Weekly Development Activities

September 25, 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.



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).

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.
• You will now get chat feedback in the combat window when you hit
  someone with a non-damaging spell (like fear or slow).
• The "New Mail" icon will now appear on the Focus Orb even if it
  is minimized.
• The "To" and "Subject" line of the Compose Mail UI no longer
  accept carriage returns.

General

• Phantasmal killer is now a fear effect.
• 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.
• Players will no longer get stuck while dismounting from ladders.
• We are pleased to announce the addition of the /showhelmet |="" 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.
• 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.

Monsters

• 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.
• NEW - The mind flayer and vampire's
  dominate abilities no longer dispel protection from evil.
• 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.
• Female humanoid villains will no longer charge into melee range
  if armed with spells or bows.
• 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.

Spells



Spell Changes

• 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!
• NEW -
  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.
• NEW - Holy smite will now damage spiders.
• NEW
  - 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.
• NEW - Niac's cold ray now uses the
  proper ray cast animation.

Metamagic Fixes

• NEW - Resistance, Restoration, Raise
  Dead and See Invisibility spells can now be used with the Eschew
  Materials feat.
• NEW
  - Find Traps, Ice Storm, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray and Searing Light
  no longer consume additional spellpoints while the Heighten Spell feat
  is active.
• NEW - Holy Smite and Niac's Cold Ray can
  now be used with the Heighten Spell feat.
• NEW - Dismissal no longer consumes extra
  spell points while the Maximize or Empower spell feats are active.
• NEW - Feeblemind and Waves of Fatigue no
  longer consume extra spell points while the Extend Spell feat is active.
• NEW - Ray of Exhaustion can now be used
  with the Heighten spell feat.
• NEW - Sleet Storm no longer consumes
  addition spell points while the Heighten spell feat is active.
• NEW - 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.
• NEW - Shocking grasp can now be affected
  by the Heighten Spell metamagic feat.
• NEW - Solid Fog and Grease no longer
  consume additional spellpoints when under the effects of the Heighten
  Spell metamagic feat.
• NEW - 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)

• NEW - Spell descriptions now use color
  for greater readability!
• NEW
  - 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
  - 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.
• NEW - Hold spells have been updated to
  state that they have a save interval.
• NEW - Player spells that have a max Hit
  Dice cap should now state this in their description.
• NEW – Melf's Acid Arrow description has
  been updated to list the correct interval.
• NEW – Wall of Fire description now been
  updated to include damage amounts.

Skills & Abilities

• NEW - 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!
• 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.

Under Development

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



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