Changelog 31/10/16

[Azarael]

[General]

- Fixed an issue causing pets to slow down instead of speeding up when the master was mounted.
- The MDPS Morale 3 "Broad Swings" will no longer trigger on damage issued from an AoE skill, which would cause the same target to take damage multiple times from the AoE ability.

[Event]

Gobtar

-Fixed T1 Live Event quest: Graver Robbers is now takable
-The Undead March quest line is now functional.
-Added Questmarkers for unique elements of repeatable quests.
-Additional flavour text to quests and Mission objectives.

RyanMakara

- Added a Matchlock of the Dead for Witch Hunters.
- Made a double variant for 'of the Dead' Witch Elf knives, so they can be worn on right-hand only slotted daggers.

[Open RvR - Tier 2-4]

- The base lock timer for a Battlefield Objective will be 5 minutes instead of 10.
- A zone will fall when the keep is lost, rather than leaving the losing realm with no means of progression.

The above two changes are from 1.4.x.

- A battlefront will become the active battlefront when 2 objectives have been captured. The remaining 2 objectives will be allocated such that each realm holds 2 objectives each, and these objectives will then lock for 8 minutes, with supplies spawning 0 to 2 minutes after the lock ends. This is to allow both realms time to set up in the zone.
- Supplies will spawn 2.25 minutes after a BO changes realm, and respawn 4 minutes after being successfully returned, instead of 5 minutes in both cases.
- Battlefield Objectives will no longer incorrectly broadcast taken messages when supply state changes.
- Keep Rank 3 requires 3 warbands to reach rather than 4.
- Updated contribution and reward mechanics further for changes introduced in the last big patch.
- Rank 0 keeps now have a materiel allowance of a single artillery piece, rather than nothing.
- Keeps have natural, static siege spawns at the tower points on their walls. These items respawn 8 minutes after being destroyed.
- Cannon inflict 60% less damage to doors.
- The keep will issue warnings for door under attack in the following cases:

• Keep status changes from safe to outer under attack and from outer under attack to inner under attack
• Door HP 75%
• Door HP 50%
• Door HP 20%
• Door destroyed

- Because the RvR tracker doesn't seem to allow resources to be removed, keeps will now warn both realms when their upkeep is not being met.
- Messages for palisades will no longer be broadcast, as they are not yet implemented.
- Players can no longer force a postern while carrying or towing siege.

[Public Quests]

Hargrim

Order:
- Neborhest's Vanguard in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.
- The Tower of Neborhest in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.
- The Tree of Beards in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.
- Legacy of the Mourkain in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.

[Other Changes]

RyanMakara

- Made all 'Rats' untargetable.
- Made all Gnawbone's lair items Bind on Pickup.
- Added a ghostly appearance to all the Souls in the Inevitable City.
- Re-arranged some Dread Sentries and Souls in the Inevitable City.
- Removed the names above Watchers in the Inevitable City.
- Moved the AoE cannons for both sides in the Mourkain Temple scenario, seeing if this somewhat nerfed range prevents AoE blasting on the platforms. If further testing and exploitation of the deathball by holding it at your own spawn proves these cannons are too powerful, more changes will be made.

[Toldavf]

HAHA broad swings nerfed. A step in the right direction

[saupreusse]

"made all rats untargetable". NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[StormX2]

why no rat killing??

[Razielhell]

Hargrim

Order:
- Neborhest's Vanguard in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.
- The Tower of Neborhest in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.
- The Tree of Beards in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.
- Legacy of the Mourkain in Marshes of Madness is fully operational.

Keep it up!!!! Come on! <3
Much thanks for all the changes guys!
Gotta update the list now
P.s.Haha gj Ryan

[sabat80]

I am not entirely convinced by RvR changes in that patch (unless I am misunderstanding something in the RvR section). Therefore I would like to highlight 2 issues which, on paper, I can see in the current patch.

SPEED

Before that patch cannon was taking 3% of door HP per hit, what would result in 34 hits to take the door down. Even on low strength class (5 seconds reload) it will be around 3 minutes to take them down with a single canon.

But you required at least lvl 1 keep to take the cannon and start attacking. Resources were spawning every 5 minutes and I do not know exactly how many were required, but my feel is that at least 2 runs from each BO to get keep to lvl 1 therefore 10 minutes.

Approximately you could get 1st door down in 15 minutes after BO's unlock. 10 for resources, 3 for shooting and 2 travel time.

Now it is going to take 1.2% per hit and we will need 84 hits to take them down (7 minutes), but you can attack it straight away (no lvl 1 requirement), therefore unless I am mistaken you have nearly halved the time required to take 1st door down.

BATTLE OBJECTIVES

Also if 1 side is dominating there is nothing underdog can do to stop / slow them down. With minimized importance of BO's it is not required to have them to take a zone and after you deploy the siege engines you can forget about them as nothing is stopping you from taking a keep. Current patch is also allowing a single siege weapon at rank 0 so you can just ignore BO’s and go for a keep straight away.

In the past when it was required to hold at least 3 BOs to attack a keep, a small group could slow down progress of the zerg and allow reinforcements to come. Also it was forcing the zerg to split to cover the BO's again helping underdog side.

PROPOSAL

Why wouldn’t you consider a hybrid solution between old and a new way?

Keep resources coming to the keep. Small groups got something to do: or carry or stop people carrying (last patch).

Put the requirements on the keep lvl to deploy offensive siege engines (last patch). Possible even make siege weapons unusable when the keep level drops.

Keep current defensive siege weapons on the keep (current patch).

Enforce a requirement of having 3 BOs to be able to attack the keep (previous way).

In that way you are forcing the zerg to split as they need to guard BO’s and carry on taking resources to the keep to be able to attack. With only 1 zone active at any given time it will make people to fight and do things in a whole zone instead of swarming keeps one by one.

[Azarael]

Now it is going to take 1.2% per hit and we will need 84 hits to take them down (7 minutes), but you can attack it straight away (no lvl 1 requirement), therefore unless I am mistaken you have nearly halved the time required to take 1st door down.

You are mistaken. A rank 0 keep gives an artillery piece. Artillery cannot damage keep doors. Additionally, when returning resources to a keep, they are used to heal the door first. This means that any reduced damage against doors makes them much more sustainable when resources are being returned, necessitating a ram.

Also if 1 side is dominating there is nothing underdog can do to stop / slow them down. With minimized importance of BO's it is not required to have them to take a zone and after you deploy the siege engines you can forget about them as nothing is stopping you from taking a keep. Current patch is also allowing a single siege weapon at rank 0 so you can just ignore BO’s and go for a keep straight away.

In the past when it was required to hold at least 3 BOs to attack a keep, a small group could slow down progress of the zerg and allow reinforcements to come. Also it was forcing the zerg to split to cover the BO's again helping underdog side.

Ignoring the "single cannon at rank 0" which I've already illustrated is not true, BO control is still required to maintain keep rank, speed up gain in keep rank relative to enemy and support a keep that is under attack. It didn't become any less important. If you neglect the BOs and fail to return resources to your keep (because small groups are killing your carriers and taking BOs, for example), your keep will derank, reducing your siege potential. You can consider them as analogous to mineral patches or Strategic Points or mines or whatever RTS analogue you prefer, because controlling them is how you win. There's just another layer of indirection.

The lock timer was actually killing any chance a losing side had to come back, because the 10 minute lock timer was too large and didn't force the zerg to split up, and attackers with a rank 0 keep could not do anything about a zerg.

[Telperien]

- Fixed an issue causing pets to slow down instead of speeding up when the master was mounted.

Thanks a lot Aza, lets bring back the hunting terror to Praag

[sabat80]

You are mistaken. A rank 0 keep gives an artillery piece. Artillery cannot damage keep doors. Additionally, when returning resources to a keep, they are used to heal the door first. This means that any reduced damage against doors makes them much more sustainable when resources are being returned, necessitating a ram.

Fantastic!! Thanks for explanation. That actually invalidates completely my fear about speed

BO control is still required to maintain keep rank, speed up gain in keep rank relative to enemy and support a keep that is under attack. It didn't become any less important. If you neglect the BOs and fail to return resources to your keep (because small groups are killing your carriers and taking BOs, for example), your keep will derank, reducing your siege potential.

I am not getting something How keep de-ranking will slow you down?

Lets assume that I had a keep at lvl 1 and deployed 1-2 cannons. Yes, I will not be able to deploy any more cannons, but I still will be able to attack enemy keep, regardless of my BO possession, even if my keep drops to 0? Only problem which attacker will have are groups caring resources to the keep to heal the door, but with zerg it can be easily solved as postern are not very far from the main gate.

[RyanMakara]

Sorry 'bout the rats. I figured there are some settings that allow us to tweak the name above character heads and remain targetable, but I set the settings for untargetable/no-name instead. Cheer up lads, you can still AoE the filthy suckers :^)