The Patch Thread.

[rattran]

Gem socketing is still broken as of Jun 3.

[Falconeer]

No patch this thursday.
So long for the "two patches a week" commitment.

Here's the official word:

Hey guys,

There is no update today. We will announce the downtimes on the launcher and forums if they should happen. We were looking to get something out today but the teams wanted to get more fixes in the update before releasing a new one today. We will keep you updated on the next update that is aiming for around Monday like before.

Thanks,
__________________

Funcom   Glen 'Famine' Swan
US Community Manager

[Falconeer]

The update notes have been delayed and will be coming soon. The main reason is due to some translation issues. We want to ensure they get out to everyone in every language before posting them up to any community.

Thank you,
__________________

Funcom   Glen 'Famine' Swan
US Community Manager

That's what holding AoC down. Language barrier and timezones.

[ahoythematey]

Wow.  Two patches a week?  Is the game really that broken?

[schild]

Wow.  Two patches a week?  Is the game really that broken?

Empty is a better description. I'd say 80% of the core stuff does actually already work. But content wise, post 40 is mostly a wasteland.

[Falconeer]

That is not true. What's wrong with you Schild? If I didn't know you like Conan I'd say you are biased (I know you are not, hence the WTF?!).

If anything, the game is much more broken than empty. Two patches a week are for fixes, not content.

[schild]

Falconeer, they have fixed enough of the broken shit in terms of the gaming itself that at this point - at least my PoM - is hurting more for content than ability/usefulness.

In terms of Crafting and Playercities, i'm at the 'head in the sand' level of denial.

[ahoythematey]

AoC having either as a problem wouldn't surprise me that much, really.  Rubi-Ka was both broken and empty at release.  My main shock comes at how often they are (or were anyways) patching.  If it really is mostly content, I'm curious to see what their content-over-time ratio would be compared to the fucking sloth that is Blizzard.

[Falconeer]

Here they are:

Update Notes - 23rd of June
Massive PvP

    * Player city keeps now contain a vendor that sells siege weapons.
    * Players will now get teleported out of the zone before the battle starts.
    * Traders that would not spawn at the Battlekeep Tradeposts will now spawn. Traders will now be available at Battlekeeps.
    * Ballista NPCs will no longer spawn at an unbuilt tower.
    * The Border Kingdoms has had its environments adjusted. This should reduce draw-distance in those playfields and contribute to a performance-increase.


Player Character

Archetypes

    * Mages will now do less damage with ranged weapons to set them apart from specialized ranged weapon classes like the Ranger.

Assassin
Core Revision Adjustments

    * Kidney Shots will now properly go on cooldown, is now stackable for 12 second from the original 6 seconds and it's stacking buff duration has been increased to 10 seconds.
    * Flesh Necrosis has been given a new and improved visual.
      Atrophy has an added persistent effect on the target while the debuff is in effect.

Conqueror
Core Revision Adjustments

    * Rage of the Tempest now correctly grants your team increased electrical damage, not increased fire damage.

Dark Templar
Core Revision Adjustments

    * Rite of Blood will now display health loss, stamina gain and the affect of its enhancement.

Demonologist
New Spells

    * Forced Summoning will allow you to summon a pet of the opposite sex than what would normally be summoned if cast before the specific summoned pet. You will receive this spell at level 9 with your first pet summon spell. All characters above level 9 will get this spell automatically.

Core Revision Adjustments

    * Diabolic Insight and Infernal Knowledge now last 12 hours instead of 1 hour and will no longer be removed upon death.
    * Wicked Bolts received a name change to be consistent regardless of how many points you have invested in it.

Herald of Xotli
Core Revision Adjustments

    * Herald of Xotli fatalities now have effects to them.
    * Corrected spelling of the name of the feat "Spell - Undying Glory of Xotli"

Necromancer
New Spells

    * You will now gain a new single target snare - Ice Shackle - at level 5. If you are already higher than level 5, you will gain this spell automatically.

Core Revision Adjustments

    * Dark Knowledge and Vile Insight now last 12 hours instead of 1 hour and will no longer be removed upon death.
    * Plagued Heart Curse will now correctly increase in damage with more feats trained.
    * Decomposition now increases Flesh to Worms by 35% at max rank instead of 30%
    * Unholy Power has been rebalanced to have a more consistent effect across all levels.
    * Brutal Death now increases the critical strike chance of Pestilential Blast, Life Strike, Ice Strike, and Chill by 2/4/6/8/10%
    * Ice Shards now increases the splash range and damage inflicted by Chill in addition to Ice Strike.
    * Flash Freeze now additionally increases the damage of Frost Blast by 75/150/250%.
    * Bones of Frost now additionally increases the damage of Gelid Bones by 5/10/15/20/30%.
    * Frozen Body now increases the damage of Ice Strike, Chill, and Deathly Blizzard by 2/4/6/8/10%.
    * Corrupted Soul now increases the damage of Pestilential Blast, Life Strike, and Blasphemous Ruin by 2/4/6/8/10%.
    * Soul Absorption now restores a significantly higher amount of mana when consuming a pet.
    * Frost Reach now additionally increases the damage of Frost Blast by 75/150/250%.
    * Ritual of the Lich has had its spell damage multiplier increases from 10% to 25%.
    * Embrace Death now has an increased effect. The maximum effect of this ability has been increased from 4% to 10%.
    * Pets now move faster and follow npcs better.
    * Void has had its stamina/mana drain increased. It will also have the chance to crit.
    * Archmage feat has been moved to up in the general feat tree.
    * Unholy Fortitude has been changed to reduce the recast time of Frenzy by 12 seconds per rank, up from 4 seconds per rank.
    * The levels at which you get your pet points has been significantly changed. You will now get them at the following levels: level 5 - 2 points, level 10 - 4 points, level 15 - 6 points, level 20 - 8 points. You will now have your maximum number of pet points available at level 20.
    * Despoiled the Soul has had its mana cost and recast time reduced. When you train Despoil the Soul you will get a secondary spell, Reap the Soul. This spell can be used to refresh your current Despoil the Soul, making it easier to keep your Despoil the Soul counter where you want it. In addition, Despoil the Soul will also increase a bonus to magical damage instead of being a damage multiplier.

Nuke Balance Adjustments

    * All damage spells have been rebalanced to take into account your having all 8 pet points at level 20. This leads to better scaling of your damage spells, and reinforces that you are a pet class reliant on pets for a significant amount of damage.
    * Archmage pets incorrectly did not have the area-of-effect damage coefficient applied. Their damage has been corrected to take into account their nukes are AOE nukes.
    * Increased the damage of Necrotic Pustule, Gelid Bones, and Chill.
      Significantly increased the explosion damage of Necrotic Bomb
      Chill has received splash damage (50% damage to 1 target), and splash damage from
    * Ice Strike has received an increase in splash damage from 15% to 30%.
      Lifestrike Rank 4 will correctly have the damage-over-time effect.
      Parasitic Soul Swarm and Unholy Hands will now take pet damage contribution into account and should be in line with damage as it was originally intended.

Pet Effect Adjustments

    * Blighted One has had its proc rate and amount of mana damage significantly increased.
    * Dead Blight stamina damage was also significantly increased if it is trained and will have a chance to crit.
    * Harvester has received an increase to the amount of mana healed and stamina healed by the pet. The Harvester will now heal more mana than stamina (although the stamina gain is now still significantly increased over the previous value). These can also have a chance to crit.
    * Life-Stealer has had its amount of health increased significantly. We also reduced the variance of the heal and added a chance to crit.
    * Mutilator's Mutilation damage-over-time (DoT) effect has had an increase to the damage. This will also have a chance to crit.

Tempest of Set
Core Revision Adjustments

    * Storm Field is now limited to affect 3 targets at a time.
    * Titanic Storm now additionally increases the number of targets affected by Storm Field by 50%
    * Lightning Strike no longer has a cooldown
    * The primary damage range of Lightning Strike has adjusted to be more consistent, the average damage remains the same
    * Lightning Strike has been modified to deal 40% splash damage to 3 targets instead of pure AoE damage
    * Pillar Lightning rank 2 and 3 now additionally increase the number of targets affected by Lightning Strike splash damage
    * Fury of the Storm has been decreased from 60% to 40% critical damage modifier at max rank


Combat

    * Blood effects on pet attacks should now trigger correctly.
    * The evade bonus on characters has been revised when fighting lower level monsters.


Quests

    * Quests in the 20 - 40 level range have been revised so that they are all categorized under the proper locations in the quest journal.
    * Supply Routes quest in Conall’s Valley should now be sorted under the correct region in the quest journal.
    * The “Jack of Ale” you get at “Rum n' Rumble” for the Mage destiny quest can now be removed from your inventory.
    * Magic Orb: The orbs have been lowered for characters that could not reach them due to shortness in height.
    * Awakening III - Neutralize Strom's Guard: You should no longer become stuck after killing the Boozed Bullies.
    * Awakening III - Neutralize Strom's Guard: Resolved a minor issue with players getting stuck after killing the Boozed Bullies.
    * The Phoenix of the North: You should no longer become stuck in the barrier that shields the Phoenix of the North if you log off.
    * The Cimmerian's Axe, What Creeps Beneath, The Dangers of Decadence and D
    * Desert Raiders have had their waypoints corrected.
    * New dialog has been added for Sharak and Scyra when you've finished all the Destiny Quests.
    * Cannibal Commotion: The quest will now correctly update when you reach the cave that Attadeus and Demeras are located in.
    * Ibis, Master of Hidden Secrets: The quest can no longer be deleted from your journal to resolve an issue that made it so you could no longer attain it.
    * Phoenix of the East: It should no longer be possible to enter the Blood Rite Subterrene with multiple players.
    * To Battle a God: You should no longer experience issues with this quest if your journal is full.


GUI

    * Tooltips will now properly display spell affects of the spell line and proc affects to the spell line. They will also now properly display the gem modifications on the item itself.
    * Despoil the Soul will now display a stack count when stacked four times.


Items

    * All bags have had their size doubled!
    * Many level 80 items that increased Max Mana have been adjusted to provide Max Stamina as they were intended. Barbarians will greatly benefit from this change.
    * Oil of Acuity will now replenish mana when consumed.
    * Vanir NPCs in Conall's Valley, Field of the Dead and the Eiglophian Mountains will drop a greater variety of Vanir-based loot.
    * Gossamer Silk should now be referenced correctly in the Full Trade Response.
    * Rusty Courage: The Rusty Old Sword has had its sized reduced to reflect that of a humans and not of a giant's.
    * The Bloodied Spear now has a blue glow, indicating that you can interact with it.



NPC

    * The Beggar in Khemi will no longer give the chat bubble icon.
    * NPC cries for help should no longer trigger aggro through collision objects such as walls and buildings.
    * NPCs should no longer reset in mid combat.
    * Koruno Elder's has received a new sword as his offhand weapon.
    * The Town Crier in Tortage now cries much less frequently. The White Hand Priest’s Emanation of Life spell will now have a longer cooldown and will also display the icon for the spell in the Priest’s debuff window.
    * Awi-Awan from the Purple Lotus Swamp is now flagged as an Armorsmith Trainer.
    * Barkripper Ursa is now a group encounter.


Playfields

Armsman Arena

    * You will now need to interact with the Arena Gong after speaking with the Announcer to receive a challenge.

Eiglophian Mountains

    * Eiglophian Mountains has received a number of enhancements and adjustments based on player feedback.
    * More Hungry Ice Worms, Ice Worm Devoures, Snow Apes, Mountain Apes and Cliff Apes have been added.
    * The respawn timers of the NPCs in the area have also been adjusted.
    * Ymirish Rimebinder has been reverted from a group encounter to a solo encounter.

Khopshef Province

    * New quests and monsters have been added.
    * Black Castle is no longer Epic Mode enabled as it's turned into a group dungeon.

Kyllikki's Crypt

    * The light and environment in Kyllikki's Crypt should be a little better.

Sanctum of the Burning Souls

    * Treasures are now scattered throughout the sanctum.
    * NPCs will now never lose aggro.


Tradeskills

    * Silver Necklet has had its level adjusted to 40 as it was originally intended.
    * Skymetal-Studded Wristbands (normal) and Bluesteel-studded Wristbands (rare) now has different stats.
    * Stone, Iron and Gold nodes have had new visual effect applied to them to make the nodes more visible to all.
    * All items that contain gems will no longer have the gems removed when undoing a sale in the shop.
    * Wolves in Lacheish Plains have had their Worled Leather drops adjusted as intended.
    * Gems will no longer visually overwrite the first one.
    * Crafted cloaks will now support the equipping of gems.


General

    * Performance: A number of code changes have been made to improve client performance.
    * New advance video options have been added for particles. Turning down the particle settings will increase performance.

__________________

Funcom   Oliver 'Tarib' Kunz
Senior Community Manager

ToS nerfed!

[schild]

So, grey mobs are still lethal. Assassin still sucks. Cities update pace is slow as balls. Crafting is, huzzah, still shit. Yay.

Also, those notes weren't really any longer than previous ones.

[Bunk]

Didn't it say that evade rates were adjusted versus lower level monsters? Assuming the adjusted it in the correct direction, that should make grey mobs less dangerous, no?

I do love thier math. The was ToS reads, Lightning storm now affects 3 targets, and that can be increased by 50% to 4.5 targets?

[Falconeer]

5 targets for improved storm field.

No idea about evade rates yet, but as of yesterday grey casters beat the shit out of me while grey meleers couldn't him me in my sleep. Can't wait to test the changes and see if they affected my farming habits.

[Mrbloodworth]

The necro changes look hot.

[Threash]

Didn't it say that evade rates were adjusted versus lower level monsters? Assuming the adjusted it in the correct direction, that should make grey mobs less dangerous, no?

I do love thier math. The was ToS reads, Lightning storm now affects 3 targets, and that can be increased by 50% to 4.5 targets?

No i doubt that, grey caster tore you up but melees couldnt hit you cause you parried everything.  This probably evens it out.

[Threash]

Falconeer, they have fixed enough of the broken shit in terms of the gaming itself that at this point - at least my PoM - is hurting more for content than ability/usefulness.

In terms of Crafting and Playercities, i'm at the 'head in the sand' level of denial.

Man the more i look into it the happier i am that i care absolutely nothing about crafting.  Even when they fix every single bug and have it working perfectly its still a horrible system.  I like the concept of the benefit of crafted gear being that its 100% customizable but the system they have in place is a horrible clusterfuck.

[trias_e]

The necro changes look hot.

Apparently not.  Check out the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on over here...

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

[Lakov_Sanite]

The necro changes look hot.

Apparently not.  Check out the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on over here...

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

Specifics? trying to browse those forums(or any official forums) is painful

edit:to save you folks some time it looks like necro damage got nerfed almost %50 across the board. I for one have to say while it may not be welcomed it was high time that this overpowered class finally got re-balanced to a more fair level.

[Venkman]

* Awakening III - Neutralize Strom's Guard: You should no longer become stuck after killing the Boozed Bullies.
* Awakening III - Neutralize Strom's Guard: Resolved a minor issue with players getting stuck after killing the Boozed Bullies.

Wait wait, lemme guess: were players getting sutck after killing Boozed Bullies?

* All bags have had their size doubled!

Schweet!

[Falconeer]

I don't know. They say Necroes were doing too much damage with spells while they are supposed to do it with pets, and it should be the case now. Sounds good in theory, did it turn out that wrong in practice?

I am under the impression that they nerfed AOE damage all across the board, starting from Tempests of course. Which is a good idea because I spent lots of time PvPing and too much of it came down to let death rain over meleeing players. Not fun for them at all.

[Miasma]

Patch Notes June 23

• We are aware of the bug in which alchemists can not finish their tier1 quests because their items don't exist.  In order to fix this we have now introduced a feature which will crash your client as soon as you open an alchemist recipe.
• While we have doubled the size of all bags the new ones are unequipable.  We were just fucking with you.

Those are real bugs.

[slog]

The necro changes look hot.

Apparently not.  Check out the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on over here...

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

Specifics? trying to browse those forums(or any official forums) is painful

edit:to save you folks some time it looks like necro damage got nerfed almost %50 across the board. I for one have to say while it may not be welcomed it was high time that this overpowered class finally got re-balanced to a more fair level.

LOL that's quite the nerf for a game that's live.  Hell, 50% would be quite the nerf for open beta.

[cevik]

LOL that's quite the nerf for a game that's live.  Hell, 50% would be quite the nerf for open beta.

To be fair, they increased the number of pets that a necro can have at lower levels by way more than 50%, so it should be a wash.  And the two spells that got the major nerf are the aoe spells, which from what it appears in the patch is the main focus of their nerfing for all classes.  They are apparently attempting to remove aoe grinding from the game (see the ToS nerf).

I haven't logged on to play my necro yet (I'm at work!  yay me!) but all message board nerf whining should be taken with a large grain of salt until otherwise verified by cooler heads.

[Mrbloodworth]

The necro changes look hot.

Apparently not.  Check out the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on over here...

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

No one is taking into account we now get all 8 pet slots at 20.

[Miasma]

They needed to improve the necro's survivability while levelling up and at the same time bring down their damage at 80, that would have been difficult for a competent group of developers, never mind funcom.

[cevik]

They needed to improve the necro's survivability while levelling up and at the same time bring down their damage at 80, that would have been difficult for a competent group of developers, never mind funcom.

I personally don't have any survivability issues.  With siphon unlife I just can't see where survivability could be an issue.  With the buff to frenzy today it looks like I'll have less of a problem than before.

The PSS nerf and the unholy hands nerf is going to hurt.  The unholy hands nerf was probably needed, while the overpowered part of it was situational, it was pretty clearly overpowered.  I could easily take groups of 7 even level mobs with unholy hands.

EDIT:  Siphon unlife with 8 corruptors is godlike.

[Miasma]

I guess this was an official post that was put up in the crafting forums and then quickly deleted.  So either some of the info is just plain wrong or they didn't want people to know about some of the stuff.

Greetings, fellow craftsmen and -women!

I know many of you are concerned about what is happening to the Tradeskills/RnB (resource and building) - I am writing this to inform you more about what we are doing and what is happening to tradeskills soon. I am also writing this in order to explain what has happened to the alchemy crash since todays patch.

Let me start with the bad stuff first.

First off - if you are an Alchemist, opening the tradeskill book by any means will crash your client since last patch. This will be fixed with thursdays patch.

This happened when we were re-arranging some of the potions for tradeskills - If you are an alchemist I'm sure you remember some of the potions would not do anything when created. These potions have been removed from the inventory and will make it back into the game at a later stage. Removing these had an unexpected effect and was unfortunately overlooked by us when patching out the latest patch. We are sorry about this.

Let me assure you - if you are getting the crash, you are not bugged. The recipe book is simply trying to find objects that are no longer available and we have programmers looking into a safeguard for the future so that this type of thing does not happen again.

That's quite enough of the bad stuff. Now I'll detail what we plan on doing with Tradeskills and Resource and Building. Unfortunately, I am unable to give you a timeframe for the fixes and changes below, but we hope to get them done very soon. "Very soon" in this case means expect a few of the changes below to come in as early as thursday. Most of these changes we aim to have ready within a few weeks.

Tradeskills
* We will soon have a system where you can unlearn tradeskills.

Alchemy
* We have added an item called "Alchemists Cache" to Mage/priest mobs. This item, when right-clicked, spawns a few random tradeskill resources for alchemists. These resources will include the 'missing' resources (for example Hyena meat and Icy Crocodile tears) so that alchemists are able to progress further than Tier1.
* As soon as possible we will patch out a new Resource and Building population consisting of spiders, hyenas, etc, that will drop the resource "proper". These mobs will be put into Lacheish Plains, Poitain and Purple Lotus Swamp. These mobs will have a typical droprate of between 10-50% droprate of these items.
* At a later stage (still to be determined), we are patching in vendor-bought recipes - these vendor-bought recipes will increase your magic damage. We are also looking into creating various other potions, but thats more hush-hush.

Architect
* Architects are undergoing a design-revamp - what exactly is included in this revamp I won't say, but it will allow architects to use their abilities for combat purposes as well as for building the cities.

Weaponsmithing
* Weaponsmiths will get a number of blue recipes in the future. These recipes can be obtained through vendors, world-drops and/or boss-kills. These recipes will be spread throughout the tiers of weaponsmithing and will cover all different weapons (but not ammo).

Armorsmithing
* As with Weaponsmiths, Armorsmiths will get a number of blue recipes that can be obtained through vendors, world-drops and/or boss-kills. These recipes will provide a more diverse look than what the game currently offers and at level 80, it will be possible to craft an entire set of armor (provided of course that you find the recipes for them).

Resource and Building Regions
* Traders and Trainers will spawn in the guild-cities. These traders and trainers will spawn depending on what building is built (for instance, a Trader will spawn at the Tradepost).
* City-life will start appearing in cities. The more buildings you build, the more NPC's will immigrate to your city.
* We are removing the randomly spawning mobs from the playfields. Instead, we are creating encampments that will dynamically spawn content on the attackers level.
* Quests - we are adding quests to the Resource and Building regions (Lacheish Plains, Poitain, Purple Lotus Swamp). These quests will not be repeatable.

Various other fixes are also being looked at, amongst others the socketing-bugs and the droprate of leather.

[d4rkj3di]

To be fair, they increased the number of pets that a necro can have at lower levels by way more than 50%, so it should be a wash.

No one is taking into account we now get all 8 pet slots at 20.

All pet melee damage was reduced as well. By around 50%. Sorry Necros.

[cevik]

All pet melee damage was reduced as well. By around 50%. Sorry Necros.

I believe forum whining when I test it myself.  Or at the very least when it's been tested by someone I trust.

Besides, the general theme of the forum whining itself is not that pet melee damage was reduced, but in fact it was the only thing increased.  It's pet caster damage that was reduced.  We'll have to see. ;)

[Falconeer]

There's a war going on between Tempests. Some love the Lightning Strike changes, some hate it.

Same war is going on among ToS haters. "HAHA they got nerfed!" "No they didn't you idiot, they are stronger than ever!".

[Mrbloodworth]

To be fair, they increased the number of pets that a necro can have at lower levels by way more than 50%, so it should be a wash.

No one is taking into account we now get all 8 pet slots at 20.

All pet melee damage was reduced as well. By around 50%. Sorry Necros.

Also: General Roundup of Necromancer Patch Issues <-- look at the edit.

[Lantyssa]

I can summon a succubus instead of an incubus.  Yay!

[d4rkj3di]

I can summon a succubus instead of an incubus.  Yay!

* Summon Incubus - spell now causes Fire DoT on caster. Player will say "Pardon me" in all subscribed chat channels for duration of spell.

And the only thing that edit shows is that AoC's producer is asleep at the wheel.

[Brogarn]

* Summon Incubus - spell now causes Fire DoT on caster. Player will say "Pardon me" in all subscribed chat channels for duration of spell.

Ugh. Bad joke. NO BISCUIT!

[Mrbloodworth]

I can summon a succubus instead of an incubus.  Yay!

* Summon Incubus - spell now causes Fire DoT on caster. Player will say "Pardon me" in all subscribed chat channels for duration of spell.

And the only thing that edit shows is that AoC's producer is asleep at the wheel.

-Dark Knowledge and Vile Insight will no longer appear as Hostile spells. (They will still persist after death.)

Also known as, Not working correctly. This accounts for a great deal of the reduction in damage.

[Miasma]

I guess the necros have a new build that allows them to destroy whole player groups by themselves.  It has low dps but completely sucks up all enemy stamina and mana rendering them helpless.