Weekly Developer Activities: 3/10/08

[Quarion]

Weekly Development Activities

The following are items which are in development or QA testing for release in Module 7.

General

• Monks have been added to the game as a new playable class!

UI Improvements

• A confirmation dialog has been added to the Default button in the Options UI.

Spells
General Spell Changes

• The turn-you-to-stone effects used by elder earth elementals and stone scorpions are now named "Petrify" so as not to confuse warforged who are immune to "flesh to stone", but not to these effects.
• When you summon a monster into your own persistent AOE (cloudkill, blade barrier, wall of fire, etc), it will no longer take damage on arriving in the world.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities
General Feat Changes

• NEW Insightful Reflexes and Force of Personality feats previously required that you logout and login to take effect; now they take effect immediately.

New Feats

• The following iconic monk feats have been added to the game:
  • Purity of Body – You are immune to all forms of disease, including magical or supernatural diseases.
  • Wholeness of Body – Permits a monk to regain health over time.
  • Diamond Body – You have mastered your metabolism, and are immune to poison.
  • Timeless Body – Your body and soul are your own, and you do not create spawn effects should you fall in combat with the undead.
  • NEW Still Mind and Fast Movement for the monk have been added to the game.
    

Enhancements
New Enhancements

• Halfling Cunning IV
  • Cost: 4 Action Points
  • Prereqs: Level 14 Halfling, Halfling Cunning III, 48 action points spent.
  • Benefit: You gain an additional +1 bonus to attack rolls when flanking an enemy, bringing the total increase to 4.
• Halfling Guile I
  • Cost: 1 Action Point
  • Prereqs: Level 3 Halfling, Halfling Cunning I, 7 action points spent.
  • Benefit: You gain +2 to your sneak attack damage and +1 to bluff.
• Halfling Guile II
  • Cost: 2 Action Points
  • Prereqs: Level 7 Halfling, Halfling Cunning II, Halfling Guile I, 22 action points spent.
  • Benefit: You gain an additional +2 to your sneak attack damage, bringing the total increase to 4, and an additional +1 to bluff, bringing the total increase to 2.
• Halfling Guile III
  • Cost: 3 Action Points
  • Prereqs: Level 11 Halfling, Halfling Cunning III, Halfling Guile II, 37 action points spent.
  • Benefit: You gain an additional +2 to your sneak attack damage, bringing the total increase to 6, and an additional +1 to bluff, bringing the total increase to 3.
• Halfling Guile IV
  • Cost: 4 Action Points
  • Prereqs: Level 15 Halfling, Halfling Cunning IV, Halfling Guile III, 52 action points spent.
  • Benefit: You gain an additional +2 to your sneak attack damage, bringing the total increase to 8, and an additional +1 to bluff, bringing the total increase to 4.
• Paladin Bulwark of Good IV:
  • Cost: 8 Action Points
  • Prereqs: Level 15 Paladin, Paladin Bulwark of Good III, 48 action points spent.
  • Benefit: Your aura of good provides an additional +4 Armor Class bonus.
• Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy IV:
  • Cost: 4 Action Points
  • Prereqs: Level 14 Rogue, Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy III, 48 action points spent.
  • Benefit: You gain an additional +1 bonus to hit with your sneak attacks.

General Enhancement Changes

• Weapons conjured by the Holy Sword spell and arrows created by the Arcane Archer enhancement are no longer destroyed at the end of a dungeon. These items now persist until you have been logged out for half an hour or more.
• The costs of Halfling Cunning I - III and Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy I - III have been reduced to 1 action point per level.
• The bonus granted by Rogue Sneak Attack Training has been increased to 3 points of sneak attack damage per level.
• Rogue Way of the Assassin I now grants a passive +4 bonus to sneak attack damage in addition to its other effects.
• The effect of Paladin Divine Righteousness I, Rogue Way of the Assassin I active abilities, and Rogue Way of the Thief-Acrobat I "Showtime" now lasts 60 seconds instead of 20 seconds.
• Barbarian and Rogue Trap Sense enhancements now grant a +2 bonus to saves vs. traps per level instead of +1.

Items

• Bursting weapons now continue to increase their damage if they "burst" on an attack that has greater than a x4 damage multiplier.
• Several new chain shirt appearances have been added to the treasure tables.
• Gem and collectible bags now have an "auto-gather" feature that can be turned on. Whenever the player picks up a collectible or gem, it will go into a collectible or gem bag if there is room, when enabled. Auto-gathering prefers bags that already have a stack of the picked up item over bags that do not have any.
• The names of some item effects have been changed to avoid confusion with similarly named enhancements. The effects themselves remain the same. The effects impacted are: "Improved Maximize I", "Improved Enlarge I", "Improved Extend I", "Improved Empower II", and "Improved Empower Healing I" have been renamed to "Spell Point Discount - Maximize I", "Spell Point Discount - Enlarge I", "Spell Point Discount - Extend I", "Spell Point Discount - Empower II", and "Spell Point Discount - Empower Healing I".
• NEW Weapons conjured by the Holy Sword spell and arrows created by the Arcane Archer enhancement are no longer destroyed at the end of a dungeon. These items now persist until you have been logged out for half an hour or more.
• NEW Several new chain shirt appearances have been added to the treasure tables.

Quests

• The Shroud
  • NEW The agents of the twelve have been studying the shroud and report a shift in the 13th moon. They speculate the moon of death’s influence will wan in the northwest part of the valley.
• Twilight Canyon
  • NEW The way to the upper levels will now only open for players who speak to Paetus after he has been rescued.
• Sands of Menechtarun
  • NEW All zombies in the Menechtarun area now drop the special desert tokens instead of regular collectibles.
• Orchard of the Macabre
  • NEW A named rare blackbone skeleton in the Orchard of the Macabre now casts spells.

Shopping

• NEW The potion vendor ogre in Gianthold now sells potions of Lesser Restoration.
• NEW The arcane scroll vendor for level 4 and 5 scrolls in House Jorasco no longer sells any level 3 scrolls.

Other Changes

• If you had unlocked the bonus character slot from 1750 favor, it would intermittently not show up. That should no longer happen.
• Previously, some poison dart traps (in the Sunken Sewer, for example) would damage warforged (and others wearing poison immunity items) despite their poison immunity. This should no longer happen. Similarly, there were a few dart traps that did fire/sonic/cold/etc damage, which would bypass appropriate damage resistances. This should also no longer happen.
• The save DC's on traps that scale with difficulty have been lowered on Hard and Elite. Elite trap save DC's are now roughly equivalent to what Hard trap save DC's were before this change. (For example, a trap that previously had a save DC of 30 on Elite will now be DC 22.) Spot, search, disable, and damage values remain unchanged.
• It is now easier to see when standing in an incendiary cloud
• Scrolls that were missing a level 16 UMD class requirement will now display correctly when examined.
• Bidding on an item from the Bids page of the auction house that you have been outbid on will no longer result in an error message.
• Players who perish in either the realm of Dolurrh in Desecrated Temple or in the fire rooms in Rainbow in Dark will no longer leave their soul stones behind when they teleport out.
• AOE buff spells cast in tavern brawl pits will now hit yourself (but not anyone else, since everyone else in the pit is your enemy!)
• NEW When wielding a finesse weapon, the to-hit value in the Inventory panel will now correctly display using your Dex mod if your Dex mod is greater then you Str mod.
• NEW Previously, the DC listed for combat feat tooltips did not include bonuses from enhancements and feats. This was a visual glitch only; they were still being added to the actual DC in combat. This is now fixed.
• NEW The fire effect for a minotaur shaman staff no longer hangs in the air after it has been shattered with a cold spell.
• NEW The teleport bug in The Shadow Crypt where the camera detaches and is floating in water has been fixed.
  

7.4

[Strakeln]

Originally Posted by Quarion

NEW Still Mind and Fast Movement for the monk have been added to the game.

Now if only we could get monk added to the game...

[Kargon]

Originally Posted by Quarion

[*]NEW The potion vendor ogre in Gianthold now sells potions of Lesser Restoration.

yaaaaaaaaaaay!

Now about the potimion vendormer in Meridia...

EDIT: And are kargon the only one who have to log in 25 times per miniminute just to post this? kargon assume are because of silly maintneamence.

[Endrik]

NEW Still Mind and Fast Movement for the monk have been added to the game.

Hopefully the Fast Movement feat stacks with Haste and Striding... Zing!!!

[Strakeln]

Originally Posted by Quarion

NEW The potion vendor ogre in Gianthold now sells potions of Lesser Restoration.

Any hope for the other, non-house-K vendors? House J potion vendor and the portable hole potion vendor do not sell lesser restoration potions either.

[Angelus_dead]

Originally Posted by Endrik

NEW Still Mind and Fast Movement for the monk have been added to the game.

Hopefully the Fast Movement feat stacks with Haste and Striding... Zing!!!

Hopefully they will follow the rules, and it will not stack. The effect of Monk Fast Movement is supposed to be that the monk never needs to wear a Striding item. He naturally gets the same speed bonus level-appropriate striding boots would provide.

Player characters running long-term faster than they do now would not be good for DDO's gameplay.

[Turial]

Originally Posted by Angelus_dead

Hopefully they will follow the rules, and it will not stack. The effect of Monk Fast Movement is supposed to be that the monk never needs to wear a Striding item. He naturally gets the same speed bonus level-appropriate striding boots would provide.

Player characters running long-term faster than they do now would not be good for DDO's gameplay.

Especially if mobs are balanced to the new super fast players. Right now a speed boost coupled with haste and 30 striders just barely keeps me infront of the normal mobs and out of beat down range.

[MysticTheurge]

Um...

Aren't most of those "NEW"s actually old?

[Aspenor]

Originally Posted by Quarion

[*]NEW The teleport bug in The Shadow Crypt where the camera detaches and is floating in water has been fixed.
[/list]7.4

ZOMG YES!!!!!

[ChildrenofBodom]

Originally Posted by Quarion

[*]The Shroud

• NEW The agents of the twelve have been studying the shroud and report a shift in the 13th moon. They speculate the moon of death’s influence will wan in the northwest part of the valley.

Does this mean that you won't get teleported to a room after you die in part 4? I hope that is not the case, I like the fact that you have to be a really good group to finish this quest. Making it so you can rez people in there will make it way to easy. Hope I am wrong.

[Aspenor]

Originally Posted by ChildrenofBodom

Does this mean that you won't get teleported to a room after you die in part 4? I hope that is not the case, I like the fact that you have to be a really good group to finish this quest. Making it so you can rez people in there will make it way to easy. Hope I am wrong.

Is part 4 the northwest? I thought in a previous thread we had all discussed that it was part 2.

[MysticTheurge]

Originally Posted by ChildrenofBodom

Does this mean that you won't get teleported to a room after you die in part 4? I hope that is not the case, I like the fact that you have to be a really good group to finish this quest. Making it so you can rez people in there will make it way to easy. Hope I am wrong.

Originally Posted by Aspenor

Is part 4 the northwest? I thought in a previous thread we had all discussed that it was part 2.

...

Originally Posted by MysticTheurge

Aren't most of those "NEW"s actually old?

[Aspenor]

Originally Posted by MysticTheurge

...

[MysticTheurge]

Originally Posted by Aspenor

blah blah blah

Yay! Cookie!

[EspyLacopa]

Originally Posted by Endrik

NEW Still Mind and Fast Movement for the monk have been added to the game.

Hopefully the Fast Movement feat stacks with Haste and Striding... Zing!!!

Welll. . .

Originally Posted by d20 SRD

Fast Movement (Ex)

At 3rd level, a monk gains an enhancement bonus to her speed, as shown on Table: The Monk. A monk in armor or carrying a medium or heavy load loses this extra speed.

Originally Posted by d20 SRD

Haste

All of the hasted creature’s modes of movement (including land movement, burrow, climb, fly, and swim) increase by 30 feet, to a maximum of twice the subject’s normal speed using that form of movement. This increase counts as an enhancement bonus, and it affects the creature’s jumping distance as normal for increased speed.

Based on those. . .They won't stack with each other.

[LargusMeans]

What about a fix to swap out rogue special feats? Still not able to do that yet, and crippling strike is really quite useless when skill mastery is available. What about making the other 2 work also?

Cheers

[Mhykke]

You know, it'd be nice if we could get at least a hint of some of the paladin ideas that might be coming down, if there are any.

[gpk]

When will we start hearing details about the much touted and long awaited Mod7 Paladin love ?

Edit: oops pre-empted by post I didn't see above this one

[Wizzly_Bear]

Originally Posted by Turial

Especially if mobs are balanced to the new super fast players. Right now a speed boost coupled with haste and 30 striders just barely keeps me infront of the normal mobs and out of beat down range.

striding and haste do not stack.

[artvan_delet]

Originally Posted by Mhykke

You know, it'd be nice if we could get at least a hint of some of the paladin ideas that might be coming down, if there are any.

Apparently the devs haven't played their paladins in a year. Devs need mules too you know. They consulted an "expert" who advised them to add more remove disease, give paladins an option to spend 8 action points on Bulwark 4 (8 action points for 1 additional ac to aura), make holy sword stay longer, and other random "upgrades." I suggest they promote that person, and hire Dworkin or someone who actually plays paladins.

All jokes aside, hoping for DPS help here. How about making holy sword a blessed silver weapon also.