THE HERALD

Time for another edition of the  Grab Bag!

This Grab Bag we’ve taken some of the hot topics discussed many times on our official forums as our “questions” for this week. While we still have much, much more to say on these topics, we felt, just as much as you asked, that some info was needed right now. For those who sent in specific Grab Bag questions, don’t worry we’ll return to those soon 🙂

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.

Read on for the updates disguised as questions!

Can you give us any information on Endless Conquest’s current progress and what you’re looking at restriction wise?

Endless Conquest development is currently underway and will take the bulk of 2019 to complete.

Our Endless Conquest FAQ has been updated and show’s our current plan:

What can Endless Conquest accounts do and not do?

Please note that some of these may change prior to launch:

• Can play for free on the Ywain server.
• Can obtain max realm rank.
• Can earn Master Levels and Master Level Abilities.
• Cannot earn Champion Levels or Champion Level Abilities.
• Can fully participate in PvE encounters or quests and earn endgame loot but cannot earn existing alternate currencies.
• Can obtain level 50 but cannot use the /rp off and /xp off commands.
  • The rate of character progression will also be limited.
• Will have “classic” buffing rules.
  • EC-characters must stay in range and be grouped with any other character that they buff or are buffed by for the buffs to work.
  • Cannot use existing buff potions.
• Can play on any pre-existing character of any class as long as the account was previously subscribed.
  • Newly created characters are limited to the following classes:
    • Albion:
    • Cleric
    • Friar
    • Paladin
    • Sorcerer
    • Mercenary
  • Midgard:
    • Shaman
    • Healer
    • Valkyrie
    • Runemaster
    • Berserker
  • Hibernia:
    • Druid
    • Warden
    • Bard
    • Mentalist
    • Blademaster
• Cannot own or be given permission to access a house or guild house.
• Cannot create a guild or be promoted to guild master.
• Will have access to all tradeskills except Siegecrafting and Bountycrafting.
• Will have access to all three realms on a single account.
• One EC-account logged-in per person.
• Will not receive veteran-based account rewards.

As you can see, EC accounts will be full-participants in PvE, the game’s economy, and in RvR but will be limited in ways that maintain the integrity of the game and still provide excellent benefits and value to our loyal subscribers!

An official bug/issue tracker is really beyond needed.  Would really help with transparency/reporting and knowing bugs are getting attention.

We agree! We already have one in the works and hope to release it in the coming weeks.

Is there anyway possible that you can fix it that our house merchants and toons will hold more than 200 plat ? It is so annoying to have our gold spread out among toons we don’t play often. Also full merchants are filling up the CM’s and make it so hard to find one you can buy from!

The full-merchant issue is one we’ve discussed previously and do have plans to address it in conjunction with the planned Housing update (post-Endless Conquest).

The 200 platinum cap on characters is a much trickier issue. Not only does it affect the game’s economy in drastic ways, there are also significant technical barriers to changing it (which we’ve discussed previously). That said, it is something we’re investigating changing as in general we would like to increase the cap in conjunction with offering game-time-code sales for platinum. We’ll have more news once that investigation is complete!

Is there any update on what’s going on with the Jord crash?

This has been a VERY tricky bug to track down. Until we can pinpoint exactly what is causing the crash for some players (it does not happen to all players all the time) it’s going to remain an issue. While some of our fixes have alleviated the issue for certain players, it is still happening quite frequently for others.

If you are still experiencing the crash frequently, please visit this form and send us your information!

Can we get some updates on Broadsword’s vision for DAoC in 2019 and beyond? What’s on the roadmap?

There will be a Producer’s letter coming soon that will outline this in greater detail but we are happy to share a short outline with you all, now!

Endless Conquest development will dominate the bulk of our time and resources for 2019. It’s a major, major upgrade that we have to get 100% correct. However, there are some features that are part of Endless Conquest that we plan to release as they are ready, instead of holding them for the major launch. With that context out of the way, here’s our 2019 roadmap and beyond:

• Endless Conquest preliminary launch features (launched as completed):
  • Realm vs Realm population-balancing feature
    • Group-finding and forming improvements as part of this.
  • User Interface improvements including UI-scaling
  • Overall progression and economy changes
  • Web-based community tools such as item search, spellcraft calculator, realm war status, leaderboards, etc.
• Content updates throughout the year
  • Ongoing bug fixes and class changes
  • New and recurring events
  • Potentially expanding out the Dynamic Keep Siege objectives to other battlegrounds and the Frontiers.
  • Monthly Mithril Store updates
• The new website launched and tied in with the already-released community-based tools.
• The launch of Endless Conquest itself

Post-Endless Conquest:

• Catacombs expansion revamp
  • This involves re-launching the Catacombs zones and content as entirely end-game focused.
  • Small-group-based PvE encounters and instances with a focus on obtaining unique armor and weapon skins that share existing item stats/abilities.
  • A major surprise. *wink*
  • More details to come!
• Housing update
  • Existing housing art revamped!
  • New housing types and new art!
  • Update to many of the housing system features
• Alternate “progression” server(s)
  • Subscription-only access
  • Will have potentially varying alternative rulesets
    • First server will start out as a “Classic” + Shrouded Isles + Housing ruleset
    • Will remain in its launch-state for as long as its playerbase wishes (vote-based) and then will advance through the major updates of Dark Age of Camelot’s history until catching up with Ywain’s state, at which point players will be able to transfer to Ywain.
    • Depending on the success of this server, there may be others added with similar rules but forced advancement/progression, etc.
  • Full details are currently being discussed and we’ll have more information after the launch of Endless Conquest!

As you can see, we have a lot of exciting developments coming this year and beyond and we look forward to hearing from you to make them the best they can be!

Lots to talk about there, very exciting! Don’t forget to head over to our official forums and join the chat 🙂

That’s it for this week, enjoy the weekend!

The ghostly incursion has come to an end but Manannan mac Lir seems to be growing restless. The realms’ generals, ever vigilant, have taken notice.

For now, there’s nothing much to do but ensure Manannan mac Lir’s sway doesn’t expand beyond his temporary holds on the underground keep of Knoc Meayll. 

• As a precaution, the realms have devoted extra resources to Ellan Vannin, opening up direct teleport to the Towers of Korazh, Deifrang, and Graoch!
  • Teleport to these towers is one-way only and can be initiated via the /realmwar map.
  • Teleport is only possible if the realm’s supply line is intact:
    • Albion must hold Caer Boldiam and Caer Benowyc to teleport to an EV tower
    • Midgard must hold Glenlock Faste and Bledmeer Faste to teleport to an EV tower
    • Hibernia must hold Dun nGed and Dun Crauchon to teleport to an EV tower
• Level 50s should visit their realm’s General to obtain the [Manx] [Daily] Preventive Measures quest!
  • Speak to General Kogis in Catterick Hamlet
  • Speak to General Bruki in Godrborg
  • Speak to General Vegda in Crair Treflan

Welcome to the first Grab bag of 2019!

Our first newsletter of the year went out yesterday, and you can view it here. Don’t forget to sign up to get our newsletter in your inbox as soon as it’s released!

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.

Click more for the questions!

I play a mauler and I am spending my points a little more unorthodox than most. To make a long story short I am putting 18 points in staff and 44 points in aura specialization.  That will result in me having a rank of gift of Hibernia that is too high to use with my staff rank.
My concern is whether or not I will be able to cast a lower rank of that ability by default, despite having a higher rank unlocked so that it doesn’t penalize me for putting additional points into aura specialization

I know in the past we had access to lower ranking spells, but now they automatically overwrite one another, and with this specific mechanic, there is that possible negative effect. I am wondering if that issue was overlooked or intentional.
Thank you so much!

Currently, no, only the highest ranked version of the spell is available as you specialize into Aura Manipulation. This was done to strongly encourage Aura Manipulation and Mauler Staff specializations to be raised in tandem.

However, this is certainly something we can look at changing going forward and allow the lower versions of the Gift-spells to remain in the spell list as Aura Manipulation is trained up. As always, we welcome additional feedback on the matter!

I’m trying to farm Icy Rock Paralyzer in laby for weeks now, killing all mobs that I’ve found on various sites as mobs that drop it over and over, but none have dropped it. Does it still drop and from which mob?

Yes, the Icy Rock Paralyzer shield still drops on all 3 realms. I

t has a very small chance to drop from almost any ‘Named’ monster in the Labyrinth. However, in Albion and Midgard, Prelate Quietus II is your best bet to obtain it and in Hibernia, Tiller Prime Peche has an equally high chance. Don’t forget that a list of monsters that drop a given item is freely available within our official Item Database!

When running with BGs it seems like there can be a lot of players ditching the “losing team” and joining the “winning team”  Is there anything you can tell us about anything in the works to deter realm hopping/jumping on the band wagon and promote more true RvR action? For example the idea of a realm timer has been floating around.

Realm balance is an important topic that our development team has and continues to discuss at length.

As we’ve mentioned in previous updates, we are planning to have an RvR population balancing system that replaces the current Dynamic Population Bonus system with the launch of the Endless Conquest update.  Whether that is a new ‘Realm Loyalty’ system that offers account-wide rewards for sticking to a single realm *in RvR* (PvEing on other realms wouldn’t interfere) for certain lengths of time or another, more active population balancing system specific to the Frontier regions remains to be seen!

At this time, we have no plans to bring back realm login timers.

How is the 25% reduction to blocking from dual wield applied?
I.e. if my rate of block is 40%, is my rate reduced to 15% or 30% (25% less than 40%?)

The 25% reduction to blocking bonus from dual-wielded attacks reduces the target’s block rate by 25%, it does not subtract 25% from their block rate %value. In the example given, it is the latter: a block rate of 40% is reduced to a 30% rate when facing a dual-wielded attack. 

For testing purposes and context: this dual wield bonus is applied to the mainhand and offhand swings separately. Meaning if a swing test of 1,000 is performed, the 25% dual wield reduction bonus can be seen when looking at the number of blocks on the mainhand OR offhand swings; but tallying up the total number of blocks from both mainhand and offhand swings would not give an accurate account of block rate.

Using the same example above, if there is a 40% block rate before the dual wield bonus, each of the mainhand and offhand swings will get blocked 30% of the time (benefiting from the 25% reduction bonus), but 60% of the time at least one of the mainhand or offhand swing will be blocked.

Hello, I have a question about certain  savage’s Hand to Hand styles procs, in particular:

How does this evade and parry chance bonuses works? Do they stack  with Savagery’s selfbuffs? Do they last just until the next attack?

Yes, these bonuses only last one enemy attack round and are essentially added on to any other parry and evade bonuses that are active but will not exceed the caps to parry or evade chance.

Thanks, all!
Remember the Ghost Keep event ends February 6th, so don’t miss the fun and rewards!
Enjoy the weekend 🙂

Update: Maintenance complete! The Account Center is back online.

The Account Center will be down today, Thursday, January 31st for maintenance. 

Downtime is estimated to last until 12:30 PM EST / 5:30 PM GMT. Please note that there may be issues signing-in to the Official Forums for the duration of this downtime.

Thank you for your patience and understanding!

Welcome to the last Grab Bag of the year (awww), but fear not, the Bag of Grabs will return late January (yay!) 🙂

Don’t forget about our special end of year giveaway streams! Saturday, December 15th at 5:30PM EST/10:30PM GMT and Wednesday, December 19th at 2:30PM EST/7:30PM GMT on our official Twitch channel! Mithril and race/gender/name respecs up for grabs! Read all the details on our officials forums here.

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming so we’ve a plethora for the new year! 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.

On to the questions!

On supremacy pots, if dex says increased by 80 and dex/qui increased by 100, how does that work when cap is 155?

The delves on the supremacy potions are set higher than the total buffing cap so that no buff bonus gear is required to reach the total cap when using the potions. If the delves were set to add up exactly to the total delve cap, they wouldn’t cap because of how buff spells reference buffing% and +skills.

Additionally, there are separate caps for base stat buffs (str, con, and dex) and specialized buffs (str/con, dex/qui, and acuity):

• Base stat buffs cap at +62
• Specialized stat buffs cap at +93

Neither of these individual caps nor the total buff cap of 155 can be exceeded on any stat buff, regardless of their delve value or use of buff bonus gear.

Hi, my question is about the Dragonslayer Armor (from the old campaign). Now that it no longer is the end game gear…. would it be considered to remove the level requirement to equip? It already has a bonus level:34

No, Dragonslayer equipment has high-value heal and ablative procs and TOA bonuses that we want to keep in the level 45+ range.

After patch 1.25 respawn rates in the high level mines, such as Coruscating Mine, has decreased significantly. If the end game is RvR, why make us spend far more time farming for alchemy drops? Did you provide a way to get these drops in RvR?

Yes, the spawn times in Coruscating Mine, Spindelhalla, and Stonehenge Barrows were normalized across the three dungeons in most cases. A few spawns, especially at the entrances of the dungeons, were essentially “insta-spawning” and were adjusted accordingly. The spawns are set by random chance but they should still re-spawn within a minute or two the vast majority of the time, which is hardly a slow spawn rate.

Additionally, a way to purchase alchemy ingredients for bounty points was added in 1.125!

Charge is one of the only active abilities without a visual effect. Is there a reason behind that ?

Yes, unfortunately charge is an “old-form” ability that isn’t categorized or coded in the same way as normal spells. While this seems like something we could simply change, it’s of course not that simple. We have thoroughly investigated our options but unfortunately it is not currently worth the time investment for us to address.

The items I’m trying to skin don’t skin correctly. I used one chest to transmog the skin to another chest, but it did not copy the shoulder pads the same as the original item.

Certain armor looks are derived from thee armor’s base material (bronze, adamantium, arcanium, etc.) which controls things like the armor’s level, armor factor, and more.

The chest-piece being copied from is likely using a low-level base material (like bronze) and so looks a certain way (like no shoulder pads), but the chest-piece that is equipped and being to is using a higher-level base material (like arcanium) and so the patterned-skin will account for your equipped armor’s higher level material and show the sturdier version of the skin.

Hey I’ve sent in many game mechanic-related questions to the Grab Bag but you never answer any!! What gives?!

We get a lot of questions asking us on whether this item works with this other item, what’s the best use of an ability in certain situations, or asking how abilities and item uses work.

The Grab Bag’s purpose is to answer questions that provide insight into development plans, to clarify basic game mechanic questions (question #1 is a perfect example of these), and to generally provide updates on community issues.

It is not meant to answer game mechanic questions that essentially tell players which items or abilities are best to use with others, because that’s essentially advising them on how to play their class best. Players need to determine that on their own or ask other players for advice if they are truly stuck.

That’s all from the Grab Bag for this year. Enjoy the holidays and Happy New Year from all of us, to all of you 🙂

Much <3

The following changes are now live!

Highlights

• Name change tokens make their return to the Mithril shop!
• The Skull Mask pattern is now for sale in the Mithril shop!
• The 14-days free trial is now disabled in preparation for development of the Endless Conquest update.
• The Dragon’s Curse campaign’s difficulty has been significantly reduced and is now able to be completed with a group or less!

Click the link below for the full notes!

Hot Fix Notes

Mithril Shop

• Name change tokens have returned and are once again for sale on the Mithril Merchant found in each realm’s capital city.
• Skull Mask patterns are now for sale on the Mithril Merchant found in each realm’s capital city.

Trial Accounts

• In preparation for development of the Endless Conquest update, newly created accounts will no longer receive the14-days free trial as of this posting.
  • Any existing trial accounts will still have access to their remaining free days and are not affected by this change.

Trifecta

• The cost to play trifecta has been increased from 10 to 20 gold per attempt.

A Dragon’s Curse Campaign

Difficulty Adjustments

• All realms’ prologue and chapter encounters have had their difficulties reduced so that a single full group (or less) can reasonably complete them.
  • The Prologue, Chapters 1-5, and Chapters 7-8 remain battlegroup and/or area-credit even with the difficulty reduction.
• Monsters in Childe’s Tomb, Drakulvhamn, and A Rift dungeons have been adjusted as follows:
  • Hit point reductions that lower the difficulty of all normal monsters.
  • Named bosses and their associated monsters that are part of the various optional quests are no longer aggressive to players and instead only “aggro” a character in the dungeon if they are attacked first.
    • These optional encounters have not had their difficulties reduced otherwise.
    • This change should allow players to move through these dungeons more freely and complete certain chapters more easily.
    • The Wolfmother Guards in Drakulvhamn and the Glimmer Lords, Vampiir Lords, Rift Tunnelers, Veil Gargoyles, Veil Serpents, and Glimmer Spreaders in A Rift that are not associated with any optional encounters are also included in this change.
  • In Childe’s Tomb and A Rift the number of monsters in certain areas has been reduced as well.
• Chapter 6 instances remain solo-only but have had their difficulty reduced as follows:
  • Hit point reductions that lower the difficulty of the normal and named monsters in all realms.
  • The number of monsters in the instances of Caer Sidi and Halls of Ma’ati in Albion, Trolheim and Deep Volcanus in Midgard, and Aerus City in Hibernia have been reduced.
  • These changes should help drastically reduce the overall amount of time it takes to complete this chapter so long as each realms’ allied “pets” are summoned and used throughout.
• Chapter 9 and 10 instances remain full-group encounters but have had the difficulty of all realms’ boss encounters reduced further, in addition to the following changes:
  • Hit point reductions that lower the difficulty of the normal monsters in all realms.
  • In Childe’s Vault and the Inner Veil, the number of normal monsters in certain areas has been reduced as well.
  • These changes should significantly reduce the time it takes to complete these chapters.

Streamlining and Bug Fixes

• All chapter quest steps that involve a location-specific task should now display the quest dot on the /map at the correct location.
• Grey and Blue quest-icon knots should now properly appear and disappear over-head of NPCs that are involved in a quest step.
• Several quests’ text and tasks have been re-worded to provide clearer instructions.
• All chapter and prologue specific quests have had their [Curse] prefixes adjusted to include their specific chapter as [Curse Prologue], [Curse 1], [Curse 2], etc.
  • Optional side quests now use the generic “[Curse]” prefix.
• Chapter 1:
  • Albion:
    • Defeating Occulist Nera and Knight Feirefiz tasks are both displayed initially and can now be completed in any order.
  • Midgard:
    • Defeating Oracle Kel and the 5 Drakulv Oracles tasks are both displayed initially and can now be completed in any order.
  • Hibernia:
    • Salle’s [teleport] to the other end of A Rift dungeon is now available even after Chapter 1’s quest is complete.
• Chapter 2:
  • Albion:
    • The area credit for placing the soul stone into the slime has been extended slightly.
    • The tasks for this quest are now both displayed initially and can now be completed in any order.
  • Hibernia:
    • The Salle pet now automatically casts the Soul Power buff once chapter 2 is complete.

• Chapter 3:
  • Albion:
    • The Darkspire Harpy no longer roams Childe’s Tomb and is now at a fixed location.
      • This specific Darkspire Harpy is no longer aggressive to players.
  • Midgard:
    • Players are now directed to Sigrun or Theso prior to being directed to Garmr at the end of this quest.
  • Hibernia:
    • Quest steps 1 and 2 have been consolidated and no longer require players to de-summon Salle and re-summon her to get credit for the first quest step.
• Chapter 4:
  • All Realms:
    • Soul Casks can now be obtained from battlegroup-kills and subsequent kills done by players who have already obtained 25/25 souls, but not yet turned in the quest, will now count towards other characters’ credit.
    • Credit for this step is now rewarded directly after a kill and no souls spawn after kills now.
      • The random chance for credit has been increased.
  • Hibernia:
    • Quest steps 1 and 2 have been consolidated and no longer require players to de-summon Salle and re-summon her to get credit for the first quest step.
• Chapter 5:
  • Albion:
    • Players are now asked to defeat Occulist Naxar prior to Vulcan.
    • Grimbur now properly goes immune at 50% health and spawns the Tenebrous Dark Knight which must be defeated.
    • Grimbur now always dispels Naxar’s Barrier.
  • Midgard:
    • Players are now asked to defeat the Darkspire Crystal prior to King Bodolf.
    • Area credit around the Darkspire Crystal has been extended.
• Chapter 6:
  • Albion:
    • Caer Sidi’s cut-scene in the middle of the instance is now skippable.
  • Hibernia:
    • The Marrach Marauders have been replaced with Marrach Blackguards in the Fomor instance.
    • The Aerus City instance now offers two paths that reach the end, to the west or to the north, after defeating the sky djinn and no longer requires characters to double-back to the north to continue.
      • The location and configuration of normal and named monsters in the Aerus City instance has also been changed to accommodate this new choice.
• Chapter 7:
  • All Realms:
    • Beginning the dragon encounter will cause the normal monsters inside the dragon lair to despawn and cease spawning for the encounter’s duration.
• Chapter 9:
  • Albion:
    • All PBAoE effects are now instantly removed when Necromancer Janus’ encounter is completed.
  • Midgard:
    • All PBAoE effects are now instantly removed when Dark Ingolf’s encounter is completed.
  • Hibernia:
    • Najah’s encounter:
      • The smoke’s protection should no longer drop when a character is still inside the smoke and the smoke itself did not dissipate.
      • Characters outside of the smoke’s protection are still damaged and interrupted but are now done so in a more consistent manner.
      • New spell effects have been added to show when players are outside of the smoke’s protection.
        • The Thunder Drake’s spell effects have been changed to accommodate this change.
    • Varshe’s encounter:
      • Varshe has been given additional spell effects that show when he is about to change states and now has a constant effect for the entire duration of each state.
      • Varshe now changes states more frequently.
      • All PBAoE effects are now instantly removed when this encounter is completed.