Patch Notes, Sunday July 24th, 2011

[Rogean]

This patch contains a new spells file. Please obtain the latest EQChangesV11 (http://www.project1999.org/files/eqchangesv11.zip) from the setup guide.

Code

Uthgaard: Fizzle rates should be more appropriate
Kanras: NPCs/pets can equip items in all slots.
Kanras: NPCs/pets can swap weapons if the new weapon has a lesser delay.
Kanras: Lowered PC attack delay floor to 5 delay.
Kanras: Archery and Throwing have been moved to the new hit distribution method.
Kanras: Removed archery damage bonuses.
Kanras: Disciplines that are only supposed to be active for one hit now function correctly.
Kanras: All damage adjustments from Innerflame/Duelist/Fellstrike affect all attack types.
Kanras: Innerflame/Duelist/Fellstrike back to being an actual minimum damage (applied after the 2x multiplier) instead of a damage bonus.

Content

Nilbog: Zaharn will now drop his coronet 100% of the time.
Nilbog: Bazzt Zzzt will now drop Bixie Stinger/Rogue Test of Deception fixed.
Uthgaard: Pained Soul PH will no longer path
Uthgaard: droga, nurga, and kurn are once again self-bindable
Uthgaard: Added dropped rune research combine for Ice Comet
Uthgaard: Added Jolt, Harvest and Breeze to vendors
Uthgaard: Fixed the Belt Pouch Leala Swiftarrow was selling
Uthgaard: Fixed the Water Flask Maigin Greyeagle was selling
Uthgaard: Fixed factions in sebilis
Uthgaard: Sebilis myconids and golems should have more accurate magic resist
Uthgaard: Siblisian Berserker Cloak should be more likely to be seen in game. The rarity of the drop was not affected, but the chance to see one instead of a Stormwood Battle Staff was updated by taking the ratio of recorded staff drops to cloaks (very slight), and kor shamans were underrepresented in the spawn table due to a smaller level range
Uthgaard: Cleaned up leftover spawngroups in sebilis, placed missing levels of dar ghoul knights, spectral harbingers and spectral commanders on spawngroups
Uthgaard: Increased gem lootdrops on scarabs
Uthgaard: Fixed a clockwork rogue's merchant list
Uthgaard: The mobs in Mistmoore will now look like they used to in classic
Uthgaard: Magician Phantom Armor series has had its health regen component added
Uthgaard: Treeform, Spirit of Oak, and Illusion: Tree now hinder movement the same way as Minor Illusion, and won't break on direct damage from spells (like manastone)
Uthgaard: Celestial Elixir's Poison and Disease Counter components have been removed, heal per tick amount increased to 300.
Uthgaard: Cessation of the Blood name changed to Cessation of Cor
Uthgaard: Rewrote Harbinger Glosk's Script
Uthgaard: Added aggro text to Martar & Karg IceBear, and mobs in Mistmoore
Kanras: Fixed monk weapon skill progressions up to 50.
Kanras: Divine Might quest is available.
Kanras: The following quest rewards have been upgraded. If you have the old version, you will need to hand it in to the same NPC you obtained it from to get the new item:
Mystical Back Straps -> Back Straps of Mastery
Wu's Tranquil Fist -> Wu's Fist of Mastery
Rotted Griffon-hide Wrist Guard -> Bloody Griffon-hide Wrist Guard
Zephyrwind -> Thelvorn, Blade of Light
Spiroc Healer's Cloak -> Dark Cloak of the Sky
Ebonsting -> Thornstinger
Transparent Mask -> Crystal Mask
Sphinx Eye Amulet -> Amulet of the Sphinx Eye
Djinni Finger Ring -> Crimson Ring of the Djinni
Drake Fang Amulet -> Amulet of the Fang
Rheumguls -> Khyldorn the Blood Drinker
Elder Shaman's Ceremonial Bracelet -> Bracelet of the Spirits
Sphinx-hide Mantle -> Fairy-hide Mantle
Crimson Ring of Desinence -> Vermilion Sky Ring
Aerated Pauldrons -> Pauldrons of the Blue Sky

[Ele]

awesome update! Thank you devs!

[Vendar]

/applaud

[Stinkum]

NPCs/pets can equip items in all slots.

As an example, would this mean if I gave the north freeport banker like a plate helmet he will show the visible plate helmet graphic as if he's equipped it?

[Razdeline]

Woot!!! Muzzle of Mardu actually works! I knew it wasn't working.

[kalzin]

is there an eta on the server, like an hour or 2? or is it just a restart?

[Fromage]

Kanras: Divine Might quest is available.

Thank you Kanras!

[Uaellaen]

EQEmulauncher (http://moestaverne.com/eqemulauncher122.zip) up to date

[Ulivar]

Uthgaard: Added Jolt, Harvest and Breeze to vendors

YAY

[Uthgaard]

Also note that you may see an occasional epic mob here and there. But their drops/functionality are disabled. Don't spam the bug forum about it.

[Vladesch]

Oh nice. My level 12 enchanter won't have to mostly solo to 29 now.

[Razdeline]

Thanks to all the devs for their awesome, hard work!

[baub]

Thanks to all the devs for their awesome, hard work!

[Bootcamp]

Now lets see some unlocked servers! <3

[Slave]

Rogue backstab?

[Buffet]

Awesome notes

Thanks Devs

[Aquelin]

Good patch all around :)
I see Breeze has finally made its way in, does this mean Rushka Deklamoor in EC is now implemented? Can some one clarify at what point Chloroblast & Nature's Touch were added into the game?

[Akim]

ty:cool:

[Shiftin]

Rogue backstab?

uth addressed this in game just now.

http://vvcap.net/db/KKvEpMT5i08q3dyLZP8Y.jpg

so we have to wait until ragebringers to prove our point i guess.

[Slave]

uth addressed this in game just now.


Their position is actually that backstab is working as intended? Hmm... I don't know what else to say.

[Uthgaard]

http://pastebin.com/SPGBpL4R

Minimum damage 18.5% of the time in my test. Damage output is fine and hit distribution is appropriate. If your position is that 18.5% rounds up to 45%, hmm... I don't know what else to say.

[Shiftin]

You're right, I mean there are only two options when faced with this irrefutable proof. Either we clearly are just making up all the parses in the bug section or the 40 attack from seething fury is magical and accounts for the entire difference between your dev parses and ours while the attack from vog does nothing.

[Uthgaard]

There isn't some magical 'dev' flag on a character. I used a copy of a random level 60 rogue on the server. There are people in any mmo who can put out better dps than others. But that doesn't make the ones putting out bad numbers evidence of a bug. Get your skills to cap, invest in some better gear, and stop expecting code to make up the difference for you.

[Slave]

This patch contains excellent changes. Thank you once again, developers.

[Nebi]

started to get a lot more fizzles on my 45 enchanter using the 44 (or 39 nuke. forgot what level)

Have a skill of 188 and I was fizzlining 3 / 7 then i going get a string of 3 fizzles in a row.

nothing like this happened prior to this patch. couldnt really test other spells as i was trying to solo.

[Dazen]

Uthgaard, have you even looked at the info here http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39977 . It's very clear there are a lot of us hitting for our minimal backstab 40% up. You are getting a 18% MinBS and Kanras is getting at 24% to 28% MinBS there is clearly something wrong.

[Uaellaen]

Uthgaard, have you even looked at the info here http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39977 . It's very clear there are a lot of us hitting for our minimal backstab 40% up. You are getting a 18% MinBS and Kanras is getting at 24% to 28% MinBS there is clearly something wrong.

how dare you questions statistics! 1 fight clearly has the same weight as hundrets ;)

[brumbail]

where do I put those files?

[Xyphon112]

Fixed

[Motec]

BS is broken. You are wrong uthgaard.

[Uaellaen]

you guys that obviously can not patch by hand use the eqemulauncher (http://moestaverne.com/eqemulauncher122.zip), it will automaticly patch for you so you dont have to worry where to put the files or if you need administrator rights to overwrite them etc.


the eqemulauncher only requires you to have ZIP (included in windows since XP) and .net framework 3.5 (included since ... vista? i think, in win7 definatly included)

[Heebee]

Kanras: The following quest rewards have been upgraded. If you have the old version, you will need to hand it in to the same NPC you obtained it from to get the new item:
Zephyrwind -> Thelvorn, Blade of Light


Tried turning in Zephyrwind to the appropriate NPC in Sky (Gregori Lightbringer) and he just hands it back! :(

[Aadill]

I get the feeling that anyone that does the quest NOW will get the upgrades but the upgrade script itself isn't working. Dark Cloak of the Sky via Relinin Skyrunner does the same thing.

[Heebee]

I get the feeling that anyone that does the quest NOW will get the upgrades but the upgrade script itself isn't working. Dark Cloak of the Sky via Relinin Skyrunner does the same thing.

Well Gregori Lightbringer still has the old quest text, mentioning the pre-upgrade weapon by name also.

[tj218]

:facepalm another month or so before backstab will be fixed. :(

[Arkyani]

I'd love to see a 20 fight parse graph for backstab that the GMs have tested. Every one I've seen from a player has had insanely crazy high minimum damage percentage. I guess ill clear my logs and post another parse in a few days to prove the point again.

[Aadill]

Use a 10 damage weapon in one parse and a 15 damage weapon in another.

[GreenRanger]

when turning in upgraded sky quests do you turn in to the spirit or the spawned npc?

Love from Divinty Confirmed Relinin Skyrunner not Spirit.

Thanks & Gratz on DCotS

[Rainflush]

Great update, thank you.

[Xanthias]

Kanras: Archery and Throwing have been moved to the new hit distribution method.
Kanras: Removed archery damage bonuses.

Could someone explain this please?

[Pyrocat]

There isn't some magical 'dev' flag on a character. I used a copy of a random level 60 rogue on the server. There are people in any mmo who can put out better dps than others. But that doesn't make the ones putting out bad numbers evidence of a bug. Get your skills to cap, invest in some better gear, and stop expecting code to make up the difference for you.

Do you really think Hasbinbad, Shiftin, and plenty of the other rogues posting about this don't have max skills / best in slot?

Please take some time out of your busy schedule to do some more extensive testing, with more than 1 weapon, against multiple mobs, with more than 1 character. There's obviously a discrepancy between your parses and the averaged parses of everyone else posting about this (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39977), and that alone is worth looking into, don't you think? Especially for such a widely acknowledged issue that affects so many people?

[Anger]

Do you really think Hasbinbad, Shiftin, and plenty of the other rogues posting about this don't have max skills / best in slot?

Please take some time out of your busy schedule to do some more extensive testing, with more than 1 weapon, against multiple mobs, with more than 1 character. There's obviously a discrepancy between your parses and the averaged parses of everyone else posting about this (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39977), and that alone is worth looking into, don't you think? Especially for such a widely acknowledged issue that affects so many people?

You seem angry.

[Akim]

Increased gem lootdrops on scarabs

nice
blue diamonds

[Troy]

Could someone explain this please?

At least with archery we now seem to have out hits spread out almost uniformly from 1dmg to nearly twice our previous max dmg.... compared to before when we would hit for max like 50% of the time. As far as I can tell the overall dps is close if not the same but I haven't done anything remotely quantitative to know that.

[Frootloop]

I really Appreciate you guys putting your spare time into this emu server! Keep up the great work.

[Magonian]

DEV's!!! Listen to the Kudos replies and let the unappreciative kiddie comments pass u by,,, thanks for everything dev's. :)

Myself and some ole school gamers from the Daggerfall days are simply having a fkin ball reliving the world of original EQ the hardcore MMO thats not WOW pulluted......THANK YOU!;)

PS... divorcing my Family once again...somebody help me!:eek:

[notjasonlee]

pass u by,,,

triple-comma...no you didn't!

[greatdane]

Fizzle rates seem strangely high. For my latest circle of spells, it's approaching 30% with maxed skill in the relevant schools. It appears to cover all spells, and I regularly fizzle 2-3 times in a row, as in every ten minutes or so, and I'll get at least one or two fizzles per mob and often more. It absolutely destroys mana efficiency, and between resists and frequent fizzles, I can now go up against a dark blue with full HP and mana and end up having to run away if I'm unlucky. Lower-level spells also feel like they fizzle more than what's suitable, but that has less of an impact. Fizzling twice your latest nuke that costs 20% of your mana is pretty grim, and while it's meant to be possible, I believe it happens too much now.

Uthgaard asked for specific spells, but it appears to happen universally and I don't see much point in listing all my spells.

[SupaflyIRL]

Fizzle rates seem strangely high. For my latest circle of spells, it's approaching 30% with maxed skill in the relevant schools. It appears to cover all spells, and I regularly fizzle 2-3 times in a row, as in every ten minutes or so, and I'll get at least one or two fizzles per mob and often more. It absolutely destroys mana efficiency, and between resists and frequent fizzles, I can now go up against a dark blue with full HP and mana and end up having to run away if I'm unlucky. Lower-level spells also feel like they fizzle more than what's suitable, but that has less of an impact. Fizzling twice your latest nuke that costs 20% of your mana is pretty grim, and while it's meant to be possible, I believe it happens too much now.

Uthgaard asked for specific spells, but it appears to happen universally and I don't see much point in listing all my spells.

It isn't universal, played for hours last night and it was at worst no better or worse than before the patch but as a 47 necro I am using mostly 29-39 spells.

[Striiker]

...

PS... divorcing my Family once again...somebody help me!:eek:

Tell the kids and your spouse to get some characters in game if they want to hang out with you. :-) Treat that someone special to fun-filled night in the Estate of Unrest.. Take the whole family on a cruise through the exotic Ocean of Tears with a port of call in Butcherblock Mountains. Then it's off on the second cruise through Timerous Deep to the dude ranch at Firiona Vie Outpost.

[Rasah]

Fizzle rates seem strangely high. For my latest circle of spells, it's approaching 30% with maxed skill in the relevant schools.
I haven't tested yet, but this makes me nervous. I am level 58, and my primary spell at the moment is Fist of Karana, a level 58 spell. 30% would make it unusable. I'll have to test tonight.

[Ulivar]

I've noticed a ton of fizzles myself, much more than before anyhow, on my latest spells which have maxed skill , i fizzle 3 times out of 4 casts which adds about another 20% necessary mana in order for me to kill something, which sadly is negating the addition of harvest =p. I tried casting my armor spell which had like 167 skill because i haven't spamed it to max yet, literally 12-13 fizzles before it went off. Can't say this is terrible , but it does add more downtime/more probable chance of having to gate/log agro on a mob due to too much mana burned in fizzles.

[Magonian]

Tell the kids and your spouse to get some characters in game if they want to hang out with you. :-) Treat that someone special to fun-filled night in the Estate of Unrest.. Take the whole family on a cruise through the exotic Ocean of Tears with a port of call in Butcherblock Mountains. Then it's off on the second cruise through Timerous Deep to the dude ranch at Firiona Vie Outpost.

Sweet Post! :D

[Alex]

Huge thanks as always to the entire staff, cheers!

[aubie]

35 shaman - no difference in fizzle rates using level 34 spells on down to 1st level inner fire. Haven't noticed ANY difference in game play - if all patches were like this there would have been no posts in SonyEQ forums and Absor/Abashi would have never been employed.

[Otur]

Very nice patch, been longing for Divine Might since I started playing here.
Now I just need to figure out a way to get to Phinny's room ;D

[JBW0717]

I will put my lvl 60 rogue 2 cents in about backstab....I hit for minimal damage A LOT...when i disc i MISS ...A LOT... Just my observations. Oh and I fizzle A LOT on alts... haha very noticeable to me at least.

Executioner Assassin

[sceleris]

Was either melee damage reduced or the damage caps adjusted as part of this patch? One of my level 14 chars used to hit for 40 max damage before patch, but now only hits for 28 max. I'm using identical gear before and after the patch and I've extensively tested this on various mobs.

[Ulivar]

35 shaman - no difference in fizzle rates using level 34 spells on down to 1st level inner fire. Haven't noticed ANY difference in game play - if all patches were like this there would have been no posts in SonyEQ forums and Absor/Abashi would have never been employed.

This is because it has been temporarily fixed by reverting back to the old fizzle system, it won't be permanently adjusted until servers go down again.

[kanras]

Some notes from code that got ninja'd in after this patch:

Test-Src
- Removed hard "calculated damage" cap for < 10 and < 20 players, replaced with weapon_dmg cap.
- Archery weapon_dmg is once again correctly being calculated.

[Troy]

\
- Archery weapon_dmg is once again correctly being calculated.

And by "correctly" he means that we now do somewhere around half the dps we did last week with bow. Instead of soloing for 1% per 2 hours I can now get 1% per 4 hours. Good call on the ranger nerf, I was totally OP!

[Bubbles]

Some notes from code that got ninja'd in after this patch:

Test-Src
- Removed hard "calculated damage" cap for < 10 and < 20 players, replaced with weapon_dmg cap.


could someone explain what this means exactly? instead of just 2x weapon base dmg for max hit it goes to....

[Rais]

There was a cap on live to how hard you could hit up to lvl 10 and 20. Once you hit 20 I think,then weapon damage will take effect.

I'm guessing it wasnt like that here and changed to it.

[Stormlight]

could someone explain what this means exactly? instead of just 2x weapon base dmg for max hit it goes to....
I think it is this now:

1-9: Weapon damage capped at 10 (20 damage).
10-19: Weapon damage capped at 14 (28 damage).
20+: Weapon damage cap removed.

I haven't verified the 20+ info.

[Koa Bosk]

so how do we know what the max damage is. I was using a bow and it did way more dmg than then 20, and +3 for the arrows i was using.

[Troy]

cool story: I was wrong about the archery nerfs cutting dps by 50% - I just did a slightly more objective test and it seems the nerf has cut archery dps by roughly 75%.

I now take 4x longer to kill things than my already abysmally slow pre-patch rate. At this rate it will take 600 hours to solo the remaining 75% of level 54!

[Aadill]

Soz, not going to go into great detail over this but basically, that's just the way it will have to be in the scope of this server:

the majority of Rangers lose their role as a damage dealer class and are reduced back to the red-headed step-child class that they were in Kunark. No one wants to see that happen again.

It was pretty amazing the turn around the did on ranger bow damage.



Making bow damage worthwhile was the right thing to do though.

http://www.monkly-business.net/forums/showthread.php?p=11131

[YendorLootmonkey]

cool story: I was wrong about the archery nerfs cutting dps by 50% - I just did a slightly more objective test and it seems the nerf has cut archery dps by roughly 75%.

I now take 4x longer to kill things than my already abysmally slow pre-patch rate. At this rate it will take 600 hours to solo the remaining 75% of level 54!

If you played a Ranger in the classic trilogy, you knew bows weren't worth breaking out for anything but pulling until Velious, and even then, for 2 mins every 72 mins and that was questionable. It was probably more efficient in Kunark to play druid and root/DoT with Drones of Doom and Immolate, and then realizing by the time you got Drones of Doom that your Conjuration skill was like 3, so you spent days spamming Dance of Fireflies like a tool... but even then only in outdoors zones at nighttime. Then in Velious, we got Panic Animal and everyone that hadn't deleted their rangers by then all went to Western Wastes to fearkite/melee mastadons and velium hounds or whatever. And if you were 60, you were better off saving your disc for Weaponshield on most encounters until Luclin AM3/EQ where ranger archery was clearly game-changing.

[Aadill]

a fellow red-headed stepchild

:3

[Troy]

So are these new changes (no dmg bonus and rarely hitting for even close to max dmg anymore) permanent for the life of the server?

[Aadill]

Pretty much. Archery was a joke until AAs. Hilariously enough I just read a bunch of rangers from live crying that their 50 damage arrows are expendable and no longer allow them to have an endless supply via Endless Quiver.

Boohoo.

[Troy]

Cool, 26 days /played wasted. Thanks for the info.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Cool, 26 days /played wasted. Thanks for the info.

You were gonna painfully arrow-kite solo until 60 and then what?

[Troy]

You were gonna painfully arrow-kite solo until 60 and then what?

It was just nice to have something semi-productive to do when LFG, i.e. 90% of the time. Or when interested in farming semi-decently for iksar bp/mask.

I never played a ranger in live and archery was incredibly slow here already but at least sort of bearable so I figured it was already classic. If I'd known that it was WAY WAY WAY WAY better than classic and due to be nerfed, I'd have quit the ranger awhile ago. I suppose it's my own fault for not doing the research.

[YendorLootmonkey]

It was just nice to have something semi-productive to do when LFG, i.e. 90% of the time. Or when interested in farming semi-decently for iksar bp/mask.

I never played a ranger in live and archery was incredibly slow here already but at least sort of bearable so I figured it was already classic. If I'd known that it was WAY WAY WAY WAY better than classic and due to be nerfed, I'd have quit the ranger awhile ago. I suppose it's my own fault for not doing the research.

Well, you can wait for Velious when a lot more soloing options open up for rangers with Panic Animal. But to be fair, rangers didn't have it THIS bad getting groups back in 1999-2000.

[Koa Bosk]

I am really hating this new patch with the Archery update it makes no sense at all. I have an Archery skill of 130 and since the update I have gotten no crits and I hit one out of about 10 shots. This is ridiculous, if I missed this much with my 1 handed slash I wouldn't be killing anything and die against light blue mobs. Some Fix.

[xxxbeinxxx]

The MR for juggs now seems rediculously high. Way higher than it needs to be. After unresitable tash/malo other spells are nearly always resisted. Prior to this patch I could land on juggs roughly 25%-30% of the time. Now they are basicly immune to magic. This is not correct as i remember it, I also researched forum threads from 00 / 01 with other people supporting my memory that after tash slow would land reliably.

http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=4570

[Razdeline]

I remember Rangers in ToV, during Velious, doing rediculous amounts of bow damage with Trueshot Discipline.... Hope this gives you guys something to look forward to.

[YendorLootmonkey]

I remember Rangers in ToV, during Velious, doing rediculous amounts of bow damage with Trueshot Discipline.... Hope this gives you guys something to look forward to.

It wasn't ridiculous. You may be thinking after the EQ/AM3 AAs we got in Luclin... then, yes, archery damage was nothing to be sneered at. Rogues and monks fought to get it nerfed for years.

[Aadill]

we actually had a taste of permanent trueshot discipline from this patch. it got fixed because, well, it was wrong.

also it was fairly mediocre for most rangers, but it was nice to do DPS at range.

[Razdeline]

I know I'm not crazy. I am pretty certain that ranger bow dps was insane on some of my live ToV days ONLY in Velious.

[Motec]

I know I'm not crazy.

The rest of your post I couldnt take seriously.