THE HERALD

Welcome to this week’s Grab Bag! This Grab Bag is focused on answering some of the recurring and top questions we’ve been asked regarding our recent Endless Conquest announcement. 

Thanks to  everyone for sending in these questions, and remember to please keep sending in your general grab bag questions for our devs! You can submit any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

On to the questions!

I’m not sure I fully understand what this is all about. Can you give a quick summary of what Endless Conquest is?

Sure thing!

Currently Dark Age of Camelot is a subscription-only game where accounts must subscribe monthly in order to access the game and its features. Endless Conquest will be a new account type that does not require a subscription to access Dark Age of Camelot and allows EC-enabled accounts to explore the realms, participate in our fabled RvR combat and generally play for free, albeit with some gameplay-restrictions like certain classes, buffs, and more.

With the launch of Endless Conquest, players will have a choice to play on an EC-enabled account (no subscription) or a Veteran (subscribed) account. Veteran accounts will have access to several rewards and events that EC accounts won’t and generally have unrestricted access to all gameplay features, classes, and more. Our announcement earlier this week goes through those restrictions and privileges in detail.

Will accounts get any special treatment for being previously subbed for a long period of time and attaining the elder title? I feel like some special perk should be given to those who subbed for a long time before EC.

We absolutely agree! Subscribed accounts will receive a choice of at least 1 Veteran Reward at each of the 11 planned cumulative subscription thresholds. The Veteran Reward can be redeemed once per account and some of them can be traded to other characters (though they won’t be usable by an EC account).

The full details of this system will have to wait until the Patch 1.126 notes but we can promise they’ll be coveted rewards and the longer you’ve subscribed, the more coveted they’ll become!

Additionally, subscriptions will get a bonus quest every month that gives a meaningful reward to every level 50 character on their account.

Will we be able to post on the Official Forums if we have only have an active EC account?

Yes! Users with active game accounts can post on our Official Forums. We currently are not planning on any forum-specific restrictions on EC-enabled accounts, but that could change if necessary.

How will EC work regarding multiple accounts/multiboxing? Can I run a macro-team?

No, Endless Conquest accounts are not permitted to multibox/macro-group in PvE or RvR. Further, one Endless Conquest account is able to be logged in per user at a time.

If that restriction is somehow circumvented, any EC accounts that are being operated with 3rd party multibox/macro-team programs will be actioned on a much shorter leash than for Veteran accounts. This can include the revocation of that account’s eligibility for Endless Conquest or simply termination of the account for even first or second offenses, depending on the severity.

The same can be said for any violations found on EC accounts.

Quick question about EC and Battlegrounds. Will existing characters that already have xp/rp off automatically have them turned on if it is not a subscribed(veteran?) account?

Yes. /xp off and /rp off commands will not be usable and any returning EC account with them already enabled will have them disabled upon login.

Additionally, characters will no longer lose experience on PvE deaths and EC accounts will be prohibited from using the Realm Point Remover NPC. EC accounts will be able to visit the Mithril store and have the option of purchasing temporary buffs that cease XP/RP gain for their duration if they want to stick around a particular battleground a bit longer.

How were the classes that EC players have available to them chosen, and for what reasons? Will the available classes ever rotate or be expanded upon?

With the five chosen classes, EC accounts have access to their realm’s primary, secondary, and tertiary healing, primary buffing and crowd-control, and a maximum realm speed class, along with a ranged and melee DPS class.

As any experienced player knows, those aspects are extremely valuable to have in RvR groups. We want to encourage the ability for EC accounts to be invited to groups and to be able to add to the experience of their fellow players. By choosing classes that would be sought after in RvR, we aim to have EC accounts add value to the existing Veteran accounts who just need that 1 more support or crowd control class.

On the flip side, the chosen classes are not necessarily the greatest or most popular in PvE encounters, which limits their self-sufficiency there, and there are certainly some fun and awesome classes and races that EC accounts miss out on. As such, we’re quite happy with the balance struck. We do not have plans for expanding which ones are offered beyond the five and will not be rotating them with other classes.

There’s already been some excitement in region about EC coming live with new people popping in to the chat to possibly check things out. If an account was recently inactive for 180 days does that still count, or does it need to remain inactive until EC starts for this to work?

Unfortunately we have to draw the line somewhere.

Only previously-subscribed, 180 day+ inactive accounts, in good-standing, or newly created accounts will be eligible as Endless Conquest accounts. Any account that is currently subscribed or was subscribed less than 180 days ago (starting from the launch day of EC), will not be eligible for EC. We feel very strongly that EC will be adding to the value of our current and future Veteran accounts but if a user wishes to or circumstances dictate that an account be deactivated, it will only become eligible for EC again after 180 days of inactivity.

Endless Conquest is about giving players an opportunity to try and play Dark Age of Camelot for free as first timers or to return and rediscover their love for their realm and characters, all while still able to contribute towards the end-game in a meaningful way. Without that ability to contribute, we don’t think Endless Conquest would be worth it. We strongly feel that the more players playing DAoC, the better the experience is. Veteran accounts will especially benefit with more people in the game RvRing, PvEing, and socializing, making the value of a subscription increase that much more!

If I subscribe, make a non-EC class like a Bonedancer, then end my subscription at a later date, do I have to wait the 180 days before EC kicks in to play DAoC as a free player? Once the 180 day period ends, can I play my Bonedancer?

Yes, if an account’s subscription lapses, it only activates Endless Conquest after 180 days of inactivity, regardless of the classes on it.

Once the 180 period has passed and it becomes an EC account, the Bonedancer will only be playable if it has 7+ days on their /played stat, is above level 15, and was created *before* the initial launch of EC. Otherwise, the account will only be able to play or create the EC-enabled classes.

From the EC FAQ: Returning EC account characters that have already trained Realm abilities will have those abilities automatically respecced and their realm skill points refunded on first login; any existing Champion abilities will be automatically removed too.

Regarding this… what happens if you upgrade your account to a Veteran account? Do the CL abilities and Realm skill points get restored?

Yes, any account that upgrades from EC to Veteran will have their applicable Champion Ability points restored (if the character has CLs completed) and will be able to spend above the 60 realm skill point threshold. Characters on upgraded accounts will also have any trained realm abilities automatically respecced to ensure they have the full availability of realm skill points.

This is also a good opportunity to clarify that accounts who upgrade from EC to Veteran will need to fully log out their game client before the Veteran (subscribed) status benefits will apply.

When does the realm timer countdown start? From log out or last RP gained? Why 15 minutes and not 30?

The timer starts when realm points are gained from an RvR kill, not logout. We have gone back and forth between 30 and 15 minutes quite a bit and it may be that something in between ends up being the sweet-spot, but we want to start out on the low-end and increase from there if it’s still not long enough; rather than the reverse.

Are there any class or RvR changes planned to go in with EC?

Yes, some! We are mostly focusing on Endless Conquest with patch 1.126 but we have some impactful RvR and some much-requested class changes on the way too. No hints though!

Okay, fine.

For RvR, we’ll be performing some fairly-involved progression changes within the Battlegrounds to help give all players a chance to once again spend some quality RvR time there, as well as taking another look at Frontier daily rewards and RvR bonuses, along with spreading some Bounty Point love to non-RvR areas. Is the ‘Supplies for the Cause’ quest going back to fully repeatable!? /wink. For classes, we still feel a few are over-performing in certain areas and some need a little love too. Oh you wanted to know which ones? Not yet, friend!

Choc full of info! 
That’s it for this week, have a good weekend all 🙂

See you in the frontiers!

It’s a Friday the 13th Grab Bag! Nothing spooky or scary in here, though 🙂

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, please do keep sending them in! You can submit any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Read on for the questions!

I recently used the master level ability cowering bellow on some bonedancer pets. When all 3 failed to be affected, it got me curious about the spells mechanics. Did they all resist? I’m not sure, because it doesn’t provide any log feedback. So, can you elaborate on the mechanics of cowering bellow? Are there pets that are immune?  Can the spell be resisted?
If so, with what probability?

Cowering Bellow cannot be resisted.

However, Bonedancer pets are a bit unique when it comes to pet scares. Because the pets /assist each other by default, if the Cowering Bellow effect does not hit ALL of the pets at once, the remaining pets will not be scared and cause the commander pet to re-aggro immediately due to the sub-pet(s) that are still attacking. 

Pet-scaring all of a BD’s pets at once can admittedly be hard to accomplish when they are spread out, but this is an intended benefit of the Bonedancer class.

So according to Excidio’s charplanner it says the level 5,13,21,26,33,41,46 bainshee aoe cone roots shouldn’t break on damage but ingame they do. Is this just a typo from the website or was it changed and they haven’t updated it? They also have the Cone slow which works perfectly and doesn’t break on dmg

The CAoE (cone area of effect) roots in the Spectral Guard specialization (Disturbing Voices line of spells) have always and still do break on damage dealt.

With dual wield, do both weapons need to be the same speed?  What happens when one is slower than the other?  Is it good to have one faster than the other and if so which one, main or off-hand?

With Left Axe, does the damage type spec have to be raised as well or will LA alone provide max damage?

All dual-wielded weapons have their mainhand and offhand weapon speeds averaged to determine their “true” weapon speed for total swing speed calculations. So a 4.4s mainhand and a 3.0s offhand will average to a 3.7s weapon speed for calculating the overall swing speed. However, this “haste” effect is ONLY applied to Celtic Dual and Dual Wield swings when both the mainhand and offhand swing. Left Axe gets this effect on all swings since the offhand always swings.

It does not matter which hand has the faster or slower weapon in terms of calculating swing speed as the two weapons’ speeds are simply averaged. However, it’s probably preferable to keep the slower weapon in the mainhand slot because weapon-style damage bonuses only affect the mainhand swing while offhand swings are unstyled; and if using CD/DW styles because their offhand doesn’t always swing.

Specializing in Left Axe directly raises offhand swing damage while specializing in Sword/Axe/Hammer directly raises mainhand swing damage (regardless of the weapon styles used). Left Axe differs from CD/DW in that specializing in CD/DW only raises the chance for the offhand to swing while their mainhand specialization is what raises damage of both their mainhand and offhand swings. On net, both LA and CD/DW should maximize their composite mainhand and offhand specializations to achieve max damage.

Is scripting commands allowed? If so, to what extent?

From a previous Producer’s Letter:

We will no longer be enforcing against multi-keybind software or hardware that allow for multiple actions per keystroke per character. An example would be setting up a ‘macro’ that allows your “w key” to cast both disease and a heal spell.

Please note that if this software/hardware is used to play unattended (anywhere) or to control multiple characters at once (in RvR zones on a subscribed account, or anywhere on a trial) it’s still a violation. 

Obviously, if this software/hardware is used to abuse some game mechanic or is used against the general spirit of the game (as determined on a case by case basis) it would also still be a violation.

With physical health buffers, how long to they last?  I never see that in the delve.  For instance, with the Midwinter’s Frozen Medal of Honor, exactly how does a 250 value with 50% absorption work?  I’ve always wanted to know this!

The duration of health buffers should show on the delve of the item that procs it or has the /use attached. For instance, Midwinter’s Frozen Medal of Honor’s Frozen Protection health buffer shows a duration of 10 minutes on its delve. However, a health buffer will dissipate immediately whenever its buffer value is used up, even if that is prior to the listed duration.

Continuing this example, Frozen Protection’s health buffer will absorb 50% of all incoming melee damage until the health buffer value of 250 is reached. As soon as the health buffer has absorbed 250 damage, it will dissipate. So, an attacker would need to deal 500 outgoing damage to their target, hitting the target for 250 damage while the health buffer absorbed the other 250 in order to fully dissipate the health buffer.

Don’t forget our Saturday night giveaway streams have returned! Tune in to our official Twitch channel from approx. 10:30PM GMT / 5:30PM EST!
See you there 🙂

Thank you to all for the great feedback we’ve received on the official Item Search tool. The following updates should address most of the requests we’ve received, with any further updates/fixes to come after the Template Builder tool is released.

Item Search

• Added 900+ items to the item database.
  • Please note that the item database is currently only for equipment and not for consumable or quest items, though they may be added at a later time.
• Sub-menus now appear when selecting Weapon, Armor, or Shield categories.
  • Only one of the following weapon types may be filtered at a time:
    • Any
    • One Hand (includes Left/Off Hand)
    • Two Hand
    • Left/Off Hand
    • Ranged
  • Multiple armor types may be filtered at once:
    • Cloth
    • Leather
    • Studded (includes Reinforced)
    • Chain (includes Scale)
    • Plate
  • Multiple shield sizes may be filtered at once:
    • Small
    • Medium
    • Large
• Users can now also filter weapons by their skill type.
  • To filter by a weapon skill, the weapon category must be selected and applied first, then a separate “Weapon Skill” dropdown will appear underneath the “Category” dropdown and above the “Realm” dropdown.
  • Multiple weapon skills may be filtered at once.
• Users can now filter and search for item-based abilities.
  • Use the Advanced Filter form to select for Item Bonuses or Item Abilities then choose the relevant Bonus or Ability you wish to filter.
• Improved the display of item abilities on item-view pages with short ability tags, descriptions, level, and expandable detailed delves.
  • Re-exported ability delves to update to their current values.
• Users can now filter items by Bonus Level.
• Removed duplicate magic resistance choices in their filter list.
• Added a “clear filters” button that will clear all filters with a single click!
  • Clearing filters will NOT reset active search results until the “Apply Filters” button is used.

Time for another edition of our Grab Bag! Our August newsletter went out yesterday, you can check it out in your browser here and don’t forget to sign up to get the newsletter direct to your inbox. 🙂

If you’re in the path of any of the crazy weather around the globe coming this weekend/week, please take care and stay safe!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, please do keep sending them in! You can submit any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

On to the questions 🙂

In Midgard, I know of 14 possible locations of Doppelgangers.
Are there more spawn points for Doppelgangers AND more importantly, how many are active at one time? (i.e. There are only five (5) than will be active at one time in assorted locations, etc.)

Doppelgangers spawn as follows in each individual zone:

Pennine Mountains, Jamtland Mountains, or Breifine: 2 can spawn at once out of 8 potential locations
Hadrian’s Wall, Odin’s Gate, Emain Macha: 2 can spawn at once out of 10 potential locations
Ellan Vannin: 3 can spawn at once out of 15 potential locations

Their spawn-rates are relatively fast so that there should almost always be at least 1 Doppelganger up in each zone.

Can you explain what is the difference of ABS debuff and af debuff? Is abs debuff > af debuff > melee resist debuff?

An “ABS debuff” is short for “absorption% debuff” and targets an armor’s absorption%. Each armor type has a different absorption% with Cloth having 0%, Leather 10% , Studded/Reinforced 19%, Chain/Scale 27%, and Plate having 34%. Some classes, like list-casters, also have absorption% buffs they can use.

ABS debuffs remove either a flat amount of a character’s current absorption% or are a percentage decrease, depending on the way the delve shows on the debuff.

For instance a delve that says “Reduces the targets absorption (ABS) by 15%” means that the ABS debuff will remove a flat value of 15 from a 34% plate armor absorption, making the armor wearer have 19% (34 – 15 = 19) effective absorption for the debuff’s duration.

Conversely, a delve that states “Reduces the targets absorption (ABS) by -15%” (note the -negative symbol) will reduce a 34% plate armor absorption by 15%, making the armor wearer have ~29% effective absorption (34 * (1 – .15)) = ~29).

Generally, these differences in how ABS debuffs work is balanced by the duration of the debuff, with the weaker percentage decrease ABS debuffs lasting much longer than the flat-value ABS debuffs.

Armor Factor, or AF, debuffs, reduce a targets armor value. These are a bit more straightforward in that there is only 1 type of AF debuff that removes the flat value of the targets’ overall Armor Factor.

The general rule of thumb is that ABS debuffs are going to be more effective vs high-absorption% targets than AF debuffs since high-absorption% classes generally have a lot more AF to spare and because an ABS debuff can’t remove absorption% below 0%. A flat-value 15% ABS debuff is only going to remove 10% ABS from a Leather wearer.

Targets with lower overall AF means that an AF debuff is going to be more effective in increasing damage than ABS debuff would since the target is (more likely) to be losing a greater percentage of their AF than they would ABS.

We’re splitting hairs when it comes to cloth-wearing list-casters who have a relatively high 33% ABS buff but also have low overall AF. Both types of debuffs are going to be very effective against them.

Finally, melee (or magic if using legendary weapons) resist debuffs are generally good against all targets but to truly determine which debuff type is best for a particular case or even most cases will depend quite a bit on the actual delve of the debuffs as well as many other target-dependent factors. There is no right answer for all cases.

Hey guys!

Would it be possible to have stuff like ML10 tokens and mounts from 10p boxes, be stored in house and personal vaults? I know mansion deeds also cant be stored there, but if that is intentionally i dont know.

The ML10 tokens and house deeds are able to go into personal vaults already, just not house vaults, which is more than sufficient considering their value.

Unfortunately, the way mounts are awarded would need to be fundamentally changed to allow them into a personal or house vault. We can look into other ways to alleviate unused mounts clogging up an inventory though!

Does Valk r5 stacks or coexists with siphon we have in a temp? Ex, I have 25% siph, valk uses r5, I’m at 100 or 75% siphon?

The Valkyrie Realm Rank 5 ability, Valhalla’s Blessing, does not stack with any arcane siphon stats from items.

Why can a minstrel not pulse charm a red frost stallion, i used to be able to but now i get the error message, “this mob is too strong for your to charm” or something like that. My question is if a mini can hold a level 59 pet, which is the highest level a mob can appear red, why can i not charm red Frost Stallions. I am not using the perma charm, i am using the correct pulse charm.

Level 50 Minstrels can indeed charm up to a level 59 pet of a valid monster type. However, for a level 50 character, red con monsters actually range from levels 56-60 so it’s entirely possible that the red frost stallion is level 60 and therefore too high a level to be charmed.

FYI: To a level 50 character, grey con monsters are level 35 and lower, green 36-40, blue 41-45, yellow 46-50, orange 51-55, red 56-60, and purple are level 61+.

That’s it for this week!
We’re getting into an exciting time this coming month, can’t wait!  

Our Saturday night giveaway streams have returned, so make sure you tune in to our official Twitch channel from approx. 10:30PM GMT / 5:30PM EST 🙂

See you there!

Mithril Shop

• Slitted Mask helm patterns are now for sale on the Mithril Merchant found in each realm’s capital city.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with the [Midsummer] Spirit of War kill credit for Hibernia characters when the Spirit of War is up and Hibernia owns specific keeps.
• Characters teleporting onto Ellan Vannin’s safe areas should no longer get stuck in geometry.
• Guards in Knoc Meayll should no longer aggro/attack characters above them near Buggane’s Obelisk.
• Skald’s Song of Ragnar is once again an instant-cast ability.
• Sorcerer’s Impenetrable Shield should now correctly reduces damage by 40% instead of 50%.
• Bainshee’s Vanquish Sight pulsing nearsight ability now correctly removes on death.
• Animist’s level 41 Forest Menace FnF pet once again casts its disease ability correctly.
• Dragon Knight’s Flame’s absorb debuff proc once again has the proper smoke spell effect.
• The Bow of Silver Talon is now properly flagged as Recurve Bow.
• Crystal Titans will no longer cast twice in some locations and have had their combat fail-text updated to describe all restrictions on when and where they can be cast.
• Midgard’s Dragon’s Curse Campaign 9.2 encounter’s Malcolm and Miranda should now wait through their opening cutscene before attacking.

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