Maze Engine Preview Patch Notes: NW.62.20160427a.3

terramak

Patch Notes: NW.62.20160427a.3
FYI: These patch notes are incomplete as of the time I'm posting them.


Highlights

Guild Alliances
Guilds will now be able to band together into an alliance! This feature provides the opportunity for alliances of up to 13 guilds to contribute to each other's growth and band together for challenging tasks.

With this update, players will be able to visit allied guilds' Strongholds, take part in Alliance-wide chat, and gain benefits from their guild's spot in the alliance, based on the level of all guilds combined. Players may also shop at allied guilds' stores and contribute to allied guilds' coffers, if they so choose.

Known issues:

• Players are not properly kicked from ex-alllies map if their guild is booted from the alliance.
  
• The initial alliance leader is placed on probation when starting an alliance.
  
• Alliance chat channel displays debug text when joined, instead of its correct name.
  
• Alliance invitations can appear spontaneously when changing maps.
  
• “Invitations Sent” and “Invitations Received” buttons appear as active on the UI when they should be greyed out (for non-leaders).
  
• Sometimes the alliance chat channel does not appear as a selectable channel (if you can tell us exactly when, that would be helpful!).

View more info on this feature and give your feedback here: Official Feedback Thread: Guild Alliances


Sword Coast Chronicle
Two new campaigns are now available! The Sword Coast Chronicle campaign brings together all the other campaigns into a recommended order. This should make progression through post-70 content more guided, while leaving the option open to branch out for a more challenging experience.

The Benign Order of the Third Eye campaign provides a recommended flow through lower-level content, and gives the opportunity for new rewards.

Known issues:

• The Chronicle UI is not final.
  
• The Benign Order of the Third Eye campaign UI is not final.
  
• The Benign Order of the Third Eye repeatable task, Assemble Orb Quadrants, takes 10 seconds. The final version is expected to take 15 minutes.
  
• Clicking Claim on a deed, then declining, can cause the UI to get into a strange state until you ESC out of the Campaigns UI and hit ESC one more time.

View more info on this feature and give your feedback here: Official Feedback Thread: Sword Coast Chronicle



Release Notes


Content and Environment
Campaigns

• The Sharandar campaign and its related content now spans levels 64-68, reduced from 70.

Combat and Powers
Classes and Balance

• To bring certain movement-based powers in line with others of that type, the following powers are now disabled when the player is rooted.
  • Threatening Rush
    
  • Shadowy Disappearance
    
  • Fox Shift
    
  • Boar Charge
    
  • Bull Charge
    
  • Radiant Strike

Companions

• Astral Deva: This companion's tooltip has been updated to clarify that its Active Companion Bonus triggers when the summoned companion deals damage, rather than when the player deals damage.
  
• Repentant Dragon Cultist: Acidic Stab now properly works as described.
  
• Repentant Dragon Cultist: Various text issues in this companion's powers have been cleaned up.

Items and Economy
General

• Dusk Boots packs now properly show up in the Equipment section of the Auction House, rather than the Enchantment section.
  
• Mace of Elemental Fire no longer calls itself the Longsword of Elemental Fire in its flavor text.
  
• Players may no longer obtain two High Forest Bears on the same character, which could result in an inventory slot being permanently held by the mount.
  
• Several minor typos have been addressed.
  
• Several remaining cases of "Epic Demogorgon" have been updated to "Demogorgon (Master)" to reflect the queue's new name.
  
• The buff gained by Squash Soup is no longer called Corn Chowder.
  
• The Sword Coast Potion Pouch, from Sword Coast Adventures, now properly includes Superior Healing Potions.

Campaigns

• Gear from the Sharandar campaign and zone is now equippable starting at level 64, and scales with the player's level.
  
• Players may now purchase Gold Crescents directly from the Sharandar campaign vendor, rather than through campaign tasks.
  
• The Sharandar repeatable campaign task, Assist War Effort, has been changed to award one Power Point per completion.

Professions

• Leadership: The "Kill Rogue Elemental" task now gives 2500 Experience, up from 500.
  
• Masterwork Profession tools may no longer be sold to vendors.
  
• The "Worn Gauntlet" asset in Black Ice Shaping may no longer be sold or discarded.

User Interface
Character Sheet

• History tab: A wave of a very specific form of magical amnesia has been dispelled, allowing all adventurers to remember their original homelands and backgrounds, rather than thinking they're from the Dalelands.
  
• Stamina Regen rate now properly updates when the player gains the Underdark boon, Dwarven Stamina.

Stores

• The Wondrous Bazaar now remembers the tab the player was on when they last browsed it in the same play session.

Graphics, Effects, and Animation
General

• Horses no longer pop slightly during their flourish animation.
  
• Support for Razer Chroma has been updated.
  • The list of supported features now includes temporary health and damage taken indicators, an action bar meter, lit keys for dailies and artifacts when usable, and a combat color shift.

Performance and Stability
General

• Another case that could lead to interrupted Queue service has been addressed.

thefabricant

I cannot give a big enough round of applause for this:

terramak said:

Patch Notes: NW.62.20160427a.2
The Sharandar repeatable campaign task, Assist War Effort, has been changed to award one Power Point per completion.

lewstelamon01

Nonrandom power points....all I can say is about time.

gankdalf

@terramak

"Masterwork Profession tools may no longer be sold to vendors."

What If I already sold one of my tools by accident? (I actually did). I Cant get it back?
I think there should be re-claimble.

arbitrarity

I'd suggest trying support, since the number of cases of people doing that should be fairly small.

scathias

Arbitrarity, there was a person on reddit who said they tried to contact support about this when they did that, support told them that the player had not actually done the quest since it never showed up in the logs and so they wouldn't help him. I don't recall if it ever got resolved properly but it was really sad to see the foolishness on the part of the CS rep. They were using the player maintained wiki (and thus usually out of date, and/or missing info) as proof for various points they were making lol

lwedar

clonkyo1 said:

terramak said:

The Sharandar repeatable campaign task, Assist War Effort, has been changed to award one Power Point per completion.

@clonkyo1 is dancing naked out of joy on P.E's roofs.

I'll echo this, hell yeah!

anim3k

Nerf bondings please.

hustin1

@terramak ,

I hope you guys and gals can take a look at whatever is bugging dragons such that they freeze after their first attack. If it remains when Siege goes live, it will take a lot of the fun out of it. Rumor has it that the new paranoid delusion companion has something to do with it, but that could be just a rumor.

beckylunatic

scathias said:

Arbitrarity, there was a person on reddit who said they tried to contact support about this when they did that, support told them that the player had not actually done the quest since it never showed up in the logs and so they wouldn't help him. I don't recall if it ever got resolved properly but it was really sad to see the foolishness on the part of the CS rep. They were using the player maintained wiki (and thus usually out of date, and/or missing info) as proof for various points they were making lol

CS did finally restore the tool, but not without Andy intervening. Still, @ejziponken should give it a go (and ask @strumslinger for help if need be).

hustin1

Guilds will now be able to band together into an alliance! This feature provides the opportunity for alliances of up to 13 guilds to contribute to each other's growth and band together for challenging tasks.

Holy cow. Already???

Oh nvm I see...it doesn't look like it will go live next week as there are still issues to be ironed out.

The Sharandar changes are interesting, but I have a concern: there will be a real shock to players when they go from fighting level 70 enemies in Spinward Rise to level 72 ones in Dead Ring. You might want to put something in between to smooth the transition.

cromejohnsen

"The Sharandar repeatable campaign task, Assist War Effort, has been changed to award one Power Point per completion."

OMFG Its finally happening. Thanks a lot terramak.

willson

New campaign? Again? Come on!

polaris1986

what will happens if alliance leader kicks some lower guild from alliance?
Let's riot begin?

So if you was friendly to alliance leader and enjoyed its boons, donated to common mimic but suddenly alliance leader decided that you were too weak or there are new friends of the leader, he can kick you with your guild and you didn't get anything? You'll be homeless again?

@terramak ?

now we haven't ANY safety of our donations or compensation that you were if guild. All depends of leaders moon.

You should realise some council for main issues (not just one red button in the leaders hand).
give a safety for old members or give a compensations of you danations if you are left guild/guilds alliance (for exemple it can be ghostly boons that are working for some time else)

ALSO please make a history of guilds where character already were and how many time he were in guilds.

ADD buffer zone, when you leave on guild you shouldn't join a new one just in one time! It should be 1-10 days buffer.

jarecord03

The Sharandar repeatable campaign task, Assist War Effort, has been changed to award one Power Point per completion.

WHY!?!!! While the vast majority will _LOVE_ this, i beg you to reconsider. In a single stroke you will have completely obviated XP's biggest reward past 70. All the effort to get Azure R12s, prosperity insignias, boons, even XP underwear and boosters. All worthless. Thanks.

instynctive

terramak said:

The "Worn Gauntlet" asset in Black Ice Shaping may no longer be sold or discarded.

@terramak .. you guys have been super busy.. some great QoL updates here...

However, I feel that it's a very bad idea to make anything unable to be discarded, especially if it can't be sold or traded.

In the case of the "Worn Gauntlet", it's not a huge deal.. I have lots of space in my asset bag, but at some point, that bag WILL fill up... and since I don't do Black Ice professions, it's wasting an inventory slot.

Please reconsider (I know you won't) making items that are unable to be discarded. Everyone should be able to throw away anything they want from their inventory... unless it's a cursed item ...but even then, there should be a way to discard the item (a long, hard side quest to get the object "cleansed", and/or the curse broken.)


Thanks for listening!

arbitrarity

instynctive said:

terramak said:

The "Worn Gauntlet" asset in Black Ice Shaping may no longer be sold or discarded.

@terramak .. you guys have been super busy.. some great QoL updates here...

However, I feel that it's a very bad idea to make anything unable to be discarded, especially if it can't be sold or traded.

In the case of the "Worn Gauntlet", it's not a huge deal.. I have lots of space in my asset bag, but at some point, that bag WILL fill up... and since I don't do Black Ice professions, it's wasting an inventory slot.

Please reconsider (I know you won't) making items that are unable to be discarded. Everyone should be able to throw away anything they want from their inventory... unless it's a cursed item ...but even then, there should be a way to discard the item (a long, hard side quest to get the object "cleansed", and/or the curse broken.)


Thanks for listening!

I disagree. There are a number of items that are effectively essential to progress certain tasks/questlines, that for one reason or another need to be kept track of, and shouldn't be duplicated. (Masterwork professions assets, worn gauntlet, black ice pick) So long as there is enough inventory space, relative to the number of said items, it's not a significant gameplay concern, and it's the simplest way to implement "cannot be lost". I don't want developer time to be spent on making a reclaim vendor for stuff you previously couldn't discard, or even worse, side quests to discard items. That would represent dozens to hundreds of hours that could have been spent working on something that has a much more severe gameplay impact, or affects more people.

As fun and flavorful as your suggestion would be, implementing gameplay in a video game is a much more labor-intensive process than simply coming up with it on the fly as a GM/DM, so it's important to allocate effort where it does the most good.

Of course, had this been a concern when they were first implementing those items, they could have probably done things somewhat differently, by making each of those items available from a vendor after the relevant quests are complete, and making them Unique, so you can't have multiple. But it's too late to do that without quite a bit of work.

mightyeriksson

jarecord03 said:

The Sharandar repeatable campaign task, Assist War Effort, has been changed to award one Power Point per completion.

WHY!?!!! While the vast majority will _LOVE_ this, i beg you to reconsider. In a single stroke you will have completely obviated XP's biggest reward past 70. All the effort to get Azure R12s, prosperity insignias, boons, even XP underwear and boosters. All worthless. Thanks.

Serious or just trolling?

oldbaldyone

anim3k said:

Nerf bondings please.

metalldjt said:

@terramak please fix the bondings until the end of this module, it's really painful seeing everyone using them.

Yes, please, I want to get back to the point in the game in which NOBODY used ANYTHING other than Augments at max level. That was so awesome, seeing everyone having the glowing ball around their heads.....

/sarcasm

Request for them to cap at 1 per stone....fine, cool. Won't reduce them one bit. Nerf it any harder, and back we go to augments and monotony. Personally, I like seeing actual companions in use.

artifleur

One more nerf for paladins. (Radiant Strike disabled while rooted)

Now that you removed bubble and we have to use our other skills to tank, did you take the time to fix Bane's targetting bug? Did you take the time to fix binding oath that doesnt force anything to attack the paladin?

Apparently not.

mightyeriksson

Powerpoints from the Sharandar campaign is great, makes the game a lot easier to get into for new players, so kudos for that!
Disabling Fox-shift when rooted isn't quite as welcome, please reconsider, since the HR is kinda squishy as is.

kalharan

I like the changes so far, but the XP for the quest in Sharandar (and I hope in the other campaigns areas) should be increase to match at least those of the Elemental Evil Campaign.
Also a minor request, right now the reward for the ring of terror skirmish are BtC, can you make them at least BtA or unbound at all, afterall they are only cosmetic items.