February 2016 Patch Preview

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Roshen, Feb 4, 2016.

  1. Roshen Brand Manager

    We wanted to give you a sneak peek of what the team has planned for our February patch, currently scheduled to go live to players later this month.

    In this patch, we’ll have updates for taunt, pet aggro, getting around in Plane of Hate/Fear, and MORE!

    "You Have Failed to Taunt Your Target"

    We looked into the success rate of the taunt skill and decided this ability could use some improvements.

    The success rate of this ability will now be more closely correlated to your taunt skill where previously it was rather arcane in its chance to succeed based on particular level thresholds. The overall success rate for characters with Taunt (200) and higher should be noticeably better.

    "Taunting Attacker, Master"

    While looking into the functionality of player taunt we took the opportunity to fix some glaring issues with how pets taunt their targets.

    We've corrected a problem that prevented pets from being able to taunt their target and we've adjusted pet taunt to function more similarly to players using the taunt skill.

    "But What About My Rampaging Servant?"

    With the last few patches we've been adjusting the amount of hatred that pets generate with each melee swing. Coinciding with those changes were the release of AA abilities to reduce your primary pet's aggro multiplier.

    After reviewing the gameplay impact of these changes we're going to make adjustments to how pets generate melee aggro.

    The AA abilities Companion's Calm Demeanor and Companion's Provocative Demeanor are being removed. These abilities are clunky and were more of a bandage than a solution to the issue.

    The aggro a pet generates with its melee swings will now be higher in the following cases:
    • The pet has taunt enabled
    • The pet is a charmed NPC
    • The pet is a swarm pet
    The design team has been poking at the aggro generated by NPC melee swings in an effort to better balance the hatred generated by pets in both raid and group situations. After this patch pet taunt functionality will determine if a pet owner wants their primary pet to gain the attention of their target while also increasing the aggro generated by pets that cannot have taunt enabled.

    We will continue monitoring the gameplay impact of this next round of changes to see if pet aggro generation is closer to where we want it to be.

    "Anything Else About Aggro?"

    Actually, yes! While we were reviewing hate generation code we discovered and fixed a rather strange bug with how mad NPCs get about spells that hit them.

    We've fixed a problem with some direct damage spells that were generating either too much or too little aggro and adjusted the data to ensure that classes who wanted the extra aggro for their spells will continue generating the same amount.

    TLDR: After this patch tanks will continue to generate as much aggro as they did prior to the fix while other classes may generate less aggro when using damaging spells that have a hate override.

    "Some Words About Planes"

    We've made another pass at the aggro-pathing in the Plane of Hate to clean up some of the more ... 'interesting'... ways that NPCs attempt to reach their targets. This will hopefully address some of the more glaring issues such as Innoruuk deciding to leave the building depending on where his most hated target chooses to run.

    As an issue of convenience we've updated both Plane of Hate and Fear: Revisited to allow guild banners to be placed and teleported to and fellowship fires to be placed but not teleported to, as is the standard for the majority of raid zones.

    And… MORE?

    Yes, and more! This is only the highlights from February’s patch, and we’ll have more coming up for our live and progression servers.

    Just some of the additional things in February’s patch are:
    • Quality of life updates for Weapon Proficiency AAs.
    • Additional TBM itemization fixes.
    • Improvements for Knights mitigation after level 85 (and after Underfoot releases on progression servers).
    • Fixed issues preventing the completion of a number of group missions.
    Our goal each month is to continue to improve the quality of the game we all love! As always, we appreciate your feedback, but please wait until you see these changes on the test server before passing judgment.

    We’re grateful for your continued support!
    Kridina, Caell, Khat_Nip and 12 others like this.
  2. Carel Da Bard Journeyman

    I think this is a great step in addressing the needs of the community. Is it possible to give a little more information on Weapon Proficiency aa's?
    axzelin and Gyurika Godofwar like this.
  3. Kahlev Al-Calen Augur

    Please take some extra time to double check you are not messing with the agro from pre-Gates stuns. Paladins depend heavily on them for agro purposes, and pre-Gates stuns have no aditional hate mods on them, meaning that if you decrease the relative amount of hate they generate, regardless of wether they "land" or not, paladins on progression servers lose their main agro generation tool.
  4. dwish Augur




    I'm a bit worried about the underlined part above. There are quite a few non-tank classes that have various spells they have used for years to maintain aggro when they want it, as there are plenty of non-tanks that are capable of tanking. I'm really hoping I'm reading this wrong and this isn't going to end up has a huge nerf to the aggro of anyone that isn't a tank.
    Rhiyannon likes this.
  5. Fooba Augur

    Just some of the additional things in February’s patch are:
    • Quality of life updates for Weapon Proficiency AAs.
    • Additional TBM itemization fixes.
    • Improvements for Knights mitigation after level 85 (and after Underfoot releases on progression servers).
    • Warriors can now cast spells.
  6. Benzarden Augur

    Gonna save the Monks some effort and ask that you consider taking a look at Thunderfoot. It's been broken for a while, they just don't have as strong a union as pet classes. #MonkLivesMatter
  7. Cadira Augur

    Ever since they gave warriors Defensive Proficiency, and even before that, the balance between knights and warriors has been pretty uneven. Knights always seemed better at tanking trash or raid trash than named, and warriors were better at named than trash. When i saw they gave warriors defensive proficiency and gave knights nothing to keep up, i was befuddled. Knights definitely deserve something to at least keep up with warriors on tanking or they're only half way decent kiters at best in this game. They should at least be a close second to tanking raid named/trash to warriors instead of dropping twice as fast (with their disc going, no less). I'd give them an ability similar to Defensive Proficiency or heavily increase their main tanking defensive disc even if most of the increase comes in the form of their popular lifetap abilities.
    Vtull likes this.
  8. SelahEQ New Member

    Thanks, Roshen! It's good to get a little sneak preview of changes to come. I am hoping they will be fixing the broken Lesser Spirit Armor tasks.
    Yinla and Gyurika Godofwar like this.
  9. Numiko Augur

    I would like to know where enchanter animations fall in these changes, they are not listed in the group that will have their hate increased but are loosing the hate generation bonus AA.

    They do not have taunt so the improvements there will not help either.

    My animation with the hate bonus barely can hold agro off me now .... I have to pace my spells well out and stand until they start to run or else the mob will turn on me, without the bonus I cannot see it being able to keep mobs off me at all.

    I know some will say well you can charm, but because of my RL situation I have to often afk, sometimes for extended periods, so using charm is not viable for me.

    maybe a solution would be to give animations taunt because otherwise enchanters will have no way to set their summoned pets to tank for them.
    Cereclere and Faana like this.
  10. mackal Augur

    Would a dev care to elaborate more on the taunt changes more? (like how much of an improvement we should be expecting etc?)
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  11. Metanis Bad Company

    I don't understand. With the myriad broken things already documented in TBM why in God's name would you gratuitously take it upon yourselves to "fix" something that isn't broken? It boggles the mind how poor the prioritization of issues must be.
  12. Cicelee Augur

    What about Demiplane of Decay partisan giving one of the steps as ?????, thus rendering it unable to complete?
  13. strongbus Augur

    i would like to know how much more aggro pets will have with taunt now. is it going to be the same as with the pet aggro buff going or back to what it was before the aggro change or somewhere in between.

    ATM as a necro if my war pet has aggro weaps and the pet aggro buff it still can't hold aggro if I cast a few dot without fding. swift dots and the super tbm dot and its fd till the dots wear off or its instance aggro.
  14. Tarvas Redwall of Coirnav, now Drinal

    He told you why. When they were looking at how taunt works (my guess is pets were the focus) they stumbled upon the rest. That usually how it goes with these things. And apparently they are so compartmentalized that one dev cannot work on another dev's stuff like itemization. Good news though, that guy is back from vacation and turning out fixes and I am happy they are fixing or attempting to fix at any rate the Planes.
  15. Vtull Augur


    This!!!! Knights should not be preferred tanks on raid name content, but holy crap, with everything going (including reapers bargain) knights get one rounded FAR TOO much on current content. Removing the OOM/OOE restriction would be a step in the right direction. At least that way IF they don't get one rounded and survive to the point where it would them of their mana and endurance, not being would allow them to continue to participate instead of sitting their with their thumbs up their backside trying to regen mana/endurance back to be somewhat useful again on the event.
  16. Roshen Brand Manager


    Sure! This has been shamelessly stolen from an email exchange with Dzarn (and if you're reading this post Dzarn, sorry to steal your thunder!):

    We've put together a quality of life change for the way that the Weapon Proficiency AAs function.

    Currently there are three AA abilities that can be activated when the wielder equips a particular combination of weapons in their primary and secondary hands. These abilities have a number of stacking problems due to the fact that they can remain active in the event the user's weapon set changes.

    To improve things for players when using these abilities, we've changed the following:
    • The three activated AA ability buttons are being removed.
    • The base ability Combat Proficiency has been renamed Weapon Stances and is now a toggled passive ability similar to Bold Attacks.
    • When this passive ability is set to active your current weapon arrangement will automatically attempt to apply the correct stance buff.
    • Now that changing your weapon arrangement will automatically remove the previous stance buff we've been able to clean up some of the stacking conflicts that currently exist in the line, most notoriously the issue where activating Final Stand would cause Defensive Proficiency to fade.
    • Toggling the passive ability off will also remove any active weapon stance buff in the event the user decides they would rather not have the bonuses/penalties associated with the ability.
    Jhenna_BB, beryon, Mayfaire and 2 others like this.
  17. adetia Monkess Wonder, Ruler of All

    this should be in the patch - its fixed internally but requires a patch to go in.
  18. Beeferx Journeyman

    How will this effect Alex? I will lose all my mit with a shield if I equip an item without damage/delay in my primary wouldn't I? Can you make Knights AC=0 when they aren't holding a weapon also please? Just to even things out.
  19. Koryu Professional Roadkill

    [IMG]

    Never thought I'd see the day that Taunt skill got an overhaul. And now Weapon Proficiencies are auto-applying buffs with bandolier-swapping? I owe some devs a dinner and beers.
  20. Baramos Augur

    Roshen -

    Thank you for this information. And I also want to thank Holly Longdale, the Producer of the game, who had to sift through all this information and discern what makes sense from a holistic standpoint of gameplay, not one crusader's opinions on how he felt things should be. I know her work. Now of course, I have no idea how any of this will work out, but I think the Mage community in particular should PM, twittter, whatever floats your boat and say THANK YOU HOLLY FOR BEING AWARE AND ON TOP OF THIS !! It's no mean feat leading a team where, just as has always been true, there are so many permutations of gameplay and opinions that it takes a truly talented manager with an unwavering yet flexible opinion, and sight of the game. Unwavering, in how she expects diversity, balance, and fairness to preclude vested interests, conflicts of interest, self-contradiction to the point where, finally, depending on who butt in to posts and derailed the most, the messages got so lost in the noise that only a thinker and a leader could have helped to sort it out and then do the final sign-off. And it's the flexibility in her final sign-off that convinces her staff that they have the appropriate person at the helm

    Holly - my hat is enthusiastically off to you, and I cannot tell you how pleased I am that this game destroying new paradigm, for my playstyle, is being addressed. 17 years on my Mage = as sad as it sounds I was suffering anxiety trying to stay away from the boards and keep my mouth shut so I didn't end up hitting refresh like a crack addict. The alternative in my mind was to have come back weeks later to see status quo formulations and ideas implemented that did not address the issues, but more addressed the covetous attitude and opinion of others not of the class.

    I currently couldn't have a better feeling about this sans-detail than I do.

    I will say this, however.... it sounds like the entire crew is really trying to get this right