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Test Server Patch Notes - XP Substantially Increased!
Praxus
Member Posts: 266
Vanguard Build 1789 Patch Notes 3/22/2007 – TEST SERVER
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- 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.
- Paladin – Vanquish is now more likely to critical.
- Rogue – Fatal Stroke will now open attack chains on critical.
- 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
CRAFTING NOTES
- You will now see crafting and assembly recipes in the trainer list even if you do not meet the faction or flag requirements.
- Splitting a stack of crafted items will no longer cause the maker's mark to be lost on the new stack. You will also now be able to restack the items.
- Corrected a travel journal entry for the Understanding Nyi quest.
- Fixed some pieces of crafting gear that were set to the wrong rarity level.
- Rotten Material should no longer have an invisible AP penalty
- Gwartak Clan Shortsword should now raise shortsword skill instead of longsword skill
- Current furniture recipes are now available on outpost trainers as well.
- An addition has been made to crafting advisors that should now let you see the tutorial restart option if you are still level 1 or 2 in crafting and still did not see the restart option. This should solve all issues relating to players unable to continue the crafting training.
- Work Orders - Fixed issue with tier 5 work order tables that was causing cash items rewards to be replaced with the infamous “Ghostbuster” item.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Tursh Academics now give appropriate rewards for Incite parleys.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy waist items now correctly equip to the waist slot and are no longer masquerading as shoulder items.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy ring items now correctly display ring icons
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Jathred’s Twist - Morr the Mighty, Sharram and Zahn at the Minotaur camps in Jathred’s Twist should now drop the correct loot.
- Quests – Weapon rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone have been adjusted.
- Quests - A martial staff and a focus item are now available as rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone. Any players who have already completed the quest and selected either the martial sword or the staff will be able to exchange them at the Spirit of Valor for their respective alternatives.
- Quests - Kill count updates for the quests offered by the Spirits of Vengeance will no longer occur at many times their intended rate.
Items
- 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
- 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 Vanguardin 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
- PC/NPC names are now opaque again.
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- 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.
- Paladin – Vanquish is now more likely to critical.
- Rogue – Fatal Stroke will now open attack chains on critical.
- 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
CRAFTING NOTES
- You will now see crafting and assembly recipes in the trainer list even if you do not meet the faction or flag requirements.
- Splitting a stack of crafted items will no longer cause the maker's mark to be lost on the new stack. You will also now be able to restack the items.
- Corrected a travel journal entry for the Understanding Nyi quest.
- Fixed some pieces of crafting gear that were set to the wrong rarity level.
- Rotten Material should no longer have an invisible AP penalty
- Gwartak Clan Shortsword should now raise shortsword skill instead of longsword skill
- Current furniture recipes are now available on outpost trainers as well.
- An addition has been made to crafting advisors that should now let you see the tutorial restart option if you are still level 1 or 2 in crafting and still did not see the restart option. This should solve all issues relating to players unable to continue the crafting training.
- Work Orders - Fixed issue with tier 5 work order tables that was causing cash items rewards to be replaced with the infamous “Ghostbuster” item.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Tursh Academics now give appropriate rewards for Incite parleys.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy waist items now correctly equip to the waist slot and are no longer masquerading as shoulder items.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy ring items now correctly display ring icons
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Jathred’s Twist - Morr the Mighty, Sharram and Zahn at the Minotaur camps in Jathred’s Twist should now drop the correct loot.
- Quests – Weapon rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone have been adjusted.
- Quests - A martial staff and a focus item are now available as rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone. Any players who have already completed the quest and selected either the martial sword or the staff will be able to exchange them at the Spirit of Valor for their respective alternatives.
- Quests - Kill count updates for the quests offered by the Spirits of Vengeance will no longer occur at many times their intended rate.
Items
- 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
- 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 Vanguardin 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
- PC/NPC names are now opaque again.
Comments
Bout time they put in an item compare feature. Now if only they'd add a dressing room feature.
at least they are updating to the latest OpenAL..maybe that will help with the decrease in FPS with sound enabled.
as for the experience increase..good bout damn time.
That is only for the Test Server right? The regular servers will probably be the same torture treatment.
They have a hell of a lot more to worry about than adjusting the XP scale!
Hardcore raiders like the end game. They are not interested in levelng. They want it quick and fast.
Help me understand why someone would want to level slowly.
E8400@ 4.0Ghz ~ Saphire HD 4870 ~ 6GB DDR2@ 860MhZ
They take their time and become immersed in the game and their character. They attempt to make their mark as a legendary character on the server that many people know and respect for their knowledge of the game world. Raiding is simply the icing on the cake for a hardcore MMORPGer.
The term "hardcore" has recently taken an offensive nature to many people because it makes them feel like they aren't the top of the line... which is upsetting for some people.
Not saying it's accurate, but usually when 'hardcore' is mentioned with Vanguard, it's about eventual raiding.
That's where a lot of the misconception he's talking about comes from though. A lot of people don't equate 'hardcore' to just wanting to raid, they equate it to tough experience curves, painful deaths and etc...and really that's what Sigil wanted it to be too. They've just changed their tune nowadays.
I welcome these changes with open arms. The 50's will rejoice that they have some more people to play with them.
mt or are you in the wrong forum??
If you are in the right forum and reacting towards Vanguard it would be alott smarter to look what kind of game it is before you come screaming this type on nonsens
Either way im not too bothered. =op
The change is really dissappointing. After Sigil hitched up with SOE, I figured they would eventually sell out the vision, but I never thought they would do so, so quickly. I thought maybe Vanguard would be different. Although I guess its better they change to a more casual game now rather than later after most people have leveled a steep xp curve, only to have max essentially level given away.
That which is too easily obtained is too lightly valued.
Next: stickman mode for better performance. Sure, there are no textures and it looks like Atari2600 Adventure, but you will get 40FPS instead of 10!!
Next: stickman mode for better performance. Sure, there are no textures and it looks like Atari2600 Adventure, but you will get 40FPS instead of 10!!
You had to go and say that didn't you.
If they have giant blocky duck-dragons running around gobbling people up into see-through stomachs then I'm gonna have to renew my account.
OTOH it'd be pretty cool to have that magic bridge to run through walls, or the giant yellow sword thingy that insta-slays the dragons.
And as a bonus I bet I still remember how to negotiate the mazes with my eyes closed.
*sigh* I'm old.
Next you'll be asking for Instanced Dungeons.
All the Vanbois were all about taking the "hard " road and excited about a game that was "hardcore" due it taking so long to level, which is a idiotic thought as the game is not harder than any other game...just takes longer to get to max level. Length of time does not mean harder.
Now they increase the XP...hahahaha...
Where's your hardcore game now??
this increase will create an elitist sub-class within the game that believes all those who did not level with the lower xp to be inferior to them in every way. "Well, you suck, and I should know, I got to the level cap when it was "hard"...you noobs are teh sux."
Lame ass game.
No offense VG fans, but every patch seems to contain functionality to make VG "easier" or more like mainstream games. Increased experience rates, npc teleporters, recall to your house etc....
I'm not even saying this is a bad thing.. I might actually come back just to see what they are like.... but please be careful when posting that other players aren't "hardcore" enough to handle VG....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
While it's true they have more pressing matters to tend to especially the games performance no one wants to spend an eternity having to grind for bits of exp.
I dislike seeing all this macho bs about, "I'm hardcore!!!", "I want to get as little exp as possible so I can spend weeks, months getting from one level to another!!" C'mon, now!!
Who wants to spend an eternity having to grind for little exp? Some people say they want to immerse themselves in the game and leveling up slowly, I mean extremely slowly will do this. Say what? Any player or at least any player who knows anything about gaming knows it doesn't take getting little as possible exp to be involved in a game. This has nothing to do with that, nothing.
You merge with a game through it's content, it's community, whatever it has to offer you blend with. On the contrary, the faster you level up, the more you get to see. The more places you get to go to, the more different items you get and are able to use. The more cash you have to get the things you want and need. This is a way of immersing yourself in a game. Not staying on the same level, in the same place (zone) with the same items of its kind for what seems like forever being you need to get more to level up to advance on.
Besides, getting as little as possible exp doesn't make you or the game hardcore.
QFT