Lamannia Update 59 Preview 1 - CLOSED

[Cordovan]

Welcome to our first preview of Update 59! There are also elements in this week's preview slated for release after Update 59, and even a few bits from Update 60. Lamannia is expected to open later today and remain open until 3:00pm Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, April 6th.

Of Special Note:

Update 59: Performance Work

We have fundamentally changed how bonuses are calculated behind the scenes to be using a more performant algorithm to reduce lag in the game. This change impacts:

• Feat bonuses
• Enhancement bonuses
• Epic destiny bonuses
• Past life bonuses
• Toggled bonuses
• Temporarily granted Feats
• Armor Class bonuses
• Blocking Armor Class bonuses
• Attack bonuses
• Damage bonuses
• Savings throw bonuses

Please keep an eye out for discrepancies in bonuses on your character sheet between the regular Live game worlds and this Lamannia build. Adding and removing Feats, Enhancements, and acquisition of Past Lives are the primary mechanisms that might cause these bonuses to exhibit erroneous behaviors. There are more than 485 bonuses affected and not all of them are on the character sheet and easily displayable. So if character abilities are not acting as you would expect them to normally, please report your experience in a separate Lamannia forum thread here.

Update 59: Droaam Legendary Edition

This preview includes Legendary version of the first three free quests in the Droaam chain:

• Diplomatic Impunity
• Frame Work
• Eyes of Stone

You can find the NPCs for these quests in the Lordsmarch Plaza, located off of the Marketplace in Stormreach. Feedback threads for each of the Legendary quests is linked to above. The Legendary versions of the Droaam items are not yet appearing in the quests, but they can be found in the Test Dojo.

After Update 59: Underdark-themed Mount preview

A preview of an Underdark-themed Mount is available in the Test Dojo for you to check out! We are specifically looking for things like animation bugs as this is a new mount "rig type" compared to a horse or dinosaur. We are not yet announcing where this mount will be available in the future, but it will be after the release of Update 59 and not with it.

Update 60: Hireling Wererats

Hireling Wererats are now available in the Test Dojo to check out! These hirelings are expected to be released with Update 60: Vecna Unleashed. We are not yet announcing how players will be able to acquire the Hireling Wererat.

News and Notes:

Droaam Legendary Update

• Public Area
  
  • Free to Play Quest NPC's moved to be more prominent
  
  
• All Quests
  
  • These three quests no longer require previous quest completion to enter.
  • Legendary level difficulty has been added.
  • All Monsters should have their proper CR for Legendary Level Monsters.
  
  
• Diplomatic Impunity
  
  • "Gather Everyone" Objectives have been removed.
  • Added a series of Trail Marker Objects that Vector you more Cleanly to the First Objective.
  • Primary Path Bramble Walls have been removed to give additional quest guidance.
  • Wildmen Monsters have been replaced with Bullywugs.
  • Added small amounts of XP for most Optional Objectives.
  • Fog of War now displays its next Objective through its Fog.
  
  
• Framework
  
  • Reduced the number of Minotaurs in the final encounter.
  • Added a Mechanic to allow non-trap-disabling characters to prevent being hit by the Trap leading up the the stairs to the final encounter.
  • Reduced the number Ballista Parts required for an Optional.
  
  
• Eyes of Stone
  
  • Added a note in the Library Wing to reinforce how to avoid Frost Traps (Don't Break the Barrels).
  • A Rest Shrine has been added after the Troll fight.

Bug Fixes

• The offhand slot should no longer go missing sometimes after reincarnation as an Artificer.
• The Legendary Spiked Turban should now have its proper visuals.
• Mirrors of Glamering now have a clearer tooltip to explain how their eligibility works.
• Energy Vortex Poison and Negative now both have their correct tooltips within the spell.
• The web barriers in the quest Sacrifices can now be broken with Eldritch Blast.
• Technomage filigree now provide their 5% Armor Class Set Bonus, and no longer call the set the wrong name.
• Divine Righteousness (Paladin Sacred Defender 3rd core) is now Untyped and grants its correct amount of Threat Generation.
• Mass Suggestion now has its correct icon.
• A few pet benefit icons have changed to reflect their passive states.
• Black Dragon Bolt's damage to PLAYERS has been reduced to its original values (from before the Blightcaster update.)
• Natural Fighting Feats will now work correctly with Blight Wolf.

Gameplay Changes

• Work has been done behind the scenes for Universal Tree tomes to make them work slightly differently on our end. This should have no effect on Universal tome functionality - existing tomes will still function - but we wanted to let you know work had been done in case something unusual is noticed.
• The Fast Nightmare mount is now Bound to Account.
• When you spot or automatically detect a secret door, a "?" icon will now appear over your head.
• When you spot or automatically detect a trap, a "!" icon will now appear over your head.
• Fury of the Wild - Great Leveler
  
  • The duration of the movement pause has been reduced.
  • There is no longer a pause to your ability to attack after using Great Leveler.
  • The detect size has been increased on the non-enhanced version of the attack.
  • The enhanced version of this attack (if you have Adrenaline or Quick effects active) now has visuals that better match its detect size.
  • A +500 To-hit bonus is now applied to your roll.
  
  
• Adjustments to reduced damage have been made in Reaper difficulty for spellcasters in general on Skull 7+:
  
  • Skull 7: From 25% damage to 23%
  • Skull 8: From 20% damage to 18%
  • Skull 9: From 18% damage to 15%
  • Skull 10: From 15% damage to 10%
  
  
• Correct cooldown on Sacred Vial alchemist spell (cooldown increased from 3 seconds to 10 to match banishment and other death effects.)
• Tsunami correct max caster level and CC duration (Max caster level down to 20 from 25 to match other level 9 spells, CC duration down to 6 seconds to match other CC/Damage Combo Spells)

UI

• The Pet Character Sheet for class-based Animal Companion and related summons now sorts its feats alphabetically.
• The Pet Character Sheet Saving Throws label is no longer cut off visually.

[Wdh]

Justice for the wildmen. I was so excited to have legendary droam. I don't want these quests to have the mobs or content fundamentally changed, beyond having a legendary difficulty and gear. Old quests do not need bullywugs, wildmen are a part of classic DDO.

[droid327]

Justice for the wildmen. I was so excited to have legendary droam. I don't want these quests to have the mobs or content fundamentally changed, beyond having a legendary difficulty and gear. Old quests do not need bullywugs, wildmen are a part of classic DDO.

Over/under on whether they forgot to re-record the DM audio that refers to Wildmen in that quest?

[Skyael]

Not a fan of the caster damage changes. Why are casters singled out like that? It would be nice to know the reasoning behind the change.

Also, casters were already a bad pick as DPS in high reaper raids, now they're even worse.

[Talnar00]

Any update on the audio crash bug to dinosaur noises?

[QuantumFX]

Will chain 2 be updated by the final version of U59?

[SpartanKiller13]

Not a fan of the caster damage changes. Why are casters singled out like that? It would be nice to know the reasoning behind the change.

Also, casters were already a bad pick as DPS in high reaper raids, now they're even worse.

Casters seem disproportionately represented in high reaper questing, especially R10 solo stuff? Not saying it's the right approach lol but like 5 mins surfing R10 solo vids on YT or something will def give an impression.

R7+ raiding you're probs tailoring your group anyway so if it was previously an issue probs nothing changing?

[rabidfox]

Casters seem disproportionately represented in high reaper questing, especially R10 solo stuff?

Some casters are disproportionately represented in high skulls, but I feel bad for casters that aren't on the extreme power-side like divine & arti casters that get knocked down in capability in higher skulls by 33%. The problem with blanket "fixes" like this is that is that the effect ripples out to other non-OP setups. Balancing games is a big issue but this just reinforces min/max specific classes are needed. It's high skulls so maybe the devs are cool with it (it doesn't personally effect any of my builds) but it's funny where more things get moved into less viable than they already were.

[DarkChilde]

• The web barriers in the quest Sacrifices can now be broken with Eldritch Blast.
  

How about barriers in Eveningstar and the Tar Pits mission?

[Bolo_Grubb]

Why replace the wild men? Just curious

[ahpook]

[*]All Quests

• These three quests no longer require previous quest completion to enter.
• Epic level difficulty has been added.
• All Monsters should have their proper CR for Legendary Level Monsters.

Other notes indicate that Droaam is going legendary but this comment indicates it is Epic.

Which is too bad because Epic is where the content is needed. You guys do know that there is more content to support 2 levels of Legendary than quests to support all of Epic? And that Legendary doesn't need to regain XP while Epic will need XP after each Reincarnation? It seems obvious but after moving ToEE to legendary and now Droaam, it seems that maybe you were unaware?

[salmag]

I thought Bullywugs were more Swamp-oriented?

Are they replacing the Wildmen in the heroic quests too? Or just the Legendary?

What about Epic quests? Nothing new there?

[lynxkitten13]

Other notes indicate that Droaam is going legendary but this comment indicates it is Epic.

Which is too bad because Epic is where the content is needed. You guys do know that there is more content to support 2 levels of Legendary than quests to support all of Epic? And that Legendary doesn't need to regain XP while Epic will need XP after each Reincarnation? It seems obvious but after moving ToEE to legendary and now Droaam, it seems that maybe you were unaware?

There's especially a desperate need for set gear in the 21-28 level range. It's a long, long slog before we can use the current level 29 sets, from heroic Ravenloft or Sharn sets.

[axel15810]

Why replace the wild men? Just curious

I'm wondering the same. SSG?

I'm curious as to why they were replaced. I'd prefer the Wildmen stay personally. I like Bullywugs a lot but we have have had them as a part of the most recent 2 expansions so I'd rather the original Droaam chain quest mobs be there. If it's due to performance, scaling or other technical issue I'd understand but if it's just an artistic choice I'd rather them leave the original monsters be.

[rabidfox]

Why replace the wild men? Just curious

I assume there's concern of racist undertones to them.

[droid327]

I assume there's concern of racist undertones to them.

I dont see where bullywugs would be any different there if you were squinting that hard trying to find racism

[MathisMagic]

I assume there's concern of racist undertones to them.

I could see this. Most everything with the wildmen I can think of def has some... unfortunate implications. Though if anything, keeping the wildmen villagers and changing the jungle enemies to bullywugs might work. It always Feels Bad that you murder a bunch of wildmen and then go and lie to the chief to get passage...

Though that's also true for a number of quests. Like Tharask arena and how they don't want you to compete because you slaughter them as monsters... and then you fight your way in and slaughter them as monsters. Oof.

[Mamalian]

I dont see where bullywugs would be any different there if you were squinting that hard trying to find racism

It ain't easy being green.

[ahpook]

I could see this. Most everything with the wildmen I can think of def has some... unfortunate implications. Though if anything, keeping the wildmen villagers and changing the jungle enemies to bullywugs might work. It always Feels Bad that you murder a bunch of wildmen and then go and lie to the chief to get passage...

Though that's also true for a number of quests. Like Tharask arena and how they don't want you to compete because you slaughter them as monsters... and then you fight your way in and slaughter them as monsters. Oof.

Yeah, applying any morals to this game was awful 15 years ago. Applying it now is beyond problematic. For SSG to remove wildmen because of some optics is missing the forest for the trees.

[MathisMagic]

Yeah, applying any morals to this game was awful 15 years ago. Applying it now is beyond problematic. For SSG to remove wildmen because of some optics is missing the forest for the trees.

Now that I agree with. A lot of quests give us "doomsday cult" or "slavers" as enemies for a reason. Because those are practically the only quests where mowing through so many people without hesitation ISN'T nightmare to examine too much. Just as one moral layer.