U54 Preview 1 (4/13 - 4/15)

[Lomizir]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Hello, folks! Preview 1 of Update 54 will open at 11am EDT on Wednesday, April 13th! It is expected to remain open until 3pm EDT on Friday, April 15th.

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Update 54 will feature the presale rewards for our upcoming expansion pack, the Isle of Dread and this preview showcases the new Tabaxi race and Tabaxi iconic as well as mounts and hirelings for presale.

To access tabaxi on the preview server, speak to Lord Poincelot in the Dread Overlook (reached through a portal in the middle of the Test Dojo) to be granted preview server specific DDO points and then "purchase" the races in the DDO Preview Store. You will then be able to log out or reincarnate and choose tabaxi.


In addition to the highlighted presale items, this preview features the following changes:

Bugfixes

• Eldritch Knight's elemental damage dice should now more reliably add up
• Eldritch Knight's Force's Point no longer spams your combat log
• Fixed a typo in the Quicken metamagic enhancement for Exalted Angel
• Shadar-kai chain can now be used while quelled
• Regeneration no longer has visual effects and therefore no longer has visual effect bugs
• Greensteel Regeneration no longer disables on death
• Raging Blows in Barbarian now correctly grants its +1W
• Palemaster Undead Shrouds should now persist through logout better
• Holy Mantle from Divine Crusader should now persist through logout better
• Abyssal Shroud from Warlock should persist through logout better
• Shiradi's Pin now grants its listed 3W instead of 1W
• Shiradi's Pin no longer has a DC since the DC was never going to work
• Killer Instinct now has removal floaty text to make it clearer when it wears off
• Storm's Eye now has no removal floaty text since that makes it insanely visually obstructive
• Scion of the Astral Plane no longer disables on death
• Monsters casting flame strike will damage players again

Gameplay Changes

• When you release from a dungeon while dead, you will be brought back to 20 HP instead of 1 HP
• Trap the Soul has gotten an overhaul:
  
  • There is no more Hit Dice limit on this spell, and there is only one variant
  • This spell now gives you the regular gem for all CRs
  • Cannith Crafting recipes just use that one regular gem
  • Changed the cooldown to 10 seconds (Sorcerer remains at 8)
• Shiradi caster mantles changes:
  
  • All proc dice have been raised to 7d77
  • Spellcast scaling has been raised to 100%
  • Proc rate has been raised to 7%
  • The elements offered have changed: now you may select from Light, Force, Poison, or Sonic

UI Changes

• Hovering over your Epic Destiny points now displays a context-sensitive tooltip that reports your points breakdown
• The LFM UI Difficulty display element has been adjusted to be more vertically centered
• Hovering over a weapon now factors in the Improved Critical feat
• The character sheet has gotten a minor visual upgrade in its layout:
  
  • It now shows you your total level instead of your total Action Points
  • Several text and bounding box inconsistencies have been fixed involving bad element placement
  • The Saves label is now Saving Throws and is the proper font
  • The BAB box is now lined up correctly
• A variety of UI improvements relating to how we display Character Level have been made:
  
  • Your character sheet no longer shows the Epic class in its class breakdown
  • When someone requests to join your LFM, you will now see their total level in parenthesis and then their class breakdown, which will no longer include their Epic class levels. Text Literal: "$NAME$ ($LVL$)($CLASSES$) would like to join your party."
  • The Character Selection screen will no longer display your Epic class levels
  • Examining a player now shows their total level and then their class breakdown, and the class breakdown no longer displays their epic level
  • The Guild, Who, and LFM displays for players no longer show their Epic levels as part of their class breakdown

Misc Changes

• There is a new gameplay option: Force Heals to Self when Targeting Undead (default: false). While true, when you have an enemy Undead targeted, any positive healing actions will be cast on you instead of the undead.

[GoldyGopher]

Misc Changes

• There is a new gameplay option: Force Heals to Self when Targeting Undead (default: false). While true, when you have an enemy Undead targeted, any positive healing actions will be cast on you instead of the undead.

Is it okay if I do a little happy dance?

[Lynnabel]

Is it okay if I do a little happy dance?

Yes, but make sure to test it out on Lamannia!!

[Garix]

Is it okay if I do a little happy dance?

I don't care if it's allowed or not, I'm doing one anyway!

[ahpook]

Is it okay if I do a little happy dance?

Too late. I did all the happy dances for everyone. Thanks to who ever finally made this happen.

I was thinking that if it is a gameplay setting, I would have to reset it whenever I swapped to a character that wants to damage undead when they cast a heal or cure spell. And then I remembered that I have never had a character that wants to do that. Not even my sun cleric undead hater uses heals to fight undead. So again, thanks.

[Steelstar]

A note I missed because it was in with Tabaxi stuff, but it applies to every race:

Quarterstaff attacks while moving now have a hitbox size equal to that of other two-handed-weapons while moving.

[droid327]

Regeneration no longer has visual effects and therefore no longer has visual effect bugs

[Infiltraitor]

Make a Thread of Fate trade-in option for Nebula Fragments. It must be done. Do it now.

You want to sell raid Timers and this nebula drop rate is dumb.

[droid327]

Proc rate has been raised to 7%
The elements offered have changed: now you may select from Light, Force, Poison, or Sonic

I mentioned it elsewhere but I'll put it here officially...7% is too low to make a difference. It should be somewhere around 15%, which is half of its original Live value, and I think halving its DPS output is more than adequate to bring it into balance with Draconic, for real-game scenarios

But in keeping with the "random" theme of it, and the motif of 7s, how about a proc rate of 7d3%? That averages out to 14%. Or can you just feel the servers cringing at having to roll a new proc chance every spellcast?

Eldritch Knight's elemental damage dice should now more reliably add up

This is vague...can we get more details about what exactly changed here, so we can better test it and compare to Live? How was EK not working properly before?

Corollary question - is this the revamp of EK calculation order than Lynn once talked about long ago?

[GoldyGopher]

Yes, but make sure to test it out on Lamannia!!

I did. Tried Lay on Hands, Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds. All seemed to work properly based upon the setting.

[Lynnabel]

This is vague...can we get more details about what exactly changed here, so we can better test it and compare to Live? How was EK not working properly before?

EK (and Vile Chemist) were not taking their Augment boosts or bonuses from Draconic, or anything, really. This change redoes how they do their math, so now all sources of boosts to the number of dice (such as the EK capstone) properly add dice.

I did. Tried Lay on Hands, Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds. All seemed to work properly based upon the setting.

Yay!

[GramercyRiff]

Misc Changes

• There is a new gameplay option: Force Heals to Self when Targeting Undead (default: false). While true, when you have an enemy Undead targeted, any positive healing actions will be cast on you instead of the undead.

This is amazing.

Can we please fix Righteous Command so that it gives the 5 melee power from the increase in mcl in epic? thanks!

[Monkey_Archer]

• Trap the Soul has gotten an overhaul:
  
  • There is no more Hit Dice limit on this spell, and there is only one variant
  • This spell now gives you the regular gem for all CRs
  • Cannith Crafting recipes just use that one regular gem
  • Changed the cooldown to 10 seconds (Sorcerer remains at 8)

Very nice change. 10/8 second cooldown is reasonable.

• Shiradi caster mantles changes:
  
  • All proc dice have been raised to 7d77
  • Spellcast scaling has been raised to 100%
  • Proc rate has been raised to 7%
  • The elements offered have changed: now you may select from Light, Force, Poison, or Sonic

Does the elements offered apply to prism tier1 instead of random elements? or is that instead of cold/light for the tier 2 upgrade?

[nobodynobody1426]

EK (and Vile Chemist) were not taking their Augment boosts or bonuses from Draconic, or anything, really. This change redoes how they do their math, so now all sources of boosts to the number of dice (such as the EK capstone) properly add dice.



Yay!

Something you guys might to think about for EK is to replace the increasing die values with just a standardized 1D6 and +1 for each dice bump. 1D6+1 instead of 1D8, 1D6+2 instead of 1D10, 1D6+3 instead of 1D12. Then you guys can introduce augments / epic feats / enhancements that add extra +1's so those values instead of having to add extra dice. Could be interesting for tuning the proc damage on those classes.

[Fnordian]

I mentioned it elsewhere but I'll put it here officially...7% is too low to make a difference. It should be somewhere around 15%, which is half of its original Live value, and I think halving its DPS output is more than adequate to bring it into balance with Draconic, for real-game scenarios

I'd prefer 20% (even if scaling was reduced to 75% to balance) but 15% would be livable.

But in keeping with the "random" theme of it, and the motif of 7s, how about a proc rate of 7d3%? That averages out to 14%. Or can you just feel the servers cringing at having to roll a new proc chance every spellcast?

In order to reduce strain on the servers a bit, the chance of rolling a new proc chance could be about 77%.

[droid327]

I'd prefer 20% (even if scaling was reduced to 75% to balance) but 15% would be livable.



In order to reduce strain on the servers a bit, the chance of rolling a new proc chance could be about 77%.

That would actually be far worse, because it'd need to roll a chance to proc every time, then usually roll the actual proc chance then roll the proc itself lol

But 7d7 would be 28%, if they liked that symmetry better

[Tobril]

Please allow for the Khybershards to be purchased in quantities greater than 100. Otherwise having this spell be usable again is great!

[Annex]

Does this preview include the Isle of Dread quests? That is the only thing I care about.

[SpardaX]

Update 53.2 will feature the presale rewards for our upcoming expansion pack, the Isle of Dread

Does this mean
1: that the ability to preorder isle of dread goes live with 53.2 - or
2: that the preorder bonus will be given to people who have preordered isle of dread already when 53.2 goes live - or
3: Both the ability to preorder isle of dread, AND the rewards doing so provides, get released with 53.2?

Because to me at least, it reads like #2, but as far as I know, Isle of Dread isn't available to preorder at all yet which means #2 can't be correct. So that implies #3?

[gravisrs]

• There is a new gameplay option: Force Heals to Self when Targeting Undead (default: false). While true, when you have an enemy Undead targeted, any positive healing actions will be cast on you instead of the undead.

Can we have same option for inflict wounds/harm spells? Some builds uses it only for self-healing. Oh and it should be separate option, cuz null clerics still wanna use heals on self, inflicts on others.