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===<b>Player Work Orders</b>===
:There is a new signboard near the entrance to the enclosed keep in [[Serbule ]] (near the vendor stalls). You can post a request at this sign asking other players to provide you with certain items and set a price you will pay them for those items. For instance, you could place an order for 50 pieces of [[Oak Wood ]] at a price of 1000 coins. Your 1000 coins will be deducted immediately.
:Any player can visit the sign and look through the orders. If they complete an order, they immediately receive the payment, and the items are mailed to you. If nobody completes your work order within a week, the order is canceled and your money is refunded (minus a small fee, of course).
:The intended use is for crafters that want to order ingredients -- for instance, surveyors who want to order a specific gem, toolcrafters who want to order a certain blacksmith item, etc. But it can actually be used to order almost any kind of item EXCEPT for equipment, quest items, and imbued augments.
:But also note that some monsters randomly wander around. This can confuse the issue because sometimes a monster wanders out into a hallway, sees you, and attacks. But you can usually tell the difference between a wandering monster and on that saw you through a wall by how it moves: if a monster already knows you're there, it will make a beeline directly for you.
:This new code needs testing! It has been quite tricky to get right and there may still be major bugs. For example, during internal testing we found this bug: "If I stand in this spot near this wall, monsters completely lose track of me and can't attack, even though they're just inches away from me." If you find bugs like this, PLEASE report them and don't abuse them. Abusing visibility bugs is considered abusing an exploit and is a bannable offense.
:'''(Speaking of exploits: there are still a couple of visibility bugs that were reported before and haven't been fixed yet, such as one that involves shape-changing "into the middle of a wall". Using these older bugs is also considered abusing an exploit. We know about them and they will be fixed when we can, but in the mean time we need you to test for things we don’t know about. In short: please don't be a dick.)'''
===<b>Guild Quests, Guild Levels, and Guild Credits</b>===
:Guilds can now undertake quests -- communal tasks where everybody in the guild can chip in. The guild can only undertake one guild quest at a time, and no more than 3 guild quests per week. An NPC who starts a guild quest will have a Guild Quests option on the left-hand side of the NPC window. If you decide the quest is too hard, you can cancel it from the guild sign in Serbule or Rahu, under "Misc Settings."
===<b>New Dungeon Area: Ilmari Desert</b>===
:There are some new additions to the minotaur lair under the [[Ilmari ]] desert. These additions are very bare-bones, like the rest of the dungeon, and there are some unused rooms and lots of little things I intend to add later. But :I hope that it's already an entertaining place for the highest-geared players.
:The first part of the new area is for level 60s and should be comparable to the rest of the dungeon in difficulty, but with more hegemonic storage chests than the first part has. (Oh and the old area has one new chest.)
:The last new area is actually a level 65 area -- it is intended for a group of 4-6 level 65 players, which means it's hard as hell. But it should be doable if you have good gear and a good mix of abilities among the group ... theoretically, anyway. In this area I tried a slightly different monster mix, using fewer solo monsters and a broader mix of elite monsters. I'm hopeful that this makes combat a little less chaotic -- but still quite dangerous. :Feedback is appreciated!
:- All of this dungeon should actually be a bit easier than before due to the fixes to monster visibility, but in any case, it is still intended for a group of 4-6 level 60 players.
:- There is a simple dungeon mechanic in the last area, but I don't want to spoil how it's "supposed" to work. It should be easy to figure out. If you find that you can't make sense of it, please let me know, as it may just be buggy
:- The lowest-level monsters and chests can occasionally drop a gem called "Vervadium". This is akin to Winterprize, but for level 70 crafting recipes - which are not in game yet. You can of course save it for later, or you can use it as fluorite in existing crafting recipes. Or, if you are Like Family with the [[The Sand Seer]], you can trade your [[Vervadium ]] to her in exchange for two pieces of [[Winterprize]].
===<b>Other Dungeon Changes</b>===
:- The [[Winter Nexus ]] dungeon has been revised a bit. This level 50 group dungeon now has actual group monsters in it! There are a reduced number of weaker monsters and the respawn rate has been slowed. In addition, mining :[[Winterprize ]] now requires the blood of the fae creatures that live in this dungeon, which is a relatively common item drop, especially from the elite ones. The intention of this change is to prevent players from running past monsters to loot the chests. You're supposed to kill the monsters!:- A new named elite monster has been added to the back end of the [[Winter Nexus]]; it can drop a quest item needed by one of the new guild quests:- The final boss of the [[Serbule cryptCrypt]], [[Khyrulek's True Form]], has been added. This is a group encounter for 3 level 35 players. (This is completely un-play-tested. In fact, it’s not really very tested at all. So your feedback is needed!):- The [[Necromancy ]] altar in the [[Serbule crypt Crypt]] has been removed. You now receive the skill after killing Khyrulek's True Form.
:- The "foul air" debuff found in some dungeons now increases ability cost by +3 instead of +4, and it cannot stack with itself (which was only possible in weird situations anyway).
<b>Boss-Monster Loot Profile Changes</b>===
:Boss monsters (and many named elite monsters) now have one set of loot when you kill them the first time and a different set of loot if you kill them again within 3 hours. (This is very similar to how [[Asterion ]] already worked, but with different code internally.) The first loot profile is generally beefed up from before, while the second one is reduced from before. The point of this change is to make bosses more rewarding without having to "camp" them :-- and to discourage camping in general because it causes flow bottlenecks and unnecessary group contention.
:See the forum version of the patch notes for a full list of changed bosses.
===<b>Pig Changes</b>===
:[[Pig ]] was one of the earliest animal forms and it has undergone many experiments as we tried to figure out how animal forms were supposed to work. At different points it's been a tank, a "scavenger" skill with low-combat capabilities, and a crowd-controller. None of the experiments were very successful, and none of them were fully cleaned up, so the pig's skills and equipment were a chaotic mix of random stuff, making it very hard to create fun :Pig builds. This update attempts to refocus the pig and clean up all of the old experiments.
:Pig is now a support skill that shines in groups. In many ways the pig feels like an "animal bard", filling in whatever is missing from the group (except tank). In small groups the pig can be a healer/damager with emergency crowd control; in larger groups the pig's unique buffs become quite potent. The pig has only mediocre damage capabilities - enough to solo, but nothing to brag about - but it is pretty sturdy and can be hard to kill, especially given its penchant for deflecting aggro onto the group's tank.
:Here’s the details:
:- Treasure effect "Squeal has a 50% chance to deal +600% damage" => "Squeal deals 180 Trauma damage over 15 seconds."
:- Due to a severe lack of pig treasure effects for main-hand and off-hand slots, some of the old pig treasure effects had to be moved around to different equipment slots. Existing items with effects in the old slots will automatically become Legacy Items.
:- [[Norbert ]] in [[Sun Vale|Animal Town ]] can raise your Pig skill cap to 60.
===<b>[[Druid ]] Changes</b>===
:These changes came about as part of some bug fixes. Testing the fixes led to other stuff that hadn't been properly cleaned up, which led to some loot tweaking. This is not a balance pass per se, although a few particularly unexciting treasure effects were rewritten because they bothered me. (I've grown dissatisfied with most treasure effects that have a "chance to apply" a buff on a 30-second cooldown ability -- it's too hard to plan around that sort of thing, and feels too unpredictable. So expect to see most of those phased out over time.)
:Here’s the fixed and changes:
:- GUI improvement: when you examine an item, its built-in properties are white and any enchantments or augments are green. This should help newbies understand how gear works a little easier and help experienced players compare two pieces of gear more efficiently.
:- Fixed a bug with training dummies that could keep you from regenerating health if you stood near them.
:- [[Nameless Guardian]]'s curse can happen again.
:- Fixed a bug with various GUI sounds not playing. (They were playing in 3D space about a mile from the player. Thanks, Unity upgrade!)
:- When scraping crystal fragments from the big red crystal in [[Serbule]], there is a limit of 5 crystal-summoned enemy deer at once -- this is intended to prevent mischief by high-level players. But this caused a problem because the dead deer still counted toward the limit, so once 5 corpses existed, no more could spawn until one dissolved. Fix: Deer corpses no longer count toward the 5-crystal-deer limit.
:- Removed collision physics from cheese barrels.
:- Pets: you cannot dismiss a pet while you are in active combat. (Your pet can still be in combat, but you yourself must not have attacked anyone or been attacked recently.) This change is intended to deter Animal Handlers from simply dismissing their pet when things get nasty.
:- The foreleg/hindleg guards of the werewolf armor were not dyeable; they are now. (But note that all of the set is only one-color dyeable.)
:- Dozens of smaller bugs in quests, NPC text, gear descriptions.
:- The [[Fire Magic ]] level 15 research recipe taught the level 20 spell Ring of Fire. (But you couldn't actually use it until you got to level 20.) This spell is now taught by the level 20 fire magic research recipe.
:- Wood Glue items were supposed to stack in inventory but didn't. They now stack to 10.
:- [[Animal Handling]]: abilities that target your pet are now marked as "harmless". This prevents pet rats from Evading your buff abilities.
:- Rewrote slash-command logic to be more forgiving of extra spaces and capitalization. (This is new code so there may be new bugs with slash commands; if you find any please report them!)
:- Lots of items and effects' descriptions cleaned up to try to make it more clear what they do. These did not involve any actual stat changes unless noted elsewhere in these notes. (As an example change, the description of basic bouquets makes it clearer that they boost combat refresh abilities -- meaning that you have to use a combat refresh ability to get the benefit.)
:- [[Goblin ]] [[Necromancy ]] Focus description said it had a necromancy gem in it, but it didn't really. Does now!
:- New slightly-less-annoying particles for healing effects.
:- Many treasure effects that provided minor healing no longer have a particle. (They were too visually noisy.)
:- Mr. Squeaky's defenses have been nerfed. (But he's still Evasive, and his psi blasts are as dangerous as ever.)
:- Low-level Fire Sheep no longer drop stacks of 2-4 Fire Dust -- they drop 1 at a time, like the high-level fire sheep do.
:- [[General Pask ]] has learned a new ranged attack.
:- Fixed a bug with all equipment effects that caused specific abilities to add/remove Taunt. They sometimes worked, but depending on various factors they would often simply not do anything. (NOTE: Note: at this point I suspect that all major aggro bugs involving players have been found. If there are still aggro bugs, the most likely cause would be pets, because pet aggro is still not heavily vetted. So if you suspect an aggro bug, see if you can isolate it to a pet!)
:- Removed the community donation chests from [[Eltibule ]] and [[Serbule]]. They were constantly being ransacked by higher-level players just to make a few coins, and an empty charity box is much worse than no charity box at all in terms of making newbies feel welcome.
:- Many monsters have higher chances of dropping level 60 Hardcore armor, but only if you are flagged as Hardcore yourself. (There is still a chance to get hardcore gear even if you're not Hardcore yourself - that part is unchanged.)
:- There is now a hardcore-only shield in the loot tables.
:- Fixed several causes of framerate spikes. Probably the most noticeable spikes were caused when clicking on the ground to move or when tabbing between targets.
:- Group-monster loot profiles and treasure-chest loot profiles have improved chances of dropping higher-tier equipment, including Legendary gear.
:- [[Guardian Scorpions Scorpion]]s should no longer attack the pets of animal-form players (unless the pets attack them).
:- Fixed a glitch in one of the audio tracks in Rahu's player-music song.
:- [[Kur Mountains ]] has new background music (a/k/a the orc theme).:- [[Yeti cave Cave]] has new background music ("Cave Crawl").
:- Due to reports of increased lag when the server has been up for over a week, there is a new chat-command "/status". This gives some very basic debugging info that may help us figure out where the lag comes from, or at least when it starts. If you report lag, please include pertinent info from that command!