Vanguard Patch Notes Update #1

[Arbuste]

GAMEPLAY NOTES

- Experience is now lost (or debt is applied) when you release or are resurrected, instead of at the moment of death.

Awesome. Except for the "death on login" bug. If you've played just a little in the last few days, you must have encountered it. Every people I play with have, at least once.
Sometimes, when you log in (usually after a crash, but today it happened to me post-patch after I logged out by the usual means yesterday) you will be standing, obviously not dead, but the server will think you are. You won't be able to move or do anything, and you'll have the "You are dead, you will release in 10 minutes" window / countdown. So, I got that today. And I lost my 10% XP when I hit the Altar.
As I didn't actually die, I do not have a corpse to recover.

I won't cry too long on my hard-earned 9 or 10% xp, but that bug has been around since last patch at least, it needs to go fast. Especially with the new (not very inspired) changes to XP loss.

[Tagad Sigil]

Originally Posted by Nino

Bill was playing his Ranger at lunch so I will check with him. I will certainly find out and report back. And uh, I'm no community spin person, that isn't my job, nor do I ever want it to be. I'm just trying to keep people informed as best I can.

Three ranger ranged attacks that I have appear to be affected by the change to direct attacks. My poison shot, my dusk arrow, and debilitating shot.

The claims which I call hyperbole are the claims that "all ranger attacks were cut in half or 1/3rd" which is simply not true. Other claims of "crit shot was nerfed" - I'm not seeing it on live either.

We are obviously going tweak these abilities.

In regards to spin, I've posted my policy a number of times. I post openly and honestly, and if there is a subject I dont want to touch with a ten foot pole, I simply dont respond to it.

~Tagad

[Mythas]

So far i am having fun in VG. I have a level 12 necro amongst several other 4 and 5's i decided i liked the necro the best.

There are a couple gripes i have like many others. First im a dark elf and the whole qualia desert is uninspiring and incredibly booring. You have quests to kill mobs, but they are harder to find than the non quest mobs who dot every other 8 ft.

With the necro class in general i have found ONE graft in 2 levels, im sure those who play know how many mobs that is and i necropsy every single mob. Personally i think that is horrid considering you have graft tiers every 5 levels. Right now from my own exp its less than .01% chance to drop probably needs raised.

Additionally, If i proximity agro a mob the abom takes at least 2 - 3 hits to pull it off me. This i don't understand as 1 dmg should pull it off having not used any abilites / done any damage to the mob.

The aboms freak the hell out when you chunk with them, if they are engaging / running to a mob on the other side of a chunk they will persist and "live" until the mob dies. After that though it says you don't have a pet but the abom is still there. You can infact summon another one, but now you have two of the damn things standing on every corpse. ( No, you can only control one abom the other just follows you around )

Out side of those bugs i am thrilled with the necro class. Some veteran players may be able to answer this next question. It seems as though *as a necro* just killing mobs over and over is faster for exp *again in the wide open bfe qualia* i was just wondering if that was the general concensus. Just sticking with a camp and eq leveling or questing for exp? I have only found ONE good item from quests from 1 - 12, and thats my robe. All other items are just generic AC only cloth. IMO quest itemization could be a little better.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Well, people wanted that EverQuest feeling back. Here it is. People wonder why I have to take sedatives in order to avoid shitting all over the EQ nostalgia threads.

.

I have some ativan care for some? lol

[Rezz]

Hey, if you're checking our rangers, go look at scythe of doom. The DK ability that does half it's damage since patch so it lifetaps back 25 per mob. At level 31. It sucked before, now it's good for clearing level 5s for faction and that's about it.

PS, wru Cull?

[Rulan]

Not including changes in patch notes is one of the common things over the history of MMOs that have annoyed players. I'm confused as to why you would rely on one guy sifting through emails to compile a list of what changes were made. I must be missing something...

Could you not setup a central changelog where there is a central database which a coder is required to input what changes he has made? It would be no extra work at all for them. In fact you could even have it take the email they are sending and parse the text into the changelog. At patch time, all the changes made could be generated into one document, which could then be edited or reworded as needed.

I bet you could get someone from the community to create a web based script to handle that in an hour or less. No more complaints about missed changes in patch notes, because every change done would be recorded and every change made to that build would be documented...

[chackle]

Originally Posted by Rulan

Not including changes in patch notes is one of the common things over the history of MMOs that have annoyed players. I'm confused as to why you would rely on one guy sifting through emails to compile a list of what changes were made. I must be missing something...

Could you not setup a central changelog where there is a central database which a coder is required to input what changes he has made? It would be no extra work at all for them. In fact you could even have it take the email they are sending and parse the text into the changelog. At patch time, all the changes made could be generated into one document, which could then be edited or reworded as needed.

I bet you could get someone from the community to create a web based script to handle that in an hour or less. No more complaints about missed changes in patch notes, because every change done would be recorded and every change made to that build would be documented...

QFT

I saw that "some guy getting emails for over a month" thing and my jaw hit the floor. You don't have some form of centralised changelog? Are the servers using Access databases too? Of course not, that'd be fucking insane wouldn't it? Well guess what else is fucking insane? Following the derided practices of 10 years of MMOs and not clearly and consistantly communicating product changes to your customers.

I would have thought one of the first things that would have been done at the start of building Vanguard was Brad sitting down and going "right, what issues caused the most noise with the customers? Let's make the tools to make sure that we have those basics right and then we can build a really solid product from there".

[Faelor]

I wanna thank any Sigil reps, like Tagad and Nino, for posting and attempting to calm the masses. As the admin of an affiliate site, I rely on their posts to help reassure folks that things are indeed borked, and they are going to be fixed.

Second of all, people posting mindless is killing my mind, or at least what I have left. "What a stealth nerf" is so ignorant. Do you really think Sigil nerfed your level 42 ability to do the damage of a level 20 ability? C'mon now, get realistic.

Again, thanks Tagad, Nino and crew Means a lot.

** Rezz: Tagad plays a Ranger, woot woot

[Jedite]

Originally Posted by Arbuste

Awesome. Except for the "death on login" bug. If you've played just a little in the last few days, you must have encountered it. Every people I play with have, at least once.
Sometimes, when you log in (usually after a crash, but today it happened to me post-patch after I logged out by the usual means yesterday) you will be standing, obviously not dead, but the server will think you are. You won't be able to move or do anything, and you'll have the "You are dead, you will release in 10 minutes" window / countdown. So, I got that today. And I lost my 10% XP when I hit the Altar.
As I didn't actually die, I do not have a corpse to recover.

I won't cry too long on my hard-earned 9 or 10% xp, but that bug has been around since last patch at least, it needs to go fast. Especially with the new (not very inspired) changes to XP loss.

You are not fucking serious?!?!! The bug is still in? Ok then I am not logging in till they either revert that change or fix this bug.

This is the bug I vagly mentioned in my previous post which I had passed on to Nino last week. I know Nino passed it on to the test ppl, but I guess they didnt pay attention to it.

THIS IS A GAME BREAKING FUCKING BUG. Either revert the EXP loss upon release patch or somehow FIX this bug ASAP.

[holymight]

Need a paper bag there Jedite? You do realize that you don't loose xp from this bug right?

[Jedite]

Originally Posted by holymight

Need a paper bag there Jedite? You do realize that you don't loose xp from this bug right?

Did you read what he said?

Did you not read the patch note changes on death?

[Kraks]

Nino,

hate to tell you, but the DPS nerfs were seriously much larger than they should have been on melee classes. Whether those abilities were working as intended or not, the DPS did seemed balanced as it was, and now its completely useless to have more melee in a group than the tank.

I don't want to quit a game with this much potential, but if this stays I will have no other option.

[Filthgrinder]

- Rogue base damage has been slightly decreased.

Has anyone who plays a rogue noticed this to be a bad thing? I'm wondering if I should drop my rogue and move on to a more survivable class, when I get the next chance to log on. I'm already frustrated a bit with my rogues level of survivability.

[Twobit Whore]

Heh, the patch notes have been a clusterfuck since beta. Every single time major things would go in that weren't listed.. and then someone from Sigil would pop on the forums to say 'Yeah, sorry about that.. we are constantly working on our patch process'. Then two weeks later the same thing would happen again. 6 months later and it's no different. Work faster on that shit. Like someone said, the very first thing you should have done was figure out what pisses players off and 'stealth changes' are among the top of that list.

[rangoth]

See if I can help since I play a necro. Im level 24 so take my information from that perspective.

Originally Posted by Mythas

So far i am having fun in VG. I have a level 12 necro amongst several other 4 and 5's i decided i liked the necro the best.

There are a couple gripes i have like many others. First im a dark elf and the whole qualia desert is uninspiring and incredibly booring. You have quests to kill mobs, but they are harder to find than the non quest mobs who dot every other 8 ft.

Can't comment on this, kind of opinion and such. I personally never had a problem finding quest mobs(though some quests mis-guide you, ie send you to the wrong location).

Originally Posted by Mythas

With the necro class in general i have found ONE graft in 2 levels, im sure those who play know how many mobs that is and i necropsy every single mob. Personally i think that is horrid considering you have graft tiers every 5 levels. Right now from my own exp its less than .01% chance to drop probably needs raised.

It's not that bad. Give it some time. First off all you will eventually have all of the grafts you want, and I'm sure more will be put in over time that you can seek. It's been my experience that certain mobs tend to drop certain types of grafts but I'm not sure if this is true.

Secondly, the every 5 level teirs slows down after awhile so you don't need to worry about that. In fact, I have a few grafts I can't equip on him yet because I am not high enough level. I actually think the graft ratio is about right to be honest, and the junk you find is excellent beginner cash loot. The only graft suggestion I would make is that named mobs should have a higher chance to yield a graft AND a higher chance to yield a "rare" graft, used quotes as not to indicate rare item quality level, just better or some other factor of differentness. Also clarify, by named I mean 5-6 dots mobs etc. It would be really cool if a "Tolmnsjump the Enchanter" would yield "Tolmnsjump's Fist of Rage"! Now that is cool. Again, I don't think it should be 100% on these named mobs, just a higher percentage.

Originally Posted by Mythas

Additionally, If i proximity agro a mob the abom takes at least 2 - 3 hits to pull it off me. This i don't understand as 1 dmg should pull it off having not used any abilites / done any damage to the mob.

This gets better for sure(or at least has for me). At your level and even up in the teens I would cast a single dot and he could not get it off me unless I used taunt(which by the way don't put on auto cast, use it manually). Now, I can not even use taunt and he can hold it off me with 2-3 dots on for a good period of time before my damage finally builds up and he looses it. Not sure if the grafts I have add enough dmg that this works or what the deal is, but I noticed a definite change in this very topic, for the better.

While I have this topic going also, would be nice to put more than one of the graft skills on auto. Right now I have to choose between the claw/fist. Also please if someone from sigil is reading this, look into auto taunting(sneer) not working properly. Sorry I do not have more to go on, I will try to figure it out. Best immediate guess is that it fires so close to the begining of battle that maybe because of the way sneer works it has no or little effect.

Originally Posted by Mythas

The aboms freak the hell out when you chunk with them, if they are engaging / running to a mob on the other side of a chunk they will persist and "live" until the mob dies. After that though it says you don't have a pet but the abom is still there. You can infact summon another one, but now you have two of the damn things standing on every corpse. ( No, you can only control one abom the other just follows you around )

Weird, when I chunk he just dies I've been assuming it's a bug and since I don't need more bonechips or anything to cast him I /bugged it the first time then moved on. But for sure something about chunking with pets, at least abominations, is not right.

Originally Posted by Mythas

Out side of those bugs i am thrilled with the necro class. Some veteran players may be able to answer this next question. It seems as though *as a necro* just killing mobs over and over is faster for exp *again in the wide open bfe qualia* i was just wondering if that was the general concensus. Just sticking with a camp and eq leveling or questing for exp? I have only found ONE good item from quests from 1 - 12, and thats my robe. All other items are just generic AC only cloth. IMO quest itemization could be a little better.

Items from quest rewards start to get good when you do group dungeon quests. Also, I havn't done parse style testing but it seems good groups always yield me more xp than solo grinding 2 dots, 3 dots or anything else I can. My usual technique is to do solo quests while I look for a group in whatever dungeon, or try to start a group myself.

Hope someone of power reads this and addresses some of these changes. For the most part I really like the necromancer class in this game. We don't stack well in groups since our lifetap dot doesn't stack and we have lots of corpse magic which can only be done once per corpse making 2 necromancers useless in that regard. I've been having fun regardless.

Ohh and one other bug while I am here. The level 20(or 22) defensive only minion that you can summon always goes aggor on my group. Not sure if specific AE's are causing it or what but seems to happen regardless of class make-up for the group.