The Classes of Camelot Message Boards

Among other things (including possibly the longest Grab Bag question ever, relating to Bonedancers) this Grab Bag tells us (sort of) what the Reports From the Realms are all about:

Q: What was the stuff Missy posted, the Notes From The Realms?

A: That’s us having a little fun with something in the game, happening right now, that we’re leaving you to discover.

Please note: It has nothing to do with how you’d spec your character, or whether or not you would have an advantage over another person, so I won’t spoil it with notes and descriptions here. Believe me, if it had to do with character advancement or fighting ability, I would not tolerate the whole “it’s a voyage of discovery” thing. Fool me twice, shame on me. So trust me, I’m being secretive because it’s just something cool that I think people will really enjoy.

Keep your eyes on the skies!

Read on for the full Grab Bag.

Dance with the bones, that is:

Q: Bonedancers.

A: Let me start by making sure everyone knows that developing games is a lot like teaching a duck to swim. The gliding waterfowl is the patch note. Getting to the point where we have a patch note is a great deal of paddling, adjustment, experimentation, and occasional joint pain.

I went to the Redhead and said, listen, I know you did this and this and this, but why not do XYZ as well? I don’t understand how a couple seconds could hurt. Then he showed me all he’d done to arrive at his decision… and he convinced me with evidence and a lot of hard work that a couple of seconds made a heck of a difference. The other thing that I didn’t understand until I talked to the man was that these changes have to work with a bunch of things coming in the next patch.

After talking to me, the Redhead really wanted to explain his thought process and much more to you, so here he is:

"With this patch, we’ve rolled out a lot of changes to elements of game functionality – elements that have existed for a very long time. As is the case with any changes, there are rippling effects that change other aspects of the game. Some are intentional, some are unintentional. In most cases, we need to make adjustments to compensate for the ripple effects.

"In 1.87, we have gone through most summoned pets in the game and updated them to meet today’s standards. For some classes, this required little or no compensation. It was simply a needed boost. However, for the Bonedancer, the pet changes created some issues.

"Up until now, the vast majority (well above 90%) of Bonedancers were specced with a high amount of suppression. The reasons for this were twofold. One, Suppression was an incredibly powerful spec. Two, Bone Army and Darkness were incredibly weak specs. Our goal was to change the class to have at least two, and hopefully three wholly viable spec lines, instead of one overly dominant spec line. This thought process will eventually be applied to every class with a severely lacking spell line (I’m looking at YOU Mentalism Mentalists) For the Bonedancer, this process required two parts, spread over two patch cycles. Addressing pet issues, and addressing spell issues. As most people have seen, the pet issues were on the table for 1.87. As I said before, the goal of this was to bring pets up to the standards of today’s game. The next step is to address the failings in the spell lines with 1.88. However, in order to do this, we needed to make some adjustments to the 1.87 Bonedancer in order for them to remain relatively balanced until we can roll 1.88 out in the next couple months.

"In 1.87 we increased sub pet levels and removed the restrictions that prevented three top tier sub pets. On top of this, there’s the addition of a specialty commanders, the roughly 30% magic resistance increase and 10-15% melee resistance increase to the commander pets, the increase in healing value of the highest tier Bonemender, the introduction of a stacking health regen and power regen, and the increased regeneration rates introduced in 1.87. With all these things, using the 4 second instant lifetap, the suppression Bonedancer was completely unkillable in melee, and almost unkillable by anyone who did not have a form of AE CC.

"While we try not to balance around the small scale, this sort of thing sets of major red flags, and cannot be allowed to happen. Because of this, we investigated several methods of toning down the sheer amount of healing available to the suppression BD, without greatly hampering the viability that was introduced to the other two spell lines. After trying various iterations of changing the recast of the instant lifetap to 12 seconds, 6 seconds and 10 seconds, we felt that 8 seconds was the best compromise that could be achieved until the spells were fully addressed in 1.88.

"The changes made to the Bonedancer in 1.87 are meant to work hand in hand with the changes being made for 1.88. So, if you’re upset or don’t see where we’re going, the first few versions of 1.88 should help ease the sting and answer your questions. As always, we’ll be monitoring the performance of the class with the 1.87 changes, and make adjustments as necessary."

I have been sitting in this chair for five and a half years. Before that, I watched from the other side of the pasture for three years. I do not reprint comments like "severely lacking" lightly, because in my experience with multiple MMOs, comments like that have got to be followed up with actual action. And I tend not to believe that action will be taken until I see patch notes. So I’m taking a leap of faith, reprinting his remarks… but I believe that it is a risk worth taking.


Q: What happened to the battleground level changes?!

A: Yikes. I had so many of these in the last twenty four hours that I panicked. I thought for a minute that we had neglected to let you know we’d changed our minds based on a whole heck of a lot of commentary and letters from the community, but the live team assistant producer, Rolling Stone, pointed me to 1.87D, where we said:

"NEW FRONTIERS NOTES

"Battlegrounds

"- The level ranges for the battlegrounds have reverted back to their original values based on feedback."

This was one of those changes that we made because we thought people would find it helpful, and changed it back because... well, no, people didn't agree, and since we didn't make the decision originally out of anything to do with balance, the change back was no skin off our nose. I do apologize to anyone who missed the revert announcement.


Q: In the entrance of Darkness Falls, while stealthed up top, I received..

The ambient Maggot uncovers you!

Er... what? I’ve got 50 base stealth, (64) total.

A: This, along with similar situations in the Labyrinth, is a known issue and we’re investigating. No ETA on a fix, but it was definitely not on purpose and won’t stay that way. Please report any wackiness like that as a bug, please.


Q: When I got a new cloak, I went to put hood up and wouldn't go up. Old cloaks work fine...tried with one of my alts and same thing..old cloaks work, new cloaks don't.

What's up with that?

A: I’ve got a few item-related questions, but the trouble is, we need to know the exact name of the item before we can investigate. Please don’t forget to include the name of the item, and where you got that item, in any item-related bug appeals.

In terms of cloaks, specifically – be sure to check the cloak before appealing. Some cloaks have hoods hanging down, and those should be able to use /hood. But if you see no hood... there’s no hood to put up!


Q: Those MP charge items you offered to legendary crafters are pretty much the best thing DAOC has seen since purge. Is there any chance that you can add those as purchasable items from an NPC vendor? Your next slushy would be on me.

A: The slushy goes to the Design Goddess (originally known as the Bardic Goddess, for you reeeeeeally old school people), but leave the ice in the freezer for now: "I’ve seen a lot of positive feedback on them so far - but to be honest, I wasn't planning on making more of them in the short term. I'll stick it on my little crafting wishlist doc so I can revisit the suggestion as we continue on with the revamp :)"


Q: My LGM AC is working tailoring and is currently at 450. He's making 99% qua on tailor items that con orange to him. Is this a bug in the new system? Does the old LGM perk now extend to any craft the LGM is working? Or does the old LGM perk now apply to all crafters?

A: From the Goddess: "There was no perk for 99 and below qualities. There was (and still is) only the perk for MP - 1% chance if you are less than 1000 in your tradeskill, 2% if you are more than 1000 in your tradeskill.

"The chance for 96-99% qualities are for all con colors of recipes."


Q: Is there any benefit to players using MP crafted armor vs. using 96 qual player crafted armor?

A: The Goddess never hedges: "Quality modifies the damage you take with your armor piece - so yes. However, many astute players have found that wearing 99% armor and using most AF buffs provides nearly the same benefit."

If you’re the type that would kill your own grandmother to squeeze out every edge, and in my experience a huge percentage of you are in fact grandmother killers, then yes, it’s worth it.

But if you would let granny live, then you can get away with 99%. I expect most casual people would be fine with 96%. So the question to you becomes "what kind of player are you?"


Q: Now that Skalds can use medium shields can I trade in my Small Cyclops Eye Shield for a Medium one?

A: Sorry the patch note wasn’t clear. From the new Items Minion: "Yep. Just speak to Bjetsa in the Hall of Heroes and she'll set you up."


Q: I would like to know why salamanders in TOA are now uncharmable by minstrels. Also, while I’ve got you thinking about salamanders, salamanders in Volcanus require the lvl 42 mentalist charm now, whereas they only required the lvl 10 charm before the patch. Is this a bug?

A: From Boss Rob: "It looks like there is one monster version of the salamanders in Ashen Isles that can't be charmed. This will be fixed by time the Grab Bag is posted.

"The salamanders in Typhon's Reach were all still able to be charmed."

He also let me know that the Volcanus salamanders were accidentally bugged, and that they are now back to normal.


Q: What was the stuff Missy posted, the Notes From The Realms?

A: That’s us having a little fun with something in the game, happening right now, that we’re leaving you to discover.

Please note: It has nothing to do with how you’d spec your character, or whether or not you would have an advantage over another person, so I won’t spoil it with notes and descriptions here. Believe me, if it had to do with character advancement or fighting ability, I would not tolerate the whole "it’s a voyage of discovery" thing. Fool me twice, shame on me. So trust me, I’m being secretive because it’s just something cool that I think people will really enjoy.

Keep your eyes on the skies!

***

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Want to break into the fabulous world of video game reporting? A whole lot of quest writers and even a few community weenies got their start by writing cleverly, frequently, and amusingly on a gaming news website. And Warcry, one of the oldest sites around and under the tender mercies of a new editor, is looking for you. Check out http://camelot.warcry.com/#67498 (scroll until you see "Seeking a Site Manager").

That was a lot to cover; I think I need a little refreshing in the form of a slushy with a strawberry garnish. Y’all have a wonderful weekend.

---

Webmaster of CoC
I feel your scorn and I accept it.