Author Topic: Sev's February Info Post
LaceTP 
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Subject: Sev's February Info Post

Severlin posted:
February: What You Need to Know
When you first log in you will notice a number of things have been changed about your character to match the new skills and systems we added to the game.

TLDR Version!
Here is a quick and dirty check list of the things you need to know when you log in after the February patch.

February Log In Checklist
~ Racial skills have been removed.
~ Arcane Lore is now trained on all characters as a racial skill.
~ If you used a racial weapon skill you will have to train or specialize a new weapon skill.
~ If you used a shield you will probably want to train or specialize the new Shield skill.
~ Some quest weapons might use different weapon skills.
~ Go get your free quest weapon in Arwic.
~ Go get your free weapon adjustment gems in Arwic.

Things You Need to Know

Weapon skills are reworked to use:
~ Heavy Weapons
~ Light Weapons
~ Finesse Weapons
~ Missile Weapons
~ Two Handed Combat.

~ Old racial skills are refunded.
~ Arcane Lore is trained (free) and has no spent XP.
~ You have to decide if you want to specialize it.
~ You will have to spend XP.
~ Arcane Lore wield requirements have been removed from some under-garments available from alternate currency vendors to ensure this does not cause any equipment you are wearing to unequip when you log in.
~ Four of your racial skill credits are now used to train Arcane Lore. The remaining two skill credits have been added to your skill credit pool.
~ You can have 6 additional specialization credits to a maximum of 70.
~ If you used racial weapon skills you will have to pick a new weapon skill and train it up.
~ Some quest weapons might use an alternate weapon skill.
~ Get your free quest weapon in Arwic.
~ Get your gems in Arwic to trade for tools that transfer Imbues and alt currency weapon modifications from old one handed melee weapons to new one handed melee weapons.
~ Flags for the Temples of Enlightenment and Forgetfulness, the Skill Reset NPC, and the Attribute Reset NPC are cleared.
~ There are new skills to purchase.

I Want More Details!
The tidbits above didn’t answer your questions or satisfy your thirst for knowledge? Here are more details on how the changes will affect your characters and how you can quickly adjust to the changes when you log in after the February patch.

Raise Skill +10
A new button to add +10 to a skill or attribute in the skill panel looks like an up arrow with a “10” layered over it. Assuming you have enough XP, clicking this trains a skill, attribute or secondary attribute 10 times instead of once like the normal train up button. Because of this new feature, training up your skills should go faster. If you don’t have enough XP to train the skill 10 times the button is simply grayed out.

Your New Skill Maximums

~ You no longer have six credits devoted to racial skills. Four of those credits are now devoted to trained Arcane Lore for all races. The other two have been added to your free skill credit pool.

~ The number of specialization credits you can take has been increased by 6 to a maximum of 70.

Your Quest Status

~ As you log in the game will inform you that all quests flag related to the Temples of Forgetfulness have been reset. In addition, quest flags related to the skill reset NPC and the attribute reset NPC have also been reset. You will be able to visit these NPCs and change around your skills as if you had never used them.

Goodies You Can Claim

~ Existing characters more than 15 days old with be flagged to receive a special weapon from a vendor with a number of one handed melee quest weapons available. Each character gets to choose one free quest weapon which will be attuned and bonded to help them adjust to the changes. The vendor has a wide variety of quest weapons available.

~ Existing characters more than 15 days old with be flagged to receive a special craft tools that will allow them to move all imbues or one special effect from one old one handed melee weapon to one new one handed melee weapon. Each character will receive 6 gems. These gems can be freely traded. Each gem can be used to purchase a tool from a special vendor in Arwic to move either all imbues or one special effect from an old weapon to a new weapon.
~ Each character older than 15 days gets 6 gems.
~ These gems can be freely traded.
~ Gems are used to buy tools to move imbues or a weapon addition such as a slayer.
~ Each tool removes an effect from an old loot weapon created previous to the patch.
~ Each tool can move that effect to a new loot weapon created after the patch.
~ One gem can purchase a tool that moves all Imbue effects from an old weapon to a new weapon.
~ One gem can purchase a gem to move one other weapon effects such as slayer gems or rabbit's foot modifications.


Your Racial Skills
Racial skills have been removed. Each race gains a Mastery in one melee and one ranged weapon type.

Note: Each races still gets a free augmentation. This hasn't changed.

~ All of your racial skills have been refunded. They are untrained, and experience you might have put into them is restored to your character.

~ Racial weapon skills are removed and refunded. They are not replaced with the equivalent new weapon skill. We did not want to presume people would stick with their old racial skill. Because of this someone with only a racial skill would end up with free skill credits and no weapon skill. You will want to train a new weapon skill in this case.

~ Characters no longer spend skill points to train Arcane Lore.

~ If you were an Empyrean (or an Undead with alternate skills) your Arcane Lore has been unspecialized and you should now have trained Arcane Lore with no experience spent into the skill.

~ For characters who are not Empyrean or Undead with alternate racial skills Arcane Lore should remain unchanged and your skill points total should be adjusted to reflect the fact that training it no longer costs skill points. If you have the skill specialized it will only cost you 2 specialized skill points.


Weapon Mastery
Each race gets two racial weapon masteries that add a damage rating of 5 to certain attacks. Each race gets one melee mastery and one ranged mastery. High level characters can work to change these racial masteries to other attack types. Existing characters will be able to change each mastery one time for free.

~ You have 2 masteries: melee and ranged. Each race gets one melee mastery and one ranged mastery.
~ Melee can be Sword, Axe, Dagger, Spear, Staff, UA, Mace, or Two Handed
~ Ranged can be Bow, Crossbow, Thrown or Magic
~ If your equipped main hand weapon matches your mastery you get an additional damage rating of 5 on all attacks.
~ Your damage rating is reflected on your examination panel as soon as you equip the weapon.
~ There is a way in the game to change your Weapon Masteries.
(Note: Races still get a free starting augmentation like they do in the current game.)

Races start with the following masteries:
~ Aluvian: Dagger and Bow
~ Sho: Unarmed Weaponry and Bow
~ Gharu: Staff and Magic
~ Viamontian: Sword and Crossbow
~ Umbraen, Penumbraen: Unarmed Weaponry and Crossbow
~ Gearknight: Mace and Crossbow
~ Empyrean: Sword and Magic
~ Undead: Axe and Thrown Weapons
~ Tumerok: Spear and Thrown Weapons

Your Weapon Skills

~ All old weapon skills are gone.

One handed weapon skills are now:
~ Heavy Weapons (6/6) (Strength + Coordination)/3
~ Light Weapons (4/4) (Strength + Coordination)/3
~ Finesse Weapons (4/4) (Quickness + Coordination)/3

Bow, Crossbow and Thrown Weapons now use:
~ Missile Weapons (6/6) (Quickness + Coordination)/3

Two Handed Combat is still used for all two handed weapons and remains largely unchanged.

~ Racial weapon skills are gone. We found that many people will not default to using their old racial in this new set up, so we removed them and we do not automatically add an equivalent weapon skill to replace your racial skill. This means if you depend on your racial skill for damaging foes and you had no other skill trained or specialized you should take the time to train and/or specialize a weapon skill of your choosing.

~ Characters with the Sword skill were given Heavy Weapons. Characters with the Dagger skill were given Finesse Weapons. Characters with any other weapon skill were given the Light Weapons skill. Characters were only given one new weapon skill, with the precedence being Heavy over Finesse over Light. Your new weapon skill will have no experience spent, and you will have to train it up.

~ If you had Bow, Crossbow or Thrown Weapon you now have Missile Weapons. If at least one of these weapon skills were specialized, then Missile Weapons will be specialized. If none of these weapon skills were specialized but at least one was trained then Missile Weapons will be trained. Missile Weapons will have no experience spent, and you will have to train it up.

Potential Question: Why not train up the new weapon skills?
With so many additional melee skills being added, players may want to rethink how they distribute experience. We added a +10 button to the skill panel to reduce the amount of clicking needed to fix your character.

Skill Consolidation
The Gearcrafting skill has been removed.
~ All former Gearcrafting interactions now use Item Tinkering.
~ Skill credits and experience are restored to characters with this skill.
~ Character who specialized the skill with an augmentation will have the augmentation removed and that experience refunded.

New Skills
There are a number of new skills available for you to train.

Dual Wield
Cost: 2/2
(Strength + Coordination)/3

You can now equip any one handed weapon in your off hand (shield) slot.
~ Characters with a weapon equipped in their shield slot will enter the dual wield state with a different stance and animations.
~ Your character will launch alternating attacks, first right then left, with the equipped weapons.
~ The power bar fills between each attack. As an example, you'd see right attack, power bar, left attack, power bar, right attack, etc.
~ Weapon animations for Dual Wield are 20% faster than other one handed styles.
~ When wielding two weapons your attack bar fills up 20% faster.
~ To hit check for off hand attacks use the lower of Dual Wield skill and the attack skill of required by the weapon.
~ Your character will benefit from spells on both weapons provided they do not overlap.
~ Attack mods for all attacks are determined by checking the main hand and the off hand and using the highest.
~ Defense mods are determined by checking the main hand and the off hand and using the highest.
~ Because you swing faster you have more chances to proc various effects.

Shield
Cost: 2/2
(Strength + Coordination)/2
You must have the Shield skill to make full use of shields and magic reducing properties of shields.

~ Armor levels for a Shield are capped at your buffed Shield skill if the skill is specialized.
~ Armor levels for a Shield are capped at half your buffed Shield skill if the skill is trained or untrained.
~ Magic damage reduction for shields uses a formula based on Shield skill rather than Magic Defense.
~ Magic damage reduction is multiplied by 0.8 if Shield skill is not specialized.

(Note that the magic reduction of Bows and other non-shield items is unaffected by these changes and those items still used Magic Defense to determine the effect of the magic damage reduction.)

Recklessness
Cost: 4/2
(Strength + Quickness)/3
This skill works for melee and missile attacks. When you set your power bar or accuracy bar near the middle area of the bar your melee and missile attacks gain extra damage rating to non-critical hits. Incoming non-critical damage from all sources (in other words, damage inflicted upon you) is likewise increased when Recklessness is active. Recklessness is active when your combat bar is set from 20% to 80% for both missile and melee attacks. In other words, you can turn off this effect by setting your combat bar to a very fast or very slow setting. For trained skill, the base damage rating increase is 10. For specialized skill, the base damage rating is 20. These ratings are reduced if your Recklessness skill is lower than your active attack skill.

~ Works for melee and missile combat.
~ Doesn't affect critical hits.
~ Activates when attack bar is between 20% and 80%.
~ Damage rating is increased by 20 for specialization and 10 for trained.
~ If the Recklessness skill is lower than your attack skill (as determined by your equipped weapon) then the damage rating is reduced proportionately. The damage rating caps at 10 for trained and 20 for specialized so there is no reason to raise the skill above your attack skill. The damage rating adjustment for incoming damage is also adjusted proportionally if your Recklessness skill is lower than your active attack skill.
~ While active your non-critical outgoing melee and missile hits add this damage rating to your total.
~ While active non-critical incoming attacks from all sources are likewise increased.

Sneak Attack
Cost: 4/2
(Coordination + Quickness)/3
Your melee, missile, and magic attacks do more damage from behind. In addition, if you have Deception you have a chance to cause this extra Sneak Attack damage from the front.

~ Works for melee, missile, and magic.
~ Specialized Sneak Attack adds a base 20 damage rating to attacks that strike the rear arc of an opponent.
~ Trained Sneak Attack adds a base 10 damage rating to attacks that strike the rear arc of an opponent.
~ If the Sneak Attack skill is lower than your attack skill (as determined by your equipped weapon) then the damage rating is reduced proportionately. The damage rating caps at 10 for trained and 20 for specialized so there is no reason to raise the skill above your attack skill.
~ If you also have Deception you have a chance to cause extra Sneak Attack damage from the front.
~ Trained Deception has a base 10% chance, while Specialized Deception has a base 15% chance.
~ If Deception is below 306 deception these chances are reduced proportionately. This is in addition to proportional reduction if your Sneak Attack skill is below your active attack skill.
~ If the defender has Assess Person they reduce the extra Sneak Attack damage Deception can add from the front by up to 100%. This percent is reduced proportionately if your buffed Assess Person skill is below the 306. This reduction does not apply to attacks from behind.

Dirty Fighting
Cost: 2/2
(Strength + Coordination)/3
Your melee and missile attacks have a chance to weaken your opponent. High attacks can reduce the attack skills of the opponent. Low attacks can reduce the defense skills of the opponent. Medium attacks can reduce healing effects on the opponent and cause small amounts of bleeding damage.

~ Works for melee and missile attacks.
~ Has a 25% chance to activate on any melee or missile attack.
~ This activation rate is reduced proportionally if Dirty Fighting is lower than your active weapon skill as determined by your equipped weapon.
~ All activated effects last 20 seconds.
~ Although a specific effect won’t stack with itself, you can stack all three effects on one opponent at the same time. This means that when the skill activates at one attack height you can move to another attack height to try to land an additional effect.
~ If the skill is specialized, the debuffs and effects are more powerful as follows:

Specialized Dirty Fighting Effects
Attack Skills debuffed -20
Bleed ticks for 20 damage and all heal effects are reduced by 30 rating
Defense Skills debuffed -20

Trained Dirty Fighting Effects
Attack Skills debuffed -10
Bleed ticks for 10 damage and all heal effects are reduced by 15 rating
Defense Skills debuffed -10

Your Armor
For the most part, existing armor remains unchanged. The only changes you will notice is that spells on armor that affect weapon skills will be changed over to the new weapon skills. Spells are changed in the following fashion.
~ Spells for the Sword skill are now Heavy Weapons.
~ Spells for the Axe, Mace, Spear, Staff, and Unarmed Combat skills are now Light Weapons.
~ Spells for the Dagger skill are now Finesse Weapons.
~ The Defenders set now included Shield skill.
~ The Soldiers set is now Heavy Weapons, Light Weapons, Two Handed Combat, Dirty Fighting and Recklessness.
~ The Swift set is now Sprint, Jump, Finesse Weapons, Dual Wield, and Sneak Attack. The name is changed to Rogue set.

Your Spell Book
Spells that affect weapon skills have been converted to use the new skills. In addition, old spells will be removed from your spell book and new spells will be added automatically.
~ If you had spells for the Sword skill you now have spells for Heavy Weapons.
~ If you had spells for the Dagger skill you now have spells for Finesse Weapons.
~ If you had spells for the Axe, Mace, Spear, Staff, or Unarmed Combat skills you now have spells for Light Weapons.
~ If you had spells for Bow, Crossbow or Thrown Weapon you now have spells for Missile Weapons.

Your Old Loot Weapons
Loot weapons will automatically be changed over to the new system. Skills will be updated, and damage and variance will be adjusted upward to fit into the new skill scheme.
~ Swords are converted to use the Heavy Weapons skill. Stats are adjusted accordingly.
~ Daggers are converted to use the Finesse Weapons skill. Stats are adjusted accordingly.
~ Axes, Maces, Spears, Staves, and Unarmed weapons are converted to use the Light Weapons skill. Stats are adjusted accordingly.
~ The game will be able to differentiate between old and newer weapons. Gems to move imbues and slayers will move those upgrades off old weapons and onto new weapons. These effects cannot be pulled off new weapons or added to old weapons once the tool removes them.
~ There was a bug on live in treasure mutation tables for maces and axes with a wield requirement of 350 that gave them too much damage. As such some weapons in that old loot tier might lose one point of damage when the conversion formulas are applied.

Your Old Hiltable Weapons
Weapons that can be hilted to be double or triple strike remain largely unchanged by the new system. The skills they use have been updated, but they have not been converted since hilts do not exist in the new loot system. Instead certain swords and daggers drop in loot with double and triple strike properties.

New Loot Weapons
New loot weapons will drop for all weapon skills. Each weapon type such as Sword, Dagger, Mace etc. will have at least one variation that uses each new weapon skill. The new loot system will drop Daggers that use the Heavy Weapon skill and do damage appropriate to that skill. Swords will drop that use the Finesse Weapons skill and do damage appropriate to that skill. In other words, all the weapon types – Axes, Daggers, Maces, Spears, Staves, Swords, and Unarmed weapons have variations that use Heavy Weapons, variations that use Light Weapons, and variations that use Finesse Weapons.

All bows, crossbows and thrown weapons now use the new Missile Weapons skill.

Your Quest Weapons
Quest weapons have been updated to cover a variety of skills in all level brackets. Old quest weapons automatically change over to new statistics. It is for this reason that we are giving everyone a free quest weapon to help them adjust to the changes.

Your Rare Weapons
Rares weapons have been reworked to fit into the new skill system. Rare weapons have been distributed among the new weapon skills as appropriate for their flavor. Because of this each character will have one chance to trade in a rare one handed weapon and get back a rare of the appropriate weapon type.

Magic
~ To keep magic competitive, many spells were increased in damage by 5%.
~ Void Magic spells that cause damage over time were not increased.
~ Tusker's Fist was not increased.
~ Curse of the Raven Fury (Tugak) was not increased.

Training Skills
A new “Skill Up +10” button in the skill panel looks like an up arrow with a “10” layered over it. Assuming you have enough XP, clicking this trains a skill, attribute, or secondary attribute 10 times instead of once like the normal train up button. Because of this new feature, training up your skills should go faster. If you don’t have enough XP to train the skill 10 times the button will remain grayed out.

Here is the initial post with lots of details for February. All details are subject to change with testing. People have been clamoring for the minute details on some of the changes so I have posted as much as I can gather before the weekend.

Sev~

 

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lizard_warrior 
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Subject: Sev's February Info Post
that is a lot to read got half way through read the rest later on =)

 

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Jennifer_the_Great 
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Subject: Sev's February Info Post
lizard_warrior posted:
that is a lot to read got half way through read the rest later on =)

I think that's what the TL;DR is for. wink

 

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Padre-Adamo_SC 
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Subject: Sev's February Info Post
Lace,

I can't post this on the official AC forums..

Do you know is the devs are revisiting the palenqual weapons from the Olthoi Queen quest? Like the giant crossbow and staff? These changes should of happened a very long time ago. Hopefully I'll have some time to come back and mess around before "The Secret World" is released.

 

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LaceTP 
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Subject: Sev's February Info Post
Padre-Adamo_SC posted:
Lace,

I can't post this on the official AC forums..

Do you know is the devs are revisiting the palenqual weapons from the Olthoi Queen quest? Like the giant crossbow and staff? These changes should of happened a very long time ago. Hopefully I'll have some time to come back and mess around before "The Secret World" is released.


I don't think they are. They will probly just stay the same as they are now.

 

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DT - Eveil
DT - Foxwind
I'm a Carebear, sup.
Clan officer for Gabs Clan(Pirates of Dereth) Since the begining
Lace-the-Pacebringer - 275(Sword/Life spec) ---- Djinn the Angel of Death - 275(War/MagicD)-Retired account-
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