The Patch Thread.

[Brogarn]

See, now this is the type of failure I expected of Funcom from the start. They fooled me with their pretty graphics, fun gameplay and initial stability. I was left apologizing for assuming they'd have the same fiasco on their hands as they did with AO. Now we're seeing classic Funcom in action. I don't feel vindicated, though, since I gave them $50 bucks and only quit for personal reasons. Had it not been for the fiance, I'd most likely still be playing and suffering through their incompetence. Again. So instead of feeling vindicated, I feel lucky for getting out when I did. Not the same thing and it's taking away from my entertainment. Damn you Funcom!

[Brogarn]

GAH! Hit the wrong button. 

[photek]

"All EU servers are coming down for an emergency patch in 30 mins. Estimated downtime 5 hours"   

[Mrbloodworth]

"All EU servers are coming down for an emergency patch in 30 mins. Estimated downtime 5 hours"   

That was a while ago.

[Miasma]

No they did it again.  Another five hours.

[Mrbloodworth]

No they did it again.  Another five hours.

Oh, planetside for me then tonight.

[Miasma]

And NA follows with another five hours downtime.  Now the servers are supposed to be up at 8:00 EDT, of course they have been moving that time all day.  I'm just going to watch the EU forum and see if the bug actually gets fixed.

With the incompetence funcom is showing I sincerely doubt they have any sort of rollback mechanism so it's fix the bug or nothing.  They might not even be doing backups of character data.

It's interesting because the only reason I want to log in is to see how bad the 70s got screwed over, if it's bad enough I'll just quit.  The game was a lot of fun for a while but all the bugs, stupid decisions and grind have now overwhelmed me.

[Mrbloodworth]

And NA follows with another five hours downtime.  Now the servers are supposed to be up at 8:00 EDT, of course they have been moving that time all day.  I'm just going to watch the EU forum and see if the bug actually gets fixed.

With the incompetence funcom is showing I sincerely doubt they have any sort of rollback mechanism so it's fix the bug or nothing.  They might not even be doing backups of character data.

It's interesting because the only reason I want to log in is to see how bad the 70s got screwed over, if it's bad enough I'll just quit.  The game was a lot of fun for a while but all the bugs, stupid decisions and grind have now overwhelmed me.

You should do like me, and not put so much into it.

[Miasma]

Their forums just crashed too!

And NA follows with another five hours downtime.  Now the servers are supposed to be up at 8:00 EDT, of course they have been moving that time all day.  I'm just going to watch the EU forum and see if the bug actually gets fixed.

With the incompetence funcom is showing I sincerely doubt they have any sort of rollback mechanism so it's fix the bug or nothing.  They might not even be doing backups of character data.

It's interesting because the only reason I want to log in is to see how bad the 70s got screwed over, if it's bad enough I'll just quit.  The game was a lot of fun for a while but all the bugs, stupid decisions and grind have now overwhelmed me.

You should do like me, and not put so much into it.

Yeah but if I don't put at least a little into it I might wind up playing a game like Planetside five years after it failed .

[Mrbloodworth]

Their forums just crashed too!

And NA follows with another five hours downtime.  Now the servers are supposed to be up at 8:00 EDT, of course they have been moving that time all day.  I'm just going to watch the EU forum and see if the bug actually gets fixed.

With the incompetence funcom is showing I sincerely doubt they have any sort of rollback mechanism so it's fix the bug or nothing.  They might not even be doing backups of character data.

It's interesting because the only reason I want to log in is to see how bad the 70s got screwed over, if it's bad enough I'll just quit.  The game was a lot of fun for a while but all the bugs, stupid decisions and grind have now overwhelmed me.

You should do like me, and not put so much into it.

Yeah but if I don't put at least a little into it I might wind up playing a game like Planetside five years after it failed .

Zing!

Planetside is one of the best MMO's ever created. If anything, it proves that it hasn't failed. It's just old. 

[cevik]

As a software engineer, the thing that bugs me about this issue and the previous alchemy issue (doubly so since they are part of the same system thus probably handled by the same guy) is that, from the outside, appears that it's a simple problem of unhandled exceptions.  The alchemy book causing the client to crash looks to me like it probably is some resource that needed to be loaded, didn't exist, and instead of a graceful error message to the client or logged away somewhere, you end up with an ungraceful exit.  Now the same thing appears to happen on an alchemy loot drop on a mob, but it's causing a server crash instead of a client crash.

From my personal experience people who leave holes like that are either newbs (and shouldn't be putting live code into a service with half a million customers without a more experienced engineer looking over their shoulder) or just perpetually shitty engineers that need to be fired so they can go somewhere else and be someone else's problem.  Either way, it makes Funcom's overall discipline as a software company suspect (as if it wasn't before!).  Letting something leak out to a service such as AoC once is unacceptable, but twice means you just have bad internal practices and it's probably systemic. 

There simply should be an overall engineering strategy in the company doesn't let simple things like unhandled exceptions occur (i.e. fucking check return codes, make sure you have defaults in your case statements and never leave a //TODO: Handle error here, lawl!1!! in the code, etc).  And people that don't follow those rules need to be disposed of or ruled with an iron fist.  It's really just not acceptable to be a software engineer house and not have some kind of checks in place that stop these kind of newbish things from happening.

Of course I may be oversimplifying the problem, I'm on the outside looking in and do not have access to their code (obviously!).  But if problems like these were occurring and I got called in to fix them these types of basic mistakes are the first place I'd look.

[Morfiend]

Looks like they got tired of all the whining and complaining on the forums. As they are now "Down for Maintenance".

[Rasix]

Not quite an AO 12.6 patch, but they're getting closer. 

[cevik]

Free day:

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=110043

Anyone want to put an over/under on the number of posts saying that the downtime was a big conspiracy so that they can add a free day on everyone's account to pad their subscription numbers?

[Lakov_Sanite]

all i have to say.


 

[cevik]

Aaaand, now the servers are back up.

[Miasma]

The 70 changes are noticeable but I don't think they are "double" damage/hp like the forums were saying.  Bosses are definitely harder but it's not the huge deal I was afraid of.

[Threash]

Undocumented patch notes so far:


General
* Mining nodes will now make a sound while harvesting.

Trader
* Silks,Gems,Jewelry, all such items are now searchable and showing up at the traders. Rejoice.

Playfields
* Kyllikki's Crypt: Mobs in this instance have been buffed. You can only CC Small guards now. Spellguards,Priests,etc are now immune to CC

Items
* Reports of further Loot Table additions: New items dropping in several areas.(atleast in Kheshatta so far)

Classes

Assassin
* Assasin's From the Darkness combo (Corruption lvl 70 feat) nerfed. Animation after charge has been changed, damage on next attack lowered by roughly 50-70% (not normalized to white hit as previously thought.)

Barbarian:
* The Level 40 talent in the Barbarian Tree "Cyclone of Razors" has been changed from 5-points for 28% Damage to 5-points for 10% Damage.

Dark Templar
* No ability/proc that previously used the + unholy (magic) modifier uses it anymore. (See Dev Response to this issue below.)

Necromancers:
* Necromancers can no longer attack with their pet whilst in the safety of the shadows. (No hiding!)
* Mark of the Devourer now do damage instantly, instead of a 3 second wait before the first tick

Herald of Xotli:
* The spell "Hellfire Breath" now has a new animation.
* New animation on "burn them alive" fatality, when you reached out your hand and pointed at them they would ignite and die- It now also shoots a cone of fire.(This was possibly in the monday patch.)

Rangers
* Characters effected by the Ranger's "Trap" ability, now have a blue glow around them.
* Marked target skill now pulls mobs
* Mezz shot does not function as before in fire spec at least - mezz will break immediatley (although this could be working as intended I suppose)

Tempest of Set
* Target affected by "puppets of set" is now completely friendly and is affected by your buffs and heals. (works in both pve and pvp situations.)

Possible Bugs/Issues:
* Casting while Mounted. In the latest patch, certain spells were made castable if your character was mounted on a stationary horse. This works fine. If you move after you begin the cast, however, it does not get interuppted. This allows casters to permanently kite meleers from the back of their horse.
* Server instability. There seems to be a lot of disconnects happening post-patch, some reporting as often as every 10 minutes being disconnected.(Funcom has now confirmed the huge server instabilities and are already working on the problem.)


Dev Response regarding the Dark Templar Issue:



Quote:
It wasn't intended for everything to be using 100% magic damage, as mentioned in the patch notes. These abilities did not have a value set, therefore returned back to 0 as the default.

However, the self-only abilities of the Dark Templar should be scaling somewhat with +unholy damage, so I will have a look at these as soon as possible. 

[Falconeer]

It's monday and AGAIN no patch today.
No explanations, no dev posts, no bones, not even rubber ones, for the hungry dogs. Meh 

[Falconeer]

Looks like you have to look for "official" infos all over Europe. These are the first words about the "no patch", and come from the Spanish Community Manager:


(translated for your convenience)

Originally Posted by Translation

My apologies for not informing earlier, but it was not possible for me.

Finally there will no patch today because what happened last week. We have agreed that is required to have more time for each update. In one side it will take longer to implement new content and fixing them, but in the other hand, that extra time will allow developers and QA(the ones who test the patch before release) to assure that the patch content works properly and avoid experiences like 26th of june.

Thats why we are going to update once a week, wednesday will be the new day to get new updates.

I understant that this could anger some people, but its for a greater good that we took this decision.

Again, apologies from my side because i couldnt inform you earlier as i woud have liked and not to wait till today.

Link: http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=59993&page=4


EDIT:

Yes, this time our Spanish CM was faster than the rest of us.  We really are aiming to bring such news to all our different communities at the same time. Sorry that it didn't work this time.

As you have already heard now, we have moved from 2 updates a week to 1 update a week (Wednesdays) to be able to further test fixes and also keep improving the content of update notes.
__________________

Funcom   Oliver 'Tarib' Kunz
Senior Community Manager

[Engels]

I love it! Foreign language learning program through dev notes!

[Falconeer]

Update Notes - 2nd of July
Player Classes

Mage

    * Tome of Erlik now has effects and sounds.
    * Purge now has sound and particle effects associated with it and should now go on the appropriate cooldown. Purge now provides 5 seconds of immunity in addition to removal of effects.
    * Misdirection now has received a better visual and should no longer look like a lightning strike.
    * Weakened Protection will no longer refresh itself after the player cancels his own Absorb buff.

Rogue

    * Mountaineer, Distraction, and Concealment effects are now innate in the feat and will not take up space in the Rogue's buff window. They will still provide a buff to the Rogue's teammates.
    * Distraction will now properly apply to the Rogue's teammates.


Bear Shaman

    * Reaper Claws will no longer disappear when you zone.

Conqueror

    * Feint Attack combo animation speed will now scale correctly for both male and female. Now the male and female should do equal damage.

Necromancer

    * The splash damage of the Deathless Acolyte: Magus has been increased from 10% to 30%, with 4 meter range and a maximum of 5 targets
    * The Deathless Acolyte: Reaper and Deathless Acolyte: Arcanist now have 30% splash damage with 2 meter range on a single additional target
    * The Deathless Acolyte: Arcanist's chance to trigger the Arcanist's Knowledge has been doubled
    * The Arcanist's Knowledge effect will now display the current stack count in the buff GUI
    * Casting Frost Blast will no longer cause the Necromancer to get stuck in a casting animation
    * Flash Freeze now additionally decreases the casting time and increases the damage of Freeze
    * Freeze will now clear the target of all Necromancer damage-over-time effects when cast, this will reduce the chance of it breaking accidentally on damage
    * Ice Shackle no longer has a chance to break on damage
    * The debuff effect applied by Wither Soul should now have the appropriate icon


Combat

    * Thrown weapons have had their range increased: Light throwing weapons now have a range of 15 meters, up from 12. Heavy throwing weapons now have a range of 18 meters, up from 16.
    * Generic NPC crowd control effects have been tweaked. Resistances from feats and other player effects should now help against NPC crowd control. Stun, knockback, charm, and fear will now grant the player immunity.


Massive PvP

    * Battlekeeps now have resurrection points for the attackers, that are located near the front gate of the city.
    * Fixed an issue that disabled Siege Weapons if the target was out of range.
    * NPC's will properly respawn when a building is repaired.
    * Players are now able to use a siege weapon after the player using it has gone linkdead.
    * Players now get a notification when they are about to get teleported out during a Massive PvP battle.
    * Damaged playerbuilt curved walls now have correct collision so they can not be walked through before they are completely destroyed.
    * Lacheish Plains: Several holes have been closed in the West Battlekeep so players can no longer bypass the walls there.
    * Poitain: Several holes have been closed in the West, South and East Battlekeeps so players can no longer bypass the walls there.


Mounts

    * Moving around while mounted should now correctly interrupt spell-casting.


Items

    * Fixed a tooltip error on the crossbow Skysmite causing the bonuses to be illegible.
    * The recipe for Steelsilk Belt has been changed to Fine Steelsilk Belt.
    * The recipe for Steelsilk Leggings has been changed to Fine Steelsilk Leggings.
    * Selling a gemmed item to a shop and undoing the sale will no longer remove the gems.


Playfields

Armsmans Arena

    * Doors should no longer be targetable in the Arena.
    * Fixed an issue where players managed to get locked inside the monster cages in the Arena. You should now be able to get out using the Lever.

Lacheish Plains

    * all the levers for each door in Stonehammer battlekeep should now work properly.


Tradeskills

    * A progress bar will appear whenever gemcutting is performed.
    * Crafted armor pieces no longer incorrectly have more defense rating than normal pieces of armor.
    * Resolved a level check for the response to give when character is below level 70 and tries to learn gathering Oak.
    * The Weaponsmith workshop plan can now be correctly learned from the Architect trainer.
    * Blue Iron can again be mined from the correct mineral veins.


Quests

    * Stonecutter Trainer: Fixed a dialogue issue so the trainer will now accept Basalt and Adamant to resolve the quest.
    * Cannibal Commotion: Fixed an issue where Attadeus would become stuck and not allow you to update the quest.
    * The Bearer of Ill Tidings: The Field of the Dead quest "The Bearer of Ill Tidings" and "Allies of the White Hand" are now level 48.
    * The Den of Wolves: The goal name was changed from "The Den of Wolves" to "Kill Plains Wolves".
    * The Wolf Hunt: The goal name was changed from "The Wolf Hunt" to "Kill Yukagi Wolves".
    * Death to the Undead: The goal name was changed from "Death to the Undead" to "Destroy Conriocht werewolves in the Haunted Forest".
    * Greater Prey: The goal name was changed from "Greater Prey" to "Kill werewolf Rippers, Antagonizer, Slasher and Slicers".
    * The Curse of the Werewolves: The goal name was changed from "The Curse of the Werewolves" to "Kill Conriocht Menaces, Slayers and Goremuzzles".
    * Fit for a Chieftain: You will now correctly receives the item 'Fur of Bloodclaw' in the quest inventory.
    * Attack of the Savages: An issue where the goal text was not clear has been changed to "Kill Raiders at the Guard Post".
    * Castle of King Conan: Pallantides now doesn't display an exclamation mark over his head unless you can get the quest from him.
    * Tortage: Renton should now have one coherent look as opposed to changing look between quests.
    * Paetus & the Nemedian Crown III: Gavion now gives the player the map and letter back when he ask the player to go talk to King Conan about this treason. Players will need to delete their old quest "Paetus & the Nemedian Crown III" and speak with Gavion again to continue this quest line.
    * Lusts of the Flesh: You now get a cask of Tainted Ale to give to Tuthmekri. Players who want to finish this quest will have to delete it from their quest journal and get it again.
    * Master of the Silver Peacock: Vistrix now finaly gives in and surrender his teeth on defeat. You are now able to complete this quest, and thereby advance to The Black Ring Citadel.
    * Alchemy quests: The dialogues with the Alchemy trainer should now all work correctly and give and complete the needed quests.
    * Master of the silver peacock - Vistrix now finally gives in and surrender his teeth on defeat. You are now able to complete this quest, and thereby advance to The Black Ring Citadel.
    * Common Gems II - Return to the Gemcutter: The quest can now be completed by handing over the needed gems to the trainer.
    * Tear 2 gathering quest - Return the Illustrium: The quest can now be completed by handing over the illustrium to the trainer.
    * Woodcutter quest: Players will now be able to get the 'Gathering Oak' quest when having the correct level.


NPC

    * Tarantia Noble: Zhu-Khang no longer has flickering clothing.
    * Armsman's Tavern: Sarissa's upper chest should no longer go through her dress.
    * Tortage Jungle: Poacher Marksman should no longer shoot invisible arrows at players.
    * Eiglophian Mountains: Added two vendors to the Mountain Hunting Lodge.
    * Conall's Valley: The Gravesinger now has an improved look that fits more with the description of him.
    * Conalls Valley: Supply Master Vorgir has been given a slight makeover and should look better now.
    * Tortage Underhalls Day: NPCs will now respawn slightly quicker than before.
    * Lacheish Plains: Tiggle Knucklebone has been removed from the playfield to stop players from confusing him as a Trader.
    * NPCs will no longer inappropriately recieve player buffs such as Lotus Overload, Blood Pit, Embrace Death, Overpower, and Pact of Dread.
    * Vendor bought resources have been reduced in price.
    * Sanctum of the Burning Souls: It is now possible to spawn the Dark Beast boss just by interacting with the Sacrificial Altar while holding a Ritual Chalice. The specific quest requirement has been removed.


Localization

    * French: Many of dialogues that were still in English have been translated.
    * all languages: All Feats, Special Abilities, Skills, Spells and Combos have been reviewed are now fully and consistently translated.


General

    * Updated/improved descriptions of following abilities/feats/combos: >From the Darkness, Overpower, Blood Rage Stance, Secondary Laceration, Crippling Bloodbath (Crippling Bloody Hack), Improved Inspire, Focus, Burning Vigor, Covenant of Invulnerability III,
      Focus, "Secondary Laceration" changed to "Conquest"
    * Players will now be able to exit Dance state while in combat.

__________________

Funcom   Oliver 'Tarib' Kunz
Senior Community Manager

[schild]

  * Crafted armor pieces no longer incorrectly have more defense rating than normal pieces of armor.

So, now there's absolutely zero reason to have crafted armor. Nice.

[Falconeer]

Sadly, no Schild. Crafted armours, ATM, are so powerful that they are almost like cheating.

It is the Evasion Gems,

Normally i would not give away good info like this but i have decided to stop playing this game and dont mind sharing some info before i leave.

You can make 13 crafted items each with 3 gem slots. that is 39 slot.
You can put 1-1.4% in each gem slot. 39x1.4=54.6 dodge
double tab back that is another 50%

Total dodge is 104.6% noone will ever hit you. (magic will still hit)
but melee chara are screwd. Same thing happens with magic if you go for immunity%.


Basically who ever designed this game had no clue about pvp mechanism and class balancing. every thing was thrown in together at random and with no thinking or logic behind it.



This will also be my last post on AoC forums. Good bye and good luck to you all.

Angry
I like to think I know how to PvP, and even I have faced these Targuen immortals.

This will probably make one or two people angry in Targuen, I personally hope it won't. But I did not ever really have any problem killing a Targuen member or group before on Greyskull. Until this group showed up (Again, I will mention no names since it is not allowed) which I always recognize. There are about 4 of them and they wipe a group of 6, without losing a single person, with all of us on ventrillo focusing on their healer or their demo.


Neither will go down, and hardly any damage is done to them. I have had a message from a friend from another guild claiming that 3 HoX could not even burst down the Targuen demo.


Now if that does not smell fishy, I don't know what does. All of a sudden a group of elite PvPer Targuen show up out of the blue that do not seem to take damage, I am very suspicious.


You will not very often find me complaining about losing in PvP, but one of the rare situations is when I am faced by possible exploiters or cheaters.

Full thread: http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=61132

[Threash]

They really need to change so you can only put one of each color gems on every piece because atm the stacking of gems makes any other armor completely useless.

[Falconeer]

Thing is it worked properly in Anarchy Online. It was a system, working from a day 1, whereas only one kind of "gem" could be put in each implant (those were 3 slotted too).
Maybe 7 years are a long time and they forgot.

[Mrbloodworth]

  * Crafted armor pieces no longer incorrectly have more defense rating than normal pieces of armor.

So, now there's absolutely zero reason to have crafted armor. Nice.

Thats before gems ETC...

Apparently, i dont know what i am talking about. Now i don't understand the situation at all.

Dev post on the subject:

Edited:

The crafted gear had insane values, and had to be tuned back to it's intended values.

Either that, or changing all the other gear in the world and make the raid bosses stronger.

I'm sorry for the loss of your gems, but this had to be done.

Edit: removed the joke.

Original:

he crafted gear had insane values, and had to be tuned back to it's intended values.

Either that, or changing all the other gear in the world and make the raid bosses stronger.

I'm sorry for the loss of your gems, but this had to be done.

Come on guys, did you really want to beat this game in "I win button" gear?

Link about the 6-7th posting.

[Lakov_Sanite]

 

I love funcom

[Threash]

  * Crafted armor pieces no longer incorrectly have more defense rating than normal pieces of armor.

So, now there's absolutely zero reason to have crafted armor. Nice.

Thats before gems ETC...

Apparently, i dont know what i am talking about. Now i don't understand the situation at all.

Dev post on the subject:

Edited:

The crafted gear had insane values, and had to be tuned back to it's intended values.

Either that, or changing all the other gear in the world and make the raid bosses stronger.

I'm sorry for the loss of your gems, but this had to be done.

Edit: removed the joke.

Original:

he crafted gear had insane values, and had to be tuned back to it's intended values.

Either that, or changing all the other gear in the world and make the raid bosses stronger.

I'm sorry for the loss of your gems, but this had to be done.

Come on guys, did you really want to beat this game in "I win button" gear?

Link about the 6-7th posting.

That makes no sense at all, they didnt remove the gem stacking some items are simply bugged and have no gem slots anymore. 

[Morfiend]

HEY AOC. YOUR CRACKS ARE SHOWING!!!
 

[Miasma]

How not to talk about the nerf to crafted armour if you are a dev (post #35):

The crafted gear had insane values, and had to be tuned back to it's intended values.

Either that, or changing all the other gear in the world and make the raid bosses stronger.

I'm sorry for the loss of your gems, but this had to be done.

Come on guys, did you really want to beat this game in "I win button" gear? 

He later edited out the last sentence.

That's fantastic.  They say before launch that crafted gear is going to be equal if not better than drops, create the items with those stats, leave then in game for a month and half and then mock us for using the gear.  This post also shows that he didn't realize the loss of gem slots was unintended, in this post he basically says "too fucking bad about your gems" and later has to post that it's actually a bug.  This is a raid scripter dev who obviously wants raided drops to be better than crafted.  If these are the type of moronic statements funcom devs come up with maybe it's a good thing that we hear so little from them.

I spent all my money levelling up armorsmith on Monday and Tuesday, I also spent hours farming leather and silk since there is so little of it going around the tier1 stuff isn't even for sale on the trader...

[Threash]

Hes right though, theres "equal to dropped gear" and "so incredibly broken only a moron would use anything else".  Stacking gems is broken, needs to be taken out, the sooner the better.

[cevik]

He later edited out the last sentence.

That's fantastic.  They say before launch that crafted gear is going to be equal if not better than drops, create the items with those stats, leave then in game for a month and half and then mock us for using the gear.  This post also shows that he didn't realize the loss of gem slots was unintended, in this post he basically says "too fucking bad about your gems" and later has to post that it's actually a bug.  This is a raid scripter dev who obviously wants raided drops to be better than crafted.  If these are the type of moronic statements funcom devs come up with maybe it's a good thing that we hear so little from them.

Ohh come on, he made a stupid joke.  Seriously, I understand bitching about shit in the game, but I thought we wanted the devs to interact with us like human beings and not mindless corporate automatons.  This is something the mouthbreathers on the general forums would whine about incessantly, I personally expect more from people around here.

[Miasma]

I don't care at all about his "joke", I only mentioned the last sentence to explain why it didn't appear in the link.  I don't even care about the problem being real and needing to be fixed.  All I care about is that it was Funcom's mistake to put this gear in and then change their minds and harshly nerf it (and at the same time bugging it out and making people lose their gems).  That idiot takes no responsibility for his company's mistakes and then proceeds to mock the people that his company screwed over.  That's pathetic.

[waylander]

This crap is what happens when you only test your PVP game at the level 13 and 20 points of character development.