OGRank - DAOC Grab Bag

Q: Last week, you posted something about Evade that contradicts a 2002 post you made about Evade. They cannot both be right!

A: You're quite correct.
They're both wrong.
The 2002 is wrong mainly because that was 2002; you may have noticed us patching once or twice since then. Last Friday was wrong because when something is grossly oversimplified and I omit an entire chunk of text, it tends to be… wrong.

So okay, let me try again.

Almost everything you can think of has the potential to play a role in how often you can evade. Mainly, I mean factors having to do with "hitting stuff" - the things I mentioned back in 2002 included: "your level, your target's level, your level of evade, your QUI, your DEX, your buffs to QUI and DEX, the number of people attacking you, your target's weapon level, your target's spec in the weapon he is wielding, the kind of attack (DW, range, etc), attack radius, angle of attack, the style you used most recently, target's offensive RA, debuffs, and a few other things."

Feel free to check the old answer: http://www.camelotherald.com/more/664.shtml Just bear in mind that Dodger doesn't exist, but that these days hitting the cap is more than possible without it. Also, I think that at the time I listed the factors in order of their importance, and I can say with certainty that the factors are not in that order of importance today.

To maximize your evade under normal, non-RA conditions, the following things are the largest elements:
First place: Your level of evade. 5% chance per level, cumulative.
TIED for second place: Your weaponskill, and the styles used.
Third place (PVE only): Items providing plus to evade.

The cap is still 50%, EXCEPT in situations where Realm Abilities come into play - then the cap can temporarily be 90% for short periods of time.

Q: Just today I noticed the tower in Bri Leith, Hibernia (approx loc 5k/52k is still the old model, even after most of the other towers in the realm have been updated to the new tower model. I'm guessing this is just an oversight?

A: Yep, it is now fixed on our internal server, and will be fixed in the next patch.

Q: I noticed that many styles either have a bonus or penalty to defense, but what does this really mean? I have not noticed any difference in damage from mobs, and in RVR it's very hard to test, so please enlighten me!

A: The Big Wheel took the first swing at this: "Bonuses and penalties to defense from styles effect how often your defensive abilities (parry, evade, block) go off. If you have a style with a defensive bonus, it makes those defensive skills go off more; if you have one with a defensive penalty, it makes those defensive skills go off less."

Then he tossed it to a programmer to double check. The Redheaded Stepcoder looked, and he responded: "It doesn't appear to me to directly influence the rate that defensive abilities activate, but rather appears to be a straight addition to defense calculation. So if you get a 30 defense bonus, it is now 30% harder to hit you."

Did you notice the redhead hedging? That's because after this many years, he can look in five places in our code for corroborating evidence, and get the same answer… but there might be some freaky hidden thing that plays a role he can't see. So if this answer is inaccurate, feel free to let me know, just like the evaders on Pendragon did :)

Q: What, if any, effect do confusion spells have in RVR? I tried searching the herald and the knowledgebase, but the word 'confusion' is used in so many articles, it was impossible to find anything that could be of use. Thanks a lot.

A: I know what you mean - I appreciate you searching first, but that doesn't always help! I gave this to Big Wheel, and he replied: "The spells interrupt another player's spell casting. And on pets, they have a slight chance to do the same thing they do vs. mobs."

Q: I was wondering, what resist type are the spells that Animist mushrooms cast?

A: Big Wheel, again (doing penance for going on vacation and coming back to a giant pile of Grab Bag questions from me): "If you're talking about the Creeping Mastery shrooms, they debuff Body."

Q: In a grab bag, you mentioned that one of the devs told you that "Universally there should be a 60 -90 second duration timer between any and all item /use or /use2/."
Does that mean my XYZ item is bugged?

A: I asked - my dev's wording was a little too strong. 90% of our items with /use functionality hae duration timers of 60-90 seconds. The other 10% have timers all over the map. 10% of items in Camelot is… a lot of items.

Q: I noticed the cleric smite PBAOE damage/heal spell also kills my own Minion of Zo pets and was wondering if this is a bug or working as intended?

A: As a side note - wash out your mouth with soap, mister, I bend over backwards to avoid EVER saying "working as intended." It's a long story dating back to 1999, but trust me, saying that phrase gives me the heebie jeebies.

Now, um, the bad news - it's a bug, but not one we are able to fix at this time. It would require a whole new code/pet system, and we have other more important pet issues on our plate at this time. I'm really sorry about that; my verbatim reaction was "Dude, this can't be on purpose."

Q: My friend and I were trophy hunting, and looking for Queen Major. Has he been moved, or even still exist?

A: I always check these, as sometimes we accidentally turn off spawns. In this case, though, the Queen Major has not been moved and definitely exists, but just a crazy rare spawn.

Our spawn system is a percentage chance to spawn every X seconds, and/or every time a place holder dies. The Prince of Quests says, "You'll need to keep killing army ant workers and army ant soldiers in the area to lure her out."

Q: The mobs in POC seem to be hitting considerably harder and BAFing a considerable amount more than normal. It has gotten to a point where my bard friend and I cannot run through PoC without having to use IP. I checked through the patch notes and did not see anything about this, so I was wondering if this was a bug.

A: The guys checked, but there have not been any changes to POC in about a year. Also, the kinds of changes that you're afraid of are not actually possible, because, as the Content King told me: "Changing BAF the way described would require a lot of man hours, as each monster would have to be changed individually, so there's no way that has been changed."

Yes, each critter in the game has their BAF lovingly set by hand - no way to make mass changes.

***

It has been dangerously quiet here at Mythic HQ. Nearly our entire senior management team has been out West, talking to EA, doing press demos, poking their collective beaks into what our new parent company has done with MMOs in the past, and more. Of course, with no one "in charge," I have no way of getting permission to tell you about the fall expansion, other than that we're still working on it. I'm sorry about the delay in getting you that information. We showed a piece of concept work at the last roundtable road trip, and plan to show it again at the road trip to San Diego.

There will not be a grab bag next week, as I will be… in San Diego. I'll be working the WAR booth at Comicon, and I will be at the Camelot Road Trip on Saturday night.

But until then, I'll just see you Monday.