Weekly Development Activities

October 9, 2006

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Check out the latest updates to the "Weekly Development Activities."
The goal for this feature is to give solid expectations on what you can
expect to see in future updates.



In QA

These items are in QA and should be a part of Module 3.



General

You will now slowly regenerate Hit Points and Spell Points while
walking around the city and not just in taverns. A number of new emotes have been added to the game:
/beckon
/hug
/flex
/groan
/grovel
/kiss
/no
/poke
/sigh
/taunt
/yes
/cheer2
/dance2 NEW - /show (allows you to /show off
your right-hand weapon).
The
Silver Flame has recognized that the brothers stationed in Taverns have
been casting an inferior version of Restoration. From now on, the spell
cast in taverns will remove 1 negative level in addition to all the
other Restoration effects. Raid parties for the Dragon or the
Warforged Titan will now have the option of setting the raid loot
shards to go to a random member of the party rather than to the leader.
The leader can switch the shard designation by right clicking on the
party health-bars (in the same place he/she clicked for
"convert-to-raid"). All members of the party will be notified in party
chat when this happens, and later arrivals will be notified when they
join the party. Once the party has been switched to "random loot", it
cannot be switched back. Shards will be randomly assigned to any member
of the party who is alive and still in the dungeon as soon as someone
attempts to pick up the shard. Fixed a bug which prevented the player's encumbrance from being
updated when sending an item through the mail. NEW
- Some new Tips have been added to the game that will be displayed when
loading a new area. Special thanks to ddo.com forum members apollojuly,
Berjik, Chardros, Denomicon, DeusMortis, DrAwkward, Drogon,
DuckOfDeath, Elurian, Fu-Inator, Furee, oronisi, patnodewf, Squeg,
Thanatos, Thistle, tihocan, toddfox2, tr0tsky, Ustice, Volund, whysper,
winsom, and Worg2k6 for the new helpful tips! Players will no longer get stuck while dismounting from ladders. We
are pleased to announce the addition of the /showhelmet <on |
off> command which can be used to hide your helmet graphic. We
are improving the combat/damage feedback mechanism. This will not only
eliminate "false" hits where the target would flinch but no attack roll
would take place, but also give better feedback as to the strength of
the hit. When you successfully swap a spell, you will now get an alert
telling you that it worked. Poison dart and poison grenade traps will now actually poison you
instead of doing poison hp damage. NEW - Soulstones are now ethereal to
almost everything which means they'll fall properly if you die in
mid-air, over water, etc. Lava Cam! When your camera is in lava, it now looks more like
it's in lava, as opposed to water. Made
some small tweaks to our avatar animations. For example, human female's
wrists won't twist in the dual weapon combo attack, dwarven arms won't
over-extend when they use an axe to cleave, etc.

Performance

The landscape renderer has been overhauled to
provide better performance (especially load times). In addition, the
new landscape engine enables huge draw distances that were not possible
before. The overall frame rate has been improved and ‘hitching' reduced. Avatars
and monsters are now a bit brighter than other objects (the intensity
depends upon the environment and lighting conditions). Overall
bandwidth of the game will be reduced another 1-3%, and certain
problematic dungeons and laggy areas will be significantly improved by
20-50% (when your client gets flooded with information about objects in
your local area). These changes will be most noticeable for modem
users.

UI Improvements

The text on the XP bar has been clarified
to make it more obvious that you have not lost the XP you were accruing
toward your bonus AP when you die and get an XP debt while you are
working toward bonus action points. NEW - Race and Alignment requirements to
equip items will now be shown in RED text. NEW
- We've added a new button to the focus orb! The new "tell" icon
appears next to the "invite" button when you have another player
selected. Mail The "New Mail" icon will now appear on the Focus Orb even if
it is minimized. The "New Mail" icon will now vanish from the Focus Orb when
the last new letter in your mailbox has been opened. It is no longer possible to put too much text into the
Compose Mail' "To," "Subject," and "Message" fields. It
is no longer possible to compose new mail while your mailbox is full.
The Mail Box is considered full when it has fifty or more letters
inside of it. The "To" and "Subject" line of the Compose Mail UI no longer
accept carriage returns. NEW - /retell can now be used with the
alias /rt as well. NEW
- When you type in "/r " the chat box will automatically replace that
text with "/tell X," This works with "/r", "/reply", ";r", and
";reply". This functionality has also been added to the /retell command
and should help eliminate mistells. In an effort to help clear up some confusion Ranks will now start
at 1 instead of 0. ALT-Z will now hide/show the main UI. You will now see the dice rolls for dispelling. When
using something other than the mouse to move the mouse cursor (for
example, an Xbox 360 controller), the mouse cursor will not be allowed
to move outside the game window.

Monsters

NEW - Many human
enemies have had their alignments updated or corrected. For example,
Agents of the Emerald Claw are now Chaotic Evil; Warriors of the
Emerald Claw are now Neutral Evil; the necromancer Gerti is now Chaotic
Evil; all Blackguards are now Evil, and many are Lawful Evil; City
Guards are now Lawful Neutral; and several misaligned thieves and
rogues are now Chaotic Neutral. Monsters can no longer remain stealthed/invisible when they are
casting harmful spells on you. Adjusted
some monster sneak attacks to function properly – some were not being
blocked by fortification, while others were not triggering in situation
where they should have (for example, with a blinded target). Monsters will now deal properly when hit with multiple behavior
states (for example, mesmerized while dancing). NEW
- The behavior of monsters that cannot reach their target because other
creatures are in the way has been improved. Preventing a monster from
reaching its target is now an effective way to gain the creature's
attention. NEW - Troglodyte Stench is
no longer called 'nausea' but is instead properly called 'Troglodyte
Stench' and flagged as a sickness. Thus it can be removed by effects
that remove sickness, and will be more resistible by Warforged. The
functionality of the stench has not been otherwise changed. Liches
can no longer be affected by command undead, halt undead, the undead
fear portion of the chill touch spell, or control undead (not in game
yet). Mephits now fly faster. Most named troglodytes have been given more hp on the hard and
elite settings. NEW - Trolls should no longer attempt to
make melee attacks from out of range. NEW - Wight priests now cast attack
spells with greater frequency. Spiders Some mid- and high-level (mostly CR 7 and up) spiders have
new stronger poisons. Most
spiders on the hard and elite settings have had their attack damage
reduced significantly, particularly those on the elite setting. Widow type spiders will once again shoot functional webs. The mind flayer and vampire's dominate abilities no longer dispel
protection from evil. NEW - Vampires no longer cast shadows. NEW - Vampiric Domination is now
properly "Dominate Person" rather than "Dominate Monster" (Celestial
Dogs and Warforged rejoice!) NEW - Undead bosses can no longer be
affected by turn undead fear. Some ogres have been eating their veggies and will be able to see
and hear better than they could before. Several
bow wielding enemies will now shoot various energy arrows like flaming
arrows or cold arrows. These will do the typical piercing damage (1d6
and up) in addition to various amounts of energy damage. Several
resourceful enemies have begun using various alchemical substances in
battle. In most cases, these will affect players as energy damage over
time. Elemental Empathy will work properly on Earth Elementals that
have used their Earthgrab ability. More
powerful versions of Mummy Rot are now labeled accordingly: Pernicious
Mummy Rot is more dangerous than regular Mummy Rot, and Virulent Mummy
Rot is even more lethal. NEW - Adran ir'Karsmore relies less on
natural AC and more on his clerical buffs to provide him enough AC. Female humanoid villains will no longer charge into melee range
if armed with spells or bows. NEW - Mind flayers no longer reappear
after being killed by a fiery death. We
are fixing an issue with the death animations of Arcane Skeletons. They
will no longer "eat collectables" they should be creating.

Combat

All enemy trips and knockdowns now have dual saves
(an initial save and a secondary save). Most give you an ability
modifier check for the initial save to determine whether or not you
fall. This is usually your Strength or Dexterity modifier, whichever is
greater on your character. Some knockdowns like grease give a reflex
save as the initial save. Once you fall down, your secondary save
checks will occur every two seconds and are versus your balance skill
to determine when you stand back up. NEW - Vermin Empathy and Elemental
Empathy will now properly deduct from your Wild Empathy uses per day. NEW
- Rangers can now choose Favored Enemy: Gnoll as one of their favored
enemies, either during advancement or by using a feat respec. NEW - Favored Enemy: Construct now works
on warforged opponents. Smiting weapons and other death effects now give better combat
feedback in your chat box. Boss monsters will now give better feedback on spells that they
are immune to.

Spells

Spell Changes

The valid arc for casting spells on a target has been increased
from a forward 90 degree arc to a forward 120 degree arc. Resist
Energy is now available for clerics, paladins, rangers, and wizards.
Protection from Energy is now available to Rangers, Wizards, and
Clerics. This change allows these classes to cast Protection From
Energy and Resist Energy the same way a sorcerer can, by memorizing a
single spell and then choosing which damage type to ward against. The
days of memorizing several Resist Energy: (Element) are no more! Protection
from Evil has been fixed to work correctly. It no longer protects
against *all* charms and compulsions (including Otto's, command, hold
monster/person, etc). Rather, it only protects against charms and
compulsions that give ongoing mental control, such as the vampire's
dominate ability. Also, as per D&D rules, it no longer protects
against mental control from evil creatures, but ALL mental control,
regardless of the target's alignment. Phantasmal killer is now a fear effect. NEW - Players will now be immune to
charm and suggestion spells. Players will no longer be immune to
command spells. NEW - Stinking Cloud is now properly
considered a 'nausea' effect. Holy smite will now damage spiders. The
Teleport spell no longer has a Somatic casting component so players
will not suffer an arcane spell failure chance for Teleport while
wearing armor. The Dispel Magic spell (for bards, clerics,
paladins, sorcerers, and wizards) no longer requires a material
component to cast (as per P&P rules). Niac's cold ray now uses the proper ray cast animation. Mind Blast now affects all enemies within the area of effect. The
flame arrow spell now allows the caster to choose what type of ammo
he/she would like to add the "flame" property to. Choices include
Arrows, Bolts, Throwing Daggers, Throwing Axes, Darts, and Shuriken.
Each requires 1 base unmodified type of that ammo (so Flame Shuriken
requires 1 plain shuriken) and produces a stack of 50. All players and
items that can cast flame arrow will now cast the "new" version. NEW
- Ice storm no longer creates a slippery surface on the ground that
causes players or monsters to fall. Instead it slows the land movement
speed of enemy monsters for a very short time while in the storm area. Stoneskin
and Protection from Energy spells now work as per PHB - they have a
total amount of damage that they protect you from, after which they
will vanish. When blind, you will no longer see the names
floating above the head of named friends/foes. In an update sometime
after Module 3 we will be restoring the ability to see friend's names. Casting/Cooldown
Slightly reduced the cooldown timer of all level 5 spells. NEW - The 'projectile' portion of
Fireball and Ball Lightning have been sped up slightly. NEW - The Flaming Sphere ball of
fire has been sped up slightly. Significantly sped up the casting time of Command to be in
line with other spells of that level. Significantly sped up the casting time of Flame Strike. Significantly sped up the casting time of the Spell
Resistance spell to be in line with other spells of that level. Significantly sped up the cast time of the sorcerer's
Dimension Door spell to be in line with other spells of that level. Significantly increased the cooldown timer of the sorcerer's
Suggestion spell to be in line with other Suggestion spells. Made
several minor tweaks to casting times and cooldown timers of other
spells to bring them in line with similar spells of the same level.
NEW
- The cloud spells Acid Fog, Cloudkill, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Mind
Fog, Obscuring Mist, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, and Solid Fog have
had their FX altered slightly. Now, if you or an ally cast any of these
spells you will see the particle effects only, and not the obstructive
visual overlay. Cloud spells cast by enemy spellcasters will still
display screen overlays on any target that didn't resist the spell. NEW - Obscuring Mist can now be burned
away with fire spells (like the Web spell - as per D&D rules). NEW - Glitterdust's penalty to hide is
no longer resistable with a Will Save. NEW - The teleport spell now uses the
correct particle FX. The visual for the Grease spell now matches more closely the area
of effect. You will now get chat feedback in the combat window when you hit
someone with a non-damaging spell (like fear or slow).

Metamagic Fixes

Characters using the Quicken feat will find their spellcasting
greatly improved. Resistance, Restoration, Raise Dead and See Invisibility spells
can now be used with the Eschew Materials feat. The spell point cost of using your Eschew Materials metamagic
feat has been reduced. Find
Traps, Ice Storm, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray and Searing Light no
longer consume additional spellpoints while the Heighten Spell feat is
active. Holy Smite and Niac's Cold Ray can now be used with the Heighten
Spell feat. Dismissal no longer consumes extra spell points while the
Maximize or Empower spell feats are active. Feeblemind and Waves of Fatigue no longer consume extra spell
points while the Extend Spell feat is active. Ray of Exhaustion can now be used with the Heighten spell feat. Sleet Storm no longer consumes addition spell points while the
Heighten spell feat is active. Wall of Fire No longer consumes additional spellpoints while the Heighten
spell feat is active. Wall of Fire can now be used with the Extend Spell feat. Shocking grasp can now be affected by the Heighten Spell
metamagic feat. Solid Fog and Grease no longer consume additional spellpoints
when under the effects of the Heighten Spell metamagic feat. Melf's Acid Arrow no longer consumes additional spellpoints while
the heighten spell feat is active.

Spell Description Updates

(these are just text changes, not changes to spell functionality)

Spell descriptions now use color for greater readability! Player
spells will now state in their descriptions if the spell has a saving
throw to resist, and if so, the results of a successful save. NEW - Niac's Cold Ray now properly
includes max damage (please note: there has been no functional change
to this spell). Ray
of Enfeeblement description fixed, it had been indicating an extraneous
+1 STR damage that it did not do, and was missing max caster level
information. Hold spells have been updated to state that they have a save
interval. Player spells that have a max Hit Dice cap should now state this
in their description. Melf's Acid Arrow description has been updated to list the
correct interval. Wall of Fire description now been updated to include damage
amounts. Scorching ray description now includes information about
additional rays and their levels.

Skills & Abilities

The magnitude of the bonus
provided by Action Boost: Attack and Action Boost: Skills have been
reduced at the higher level enhancements. Bards can now
activate their singing abilities while moving! The activation time on
their singing abilities has been reduced significantly as well. An
animation glitch has also been fixed! Fixed a bug with some AOE
abilities and spells. Formerly, if you had a dead monster targeted,
Turn Undead would fail. Now, it will work, but will be centered on you
since your selected target is dead. The same is true of other feats,
skills (Intimidate, etc.), and spells (Burning Hands, etc.), for which
the default behavior on an invalid target should be "happen, centered
on me", or "happen, aiming directly forward". The description
for the Paladin's Lay on Hands ability has been corrected to better
describe the amount of healing/damage that the ability does. NEW
- The Bard Inspire Competence ability is now correctly flagged as a
'competence' bonus to skills, not a 'morale' bonus as it was.

Enhancements

Warforged who take the fighter's armor
mastery enhancements will now see it affect the max dex bonus from
their armored body feat. The Divine Healing enhancement now affects warforged characters
equally effectively as non-warforged characters. NEW - The Human Improved Recovery
Enhancements now will properly increase the value of heals cast on you.

Items

NEW - The prohibition the
Coin Lords had placed on the sale of handaxes in Stormreach has been
lifted. Handaxes now for sale in fine weapon shops near you. There
is a new weapon effect "Vicious". This effect causes the weapon to do
an additional 2d6 of damage to the target, but also does 1d6 of damage
to the wielder. NEW - Generic Masterwork and +1 items
sold in various shops around Stormreach are no longer bind on acquire. NEW
- Bolts of X Bane have had their minimum required level reduced to
match Arrows of X Bane. This change is not retroactive, but all new
bane bolts found will have the new minimum required level. NEW
- Corrected a treasure issue where some slashing weapons were generated
without an intended effect. The affected weapons will not suddenly gain
a new effect but they will retain their inflated monetary value for
sale to vendors. The following bane weapons will now have the
appropriate attack bonus. At the moment there is not a retroactive fix
for older copies of the weapons who do not have the bonus but we are
working on one.
Kelmar's Justice
Sword of the Giant Slave-Masters
Giant Stalker's Knife
Spider Spike
Spiked Mace of the Elements
Crests will now sparkle to make them easier to see. NEW
- Thrown weapons (axes, daggers, darts, and shuriken) will now rotate
appropriately when thrown. Thrown daggers and axes now also have
streaks as they spin through the air. NEW - Elemental weapon particle FX have
been toned down. NEW
- The "Protection from Chaos" effect found on the Planar Gird and the
Chaosgarde has been renamed "Chaosguard". This is to prevent confusion
with the D&D rules Protection from Chaos which includes a ward
against mental control. Our effect was never intended to include that
ward (and never has). There is no change in the actual benefits of
these items.

NPCs

NEW - Wandering NPCs (such as Altan
Eguilan) should no longer slide away while talking to players. NEW - Summoned and charmed monsters
should no longer attack Derward Ironhill. NEW - Durk the Deranged has noticed that
his friend Loghan is no longer in the Leaky Dinghy.

PVP

Sneak attack works as follows: If the target player is helpless, sneak attack applies. If the target player is blinded, sneak attack applies. If the target player is asleep, sneak attack applies. If the target player is stunned, sneak attack applies. If the target player is bluffed, sneak attack applies. If the target player is dazed, sneak attack applies. If the target player is flanked, sneak attack applies. NEW - In PvP arenas only, inflict wounds
spells can be used to heal friendly undead.

Quests

NEW - Fixed a problem where some floor
puzzle tiles weren't lighting up when they should have. NEW - Garl's Tomb
Old Grey Garl will no longer fall through his hatch while
fighting you.
NEW - Ghola-Fan's Compound
The
chest in the Iron Golem training room inside Ghola-Fan's Compound will
no longer pickable to help prevent quest completion issues.
NEW - Haunted Library
The floor puzzle in the Haunted Library now requires that all
4 runes be lit at the same time in order to open the door.
NEW - Osgood's Basement
Some breakables in this dungeon were not counting towards the
XP bonus for number of breakables smashed. This has been fixed.
NEW - The Pit
Made some changes to the Pit's instruction manual - Step 9 is
a little bit difference since the final objective has changed.
NEW - Prison of the Mind
Monsters should no longer fall off Prison of the Mind.
NEW - Redfang's Nesting Ground
More spikes are now disabled by the control panel in the
spike-trapped room, creating a wider "safe path" for travel.
NEW - Restless Isles
We have added another encounter. The locked gates in the tunnels beneath the isles can now be
picked with a high enough dc roll.
NEW - Sharpwood's Warehouse
The enemies will no longer respawn. NEW - Sorrowdusk Island
The
puzzle wheels at the end of the Fane of the Six must now all be set to
the correct position at the same time in order to drop the barriers. The 2 floor puzzles in Sorrowdusk Temple now require that all
3 of their runes be lit at the same time to complete the puzzle.
NEW - Splinterskull
Chief Ungurz will now offer an option to repeat the
Splinterskull quest arc.
Tempest Spine
The
"Bridge to the Inevitable" gate trap will now open after 3 minutes to
prevent parties from getting stuck should someone run ahead, trigger
the trap, and then die.
NEW - Twilight Forge
The dogs in the boss fight will now stop respawning after the
mind flayer boss is killed. Made the locked chest in Twilight Forge easier to open.
NEW - Wavecrest Tavern
Kobolds will no longer attack you through doors in the
Basement.

Under Development

These items are currently in development and are scheduled for some
time after Module 3.



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