THE HERALD

Halloween is upon us and we look forward to seeing your costumes in RvR over the weekend (starting today!) and don’t forget that the Halloween event and 20th Anniversary bonuses, merchants, and quests end this coming Tuesday, November 2nd! 

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Continue reading for the questions!
 

Is there a reason why you cant just make ToA scrolls sell for even zero coin ? Its seems like a small issue but it really is pain to have to constantly drag and drop them on the floor or even constantly destroying them. 

We’ll see about adding this to our list! In the meantime, we’d suggest setting up a keyboard shortcut for destroying items, as this can be done just as quickly as selling them.

Has there been any consideration to increase offense keep bonus realm point ticks to be 100% (instead of 50%) to match that of defensive ticks? There can be a lack of incentive to attack keeps if there are several defenders. The time spent may end in an unsuccessful attempt with little realm point reward.

We can certainly consider this but under the current system we do want to favor incentives for defense whenever possible since they are usually the outnumbered force. However, perhaps a better long-term solution would be to base this bonus multiplier on the population of attackers vs defenders instead of hard-set values. We’ll be looking into this!
 

When will the DF imp stores be available again? I thought these were going to be converted to BP’s at some point, per the patch notes where DF was changed to a BP system…

When will the Dragonscale merchant’s items be added to the bp crafting list?

This conversion will occur when the existing alternate currencies are mostly used up. Even though it’s been a while, there is still quite a few atlantean glass, dragon scales, aurulite, and blood seals out there. Additionally, all of these can be converted to and from each other at the Currency Exchange NPC in each realm’s capital city and used at their respective stores.
 

What are the exact conditions that consider a kill (or a series of kills) as RP farming? What is the precise definition of RP farming? What actions must a player take to avoid being in a position of RP farming? What actions would lead to a RP reset or a ban?

While we’re happy to provide some general context, RP farming can come in many forms and is always handled on a case by case basis. It also falls under our “spirit of the game” (#16) clause in the Rules of Conduct.

In general, realm point farming could include any actions where characters are acquiring realm points without participating in normal or intended Realm vs Realm (or Realm vs Environment on Gaheris) gameplay. What this typically looks like is one or more characters repetively killing one or more other characters who make no attempt to fight back but that is by no means the only definition or criteria.

A good rule of thumb if you’re considering any action that could potentially be a violation is to err on the side of caution: if you have to ask, it’s probably not a good idea!

Can we see the level of a keep on the /realmwar map?

We’d love to hear feedback on this but our instinct is to keep this data hidden. It would become too easy to identify which keeps or towers to go after if players could see their levels from the /realmwar map even if it may also help defending realms to monitor their own.

Hope everyone has a safe, fun, and happy Halloween! See you in the frontiers!

It’s time for another Grab Bag!

Lots of info out this week as we celebrate Dark Age of Camelot’s 20th anniversary! Bonuses, merchants, new quests, new mounts, new cosmetics, and more! Our Halloween event also started yesterday and with everything ending November 2nd, make sure you don’t miss out on anything 🙂

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Continue reading for the questions!
 

Is it intended that assassin (60%) snare poison stack with side snare (40%)?

Currrently, yes it is intended. These have always stacked with each other, even prior to the Envenom changes. We of course would love to hear feedback on if you think these shouldn’t stack or if the snare poison’s snare% should be reduced or if it should be kept as is!

Using my bard heal proc buff had me wondering if heal procs, class abilities not uses, apply to/on pets? Either charmed or class pets.

Yes, most group-based abilities apply to members of the group and their pets and the Bard’s group heal proc is no exception. Both charmed and summoned pets receive the Bard’s heal proc buff and melee attacks against those pets from monsters or players will have a chance to trigger a heal.

Hey there

Is it just missing or am I missing a further update on this?

Thanks for this report, the studded version of the Mighty Eyes do indeed drop in Albion.

The delve for this item has been updated and it has been added to both the traveling merchant stores and the Bountycraft menu (make sure to run your in-game patcher to get this update)!

4 – I am curious if there are any plans to update some of the more underutilized/undertuned Realm Rank 5 abilities–specifically, the Warlock R5, Burning Cauldron, and the Bainshee R5, Sonic Barrier. The Warlock Rank 5 does very low damage on a ten minute cooldown after a delay. As for the Bainshee R5, it appears to have no effect on you or your caster groupmates. It seems out of place that most Caster Rank 5 abilities are designed to be defensive and these are not.

In short – yes!

Improving some of the underutilized class Realm Rank 5 abilities is on our list. We’d love to hear some ideas about how you would improve them!

One Teammate mentioned, that Thanes direct damage spells would benefit from adding points into dexterity. Others mentioned that adding piety would increase damage while dex only increase casting speed but not damage per one single cast. Which is correct?

For casting classes, there is one stat (in the case of Thanes it is Piety) that increases the damage of each cast and then they all use the Dexterity stat to increase the speed of their casts.

So from a per-cast perspective, Dexterity does not increase the damage of a single casted spell. However, more Dexterity means more spell casts so it will increase the damage per second of a spell caster.

That’s it for this week! Hope everyone is enjoying all the activity so far 🙂
See you in the frontiers!

We have loads of content, news, updates, rewards, and more coming later this month in celebration of Dark Age of Camelot’s 20th anniversary and we’d like to kick off the celebration with some fabulous RvR bonuses!

Anniversary bonuses will last from today until November 2nd, 2021.

Bonuses

On Ywain:

• 100% bonus to RPs gained from RvR kills
• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons

On Gaheris:

• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 100% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities

In each Capital City:

• 40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 20% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

In all Housing Zones:

• 20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 10% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

Anniversaries are always a time of celebration and this month Dark Age of Camelot celebrates our 20th anniversary! Look for notices throughout the month, and especially around the 10th, for news and details of how we’re celebrating this amazing milestone 🙂

On with the Grab Bag!

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Continue reading for the questions 🙂
 

Can you elaborate on the benefit of damage add buffs / spells whatever, primarily the melee damage add and the differences between the shaman one, for example, and the champion level versions. some are matter some are spirit etc. I also found an item with an 11.3 damage add buff, I’m assuming this is melee damage add bonus, so why is it not a physical damage versus say for instance what a reaver gets to greatly buff their styles?

Yes, all damage add buffs only affect melee swings, not spell casts and they are simply a way to add a small amount of damage to each melee swing. Damage adds’ damage type can theoretically be either magical or physical but neither type matters in terms of the actual damage dealt to a target.

The overall damage of damage adds is determined by the base, unstyled damage of a melee swing, with typical damage variance (which can cause lower damage melee hits to sometimes have higher damage add damage than some high damage melee hits). The damage adds’ damage is then hard-capped, not affected by resist buffs OR debuffs on the target, and is relatively static even as the damage of the overall melee swing increases. For this reason they are more beneficial to faster swinging classes and especially dual-wield classes.

There are some special damage add types like the Blademaster’s “Triple Wield” that provides a negation from being critically hit (in melee) for its duration in addition to its traditional damage add component as well as the Master Level “Faultfinder” damage add which deals high damage against object-only targets like doors. The other class, item, and champion level damage add abilities work as described above.

Is it intended that a realm can rebuy the protection obelisk even if the keep is under siege and one was already destroyed? Same for using the keep level upgrade tokens and using them if the keep is under siege.

Yes, this is currently intended. We’re open to changing this but once the inner keep’s door is opened it is be possible to kill the Master Stone Mason and prevent any further upgrades. We also don’t want to prevent realms from applying upgrades when a keep siege first begins if we can help it.

I understand that mentioned in 05/05/2017 grab bag, only Str, Con, Dex, and Qui buffs affect pets. Is this for both summoned and charmed pets? How does haste affect either type of pet and does haste work from Ring of Conflicting Forces ( https://tools.camelotherald.com/item/view/41012 ) ?

Yes, all pets whether summoned or charmed are affected in the same way by concentration buffs. Haste buffs do affect the melee swing speed of pets just like they do players; with normal concentration haste buffs, like the one from the Ring of Conflicting Forces and celerity spells both increasing the melee swing speed of pets.

What is the definition of a class ability – can you provide examples? What would the master level battlemaster 10th ability fall under?

In terms of categorization we think of “class” abilities as any non-realm ability a class trains at their trainer or earns for free as they level. So some class ability examples for a heavy tank would be Metal Guard, Fury, or a weapon style.

A Master Level ability, while still usable by a class or classes, is categorized separately since it is earned differently and not precisely part of the class itself. The same goes for realm and champion level abilities. If you need to spend realm skill points (or champion ability points) to acquire the ability, it’s a realm ability (or CL ability), not a class one; regardless of whether or not the ability is class-specific.

This may seem like a finer point, and to a large extent these categories don’t really matter when looking at classes as a whole, but when it comes to balance decisions it’s important to separate abilities into these different categories as each type can be a lever we use for balance.

For example, changing a Master Level ability like Bodyguard might be a class-defining ability for many Paladins or Warriors (among many other classes) but it’s not a “class” ability since those classes could choose a completely different Master Level path and, more importantly, because changing the Bodyguard ability to “balance” Paladins would affect so many other classes. So instead we treat something like Bodyguard as its own separate Master Level ability that is part of the Battlemaster ML path and if we wanted to hypothetically change it, we would need to ensure that its change would be balanced across not only the other ML paths but all of the classes it can be used by (including ones that can but don’t typically specialize in the Battlemaster path).

If instead, continuing the example, we wanted to adjust a Paladin’s armor factor chant, we would start the balance discussion at the ability and extend it to the class as a whole. We may look at other classes too and how they interact with the AF chant, but the discussion largely centers around a class (or at least 1 class archetype typically) and its impact on balance instead of around an entire ML or CL path and their impact on balance.

And sometimes the line blurs, like with the free RR5 realm abilities, which are class-specific realm abilities. FYI – we categorize these as class abilities too due to their uniqueness and because they do not directly cost realm skill points to earn.

Hope that helps!

Why can MTX mask patterns only be used for class specific armor types? For example, a lot of savages use the curative sunburst leather helmet since there is no available studded version therefore we are handicapped in customizing our character.

Armor patterns are clamped to a class’ highest equippable armor type in order to try and preserve class-silhouetting in RvR. Yes, a Savage could wear an actual cloth robe and equip a caster staff to try and fool enemies but their effectiveness would be very diminished too if they did. We don’t want to open the door for players to do this in look-only while actually still wearing their best equipment. Yes, sometimes this will overlap with and prevent patterning “usable” items but we feel that there’s still a great amount of room for customization within the patterning rules as they exist!

Thanks everyone, enjoy the weekend! 🙂

Friday Grab Bag time!

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Questions are below! 🙂

What is the exact distance from a friendly outpost at which enemies will generate a cup/hammer/tree symbol on the war map?

6,000 in-game units from the center of the outpost, which means the exact distance will depend on various keep layouts! 6,000 in-game units is essentially the same distance as the figure clip plane limit and so if a defending player (or guard) standing on a wall is visible to the enemies passing by an outpost, there is a good chance that they’d be too close and would trigger the cup/hammer/tree notifications on the realmwar map.

Does wild healing / master of healing realm abilities affect styles?

Yes, both realm abilities will affect styles with heal procs.

Please note that this only refers to direct healing spells. Neither realm abilities affect heal over times or health regen spells or procs.

Did the NF dragons used to give credit for dragon kill titles? They don’t currently but thought they used. If not, could they be included in the dragon title count?

The three dragons in New Frontiers did not give credit for dragon kill titles. These dragons are much less difficult than the ones in the epic dragon zones of each realm and so if they were to give titles in the future they would need to be different from the traditional dragon-based titles.

Can you explain why after I use Power Lock on Necro my stun immunity goes away and I can be stunned again?

This is because the Power Lock ability stuns the Necromancer in-place for the duration of its ability and it must bypass any existing stun immunity to do so (which clears that immunity). During the Power Lock stun, the Necromancer cannot be attacked in melee and they siphon power at a very fast rate from their target. Allowing this ability to be used and then having it grant an additional stun immunity would be a bit too imbalanced as it would allow Power Lock to be used pre-emptively to prevent the Necromancer from being stunned again and any pre-existing immunities must be cleared for the Power Lock stun to land.

Are there any plans to restrict shearing abilities like Essence Shatter so people cant just spam shear other people’s buffs over and over, for instance give it a cooldown of 10 or 15 seconds? Especially in 1v1 scenarios there is not much counterplay to it other than drinking suppremacy potions over and over, which is not fun for anyone.

Thank you for this feedback! We would love to hear more opinions on this as the original intent was for Essence Shatter to be used seldomly due to the high endurance cost but has become easier to use with endurance reduction and endurance reduction potions. Conversely, the existence of Supremacy potions also can be argued to make this sort of ability less useful overall than it used to be. We are open to changing this ability but would love to hear more feedback about it!

That’s it for this week!
Enjoy the weekend, everyone 🙂

Grab Bag time! Woo!

Hope everyone is enjoying our Caledonia Event! 🙂 Level 50 opens up later today for crazy fun weekend RvR! Don’t forget to make your new characters and log them into Caledonia before the cut off time of 3PM EST / 9PM CET TODAY! 

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Continue on for the questions 🙂
 

Is there a way you can deselect certain spell effects from group mates or make them smaller? The issue I have is when the minstrel does his resist buff and the range buff the purple sphere is so large on my character that I cant see thru it. Effects group or self don’t affect it.

Unfortunately the only command that will eliminate this particular spell effect is ‘/effects none’ as it is both a group-based spell and one that is cast on your character directly. We can, however, look at adjusting these effects to be less obtrusive!

What’s the reasoning behind vampiirs getting wall climb for free while Minstrel have to skill 25 stealth and Savage even 50 in savagery (which makes the H2H build have to sacrifice the 9 second side chain stun style)? Wouldn’t it be justified to have vampiirs sacrifice something as well like 20 points in shadow mastery for example?

There are always balance distinctions among the realms as very few classes are mirrors of each other and even when classes are extremely similar they all have class-defining differences. Climb walls is a powerful and popular ability and one that is not given out lightly.

Minstrels and Vampiirs were both designed from the beginning to have climb walls while it’s been a late addition to Savages. Savages are much less vulnerable to crowd control than either Minstrels or Vampiirs and can deal much more consistent damage than either, even when sacrificing for the climb wall ability. That is why they are required to give up some of their melee prowess when going for climb walls.

That said we are always looking at the classes and will adjust accordingly if deemed necessary!

Are the pre 50 pictish camps ever going to be back? Or mass pve/levelling the way these camps worked? I know Caledonia is a level event but for times outside Caledonia.

The Pictish camps were put in as part of the Pictish Invasion event and were never meant to be a permanent fixture. These camps also had a downside of allowing players to reach level 50 with minimal active play and that is not something we want to encourage. However, there are still several efficient ways to level in PvE only with the New User Journey, Atlantean bounty quests, in the classic dungeons with their bonus experience, as well as various popular monster camps throughout the world.

Are people going to get in trouble for joining random guilds in Caledonia or making them?

In short, no. We will be adjusting things for the next Caledonia event so that this practice is no longer possible or necessary. For this event we’ve also added the RP/XP guild bonuses to the starter guilds for the duration of the event!

Are there any hints on what’s to come for daoc’s 20th birthday you can share?

Lions, Wolves, and Stags – oh my – 20 years!!!!

We will be having a massive celebration for the month of October complete with new Veteran Rewards, a true “Arthurian” questing journey, bonuses, and so much more! That’s all you get for now *wink*.

Off to make the last of my toons and a bunch of realm points!

Enjoy the weekend all 🙂

Bonuses

On Ywain:

• 50% bonus to RPs gained from RvR kills
• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons

On Gaheris:

• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 50% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities

In each Capital City:

• 40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 20% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

In all Housing Zones:

• 20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 10% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain