THE HERALD

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.

Welcome to this week’s Grab Bag!

Our newsletter goes out later today, so make sure you are signed up to get all the updates on events, community news, and more!

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 questions, feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Read on for glory!

Why is it that the Bard Crescendo ability is on a 2.8s interruptible cast while the Skald and Minstrel Crescendo ability is instant cast? Is there a reason the Bard Crescendo ability can’t be an uninterruptible cast (not necessarily instant)?

There are usually a myriad of reasons for why one class gets an ability (or the same ability but in a different form) than other classes in other realms and this case is no different.

First, we don’t just look at Minstrels’, Skalds’, and Bards’ strengths and weaknesses and then choose their form of Crescendo, we look at the realms and their classes as a whole too. This includes analysing synergies that exist among the various classes within each realm on the small and large scales. Second, we look at the overall performance and popularity of each class across the different playstyles. And finally, we analyse what each class can bring to a fight across the different playstyles.

Bards’ combination of their casting-focused support role, popularity, synergy with the other classes in their realm across every playstyle, and overall performance mandate that their Crescendo be a normal-casted spell. In short, making the spell uninterruptible would be too near to making it an instant cast and would be too powerful for our liking.

What caused the lowering of controlled pets hit points? 10% is really significant. Help us understand why.

When pets were generally increased in effectiveness (including hit-point and other bonuses) in Patch 1.122B they were improved a bit too much. In subsequent versions pets were reduced back down to more acceptable levels. With 1.125, there were still some pets that were enjoying their 1.122B hit-point values while all other pets had been reduced already. The 1.125 reductions merely put the remaining pets in-line with the other pet reductions.

I understand that the DF bow may be the optimal weapon of choice for archers, but I’m also a fan of the astral bow which along with the DF bow both have good proc rates.  My questions is about other bows:

Gjalpinulva, Tuscars, and Nychta’s Heartstring Bows.   I like the dragon bow because it has 5% spell pierce and it would be viable except that it breaks mez poison.  And the Tuscars bow has a 204 DD proc and the Nychta’s Hearstring has the 20% abs proc; these hardly proc: 1:30 on the Tuscars and 1:50 on the Nychta’s.  I will say that the endurance drain on the Nychta’s procs more than the abs debuff, but basically these two bows do not proc at the same rate as the astral bow or df bow.  Is this because these two bows overperformed?  Could you make a few adjustments with some of the bows and procs to add a little more flavor to the archery type, so we aren’t using one bow all the time?

While the Astral Bow of Dismay’s proc rate is indeed high, the Darkness Falls’ Champion Level 15 bows and the other bows listed all have extremely similar proc rates (within 1-2%). This is unlikely to be changed.

When playing my wizard, I noticed something with the loyalty cloak. When you cast to reset timer on class abilities, why doesn’t this affect class realm abilities as well since some are class specific? All of the toa abilities come back, but realm timers like decimation trap don’t reset.

The short answer is that it would be too powerful of an ability if it reset realm abilities in addition to the class abilities. There is not a way for it to only reset certain ‘class-specific’ realm abilities and not other realm abilities like Mastery of Concentration, etc.

For additional context, class-specific realm abilities are still classified as realm abilities and not “class” abilities. Class abilities are only the abilities that a class specializes for or gets as baseline as they level up.

Any update on when Name changes will be available again?

Barring any unforeseen circumstances we plan to re-enable them sometime next week.

That’s it for this week! 

Don’t forget to tune into my streams on our official Twitch channel on Saturday nights at 5:30PM EST / 10:30PM GMT for all the chat, action, and giveaways!

Thanks as always and enjoy the weekend 🙂

Update November 27th: Harvest celebrations have drawn to a close. Characters that already have the event quests active may still complete them at the Festival Steward but she will no longer offer new quests.

It’s that time of season when the leaves have changed color and are steadily falling, when the wind arrives with a chill, and the bounty of the year’s harvest is ready to be served and celebrated!

Harvest Celebration Event

• The realms are humming with anticipation for their upcoming feasts and local festivals!
  • Help the realms’ Festival Steward recover a lost shipment of food and root out some secret stores of delicious desserts!
    • The repeatable RvR quests ‘[Harvest] Lost Turkey’ and ‘[Harvest] [Daily] Secret Provisions’ are now available at each realm’s strength relic town at the Festival Steward NPC!
      • Earn bounty points for your efforts!
      • The Tower of Korazh, Deifrang, and Graoch on Ellan Vannin will have sturdier doors for this event’s duration.

Farmer’s Market Festival

• The Farmer’s Market Festival makes its return to the following locations:
  • Albion: Ludlow
  • Midgard: Vasudheim
  • Hibernia: Ardee
• Visit the Festival Matron and go bobbing for apples to earn some house trophies!
• Let Captain Mack in Albion, Captain Marks in Midgard, or Captain Geddes in Hibernia regale you with their tales of a shark THIS big on the high seas and see if you can avenge their crews to earn the Sharkblood Bracer!

We’ve got a few more fixes and notes for your enjoyment! Once again, thank you all for the continued feedback and bug reports!

Developer’s note:

• We’re currently aware of and still working on fixes for the following issues:
  • Autoloot and autosplit not working on characters that have a completely empty backpack inventory.
    • We’re working on a fix for this but for now a way to rectify the issue is to move a new item into their backpack from their /bank and that will allow the loot to once again be split to that character.
    • So long as characters have 1 item in their backpack, autoloot and autosplit should continue to work in the meantime.
• Molvik’s keep and towers all upgrading when the Stone Quarry is taken instead of just Molvik’s keep.

Click the link below for some tweaks and bug fixes that are now live!

Hot Fix Notes

Update 5:35 PM EST / 10:35 PM GMT: Ywain is once again open to all players!
Update 5:15 PM EST / 10:15 PM GMT: Gaheris is once again open to all players! 

The Ywain and Gaheris servers are coming down now to perform emergency server maintenance involving a crash.

This downtime should be completed in under 3 hours. 

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we resolve this matter!