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Pre-Patch Taskmasters (September 22, 2006)

You’ve said that you’re going to fix pre-patch Talon Bites, but what about pre-patch Taskmasters?

John@EA “Wilki”, Community Coordinator: Unless we discover a compelling reason not to balance these, they will be adjusted as well at some point in the future.

Pre-Patch Talon Bite Minor Artifacts: (Sep 15, 2006)

Will pre-patch Talon Bite minor artifacts ever be adjusted so that they have the same damage as the newer version?

John@EA “Wilki”, Community Coordinator: Yes, that is something we plan to address.

Clarification:
I checked in the change last night. (UOC Note: Friday. September 15, 2006)

Basically, all ornate axes will have a base damage of 18:20. There are currently 4 versions out there:

New Ornate Axes with 18:20 dmg
Converted Ornate Axes with 20:20 dmg (due to technical limitations at the time, this was the best we could fix the early ones)
New Talon Bites with 18:20 dmg
Old pre-patch Talon Bites will higher damage (don’t know the numbers off the top of my head.

They’ll all be adjusted to 18:20.

9th Anniversary Items - Siege and Mugen(Sep 15, 2006)

Will the combat items that come with the 9th Anniversary Collection be blessed on Siege and Mugen?

John@EA “Wilki”, Community Coordinator: No, in keeping with our recent policy of not automatically blessing combat items on these two shards, they will not be blessed. However, you can still use your Personal Bless deed to bless them if you wish.

Leech Changes (Sep 1, 2006)

Can you explain the recent leech changes?

John@EA “Wilki”, Community Coordinator: The old method used your leech % as a chance for the effect to fire each time you swing. Each time the effect fired, you would get 40% of the post-resist damage inflicted back as mana, or 30% back as hit points.
The new method uses the leech % as the top end of a range. The amount of that 40% of mana (or 30% of life) that actually gets delivered is randomly determined — from 0 to your leech %. This amount is added every time an attack hits.
The resulting effect is that the amount leeched over time will be less — from a little bit less, for slower weapons, down to about half for fast ones. However, because it will deliver smaller amounts continuously, hopefully it will not feel like the ability has been nerfed dramatically.

Evasion, Use Best Weapon, Mage Weapon (Aug 25, 2006)

Regarding the change to evasion which requires 50 weapon skill, how are the Use Best Weapon Skill and Mage Weapon properties handled?

Wilki: Neither of them count towards the 50 weapon skill requirement.

Power, Vanquishing, Mystic Weapons against Berserkers (August 4, 2006)

How exactly do Power, Vanquishing, and Mystic weapons help against Berserkers, and to what extent?

Draconi: The Power, Vanquishing, and Mystic weapons cut directly through the Berserker’s magical shielding to deal a certain percentage of the damage you would’ve done normally to it. Power does the least percentage, and Mystics do the highest. The damage numbers you see when dealing damage to Berserkers is the 5% mentioned above, and doesn’t include the extra damage the magical weapon has included as well.

PvP and Hit Modifiers (June 2, 2006)

I like some of the changes for PvP in pub 40, but you left in one of the most glaring problems: hit procs like hit lower defense, mana leech, etc. Any plans to address those anytime soon?

MrTact: Yes, we want to look into those, we just ran out of time. My current thought is to scale the amount of the effect based on the speed of the weapon, so a consistent amount of the effect is applied regardless of how fast your weapon is.

Client Patch and Targeting Fix (April 28, 2006)

Are you planning another client patch to address some of the problems we’ve been having with the new targeting system?

MrTact: Yup. And we will be looking at ways to do broader beta tests of publishes in the future, so we find these problems before we go worldwide with the client.

Lightning Strike + Heavy Crossbow on Pub40 Test Shard (April 28, 2006)

Using lightning strike with a heavy crossbow on the Pub40 TC can do over 100 damage. Is this intended?

MrTact: Nope. In the last few days before the server publish, we’ll be looking at this and issues with other systems as they are on TC, including swing speed.

Targeting Changes (April 28, 2006)

Why did you decide to change how targeting works?

Darkscribe: The old targeting system just wasn’t as easy and responsive as we wanted it to be. I know a lot of existing players have grown used to it and are quite good at using it in even the most hectic of combat situations. However, that old system just isn’t as good as it could be. I think once the complete server publish is rolled out with Pub 40, when targeting hostiles is working and a few other polish issues are taken care of, the new system will become quite popular. Personally, I find it much easier to target what I want and when I want. And, we are listening to the feedback and are figuring out ways to make the system better.

Non-Bushido Melee Character - Viable? (April 14, 2006)

Will a Non-Bushido Melee Character ever be a viable choice again?

MrTact: Consider this 6-slot melee template: weapon skill, tactics, anat, healing, parry, resist. Using that 7th slot for Bushido (or Chiv, or Ninjitsu) offers abilities that enhance your melee damage; NOT taking one of those abilities means you are giving up that extra damage. So will a melee character that doesn’t take one of those skills be competitive with one who does, based solely on damage output? Probably not. We’d have to resort to some extreme game design gymnastics to make that possible (e.g. items that give a damage bonus but cannot be used if you possess one of those skills).

There are some other axes we could balance on, such as how much damage you can absorb. That was the rationale behind tying armor to a skill, but people REALLY didn’t like that idea.

The basic problem is, not every skill has equal usefulness. That’s been true for a long time, and it would take a lot of effort to fix it (and would probably tick off quite a few people).

Client - Targeting (March 31, 2006)

I saw the new targeting system thread in the Developer’s Corner, and I can’t wait to try it. I was wondering if that example was the way it is going to look in Pub40?

TheGrimmOmen: Not quite. What you saw in that thread was an early prototype to demonstrate the functionality of the new system. We’ve been working on the art for the targeting reticule, and should have something new to show you soon.