Grab Bag - April 18, 2008

Time for your weekly dose of the Grab Bag!


I need clarification please. Does "Humanoid" count as enemy realm players or just "Humanoid" mobs in game?

Clarifying your need for clarification the Balancinator knew this one immediately: That restriction is referring to NPC's that are humanoid.

Does the Mythirian of Health affect your health regeneration during combat?

Taking a bite out of a very healthy apple, the Balancinator says: Yes, a Mythirian of Health does affect your regeneration rate while in combat.

I was just wondering whether the drastic decrease in comparative amounts of Bounty Points received from the new crafted super dread seals for the Gaheris ruleset was on purpose or not. I mean a good old regular Sanguine or Glowing Dread gives me 60 Bounty Points. The Lambent Dread seals (made up of 10 of the basic ones) only gives me 189 Bounty Points. So, is there some weird hidden mechanic of 10 seals = a percentage of Bounty Points for some reason?

Math calculations? The Bearded Wonder was happy to do some figurin': It seems that the amount of Bounty Points is modified by the amount of realm points given at any given time. We'll look into a work around for this, but at the moment, the Bounty Points will not be in direct proportion to the Realm Point increase that the new stones represent.

I found a problem last night with the way damage is capped for the Heretic spell Arawn's Inferno. If a target resists the spell tick where the damage cap would normally be applied, damage keeps on ramping higher, until the next tick that is not resisted.

For example: my wife's Heretic hit our Cleric with Arawn's Inferno for the following values: 418, 627, 837, (resist), (resist), 1464. The 1464 damage is far above the 250% base damage that this spell is supposed to cap at, but since the ticks where the cap would have been applied got resisted, the damage kept increasing. Is this how it is supposed to be?

After some quiet time in the testing room, the Balancinator had this to say: You know I love to test things, so I jumped at the chance. I could not duplicate this issue. It did bring up more questions from my perspective. Does the Heretic have wild power and could you have seen a hit with critical damage instead of the spell ramping up beyond 250%? If no, I would like some more info and perhaps the logs from the event or any other event that duplicates this issue. It would really help us duplicate the issue and find a resolution to the problem.

Acuity buffs do not seem to be affecting some of my characters. I tried to use potions on both my Paladin and my Heretic. The effect icon appears at the top and there is a visual but the actual stat itself isn't affected. The same happened on my Reaver with the Champion Level acuity buff. Is this a bug?

A bug! I asked the Balancinator to get his shoe ready to squash this one: Acuity buffs are only beneficial to list casters. The Paladin, Reaver, and Heretic are all hybrids classes that receive no benefit from the buff.

Can two characters from different realms trade items with each other from their backpack? If not can a Hibernian go in the frontier of another Realm and kill the trophy mobs and get them stuffed by a taxidermist of their Realm?

The Lady of the Jewels has the answer for you: Two characters from opposing realms cannot trade with each other. As for the monster remains, you can go into an enemy realm's frontier and kill a trophy mob there to receive its remains. For example, if a group of Hibernian players were to kill the Green Knight, he would have the same chance to drop his remains for them as he would for an Albion group. These remains would then be able to be turned in to your realm's Taxidermist like any found in your own Frontier. If you find monster remains in the Frontiers that you are unable to turn in, please submit a Bug Report so we can investigate.

Could you shed some light on how damage adds work? I used to think it was based on how much damage you did but that doesn't always work. What does the number shown in the delve actually mean?

Pondering this question a moment, the Balancinator explains: Damage adds are buffs that increase your melee damage per second by the listed amount. The damage done is time dependent and will fluctuate based on swing speed. The ultimate result should be an average of X damage per a 1-second interval. If your swing speed is every 2-seconds, you will see a hit of 2X.

I want to know if its possible to increase the focus damage shields of: Necromancers, Enchanters, Spiritmasters and Cabalists?

The Balancinator shook his head ever so slowly and says: No, you should not be able to increase them. They are a flat rate based on damage per second that is dependent on the target's swing speed. If you were asking if it is "possible" from a development standpoint, I can increase the performance of those spells. I do not think it is necessary though.

My question is regarding the focus bonus gems for Spellcrafting. If I were to put a player crafted item (let's say a hammer) on my cleric with +50 to all spell lines, would this reduce the amount of power she uses when casting base line spells like it does for a caster?

I interrupted the Balancinator as he was getting ready to head out the door: You can only apply Focus bonus on staff weapons. Yes, Clerics can wield staff weapons. Unfortunately, the Focus bonus only affects list casters.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Camelot Road Trip rolls into Bethesda, Maryland on May 10th and starts at 7:00pm EDT. Free food, tons of prizes and of course an opportunity to test your knowledge with the Devs! We would love to see you there so don't forget to RSVP!

For those of you wondering when the next Team Lead Reports will be available, we've changed things up a bit. Every month we will ask a new Focus Question to our TLs and then sit down with the Devs to discuss and respond to them. If you are interested in seeing the responses to the February Focus Question please head over here.

The folks from PvE Ruleset want to remind you that their Play on Gaheris Weekend is coming up on April 25-26th. If you haven't had a chance to try out what the PvE Ruleset has to offer or if you are interested in returning to participate in all the fun, don't forget to mark your calendars. More details will be posted on the Herald during next week.

We announced the Load It Up contest Winners on Monday. We've had a great time sorting through them all and I heard more then one Dev giggle from their offices. The winning entries are in game now, so next time you are zoning to a different area you could be seeing one of the player submitted hints/tips or myths.

That's it for me this week, time to put on my sunglasses and enjoy this absolutely wonderfully warm Northern Virginia night. See you out in the Frontiers.