DDO Development Activities for the Week – August 7
If there’s one thing you can say about Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach, it’s that you have a pretty good idea what they intend to do to improve the game and know just when that fix will happen, more or less.
To that end, DDO fans may want to look at this week’s development details. Some of the stuff is redundant when compared to last week’s development details, but you might just find the good news you’ve been hoping for, like free items or that bandwidth reduction to make the game run more smoothly. Unlikely? Yeah, it is, but it’s good to hope for a saving throw, isn’t it?
If you’d like to brush up on what those poor folks at the Dev Dungeon have to go through, keep reading.
If there’s one thing you can say about Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach, it’s that you have a pretty good idea what they intend to do to improve the game and know just when that fix will happen, more or less.
To that end, DDO fans may want to look at this week’s development details. Some of the stuff is redundant when compared to last week’s development details, but you might just find the good news you’ve been hoping for, like free items or that bandwidth reduction to make the game run more smoothly. Unlikely? Yeah, it is, but it’s good to hope for a saving throw, isn’t it?
In QA
These items are in QA and should be a part of the next scheduled update.
Performance
- We are making some changes to the Twilight Forge to improve performance.
General
- The House Kundarak banking system will be opening a new branch in the harbor inside the Harbormaster’s House.
- Loot messages from other players will be tagged as loot messages and can be filtered out.
- NEW – The spell exchange and energy spell selector dialogs will behave correctly when you dismiss them using the escape button.
- Players will no longer get stuck while dismounting from ladders.
Monsters
- NEW – Prolonged exposure to the Plane of Night has had negative effects on Velah and has stripped her of some of her former epic powers. Note that to compensate she has grown a bit smarter, and many of the old strategies used may not work quite so well. Experimentation, quick thinking, and valor will surely lead heroes to find new ways to defeat her.
- VelahÂ’s spellcasting AI and line of sight recognition will be improved.
- Her attacks will no longer be flagged as unblockable.
- The average damage of her physical attacks will be reduced. The critical hit ranges on various attacks will be modified.
- Her tail knockdown attack will use the same mechanics as other Knockdown effects.
- Wing Buffet will be considered a physical attack rather than a spell. The knockback effect will have a reflex save.
- VelahÂ’s Dragon Breath will no longer treated as a physical attack. It will be entirely fire damage with a single reflex save, and can no longer crit or miss.
- Dispelling Breath will remove half as many magical effects as before.
- Her Telekinesis ability will have a will save.
- All spells cast by Velah will properly use her Charisma to determine DCÂ’s.
- Fireballs spit by Velah will be entirely fire damage and scale properly on Hard and Elite.
- Velah herself will properly scale in difficulty on Hard and Elite.
- For more information on the origin of these changes, please read this thread.
- Wildmen will apply the feeblemind effect less often, generally on critical hits and/or their special leap attack.
- The effects caused by the warforged quori humanoids in the WFT area will no longer produce FX. Previously this on-damage effect could slow down performance due to the spam of visualized effects.
- Melee oriented Troglodytes will move closer to their targets – they should no longer attempt to make melee attacks from out of range.
Combat
- The critical threat range will no longer be doubled on the 4th swing in a combo.
- The feeblemind bestowed by wildmen will be curable by restoration.
Items
- Vorpal weapons will behead monsters as per the Players Handbook – you must roll a natural 20 and confirm a crit to vorpal your target.
- Niac‘s Cold Ray and Knock scrolls will be available at Lorna Wyrmtouched, Arcane Scroll Vendor in the marketplace tent.
- Items that cast Featherfall are getting an upgrade in usability. These items will be fast-casting and use a self-only version of Featherfall.
- The “of Destruction” weapon effect is a much weaker effect than intended. To make the effect worthy of its cost, “of Destruction” will reduce the target’s AC by 4 the first time it hits. There is no saving throw for this effect.
- We are changing the names for Seeker +1, Seeker +2, Seeker +3 etc. items. These effects are being renamed to be consistent with other effect naming conventions – they will be named to match the bonus they give (Seeker +2, Seeker+4, Seeker +6 etc.)
- Laina the Excoriated will close her shop window properly.
- The Freedom of Movement effect on the Kundarak Delving Boots will ward the movement effects of Storm Giant weather control. It will no longer ward the Beholder’s petrify eye beam or the Mummy’s Despair ability.
Spells
- Hazadill is having such fun with Otto’s Sphere of Dancing that he doesn’t realize that he is breaking the rules of the universe and casting area-of-effect Otto’s IRRESISTIBLE dance rather than area-of-effect Otto’s RESISTIBLE dance. This spell will be fixed so that Hazadill as well as other NPC casters will no longer cast the irresistible sphere of dancing, but the correct version with a saving throw.
- We are fixing a long-standing issue with dispel effects that causes dispels from the Dispel Magic spell to be much harder than they should normally be.
Quests
- Gnarl’s Tomb
- Old Gnarl’s ghost will open his door after a fight if he dispatches any would-be thieves. This will allow parties to attempt him again without resetting the dungeon.
- Restless Isles
- The Runetusk Commander will no longer speak to you after he dies.
- Several encounters are displaying their DM text repeatedly. This will be fixed.
Under Development
These items are currently in development and are scheduled for some time after the next update.
Performance
- Overall bandwidth of the game will be reduced another 1-3%, and certain problematic dungeons and laggy areas will be significantly improved by 20-50% (when your client gets flooded with information about objects in your local area).
General
- We are pleased to announce the addition of the /showhelmet command which can be used to hide your helmet graphic.
- We are improving the combat/damage feedback mechanism. This will not only eliminate “false” hits where the target would flinch but no attack roll would take place, but also give better feedback as to the strength of the hit.
Monsters
- Widow type spiders will once again shoot functional webs.
- Elemental Empathy will work properly on Earth Elementals that have used their Earthgrab ability.
- We are fixing an issue with the death animations of Arcane Skeletons. They will no longer “eat collectables” they should be creating.
Items
- We are also working on exempting Kundarak Delving Boots from the movement restrictions of Sleetstorm and IceStorm.
Spells
- Please disregard the previous entry regarding the Fragment of the Silver Flame. Protection from Evil is being worked on to bring it in line with D&D rules.