship members
who leave the group have 15 minutes to get back in before they are unable to
rejoin. Please, don’t take these changes as an indication
that we are removing Asheron’s Call’s soloability! The ability to advance
while playing alone is one of Asheron’s Call’s strengths, and we have no
intention of removing it. However, in certain special circumstances or for
specific quests, we may use these new features to ensure that the quest be
tackled by a group of players. As we’ve hinted at elsewhere, March is the first month of
our next exciting story arc: The Shattered Coil. What danger now
menaces Dereth? Only time – and your adventures and explorations – will
tell.
Letter to the Players Follow-Up -
From the
Turbine Site
In listening to the feedback received since posting the Letter to the
Players, we’ve realized that there are some gaps in our communication
process. One of the largest of these is that frequently players are not
advised of changes included in an upcoming month until the Letter to the
Players for that month is posted. Because of our schedule, this means that
by the time we are seeing your reaction to planned changes, we are already
in a freeze state in which altering or reverting those changes are very
difficult. I’d like to apologize for not taking further steps to prevent all of you
from being blindsided by some of our upcoming changes. More to the point,
we’re making some big changes to the way we release information about
upcoming updates. We’ll be releasing information farther ahead of time,
which will allow us to listen to your feedback and discuss these concepts
and ideas with you long before we begin development on them. In addition to this article, we plan to provide in-depth articles
regarding several large-scale systems and our visions for them. The first of
these, regarding PvP combat, should be posted early next week. The second
will be regarding the Treasure changes and will follow a week or so later.
The third will talk about our plans to improve the buffing process and will
probably follow a week after the Treasure article. Each Letter to the Players will now have three sections. The first
section is going to contain information about the upcoming month. The second
section, “In Development,” will contain information about what we are
working on for the next month. The third section, “In Concept,” is
going to contain information about changes that we are working on for later
updates. This will give you more information about future changes and more
opportunity to provide feedback on these changes before we even write a
single line of code. Only changes to existing game systems will be included
in these updates; in general we will not release information about upcoming
content. It is important to stress that nothing in the "In Development" or
"In Concept" is final. These are all works in progress. Nothing in
either section is guaranteed to go into the game in the form described, or
even at all. The purpose of these sections is to find out how you feel about
these topics before they are final. Rather than explain in further detail, you can see exactly what I mean
below. We wanted to get this information about April and beyond up as soon
as possible, as many of the changes you’ll see below directly impact many of
the concerns that were raised regarding the March Letter to the Players.
Coming in March (These are items that are
coming in the March event. In the past, we would have saved this information
for the March Rollout Article. Under the new communication system, they are
appropriate for the Letter to the Players.) “Hidden” Properties No
Longer Hidden There are several quest weapons, such as the
Quadruple-Bladed Axe, that have what we’ve referred to in the past as a
“hidden property”. Starting in March, these properties will appear when you
ID such an item. An item that is described as having the Biting Strike property has
a greater chance of a critical hit in combat. An item that is described as
having the Crushing Blow property has a greater than normal critical
multiplier – it is likely to do more damage in a critical hit. Unlike imbues, these properties do not scale with your skill; they are
set to a specific level. Character Options Over the years, we’ve added several options to
the Character Options panel. The grouping of these options was, well,
counterintuitive at times. Starting in March, the options will be grouped
under the following headers: User Interface Behavior, User Interface
Display, Grouping, Other Players, Character Behavior, and Chat.
In addition, we’re adding several new options – Character Display
Options, and Crafting Confirmation. Character Display Options These options will be found under
Other Players and control what other players can see if they
successfully assess you. The different pieces of information that you can
toggle on or off are: All of these options are toggled off by default. Crafting Confirmation This is something that has been requested
several times, and we’re happy to be able to provide it. Starting in March,
there will be a new option in the Character Options panel under User
Interface Display: “Crafting Chance of Success Dialog.” This option is unchecked by default. If you leave it unchecked, all
crafting interactions, including Tinkering, behave as they have in the past.
Most interactions simply either succeed or fail, while some interactions –
mostly Tinkering – have a warning in advance. If you check this option, any existing warnings will not be shown.
Instead, you will make the “clapping” motion and the following will occur: Obviously, few crafters will leave the option permanently checked or
unchecked. If you’re making flour and your odds are, say, 95%, you probably
want to leave it unchecked. On the other hand, if you’re tinkering your best
weapon with Black Garnet, you probably want to check the option so you have
an idea what your odds are. Ulgrim We want to warn you in advance that Ulgrim won’t be found
in his house immediately after the March event. Don’t worry, he’s not gone
for good! He’s just run into a bit of trouble – see the
teaser.
You’ll be seeing more of Ulgrim later in the month, and you’ll be able to
complete the quest in his house again before the month is over.
In Development (These are the game changes
that we are working on for the April event. None of these items are
guaranteed to be added for April, as scheduling and priorities can change.
Once the process has matured over the next two months or so, In Development
will contain items from the In Concept section that we’ve discussed with you
and decided to put in the development pipeline. There is no set schedule for
In Development items to go into an episode; this section only notes that
they are being worked on. As this is the first month for this section, it contains the work for
April and your feedback on these topics would be particularly valuable.) Settlement Portals For some
time, the Settlement Portal Hubs have been found outside almost all of the
towns and cities of Dereth. These Hubs provided fast transportation all
across Dereth, but many players have complained that... well, they just look
ugly. In April, we are planning to introduce the first phase of
a two-phase process to remove the Settlement Portals. The first phase is the
creation of portal summoning gems for all of the Settlements that are
currently linked to the Hubs. Each Settlement will have a vendor who will
sell that Settlement’s gem. The second phase, currently planned for May, is the
removal of the Settlement Portal Hubs entirely. The goal of these changes is to remove the ugliness of the
Hubs, as well as encourage exploration and travel through Dereth’s
wilderness. If there are several Settlements that you visit regularly, you
have the opportunity to purchase gems for these Settlements in the month of
April, before the Hubs are removed. If you wish to visit your friend’s home,
you can ask you friend to purchase that Settlement’s gem for you. We would
not be surprised to see gems for particularly popular Settlement
destinations being traded in the Marketplace! Content Revisions We plan
to revise two towns and two quests in April. Holtburg will be revised in the
same way that Shoushi was in January and Yaraq will be in March. The portal
drops and Lifestone locations will be made more convenient, and the
surrounding content will be adjusted for balance. The second town that we are planning to revise is the
Lugian fortress of Linvak Tukal. It will be getting a Lifestone and direct
portal access, without the need to fight through the entryway. Along with Linvak Tukal, we plan to revise the Arm, Heart,
Mind quest. Confusing aspects of the quest timing will be fixed, and the
quest rewards will be adjusted. The second quest to be revised is the Little Green Seeds
quest. Terese’s interactions and the Swamp Garden will be revised, and new
types of seeds for higher-level creatures will be introduced. This doesn’t
mean new colors of dye, however. Vendor Buy-Sell Rates Ever
since the creature spawn changes, there have been some disparities between
the difficult of hunting around certain towns and the buy-sell rates of the
vendors inside those towns. In April, we plan to adjust the vendor buy-sell
rates in several towns to better reflect the surrounding area. In addition, to give each town some unique flavor, each
town will have one or two vendors who have better buy/sell rates than the
rest of the town. Dispel Revisions For some
time, the dispel gems have been considerably better than any of the dispel
spells or dispel potions. Dispel gems could remove all of your debuffs in
one shot, they only removed negative spells, and they could remove level VII
spells. To improve the situation and create more versatility and
usefulness for dispels, we are planning to add level VIIs to spells and
potions, and decrease the power of gems: These potions will
remove a random number of negative spells from the user, and will not
remove positive spells. In general, when I write, “a random number” above, the
final random range has not yet been finalized. We’re looking at a range of
or near 1-6 spells for each dispel. Buffing Improvements The
Buffing Changes article that will be following will provide information on
all of our planned buffing improvements and how they fit together. The first
of these, faster self-buffs, is planned for April. In April, we plan to make all Creature and Life Self buffs
cast at the same speed as a level I spell, no matter what their level. This
should cut down on the amount of time spent preparing for battle for players
who cast their own buffs. Why the Self spells and not Others? We believe that
training a skill yourself should always have some advantage over relying on
others who have trained the skill. What about Banes? As there are no “Self” or “Other”
versions of these spells, we need to be a bit more careful about our changes
to them. You’ll see some information regarding our plans for Banes in the
In Concept section below, as well as in the coming Buffing Changes
article. House Purchase Timer An
issue that has resulted in a great deal of feedback is that of players
camping houses solely for the purpose of resale and a profit. After receiving all of your feedback, we've come at this
issue from a different angle. If we can prevent these players from being
able to quickly unload these houses and purchase new ones, it will impede
their ability to tie up the entire housing market. Treasure Changes, Phase 3
We’ve already mentioned several of the ongoing Treasure changes coming in
April in the March Letter to the Players, such as adjustments to border
creatures. In addition, we plan to make the following changes: “Second-class” Weapons Get Upgrades
In the past, some weapons within a weapon class were just
plain undesirable. For example, if you were a Mace user and you wanted
maximum damage, there was no reason to look at anything other than a
Morningstar. You turned up your nose at a Kasrullah. In April, we’ll be making changes to bring the low-end
damage weapons closer to par with the maximum damage weapons in each class.
This is similar to the changes we made to bows and crossbows last year;
however we are not necessarily giving all weapons within a class the same
maximum damage. In many weapon classes there will still be weapons that have
a lower maximum than others, but the difference will be much smaller.
No weapon class is having its maximum damage increased,
and some classes are being changed more than others. For example, all three
types of Unarmed Combat weapons had the same maximum damage, so they will
not be touched. Weapons that are considered to be a “secondary damage type”
– Rapiers, Spiked Clubs, Naginatas, and Warhammers – are not being changed,
and we are taking into account the differences between hiltable and non-hiltable
Swords and Daggers. Fellowship Spells As we
have hinted in the past, we are introducing spells that can be cast on all
members of a fellowship simultaneously. The first of these spells are
planned for April. We are taking it slow with these – they are only
attribute buffs, and no more powerful than existing spells.
Envoy Policy Changes Katahdin is
working with the Dev Team to help the Envoy team better assist you, our
players. Here are two of the ideas that we are currently considering: The Envoy team would like to encourage players to move
their bots into the outer rooms of the Marketplace. In addition, players
need to ensure that the speech that they are having their trade bots use is
not offensive. We are considering removing offensive or badly-placed trade
bots from the Marketplace. These bots would not be banned or booted, but
would be removed to isolated rooms until their owners return.
Tell us what you think of the ideas In Development! In Concept (These are the game additions and
changes that we are thinking about for May and beyond. We cannot guarantee
that any of these additions and changes will be added to the game. The whole
purpose of this section is to let you know what we’re thinking about doing,
give you a chance to comment and to have a dialogue with us about them. I can’t stress strongly enough – it is entirely
possible that none of the changes listed below will ever make it into
the game. We are going to be carefully watching what you post about these
concepts.) Content Revisions In the future, we would like to
revisit all towns in the same fashion that Shoushi has been revisited, and
Yaraq and Holtburg will be revised in March and April respectively. We also would like to revise the difficulty and rewards of Marae Lassel,
Aerlinthe, and the Vesayens in the same way that we revised the Singularity
Caul. In each case the island and associated quests would be revised for new
(not necessarily higher) target levels. We would like to revise the following quests: Palenqual’s Living Weapons,
Singularity Weapons, the “Three Crystals Quests” (aka the Fenmalain,
Caulnalain, and Shendolain Vaults), the Quiddity Weapons, and the Composite
Bow and Crossbow. In discussing the Treasure changes, we’ve
mentioned that one of the reasons that the changes were necessary was to
allow us to add cool new loot at the top end. What are we thinking of?
We’re thinking of higher wield-req melee and missile weapons and wield-req
casting items. To prevent these new items from throwing off existing
damage-over-time balance, as well as PvP balance, we are looking at
possibilities other than simply increased damage. One possibility is new,
special imbue effects that cannot be added through tinkering, or – for the
missile weapons and casters – special bonuses to specific types of
elemental damage. New Loot Armor Right now the loot system has some rather obvious flaws when it comes
to armor, such as when a high-level creature drops AL20 leather. We have
held off on adjusting the armor drop system as we are looking at a
complete revamp of it including new types of armor. We’re looking at
adding a new class of armor for each of the three races. These new types
would not be considerably better than existing armor, but would mix up the
existing racial armor stereotypes. For example, perhaps the new Aluvian
armor has metal protections like Celdon, but is a two-piece set like Amuli?
These questions are still being investigated. If it appears that we will have to delay the introduction of the new
armor, we can look at adjusting the armor drop tables without them. We
would prefer not to, but we understand that you would prefer to stop
finding AL20 armor in non-low-level loot as soon as possible. Rares Rares would be an entirely new type of loot drop, separate from
existing loot and trophies. Rares would have an extremely small chance of
dropping from any creature, at any time – you would be just as likely to
find a Rare on a Drudge Prowler as you would on a Virindi Profatrix. Rares would be designed to be useful to almost any character, but not
better in way that could be unbalancing. For example, we are considering a
Rare form of healing kit that has interesting properties with regards to
chances of healing and the amount healed. We would probably not consider a
Rare sword that has a base damage triple existing swords. Rares are intended to be exciting and interesting semi-unique items.
When you find a Rare, we want your reaction to immediately be, “Cool!” no
matter which Rare it is. One interesting note – to help us determine what the drop rate on Rares
might be, we decided to find out exactly how many creatures are killed by
our players in a given month. We added code to the game that would count
this for us! In the time between the January and February events, here are
how many creatures each world killed: Darktide: 13.5 million We won’t be doing these counts every month, but it’s some interesting
information to think about! More information on the above three Treasure topics may be found in the
upcoming Treasure article. In addition to accelerated self buffs and Fellowship spells, we are
looking at introducing spells that buff multiple attributes
simultaneously. These spells could be introduced for Life, Creature,
and/or Item Magic. The exact details of these spells – how do you learn
them, what is the cost, how many attributes do they buff
simultaneously – are still in development. More information on this topic will be in the upcoming Buffing
Improvements article. Missile Attack Improvements We are investigating two improvements for Bow, Crossbow, and Thrown
Weapons characters: We are
investigating the possibility of adjusting this slider to allow for
fastest speed with a smaller penalty – or no penalty – without changing
the bonus given at slowest speed. Town Improvements We are investigating several ideas to increase the appeal of towns and
increase the number of players that can be found in towns at any given time.
Some of these ideas include some form of crafting bonus that can only be
found in towns, or some form of capture-and-hold dynamic to appeal to PK and
PKL players. Allegiance Improvements We’re investigating a number of improvements to Allegiances in general.
Some of these include allegiance officers with titles, more controls on who
can and cannot enter an allegiance (such as account bans), better chat
functions and controls, and the ability to name your Allegiance. Mansion Improvements We’re well aware that many players feel that Mansions are not worth their
maintenance cost, and we are working on several ideas to make Mansions more
valuable. Most of these are special hookable objects similar to Jojii’s
Font. PvP Changes A number of the above topics touch on PvP combat, but there are other
topics that are specifically focused on PvP: More information on our vision and goals for PvP will be found in the PvP
article early next week. Web Integration Once we finish the billing transition, currently scheduled for this
summer, we can begin looking at tying the Asheron’s Call website more
tightly to the game. Some of the features we are considering include a
single login to both the game and the forums, the ability to view your
character or allegiance statistics on the web, and ranking or ladder
systems.
Tell us what you think of the ideas In Concept! Conclusion Wow! That’s a lot of information to throw at you all at once. Again, it’s
important to remember that these are all things we are working on (In
Development) or thinking about (In Concept). Only the
Coming in March items are going to be in the game. But now you have
almost as much information as we do about our goals for the game in
the coming year and beyond. In addition, I should note that just because something isn’t on
the current list of In Development and In Concept items, that
doesn’t mean we won’t do it. There are always bug fixes and changes
that can come up late in the development cycle. We’ll work hard to let you
know of these changes as soon as we know they’re coming. Your feedback on all of these topics will be extremely valuable, as will
your feedback on this new level of communication.
Tell us what you think! We’ve recently made or proposed a number of changes to the world of PK
and PKL combat, and we’d like to take this time to provide more information
on where we are, where we’re going, and how we feel about the state of
Asheron’s Call’s PvP. However there are a number of factors that
prevent AC’s PvP from being as great as it could. Some of these factors are: Balance issues. While Mage / Sword
balance is very tight, the other melee classes and archers are currently
less competitive. There is still a wide gap between the Weeping Weapons
and all other weapons and weapon classes in PvP combat. Animation issues. The same system that
makes AC’s combat feel realistic has a number of problems. Jump-spin,
“godmoding” potions and other consumables, fastcasting, slidecasting...
these are just the top issues. This has been exacerbated by varied Dev
Team response and a lack of communication regarding which, if any, of
these actions are “acceptable” and which are “exploits”. Time spent preparing. Since you can be
attacked at any time, you must be at maximum readiness at almost all
times. This results in a great deal of time spent buffing and not
fighting. Lack of meaningful fights. By this we
mean battles that have consequences, whether that is control of a
location or resource, or some sort of recognizable achievement such as
placement on a PK ladder. Left with this void, players on Darktide have
created their own resources to fight over – macroing locations.
All of the above issues need to be handled in
order to make AC’s PvP all it can be. Aegis-like equipment. Our current design
is an item that could be used on any loot missile weapon to add a Magic
Absorbing property to it. This property would be similar to the Aegis
Shield and would scale based on the wielder’s Magic Defense. The
downside is that the missile weapon would lose any melee defense
adjustment that it might possess. Also, obviously, one would need to
choose between this weapon and one’s Weeping Bow, Crossbow, or Atlatl. We are also looking at the possibility of
creating similar equipment for casting objects, in order to give mages a
choice similar to the choice we are giving missile users. Pathing options. We would like to
introduce a new pathing type for missile attacks. War Mages have the
ability to choose between Bolts and Arcs for the purposes of targeting,
whereas missile users have only one option. Any new option would likely
be either through some sort of option in the attack bar, or through a
new form of ammunition Speed vs. accuracy. Currently setting the
speed/accuracy slider to the far left allows you to fire at maximum
speed, but penalizes your skill by 50%. Likewise, setting the slider to
the far right gives you a 50% bonus to your skill, but fires at the
slowest rate. We are investigating the possibility of
adjusting this slider to allow for fastest speed with a smaller penalty – or
no penalty – without changing the bonus given at slowest speed. Player-controlled casting times – the
current “fastcasting” and “delay casting”. However if a new form of
fastcasting emerges that would allow players to rapid-fire spells beyond
that which is currently seen, it would likely be considered an issue to
resolve. Slide-casting within the current movement
limits. Issues to Resolve: Jump-Spin. More on this below. “Godmoding” potions and food. Getting around the PK jumping stamina
loss. (The Jump-Spin resolution may make this a non-issue.) Animation-breaking issues not listed
above. This is the catch-all for lesser-used animation-breaking actions
or ones not discovered or reported yet. Jump-Spin deserves its own paragraph, if not
more. One the one hand, it seems unfair that a player should be able to so
badly throw off his opponent’s client simply by jumping and spinning
mid-jump that it breaks sticky melee and allows the player to run away. On
the other hand, if that is the only means of escaping from a melee, what
else do we expect that player to do?
<@Uzi> before we begin thanks to jessica for doing this
<@Inhuman> Ok, the first question comes from Solarch Arcar of the
Fremen Knights. Why do the devs expect us to adapt to such an extreme change.
This is comparable to asking humans to adapt to an asteroid hitting earth.
Sure we can survive but how many really will still be around? This is also
like bringing nukes to the 12th century. So my question i guess is, why
change something so drastic that threatens to leave your only PvP server
practically empty?
<+Ibn> I'd also like to say If I may <@Inhuman>
Next questions is a follow up from Ainvar of Og. Even if you have wonderful plans for pvp in the long run...the short term
effects may prove to be too much to bear for a few months. Wouldn't it be
better to leave them in testing until you can complete the full plan,
instead of putting a few changes in, that screw some ppl over? @[twisti]> Flash of DT asks:
Why not leave the changes you are talking about, and allow no movement
fizzle? That way, mages can have *skill* again, and melees can have a chance
at 1v1 (considering you now have massive stamina loss when jumping so the
historical godmode wouldnt be possible either way) <@Inhuman> Next
question is from Doomgaze of KoC. In the march letter to the players, it
hints around new armor types, could you elaborate on this more? Perhaps if
you make this more clear then the whole concept of lures/brittlemail would
be less extreme? <@Inhuman> Next
question is from Addiction of Blood-Elite. Currently in pvp, if someone
recieves a Blood Loather 6, they will fight with the loathered weapon rather
then stop, and cast a dispell that consumes all their mana and a good
portion of time. What makes you feel dispells will be viable in PVP in april,
when they realistically have not been thus far?
<@Uzi> yup
@Inhuman> Next question is from Uzi of Shadow Council. Will all dispells soon be removing only negative enchantments, or
will this apply to only item enchantment?
<+Ibn>
oh wait! sorry, one last thing... you'll be able to craft dispel potions and level 6 and 7. I think to do that we're pulling the lower levels as they are rarely
used. OK, now I'm done
<@Inhuman> Next question is from Misadventure of Art of
War. Even then, people can still just use 3-5 gems, depending on the number
of spells removed, and their debuffs and vulns will be gone. Why not just
put a timer on them?
<@Inhuman> Next question
is from Solarch Arcar of The Fremen Knights. If i may ask about the life
magic changes. Many people not only mages(but majority) use stamina to
health 1 as a quick way to regain health in the heat of battle. The changes
being made seem to limit the ability to have great and long lasting fights.
What made you guys decide or encouraged you to change the current setup of
these spells?
<+Ibn> heh
<+Jessica>
It didn't make a lot of sense.
<@Inhuman> Next question is from Storm of Blood.
Why not make lvl 7 stam2health cast as fast and in same manner as level 1
does now?
<@Inhuman> Next question
is from Xantcha of Art of War. We feel that identical spell words for arcs
and bolts makes combat more interesting and skillful, and that changing this
will lead to longer and less tactical fights. What do you feel are the
benefits of such a change?
<@Inhuman> Next question is from Darken Soul. Would you every consider
giving DarkTide its own set of rules? It is a different environment. For
example, UCMs can be killed on Darktide. Why ban them? If you aren't able to
kill it it isn't bothering you, because anyone can kill a UCM if they see
it?
<+Jessica> If a player in DT reports apossible UCM that is hogging a Tusker
hunting area, for example... are we to ignore him? Suince Monday, we have
banned at least 15 players for UCM. Should we post these numbers daily? or
weekly?
<@Doomgaze[KoC]> is the
hall of shame still used?
<+Jessica> OK, last quesion for tonight... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
