THE HERALD

Welcome to this week’s Grab Bag!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, do please 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 🙂
 

If you are putting a proc on a player made shield, does it need to be a reactive, or an effect? Reactive says it works when the armor is hit by an enemy but is a shield classified as armor or weapon?

Shields can have a volatile (offensive-based) or reactive (defensive-based) proc applied.

Volatile procs can be triggered when the shield hits an enemy via a shield style and reactive procs can be triggered when the shield blocks an attack.

Please note that reactive shield procs can only fire when blocking against player and not monster-based attacks.

 Does the Ameliorating Melodies realm ability increase in value via bonuses (%healing, mastery of healing, etc.) or is it a flat value?

All health regens that don’t print the actual amount healed into the combat log each tick are not affected by heal% bonus items or mastery of healing.

Armor Factor buffs are affected by buff bonus% while AF debuffs aren’t affected by debuff bonus% items?

It’s probably more of an oversight that AF buffs are affected by buff bonus% than AF debuffs not being affected by debuff bonus! We can see if we want to change that or add the ability for debuff bonus% to affect AF debuffs like other “stat” buffs. Though we’d almost certainly need to lower the existing AF debuff delves in either case. Please let us know your thoughts!

Why is the Hallowed Greatsword is not allowed in bountycraft or is it bugged?

Bountycraft currently only includes the unique stat items that drop in the Mournful King’s lair. The Hallowed Greatsword is a copy of existing items in each realm and only has a different cosmetic look from those items.

Albion: Dragon Knight’s Flame two-handed sword that drops from Golestandt.
Midgard: Dragonfury two-handed sword that drops from Gjalpinulva.
Hibernia: Ghostly Great Falcata two-handed sword that drops from Cuulderach.

We can look into adding in more items to the Hallowed section in Bountycraft in the future but for now the items that are only different cosmetically are left out to help maintain their rarity.

What buffs actually stack with Buggane, guild or battlefield potions ? Do the Battlefield buffs stack with Guild buffs or with Buggane?
The what, when and how do those stack and When do those not stack ?? Everyone seems mixed up on this.

Spell-based realm point, bounty point, experience, and/or coin bonus buffs will NOT stack with the same bonuses on another spell-based buff, but will stack with any different bonuses. Very importantly, in the case that 2 spell-based buffs that have the same bonus are applied only the bonus from the spell that was applied first will affect the character.

This means if a RR8+ character has the Buggane’s Folly buff granting 15% to RPs/BPs/Coin and then /uses the battlefield potion which grants 25% to RP gain, the character will still only have the +15% RP/BP/Coin bonus applied and the 25% RP bonus from battlefield potion will not affect them. If the character were to drop the Buggane’s Folly buff in this example, the battlefield potion’s 25% would then affect them.

However, if a RR2 character has the 25% RP buff from the battlefield potion applied first and then applies Buggane’s Folly +75% RP/BP/Coin buff, the character will now receive the 75% BPs and Coin bonus from Buggane’s Folly but will still only receive the 25% RPs bonus from the battlefield potion. The +75% RP bonus won’t be applied until the battlefield potion’s effect is removed.

“Spell-based” specifically refers to any bonus that is applied from a spell and that shows up in the buff icons at the top of the character’s screen; this includes buffs that are cast by items, monsters, or players. Realm point, Bounty Point, Experience, and Coin bonuses that come from other systems like guilds, item stats, dynamic population, outpost ownership, relic ownership, or from specific zones are separate and do stack with each other and with spell-based bonuses.

That’s this week’s edition!

Enjoy the weekend all 🙂
 

Yay Friday! And another Friday means another Grab Bag!

In a previous Grab Bag on June 7th, we answered a question on realm timers with our plan for implementing a realm switch timer, 30 minutes for subbed accounts, and approx. 4  hours for Endless Conquest accounts (triggered only if you earn RP/player kill). Following on from that, we’ve created a realm timer poll to garner feedback on the change, so please vote and let us know your thoughts! 🙂 

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, do please 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!

Does 25% heal bonus work on the set value heal-over-times or only the percentage based ones?

Neither.

The Heal bonus% stat only affects heals or heal-over-times that print a heal value into the combat log. Health regens and HoTs such as a Mentalist’s Sanative Trance (value-based HoT) or a Shaman’s Restorative Mend (%-based HoT) or a Minstrel’s Song of Rejuvenation (value-based regen) that do not print heal values into the combat log are not affected by the heal bonus% stat. Value-based and percentage-based HoTs and regens always grant the same heal amounts regardless of the user’s heal bonus% stat. These regens are affected by the Mythical: Health Regen stat values of their targets, however.

Currently there are no HoTs that print heal values into the combat log. The old Paladin combat-heal chant was an example of one, but that has since been changed to an instant-heal.

What can I do with Luminescent Exeregum stones if they have 0 charges on them?

There are a couple of options here:

1. Players with 0/1 charge ‘respec’ stones can visit the Realm Ability re-specialization NPCs in Camelot, Jordheim, or Tir na Nog and hand them the stone when prompted to initiate the ‘respec’ the old-fashioned way. Players must not have a Realm Respec already available for this option to work.
2. Players can obtain another Exeregum stone that has 1/1 charges (NOTE: Move the 0/1 charge Exeregum stone into your /bank prior to the 1/1 Exeregum stone entering your pack) and then stack the 0/1 stone onto the 1/1 stone. Both stones will now have 1/1 charges and can be used normally. Please be careful when performing this as the same process works in reverse and could easily result in both stones having 0/1 charges instead of the intended 1/1.

These options can be used with 0/1 charge versions of Abrogo, Exerpise, Iterare, and Ceriac respec stones too.

Why are some versions of items available in one realm but not the other, for example the OW 10 Curative Sunburst Studded isn’t available in Mid or Alb but is available in Hib.

Itemization tries to account for the general abilities a class uses as well as the archetypes (healing, melee DPS, melee-hybrid, caster-hybrid, and caster DPS) it fufills. Each item-reward tries to offer the relevant variations that correspond to a given class’ abilities and archetypes. Itemization intentionally does not offer every class every item-variation option, especially on very powerful item-rewards, because itemization is a contributing factor to class balance.

In Midgard, the studded users are Savages, Berserkers, and Hunters while in Albion the only studded user is Scouts. None of these classes are healing-archetypes or have even rudimentary healing as part of their class abilities and so would not get the option for a healing-focused helm. In contrast, Bards in Hibernia wear reinforced armor (equivalent to studded) and are a healing-archetype.  This is why Hibernia is given a Curative Sunburst reinforced option and the other realms are not.

It can sometimes get a bit tricky however, like with the leather Curative Sunburst helm, which is available in all realms. Typically, Albion’s Friar is considered the only leather-based healing-archetype class and so you may wonder why the leather Curative Sunburst is available to Midgard and Hibernia. The answer in this case is that leather-using Maulers have some rudimentary class-based healing abilities in Aura Manipulation. The difference here is that Savages, Berserkers, Hunters, and Scouts simply have no class-based heals available to them and so there is no studded version of the helm.

Does Mastery of Focus affect weapon procs?

Yes, it affects their resist rates.

From the September 14th, 2018 Grab Bag;

“The Mastery of Focus realm ability effectively raises a spell’s level by its listed amount (including style procs). Style procs have their resistances calculated based on the level of the style, so a level 39 style has a level 39 spell’s resist rate vs level X targets. The Mastery of Focus realm ability can raise that style’s spell level, depending on the amount of MoF trained, up to a maximum of a level 50 spell.

All spells have a base chance of 10% to be resisted, so a level 50 style proc will still get resisted at around that 10% rate, on average. However, a level 12 style proc with no Mastery of Focus will see around a 30-35% resist rate vs a level 50 target and a level 34 style proc without MoF would have a 15-20% resist rate, on average.”

Is there any way that an account ignore feature can be added so that we don’t have to /ignore each character?

Yes, this is something we’d like to add when we get the opportunity!

Thanks again, all! Don’t forget to cast your vote on our poll!

Enjoy the weekend 🙂

The following RvR Bonuses are active from today until Tuesday, July 9th in celebration of Independence Day in the United States!

On Ywain:
50% bonus to RP gain from kills.
50% bonus to BP gain.
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons.
200% bonus to normal XP gain in Darkness Falls.

On Gaheris:
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons.
200% bonus to normal XP gain in Darkness Falls.
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

A safe and happy 4th to all!

Update 5:50PM EDT / 10:50PM GMT: The maintenance is complete and the Account Center is once again back online!

We will bring down the Account Center for a security update at 5PM EDT / 10PM GMT today. During the maintenance users will not be able to change subscription, redeem game codes, or transfer characters from archived servers.

We anticipate the Account Center to be down for no longer than 3 hours.

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we deliver this security update.
 

This update features the long-awaited dynamic keep objectives and several bug fixes as reported on our bug tracker! We look forward to your feedback on these objectives, and hope you enjoy them! 🙂

Dynamic Keep Objectives

This system is designed to help spice up keep warfare and to encourage more varied and contested battles at the affected keeps. The objectives provide powerful enhancements and penalties, depending on which realm controls them, that should encourage many new tactics and strategies. These objectives are currently planned to remain active until Thursday, July 25th, 2019. We will be taking in your feedback on them and adjusting accordingly in the meantime. Depending on how they are received they may be extended out to additional keeps in the Frontiers in the future.

• The keeps of Caer Berkstead, Erasleigh, and Sursbrooke in Albion, Nottmoor, Blendrake, Hlidskialf Faste in Midgard, and Dun Crimthainn, Bolg, and da Behnn in Hibernia have been updated to use the dynamic keep objective system.
• Each of these keeps will now spawn their dynamic objectives whenever they are put under siege.
  • All dynamic objectives will initially spawn under control of the same realm that holds the keep.
  • Dynamic objectives will remain active for at least 10 minutes after a keep has initially gone under siege and will remain active so long as the keep remains under siege.
  • Under-siege status of a keep can be determined by the /realmwar map showing “flames” on the keep icon.
  • The objectives are spawned far enough away from their respective keep so a single force cannot camp them and the keep simultaneously.
    • For players familiar with the recent Manx on the Move event, the objectives are spawned at the same locations (except at only 3 locations out of the 4 the Manx used).
• The dynamic keep objectives are as follows:
  • Stone Quarry
    • When the defending realm of the keep controls the objective:
      • Upgrades the level of the keep one level after 60 seconds and then upgrades the level of the keep one level every 10 minutes thereafter.
    • When the attacking realms control the objective:
      • Downgrades the level of the keep one level after 60 seconds and then downgrades the level of the keep one level every 10 minutes thereafter.
  • Siege Workshop
    • When the defending realm of the keep controls the objective:
      • Triples the sturdiness of the outer and inner gates, respectively.
    • When the attacking realms control the objective:
      • Halves the sturdiness of the outer and inner gates, respectively.
      • Removes the ability for siege weapons to be placed on the roof of the center keep.
  • Portal Ceremony
    • When the defending realm of the keep controls the objective:
      • Realm-members can visit the Channeler at this objective to instantly teleport into the center keep.
    • When the attacking realms control the objective:
      • Blocks the defending realm from using the Channeler.
• A new repeatable quest, Generals’ Bounty, is available to level 50s in the frontier.
  • This quest will remain active until Thursday, July 25th, 2019.
  • Players should visit the following NPCs to obtain the quest:
    • General Kogis in Albion’s relic town.
    • General Bruki in Midgard’s relic town.
    • General Vegda in Hibernia’s relic town.

Hot Fix Notes

• The Mithril Shop has a new item for sale!
  • Visit the Mithril Merchant in each realm’s capital city to obtain the Draught of Conquest buff potion.
    • This potion has 30 charges and works identically to the Draught of Supremacy potions except that Supremacy potions can only be used by accounts with an active subscription and Conquest potions can be used by all accounts.
• The realm abilities Empty Mind and Bedazzling Aura have been changed as follows:
  • They now co-exist and stack with all class-based secondary magic resistance abilities
  • They now co-exist and stack with all long-duration secondary magic resistance item /uses
  • They now overwrite or are overwritten by all short-duration secondary magic resistance item /uses and procs, based on the highest value.
    • Short-duration magic resistance item /uses and procs are defined as those lasting 30 seconds or less in duration and involve the following items’ spells:
      • Loyalty Cloaks’ “Repel Magic” /use (15s duration)
      • Astral and Hallowed Cloak of Heroes’ “Shroud of Protection” /use (20s duration)
      • Freezing/Unyielding/Howling/Shrouded Brutalizer Vests’ “Skin of the Brute” proc (7s duration)
• The following Cleric abilities in their Smiting specialialization should no longer disappear from their spell lists in certain scenarios. Please note that Clerics who currently do not have these abilities showing in their spell list may need to perform a respecialization to get them to reappear.
  • Virtuous, Heavenly, Rapturous, or Radiant Reflection
  • Helping, Healing, Light, Pure, or Holy Hand
  • Ascendance
• The Assassin ability Overshadow has been changed to no longer fire on targets that are already Overshadowed or are under the Blanket of Camouflage Spymaster’s Master Level ability.
• Dark Ingolf’s barrier in Midgard’s Dragon Curse Campaign 9.1 encounter should no longer cause caster damage to go into the negative. This should alleviate aggro-control issues.
• The Champion Level damage add ability, Force of the Abyss is no longer overwritten and always overwrites other damage add abilities. Users wishing to receive a higher value damage add ability must manually shift+right-click remove the Force of Abyss ability now.
• The recently revamped weapons found in Stonehenge Barrows, Spindelhalla, and Coruscating Mines have had their spell power levels reduced from 42 to 39.
  • The Smoldering Sable Flagellum whip has had its DPS corrected to match the other weapons at 15.6 DPS.
• The Cape of the Pictish Hero can now be emblemized.

It’s Friday, and that means it’s Grab Bag time! 

Don’t forget to check out our May newsletter and make sure you get your vote in on our template poll, and test your DAoC knowledge in round two of our picture quiz! Let us know how you did 🙂

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in 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.

We have some updates below for everyone who’s been asking about realm timers(!), so read on!

If you use the curse boots, like Soul Infused Greaves, it blocks the Shaman spells “Friggs remedy” and the group version “Fungal regeneration”. Is this intended?

Thanks for the report! We’ve added this to our Bug Tracker and will take a look at how best to tackle it.

There is a house by mine that has been up for repossession for over a week saying 5 days until repossessed, when does it kick in?

House repossession is currently disabled. There was a minor issue with the condemnation flag not always being removed when accounts re-subscribed.  Before those houses became erroneously repossessed, we went ahead and disabled repossession entirely for the time being. Houses that are currently condemned should remain in their existing state until we re-enable the process, but won’t ever get repossessed. When the process is re-enabled, all erroneously condemned houses (due to active subscriptions on the house owner’s account) will refresh and no longer show as condemned. Additionally, houses that should be condemned will start ticking down their timer again and once again be repossessed.

The process won’t be re-enabled until the next server downtime so there will be ample notification prior to this process being turned back on.

Would buying a keycode for Darkness Rising (New/old stock boxed) online grant the pre-order horse armour? Or is there any other way to get it?

Potentially an old Darkness Rising pre-order keycode could grant it, but only if it’s never been redeemed on another account before, so it would be a bit of a risk if you’re purchasing one from somewhere. Other than that, there is (currently!) no other way to get the “Mythical” saddle or light/medium/heavy horse armor.

We’ve been submitting feedback about the desire for realm timers for a while now, any chance they are coming with Endless Conquest?

After previously discussing that we were working on a Realm Loyalty system, we’ve been monitoring your feedback closely!

It turns out that many of you would prefer a realm timer over a loyalty system, and after some deliberation, we are going to do just that!

With Endless Conquest we will be implementing a short (30 minutes or less) realm timer to subscribed accounts in lieu of any loyalty system. EC-accounts will have a longer realm switch timer (in the 4 hour neighbourhood). Additionally, the realm switch timer will be changed to only be triggered if the character earned realm points and/or a player kill during their play session. This will allow players who are not participating in RvR to still switch realms freely while mostly resolving the major complaint of large-scale forces “realm-hopping” or “bandwagoning”.

We know that adding any additional realm switch timer will upset some of our players who enjoy switching back and forth at will. While this solution isn’t perfect for all play-styles we think it’s a happy-medium and one that should help reinforce realm loyalty with the impending influx of fresh recruits with Endless Conquest!

As always, we look forward to your continued feedback!

On last week’s grab bag you stated, “The first of those will be a “Classic” + Shrouded Isles + Housing server that will only progress to newer content if its player-base votes to do so.”

When stating “classic” does this mean “Old Frontiers” ? I just want clarity on if this is an Old Frontiers type of server or just classic chars and rulesets.

To be determined. Once we’ve released Endless Conquest we’ll be engaging the community on those nitty gritty ruleset choices to see which one you’d like to see the most! Whichever version the first alternative server ends up being, there’s a good chance to be another with other options further down the road.

Only 11 days left on the [Manx] Loyalty Rewarded quest – so get your Gem of Swift Travels and 50k BPS or Level 35 token quickly!

Enjoy the weekend all 🙂

Welcome to this week’s Grab Bag! As we’re heading into the end of the month our May newsletter will be hitting your inboxes soon, so make sure you’ve signed up!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in 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.

What can cure snare?
It happened to me several times where I snare an opponent, but it seems that there is something that cures snare (beside of purge or sos).
The spell effect looked like they use “draught of omni-heal”.

Yes, there are 3 classes that each have a casted “root/snare cure” ability:

• Shaman – Level 16 Cave Magic specialization:
  • Escape Hold – 10s cast – 1500 range – 300s Reuse Timer – Single-targeted cure of root and snare effects.

• Cleric – Level 13 Smiting specialization:
  • Blessing of Movement – 10s cast – 1500 range – 300s Reuse Timer – Single-targeted cure of root and snare effects.

• Druid – Level 13 Nature Affinity specialization:
  • Free Wind – 10s cast – 1500 range – 300s Reuse Timer – Single-targeted cure of root and snare effects.

 
 
For a long time charmed pets take a portion of rps gained from kills and solo credit, are there any plans to change this?

No, there are currently no plans to change how realm points or solo kill credits are awarded. 
 
 

Would it be possible to get some of the old trophies from the roundtables added in some way? Maybe the bp merchant? There was a gargoyle, marble table, and a playing card wall decoration from the Las Vegas and Virginia roundtables.

If we do decide to make these trophies available again, we would do so in a way that maintains their rarity.

We’re not quite convinced that selling them for bounty points (or possibly even Mithril) would achieve that, but would love to hear some more feedback on this!
 

 
On Alb, does the Goblin-forged Bracer of Speed (2 style dmg, 2 melee speed, 20 hits, 13 Quick) still drop in Tepok’s Mine? If not, in which dungeon? If so, off which mob? I’ve killed every named/unnamed mob in there, too many times to count, and I’ve never seen it drop (and I’ve spent WEEKS trying).

Yes, the bracer is still dropped off of the mob named Savant as well as normal mobs like the goblins, goblin shaman, and skates in Tepok’s Mine.
 
Don’t forget that our Item DB includes information on where each item is dropped or obtained from! Please note that an advanced text editor program is required to view the JSON file (we prefer Notepad+, which is free to download).
 
 

Are there any plans to bring a classic server back or at least one without ToA?

Yes! Once Endless Conquest has launched we’d like to introduce some alternate ruleset “progression” servers.

The first of those will be a “Classic” + Shrouded Isles + Housing server that will only progress to newer content if its player-base votes to do so.

Depending on how that server goes, we’d love to be able to introduce various other alternative ruleset servers.

That’s it for this week. Don’t forget about the RvR bonuses and I hope everyone has a safe and fun Memorial Day weekend!