Dungeons And Dragons Online: Weekly Development Activities (October 9, 2006)

Samera has posted her weekly development activity report on the official forums:

In QA
These items are in QA and should be a part of Module 3.

General

* You will now slowly regenerate Hit Points and Spell Points while walking around the city and not just in taverns.
* A number of new emotes have been added to the game:
o /beckon
o /hug
o /flex
o /groan
o /grovel
o /kiss
o /no
o /poke
o /sigh
o /taunt
o /yes
o /cheer2
o /dance2
o NEW - /show (allows you to /show off your right-hand weapon).
* The Silver Flame has recognized that the brothers stationed in Taverns have been casting an inferior version of Restoration. From now on, the spell cast in taverns will remove 1 negative level in addition to all the other Restoration effects.
* Raid parties for the Dragon or the Warforged Titan will now have the option of setting the raid loot shards to go to a random member of the party rather than to the leader. The leader can switch the shard designation by right clicking on the party health-bars (in the same place he/she clicked for "convert-to-raid"). All members of the party will be notified in party chat when this happens, and later arrivals will be notified when they join the party. Once the party has been switched to "random loot", it cannot be switched back. Shards will be randomly assigned to any member of the party who is alive and still in the dungeon as soon as someone attempts to pick up the shard.
* Fixed a bug which prevented the player's encumbrance from being updated when sending an item through the mail.
* NEW - Some new Tips have been added to the game that will be displayed when loading a new area. Special thanks to ddo.com forum members apollojuly, Berjik, Chardros, Denomicon, DeusMortis, DrAwkward, Drogon, DuckOfDeath, Elurian, Fu-Inator, Furee, oronisi, patnodewf, Squeg, Thanatos, Thistle, tihocan, toddfox2, tr0tsky, Ustice, Volund, whysper, winsom, and Worg2k6 for the new helpful tips!
* Players will no longer get stuck while dismounting from ladders.
* We are pleased to announce the addition of the /showhelmet <on | off> command which can be used to hide your helmet graphic.
* We are improving the combat/damage feedback mechanism. This will not only eliminate "false" hits where the target would flinch but no attack roll would take place, but also give better feedback as to the strength of the hit.
* When you successfully swap a spell, you will now get an alert telling you that it worked.
* Poison dart and poison grenade traps will now actually poison you instead of doing poison hp damage.
* NEW - Soulstones are now ethereal to almost everything which means they'll fall properly if you die in mid-air, over water, etc.
* Lava Cam! When your camera is in lava, it now looks more like it's in lava, as opposed to water.
* Made some small tweaks to our avatar animations. For example, human female's wrists won't twist in the dual weapon combo attack, dwarven arms won't over-extend when they use an axe to cleave, etc.

Performance

* The landscape renderer has been overhauled to provide better performance (especially load times). In addition, the new landscape engine enables huge draw distances that were not possible before.
* The overall frame rate has been improved and 'hitching' reduced.
* Avatars and monsters are now a bit brighter than other objects (the intensity depends upon the environment and lighting conditions).
* Overall bandwidth of the game will be reduced another 1-3%, and certain problematic dungeons and laggy areas will be significantly improved by 20-50% (when your client gets flooded with information about objects in your local area). These changes will be most noticeable for modem users.

UI Improvements

* The text on the XP bar has been clarified to make it more obvious that you have not lost the XP you were accruing toward your bonus AP when you die and get an XP debt while you are working toward bonus action points.
* NEW - Race and Alignment requirements to equip items will now be shown in RED text.
* NEW - We've added a new button to the focus orb! The new "tell" icon appears next to the "invite" button when you have another player selected.
* Mail
o The "New Mail" icon will now appear on the Focus Orb even if it is minimized.
o The "New Mail" icon will now vanish from the Focus Orb when the last new letter in your mailbox has been opened.
o It is no longer possible to put too much text into the Compose Mail' "To," "Subject," and "Message" fields.
o It is no longer possible to compose new mail while your mailbox is full. The Mail Box is considered full when it has fifty or more letters inside of it.
o The "To" and "Subject" line of the Compose Mail UI no longer accept carriage returns.
* NEW - /retell can now be used with the alias /rt as well.
* NEW - When you type in "/r " the chat box will automatically replace that text with "/tell X," This works with "/r", "/reply", ";r", and ";reply". This functionality has also been added to the /retell command and should help eliminate mistells.
* In an effort to help clear up some confusion Ranks will now start at 1 instead of 0.
* ALT-Z will now hide/show the main UI.
* You will now see the dice rolls for dispelling.
* When using something other than the mouse to move the mouse cursor (for example, an Xbox 360 controller), the mouse cursor will not be allowed to move outside the game window.

Monsters

* NEW - Many human enemies have had their alignments updated or corrected. For example, Agents of the Emerald Claw are now Chaotic Evil; Warriors of the Emerald Claw are now Neutral Evil; the necromancer Gerti is now Chaotic Evil; all Blackguards are now Evil, and many are Lawful Evil; City Guards are now Lawful Neutral; and several misaligned thieves and rogues are now Chaotic Neutral.
* Monsters can no longer remain stealthed/invisible when they are casting harmful spells on you.
* Adjusted some monster sneak attacks to function properly - some were not being blocked by fortification, while others were not triggering in situation where they should have (for example, with a blinded target).
* Monsters will now deal properly when hit with multiple behavior states (for example, mesmerized while dancing).
* NEW - The behavior of monsters that cannot reach their target because other creatures are in the way has been improved. Preventing a monster from reaching its target is now an effective way to gain the creature's attention.
* NEW - Troglodyte Stench is no longer called 'nausea' but is instead properly called 'Troglodyte Stench' and flagged as a sickness. Thus it can be removed by effects that remove sickness, and will be more resistible by Warforged. The functionality of the stench has not been otherwise changed.
* Liches can no longer be affected by command undead, halt undead, the undead fear portion of the chill touch spell, or control undead (not in game yet).
* Mephits now fly faster.
* Most named troglodytes have been given more hp on the hard and elite settings.
* NEW - Trolls should no longer attempt to make melee attacks from out of range.
* NEW - Wight priests now cast attack spells with greater frequency.
* Spiders
o Some mid- and high-level (mostly CR 7 and up) spiders have new stronger poisons.
o Most spiders on the hard and elite settings have had their attack damage reduced significantly, particularly those on the elite setting.
o Widow type spiders will once again shoot functional webs.
* The mind flayer and vampire's dominate abilities no longer dispel protection from evil.
* NEW - Vampires no longer cast shadows.
* NEW - Vampiric Domination is now properly "Dominate Person" rather than "Dominate Monster" (Celestial Dogs and Warforged rejoice!)
* NEW - Undead bosses can no longer be affected by turn undead fear.
* Some ogres have been eating their veggies and will be able to see and hear better than they could before.
* Several bow wielding enemies will now shoot various energy arrows like flaming arrows or cold arrows. These will do the typical piercing damage (1d6 and up) in addition to various amounts of energy damage.
* Several resourceful enemies have begun using various alchemical substances in battle. In most cases, these will affect players as energy damage over time.
* Elemental Empathy will work properly on Earth Elementals that have used their Earthgrab ability.
* More powerful versions of Mummy Rot are now labeled accordingly: Pernicious Mummy Rot is more dangerous than regular Mummy Rot, and Virulent Mummy Rot is even more lethal.
* NEW - Adran ir'Karsmore relies less on natural AC and more on his clerical buffs to provide him enough AC.
* Female humanoid villains will no longer charge into melee range if armed with spells or bows.
* NEW - Mind flayers no longer reappear after being killed by a fiery death.
* We are fixing an issue with the death animations of Arcane Skeletons. They will no longer "eat collectables" they should be creating.

Combat

* All enemy trips and knockdowns now have dual saves (an initial save and a secondary save). Most give you an ability modifier check for the initial save to determine whether or not you fall. This is usually your Strength or Dexterity modifier, whichever is greater on your character. Some knockdowns like grease give a reflex save as the initial save. Once you fall down, your secondary save checks will occur every two seconds and are versus your balance skill to determine when you stand back up.
* NEW - Vermin Empathy and Elemental Empathy will now properly deduct from your Wild Empathy uses per day.
* NEW - Rangers can now choose Favored Enemy: Gnoll as one of their favored enemies, either during advancement or by using a feat respec.
* NEW - Favored Enemy: Construct now works on warforged opponents.
* Smiting weapons and other death effects now give better combat feedback in your chat box.
* Boss monsters will now give better feedback on spells that they are immune to.

Spells

Spell Changes

* The valid arc for casting spells on a target has been increased from a forward 90 degree arc to a forward 120 degree arc.
* Resist Energy is now available for clerics, paladins, rangers, and wizards. Protection from Energy is now available to Rangers, Wizards, and Clerics. This change allows these classes to cast Protection From Energy and Resist Energy the same way a sorcerer can, by memorizing a single spell and then choosing which damage type to ward against. The days of memorizing several Resist Energy: (Element) are no more!
* Protection from Evil has been fixed to work correctly. It no longer protects against *all* charms and compulsions (including Otto's, command, hold monster/person, etc). Rather, it only protects against charms and compulsions that give ongoing mental control, such as the vampire's dominate ability. Also, as per D&D rules, it no longer protects against mental control from evil creatures, but ALL mental control, regardless of the target's alignment.
* Phantasmal killer is now a fear effect.
* NEW - Players will now be immune to charm and suggestion spells. Players will no longer be immune to command spells.
* NEW - Stinking Cloud is now properly considered a 'nausea' effect.
* Holy smite will now damage spiders.
* The Teleport spell no longer has a Somatic casting component so players will not suffer an arcane spell failure chance for Teleport while wearing armor.
* The Dispel Magic spell (for bards, clerics, paladins, sorcerers, and wizards) no longer requires a material component to cast (as per P&P rules).
* Niac's cold ray now uses the proper ray cast animation.
* Mind Blast now affects all enemies within the area of effect.
* The flame arrow spell now allows the caster to choose what type of ammo he/she would like to add the "flame" property to. Choices include Arrows, Bolts, Throwing Daggers, Throwing Axes, Darts, and Shuriken. Each requires 1 base unmodified type of that ammo (so Flame Shuriken requires 1 plain shuriken) and produces a stack of 50. All players and items that can cast flame arrow will now cast the "new" version.
* NEW - Ice storm no longer creates a slippery surface on the ground that causes players or monsters to fall. Instead it slows the land movement speed of enemy monsters for a very short time while in the storm area.
* Stoneskin and Protection from Energy spells now work as per PHB - they have a total amount of damage that they protect you from, after which they will vanish.
* When blind, you will no longer see the names floating above the head of named friends/foes. In an update sometime after Module 3 we will be restoring the ability to see friend's names.
* Casting/Cooldown
o Slightly reduced the cooldown timer of all level 5 spells.
o NEW - The 'projectile' portion of Fireball and Ball Lightning have been sped up slightly.
o NEW - The Flaming Sphere ball of fire has been sped up slightly.
o Significantly sped up the casting time of Command to be in line with other spells of that level.
o Significantly sped up the casting time of Flame Strike.
o Significantly sped up the casting time of the Spell Resistance spell to be in line with other spells of that level.
o Significantly sped up the cast time of the sorcerer's Dimension Door spell to be in line with other spells of that level.
o Significantly increased the cooldown timer of the sorcerer's Suggestion spell to be in line with other Suggestion spells.
o Made several minor tweaks to casting times and cooldown timers of other spells to bring them in line with similar spells of the same level.
* NEW - The cloud spells Acid Fog, Cloudkill, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Mind Fog, Obscuring Mist, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, and Solid Fog have had their FX altered slightly. Now, if you or an ally cast any of these spells you will see the particle effects only, and not the obstructive visual overlay. Cloud spells cast by enemy spellcasters will still display screen overlays on any target that didn't resist the spell.
* NEW - Obscuring Mist can now be burned away with fire spells (like the Web spell - as per D&D rules).
* NEW - Glitterdust's penalty to hide is no longer resistable with a Will Save.
* NEW - The teleport spell now uses the correct particle FX.
* The visual for the Grease spell now matches more closely the area of effect.
* You will now get chat feedback in the combat window when you hit someone with a non-damaging spell (like fear or slow).

Metamagic Fixes

* Characters using the Quicken feat will find their spellcasting greatly improved.
* Resistance, Restoration, Raise Dead and See Invisibility spells can now be used with the Eschew Materials feat.
* The spell point cost of using your Eschew Materials metamagic feat has been reduced.
* Find Traps, Ice Storm, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray and Searing Light no longer consume additional spellpoints while the Heighten Spell feat is active.
* Holy Smite and Niac's Cold Ray can now be used with the Heighten Spell feat.
* Dismissal no longer consumes extra spell points while the Maximize or Empower spell feats are active.
* Feeblemind and Waves of Fatigue no longer consume extra spell points while the Extend Spell feat is active.
* Ray of Exhaustion can now be used with the Heighten spell feat.
* Sleet Storm no longer consumes addition spell points while the Heighten spell feat is active.
* Wall of Fire
o No longer consumes additional spellpoints while the Heighten spell feat is active.
o Wall of Fire can now be used with the Extend Spell feat.
* Shocking grasp can now be affected by the Heighten Spell metamagic feat.
* Solid Fog and Grease no longer consume additional spellpoints when under the effects of the Heighten Spell metamagic feat.
* Melf's Acid Arrow no longer consumes additional spellpoints while the heighten spell feat is active.

Spell Description Updates
(these are just text changes, not changes to spell functionality)

* Spell descriptions now use color for greater readability!
* Player spells will now state in their descriptions if the spell has a saving throw to resist, and if so, the results of a successful save.
* NEW - Niac's Cold Ray now properly includes max damage (please note: there has been no functional change to this spell).
* Ray of Enfeeblement description fixed, it had been indicating an extraneous +1 STR damage that it did not do, and was missing max caster level information.
* Hold spells have been updated to state that they have a save interval.
* Player spells that have a max Hit Dice cap should now state this in their description.
* Melf's Acid Arrow description has been updated to list the correct interval.
* Wall of Fire description now been updated to include damage amounts.
* Scorching ray description now includes information about additional rays and their levels.

Skills & Abilities

* The magnitude of the bonus provided by Action Boost: Attack and Action Boost: Skills have been reduced at the higher level enhancements.
* Bards can now activate their singing abilities while moving! The activation time on their singing abilities has been reduced significantly as well. An animation glitch has also been fixed!
* Fixed a bug with some AOE abilities and spells. Formerly, if you had a dead monster targeted, Turn Undead would fail. Now, it will work, but will be centered on you since your selected target is dead. The same is true of other feats, skills (Intimidate, etc.), and spells (Burning Hands, etc.), for which the default behavior on an invalid target should be "happen, centered on me", or "happen, aiming directly forward".
* The description for the Paladin's Lay on Hands ability has been corrected to better describe the amount of healing/damage that the ability does.
* NEW - The Bard Inspire Competence ability is now correctly flagged as a 'competence' bonus to skills, not a 'morale' bonus as it was.

Enhancements

* Warforged who take the fighter's armor mastery enhancements will now see it affect the max dex bonus from their armored body feat.
* The Divine Healing enhancement now affects warforged characters equally effectively as non-warforged characters.
* NEW - The Human Improved Recovery Enhancements now will properly increase the value of heals cast on you.

Items

* NEW - The prohibition the Coin Lords had placed on the sale of handaxes in Stormreach has been lifted. Handaxes now for sale in fine weapon shops near you.
* There is a new weapon effect "Vicious". This effect causes the weapon to do an additional 2d6 of damage to the target, but also does 1d6 of damage to the wielder.
* NEW - Generic Masterwork and +1 items sold in various shops around Stormreach are no longer bind on acquire.
* NEW - Bolts of X Bane have had their minimum required level reduced to match Arrows of X Bane. This change is not retroactive, but all new bane bolts found will have the new minimum required level.
* NEW - Corrected a treasure issue where some slashing weapons were generated without an intended effect. The affected weapons will not suddenly gain a new effect but they will retain their inflated monetary value for sale to vendors.
* The following bane weapons will now have the appropriate attack bonus. At the moment there is not a retroactive fix for older copies of the weapons who do not have the bonus but we are working on one.
o Kelmar's Justice
o Sword of the Giant Slave-Masters
o Giant Stalker's Knife
o Spider Spike
o Spiked Mace of the Elements
* Crests will now sparkle to make them easier to see.
* NEW - Thrown weapons (axes, daggers, darts, and shuriken) will now rotate appropriately when thrown. Thrown daggers and axes now also have streaks as they spin through the air.
* NEW - Elemental weapon particle FX have been toned down.
* NEW - The "Protection from Chaos" effect found on the Planar Gird and the Chaosgarde has been renamed "Chaosguard". This is to prevent confusion with the D&D rules Protection from Chaos which includes a ward against mental control. Our effect was never intended to include that ward (and never has). There is no change in the actual benefits of these items.

NPCs

* NEW - Wandering NPCs (such as Altan Eguilan) should no longer slide away while talking to players.
* NEW - Summoned and charmed monsters should no longer attack Derward Ironhill.
* NEW - Durk the Deranged has noticed that his friend Loghan is no longer in the Leaky Dinghy.

PVP

* Sneak attack works as follows:
o If the target player is helpless, sneak attack applies.
o If the target player is blinded, sneak attack applies.
o If the target player is asleep, sneak attack applies.
o If the target player is stunned, sneak attack applies.
o If the target player is bluffed, sneak attack applies.
o If the target player is dazed, sneak attack applies.
o If the target player is flanked, sneak attack applies.
* NEW - In PvP arenas only, inflict wounds spells can be used to heal friendly undead.

Quests

* NEW - Fixed a problem where some floor puzzle tiles weren't lighting up when they should have.
* NEW - Garl's Tomb
o Old Grey Garl will no longer fall through his hatch while fighting you.
* NEW - Ghola-Fan's Compound
o The chest in the Iron Golem training room inside Ghola-Fan's Compound will no longer pickable to help prevent quest completion issues.
* NEW - Haunted Library
o The floor puzzle in the Haunted Library now requires that all 4 runes be lit at the same time in order to open the door.
* NEW - Osgood's Basement
o Some breakables in this dungeon were not counting towards the XP bonus for number of breakables smashed. This has been fixed.
* NEW - The Pit
o Made some changes to the Pit's instruction manual - Step 9 is a little bit difference since the final objective has changed.
* NEW - Prison of the Mind
o Monsters should no longer fall off Prison of the Mind.
* NEW - Redfang's Nesting Ground
o More spikes are now disabled by the control panel in the spike-trapped room, creating a wider "safe path" for travel.
* NEW - Restless Isles
o We have added another encounter.
o The locked gates in the tunnels beneath the isles can now be picked with a high enough dc roll.
* NEW - Sharpwood's Warehouse
o The enemies will no longer respawn.
* NEW - Sorrowdusk Island
o The puzzle wheels at the end of the Fane of the Six now work properly.
o The 2 floor puzzles in Sorrowdusk Temple now require that all 3 of their runes be lit at the same time to complete the puzzle.
* NEW - Splinterskull
o Chief Ungurz will now offer an option to repeat the Splinterskull quest arc.
* Tempest Spine
o The "Bridge to the Inevitable" gate trap will now open after 3 minutes to prevent parties from getting stuck should someone run ahead, trigger the trap, and then die.
* NEW - Twilight Forge
o The dogs in the boss fight will now stop respawning after the mind flayer boss is killed.
o Made the locked chest in Twilight Forge easier to open.
* NEW - Wavecrest Tavern
o Kobolds will no longer attack you through doors in the Basement.

Under Development
These items are currently in development and are scheduled for some time after Module 3.