Test Update 09/13/2022 - Patch Notes and Discussions

Discussion in 'Test Update Notes and Bug Roundup' started by EQ Dev, Sep 13, 2022.

  1. EQ Dev Developer

    September 13, 2022
    _____________________


    *** Highlights ***

    - Added the ability to output a filtered (Complete, Open, and/or Locked) list of your achievements using either a new button in the achievements window or the slash command: /outputfile achievements.
    - Level 100 Heroic Characters are now available on servers that have unlocked Torment of Velious.


    *** Quests & Events ***

    - Mata Muram (Raid) - Added a speculative fix to ensure Mata Muram does not target people in 'hover mode' with his gaze.
    - Free the Goranga (Raid) - Targets of the shadow chains effect will no longer be hit by the moonfall effects, so they can run as far away as they would like. Messaging has been added to let the target know when the chains protect them from the moonfall.
    - Theater of Blood Access - The Twisted Harmonic Chime will now attune to you. Click it to attune, then click it again to teleport. You will only need to complete the attune step once.
    - Kreljnok's Sword of Eternal Power - The map in East Wastes will no longer lie to you about Larnik's location. Additionally, Larnik can now be found after 4 to 6 hours following his last defeat.
    - Demiplane of Blood Progression - Congealed Blood of Redfang, Rune-Etched Stone, Shrunken Head, and Sister's Handkerchief are five times more likely to drop from the creatures that drop them.
    - Added an additional Eye of Yar`Lir and Eye of Vishimtar to the chest that drops in their raid.
    - Essedera should be available again in Eastern Wastes (Torment of Velious).


    *** Spells ***

    - Corrected an issue where hate could overflow to a lower value in a very long fight.


    *** AA ***

    - Activated abilities will be less likely to apply their reuse timer if they are interrupted by the caster zoning.


    *** NPCs ***

    - Phinigel Autropos, Dracoliche, Dread, and Terror are now immune to crowd control effects.


    *** Progression Servers ***

    - Mount blessings for knight classes should now apply during the intended active expansions on progression servers.
    - Evolving items on Level Locked servers can now evolve when the owner is up to 10 levels lower than the item's required level.
    - Teleport items rewarded on Vaniki have had their recast timers reduced, can be placed in housing, and no longer share recast timers with other teleport items.
    - Elder Animist Dumul in Shar Vahl will accept the Copper Medal of War at level 50 on most servers or 40 on level capped servers.


    *** Miscellaneous ***

    - Made improvements to how achievements are processed to further reduce zone lag.
    - Experience gain messages will now also display the percentage gained. This change currently only applies to regular experience (not AA).
    - Return Home should refresh in some cases where the zone you are trying to enter is unavailable.
    - Fixed a crash that could occur when removing an overflow item.
    - Creating a Heroic Character on the Test server will now decrement your count of Heroic Character Consumables Pack.
    - The safe point in Chardok has been moved to the zone-in point when entering from the Burning Woods.
    - Some typos have been resolved in Shar Vahl flavor text. This does not affect any quest lines.


    *** UI ***

    - Your current target should now be highlighted with an outline of their consider color in the Extended Target Window.
    - Updated the default location for hotbars 1-4 and updated bars 3-4 to show by default.
    - Fixed an issue that would add a duplicate item when using Link All from the Advanced Loot Window.
    - Updated the Bazaar and Merchant windows to include commas in the price of items.
    - Clicking on the Extended Target Window but not on a target should keep your current target and no longer target yourself.
    - Updated the Combat Skills Window to save the sorted column.
    - Right-clicking a combat ability hotkey will now open up the Combat Skills window and select that combat ability.
    - Alphabetized the list of commands when using /help.
    - Updated the Claim window to better indicate if a feature is unavailable to claim.
    - Fixed a problem with the Chat Options button on the Login Server's chat window being inaccessible.
    - Added tooltip information explaining what the aggro numbers in Group and the Extended Target windows mean.
    - Added the ability to output a filtered (Complete, Open, and/or Locked) list of your achievements using either a new button in the achievements window or the slash command: /outputfile achievements.

    - Changed -

    EQUI.xml
    EQUI_AchievementsWnd.xml
    EQUI_AdvancedLootWnd.xml
    EQUI_CharacterCreate.xml
    EQUI_CharacterListWnd.xml
    EQUI_ClaimWnd.xml
    EQUI_Inventory.xml
    EQUI_PlayerWindow.xml
    EQUI_TargetWindow.xml


    *** Previously Updated ***

    - Fixed a bug that could result in unexpected results when making a tradeskill combine.
    - The progression AA Gift of the Dark Reign, Tenacity of the Dark Reign, Embrace of the Dark Reign, Power of the Dark Reign, and Fervor of the Dark Reign now require level 60.


    - The EverQuest Team
    Skuz, Rondor, Iven and 4 others like this.
  2. Nennius Curmudgeon

    " Added the ability to output a filtered (Complete, Open, and/or Locked) list of your achievements using either a new button in the achievements window or the slash command: /outputfile achievements."

    Thank you. Is there any way we could get something similar for collectibles?
    PCSS, Jordis, Hobitses and 1 other person like this.
  3. Strumph Augur

    The file does show what collection pieces you have and don't have. If you not collected it it'll say 0/1. If you have then says nothing after the piece. A 1/1 may have been nice though.
    PCSS and Hobitses like this.
  4. MischiefTLP Augur

    Are CotF-TBL Level 85 Heroic Characters remaining in the game?
  5. Meeko Developer(Code)

    Yup!

    Here's some more info on how the level 100 Heroic Characters will work.
    Emilari and kizant like this.
  6. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Nice.
  7. Mrjon3s Augur

    Fenthen and Kubat like this.
  8. Emilari UI Designer

    So, the changes to the extended target window to show the consider ring around whatever you have targeted is an excellent idea. I have some issues with the realistic implementation though.

    By keeping this new element hard-coded, and not adjusting the EQUI_ExtendedTargetWindow.xml to add in these elements there, you've removed a lot of functionality for custom UI makers as we don't have the ability to determine it's position or size, unlike the Target Box in the EQUI_TargetWindow.xml or the Attack Indicator in the player window.

    In the Default UI, it looks beautiful and well done.

    [IMG]

    In my custom UI, (found here: https://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=6921) because I can't re-position these new target box elements to be where I want them to be they get cut off and aren't in the correct location. I've spent several hours now trying to fix it and I don't seem to be able to, which is frustrating.

    [IMG]

    I've tested several other custom UI's; often, they have the same display issues as mine does. Sometimes, they don't even display at all which is rather odd.

    I'm curious as to whether there's a reason/limitation as to why this was left hard-coded and not modifiable by players for custom UI's or if it was just forgotten and could possibly be addressed in a future patch.

    Every single other element in the entire UI is represented by an element in an xml file in the uifiles folder; even if that element is hard-coded to a specific window, or has hard-coded information inside of it such as the contents of the list boxes in the AA window. The biggest reason? so it can be relocated and/or resized within the UI for custom mods.

    Why would you introduce something that all of a sudden doesn't and goes against 20 or so years of convention? I'm completely baffled. Many people love EQ's UI system because the UI is so customizable. Why change that now? Even companies developing brand new upcoming games are keeping customizable UI's / mods as a thing.

    I was looking forward to seeing what new things the upcoming UI engine would be able to do (in-game scaling so people can play on whatever resolution they want would be a great improvement for example). I was also assuming the UI would remain customizable, but if future updates continue to be hard-coded like this, that's a no.

    In addition, there seems to be a bug with the functionality. If you have the same person/NPC on your extended target window in multiple slots, instead of the target ring appearing around the slot that the player interacts with (clicks on), it automatically goes to the bottom slot. As a cleric, I could see this getting very confusing during raid time when I've got a full extended target window. It exhibits this behaviour with players, mercenaries, and NPC's.

    In my opinion, the ideal fix would be to have it show for all slots with that entity in it. Second best would be for it to show on the slot you actually clicked on. Third would be for it to choose the top slot with the entity in it. Having it target the bottom one is the worst option as many players don't play with their extended target window fully extended.

    [IMG]
  9. Moege Augur

    Doubt if there is currently a way, live and test have the same EQUI_ExtendedTargetWindow. Really does mess with the custom UI's

    e.g
    AYA (2 cyan lines is supposed to be the highlight)
    [IMG]
    Zipe, Hobitses and Emilari like this.
  10. Emilari UI Designer

    I've spent all night looking at it and trying out various iterations. You're correct, there isn't a way for custom UI creators to implement the new feature.

    The feature itself is an excellent idea. It's the implementation that's lacking. There should be elements for these new highlights in the xml code. period. There isn't --- that's the problem.

    There is an element for every other piece of the UI in every other single window that's part of the UI. The fact that they implemented a new feature without adding the code for the elements in the UI is shocking, concerning, and doesn't bode well for future changes.

    They either threw 20 years of design philosophy out the window, or they made a mistake and forgot to add an updated extended target window xml file to the patch, or there's some sort of back end limit (highly doubt it's a limitation).

    Since the design philosophy is still industry standard, I'm really hoping it was a mistake that will be rectified sooner than later. Clarification from the code team would be appreciated.
    Fenthen, Zipe and Zunnoab like this.
  11. Emilari UI Designer

    I realized that my posts might not make sense to those unfamiliar with SIDL and making custom EQUI files. If you go here:

    https://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/UI_utilities

    and click the "About SIDL" link, you'll see the document SOE provided us back in 2002 the last time they upgraded the UI engine. It's incomplete as additions have been made through the years, but when I'm talking about elements, they're quite literally the lego blocks of building a UI piece (See the UI Hierarchy section on page 3). Thanks to Fanra for archiving it for the community.

    What is needed to support the change (- Your current target should now be highlighted with an outline of their consider color in the Extended Target Window.) are some UI2DAnimations and StaticAnimations ElementTypes for the new functionality. Examples from other parts of the UI that do very similar things and are exactly what is needed can be found in the EQUI_TargetWindow.xml:

    TextureInfo Items: TargetBox.tga

    UI2DAnimations: A_TargetBoxTop, A_TargetBoxBottom, A_TargetBoxLeft, A_TargetBoxRight

    StaticAnimations: A_TargetBoxStaticAnimTop, A_TargetBoxStaticAnimBottom, A_TargetBoxStaticAnimLeft, A_TargetBoxStaticAnimRight

    Since it's based off the Target Box in the target window, the same art can be used (yes, you can still have a 1 pixel border using the thicker art piece)... but without these essential lego blocks, custom UI's can't be maintained or supported.

    One of the main selling points for investing in the new UI engine 20 years ago was to say goodbye to an un-modifiable UI (the one where the spell book took up your whole screen when meditating) and say hello to custom UI's. It'd be nice to have the same idea (and some confirmation of) be carried forward into the future with the upcoming engine as mentioned in the 2022 roadmap.
    Syylke_EMarr and Zipe like this.
  12. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    That document looks like it is very much out of date.
  13. Emilari UI Designer

    Actually, its mostly still in-date as thats the explainer for the custom xml language they created (SIDL) that's still in use today. It's missing a few things that were added, but 99% of what's there is still in use, and will/should be until we have a new engine with a new language.

    That's getting off topic from my main questions of why did Daybreak release what appears to be an incomplete update? Is it going to be fixed, or is there a reason for it?
  14. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Not sure I would agree with that considering all the changes they have made to how things in the UI have worked in recent years. Sure the basics may be the same but that doesn't mean that there are not other changes that are not reflected in that document. Not to mention there is a reported UI bug in the bug thread that is already being worked.
  15. Krool Lorekeeper

    So the main tank can keep the pedal to the metal on boss aggro the entire fight? Yay thanks.
  16. Zunnoab Augur

    Hopefully they can fix that UI file issue.

    Were label tags ever added to the new tile style buff templates? That's another recent severe UI oversight, unless I'm wrong and you can include labels in the template. It's bizarre having to figure out where buffs land to manually put the labels in the right places. Broken, even, unless the person who told me that was mistaken.
    Emilari likes this.
  17. Emilari UI Designer


    Yes, I've successfully been able to add labels to target windows and buff/song windows with the new templates. It was a pickle to figure out, but it can still be done. You can see my buff windows here:

    https://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?s=&id=6885

    I even wrote how I managed to do it on a couple threads over on the eqinterface forums.
  18. Meeko Developer(Code)

    For the highlight on the ETW, it's position is relative to other elements. If those are moved around in your custom UI, it may not make a square or line up the same way it does on the default UI.

    The left and bottom lines are relative to the left and bottom edge of ETW_AggroPct.
    The right and top lines are relative to the top and right edge of ETW_Gauge, which is the HP gauge.
    Raccoo, niente and Emilari like this.
  19. Emilari UI Designer

    Thank you very much for the clarification Meeko. It's most appreciated.
    Fenthen likes this.
  20. minimind The Village Idiot

    YES!

    I swear, the Combat Ability window is my favorite thing about being a pure melee. It's just so damn functional!
    Fenthen, klanderso and Zunnoab like this.