Lamannia U59 Preview 3

[Tolero]

Welcome to our third preview of Update 59! There are also elements in this preview for features slated for release after Update 59, and even a few bits from Update 60. Lamannia is expected to open today and remain open until 3:00pm Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, April 13th.

Of Special Note:

[B]Sound Fix[B]

In this week's Preview we have included a bug fix meant to address a crashing issue related to sounds. For players who have been experiencing crashes after getting near things like Raptors or being in the Dread Adventure Area, we'd like you to see if the behavior is any better now on Lamannia this week.

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. Some that were previously reported to us have already been fixed so if they still look wrong as of this update please do still mention them again.

Update 59: Droaam Legendary Edition

This preview includes Legendary version of all seven quests in the Droaam chain:

Attack on Stormreach:

• Assault on Summerfield
• Blockade Buster
• Undermine
• Siegebreaker

Free quests:

• 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.

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:

Changes are in blue!!

Bug Fixes:

• Level 32 skill augments now grant their listed amount of +skills
• 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 Blightcaster update.)
• Natural Fighting Feats will now work correctly with Blight Wolf.
• Fixed the bank issue where moving an item from the shared crafting storage to character bank if the character bank was full would result in the 'loss' of the item and the breaking of inter bank transfer. If this did happen to you, please contact Customer Service for your character to be fixed as well.
• The Soul of Cruelty Dot now has a cooldown again so no more triple stacks from a Frost Lance.
• Fix for monsters who keep attacking recently dead pets/defenders/NPCs. They should no longer do so.
• Spear of the Mournlands is considered a Favored Weapon by Bladeforged again
• You may now actually apply insightful deadly shards to trinkets
• Dark Apostate's Shadowform is now correctly hidden by the Full Character Overlay option
• Silverfang from Dinosaur Bone Crafting now grants its listed DCs
• Updated to v1.23.1 OpenAL32.dll using the officially compiled and distributed version from https://openal-soft.org/. Fixed EAX on 64-bit clients.
• Fixed the issue with Nature's Protectors killer instinct VFX system gradually causing client lag the more you use it.

Gameplay Changes:

• The firing arc tolerance for general missile weapons (bows, etc.) has been upped from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. This should help avoid dry fires when the player is strafing circling a monster up close with a missile weapon.
  
• Darling the Wererat Rogue Henchmen has gotten a new special ability for her hot bar. For 15 seconds Darling becomes a cute little rodent who is simply to precious to harm. Darling becomes immune to all damage, and monsters will ignore her but her physical damage drops by 100%. This has a 2 minute cooldown.
• Most individual Resistance, Insight, and Quality bonuses to Reflex, Fortitude, and Will Saving Throws on items have been increased by 1, putting them slightly above the values on Resistance items.
• 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 goes pear-shaped.
• The Fast Nightmare mount is now Bound to Account.
• When you spot or automatically detect a secret door, a "?" icon will appear over your head.
• When you spot or automatically detect a trap, a "!" icon will appear over your head.
• Fury of the Wild - Great Leveler
  
  • Reduced the duration of the movement pause.
  • Removed awkward pause to your ability to attack after using the great leveler.
  • Detect size increased on none enhanced smash.
  • Visualizes on enhanced smash better match detect size.
  • +500 attack bonus applied to hit roll.
  
  
• The cooldown on Sacred Vial has been increased from three to ten seconds to match Banishment and other death effects.
• Tsunami's correct max caster level and CC duration have been adjusted. The Max caster level is down to 20 from 25 to match other level 9 spells, CC duration down to 6 seconds to match other CC/Damage Combo Spells.
• Caster damage in Reaper difficulty has been adjusted for Skull 7 and higher:
  
  • 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%
  
  
• The self-healing penalty in Reaper Difficulty has been adjusted. The penalty for self-healing while outside of combat is now the same as the existing penalty for healing others while in or out of combat.

UI:

• Pet character sheet now only sorts its pet feats by alphabetically instead of nonexistent categories.
• Pet character sheets saving throws label is now no longer cut off visually.
• The crafting storage sort should no longer reset if you hover over the options.

[mikarddo]

What did the Silverfang DC do if not the correct DC?

[Talnar00]

Of Special Note:

[B]Sound Fix[B]

In this week's Preview we have included a bug fix meant to address a crashing issue related to sounds. For players who have been experiencing crashes after getting near things like Raptors or being in the Dread Adventure Area, we'd like you to see if the behavior is any better now on Lamannia this week.

Been sitting in Lam for a few minutes getting attacked by dinos and sound on with no crash. Will do a more thorough testing later when I have more time, but initial testing that failed every other time is working now. Fix looks like it is working this time around. Thanks for working on this issue.

[Arkat]

Gameplay Changes:

• The firing arc tolerance for general missile weapons (bows, etc.) has been upped from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. This should help avoid dry fires when the player is strafing circling a monster up close with a missile weapon.
  
• Darling the Wererat Rogue Henchmen has gotten a new special ability for her hot bar. For 15 seconds Darling becomes a cute little rodent who is simply to precious to harm. Darling becomes immune to all damage, and monsters will ignore her but her physical damage drops by 100%. This has a 2 minute cooldown.
  

Why are these two things in Black text in the OP?

[jakeelala]

Can someone from the dev team offer a little more information on how the firing arc tolerance works to better understand this change and the mechanic in general? Thank you



Gameplay Changes:

• The firing arc tolerance for general missile weapons (bows, etc.) has been upped from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. This should help avoid dry fires when the player is strafing circling a monster up close with a missile weapon.

[Steelstar]

Can someone from the dev team offer a little more information on how the firing arc tolerance works to better understand this change and the mechanic in general? Thank you

Gameplay Changes:

• The firing arc tolerance for general missile weapons (bows, etc.) has been upped from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. This should help avoid dry fires when the player is strafing circling a monster up close with a missile weapon.

Sure! When you fire a ranged weapon at a target, you often fire in a straight line from you to that target. This depends on the exact position of the target relative to you, though! For example, if you have an enemy targeted who is standing directly behind you and fire, you don't shoot an arrow straight backward. Instead, you fire straight ahead, where you're aiming the camera.

The firing arc tolerance here determines the number of degrees a target needs to be within (relative to the center of you, the player) in order to have the projectile fire *at* them instead of out wherever the camera's aiming. It's been increased from a 45 degree angle to a 60 degree angle - in short, enemies you target can now be further to your left and right than before for the purpose of whether your weapon's projectile aims at them.

As noted above, this ought to help alleviate dry fires when fighting up close, where it's very easy for a monster to drift in/out of a 45 degree arc (because they're nearly on top of you), as well as other dry fires where the monster was outside the arc.

[rabidfox]

Hesstess doesn't take off after her speech in framework, she just hangs around.

[Hobgoblin51]

So this starts on the 18th and goes back in time to the 13th?

[jakeelala]

Sure! When you fire a ranged weapon at a target, you often fire in a straight line from you to that target. This depends on the exact position of the target relative to you, though! For example, if you have an enemy targeted who is standing directly behind you and fire, you don't shoot an arrow straight backward. Instead, you fire straight ahead, where you're aiming the camera.

The firing arc tolerance here determines the number of degrees a target needs to be within (relative to the center of you, the player) in order to have the projectile fire *at* them instead of out wherever the camera's aiming. It's been increased from a 45 degree angle to a 60 degree angle - in short, enemies you target can now be further to your left and right than before for the purpose of whether your weapon's projectile aims at them.

As noted above, this ought to help alleviate dry fires when fighting up close, where it's very easy for a monster to drift in/out of a 45 degree arc (because they're nearly on top of you), as well as other dry fires where the monster was outside the arc.

Super awesome thanks, this is really helpful. Quick follow up questions when/if you have time:

-do casters have a similar mechanic in terms of what they can target and fire spells at inside of some angle to their center?

-why set this as conservatively at 60? At long range the arc expands enough that this doesn't really limit anything that's in sight of the character. But up close it's really limiting to your point, with the issue getting increasingly worse the closer you are to what you're fighting

-Is it 60 degrees on either side from center, or a 60 degree arc centered on the character and so really 30 degrees to either side?

[QuantumFX]

Hey guys, as soon as I get past the login screen on the Lammaland launcher, either the client dies, or it isn't launching. Either way, I don't see a ddoclient in my task manager. The current live ddoclient is working. What can I provide to help diagnose the issue?

EDIT: Steps taken since initial post:
1) Did repair installation from the launcher and launcher reinstalled updates. No change.

2a) Switched to 64 bit client in launcher. Was able to enter game world.
2b) Switched back to 32 bit client in launcher. Issue returned.

[rabidfox]

Hey guys, as soon as I get past the login screen on the Lammaland launcher, either the client dies, or it isn't launching. Either way, I don't see a ddoclient in my task manager. The current live ddoclient is working. What can I provide to help diagnose the issue?

EDIT: Steps taken since initial post:
1) Did repair installation from the launcher and launcher reinstalled updates. No change.

2a) Switched to 64 bit client in launcher. Was able to enter game world.
2b) Switched back to 32 bit client in launcher. Issue returned.

Noticed the same thing, 32-bit version of the game can't be run while the 64-bit can. They broke something with the 32-bit version with this build.

[rabidfox]

Sure! When you fire a ranged weapon at a target, you often fire in a straight line from you to that target. This depends on the exact position of the target relative to you, though! For example, if you have an enemy targeted who is standing directly behind you and fire, you don't shoot an arrow straight backward. Instead, you fire straight ahead, where you're aiming the camera.

The firing arc tolerance here determines the number of degrees a target needs to be within (relative to the center of you, the player) in order to have the projectile fire *at* them instead of out wherever the camera's aiming. It's been increased from a 45 degree angle to a 60 degree angle - in short, enemies you target can now be further to your left and right than before for the purpose of whether your weapon's projectile aims at them.

As noted above, this ought to help alleviate dry fires when fighting up close, where it's very easy for a monster to drift in/out of a 45 degree arc (because they're nearly on top of you), as well as other dry fires where the monster was outside the arc.

Does this change effect the firing arc for ranged monsters attacking players too?

[ZER0DIVISION]

Sure! When you fire a ranged weapon at a target, you often fire in a straight line from you to that target. This depends on the exact position of the target relative to you, though! For example, if you have an enemy targeted who is standing directly behind you and fire, you don't shoot an arrow straight backward. Instead, you fire straight ahead, where you're aiming the camera.

The firing arc tolerance here determines the number of degrees a target needs to be within (relative to the center of you, the player) in order to have the projectile fire *at* them instead of out wherever the camera's aiming. It's been increased from a 45 degree angle to a 60 degree angle - in short, enemies you target can now be further to your left and right than before for the purpose of whether your weapon's projectile aims at them.

As noted above, this ought to help alleviate dry fires when fighting up close, where it's very easy for a monster to drift in/out of a 45 degree arc (because they're nearly on top of you), as well as other dry fires where the monster was outside the arc.

Super awesome thanks, this is really helpful. Quick follow up questions when/if you have time:

-do casters have a similar mechanic in terms of what they can target and fire spells at inside of some angle to their center?

Came here to ask exactly this. It sounds like this change is only intended to affect ranged physical weapons and not spellcasting, but spellcasters have the exact same issues.

Especially when certain mob types like spiders, bats, and ghouls have lunging attacks that have a tendency to attack 'through' the target, so they're constantly bouncing out of the range of tolerance, and spells will consume SP but dry fire because 'You are not facing the ____'.

It's a pretty frustrating experience, but I also understand that ranged attacks, be them magical or physical, have to have some sort of limit on firing angles. Except for alchemists, who I believe get to ignore that rule when hurling glassware around.

Thanks for the explanation Steelstar, it's always cool to learn more about some of the mechanics to how the game functions.

[btolson]

Came here to ask exactly this. It sounds like this change is only intended to affect ranged physical weapons and not spellcasting, but spellcasters have the exact same issues.

Especially when certain mob types like spiders, bats, and ghouls have lunging attacks that have a tendency to attack 'through' the target, so they're constantly bouncing out of the range of tolerance, and spells will consume SP but dry fire because 'You are not facing the ____'.

It's a pretty frustrating experience, but I also understand that ranged attacks, be them magical or physical, have to have some sort of limit on firing angles. Except for alchemists, who I believe get to ignore that rule when hurling glassware around.

Thanks for the explanation Steelstar, it's always cool to learn more about some of the mechanics to how the game functions.

It's WORSE for casters, because instead of firing at your camera's crosshair if they're outside the arc, the spell fizzles and fails entirely.

I don't care if they increase the arc for casting, but I want them to make the spell still always work and fire at your camera's crosshair so you might still hit something (99% chance it will if it's an AOE). With the way lag is, I try very hard to not hard-target anything anymore, and just fire at the ground 100% of the time cuz that always works even if they move suddenly. "Never hard target" can't be their design philosophy right?

[Amoneth]

It's WORSE for casters, because instead of firing at your camera's crosshair if they're outside the arc, the spell fizzles and fails entirely.

I don't care if they increase the arc for casting, but I want them to make the spell still always work and fire at your camera's crosshair so you might still hit something (99% chance it will if it's an AOE). With the way lag is, I try very hard to not hard-target anything anymore, and just fire at the ground 100% of the time cuz that always works even if they move suddenly. "Never hard target" can't be their design philosophy right?

Totally agree, including non DPS spells too, like when you try to cast a mass hold on a mob that dies before it lands so the spell completely fails. I've lost count of the amount of times people have moaned at me for not CCing because some other caster has FoD'd the mob I tried to cast the CC on.

[Monkey_Archer]

It's WORSE for casters, because instead of firing at your camera's crosshair if they're outside the arc, the spell fizzles and fails entirely.

I don't care if they increase the arc for casting, but I want them to make the spell still always work and fire at your camera's crosshair so you might still hit something (99% chance it will if it's an AOE). With the way lag is, I try very hard to not hard-target anything anymore, and just fire at the ground 100% of the time cuz that always works even if they move suddenly. "Never hard target" can't be their design philosophy right?

The spell "you are not facing the target" dry-fires are not quite the same as the ranged issue, and is indeed worse from a gameplay perspective.

The issue as I understand it is:
1) You must be facing the target on the client side in order to start casting the spell (I'm unsure if the server needs to confirm this)
2) You must remain facing the target on the client side when the spell activates at the end of the cast animation
3) The server then also checks to see if you are still facing the target (after latency delay)

If you aren't still facing the target at both checks 2&3 the spell fizzles.

I suspect that 1&2 are intended behavior, and 3 is legacy 'fps-style anti-aimbot code', which is a bit ironic given that ranged character have auto-aim built in anyway (with new improved angle). Its also an unnecessary server calculation. Should be a simple fix (with heavy emphasis on the "should" part )

[FixBows]

Sure! When you fire a ranged weapon at a target, you often fire in a straight line from you to that target. This depends on the exact position of the target relative to you, though! For example, if you have an enemy targeted who is standing directly behind you and fire, you don't shoot an arrow straight backward. Instead, you fire straight ahead, where you're aiming the camera.

The firing arc tolerance here determines the number of degrees a target needs to be within (relative to the center of you, the player) in order to have the projectile fire *at* them instead of out wherever the camera's aiming. It's been increased from a 45 degree angle to a 60 degree angle - in short, enemies you target can now be further to your left and right than before for the purpose of whether your weapon's projectile aims at them.

As noted above, this ought to help alleviate dry fires when fighting up close, where it's very easy for a monster to drift in/out of a 45 degree arc (because they're nearly on top of you), as well as other dry fires where the monster was outside the arc.

So tested this out with IPS on and it seems that if you have a target that is relatively close to you and you are targeting something further away and the close-up target is shorter (like a kobold in the dojo), you shoot over the closer target. I am testing this on a deep gnome and will assume without testing, that issue will be exacerbated by taller characters. It is not super noticeable, and you have to have things lined up perfectly, but it happens.

[droid327]

So tested this out with IPS on and it seems that if you have a target that is relatively close to you and you are targeting something further away and the close-up target is shorter (like a kobold in the dojo), you shoot over the closer target. I am testing this on a deep gnome and will assume without testing, that issue will be exacerbated by taller characters. It is not super noticeable, and you have to have things lined up perfectly, but it happens.

That isnt new at all, that's how IPS has worked since time immemorial. And its not something that this change would fix...its about left/right arc, not up/down arc

[GoldyGopher]

Welcome to our third preview of Update 59! There are also elements in this preview for features slated for release after Update 59, and even a few bits from Update 60. Lamannia is expected to open today and remain open until 3:00pm Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, April 13th.

Of Special Note:

[B]Sound Fix[B]

In this week's Preview we have included a bug fix meant to address a crashing issue related to sounds. For players who have been experiencing crashes after getting near things like Raptors or being in the Dread Adventure Area, we'd like you to see if the behavior is any better now on Lamannia this week.

I truly look forward to this fix, hopefully it works.

Update 59: Droaam Legendary Edition

This preview includes Legendary version of all seven quests in the Droaam chain:

Attack on Stormreach:

• Assault on Summerfield
• Blockade Buster
• Undermine
• Siegebreaker

Free quests:

• 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.

Still have no idea why the Wildman are problematic.

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.

The camera problems I have previously bug reported are still there.

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.

I wish you would do some work on the hireling pathing to make them more useful. Watching a hireling, on hold position, run up stand in a trap and die is not useful.

News and Notes:

Changes are in blue!!

Bug Fixes:

• Dark Apostate's Shadowform is now correctly hidden by the Full Character Overlay option
• Updated to v1.23.1 OpenAL32.dll using the officially compiled and distributed version from https://openal-soft.org/. Fixed EAX on 64-bit clients.
• Fixed the issue with Nature's Protectors killer instinct VFX system gradually causing client lag the more you use it.[/quote]

YEAH!

Gameplay Changes:

• Most individual Resistance, Insight, and Quality bonuses to Reflex, Fortitude, and Will Saving Throws on items have been increased by 1, putting them slightly above the values on Resistance items.

This make no sense.

• 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 goes pear-shaped.

Some sort of Lag Fix, update to modern standard?

• The Fast Nightmare mount is now Bound to Account.

No comment.
Maybe a horse trader would be a good thing to add as well.

• When you spot or automatically detect a secret door, a "?" icon will appear over your head.
• When you spot or automatically detect a trap, a "!" icon will appear over your head.

Not sure how I feel about these additions at the moment. Hopefully there is a why to turn these off.

• The self-healing penalty in Reaper Difficulty has been adjusted. The penalty for self-healing while outside of combat is now the same as the existing penalty for healing others while in or out of combat.

Have we gotten an explanation of when a character is in or out of combat yet?

[SpardaX]

Most individual Resistance, Insight, and Quality bonuses to Reflex, Fortitude, and Will Saving Throws on items have been increased by 1, putting them slightly above the values on Resistance items.

This make no sense.

What part of this are you having trouble with?

I'm assuming your issue isn't literally "What does this mean", and more "Why do this?"
If why is the question, I'm guessing it's because I saw in preview 1 people were getting a little annoyed (and I'm getting a little annoyed too honestly) about the fact that old items would have a saves resistance bonus. So at level 7 lets say, a bracer can have a +4 Resistance bonus to saves. This is +4 Fortitude. +4 Reflex. +4 Will. All wrapped up in one neat item effect.

But these days the devs seem to want to split them up so one item would have +4 Fortitude. Another item would have +4 Reflex, and a third item would have +4 Will. Splitting 1 item effect into 3 is a little bit frustrating. Made all the more confusing by the fact that a blue augment of old Resistance exists. Which completely eliminates the need entirely anyway.

In preview 1, because the named set of the free quests also does this (The ring gives +will, the gloves give +fortitude, and the head gives +reflex) it makes sense for the legendary versions to do the same....but again, splitting them up is silly, and splitting them up at legendary when there's a perfectly good lv 32 Sapphire of Resistance makes less sense. So I saw at least a few posts that, in regards to this aspect of those items, basically said:

Head item: Remove the Reflex, or make it a different stacking type. We have an augment for that.
Ring item: Remove the Will, or make it a different stacking type. We have an augment for that.
Gloves item: Remove the Fortitude, or make it a different stacking type. We have an augment for that.

And even on other items, there was a whole lot of "We have an augment for that."

So I'm guessing by raising the singular save boost to 1 higher than the "Resistance" item effect's value, they're attempting to make it more attractive, or at least, not literally a wasted item effect vs the resistance effect. So now if you have a lv 32 Resistance augment slotted, at least you'll get +1 more from the items.

Now if you're going to ask whether a +1 is worth going out of your way to take 3 effects vs 1 consolidated effect...That's a different question. (Personally I don't think it is. But that's just me.)