Change Log: July 2013

[Tobias]

General Changes

- Deleting linked mails (support ticket replies) on one account now deletes all instances of that mail.
- Added basic support for mounting certain monsters. Ever saw Willow sit on Zhaakan? If not, you missed out!
- The quest for the Riverpetal Hibiscus now properly states that adventurers do need to return the hibiscus, in addition to the ingredients. (Reported by Frostbell)
- Added the Conjurer's Cowl to Celeah's drop table.
- Mages can now obtain the Charm of Quick Harvest from the spirits in Argan Village, in exchange for a few silver leaves.
- During July 4 and 5, adventurers can observe fireworks by overseeing the snow plains from Galepeak summit.
- Mages can now learn Mana Crystal, which freezes their mana in an ice crystal that they can later drain.
- - Outside PvP, the crystal cannot be destroyed. Within PvP, players can destroy other mage's mana crystals.
- The PvP queuing interface has been reworked, allowing players to queue for multiple battlegrounds at once, while also displaying short introductions to each battleground.
- - This introduced a bug for a short time, causing character switching to break. This was reported by Pike and fixed.
- - In addition, the minimum levels for some battlegrounds (Siege of Brightheart, Saliko Outlands) has been risen.
- - Siege of Brightheart and Capture the Flag play well with 3v3 teams, so they will auto-start as soon as at least six players have queued.
- - In addition, a 8v8 is now the maximum team size in a battleground. They say humans can keep track of seven objects easily, and 10v10 would just become a messy slaughterfest in most cases.
- Added support for #Zone chat.
- #Main now requires at least a level 15 character.
- Tar traps now increase the fire damage that targets take.
- Once the second set of doors in the space station have been opened, they stay that way, preventing players from potentially getting trapped inside the dungeon.
- - A bug that prevented them from opening has been fixed. (Reported by Pike)
- In addition, once the boss of the space station has been pulled, the sphere in the monastery will warp directly to its map.
- The web site now permits access to battle logs - simply click on "Your Battles" on your adventurer profile!
- - The battle logs also include damage and healing graphs, as well as new statistics such as damage taken, and healing targets!
- The Tunnels of Illusion are now split into two sets of maps.
- Choco now offers a quest, introducing players to the Everchange Caverns.
- Adjusted battleground rating thresholds slightly, which ranks pretty-good-but-not-currently-at-the-top players higher.


Bug Fixes

- Several long standing bugs with skip were fixed:
- - Skipping in mid-air looked glitchy for anyone but the person skipping. This has been fixed.
- - Skipping while jumping now preserves momentum, so you no longer fall straight down.
- - Skipping in mid-air, while staying on the same platform, no longer places the mage on the ground immediately.
- The levels on the pet claw skill were not properly considered. This has been fixed.
- A bug concerning skill cooldowns on pets, which triggered under certain conditions, was fixed.
- Several bugs with mounting have been fixed. (Reported by Analyse, Kitson and Pike)
- Fixed a bug where Schwartzwald Castle would not properly unlock if the server was rebooted directly after TvT. (Reported by Libra)
- Waterball works should now work reliably from a Healing Springs area effect.
- Getting teleported now clears the previous target from players. (Found by Frostbell)
- Battleground lists should now be properly updated as players gain levels.
- After getting called for a battleground, players still looked as if they were queued up for it (even though they were not). This has been fixed.
- Jumping on very steep platforms no longer falls through them. (Reported by Hippo)
- Completing Choco's quest in the café no longer leaves her with a quest star even though she has no more quests. (Reported by Pike)
- Fixed glitches in the instancing code that did not keep groups together even though it should have.
- - Furthermore, the instancing code now uses a soft-limit, where it will stop keep groups together, but still lets them manually switch.
- Fixed a glitchy platform in Saliko Outlands near the mill.

[Tobias]

Bug Fixes

- Automatic instancing has been tested, and a lot of glitches with it have been fixed. Thanks to everyone who participated!
- The message that shows up if pets trigger the roots at Terechia no longer implies that the roots triggered themselves.
- Fixed a glitch that - under certain circumstances - prevented effects from show up.
- Fixed an obscure glitch that could sometimes cause a crash when disconnecting with the logout timer active. (Found by Bramble)


Class Changes

- Increased base damage that hunters deal slightly.
- - In addition, hunters now generate a small amount of endurance every time they use their regular ranged attack.
- The mana crystal conjured by mages can not take any damage outside PvP anymore (before it could not be killed, but damage still showed up, which ended up being confusing).
- - In addition, the amount of mana stored in the crystal is now shown in a buff.
- Mages can now learn Mists of Ice, which increases their mana recovery from water skills, as well as the susceptibility of monsters to their water attacks.
- Frigid Splash is another mage skill that deals damage over time, and increases the critical strike rate on the target.
- - Frigid Splash now has a visible effect on the target, making it easier to tell when it dropped off.
- Finally, mages who prefer if Arctic Winds does not freeze their targets can obtain the Charm of Neverending Winter and trade the freeze for a damage bonus.
- - The charm drops from Sakkara, however it can be obtained for a few days (until July 31) from the Spirits in Argan Jungle as well.
- Doubled the endurance recovery from auto-attacking.
- - The cost of double strafe has been increased slightly.


General Changes

- Added support for costumes.
- - Costume slots allow you to set items you want to show up on your character, instead of what you are actually wearing.
- Battle logs can now be saved for later reference.
- - In addition, they can now be filtered by (specific) monsters, players, times and so on.
- - Misses now show up correctly in the "damage taken (by ability)" table.
- The skill names in the battle logs and the graphs should be more accurate now - before a lot of scripted skills used a generic description, which has been replaced with the actual skill name.
- Pets can no longer be dismissed while they are under a fear effect.
- The buffs and debuffs of pets are now saved.
- Battle logs can now be shared by making them public (which gives a sharable link).
- The Charm of Ancient Protection now heals for 75% of the absorb effect (up from 50%).
- The Temple of Trials has been added to the eastern argan jungle.
- - So far, two bosses have been added, which can be challenged solo, or in a group.
- - When challenging a trial solo, an NPC will take the healer role (and a CC-er role for warriors).
- The battleground queue no longer shows the contestants who have queued. This is done to help prevent others from deciding on what class to queue as based on who's queued.
- - Instead, the number of how many players are queued in your own level bracket will be shown. This should also help clearing up some confusion, when someone was not called for a battleground (due to being a different level), even through their list showed sufficient other players queued. (Suggested by Pike)
- Added support for limited revives during boss encounters.
- - Before this change, it was possible (and, with Divine Clarity, very easy - once every 2 minutes) to revive characters a virtually unlimited amount of times during a boss fight. While berserk (and having to find a time window of about 8 seconds during which you receive no damage) prevented it somewhat, it was still a design flaw (especially since revive does restore health and mana).
- - With the change, three players can revive once, four player twice, and five players thrice during any single boss encounter. World bosses, TvT and so on are all unaffected.
- - A revive counts when the revived person accepts it.
- - Once the encounter ends (boss resets, or is defeated), all revives can be accepted as before.


Dungeons

- Adventurers can now obtain Timeless Guardian Stone Splinters from defeating bosses in the moonlight monastery.


And this concludes July.