Game Updates March 28,2007
Vanguard Build 1792 Patch Notes 3/28/2007
NOTE: This patch is noticeably larger than previous updates because we are adding new art assets to the game. Look for more news about this coming soon!
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Fix for DoTs not working in PvP
- Experience rates for killing NPCs have had a significant increase. The experience changes start as a small amount at low levels and scale up to a large amount in the early twenties. From then on the increase remains fixed. This increase should be very noticeable for players 15+. This change is in response to actual player leveling times not meeting our original target times within many different subsets of the player population. This increase will bring us much closer to our goal without exceeding it.
- The cost to repair items with high rarities has been reduced.
- Amplifying abilities are now capped at 10 times original strength.
- Amplifying abilities no longer works for all abilities in the ability line. Diminishing returns still applies to everything in the ability line.
- If an ability is taken to full amplification strength it will now experience an extended refresh time.
- Lull type abilities now state that they have a chance to aggro on resist rather than leaving that information to be a surprise.
- All lull type abilities now have the same chance to be resisted.
- Player Housing: All existing housing permissions have been wiped to support new permission functionality.
- Player Housing: The information you receive from inspecting a plot, building, and construction site has changed. All information is now included in one UI window with tabs for each section. All players will now be able to get basic information about what they are inspecting even if they are not the owner of the plot or building.
- Player Housing: Permissions are now set for a plot instead of for a building. You can now specify various permissions for plots through check boxes. Mouse over the check boxes in the Create Permission window to get an over view of what the permission allows.
- Player Housing: Players can now give guild access via guild ranks to their plots and buildings.
- Player Housing: The permission system will continue to expand as more features are added to player housing.
- Player Housing: You now have the ability to recall to your house. Check your ability book under the general section for the new ability.
- Player Housing: You can now preview the required construction materials for a building type by clicking the "Building Details" button on the construction tab.
- Player Housing: Plot prices will now update dynamically. You upkeep price will no longer be locked in when the plot in purchased.
- Player Housing: Coin for upkeep is no longer entered as copper. A coin bar is now present with the proper denominations.
ADVENTURING NOTES
- Bard – Fox Overtakes Hare has had its damage increased, now roots the target for 6 seconds, has had its refresh timer dropped to 20 seconds and will crit much more often.
- Cleric – Anathema VII has been removed because it was a copy of Doom I.
- Cleric – Turn Undead now has the correct display numbers and floating text.
- Blood Mage – Conduct, the Conducive Symbiote granted ability no longer requires a symbiote to use.
- Blood Mage – Plated Symbiote now states how much damage it will return when you are attacked.
- Blood Mage – Conducive Symbiote and Quickening Symbiote can only be cast on a single target one time every 5 minutes.
- Blood Mage – Blood Feast is now a toggled ability. It has also been changed to work as an aura. This makes it go away when you die and work for multiple BMGs in one group.
- Blood Mage – Symbiotes are now soulbound
- Blood Mage – All symbiotes now state that there can only be one on a target at a time.
- Disciple – Fixed a display bug with Leech’s Grasp. It now displays the correct amount of endurance drained.
- Dread Knight – Fell Aura (dreadful countenance rank 3) no longer pulses on and off while it is applied
- Dread Knight – Dread Tide (dreadful countenance rank 5) now applies itself to the opponent as intended.
- Dread Knight – Slay now deals damage, roots your opponent, is usable at 20% target health, costs 30 endurance and crits 50% of the time instead of directly killing your opponent. Also has a 20 second refresh.
- Dread Knight – Slay now opens chains when it crits.
- Necromancer - Necromancer abomination no longer requires that all the grafts be reequipped after relogging. Additionally, if you log out with your minion still summoned, you will no longer have to recast it when you log back in.
- Necromancer - Monstrous Sundering Fist now correctly grants Sundering Fist IX. This increases the damage of the fist.
- Paladin – Vanquish is now more likely to critical.
- Ranger – Form of Precision no longer jumps to level 4 when you are supposed to be at level 3.
- Ranger – Moved Intercept I to level 12 and Speed of the Wolf to level 12
- Ranger – Fleetblade now costs 15 END, down from 22 END.
- Rogue – Knee Break now gives feedback when its used.
- Rogue – Ravage now actually exploits Mesmerized or Lethargic.
- Rogue – Shroud of Shadows is now usable only in stealth.
- Rogue – Fatal Stroke will now open attack chains on critical.
- Warrior – Shield Wall now increases block chance by 80% for 15 seconds and has a 10 minute refresh timer.
- Warrior – Commands can now be used out of combat
- Warrior – Smash has had its refresh time lowered to 8 seconds.
- Warrior – Riposte has had its refresh removed.
- Warrior – Riposte has had its damage increased
- Warrior – Blade’s Bite now costs the intended 10 endurance.
- Warrior – Offensive Stance now increases damage by 20%, accuracy by 10% and reduces mitigation by 10% (down from 20%)
- Warrior – Adjusted the level progression of Stinging Cut. Levels are now 14, 22, 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Stinging Cut V has been added to trainers.
- Warrior - Adjusted the level progression of Blade’s Bite. Levels are now 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Blade’s Bite III has been added to trainers.
- Warrior – Both Stinging Cut and Blade’s Bite now add an initial chunk of hate and some hate over time. The hate is now applied over 15 seconds, instead of 30.
- Warrior – Commands have changed. Single target commands and group commands no longer share a common refresh timer. You can perform a single target command followed immediately by a group command with no delay. All group commands continue to share a common refresh timer. All single target commands continue to share a common refresh timer.
- Warrior – Group commands now have a refresh timer of 30 seconds, down from 45.
- Warrior – Strike Now has a refresh timer of 45 seconds, down from 60
- Warrior – Commands no longer incur global refresh
- Warrior – Defensive type commands now last for 8 seconds instead of 6.
- Warrior – Killing Blow has had its damage greatly increased, its endurance cost drastically reduced and it can now open chains on crits…which should happen often.
- Warrior – Increased the hate reduction on Withdraw and made it consistent across all upgrades.
- Warrior – Removed the mitigation penalty from enrage.
- Warrior – Battle cries are no longer tied to the same refresh timers. Each can be performed individually.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury IV is now available at level 36 and Shout of Fury V is available at level 48.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury now lasts for a flat 12 seconds across all levels
- Warrior – Roar of Rage has a slightly different level progression to make for a more smooth progression of hate. The new levels are: 22, 32, 42, 50
- Warrior – Roar of Rage IV is now available on trainers at level 50
Items
- Cloaks, both crafting and adventuring alike, have seen an appearance pass to increase the variety of tints and models available.
- Level 41+ Adventuring Armor has seen a preliminary appearance pass; this should result in many new models and tints. A future pass may be needed to consolidate tints from individual areas and dungeons.
- Low level Qalian Bows have had their appearances fixed/updated.
- Some mid-level Thestran crossbows were found to be hiding about 50 meters away from their owners. The crossbows have been confiscated and replaced with more timid models until such a time that they decide to play nice.
- Some Graystone and Beranid Downs items have had their restriction flags updated; this will result in the Heroic items becoming Soulbound and the rest becoming non-Soulbound if they were previously
GUI NOTES
- Crafting steps will now show a progress bar for each individual action family below it so that you may more easily gauge individual progress and the effects of complications.
- Crafting action families will no longer sometimes stop refreshing or not appear as disabled correctly when they are complete.
- Added item compare to the UI, which activates by pressing Shift while examining an item. Alternatively, you can enable the new "Always Show Item Compare" setting for 24-hour pants comparison coverage.
- You will now see faction and flag requirements you do not meet listed in the crafting recipe description on recipe trainers.
- Items on merchants and in the loot window will now show as fully charged
- The stack number and charges of items being randomed for will now be visible.
- Escrow merchants will now correctly show stack and charge counts on items.
- Item examine tooltips should now show charges for all charged items, not just those that activate an ability.
- Items in the merchant window will now show charges.
- Trivial work orders will no longer be displayed as downright impossible
CODING NOTES
- When the "Tooltips Require Alt" setting is enabled, hotkeyed items will no longer show their item examine info unless you are holding Alt.
- Fix for some instances of NPCs showing a small amount of health after dying.
- Responsiveness should be improved when targeting something with many buffs/debuffs. This was particularly noticeable when targeting another player in PVP.
- Fixed a bug that caused stacks of loot to be converted to a single item when auto-looted after a random roll. This was most obvious when randoming for harvesting loot.
- Updated our version of OpenAL to a much newer version. This should now properly enumerate your sound devices and allow you to choose your native device (such as an X-Fi sound card) instead of just using the generic hardware or software devices (which are still available). Remember that you will need to completely quit out of the game and restart it after changing your sound device (found in the Audio tab of our Settings window) for the game to start using that new device. We recommend that you make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card before selecting a device other than "Generic Hardware" or "Generic Software" and that you switch back to your previous sound device if you experience sound problems with the new device. You may want to compare sound quality and frame rate with each device to determine the best choice for you. If for some reason the game will not run after you have selected a new sound device, you can edit your VGClient.ini (found in your Vanguard\bin directory) and change the line that starts with "OpenALDeviceName=" to read "OpenALDeviceName=Generic Software" then save that file and try Vanguard again.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpse", which unlocks the NPC corpse to the anyone in the world. You must be the corpse owner to use this command.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpsetoplayer", which unlocks the NPC corpse to a specific player. If no first name is supplied, the defensive target is used.
- Added new command, “/decaytime”, which shows you the time left before an NPC corpse decays.
ART NOTES
- PC/NPC names are now opaque again.
~The Vanguard Team
Mer 28 Mar - 6:23