Avery, you've given me wall of text yet again. Sorry, and I think I can speak for many disillusioned AoC players, hype won't work anymore. There was hype for 1.3, for 1.4, they turned out to be craptastic and fulfilling very little (remember how 1.3 ruined Tier 1 raids?), and 1.5 seems to follow suit. The saddest thing here is that fervent AoC players have to spend more time on the test servers than on the live ones, and if they do not do so, are blamed by people like Avery and Funcom that it is their own fault, since they are not "willing" to test things for them and are not "dedicated" enough.

I remember many players spending way more time on testlive than on live when the pvp patch was in the works (mainly because on the test server the gems were disabled), and that was happening for months. Then 1.4 was released on testlive and again hordes of players rather spend their time on the test servers, since it was only there that there was less meaningless ganking and useless guards ruining everything. And now... same crap, people spending way too much time for 1.5 and reporting to Funcom in detail some facts that should be self-given to any baboon. The net result is that serious and most dedicated players play AoC by experimenting on testlive.

And moving on from those that don't care for the game but care to still be interested here is today's update and this if you review it has some very nice updates for the raiders. Again collaboration with guilds helping out testing.

Added June 12th

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMBAT

General
* Charge abilities will now go on cooldown when the charge starts instead of when the charge ends.
* Magic and Defense Rating buffs should no longer appear in your spellbook or on your hot bars.
* Solo spellcaster NPC and some group spellcaster NPC have had their damage output toned down a bit.
* Fixed an exploit that allowed players to walk on water while stealthed.
* Attack driection on new combo icons should now always display when new combo is learned.

Priests
* The heal particle effect for Renewal, Blood Flow, and Healing Lotus will continue to display until the heal is finished.

Soldiers
* Goad and Goad Mob now apply a blocker effect to their targets. This blocker prevents Goad and Goad Mob from affecting this target for 30 seconds.
* Reduced the cooldown of Goad to 90 seconds.
* The hate bonus on soldier Defensive Stance has been increased to 5%.

CLASSES
 

Bear Shaman
* Particles now display when casting Rune of Resistance or Rune of Resilience.

Conqueror
*Furious Resurgence casting time reduced to 1 second [down from 4 seconds].
*Furious Resurgence no longer requires you to have Furious Inspiration stacks running when using the ability.

Dark Templar
* All ranks of martyrdom will now place a team heal effect that lasts for 20seconds.
* All ranks of martyrdom now has a team heal particle effect associated with it.

Demonlogist
* Reduced the radius of the Black Ashes effect to match the radius of Inferno of Amher.
* Spellweaving buff Hand of Doom will now correctly give a 100% crit chance to Gate of Hell, Inferno of Amher, Shockblast, Thunderclap and Waves of Flame. The 100% crit chance to Hell's Garden has been removed from the buff.

Priest of Mitra
* The Priest of Mitra spellweaving buffs no longer affect the obsolete spell Shielding Litany.
* Mitra's Will now reduces the mana penalty of Purification of Mitra by 30/60/90% (up from 25/50/75%).
* Ether Discharge will now restore mana for each target affected by Wave of Life.

Tempest of Set
* Tempest of Set buff Degradation of Set will now apply the intended Elemental Wrack debuff instead of Spiritual Wrack.

RAIDS

Ahazu-Zagam
* Increased his magical resistances.
* Decreased his health.
* The damage increase gained by the adds in the Ahazu-Zagam encounter will now be visible on their debuff list. This is a purely visual change.

Athyr-Bast
* Reduced her health.
* Increased the power of the final stack of the Unholy Invulnerability debuff used by the Shadow Imp Lord.

Champion of The Honorguard
* Reduced his health and DPS.

Chatha
* Reduced the health of Chatha.
* Chatha is no longer immune to hate modifying abilities in phase 2.
* Increased the health of Satorus.
* Increased the power of the "strength in numbers" reactive damage shield.

Excorant
* Reduced Excorant's mitigation values in Phase 1 to allow tanks to hold aggro more easily.
* Reduced the hitpoints of Blood-Fused Black Ring Gargoyle.
* Increased the cooldown of Blood-fused Black Ring Gargoyle fear.

Leviathus
* Reduced the health of Leviathus.

Sabazios
* Decreased his health.
* Increased the health, dps and magic resists of the adds.
* Made the first poison invulnerability debuff a reactive procc as well as a spell cast by Sabazios.
* The poison invulnerability debuff in the Sabazios-encounter has been renamed to Toxic Frailty, and it will now display a stack counter on the debuff icon.
* The first rank of the poison invulnerability debuff in the Sabazios-encounter will no longer coexist with the others, but be removed when a new one is added to the stack.

Seruah
* Reduced the health of the adds.

Yaremka
* Reduced the health of Yaremka.

Vistrix
* Reduced the damage of the Dark Flames ability.

CONTENT

Atzel's Fortress
* The boss Osithmes in Aztel's Fortress had his spell Dark Force changed.
 

Black Ring Citadel
* Reduced textures and fixed UV rendered lightmaps.
 

Oasis of Zaara
* Tribal Chief Rak'tunab now resets correctly when his totems are out.
 

Tortage
* New item rewards added to several quests on Tortage, including: Dry Times, Path of the Pirate, The Legendary Turach, Empty Reserves, Of Rotting Flesh, The Evil that Men Do, Tailored Tasks and Letter to the King.
 

Tarantia Commons
* Fixed a World Design issue that caused Wharf Rat npcs to fall through geometry.
* Fixed numerous text issues where fixed in some Quest dialogues.
 

White Sands Isle
* The grass around the resurrection points and camps have been removed.
 

Xibaluku
* The Martyr of Votantha encounter in Xibaluku has been nerfed quite a bit.

ITEMS

* Most caster weapons have had their magical damage values tweaked.
* Changed magic damage distribution on items.
* Bearshaman's 'Boots of Vernant Fury' should now have the correct inventory icon.
* Replaced Magical Health Tap on the Priest of Mitra Raid staff with Magical Mana Tap.
* Tweaked stats on raid quivers and bolts.
* Tweaked pre raid melee weapon progression.
* Lowered Magical Damage Effect cap to approximately 20% for PowerTiers: World Blues and under.

MASSIVE PVP

* All versions of the keep building should now have proper collision.
* The defenders have constructed additional hidden tunnels in each battlekeep that allow them to get out of their inner courtyard.

Those hidden tunnels are a nice feature. In WoW you have teleports which would of course be ludicrous in AoC, so I thought they'd never come up with something that makes the defenders walk to and fro without actually opening the front doors. Very nice indeed.

And finally raid bosses will have a normal health pool wich will not require 30 mins to take them down. It seems that players' raid testing has paid off.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 Tortage
* New item rewards added to several quests on Tortage, including: Dry Times, Path of the Pirate, The Legendary Turach, Empty Reserves, Of Rotting Flesh, The Evil that Men Do, Tailored Tasks and Letter to the King.
 

Do you know what type of new items were added? 

Originally posted by Sevenwind

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 Tortage
* New item rewards added to several quests on Tortage, including: Dry Times, Path of the Pirate, The Legendary Turach, Empty Reserves, Of Rotting Flesh, The Evil that Men Do, Tailored Tasks and Letter to the King.
 

 

Do you know what type of new items were added? 

Not yet, but I intend on playing through this week coming to find out. I like the fact they still hone the starting area's. With 1.05 being different a lot in the way a class would play before, I think currently players will try out new classes too. New people to the game get a better experience. Those higher level that Tortage drops that were vendor trash seem to have gone too.

gfor those holding their breath I hope you have a large lung capacity

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

not that I find fault withthem taking their time, this is pretty much their last hurrah at salvaging the game. If they mess up they are screwed and they know it. As much as I would like to see he changes I think they are doing the right thing with making sure the patch is a good one before releasing it.

Originally posted by Jackdog

gfor those holding their breath I hope you have a large lung capacity

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

not that I find fault withthem taking their time, this is pretty much their last hurrah at salvaging the game. If they mess up they are screwed and they know it. As much as I would like to see he changes I think they are doing the right thing with making sure the patch is a good one before releasing it.

I was going to post a reply as Sil replied to the first post or tweet .... Silirrion@openedge1 nothing cryptic intended, and the update is pretty close now, just said it had taken longer due to the complexity this time"

Someone already posted it in the thread. My guess 2-3 weeks.

 EDIT: It sure hates that @ symbol... yeesh, sorry.

AmazingAvery keep posting the 1.05 notes. 

Im following it and waiting for assassin revamp.. if rogue/assassin class get fixed I will reactive my account. 

Originally posted by Sevenwind

Originally posted by Jackdog

gfor those holding their breath I hope you have a large lung capacity

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

not that I find fault withthem taking their time, this is pretty much their last hurrah at salvaging the game. If they mess up they are screwed and they know it. As much as I would like to see he changes I think they are doing the right thing with making sure the patch is a good one before releasing it.

I was going to post a reply as Sil replied to the first post or tweet .... Silirrion@openedge1 nothing cryptic intended, and the update is pretty close now, just said it had taken longer due to the complexity this time"

Someone already posted it in the thread. My guess 2-3 weeks.

 EDIT: It sure hates that @ symbol... yeesh, sorry.

I kind of feel for them, release too early and things are not finished they get slammed and it most likly be one of the lsat nails in their subscriptioon coffin, take their time and polish it before release and more and more people lose interest each day. It's a lose / lose situation.

Little update patch to the patch today:

Added June 16th

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL
* Obsolete spells and abilities should no longer be in your spellbook or on your hotbar upon loggin in.
* When your charge is interrupted (by a root or knockback for example) you won't deal damage anymore.
* Lance of Mitra and other Spells that proc will now proc on huge targets as well correctly (Healing from Lance of Mitra now works with Vistrix)

ITEMS
* The Assassin Raid daggers should now have their original visual back.

RAIDS

Chatha
* Bottom feeders now properly reset when kited to the top floor.

June 19th Patch update:

GENERAL

* A visual issue with female animation for the Guardian-combo Skewer has been fixed
* The speed of UR attacks for 2H Blunt/Edged weapons should now be slightly faster, to be more in line with the other directional attacks for those weapons
* A number of monster combos that were inflicting magical damage types have been converted to inflicting physical damage types so they are mitigated against armor instead of protection.
* Guard health is significantly decreased
* Monsters of level higher than 80 do less damage and take more damage, this is especially apparent for level 83 monsters.
* Some of the mobs in Atzel's Fortress have had their levels lowered.
* Several of the bosses in Xibauku have been rebalanced.
* Players should no longer get stuck in spellweaving if they cancel it while casting a spell or having additional spells queued up
* Some potions were not stacking to the proper number. These potions should now stack to 100 for regular potions, and 5 for blue potions.
* Player pets will now get occasional critical hits
* You should not be stuck in knockback when beeing knockbacked from a building.
* The client is updated correctly on knockback now. Players should not be stuck or see other players/npcs stuck in knockback anymore.
* Charge abilities will go on cooldown as soon as you start the charge regardless of whether you actually reached the target (for example because you were rooted or knocked back when charging).
* Also when charging, you'll only deal damage if you actually reached the target.
* The Decaying Corpse boss in Thunder River is now a full time caster, and his minions has been reduced in health and damage some.

CLASSES

DARK TEMPLAR

* The cooldown of Blood and Shadow hex has been increased to 7 seconds so that it is no longer to stack the Hexed buff on 2 targets simultaneously. The damage and healing effects have been increased appropriately based on the new cooldown.

CONQUEROR

* The effect of Guardmans Feint as been lowered to 1/2/3/4/5% (Down from 2/4/6/8/10%)

GUARDIAN

* Juggernaut has been tweaked. The spell damage bonus has been removed and the weapon contribution bonus has been increased to 70%.
* Enduring Defense Maneuver will now give the Guardian Armor instead of Generic Invunrability Rating. The amount of armor gained will be scaled based on the player level.

DEMONOLOGIST

* Reduced the Incinerate damage bonus of the Lingering Flames feat to 30/60/90/120/150% (down from 45/90/135/180/225%)
* Reduced the base damage of Fires of Gehenna.
* Significantly increased the spell damage coefficient of Fires of Gehenna (Rank 1).
* Reduced the base damage of Shockstrike.
* Reduced the bonus damage granted to your pet with Pact of Earth Walking to 100% (down from 166%)
* Reduced the critical damage bonus of Pact of Dread to 10/20/30/40/50% per respective feat point (was 20/40/60/80/100%)

NECROMANCER

* Significantly reduced the damage of the Corruptor's Corrupting Touch proc.
* Removed the Aura of Corruption proc from the Corruptor minion when Grim Corruptor is feated.
* Slightly reduced the proc rate of the Corruptor minion's Corruption Touch proc.
* Reduced the critical chance bonus granted by the Brutal Death feat to 1/2/3/4/5% (down from 2/4/6/8/10%)
* Chill will now only detonate your own Pestilential Blast.
* Detonating Pestilential Blast will now only remove your Pestilential Blast from the target.

HERALD OF XOTLI

* The bonus combat rating gained from Avatar of Xotli has been lowered. The active damage proc gained from Avatar of Xotli has been removed.
* Demonic Link has been changed to only provide bonus magic damage, it no longer provides a combat rating bonus.

PRIEST OF MITRA

* Holy Cleansing has been changed to have a 0.5sec cast time, and a 2.5 minute cooldown. The mana cost has been slightly increased.

PVP

* The PvP-shield Skirmisher's Sanctum now has PvP-armor and PvP-protection

MASSIVE PVP

* The defenders have constructed additional hidden tunnels in each battlekeep that allow them to get out of their inner courtyard.

ITEMS

* 'Black Dragon Cloak' now has a new unique visual look.

RAID

* Many raid mobs have had their difficulty adjusted. Overall things should be somewhat easier than in previous builds.
* Yaremka's Eat Soul now does slightly more damage per tick.
* Vixtrix's Profanity debuff now lasts 30 seconds, down from 40.
__________________
Ken "Malakin" Eland
Assistant Quality Assurance Manager
 

I hear the raid changes are most welcomed, with the mob adjustments, haven't seen the Black Dragon Cloak yet will see if can get a picture for it. I think the above green highlights are definately welcomed especially the first one.

"MASSIVE PVP

* The defenders have constructed additional hidden tunnels in each battlekeep that allow them to get out of their inner courtyard."

This should be implemented ASAP, do you realize that for one year defenders have had to open up the front doors wide open or hurt themselves by jumping from walls just to be able to move about their own battlekeep? This is a very nice feature which I terribly missed and which finally balances sieges substantially. The only problem is it comes way too late for an impatient guy like me (yes, I can't wait one year for basic stuff like this to be implemented, sue me). Though I do wonder how these hidden tunnels look and how they work. Any videos?

Watching the slow trickle of minor tweaks added to this patch every couple of weeks makes it appear that the 120+ staff FC claimed to  still be working on AoC have been scaled back significantly.  Seems like FC went with the AO strategy again, shrink the team and slow down the dev cycle,use the sub money and the majority of the staff to dev the next product in the pipe.

It's pretty discouraging to watch this happen again. It's gonna be ugly when they do launch their next MMO and all but abandon this title like they did their last. The only difference is AO had two expansions and 4-5 years before it was neglected, it's not looking like AoC will be so 'lucky'.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

June 19th Patch update:

GENERAL

* The Decaying Corpse boss in Thunder River is now a full time caster, and his minions has been reduced in health and damage some.

 

Do you know if this boss is still Epic? I think everyone dies to this guy the first time because the quest is misleading. The quest doesn't show it needing to be a group encounter. This guy is pretty hard and you need a healer it seems currently. On top of all that the quest isn't really all that great. I just wanted revenge!

Originally posted by Unfinished

Watching the slow trickle of minor tweaks added to this patch every couple of weeks makes it appear that the 120+ staff FC claimed to  still be working on AoC have been scaled back significantly.  Seems like FC went with the AO strategy again, shrink the team and slow down the dev cycle,use the sub money and the majority of the staff to dev the next product in the pipe.

It's pretty discouraging to watch this happen again. It's gonna be ugly when they do launch their next MMO and all but abandon this title like they did their last. The only difference is AO had two expansions and 4-5 years before it was neglected, it's not looking like AoC will be so 'lucky'.

Beg your pardon but I would hardly call 7 patches in 2 weeks or so slow. They are significant changes.

Please keep on topic and you are already discouraged from 11 months ago and your here because.... so I don't see really the bearance of the in assuming the same thing is what you call " happening again" different team altogether on the whole. From the quest designer to others whom never worked on AO.

Difference is there has always been more ppl working on AoC at anyone time than their other games. Patch 1.05 has seen more updates to it than any other. I suggest you goto the test server forums and be more informed.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Beg your pardon but I would hardly call 7 patches in 2 weeks or so slow. They are significant changes.

Please keep on topic and you are already discouraged from 11 months ago and your here because.... so I don't see really the bearance of the in assuming the same thing is what you call " happening again" different team altogether on the whole. From the quest designer to others whom never worked on AO.

Difference is there has always been more ppl working on AoC at anyone time than their other games. Patch 1.05 has seen more updates to it than any other. I suggest you goto the test server forums and be more informed.

I read the last 7, it's 'tweaks'

The  'new' PF mentioned  is not new, posters on the official forums commented on being able to circumvent the 'invisible walls' around that PF since launch and walk the empty zone.

Working as directed by the exact same company.

I am pretty sure you have absolutely no way of knowing that other than taking their word for it. FunCom has fostered a reputation where their 'word' is spurious at best.

AoC's development cycle has slowed down dramatically, and it's not for lack of things that need fixes / revamps. 1.05's content hardly reflects the man-hours of the claimed 120+ people x 3+ months, there just isn't enuff there.

Have fun waiting on a dev cycle that puts out product every 3-4-5 months. At that rate it will take them a few years to fill all the big holes the game still has.

Originally posted by Unfinished

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Beg your pardon but I would hardly call 7 patches in 2 weeks or so slow. They are significant changes.

Please keep on topic and you are already discouraged from 11 months ago and your here because.... so I don't see really the bearance of the in assuming the same thing is what you call " happening again" different team altogether on the whole. From the quest designer to others whom never worked on AO.

Difference is there has always been more ppl working on AoC at anyone time than their other games. Patch 1.05 has seen more updates to it than any other. I suggest you goto the test server forums and be more informed.

 

I read the last 7, it's 'tweaks'

The  'new' PF mentioned  is not new, posters on the official forums commented on being able to circumvent the 'invisible walls' around that PF since launch and walk the empty zone.

Working as directed by the exact same company.

I am pretty sure you have absolutely no way of knowing that other than taking their word for it. FunCom has fostered a reputation where their 'word' is spurious at best.

 

AoC's development cycle has slowed down dramatically, and it's not for lack of things that need fixes / revamps. 1.05's content hardly reflects the man-hours of the claimed 120+ people x 3+ months, there just isn't enuff there.

Have fun waiting on a dev cycle that puts out product every 3-4-5 months. At that rate it will take them a few years to fill all the big holes the game still has.

I would have to disagree here. The update contains massive changes to some of the existing content and a lot of the systems surrounding it like items, classes, PvP, and etc. I think Avery has already quoted a number of the preliminary changes that reflect those systems and content being changed or even added to the game. Granted, I guess that goes on to how you view system changes and upgrading existing content. The update itself is updating the RPG system which means almost every item, some abilities, and buffs are effected. Thus balance plays a heavy roll in this update on so many ends.

Originally posted by FC-Famine

I would have to disagree here. The update contains massive changes to some of the existing content and a lot of the systems surrounding it like items, classes, PvP, and etc. I think Avery has already quoted a number of the preliminary changes that reflect those systems and content being changed or even added to the game. Granted, I guess that goes on to how you view system changes and upgrading existing content. The update itself is updating the RPG system which means almost every item, some abilities, and buffs are effected. Thus balance plays a heavy roll in this update on so many ends.

 

I have not refuted that 1.05 is a large game changing patch, see post #163 to join into this branch of the thread that you are only responding to the tail end of.

Your comments are welcome.

Does anyone have a video or pictures of these tunnels that the defenders can use?

Originally posted by Unfinished

Originally posted by FC-Famine

I would have to disagree here. The update contains massive changes to some of the existing content and a lot of the systems surrounding it like items, classes, PvP, and etc. I think Avery has already quoted a number of the preliminary changes that reflect those systems and content being changed or even added to the game. Granted, I guess that goes on to how you view system changes and upgrading existing content. The update itself is updating the RPG system which means almost every item, some abilities, and buffs are effected. Thus balance plays a heavy roll in this update on so many ends.

 

 

I have not refuted that 1.05 is a large game changing patch, see post #163 to join into this branch of the thread that you are only responding to the tail end of.

Your comments are welcome.

I'll clarify more on that specific post then. The point is that it's a massive update and yes their will be tweaks to it every week or so on testlive. The time and amount of tweaks added to that update on testlive does not reflect any of those claims. Just like what makes it to testlive does not reflect all the teams work for that week. For example, the entire team could work on hundreds of changes and only push 20 of them to testlive while keeping the rest internal. They do this for completed and incomplete changes too. It's up to them on when they want to push it to testlive and when not to push it to testlive for that specific week.

The point of testlive is to get a sneak peek at what's on the block as well test it before it hits live.

I have no doubts it will have massive changes, what I am curios about is whether it will also have massive bugs and imbalances. being a non subscriber at the moment I am more than happy to play LoTRO/ Eve till they get thier ducks in a row for release. I will drop 15 bucks after it is released to the live servers for a look see, on the condition it is not released as a "test version"  on the live, like they did with the DX10 .

yep, jackdog, I agree. I would come back if there were a free 2 or 4 week return, but I am not gonna drop a monthly fee for something I might regret. have done that too often before with other games.

Originally posted by Jackdog

 I will drop 15 bucks after it is released to the live servers for a look see.

Give it a little bit after release to live servers. There will probably be some kinks that will need a slight touching up if not I'll eat my hat. It will also take a few weeks to see some more of the class specific changes, raid changes, content additions and so on.

All I am saying is when the patch is released and because it is so big ( like 1gb more + ) there is bound to be some working issues and just to keep it in mind.

Although from what I've seen things are coming along nicely.

-----

To Krewel I will search out those tunnels for you, haven't been on today, ( I cut a massive tree down in the back yard today and broke the chainsaw :) )

There's quite a lot of patch notes here I really don't feel like sifting through so sorry if its been noted here already but I'm just gonna ask, have there been any changes to the player search and lfg functions? This has been like my number one complaint since I've played,  I hate having to basically keep global chat on to basically LFG or LFM and I don't group up nearly as much as I would because of this (Maybe its just me, am I missing something?). And does this patch have any noticeable performance increases? I give props to Funcom because they have vastly improved performance, but I still get hit with memory leaks and grey maps after playing for a bit.

Originally posted by docminus

yep, jackdog, I agree. I would come back if there were a free 2 or 4 week return, but I am not gonna drop a monthly fee for something I might regret. have done that too often before with other games.

 

Funcon will never do it..

so wait for feedback to see if 1.05 will be rly good or another failure..