ALPHA PATCH NOTES 18-01-2011
FEATURED
* Public Groups are now in! See below under PUBLIC GROUPS for details.
* Antialiasing. You now have the option under Advanced Video Settings. This reduces the ‘jaggies’ along the outlines of objects by using an edge-smoothing technique.
* Prince Hylas is ready for battle in Greenscale’s Blight!
* Apothecary crafting skill has gotten a complete makeover! See below under CRAFTING for details.
* Added a Currency panel to the character sheet.
* /camp [charactername] is now available for switching between characters on the same shard.
GENERAL GAMEPLAY
* You can no longer /ignore yourself. Sorry!
* Companion pets (non-combat pets) now display their owner’s name.
* Fixed another pesky loot-sparkling corpse bug where there wasn’t actually loot to obtain.
* Mail with attached items now bounces back to the sender when it expires.
* Adjusted mail expiration: 7 days for CoD mail, 30 days for regular mail, and 90 days for returned mail.
* Increased mailbox size limits.
* All loot rolls go to Party chat if you are partied, and Raid chat if raided.
* Roll results are no longer displayed as system messages.
* /roll no longer displays the channel name to make it more visually distinct from chat messages on the same channel.
* When in a party or raid, you will only see loot roll results if you participated in the roll.
* Quests that remove their quest items when deleted or abandoned now also check your bank.
* Rest experience is only gained in friendly hubs.
PUBLIC GROUPS
* A new ‘Join Public Group’ button will appear on-screen when fighting an event (Rift, Invasion, etc.) with someone willing to group.
* You can toggle your availability for public groups by right-clicking your character portrait. Your setting will persist through logout.
* Group or Raid leaders gain an option in their character’s context menu that sets whether the group/raid is Public or Private. This option is not available in Warfronts. Changing this setting sends a message to current group/raid members with the updated status.
* You can see someone’s Public Group status in their character tooltip. Targeting and right-clicking their portrait will allow you to join a player’s group.
RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Player-summoned Invasions will now correctly despawn 60 seconds after their target has been defeated.
* Wardstone turrets now only fire on Invasions and enemy players.
* Storm Legion Elite event: Reduced the behind-the-scenes complexity of stage 4 for this event so it should stop imploding.
GUILDS
* Guild charters now cost 1 platinum.
* Group inviting someone from the Guild Roster should be more reliable about inviting the selected person.
COMBAT
* Spamming ability buttons will no longer result in ‘phantom queues’ if you have your ability queue set to ‘Short’.
SOULS
* Warriors, Rogues: All Area of Effect attacks have caps on how many targets they can hit. This value is based on specific abilities and when they are unlocked.
* Warriors: Enraged Essence and Enraged Companion now share a stacking group and cannot be used at the same time.
ARCHON
* Updated icon for Earthen Barrage.
ASSASSIN
* Fixed a bug to make mobs unable to block/parry/dodge when they are stunned by Foul Play or Paralyzing Strike.
* Subterfuge: Now also increases the damage of Assassinate, Paralyzing Strike, and Jagged Strike by 10/20%.
BARD
* Fixed a bug where Motif of Focus was being replaced by Motif of Grandeur.
BEASTMASTER
* Due to the below changes, characters with soul points spent in Beastmaster have received a free Soul respec.
* Tenacious Strike and Primal Senses: These abilities have traded places in the Soul tree.
* Pack Mentality: Now increases max Health instead of Armor, and is a 3 point ability instead of 5.
* Agile Footwork: Now a 5 point ability instead of 3.
BLADEDANCER
* Blade & Soul: Adds another 20% critical hit chance while the buff is active.
CABALIST
* Obliterate: No longer castable if you have no Lurking Decays or a Sigil up. Now deals more damage and doubles Lurking Decay damage.
* Tyranny: No longer castable if you have no Lurking Decays or a Sigil up. Now deals more damage.
* Dark Passage: Teleport range reduced to 10-15 meters.
* Nebulous Haze: No longer castable on bosses.
* Decay: Now deals more damage.
* Lurking Decay: Can now hit 4 enemies, but does less damage.
* Dark Water: Now has a 1.5 second casting time.
* Sigil of Binding: Reduced Snare duration to 5 seconds.
* Undertow: Increased Snare duration to 8 seconds.
CHAMPION
* Follow Through: Now affects Bladefury and Cornered Beast as well as Mighty Blow.
DOMINATOR
* Updated icon for Split Personality.
DRUID
* Boundless Growth: Properly updates the tooltip on Eruption of Life.
INQUISITOR
* Circle of Oblivion: Now only hits 7 targets.
* Armor of Treachery: Reduced armor bonus.
JUSTICAR
* Righteous Mandate: No longer stackable.
NECROMANCER
* Updated icons for Summon Skeletal Horror, Summon Skeletal Zealot, and Corpse Explosion.
NIGHTBLADE
* Unstable State, Heat Retention: Now increases the damage of non-physical attacks instead of just Fire and Death attacks.
PURIFIER
* Fiery Blessing: Now insta-cast, on a 1 minute 30 second cooldown, with a duration of 1 minute.
* Life’s Blessing: Properly updates the tooltips on Healing Blessing, Caregiver’s Blessing, and Fiery Blessing.
REAVER
* Creeping Death: Now also snares targets.
RIFTSTALKER
* Cautious Stalker and Hardened Stalker: Abilities removed.
* New Branch Ability – Rift Barrier: Adds an absorption shield that lasts 15 seconds after Plane Shifting. This shield absorbs 5-25% of all incoming physical damage for up to 10-50% of your max health. This shield does not stack with Rift Guard and will not be applied if Rift Guard is active.
* New Branch Ability – Improved Rift Barrier: Allows Rift Barrier to absorb all types of damage.
* Rift Guard: Now stacks with all other absorption shields (ex: Purifier’s Ward of the Ancestors), except Rift Barrier.
SENTINEL
* Serendipity: No longer consumed by abilities it does not benefit.
SHAMAN
* Vengeance of the Primal North: Now hits 3 targets and has a 2 minute cooldown. Also no longer causes visual effect insanity.
* Strike of the Maelstrom: Now hits 6 targets, and timing properly matches the animation.
* Vengeance of the Winter Storm: Not so vengeful with the visual and sound effect spam.
WARDEN
* Still Waters: Properly updates the tooltip on Deluge.
DUNGEONS AND RAIDS
* Group experience bonus continues to scale up with increased raid sizes.
* Group or Raid leaders can now shift-right click on a person and mark them from the Mark menu.
* Raid leaders or officers can now kick people from any group, not just their own.
* You may now enter Greenscale’s Blight as a raid group and actually end up in the same instance.
CHARMER’S CALDERA
* The barrier after the third boss is a lot more solid, and the boss a lot less skippable.
GREENSCALE’S BLIGHT [Raid]
* Prince Hylas is ready for battle in Greenscale’s Blight! This instance is still WIP and is not yet itemized.
* Increased the model size for Infiltrator Johlen and Duke Letareus.
* Duke Letareus’ Furious Pursuit now applies a debuff that increases its damage.
* Duke Letareus no longer spawns minions during his whirlwind phase.
* Duke Letareus now has an enrage timer.
* Infiltrator Johlen can no longer be damaged by wisps that appear during his encounter.
* The hedge blockers at the start of the Infiltrator Johlen fight now despawn properly on an aggro reset.
* Fixed a bug where Infiltrator Johlen could become unresponsive during the Devastating Bomb phase.
* Infiltrator Johlen: Landmines are no longer cast during the Devastating Bomb phase.
* Infiltrator Johlen: The explosion from Devastating Bomb does significantly more damage.
* Infiltrator Johlen now has an enrage timer.
ZONES
FREEMARCH
* Added mailboxes in Ark of the Ascended and Kelari Refuge.
MOONSHADE HIGHLANDS
* Voidspawn now spawn from Golems in Grey Gardens more regularly.
SCARLET GORGE
* Cruel to be Kind: After you free the Constructs’ minds, the loot will not follow. They despawn instead.
* The Cleansing: Added a map location for the Endless Court Archers.
* A Bit of Subterfuge: Reworked to not gate multiple players. Ungrouped players can now complete this quest at the same time as long as they are on the upper platform.
* Up and At ‘Em: Added a few more miners along the path, increased amount of time that Prospectors ‘sleep’.
* Added mailboxes to Rockridge hubs for Defiants and Guardians.
* Better mob population tweaks to withstand players running through and mowing things down!
* Faction merchants should no longer sell the opposing faction’s Focus.
SHIMMERSAND
* Invasions should no longer try to get inside the underground tower at Wyrmbane Spire.
* Rifts in the Dunes of Akala should no longer seal or transition to the next stage when optional quest mobs are still alive.
SILVERWOOD
* Reduced Overwatch Keep population density.
* Remembrance of Things Past: Reduced quest objective count.
STONEFIELD
* Added more mailboxes to Camp Fergos.
* Quarrying the Quarry: Magmite should spawn in a larger radius, be larger in size, and available for more time when spawned.
* The Weight of Commodity: Increased the size of mushrooms so they can be seen through grass/groundclutter/badgers.
PVP/WARFRONTS
* Warfronts now prefer to place pre-made groups against each other when parties are queued on both sides.
* PvP Souls are now only purchasable by the Calling that can use them.
* Turning on auto-attack will no longer flag you for PvP if you are too far away to actually hit your target.
* When a Warfront invitation pops, you remain actively in queues for other Warfronts until the current invitation is accepted or declined. Additional pending invitations will not show until you accept or decline the current one.
* Achievements for PvP kills in specified zones now update properly.
* Warfront Master NPCs have acquired better representation and no longer have to share the Merchant minimap icon – they get their own!
ITEMS
* Secondary dyes should now work with a majority of armors.
* Dye buy price has been increased. Updated the ‘use’ text on these items.
* Dye sell price has been increased.
* Made Artifact tooltips more clear about which ones you already have or still need.
* Looting an item that offers a quest now alerts you with an on-screen message.
* Removed potion vendors above level 25, as we no longer sell potions at these levels.
* Added additional level 30+ randomized Essences from the planar goods merchants that use a single stat and a high planar resist.
CRAFTING
* Fixed an issue where Butchering quests for refining advanced materials required characters to also be Outfitters. You should only need Butchering to do these!
APOTHECARY REVAMP
* Several ranks of Mana Potions, Healing Potions, Healing Tonics, and Mana Tonics have been removed.
* All other potions have been either removed, or replaced with revised versions or new potion types.
* Flasks have been replaced by Vials.
* New potions include: Serums, new Philters, Brews, Elixirs, Bottles, Warding Potions, Concoctions, etc.
* All potions have had their power and level requirements adjusted. There are now fewer ranks of potions covering wider ranges of power, and more lenient use-level requirements.
* Recipe Changes: If you were an Apothecary, your recipe list has been updated. Old recipes have been removed and when applicable, replaced with a new recipe. All new recipes are available from the Apothecary trainer. Previously gained dropped/faction/artisan recipes have, unfortunately, been lost.
* All Apothecary daily quests have been updated to require the new crafted items. In some cases, daily quests have lowered minimum skill requirements to match new recipe spreads.
* All notoriety vendors have been updated to sell new recipe scrolls.
* The Artisan store now offers a wider variety of Rare and Epic potions and vials.
* Planar Faction vendors in Meridian and Sanctum now offer new recipe scrolls for sale. These merchants offer planar Warding Potions and Resistance Vials.
* There is a new water-based plant called Krakenweed which can be found in Scarlet Gorge, Stonefield, Freemarch, and Gloamwood. This plant is used in an item coming with an upcoming patch.
* With the exception of certain ranks of Healing and Mana potions, all previously crafted Apothecary items will still be available in game. Go ahead and use them up, since they will be removed in a future patch.
GRAPHICS AND AUDIO
* Antialiasing is now an option under Advanced Video Settings. This reduces the ‘jaggies’ along the outlines of objects by using an edge-smoothing technique.
* Added separate options to Advanced setting list for environment and character shadows. Disabling character shadows should improve performance significantly in high population situations.
* Added an option in the Interface Camera Settings to disable camera shake.
* Fixed a bug where weapons would sometimes disappear after a polymorph.
* Fixed another bug where female characters who changed equipment while polymorphed could end up with male body parts later. Nothing to see here, move along…
* Bows and Guns have new sounds for their abilities!
COMMANDS AND MACROS
* /camp [charactername] will now log you out and attempt to log in a character on the same shard with the indicated name.
* Fixed default Pet Bar keybinds so they start with Attack bound to ctrl-0.
UI/SETTINGS
* Implemented a new character sheet layout. It’s shiny!
* New character sheet includes a Planar Focus UI, so you no longer need to shift-right click your Focus to see what you have equipped.
* Added a Currency panel to the character sheet.
* Fixed a bug that caused the pet healthbar to not correctly update when summoning a new pet.
* If a quest requires you to kill a type of creature within a specific area or zone (such as Rift repeatable quests), the mob tooltip now indicates that the creature counts if in the proper area.
* Fixed several Soul Tree UI issues with right-clicking to remove soul points.
_________________ "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
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