Cloaked Ascendancy Owlbear Patch Notes: NW.75.20170306d.11

terramak

This build is on the Owlbear test shard.

Content and Environment
River District

• Dig Site lockouts should more consistently expire after one hour.
  
• Wizard Attack Heroic Encounters are less likely to become stuck.

Combat and Powers
Companions

• Watler now properly grants double Adventurer's Accreditation at Uncommon and Rare qualities.

Items and Economy
General

• Ornately Carved Box: This item now stacks to 99, increased from 5.

Note from Terramak: Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the overlapping loot issue resolved for this build. We've got a band-aid (prevent multiple players from interacting at once) going into the next major Shroud of Souls build on Preview, but it's unlikely to get into a build before Shroud of Souls release.

Edit: There was a lot of feedback / were a lot of bug reports in the previous thread. I've made sure to send all of 'em out to the team for investigation.

sorce

terramak said:

Ornately Carved Box: This item now stacks to 99, increased from 5.

THANK YOU! May the gods smile upon ye.

adinosii

Aaaah!

Thank you! This patch pretty much clears up my personal list of bugs for Mod 11. Now I have nothing to complain about there. Well....no bugs, that is - but there are always design flaws to complain about:

Design flaws in Mod 11:

• The +5 companion gear that drops in IG is generally perceived as inferior to the +4 gear. This is simply illogical.
  
• The drop rate of the +4 gear, and the low chance of getting the gear you want (combined with the fact that the items are bound) has caused many players to give up on IG - just farm it for the Fleece and quit after completing the first (Bronze) phase.
  
• There is no good campaign currency sink to encourage people to come back to the campaign and do at least the weekly quest, after finishing the campaign. Sharandar, ToD and even IWD are much better designed in that respect.
  
• The reward/effort level (as in expected AD value per hour) in the Spellplague caverns is too low for many people to bother with it - if you do not need the artifact from there, it is far more practical to run FBI and mSVA instead.
  

There...even though you fix some of the issues I have been complaining about, it doesn't mean I cannot whine about something else instead.

darthtzarr

Thanks a bunch guys. Finally I can carry my portal stones on my main!

I would have to agree about the +5 companion gear though. When people first told me that +5 companion gear had an overload slot, I assumed they meant 2 off (or def) slots plus an overload. After finding out that it was just 1 off and an overload, I assumed it was a bug.

A companion overload slot cannot compete with an offense slot. Never. At least in theory it shouldn't. I do not have one to test, I don't get +5s . It should be obvious that +5 is weaker given your new item level system on preview. With a +4 companion item, you can reach a higher item level than you can with a +5 on preview. Obviously the new item level system isn't perfect, but this one should be a no brainer.

Even if new overloads were added in mod 11b or mod 12, these +5 companion items would still be annoying to use, since buying/farming overload enchants after 2 hours of combat time is annoying, and quite similar to black ice/voninblod.

@terramak

sobac

GG. Hope to see more ppl doing other HEs, too tired of ship HE and "inv ship pls" in zone chat, lol

darthtzarr

sobac said:

GG. Hope to see more ppl doing other HEs, too tired of ship HE and "inv ship pls" in zone chat, lol

Ship is still the easiest, since it can be manually spawned.

ilmenira

happy about ornately carved box stacking now!
thank you!

terramak

A belated thank you to all of you, for your efforts in keeping the issues most important to you at the top of my mind, and in the minds of the team. Thanks for also including feedback on design decisions that don't feel so great - I'll do my best to keep forwarding those, too.

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scathias

adinosii said:

There is no good campaign currency sink to encourage people to come back to the campaign and do at least the weekly quest, after finishing the campaign. Sharandar, ToD and even IWD are much better designed in that respect.

Just a note on this one, You can purchase a runic key from the store with Evidence of Evil which is something that will keep me coming back for the daily. But on the whole I agree with you. Once I have gotten my ascendance weapon set I am never going to run the lairs again except for the weekly unless they are required for mod 11b. I would love for these new mods to have something I can contribute to my Stronghold. I am tired of running around in mod 1-5 areas. make mods 8-11b stuff that I can donate to any of the SH coffers for points so that I can choose where to run my content for the day. That is actually one of my favorite things about mod 11, that the daily gives me so many different ways that I can complete it it doesn't feel like a horrible and boring thing to do each day

terramak

defiantone99 said:

Dig Sites are still bugged, just so you know.

Gah! Thanks for letting me know.

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terramak

Thanks for the extra info, I think this might help us narrow down on more consistent causes / repro cases.

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dupeks

I'm not sure if this is helpful RE: Dig Sites lockout, but negative info might be helpful. Or it might not be.

I have never been locked out of a dig site for more than an hour. But, I also never used passes that I got from a treasure chest. I also very seldom used any maps (2-3 times total), instead only going to opened dig sites and getting passes for 1 reclaimed resource each.

When I did get passes from a treasure chest, I discarded them immediately.

When I got passes for 1 reclaimed resource each to enter the digs, I would leave them in inventory and discard them all after I was done with my run entire (usually ran either 5 or 9 sites).

This exact behavior is consistent for all 4 characters I have working through River District (DC, CW, GWF, and OP).

beckylunatic

dupeks said:

I have never been locked out of a dig site for more than an hour. But, I also never used passes that I got from a treasure chest.

Neither have I, but I use passes from chests pretty much every time I get them, unless I've already done that site recently. This is a red herring. I also use the sewer/dungeon/crypt maps I pick up from treasure when I can, though I do not buy them (waste of space).

I throw away duplicate passes. I have NEVER allowed a pass to time out in my inventory. I ditch them as soon as I exit the site, or as soon as I remember if not immediately.

@adinosii also indicated he stopped having issues with sites becoming locked when he stopped allowing the passes to time out.

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terramak

This information... it is delicious! We've seen issues with certain methods of items leaving the inventory before, so there may be some ghost of those passes sticking around even after they time out. (Just a hunch.) Thanks all.

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terramak

I'd say don't stress too much at this point. Seeing the expected green text in red is a pretty big clue (I think - I'm rusty on that part of the interaction system), as is the anecdotal evidence of "I don't run into this issue when I don't allow the passes to expire." This should be enough for the next investigative pass.

I've swamped our QA team with too many builds recently, though - I'm cooling down on the live fix builds (I have none planned for next Thursday or the Thursday after, at least, assuming nothing absolutely terrible emerges).

sobac

I got 2 locked digsites the first day (or first two days) the M11 came out, but later not a single one. After people discovered the way to unlock them (party unlock), i tried intentionally bug them to no avail. Man, i did almost everything, dozens of ways and i couldn't bug them. Been solo trying tho, not in party. Maybe it bugs somehow while you are in party :S

bitt3rnightmar3

Feedback: I've ran Spellplague a few times now on live as have many of my friends. It's a really fun dungeon with interesting mechanics and a fun and entertaining side boss. The rewards are really strange.

1. Doing the 'no spoilers' optional boss I saw something flash up on my screen that I was getting a title or achievement. It happened pretty fast so I thought I might as well check it later only- I didn't find anything in my quest journal for such an achievement or title. Did I miss something or maybe have other people noticed this?
2. The regular dungeon chest key awarded me only Seals and Abandoned treasures only. No piece of elven gear at all. The Runic key I used gave me Seals, Abandoned Treasures and a rank 5 silvery enchantment only the several times I've done the dungeon. Again, no choice of elven gear salvage or anything. Since this is expected for the tier of dungeon to have at least elven gear salvage like FBI does I'm wondering if this was intended...

I loved spellplague. You guys did a nice job updating it and I think its gorgeous and still has suspenseful and hilarious moments like I remember. I'm curious though as to why only the seals and abandoned treasures as rewards. If it's true that you're adding drops next mod for masterwork materials thats cool.. but please give us some purple gear for our time. It makes it overall less profitable than the key we are using to open the chest. Thanks!

darthtzarr

bitt3rnightmar3 said:

Feedback: I've ran Spellplague a few times now on live as have many of my friends. It's a really fun dungeon with interesting mechanics and a fun and entertaining side boss. The rewards are really strange.

1. Doing the 'no spoilers' optional boss I saw something flash up on my screen that I was getting a title or achievement. It happened pretty fast so I thought I might as well check it later only- I didn't find anything in my quest journal for such an achievement or title. Did I miss something or maybe have other people noticed this?
2. The regular dungeon chest key awarded me only Seals and Abandoned treasures only. No piece of elven gear at all. The Runic key I used gave me Seals, Abandoned Treasures and a rank 5 silvery enchantment only the several times I've done the dungeon. Again, no choice of elven gear salvage or anything. Since this is expected for the tier of dungeon to have at least elven gear salvage like FBI does I'm wondering if this was intended...

I loved spellplague. You guys did a nice job updating it and I think its gorgeous and still has suspenseful and hilarious moments like I remember. I'm curious though as to why only the seals and abandoned treasures as rewards. If it's true that you're adding drops next mod for masterwork materials thats cool.. but please give us some purple gear for our time. It makes it overall less profitable than the key we are using to open the chest. Thanks!

Honestly, I don't remember FBI giving purple gear every time either. It is quite sad really. Sometimes you can run FBI/mSP and get far less value out of them than even some of the lowest dungeons in the game.

nameexpired

darthtzarr said:

Even if new overloads were added in mod 11b or mod 12, these +5 companion items would still be annoying to use, since buying/farming overload enchants after 2 hours of combat time is annoying, and quite similar to black ice/voninblod.

Don't forget that overload enchantments (even "full" ones) do not stack! A nice waste of space. Just considering to use them fills my bags with tears.