Asherons Call: An Entire Constellation of Q&A

Televangelist asks: Black Claw Drudges, are they still out there? I'm having difficulty finding them.
Orion_Turbine: Yes I made sure that these guys were still out there. Same with humming portals, the vendors in the dires...and other quest related individuals. The only casualty were the tumeroks from the invasions.

Yek Yai Edward states: Exremely strage creature assortment in new Dires.
Orion_Turbine: We stated in the LttP that we were working through this redistribution in phases. While I would have loved to have completed all spawns and creatures in one month's time it became clear very early on that this was simply not going to be feasible.

If you look at the new map that shows the level breaks for the different areas you'll get a much better idea of what we are shooting for when you see the creature rebalancing next month.

What does that mean?

1) Creatures will fit into the general area that they are slated for level wise. You will be able to more easily understand the level of the creature that you face as compared to your level.

2) Creatures will be raised/lowered to fit in with the areas that they are located now. We know that there are some areas that are completely out of whack with creatures like the imperial Mu-miyah who is level 42 right now. Next month, no way. That Mu-miyah is getting a makeover.

3) Boss Monsters will be set to a more acceptable rate. There are some boss monsters that are spawning at rates that may seem a little higher than they were before, some are also appearing in areas that they had never existed before. That has increased their drops and whatnot. These will be tweaked.

I am in the process of balancing the creatures even as I write this.

ImaX asks: Have you taken some of the Olthoi Dungeons out?
Orion: We don't take dungeons out. ;-) Unless there is a very specific reason that they need to be.

Reiterated: We have not removed any Olthoi Dungeons. We have, in the past, removed other dungeons from the game as they were part of now defunct quests. At the moment there are no plans to remove any other dungeons from the game. There are however some dungeons that will continue to be revised based off of some of the content revisions that we have been making lately.

Aerlinthian states: The creatures with some of the worst missile D numbers are lowend and mid level undead so they have room to work there but I wonder how Turbine expects to make adjustments for lowend and mid-level mobs since there are so many buffbots in the game. If they adjust for buffbot babys they leave non-buffbot babys hosed.
Orion_Turbine: Buff Bot Babies are not being considered in the rebalancing equation other than we know they will stand about 10-15 levels ahead of the regular run of the mill every day average player. We are not balancing the game for the twinkies we are balancing the game for all players.

Chain_LC states: Robes should just be taken out of the game. Seeing as how all the random hollow spawns are all over Osteth and the dires who in their right mind would wear a robe to hunt anymore.
Orion_Turbine: Okay I am confused by the "All over Osteth" statements. I remembers placing the hollow creatures in areas that are virindi populated: Deserts and the southern landbridge in particular. I also remember putting the Augmented Olthoi in the Olthoi North. So do me a favor and PM with locations outside of desert/some plains like areas/where Virindi are prolific/and the Olthoi North were these multitudes of Hollows are spawning.

UB40 states (summarized): This is the worst patch ever. Now rare trophies are no longer rare! What happened to being a collector?
Orion_TurbineMaybe just maybe there was a reason for increasing the drops on these old boss trophies.

otothez asks: If you're going to increase the missile defense on monsters, can we have our attack modifier back?
Orion_Turbine: You have a built in attack bonus on the slider. It gives you 150% of your skill at max.