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.
To discuss the weekly development activities visit the official
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