Feb 5 Game Update Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization

This was planned to be Game Update #51, but with the Fighter Revamp changes postponed, this is now just a big hotfix. There’s still some great stuff in here:

HIGHLIGHTS
A new (item tag) has been added: HEIRLOOM. These items are the same as NO-TRADE except that they can be placed into your shared bank. Characters on the same account and server can then pick them up out of the shared bank. Normal shared bank rules apply on PVP servers.

  • Void Shards
  • Proof in the Pudding update items (Master Tradeskiller)
  • Certain Tradeskill Faction Reward items
  • Kunark Faction Tradeskill Recipes

GENERAL

  • The spider ability ‘Sticky Webbing’ (on overland trash mobs in the Moors of Ykesha) has changed from a 30 second root to a 3 second daze.
  • Merchants in the Village of Shin will now buy as well as sell items.
  • It should now be slightly easier to avoid the blood gorgers in the entry passage to Grobb, if you are careful.
  • Spotting a business opportunity, a new fuel merchant has recently set up shop in Firmroot Moot near the mender.
  • Large attribute values over the base cap will no longer cause your max hitpoints or power to decrease.
  • Adornments which add additional damage to a weapon will now correctly report critical attacks.

ACHIEVEMENTS
General

  • Bountiful Harvest should no longer display a combined harvest on root and foresting nodes. Instead you should see two messages similar to other nodes.

Assassin

  • Frontload will no longer cause poisons to cancel when it is toggled off or expires.

Berserker

  • Perseverance is now a buff and works in a similar fashion to Reversal with a hidden spell that can only trigger once every 15 seconds.

Shaman
Kindred Restoration will now cast properly if the shaman is casting another spell.

DUNGEONS/ENCOUNTERS
Anchor of Bazzul

  • Imprisoner Y’nosii’s death now results in his weakened soul spawning. Killing the weakened soul gives a key that will open Ynosii’s treasure chest.

Cavern of the Afflicted

  • A group of zombies near the first Maledictive Terror should no longer continue to respawn.

Evernight Abbey
Players on the quest A Brother’s Revenge should no longer be able to get a quest update and be asked to turn in Gabardine Obisgnul’s head when they do not have the item.

Halls of the Forsaken

  • The mission End of the Forsaken should no longer occasionally have too few forsaken soldiers and conscripts present in the zone.

Nektulos

  • The Avatar of Hate should cast crushing hatred more reliably on attackers now.

Palace of the Ancient One

  • The Switchmaster should critically hit players somewhat less often now.
  • Tythus can no longer have his Voidslide AOE interrupted.
  • The duration of Nether Bolt, the reactive associated with Pentaclypse and Ultaclypse, has been reduced to 1.5 seconds.

Ravenscale Repository
The two parts of Mission of the Macabre can now be completed in any order, so that Noyle is no longer occasionally already dead once players reach that step.

ITEMS

  • Atrebite Mantle of Destruction may now be worn by all plate tanks.
  • Drum of the Ethernaut Chronicler’s proc now functions on both spells and melee attacks.
  • Cloak of the Overlord and Cloak of Antonia Bayle now have additional ranged bonuses.
  • The proc text on Ripper’s Stiletto now more clearly states that it triggers only from attacks made with that weapon.
  • A number of the Frostfell reward armors have been changed to create a more balanced stat progression.
  • Paladin’s Zealous Voidbeam 4-piece bonus now adds mitigation instead of Spell and Combat Art damage.
  • Silk Robe of Summoning, Aramid Robe of Voidcaller, and Staff of Elemental Mastery no longer function on swarm pets, but should stack with other pet effects better than they did previously.
  • The 5-piece bonus on the Conjuror and Necromancer raid sets has been improved slightly.
  • Razhish’s Cloak of Flowing Power has a new proc.
  • The effect on Ferhustr’s Furious Rolling-Pin should now add 20% to heals and runes.
  • Overloaded heal procs will now trigger properly from reactives and wards
  • Unholy Rift 4 piece bonus to Tenacity should now have a 35m range.
  • The Neutral Avatar 2 piece charm bonus will now work correctly.
  • Protective Platemail Helm of the Rising Sun is now properly classified as plate.
  • Void-Etched Blade and Void Cutlass of the Lethe now have delays more suitable for offhand weapons.
  • Extract Mana on the Illusionist robe from VP now functions properly.
  • The collection reward Cape of Infatuation now has an appearance.
  • Many of the fabled items within Palace of the Ancient One, Ykesha’s Inner Stronghold and Tomb of the Mad Crusader, have been upgraded and or had effects added.
  • Gynok Moltor will no longer drop Stained Mummy Bandages or the Eye Mounted Ring. His drops have been upgraded and new items have been added in place of the ones that were shared.
  • The Savage Wall was dropping from both Captain Ikalus and Xebnok the Wretched. Xebnok will no longer drop the Savage Wall and has had a new item added to his table to replace it.
  • A few pet caster effects have been added to select mage items.
  • The Silvered Link Chain is now usable by rogues.
  • Zarrakon will now drop new items. In addition some of his existing drops have been upgraded or had effects added to them.

QUESTS
Moors of Ykesha
Captain Lip Marrsquire’s “Evidence?” quests are no longer impeded if completed after finishing the quest, “Who Dun It?” Return to Captain Lip Marrsquire to complete these quests.

SPELLS
General

  • Examination Data will now show the critical damage multiplier if it differs from the base amount.
  • Spells that are affected by achievements will no longer drop after being charmed.

Defiler

  • Spiritual Circle will now apply properly to members of the raid.

Inquisitor

  • Repenting Strike will now trigger if the inquisitor is stunned or stifled.

Necromancer

  • Siphoning of Souls adept 3 will now trigger Soothing Soul properly.

TRADESKILLS

  • A number of trade skill faction rewards are now considered heirlooms. The components required for “Proof of the Pudding” are also considered heirlooms.
  • “Tools of the Trade” set bonuses are now slightly different for each set. (previously, the level 55, 65, and 75 items were identical, now they have 5%, 7%, and 9% bonuses to tradeskill durability).

User Interface

  • Critical Mitigation display in the persona window will now show the attribute gains as well. (Each 100 points of AGI provides 1 point of innate Critical Mitigation ability to Scouts and Fighters. Each 100 points of INT provides 1 point of innate Critical Mitigation ability to Mages and Priests.)
   

Erollisi Day and GU51* too?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization, Live Events

Looks like whenever the servers come down to patch in Erollisi Day (which will be sometime between now and February 10th), we will see most of the various patches, fixes, and changes expected to come in Game Update 51, minus the Fighter Revamp.

I know some f0lks have been anxiously awaiting the HEIRLOOM tag so they can move Void Shards from one character to another, do updates for Proof in the Pudding (Tradeskill Epic), etc. with alts, and buy faction recipes for alts as well.

Erollisi Day will be activated February 10th, but the patch will happen before then.

Extrapolated from several posts by Kiara in this thread.

Parting with Heirlooms

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization, Tradeskill

This comes to us from EQ2Traders.

As we mentioned last week, GU51 is getting a new HEIRLOOM tag. There were theories that this might be applied to The Proof in the Pudding quest combines (Master Sage/Jeweler/Woodworker/Carpenter/Armorer/etc.).

We now have confirmation that this will in fact be the case. If you have a level 80 sage and level 80 carpenter and both are on (or have completed) the quest, you’ll be able to make the combine for your alt, put it in the shared bank, log out, log in, claim it, and update your quest.

What we did not know at the time is that HEIRLOOM is being applied to several other items!

If you have 50,000 faction with Riliss, Bathezid’s Watch, and Danak Shipyards with one of your characters and it is driving you crazy that you cannot buy recipes and share them with your alts, it’s party time! Now you can buy RoK faction recipes and “pass them on” to your alts. I know my Sage will be thrilled that he doesn’t have to do a hundred rush orders in Danak to get those recipes.

As previously reported, Void Shards and Far Seas Supply Division tradeskill tokens will now be tradeable between your alts by placing them in the Shared Bank.

Some other changes coming in GU51:

  • Bountiful Harvest messages will now delineate the original harvest from the bountiful harvest on roots and wood. Previously, they were combined.
  • The gathering animation has changed a bit.
  • Guild fuel merchants will now buy back tier 1 fuels.
  • The “Tools of the Trade” set bonuses on the Tradesman’s (55), Artisan’s (65), and Crafter’s (75) belt and earring sets are now appropriately scaled for level, with 5%, 7%, and 9% durability bonus on the sets.

Thanks again to Niami for her writeup!

Heirloom Doesn’t Mean Old Fashioned

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Itemization, Tradeskill

Originally posted on EQ2 Forums (Heirloom Flagging)

Looks like SoE have been listening to the overwhelming feedback from many gamers feel that the NO TRADE flag has been overused in The Shadow Odyssey. You’ll recall that TSO offers 20 closed (instance) dungeons and no open (contested) dungeons. As a result, all of the LEGENDARY and FABLED items that drop in these popular zones cannot be traded, even amongst character alts of the same account. This also includes the much vaunted Void Shards used to buy special Legendary armor.

In a future update, some items will be changing tags from NO TRADE to a new tag called HEIRLOOM. The first recipients of this new tag are Void Shards and the Far Seas Supply Division Tokens. HEIRLOOM-flagged items can now be placed in your Shared Bank and collected by other character alts on your account.

It will be interesting to see how this flag is applied to other items in the game. The first request thread that popped up is the Proof in the Pudding updates for level 80 Tradeskillers to become a Master Artisan should be HEIRLOOM flagged. That would allow a character with a level 80 Sage to make the necessary combine for their level 80 Jeweler, for example. When Kunark was new, the grouping was actually fun, but now that the Master Artisan program is 14 months old, it is getting harder and harder (and more expensive) for most players to get updates. I see no problem with these updates being flagged HEIRLOOM.

I would not mind seeing NO TRADE removed from more items in the game, or even some method of once a month using some type of transmuted or tinkered gizmo to strip the NO TRADE flag off one item once per month. The flag would be replaced with ATTUNABLE.

Folks are already selling and using Looting Rights (setting the loot to Leader Only, inviting someone to a group, and having that person enter the zone and loot the chest in exchange for Plat).

Special Bears

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Itemization, Raiding

I was really surprised to see this item linked in open chat.

Bjorn’s Whistle
Summons Bjorn, Elder of the Western Wastes
FABLED LORE NO TRADE

Applies Summon Bjorn when Activated.

  • Summons a mount to ride that increases your speed by 70%
    • If level 80 or higher
  • Increases Heal Crit Bonus of caster by 1.0%
  • Increases Heal Crit Chance of caster by 3.0%
  • Increases Max Power of caster by 350.

\aITEM -329826907 573012519:Bjorn’s Whistle\/a

DROPPED BY Gynok in Tomb of the Mad Crusader.

There is also a Fighter bear whistle that drops from Anasthi Sul in Palace of the Ancient One. No word on where the Mage bear whistle drops:

Khast’s Whistle
Summons Bjorn, Zarrakon’s Warbringer
FABLED LORE NO TRADEApplies Summon Khast when Activated.

  • Summons a mount to ride that increases your speed by 70%
    • If level 80 or higher
  • Increases Spell Crit Bonus of caster by 1.0%
  • Increases Spell Crit Chance of caster by 3.0%
  • Increases Max Power of caster by 350.

\aITEM -1515621778 -1742637707:[Khast’s Whistle]\/a

Thanks for the comments everyone posted about where to find these!

The Shadow Odyssey News Rollup

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Live Events, Raiding, Tradeskill

The Shadow “of” Odyssey
Marketing department added the “of” in Shadow Odyssey. Many jokes made by SOE about it. Marketing dept was surprised that a EQ2 expansion didn’t have “of” in the middle. 🙂

The Shadow Odyssey

New lvl 77+ overland zone.
20 dungeons

  • Najena — A very large dungeon. Very tall (4 story stairs and just really cool). Very organic, wood, ropes, not the current stone boxes. Najena’s forge is the new place to go to craft various master weapons, etc. taking the place of the existing Solusek Ro forge.
  • Nuroga
  • Guk — “upper” and “lower”
  • Befallen
  • Most dungeons scale 50-80 — depends on the adjoining overland zone.
  • Lvl 50, 60, or 70 groups going into the new scaleable dungeons will get scaled down loot. All loot designed for 80.
  • All dungeons are located “where you expect them to be”
  • Dungeons are smarter. Puzzles in dungeons ala some of the raids and VoeS.

Raids

  • 4 new x4 raids

Avatars

  • (new) Rodcet Nife
  • Avatar loot for Rodcet Nife is all new and loot tables for the existing 12 avatars will eventually be updated. basically, if you like a loot item on avatars now, don’t miss any opportunity since it might change. Might add loot to Tangrin.

Quests

  • 1 new Signature quest — good and evil versions. Long but not repetitive.
  • No new epics or heritage quests. Epics took 3 months to develop for Kunark.
  • 5 new heritage quests! (thanks for the comments!)

Dieties

  • 2 new dieties
  • One of the two dieties being added will behave differently. Must be unlocked on each server. Featured on the Shadow Odyssey box art.

New Travel

  • Airships — Live event to build airships and build docks.

Achievement Experience
New Achievement Experience page.
60 points of AA.
There will be limits preventing you from respeccing and moving over, say, 60 of your current 140 points and getting those rewards right away.

1- General
2- Archetype (Priest/Mage/Fighter/Scout)
3- Class (Cleric/Summoner/etc)
4- Subclass (Warden/Ranger/Assassin/etc.)

Instead of a “tree” that forces you to take AA items you don’t want, AA lines are straight across and you just pick what you want. End of line reward for each level.

“Boost taunt” is one of the possible fighter AA lines so crusaders (shadowknights) and bruisers can catch up and match the damage of current weapons. Came up in QA. Taunt has been a linear progression but dps from weapons has gone up faster due to crit, etc.

Tradeskill Harvesting AA increase # harvests per node.

Missions System

  • 1 mission per dungeon, 1 per day
  • Loot scales 50-80 and tokens are rewarded for completing missions which can be spent on legendary and “low” fabled items.
  • Tradeskill Missions — 3 at launch. no combat.

Balance & Itemization

When asked about Itemization — “We have a plan.” Raiders should not need legendary items.

Combat xp in 70-80 will be improved. The pendulum “swung too far in favor of soloing and hurt groupers”.

Bard, Crusader, Cleric specific armor. Less archetype specific. No more templars running around with chain or leather.

PvP Bone
Big news! PvP will now allows all classes in all cities. Existing unhappy classes can complete betrayal to whatever class they want. This will reduce the requirement of Exile PvP guilds.

Miscellaneous
Asymetrical armor pieces if you want one big shoulder, one small shoulder. 🙂

More From Q&A
Basically if it got any kind of acknowledgement beside the standard “we can look into that” which is a big fat “NO!” I put it here.

Torch slot or maybe more items with light effect. No more 80s running around with lightstone. On the flipside perhaps an option to auto-hide light sources on stealth. Maybe too easy? 🙂

Some existing and new zones might auto mentor the group down so the content is not trivial, rather than either lockout or requiring a low level to mentor. They’d like to make mentoring more rewarding include AA.

Warden asked about having to cast 14 wards on every death. SoE might allow more than 2 non-combat buffs to trigger in a macro.

Critical errors in raids will name the culprit ala VS. Right now you can’t tell at a glance who messed up on Trakanon.

May reconsider caster resists because there aren’t enough spell critical items.

Would like to do bard instruments but not in current plans.

No x2 epic zones ready but maybe after expac.

When asked about Itemization — “We have a plan.” Raiders should not need legendary items.

Combat xp in 70-80 will be improved. The pendulum “swung too far in favor of soloing and hurt groupers”.

Bard, Crusader, Cleric specific armor. Less archetype specific. No more templars running around with chain or leather.


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