Today SOE brought down all EverQuest servers to mark the beginning of their Winter holiday, Frostfell. There are details on that, new Hot Zones, Station Cash, and much more. Check out the update notes below for all the details.
*** Highlights ***
- Frostfell: As the air starts to
chill and the frost begins to cover the ground, the season of Frostfell begins.
No holiday season is perfect though and a couple of your fellow Norrathians
need your help to make Frostfell a merry holiday for all! Visit your favorite
major city and the Plane of Knowledge to find out how you can help. The
season of Frostfell will embrace Norrath from December 9th through January
8th. Various events new and old will be available at different intervals
throughout the season. So make sure you join in the fun before Frostfell is
over for another year.
- New Hot zones: The following Zones
are now "Hot" with additional experience and item rewards.
Additionally Franklin Teek in Plane of Knowledge will be happy to remind you
of the current Hot Zones!
Level 20: Stonebrunt Mountains
Level 25: Crystal Caverns
Level 30: The Overthere
Level 35: Mons Letalis
Level 40: Great Divide
Level 45: Nagafens Lair
Level 50: Plane of Innovation
Level 55: Sshraeshza Temple
Level 60: Crypt of Decay
Level 65: Stoneroot Falls
Level 70: Valdeholm
Level 75: Dreadspire Keep
- Station Cash: Station
Cash, Sony Online Entertainment’s new virtual currency, is now live in EverQuest and EverQuest II. Station
Cash can be used to purchase items that will provide convenience and
customization in game, providing everyone the opportunity to create a unique gameplay
experience.
Want to learn more about Station Cash? You can learn more at the Station Cash website,
and by reading the Station
Cash FAQ. Please note that Station Cash will not be available for
customers in Europe until Wednesday,
December 10th.
*** Items ***
- Added backstab skill modifiers
to Seeds of Destruction Piercing weapons.
- Adjusted the nomenclature for some SoF items with corruption damage foci.
The focus percentages did not change, only the names.
- Altered the required level for the procs on the "fine weapons" to
match the required level of the symbol instead of the recommended level. The
exceptions to this are the Blessed symbols which require level 11.
- Changed the appearance of the player-crafted "fine" long hammers.
- Changed the focus effect on the Gleaming Ursine Fang to match the focus on
the base item.
- Class-specific armor for Clerics, Druids, and Shaman has had healing foci
added to match the SoD armor. Clerics and Shaman will now have healing foci
on their arms, while Druids will have healing foci on their wrists.
- Druadic Frostlinked Leggings and Necrotic Chillsteel Greaves have had a
detrimental spell haste focus added to match the other elemental leggings.
- Fixed an issue with the Familiar of the Emerald Jungle that was causing it
to behave differently from other familiars.
- Many Elaborate Defiant weapons have been upgraded slightly to follow the
group item changes.
- Many SoF and all SoD group weapons have received a damage upgrade. Please
be aware that some of these items are still being adjusted and may
change further in a subsequent patch.
- SoD weapons with elemental damage did not all have the element that was
intended. These have been changed to the intended element.
- The Bloodreaper has changed appearance and effect.
- The click effect on Darkened Shining Metallic Robes now uses its own recast
timer and will not interfere with other effects.
- The Crystal Dewdrop will now have some benefit even when it is not raining
or snowing.
- The Dagger of Darkflaying's appearance has changed.
- A new set of Defiant armor has appeared.
*** Spells ***
- Corrected an issue that was
causing the focused versions of pets summoned by the beastlord spell
"Spirit of Hoshkar" to take more melee damage than they were
intended to.
- Dropdown category for Spell Damage and Haste combination songs is now
"Haste/Spell Focus" instead of either or both.
- Paladin and Shadowknight damage reduction disciplines should now stack with
all other spells that use the same effect. This change applies to the
"Armor of <X>" and "<Y> Carapace" lines.
- Range on Rogue targeted abilities has been increased.
- Range on the Necromancer's Withering Decay and Enchanter's Dominating Aura
effects has been increased.
- Tempest Blade is now an aura named Aura of Rodcet that mimics the
functionality of the Cantata of Rodcet.
- The damaging proc effect from Bard's Tempest Blade song has been
consolidated with Arcane Arietta.
- The global cooldown for spells previously set between 1.5 to 2.5s has been
reduced to 1.5s.
- The hate reduction effect from Mindfreeze should no longer have stacking issues
with other effects including the Bazu Bellow line.
- The Malo and Tash lines should no longer interfere with out of combat
regeneration.
- The Necromancer SoF robe clicky now spawns a short duration pet instead of
bestowing casting haste. Higher tier versions of the click increase the pet's
lifespan.
- The Rogue SoF breastplate clicky has had its average damage increased
slightly. Higher tier versions of the effect now increase the damage done per
proc, instead of the increasing the effect's duration. The duration on both
versions is now 2 minutes.
- The Wizard SoF robe clicky will now work on higher level spells, albeit at
a reduced effectiveness.
- Type 3 augmentation bonuses should no longer benefit additional spells. For
example: Icesheet Cascade / Klixcxyk's Fire improving the damage of Ethereal
Conflagration.
*** Quests ***
- Addressed some faction issues
that were causing NPCs in the Safe Passage mission to assist the wrong group.
- Fixed a bug with Captain Tillin in Oceangreen Hills. He will now always
give out his tasks in order.
- Fixed the reset issues with the task in Old Bloodfields called Supply
Interruption. If the task is not completed within 20 minutes of the flags
being placed, the event will clean up and the task is failed.
- Guards in missions in Toskirakk and Kaesora will not be so easily fooled by
hiding from them.
- Heralds in each of Seeds of Destruction's five eras will now offer a new
quest. Each day the heralds will select one mission and grant players a bonus
for completing that mission, as long as they have accepted the new quest from
the Heralds.
- Killing Silliv` Host will now properly update the task "The Cabilisian
Trade Route."
- Malaurin V`Kon will now reset much more quickly after a failure of the
Disruptive Influences task.
- Modified the quest Favors of the Hopelost in City of Dranik to remove unwarranted faction hits.
- Navrn K`Val, Thaliv T`Kysh and Vyntal Zintha now carry the false orders.
- People on the "Let my people go" task must now complete the first
two elements before speaking with Lymrit again to complete the task.
- Reduced the number of Army of Light Longswords needed to complete the Take
Everything task in Bloody Kithicor.
- Reduced the number of Poachers that need to be killed for Poach the
Poachers in Oceangreen Hills to 4.
- The necromancers in the Drake Scourge task will update the group's task
more reliably now.
- The quest "Disruptive Influences" is now much less likely to get
out of sync, so should be much easier to complete. Malaurin V`Kon will also
only wait for a quest update for 20 minutes at a time. If this time elapses
Malaurin V`Kon will go home, resetting the task.
- The Seeds of Destruction Quest buy back merchant now uses Chronobines
instead of Doubloons. He will also buy any of his quest items from you for 1
Chronobine.
*** Raids ***
- Added an additional reward to
the Field of Scale raid "Jaled`Dar's Sacrifice"
- Emperor Ganak has decided to try a new tactic for using his spells during
the Jaled`Dar's Sacrifice raid.
- Fixed an issue that would not allow players to get the second Rathe Council
raid.
- Upon completion, the Fall of Toskirakk event should now show "The Fall
of Toskirakk" as the lockout name instead of "Unknown Event".
*** NPCs ***
- Adjusted the spawn rate for
rare NPCs in the Rathe Council Chambers.
- Rathework guardians have moved out of the inner sanctum of the Rathe
Council Chambers.
- Removed the remaining unkillable NPCs from the Safe Passage mission.
- The Dragorn defending Dranik have become strangely weaker. It appears the
Muramite forces may have gained the upper hand.
*** Tradeskills ***
- "Fine" Inured one
handed, non-piercing weapons, and Exalted Nimble symbols had a change in
their damage to fix an upgrade path issue. The damage will be very close to
what it currently is, just distributed differently.
- Added Paladins and Shadow Knights to the "Fine" maces made via
tradeskills.
- All "fine" elegant and stalwart weapons, along with their
corresponding sublime and venerable symbols, received an upgrade in overall damage.
- All spells and tomes that are tradable on regular servers should now be
tradable on the Firiona Vie server.
- Altered the recipes for Wishka's Favor Rk. II and Tome of Aura of Draconic
Runes Rk. II.
- Baublie Diggs, outside of West Freeport,
now will give a quest to any researcher, no matter their class.
- Changed Faceted Blue Diamond to Mounted Blue Diamond in the recipe for
Fizzlesprocket's Forceful Discharging Apparatus.
- Chronal Resonance Dust has become more common.
- Created a new instruction book for research that can be found on some
research vendors.
- Immaculate Silk is now tradable on Firiona Vie.
- Made appropriate changes to the following research recipes: Spell: Aura of
the Grove, Tome of Crippling Strike, Spell: Summon Aenda's Trinkets, Spell:
Summon Plate of the Elements, Spell: Summon Elemental Armaments, Spell:
Nectar of Pain, Spell: Spear of Ro, Spell: Rathe's Strength, Spell: Grave
Pact, Spell: Death Rune, Spell: Dark Rune, Spell: Spirit of the Stoic One Rk.
II, Spell: Ancestral Bargain Rk. II, Spell: Blacktalon Bite Rk. II, Spell:
Terror of Vergalid Rk. II, Spell: Venin Rk. II, Spell: Elemental Symbiosis
Rk. II, Spell: Shield of the Crystalwing Rk. II, Tome of Tendon Cleave Rk.
II, Spell: Silent Piety, and Pack Shrew (added prayer writing kit to shaman
version)
- Modified the recipe for "Spell: Tortugone's Drowse Rk. II" to
make it more properly fit the spell research system.
- Some "fine" simple weapons received an upgrade in damage.
- The Drink of Timeless Energy is now made with simmering fairy drake dust,
and can also be made with any of the elemental spirit dusts (earth, air,
fire, water).
- The level 69 Dragons of Norrath spells and tomes created through research
are now tradable on all servers.
- The Researcher Charm can now be used by all classes.
- The slot 12 seals from Crystallos have been made to fit in the seven
visible armor slots, and are no longer agnostic only.
*** AA ***
- A new AA has been added to the
Seeds of Destruction List for Bards - Sionachie's Crescendo.
- Adjusted the slot order on the Ranger AA Group Guardian of the Forest to prevent a stacking conflict with other spells
that have a Chance Spell.
- Adjusted the spell casting range of Fog of Memories (Enchanter AA).
- Adjusted the stacking of Second Spire of Enchantment (Enchanter AA).
- Re-enabled the SoD AA Extended Ingenuity. Bards, Monks, Warriors, Rogues
and Berserkers will now be able to purchase this AA.
- The AA Fortified Entanglement (Wizard) now requires the purchase of
Hastened Root 4 to resolve a conflict between these two AAs, making your
roots less reliable if you had not purchased both.
- The heal over time component of the highest ranks of Lay on Hands will now
go to the short buff window.
- The Ranger AA Hastened Trueshot will now focus the Sureshot Discipline.
- The Rogue AA Sleight of Hand should now stack with the Envenomed Blades AA.
- Veil of Mindshadow spells will now have a wear off message.
*** Zones ***
- Replaced the missing door on
the merchant vs. merchant ship instances in the Buried Sea.
- Savet Ironstove now properly advertises what he sells.
*** Mercenaries ***
- Healer mercenaries will give
less priority to healing shamen that are not flagged as the main tank role
and that are not being directly attacked. This should allow them to be
a bit friendlier with regards to cannibalize.
- Mercenaries should be friendlier to feign splitting techniques. If
the puller feigns in camp before the merc has a chance to react, the merc
will not attack the mobs hostile only to the puller.
- Mercenaries will no longer attack enemies that are currently engaging
targets outside their group (or group's pets).
- The camp radius now scales somewhat dynamically in that if your group is
widely spaced, the radius around the group's center considered "in
camp" to the AI is increased to avoid a situation where you've pulled an
NPC past one of the group's members, but the AI still does not react to
it. The minimum camp radius from group center is still 50feet as it was
before.
- Healer mercenaries will no longer cast heal spells on themselves that have
an invulnerability component, as the AI was never tuned to do this at the
right time, and it leads to problems with the mercs appearing to be
unresponsive.
- Increased the timer for how often a merc will attempt to resurrect a corpse
when the res is not accepted from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
- The ability to suspend/un-suspend a mercenaries is now locked when in
combat and when the player still has a cool-down timer on PvP servers.
For standard rule servers, the cool-down timer still does not factor into
this, suspend/un-suspend can be done immediately after the hatelist is
cleared.
- Tank mercenaries will now default to following their owner (or group) when
there are no melee targets even when in combat.
- Mercenary Clerics should no longer cast their spell haste buff on classes
that have no mana.
- Mercenaries now appear with a ':' before their name in the tracking window,
similar to pets.
- Fixed a bug that allowed a mercenary to keep the effects of an aura
permanently after the aura was no longer present.
- Fixed a problem that caused some players that zoned slowly to not be able
to unsuspend their mercenary after they zoned.
- Mercenary healers will now only dispel buffs on enemies when in aggressive
stance. Since aggressive stance isn't currently in the game (though it
may return at some point) healer mercs will no longer be dispelling for now.
- Mercenaries should no longer become bald after various illusions.
- Added a new "Assist" stance for Journeyman and above tank mercs
that allows them to operate in essentially a DPS mode. If the tank merc is in
Assist stance and not designated the main tank it will not use any
off-tanking behavior like it does when in Aggressive stance. It will attack
whatever the main assist is targeting (or whatever it last attacked it there
is no main assist) and continue to do so until the main assist switches
targets. If in Assist mode and designated the main tank the tank merc should
behave the same as it does in Aggressive stance.
- Fixed a problem where if you had maxed out your buff slots, healer
mercenaries would no longer heal you.
- Fixed a problem that caused the AI to be blind to damage taken from certain
spells like Blood Magic or Divine Arbitration.
- Fixed a problem where mercenaries were counting toward the hit limit for
rain type spells, causing them to have fewer pulses when in the area of
effect.
- Merc healers will no longer cure charmed pets.
- Mercenary "in camp" radius is no longer a sphere. It is now
more of a disc to help with problems of mercs healing, etc. when a puller is
on a floor above or below.
- Merc healer AI will no longer cast cure spells if somone in the group is at
lower than 50% health.
- Mercs will no longer move out of melee range of their target if they are
casting a beneficial spells (heals, buffs). This should cut down on a
fair amount of unnecessary movement.
- Mercs should no longer run off to follow someone across the zone when their
owner is set as puller. They will only follow another group member
other than their owner if that other group member is within their awareness
radius (about 200 ft.).
- Fixed an issue with out of combat healing AI doing a lot of over healing.
- PvP spell resist and duration values are now used when hostile spells are
exchanged between a merc and a PC (for non PvP servers this only applies to
the Arena).
- Fixed an issue with merc suspend timers counting down too fast if a custom
UI had multiple instances of the timer display.
- Fixed a problem where mercenaries would go bald when removing an illusion
and zoning.
- After carefully watching mercenaries since SoD launch some balance changes
are being made:
-- You will no longer be able to suspend or unsuspend your mercenary while
you are in combat.
-- Journeyman mercenaries will now cast 96% resurrection. Apprentice
mercenaries are limited to 90% res.
-- Increased the stats of the Tank Mercenaries starting at the Journeyman
tier. The values are tuned to be less than what an equivalently geared player
would be but is higher than previous values for various mitigation and
avoidance stats useful for a tank.
*** Miscellaneous ***
- Corrected a few Stability
issues.
- Implemented new Hot Zones! Franklin Teek in Plane of Knowledge will be
happy to remind you of the current Hot Zones.
- Modified the pathing in the old commons zone.
- Fixed a bug that was causing power sources to only be drained when out of
combat. Now they only drain while in combat instead.
- The NPC buy/sell/bank window will no longer disappear when the game client
is re-sized.
- Made tuning adjustments (downward) on many NPCs that had
higher-than-expected resistances to Physical Attacks (Such as the Monk Eye
Gouge attack). These attacks should be much more reliable now.
- Rathework guardians have moved out of the inner sanctum of the Rathe
Council Chambers.
- Guards in missions in Toskirakk and Kaesora will not be so easily fooled by
hiding from them.
- Players can now decline a group invite when they own a mercenary.
- Fixed a problem that caused player traps (e.g., fadelure, fire rune,
bonestitch fetish) to trigger on pets/mounts/mercs, causing all kinds of
havoc.
- The incorrect boosts to HP/mana/endurance have been brought back in line
with what they should have been. Please see other posts on this subject
for more information.
- Fixed a bug that caused stun effects to wear off the moment mez effects
did. This meant that if you stunned a mezzed mob, it would wake up
immediately. Now it will not wake up until the stun wears off.
- Fixed a bug that caused certain spells that triggered casting of more
spells (like Spectralside and Unity of Spirits) to overwrite each other even
though that was not intended.
- Power sources will once again change the color of the affected stats in
that slot.
- The potion belt now conveys the cool down timers on potions.
- The Emerald Sokokar will now behave like other familiars.
- NPC Strikethrough will no longer penetrate defensive disciplines like
Weapon Shield, Deflection, Deftdance, etc.
- Fixed a client crash for the quest Arachnophobia.
- Fixed an issue with proximity aggro.
- Fixed a problem with certain AAs with illusion components that allowed them
to be used with no reuse timer if you had another illusion on you.
- Fixed a client crash when your pet got more than 30 effects on it.
- Corrected an issue that caused guilded characters to be forcably placed in
the guild voice channel upon zoning.
- Changed the way charges are deducted from consumable click items.
Now, if the spell on the item is beneficial and it does not land, the charge
will not be consumed.
- Drakkin should now revert to a walk/run animation after dismounting.
*** Previously Hotfixed ***
- Added the rank XIV potions to
the appropriate vendors.
- The Dragorn in Kuua have become strangely weaker. It appears the Muramite
forces may have gained the upper hand.
- Fixed the ability for many NPCs in Korafax, both mission and base zone, to
allow them to summon as intended.
- Ganak's advisors will now assist each other in a manner that does not alert
as many of their allies.
- Increased the spawn rate of many rare NPCs in Kuua.
- Most rare ("named") NPCs in Seeds of Destruction zones will now
summon players they hate.
- Corrupted Beguilers in the "The Price of Knowledge" mission will
now chose the most hated player to update the task instead of the most hated
entity, which might have been a pet or a mercenary.
- The "Holding the Fort" mission will now not spawn the attack
until you first speak with General Vurig.
- The tormentors in the task "Inside information" take longer to
arrive once their numbers begin increasing.
- Pallorax in discord will now start over if the players take too long to
engage him after he moves between portals.
- The adds in the "Showdown at the Crystal Core" raid will now spawn
a bit more quickly. This is to raise the difficulty to be closer to the
intended difficulty.
- The dwarves in the Showdown at the Crystal Core raid now insist on staying
near their post and will no longer chase players too far from their camps.
- The Venomlord's event will now start over if players fail to engage him
again within one minute of him becoming idle.
- Merchant Woad now carries the new energeian supplies.
- Replaced Broken Battle Blades with Sundered Blade Shards on forage tables.
- Fixed an issue that prevented some items from being placed in the potion
belt.
*** UI ***
- The target window should now
align with bottom of the player window.
- The font combobox in the options window should no longer be overlapped by
the label "Confirmations".
- Added Style_Tooltip to SIDL.xml this now allows for turning on or off the
tooltip window for certain UI elements.
- Alt + Left clicking buff icons should now display the information
correctly.
- Buff icons should now tile correctly in the Buff Window.
- Added the ability for scroll bars to automatically hide when not needed
(See Style_AutoVScroll and Style_AutoHScroll)
- Tabs can now be hidden on tab boxes.
- Added "TileLayoutBox" which allows for automatically laying out
components in both the vertical and horizontal directions at the same
time. This is similar to the Horizontal and Vertical layout boxes.
- New -
EQUI_MarketplaceWnd.xml
- Changed -
EQUI.xml
EQUI_Animations.xml
EQUI_BodyTintWnd.xml
EQUI_BuffWindow.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_PetInfoWindow.xml
EQUI_PotionBeltWnd.xml
EQUI_SelectorWnd.xml
EQUI_ShortDurationBuffWindow.xml
EQUI_TargetWindow.xml
EQUI_Templates.xml
SIDL.xml
~ The EverQuest Team
