EQ2 - Game Update 53: The Shards of Destiny

[Braen]

Looks like today is the release day for GU53 for EQ2. Time for all the "This could turn it around for EQ2" and Mistwalkers jokes! Here are the notes:

FEATURED

Achievements

The new achievement system gives players a fun new way to track their accomplishments! Most achievements will award players with achievement points that can be used to compare their progress against other players. Some harder to complete achievements will offer non-stat item rewards. The basic categories are General, Dungeons, Exploration, Player vs. Player, Quests, Raids, Tradeskills and Triumphs. Triumphs are large scale achievements that combine multiple achievements into one large one. An example of this would be to do all of the combat, quest, and exploration achievements in a specific area.

Chronomagic

A number of mysterious erudites have set up in Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak, Gorowyn, and Kelethin. Any player level 20 or higher can speak to them and for a small fee temporarily lower their adventuring level.

This works similarly to mentoring except:
You do not need a mentoring target.
You can only choose levels in increments of 5 (10, 15, 20, etc).
You do not receive the bonuses granted from mentoring other players (currently you receive a very large bonus to AA gain while mentoring another player, this is not granted by the Chronomagic system).

The chronomagic will last until cancelled (right-click on your nameplate or /unmentor). Once cancelled, you must return to any Timeless Chronomage to reactivate the effect Additionally, 37 new missions have been added that work similar to The Shadow Odyssey’s daily doubles. They task players with slaying various bosses within zones of all levels throughout Norrath And, of course, these missions reward players with an array of exciting new items!

Chronomagic works the same on PvP servers as it does on PvE servers. However, it also has all the same restrictions as mentoring—namely that you cannot engage in PvP combat while the chronomagic effect is on your character. This makes it quite a bit more dangerous on PvP servers, so good luck and be careful!

Bosses and Events

As part of the chronomagic initiative, a pass was made through old-world overland and contested dungeons to greatly increase the frequency with which bosses and events spawned or occurred. Many placeholders and placeholder ring events were either removed or weighted much more heavily toward actual bosses spawning. Some of the notable highlights include placeholders being removed from: (Note: These are all from forum feedback)

Crypt of Betrayal – Specter of Ire
Enchanted Lands – Chomper
Everfrost – Chieftain Iceburn
Feerrott – Screaming Mace HQ targets Agony, Hukulan, Kaxor, Xilarga, and Tzugaax. Also Bouncers Prud, Hurd, Fug, and Flerb who were also changed to no longer despawn
Greater Faydark – Crushbone Expedition Leader, Chef, Weaponsmith, and Planner
Lavastorm – Fire Toad, Magolemus
Nektulos – Dannian Blackleaf – removed respawn time and despawn time, should always be up now
Obelisk of Lost Souls – Mediums of Dyrt, Cron, Iza, Odris, Norrath, and Lysys, Soul Harvesters Kul, Na, Gron, and Zej, Avulsor
Old Telescopic Lens (quest starter for The Staff of Observers) drops much more frequently
Zek - the Orchish Wastes – Sentry Goorlux
Palace of the Awakened – Skylord Stormclaw, Advisor Soliddar
Rivervale – Willowmaw the Rotting
Ruins of Varsoon – Weavemaster Esh’rax, Tome of Life, Tome of Death, The Creator
Solusek’s Eye – Enforcer Maj’Fahd, Soulslaver Djar’veh, The Speaker of Fates, The Castigator, Lord Crana, Onyxlam
Steamfont – Bulka Bloodhorn, Digmaster Pechpooka, Slave Pechmooka, Scout Pechyooka
Steppes – Stiletto, Bloodtalon
Stormhold – a caveroot horror, Battlepriest Alexandria
Stormhold – The Scions – Archiovianix, Hephinntari, Qelinatias, Tumarinan
The Vestibule - The Medium of Hykor
Tombs of Night – The Leucous Maw

There are a large number of ring events that work similarly in these zones: Antonica, Commonlands, Everfrost, Sinking Sands, Enchanted Lands, Feerrott, Nektulos, Zek - the Orcish Wastes, and Thundering Steppes. They had a very high chance to spawn a placeholder, a small chance to spawn a boss, a small chance to spawn a shrine that buffs the player, and a small chance to spawn a number of different merchants. The chance to spawn a placeholder was greatly reduced and there is now a very high chance for one of the ‘events’ to occur. The merchants were all combined into the ‘rare’ merchant, who will now always spawn for that event. They also have a much larger merchantlist, and will buy, sell, and repair your gear! Contested Epic spawns in lower level zones were lowered to spawn every three days (with a large variation) instead of once a week.

A number of x2 and x3 contested mobs were downtiered because they had a 0% chance to drop fabled gear. They were lowered to triple-ups and their spawn times were adjusted accordingly. The contested epic mobs who did have fabled loot were given a 100% chance to drop at least one fabled item each time they are slain. Some of the mobs changed include:

Allidax the Ancient
Alrendi Thoughtsong
Broog the Banished
Commander Nagrat
Cragshell
Cyenadros, Lord of the Sanctum
Doomsquall
Equestrielle
Grimfeather
Haraghur the Deathless
Haywire Opticron (lowered to one-up and added loot)
Lavin Dusk
Mangler
Meathooks
Scytheclaw
Spiregazer
Ssilth Rageclaw
The Unseelie JumJum Thief
Vox

In general, most named mobs (with some exceptions) changed by this pass have a very high chance to drop treasured. Those with rare fabled items had their chances to drop raised significantly as well.

Named mobs in New Tunaria should have a 100% chance to drop legendary gear, and a much higher chance to drop Cloak of Flames pages now!

A new boss has found his way into Sebilis.

Bosses in Sebilis and Chardok should match Karnor’s Castle and spawn every 45 minutes + variation.

The despawn timers from all of Kylong Plains’ rare mobs have been removed.

The Fiery Apparition in Lavastorm should spawn once again

Miragul’s Planar Shard

Has Miragul himself returned to Norrath? Perhaps the answer can be found within in Miragul’s Planar Shard, a new raid zone connected to Everfrost. The zone features a variety of encounters, some of which can be completed in regular mode, or for those seeking additional challenge and rewards, a more challenging mode.

Shard of Love

The Sisterhood of Erollisi has returned to Antonica with grave concerns! Adventurers interested in helping them should seek out a Disciple of Love in Antonica, Kelethin or Gorowyn. Those with more devious intentions should seek out Disciples of Hate within The Commonlands, Neriak or Gorowyn.

Teleportation Spires Event

The Quellithulians are hard at work reactivating the Ulteran Teleportation Spires across Norrath! They may be found in Antonica, Commonlands, the Thundering Steppes, Nektulos Forest, the Enchanted Lands, Zek, the Orcish Wastes, the Feerrott, Everfrost, Lavastorm and Loping Plains. A wide variety of rewards is available for players who assist their project.

GENERAL

Illusions cast from petamorph wands will now last for two hours or until your pet dies, and will persist through zoning.

Melee, defense and casting skills should now be easier and more straightforward to level up.

Swimming will now skill up faster.

You can now buy the Translocate and Druid Portal spells from the trainers.

Racial choices have changed. As a result, your character development choices have been reset.

Adventure writs are now offered to a player’s effective level, so that mentored players can complete adventure writs at any level!

You can now put adventure experience into the achievement pool from level 10 and higher by adjusting the slider in the achievement window.

Examining a ranged combat art will now display the ranged critical bonus properly.

Fixed an issue where items might trigger when they are restricted to a certain damage type.

The /auction channel is now server wide!

You will now receive chat feedback for dispels and cures.

Scouts will automatically disarm chests now when attempting to open them.
As a result, the disarm verb will no longer display.

Pets will no longer be hit by aoe autoattack unless they are considered in front of the attacker. This should in turn make it easier to position pets to avoid it since the avoidance range for them is now flanking or behind instead of just behind.

Beneficial Poolburn effects will now display to the chat log.

Target locking abilities will now terminate if the locker is no longer a valid target.

Triggered Spell based effect tooltips will now update appropriately if your intelligence or strength change.

Player-written books will now be editable when transferring to another server.

Fixed a bug where when sometimes editing a very large player written book some text would be lost when closing and reopening the book.

Zoning into a new raid instance will no longer clear your raid looters.

Turning the avatar autoface option ON and the camera autoface option OFF will keep your character facing the target regardless of what direction your character is moving while autoattack is turned off. Toggle autoattack off to toggle off autoface if you just need to turn and run and toggle it back on again to make a final stand.

You can now right click individual house items and place them into a moving crate one at a time. Excellent for storing your holiday decorations!

A mysterious new merchant has appeared in the Moors of Ykesha with a stash of powerful items!

Runic Deflection should proc slightly more reliably.

You may now fly from Dreg’s Landing to The Highton!

Shooter Shamia should give AA now.

Enforcer Maj’Fahd and Soulslaver Djar’veh in Solusek’s Eye now require far fewer kills to spawn.

A number of bosses in Antonica and the Enchanted Lands flagged to now give AA.

Added AA and better loot drops and removed placeholders from Thing of Shattered Iron, Runnyeye Chef, and Gorehorn Butcher

Collector Rattalis is visiting the Legends of Norrath Museum and is interested in making an offer you cannot refuse!

CHARASIS

Players who leave Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep and return later will no longer find their progression blocked.

GOROWYN

Players will find that Gorowyn has become a good deal easier to navigate.

KURN’S TOWER

Ilenee’s Despair and Betrayal have fewer HP now.

MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION

Umzok and Ozyk now drop the less specialized cloaks and charms more reliably.

Certain items in Munzok’s Material Bastion have become slightly more desirable.

NEKTULOS

The Nerius pirates camping along Nektulos beach are now armed (and still) dangerous.

THUNDERING STEPPES

Turgen Bremhurst now offers a more interesting way for you to earn the key to the gates of Bridge Keep.

ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

(formerly Achievements)

Ooze Crawler will now benefit from Wrath of the Undead Servant

Mystic

Spirit of the Ancients will apply properly to Ancestral Sentry when another player is targeted.

Summoner

Pet Achievement Spells now have a higher priority when casting.

Warden

Fixed Shattered Infections to cure the correct person.

Warrior

Cry of the Warrior will be resisted less often now.

ITEMS

The Heirloom flag has been added to a large number of items in the game with the exception of quest items, heritage items, PvP items, and items gained from patterns (but the patterns themselves were flagged as Heirloom). This will allow players to join groups with the character that can help the group the most without the worry of not being able to gear up the character of their choice! As a side effect, items affected by this change will unattune and be sent to overflow initially upon first login.

Fixed a case where some item based triggered effects would begin to critical.
The Brethren of Night quartermaster by Soul Eater Falls in Nektulos Forest has improved the appearance of the armor and robe he sells. (Existing armor purchased from him previously will not be affected.) The Hand of Marr quartermaster in the nearby camp has also begun stocking a robe.

The Cudgel of Obviation’s Spirit Tap Effect is now unresistable.

Old Telescopic Lens (quest starter for The Staff of Observers) drops much more frequently

Volcanic Knight’s Tempered Helm now has spell and heal crit chance to match its melee crit.

The ‘Deception’ effect on the Bracelet of the Trickster no longer affects fighters.

Unbound Elemental Essences from Lavastorm are now heirloom and the items that are purchased with them are now easier to obtain.

Balanced Ayr Stones may now be applied to fist weapons of any damage type.

Saita’s Glowing Gem will automatically cast on the user when activated.

Amazing Presence now shows up in the Maintained Spells window.

The Bangle of the Spiteful now slightly increases spell crit bonus.

Anashti Sul and Ykesha now have a chance to drop new items for Mages.

The descriptions on petamorph wands and their spells now declare that they will only affect combat pets and not cosmetic pets.

Rare Dungeon Drop Tradeskilled items have been flagged as Lore-Equip Attuneable Heirloom.

A large number of the Station Cash and LoN items are now Heirloom.

House items placed in moving crates will now stay in those moving crates, even when you are not looking!

The Earring of the Void Transfer is no longer sold by the Black Market Shard Merchant.

Stats and effects on many avatar items have been modified.

Robe of the Undying now uses the same appearance as the robe Varsoon himself wears. Owners that wish to revert it to the former void appearance may exchange it at the merchant Umbral in the Moors of Ykesha.

The Belt of the Desolate One from Anashti Sul has been replaced by a choker with the same stats. Players who have already acquired the belt may exchange it for the necklace at Umbral.

Many items dropped in Shadow Odyssey raids have received a boost to their critical mitigation.

Shadow Odyssey raid bosses that drop armor patterns other than chest and legs now have a high chance to use smart loot.

The Shield of Rainbow Hues from Shard of Fear is now a buckler. Its healer stats have been increased to make up for the lost protection.

The set bonuses to Prismatic Chaos V on the TSO and RoK illusionist raid armor no longer stack.

MAIL

Going linkdead while accessing your mailbox will no longer cause your mail to be inaccessible if you log back in before your character leaves the world.
After sending a guild mail or ranks mail the “to” text box will no longer have a random guild member name in it.

PVP

The Priests of Discord have returned. Reports state that they are currently teaching young adventurers the path of discord.

New Shattered Lands, Faydark, Kunark and Void Discord tokens have been created. The Discord tokens will now replace all previously used currency.

Faction merchants have agreed to reduce their status and faction costs! In return, their items have been enhanced to be more desirable to prospective buyers.

EoF, RoK and TSO Faction items have been enhanced to be more desirable by prospective buyers. All previously purchased items have gained the attributes as well.

Writ givers are eager to see more adventurers in battle and are willing to ignore previous requirements for their job completion.

Spawn location near Dreg’s Landing and Teren’s Grasp have been moved to be favorable for all factions.

The Kylong Plains writ giver has moved to Teren’s Grasp from Dreg’s Landing.

The dirge epic triggered effect (Intrepid Strike) will no longer force an attack to inflict maximum damage while in PvP combat.

Hate will now age faster while you are on a server controlled mount.

You will no longer gain immunity while on balloon platforms.
Reactive should no longer trigger incorrectly.

PLAYER HOUSING

Player houses have been given an extra room!

Players can now save and restore their house item layouts. Use the commands save_layout and load_layout . Loading a house layout works on the type of item, so some items that are unique but share the same type, like player-written books and guild hall teleporters, might be restored in different locations.

House layout files can only be loaded in houses of the same type. This also works in guild halls!

QUESTS

Adventure writs for all cities now check a player’s effective level instead of actual level. This means that you can now mentor or chronolock and do lower level writs!

Creature mastery quests now use a system of progressively increasing luck that eventually guarantees an update.

The third scout for "Connect the Dots" in Kylong Plains is now easier to find.

The quest "A Strange Gem" Has been re-introduced into Antonica.

The quest "The Final Report" From the Qeynos Claymore progression in Kingdom of Sky should now allow citizens of all evil and good aligned cities to obtain the quest.

The quest “Aelia and the Butcher” can now be completed properly in North Freeport.

The respawn time on a named needed for the Screaming Mace quest within Temple of Cazic Thule has been shortened.

The difficulty of the waves of orcs that spawn at the beginning of Bloodskull Valley has been lowered to be more in line with the difficulty intended for Return of the Light Heritage quest.

SPELLS

Cheap Shot will now last the full four seconds on single up arrow NPCs. Higher difficulty NPCs will remain at two seconds since they are not typically used for solo encounters.

Group and self targeted buffs which do not expire will persist through death. This does not apply to pet spells.

Deity Spells now have a two second casting time.

Ranges have been adjusted to many spells to more consistent.

Maintained spell descriptions from cast items will now look like if you examined the item directly.

Spells that are hostile and beneficial will now apply their beneficial effects to anyone in the group with an AOE avoidance spell on them.

Conjuror

The Earthen Avatar line will now break invisibility spells when cast.
Communion should inherit the proper names from Fiery Magician now and use the appropriate Hydromancer appearance.

Druid

Druid Portal spells have been consolidated into one spell and now work similarly to the druid guild hall amenity.

Inquisitor

Inquisition will now overwrite existing copies of the spell properly on a target.

Paladin

Amends 3 has been removed from the Paladin Training choices like it was prior to GU51.

Shadowknight

Miss your old skeleton pet? Then visit your local Shadowknight trainer and get your new skeleton pet today! Scrolls are going fast so hurry up and get yours today!

Sorcerer

Sorcerer translocate spells have been consolidated into a single spell that works similarly to the druid guild hall amenity.

Warden

Faerie Ally will no longer attempt to save dead people.
Tunare’s Watch will now scale by level since it is not upgraded at higher levels.

Wizard

Rays of Disintegration will no longer interrupt the group and is now only cast by the wizard. The casting time is slightly less while doing a bit more damage now.

TRADESKILLS

The tradeskill society tutorial books now have an improved appearance. If you do not have a copy and would like one, visit your local tradeskill society merchant.

The recipe for the Flame Tapestry found in Najena’s Forge is no longer limited in uses.

Carpenters can now provide a few essentials for those stabling their mounts in their homes.

Byproducts from tradeskilling will no longer have the crafter’s name on them.
Tradeskill level will now count for purchasing racial traditions.

USER INTERFACE

The recipe window now auto adjusts to fit very long recipe names.

The claim window has been revamped and now functions similar to the marketplace window.

Title lists on the Details tab of the Persona window are now sorted.

A new user-interface has been wrapped around the mentoring system.
Type /mentor to display the mentoring window.
You can also use the /unmentor command to cancel mentoring.
The mentoring window will be displayed when you join a group if your level is too high to allow all players to earn XP.

The welcome screen now shows the number of unopened LoN booster packs you have.

The examine recipe window will now use multiple lines for very large recipe names.

The threat window now has an improved tooltip and will only show when it is relevant.

Timers on quests in the group quest window will now have correct times.

Double clicking an item in the marketplace section of the welcome window will now open the marketplace window with that item pre-selected.

You can now alter the hotkey for the zone reuse timer window in the options window.

The confirmation box for destroying a player written book with special characters in the title will no longer display gibberish.

Tooltips for books inside of packing crates will now look correct.

The threat window now resizes properly.

The welcome screen now displays the name and zone of the daily mission.

Hotbar windows no longer have as much empty spacing around them making it easier to stack them close without overlapping.

There are now save layout and load layout buttons on the /house window to help make it easier to manage your house layout setups!

The raid window has been put on a diet and is now slightly more compact.

The raid window progress bars are slightly larger and more readable.

There are now placeholder icons for the detrimental icons on the raid window.

The quest journal details text and quest helper will be clear if you have no quests or complete the last quest in your journal.

EQII PLAYERS

Critical damage will once again be tracked properly.

[Grizzlebeard]

Bet they're tearing this apart already on EQ2Flames.

[Bloodget]

EQ2 getting boring, Aion is fun, was a perfect time to nerf high end raiders.
I could cancel in peace.

How fail SoE is to have someone like brenlo as lead? Working with someone like aeralik and fyreflite?
brenlo. Seriously.

[Vorph]

Sigh, I guess game engine bugs weren't on the agenda for this patch, as I still cannot launch the game with my fucking sound card enabled in device manager under Windows 7.

[Gaige]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Bet they're tearing this apart already on EQ2Flames.

TBH I think most of us are used to it by now. Besides, I had a really bad feeling about the direction of EQ2 when Brenlo took over anyway.

[Bixxby]

The Heirloom change is fantastic and needs to be an industry standard.

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by Bixxby

The Heirloom change is fantastic and needs to be an industry standard.

I read the patch notes but don't understand them, care to explain the whole Heirloom thing?

[Braen]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

I read the patch notes but don't understand them, care to explain the whole Heirloom thing?

Heirloom is basically "Bound to Account". If you have an Heirloom piece and you haven't bound it to a character, you can move it to another character on your account. As soon as you equip it, it becomes Bound to that Character.

So if your main is a Warlock and you are in a group and an heirloom piece drops in a dungeon that no body wants/can use, instead of someone randomly getting it and selling it for cash at a vendor, you can get it and give it to an alt on your account.

[Bongk]

Everytime I read about EQ2 it sounds like a great game and I need to play it ASAP. Than when I log in I am reminded very quickly how bad of a game it really is

Not sure how something that always sounds so good, can really be so bad.

[Aamina]

Appearance slots, Heirloom items, Broker Functionality, and Banking from EQ2 all need to be industry standard. There's no excuse not to have all these in every game.

[Big W Powah!]

WoW does the heirloom BOA stuff better imo; It doesnt bind to a single character.

[Aamina]

There are not nearly enough cool BoA things in WoW. The variance in EQ2 is extreme and pleasant. Also with this new patch, tons of drops are Heirloom, and WoW doesn't have any DROPS that are BoA unless they've added some in the last 4 months.

[Malakie Torsade]

I'm still enjoying EQ2 though I've not hit 80 yet (75 SK.) What I really like from EQ2 is that there are a lot of interesting things to do other than quest/grind. There's tradeskills, working on AA, collections, heritage quests, Lore and Legend quests, etc.

Once I hit 80, we'll see how long it keeps my attention. I'm in a small "family" type guild and it seems all they do is work on alts or help each other finish quests for said alts. I already know this will bore me so I don't see myself playing for too much longer after capping out unless there is semi-healthy PUG raiding which I highly doubt.

Overall I think it's a good game that gets shit on too much. Yes the combat needs an overhaul and there are some really shitty leveling areas (like ALL of Plane of Sky) but it's still pretty damn fun.

[MinionOfCthulhu]

I was going to ask how EQ2 was doing these days, but I guess most of these posts answered my question.

[Sinnes]

Originally Posted by MinionOfCthulhu

I was going to ask how EQ2 was doing these days, but I guess most of these posts answered my question.

Its doing fine. Fun times to be had by all!1!1!11!!