Grab Bag - June 9, 2006

There's a bit in there that says "as we proposed it." It's sort of a key clause. Thanks in advance.


How many people voted "I don't see my choice" on the poll?

8%. That 8% seems, based on feedback forms, to be split between people who did not want a third line at all and people who want a third line, but not the one that we listed.

Reports that there was a vast and teeming multitude that didn't want a third line at all appear to be based mainly on message boards, not on the player base as a whole. That's why we gather feedback in many different ways as opposed to message boards where the participants don't even need to be players.

Had the poll been about something entirely new to the game, we'd have given the boards more weight - entirely new features are usually meant to entice people to return or to get new people to sign up. But the third line feature was meant for active, existing customers, so we focused on TL feedback, the poll, and feedback forms from active customers.

What the poll said, without a doubt, was that the system as we proposed it was not going to be a big or even a moderate hit. Back to the ol' drawing board.

(Insert question here about "too steep to climb" areas in Cathal Valley, the new high level BG)

This came to me from the Rolling Stone, who is in charge of maps and zone work: "A little further clarification with regards to the 'too steep to climb' in the new Battleground, Cathal Valley. The 'too steep to climb' code is not prominent on every hill in the zone. It is only within the center section, aptly named Cathal Valley. Viewing the center layout, we hope you will enjoy the necessary tactics involved when dealing against members of the opposing realm in this area."

We plan to have a Cathal Valley Pendragon event on Saturday, June 17th. I hope you can all come out and get the experience you need to give us good feedback on the new BG.

From patch notes: - When Necromancer pets are attacked, the shade will now see the attack messages in the correct (You are hit) message channel. Is this a wording only change or has something been done to how we get hit?

From the Content King: "It's a change in where the text is being displayed - nothing more. And this applies to all pets, not just necros (something I'll change for the live notes). Basically, before when someone hit your pet, the message would be correct, but it would print in the color reserved for when you or your pet hit someone else. For example, if it prints green when you hit another player and red when a player hits you or your pet, this was printing green when someone was hitting your pet. Now it's printing in red the way it should."

I have been searching for the named manta, Nkosi, in Cothrom Gorge. I spent 90 minutes today, killing the Devil rays at the apparent spawn site, in hopes that Nkosi would spawn. Is this mob still in the game, and if so, to what lengths do we need to go to get it to spawn?

These situations are always worth investigating - sometimes the spawns get messed up. (Most players remember, but just for the record - I have to have your server name in order to investigate.) Our Monster Man checked this one out to make sure it had spawned and been killed on your server, and replied: "What you're doing is correct; you need to keep killing the flying devil rays until Nkosi spawns. Unfortunately the random odds can work against you, drawing the process out, just as easily as it can make Nkosi pop on the first try."

Why is the map for Tir Na Nog 'upside down'? (North is at the bottom, etc).

Camelot City, too, actually. Most of our zone maps were created using the same program, but those two were built using a program called 3D Studio Max (which, side note, is the program you need to know if you're going to be an artist at a game company). That program doesn't have coordinate points that line up with our other tools, so we can't just flip it around.

Will the 'empty slot' (already filled in with 10 AF bonus, 2% melee against monsters) will count as a 94 quality gem for purposes of failure and 'exploding', when overcharging?

From the Tradeskill Goddess: "As you attempt an overcharge, the quality of each gem put into the process adds to your base chance of success. Because you cannot input in a fourth gem on the legendaries, there is no 4th addition to your success chance...so if you want to achieve around the same percentage for overcharge success as you would have had with four gems, you will need to compensate for the lack of bonus by increasing the quality of the three gems you are using.

"Also, the preset bonuses on the item do not count towards your total imbue point value - a 100% quality legendary weapon has 32 imbue points to use on your three empty imbue slots."

We are pondering if crafters who earned 1051 skill (new since Trophy gems came out) should be calculated specially for crossing another threshold (the 'computed skill' caps at 1001 on the Herald's SC calulator, in 50 skill point increments).

To clarify, the level of the crafter also influences the change to succeed, or to blow up (just like the four gems). Maybe it was arbitrary, but the SC program would test this skill as 1-50, 51-100, 101-150, etc etc... and finally 1001-1050. Just because 1049 was the highest Spellcrafters could become! Each bracket was assigned a higher chance of success.

With Trophy Aquamarine eyes at 1009 skill, many crafters are now 1051-1059 skill... and we calculator authors would like to know if the chance to succeed or blow up on an overcharge keeps scaling up, as they cross the old skill limit to the new skill limit.

The Trade Goddess looked at that question, and passed it to our Mighty Marty with this note: "Essentially, SC skill factors into your base overcharge success, then the gems are added to that chance....is the base overcharge success capped at 1050 or can it go higher?"

MM replied: "There are two main factors involved with Overcharge success: SC Skill and Item Quality. At most, SC Skill will give you a +50% chance of success -- as I mentioned before, I was surprised that this maxes out at 1000 skill which seems to be the current cap. Not sure why people would think it's 1050.

FYI, here's the "skill formula": skill_chance = (5 * (skill / 50)) - 50

This value is capped at 50, so max benefit is at skill 1000.

This seems crazy, but if you look at that formula, you don't get any benefit until skill level 500, and then you get a 1% increase in chance of success at each multiple of 50 from 500 up to 1000."

Now, y'all be kind. I'm not a spellcrafter (I prefer weapons crafting when I feel the need to create), so I just copied the conversation. I may well have left out some sort of crucial detail. Please let me know.

***

The last two questions came from a hell of a fellow who is one of the main guys on an awesome Spellcraft Calculator. As he introduced himself: "I'm Ehrayn, one of the maintainers along with Kort, of the Kort's Spellcraft Calculator project 'kscraft' on SourceForge." The calculator on the Herald is admittedly out of date, although still of some limited value, and will be updated… well, honestly, probably not until we get another web person. In the meantime, I totally endorse these guys. When I wrote to ask permission to post a link, he answered: "Sourceforge can take all the volume you can throw at it, so can www.craftsage.com (I host using XO) for things like the crafting MP probability tutorial, which I'm sure you've seen before ... http://www.craftsage.com/probability.html if you haven't :)" Check it out, crafters.

Goodness, what an exciting week. It's slushie time. We'll see you Monday.