Welcome to another edition of the Grab Bag! 

Please click the 'More' link to review this round of questions from our fervent players. Among today's topics are: pet buffs, upcoming events, and some information on the priority order for combat events such as blocking and evading. Read on, there's some good information in there!

Please visit the Post Count Grab Bag Submission page to submit question for our next Grab Bag on Frday, October 25th!

Q: Some of the template programs give a Utility number based on the amount of stats on an item. I find this handy to tell the power of an item at a glance, and then I can look at the stats to decide if its an item I can use. Would you consider adding utility scores to items in game to help people see the sheer amount of stats on an item at a glance?

A: We won’t be adding anything like this to the items themselves, but we would like to make changes to the UI system so that UI designers can add things like this to their custom UIs.


Q: When can we expect the changes to legendary weapons?

A: We are still planning to roll out those changes with 1.115, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of the year.


Q: Archer block mechanics, it appears unless I engage arrows can not be blocked, why is it that I block 50% of melee blows and that arrows are at best 1%?

A: We tested this with a RR1 L50 Ranger (50+9 Archery) vs. RR1 L50 Warrior (50+10 Shield) standing still, facing each other. The warrior passively blocked at least 2 out of each of 5 shots fired of each Archery shot type. This was a cursory test but it demonstrates that blocking arrows does not require engage and happens more often than 1%. 


Q: Any chance on getting new weapons? Would be really awesome to see some new weapons to throw in templates or even update states on a lot of old TOA weapons that used to be good

A: We can certainly look at this. Once the NF revamp is done and enjoyed a few weeks of being stable and fun, we’ll be shifting our focus back to endgame PvE content as a lot of it needs polishing and updating. Expect more weapons around then. In terms of Class Balance (because we know you are all wondering!), we’ll still be adding changes here and there but we’d rather not introduce huge Class Balance changes (like last patch) around the same time of something as impactful as a New Frontiers revamp.


Q: How do player concentration buffs affect pets? (ie: druid base/specs on an enchanter's pet)

A: Strength buffs increase a pet’s melee damage.
 
Constitution buffs decrease damage done to a pet.
 
Dexterity buffs reduce a pet’s spell cast timer, decrease damage done to the pet and increase its chance to hit with archery and bolts.
 
Quickness buffs reduce a pet’s melee attack timer.


Q: Will there ever be any interest in giving incentives to boost the idea of 8v8? I understand the large scale of this game is 'zerg warfare', yet no offense to them- The elite players of this game do in fact 8v8, it is who has the better group of players to best the other group.

A: We respect all play-styles. Certainly 8v8 combat can be some of the most strategic, rewarding, and compelling in the game. The idea of the various ‘best’ group setups comes into play heavily when we determine the direction of class balance and is also a big factor in our upcoming changes to the New Frontiers. Indeed part of our goals for those changes is to make NF a smaller and more engaging landscape for all players, including our fervent 8v8’ers. I suspect, however, that your question has more to do with incentivizing group vs. group fights in a general way.

We’ve had wish list meetings where we talked about an Arena system (2 groups enter…1 group /rofls.) but features such as this would almost certainly pull players away from the Frontiers to say nothing of the fact that it would require the dedication of nearly all of our resources for a nontrivial amount of time – so we always return to the feedback and do our best to apply the resources we have to features and changes that are requested most often by the highest number of players. That said, we’re always open to suggestions, so leave feedback, start a thread on PostCount, or get a discussion going amongst your friends and realm mates. We’re listening.


Q: What is the order of operations used to determine whether a combat swing hits the enemy? (ie: miss/fumble/block/evade/parry/etc)

A: They’re checked in this order: target Evade, Parry and Block, then attacker Fumble and Miss.


Q: I recently read somewhere that if a class has access to a certain level of armour (say plate), that any levels below that armour, except cloth, will give them the same absorb bonuses. People often run studded chests/sleeves because the procs are better or the stats fit, and I thought it was a trade off on defense - but is it in fact the same?

A: It is a tradeoff with defense. An Armsman wearing Leather is going to get melee’d for a lot more than one wearing Plate armor.


Q: All my artifacts have a /reuse of 15 minutes apart from Traitors Dagger which has a /reuse of 30 minutes. Why is this?

A: There are a good number of spells which require revision and normalization. Customarily, longer re-use timers were an indication of a more powerful spell or ability, but what was true several years ago may not hold up in today’s game. We can look at adjusting these (and other) spells or abilities with a significant disparity in re-use timers. Please don’t hesitate to bring them to our attention via feedback or bug reports!


Q: Why do we still have to lvl arti's on test servers? They should be lvl 10 for testing purposes!

A: We can look into a Mob or an item which grants Artifact Experience for Pendragon. It’s certainly possible.


Q: Could we get some info on the next set of events planned? Halloween quest? Infernal merchant tents perhaps?

A: Halloween event is just around the corner. We’ll then be capping the final piece of the Pict event at or just after the NF revamp. Once the dust has settled around that we’ll begin a brand new long-term event and quest line in addition to the usual seasonal events we do. And yes, we’ll do the Infernal Merchants again, but probably not until next year.

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Once again, we thank our question contributors and our friends at http://www.postcount.net for their participation in the Grab Bag! We encourage you to submit more questions for us - there's so much left to learn about Dark Age of Camelot!

Until the next edition, friends - we'll see you in the Frontiers!