09-11-2022, 09:20 AM
This text file about the Quest 2011 Updates/Fixes should be available somewhere online. At the moment it's only on the private FaceBook page and even then its a pain to find as most files are on there (or is it just me???). So here it is for all to read...
Quest Online - The 2011 Overhaul!
Core Game, Engine & World
* Whole new map, whole new world! And bigger than before - now a brand new 250*250 map with DOUBLE the landmass of the old world, plus more dungeons than ever - over 80 dungeons and 150 caves & lairs! Because of all this, everything and everyone has been wiped - it's a whole new beginning! Sign up a new demo party for free, play 20 turns, and then transfer it in!
* New shop restocking system in place. Many item types can now go out of stock, and most rare or unusual items now have much less stock available. Shops will sometimes remove lines that aren't doing well, or they can be cleared by visiting NPCs. Shops will bring in whole new lines of stock from time to time, and can replenish old stock. A number of the more 'unusual' items not previously seen in shops are now sometimes stocked. Shops can even occassionally stock one or two +4 items! Be sure to "I"nvestigate shops regularly to find all of their hidden items.
* The behind-the-scenes engine that powers QOL has been completely re-written! What was an old 16-bit set of applications has been re-written and optimised to run on 64 bit machines - as a result the game engine is much more stable, the game supports higher limits of many things, and turnaround time is much faster!
* The Quest Online Website has had a facelift - it is now easier to find what you want, and turncards have been improved - with a new "popout turncard" (available at the top of the turncard pages) to make playing for extended periods much easier.
* The "free play time" hours have been changed to be much more playable for all! QOL is now free to play between these UK times;
Saturday morning: 09:00-12:00
Sunday morning: 09:00-12:00
Wednesday night: 18:00-21:00
If you're doing nothing on a weekend morning or a Wednesday night, why not play some free QOL!
Groups, Characters & Stats
* Character stats now go all the way up to 500 toughness, 250 awareness, 250 charisma and 250 max health, and have new effects! Note that maximum health only raises above 99 once you take toughness above 250.
* Charisma now reduces the amount of magical damage taken (less so in PVP).
* Awareness now reduces the amount of physical damage taken.
* Toughness/awareness above 250/99 limits will improve weapon speeds slightly.
* "Injury" code has been rewritten to support the new higher health maxes - having a max health over 99 won't make it easier to trigger flee factors or receive loss of movement points/be considered "seriously injured" (a character at 130 out of 250 health won't be running away or slowing you down!).
* Weapon skills can reach 250, with weapon skills above 99 improving critical hit chance. Weapon training from shops is still limited to 80/60 max limits for fighters/non-fighters - reaching the new max 250 limits can be achieved through other means (eg critical hits have a small % chance to naturally raise skills all the way up to 250).
* New weapon skill rating "Master", listed at 200+ weapon skill.
* Encumbrance routine has been re-written. Two mounts of the same type no longer confuses it (one of the mounts will now carry stuff), and toughness above 250 now affects encumbrance (now on a logarithmic scale rather than a linear scale).
* The handling of mounted characters has been re-written to fix a number of bugs, eg a single character on a mule with everyone else on arabians will no longer cause the entire party to move at mule speed.
The mount used most takes priority, for example with 15 characters - 6 on arabians, 5 on mules, 4 on drafts - you will move as if all are on arabians.
A single unmounted character will cause your group to travel at unmounted speed.
Draft horses no longer grant "arabian" speeds when mounted - they now give no speed benefit (they are purely for carrying your stuff!).
* Mule movement speeds have been improved in most terrains. Arabian movement speeds improved slightly in certain terrains. Arabians still have the speed advantage overall, but mules are much more useful as an alternative now, particularly on tougher terrains.
* Maximum amount of moves allowed per turn increased from 24 to 26 squares (allows you to use all of your MP when sticking to roads with a fast movement speed).
* Taking any skills/stats above the old 99/250 limits costs much more experience per level to raise, than it cost to reach the 99/250 levels.
* Strength/awareness/charisma training no longer costs exp if a character is already maxed out (but the gym can still charge you gold for your guided tour!).
* You can no longer teleport directly to a dungeon level unless your party has been to that level before.
* You now get a hint of "more creatures" if there are monsters stacked on top of eachother in a dungeon room.
* Parties stay 'active' in the world without turns for 48 hours, rather than vanishing within an hour of stopping play, and the "OH" on holiday special order has been disabled. Be sure to end your play somewhere safe!
* You can no longer drop flee factor by more than 25% per turn (no more "hit and run" tactics flitting between 100% and 0%!).
* All items sell back to shops for considerably less gold than previously.
* Having a scout already in your party no longer prevents a Knight from joining (Knights appreciate a good scout!).
* "Know Party" 804 miracle works even on groups not currently 'online' in the game (previously only worked if the group had been online that hour!).
* Anti-Annihilation routines (both for PVE and PVP) don't kick in quite so easily - it's now easier to lose characters to tough encounters!
* IF 'P 0's get "stuck", tithing large amounts of gold several times should help, or you can try miracle 304 - but be aware that the higher your priest skill, the less likely a random skill rise becomes with a "P 0" - the final push from 90-99 can sometimes feel to take a long time!
* Too many robs on a shop should no longer crash the engine.
* "Postal address" is no longer displayed anywhere (eg meeting another group) - only email address is given.
* Parties are no longer "anonymous" by default, to aid and encourage communication and activity between players.
Orders & Abilities
* "H 16" hand from plunder now supports codes 81-89 in the item code slot (instead of using 99). This defines a minimum/maximum + level of items to deal with;
If using "H 16 0 8x" to dump/sell plunder, 81-89 is treated as a 'cut-off' point for gear to sell/dispose of, 81 being +1 gear, 89 being +9 gear - eg using 85, your group WON'T sell any items of +5 level or above.
If using "H 16 <char> 8x" to give all plunder to a character, 81-89 is treated as the "minimum requirement" of gear to hand - eg using 85, your character will ONLY take gear of +5 and above from plunder.
* "E 0" - You can now "E"ngage a target of 0, to engage the first NPC group found in your current location (will NOT work for PVP!). This is to help situations where there can be stacks of monsters on top of eachother (particularly in dungeons) - just issue a couple of "E 0" orders in your current location.
* You can now "VA" request an Arena fight immediately after accepting one, without being told the arena is too busy, so you can "return the challenge". You can still have only one actual arena fight per turn, and only one group can be set as "challenged" by you at a time.
* If the "U"se command is given the format "U <char> <char 0-15> <item>" it will work as you meant it to, to keep the order in line with the "H"and item order (otherwise it is still the usual "U <char> <item> <target>" sequence).
For example "U 1 203 0" and "U 1 0 203" will both work to make character 1 drink a potion.
* The "U"se command can now be given an item of 0 to train hand to hand - for example to have character 1 learn hand-to-hand from character 2;
"U 1 0 2" (can also do "U 1 2 0"), or to try and teach themselves "U 1 0 1".
A target character of 0 will cause the character to select their fists as a weapon - eg "U 1 0 0" will set character 1 to use hand-to-hand combat, rather than any held weapons.
* "AG 100000" - Alliance Give gold ("AG") now allows give 100,000 gold per turn (up from 15,000 in QOL).
* Alliance HQs can now stock lockpicks (with sale price able to be set between 75 and 150 per lockpick).
* Item codes in orders are no longer restricted to 6 digits (no longer impossible to interact with items beyond number 999,999).
Monsters & NPCs
* Monster "swallow" attacks are now no longer a simple D20 roll with no influence from anything (other than your ability to kill it quick!) as they previously were.
The monster's size, power, magic and abilities... plus your character's own abilities and buffs, now all influence monster swallow chance.
Be warned, monsters (especially the toughest ones) can now swallow lesser characters much more easily than the old D20 check... but extremely tough and agile characters (particularly when protected with certain spells, miracles and items!) can reduce swallow chances to much lower levels than the old D20 check.
* Gear has a chance based on magic level to survive being "swallowed" - so you might get lucky if you managed to slay the monster that swallowed your stuff!
* The "not weaker" monster consideration for spellcast ASL has been re-written, and should reflect monsters being tougher/weaker than your own group much more accurately - and genuinely only cast on monsters that are actually tough (compared to you).
* Killing some of a monster group but losing the fight no longer means the "random loot generator" on the ones you killed is wasted. Now if you fight 4 dragons, kill two but retreat, the remaining two will get loot generated on them from the two you DID kill, ready to be retrieved!
* Majority of monster group max sizes increased (eg 50 orcs, 50 goblins, 40 elves/dwarves, 5 giants and 5 dragons now possible!).
* Most monsters have been rebalanced, and generally made tougher - particularly mid and high level monsters... be careful!
* Loot for many monsters has improved (many monsters that never gave loot before can now drop loot, and tougher monsters have better loot chances).
* Item drops from monsters have been tweaked - +9 items can now drop from the toughest monsters, and chances of slayer/protection items have also increased.
* Loot list after a fight mentions "And more..." if there were more than 20 items looted (the list of all the items still cuts off at 20).
* Monsters may dump some of the 'junk' items they loot from dead players, rather than always keep everything.
* "Serious Injury" description for monsters now also takes a monster's maximum HP into consideration (it takes a lot for a dragon to be seen as seriously injured!).
* Having stats above 99/250 will not increase the chance of certain monsters draining those stats - draining has been re-written to allow for the new higher stats.
Weapons, Armour & Combat
* A number of (largely minor) legacy bugs throughout the combat engine have been fixed. Eg under certain circumstances, move speeds could be used as hit speeds and hit speeds used as move speeds. Move speeds could be treated as 0 (instant move) immediately after casting a spell, incorrect stats used to defend against certain combat spells and various other similar oddities.
* Flame, poison and bless effects are no longer "cleared" every combat (they now last all turn).
* Combat summaries (PVP and PVE, including Arena fights) now list all characters , not just those that hit something, in the combat summary - along with the health characters finished the fight with next to their names.
* Arena fights now give a total number of kills each group achieved at the end of the fight, to quickly and clearly see who 'won' other than simply who ran away first.
* "Body Armour" now has a damage soak range of 60-100% of the body armour's AR rating per incoming hit (helmet and shield soak is still at 0-100% soak). Critical hits will treat armour to be the old 0-100% soak.
* Body armour "Base" AR's have all been reduced by 1 (so basic cloth is now 3 AR not 4, plate is 13 not 14).
* An item's "+" level on BODY ARMOUR now grants 2 extra AR per level for body armour (still 1 AR per +level for helmets and shields), eg +1 cloth will grant 5 AR, +2 cloth will grant 7 AR, etc.
* Shields now have more impact on combat other than just their AR - the larger the shield, the more critical protection it grants, but larger shields also slow characters down in combat. Small shields grant little extra critical defence, but have next to no impact on speed, whereas large shields do affect speed but give good critical hit defence. Note that a character always automatically holds the highest AR shield they have on them.
* Weapon ranges are now all equal - melee weapons all have a range of 3 and missile weapons a range of 9. However, all weapons now have a new "first swing/shot" variable - an added amount of time to the FIRST swing/shot of a weapon per combat. So a 'longer reaching' weapon such as a halberd (which has a very low "first swing" time) will still get the first hit in over a dagger (which has a very high "first swing" time) despite the old "range stat" now being the same. In effect, this change allows much more fine-tuning and balancing between the weapons than the old ranges, whilst correcting some combat oddities due to the old range system.
* Weapon speeds all re-balanced for all classes, subclasses, terrains etc. - now more fairly balanced between all the types, races, terrains, with focus on preventing any single weapon of a particular class being better "in all situations and terrains". Racial preferences are now much more more noticable.
Note that no weapons have received "the nerfbat" - instead less effective weapons have been improved for various races/terrains/classes.
* Weapon's "+" level grants higher 'max possible damage' (gives more reason to switch from one weapon type to another for an upgrade in + level).
* Weapon skills above 100 now affect critical hit chance correctly, and now also apply to hand-to-hand fighting (not just melee/missile weapons as it used to).
* Critical hits have a (small) chance to naturally raise weapon skill, all the way up to the maximum 250 skill limit.
* Character subclass types now affect their critical defence/attack abilities in monster combat too, not just PVP.
* Fighter prime skill has more influence on combat than previously.
* Spellcasters interrupted by hostile missile fire in PVP combat now have an increased delay before switching to their melee/missile weapons.
* Baldor call spirit in PVP combat now works correctly.
* Too many items on a character/group and engaging in combat no longer crashes the combat engine.
Classes & Class Balance
(details of differences between all races & professions can be found here)
* Paladins and Battle Mages combat cast times are now not affected by armour as much their 'main' non-specialist class.
* Paladins and Battle Mages have reduced base combat cast times.
* Regular unspecialised fighters (no subclass) now have some natural physical damage resistance on all received hits.
* Knights & Footmen now have some armour penetration with their melee hits, based on their prime skill.
* Highly skilled brawlers can now hit normally "non-hittable except by enchantment" monsters.
* Brawlers have a much higher hit-speed than before.
* Brawlers now get some armour penetration with hand-to-hand, depending on their prime skill.
* Archers now get some armour penetration with missile weapons, depending on their prime skill.
* Scouts and Archers do slightly more damage with missile weapons than any other class/type.
* Scouts can scout out more monster groups etc. per turn - with highly skilled scouts being able to investigate many more groups per turn. Scouts also have a better chance of revealing hidden monsters on the map.
* Fighter subclasses have all had their move and hitspeeds tweaked - move speeds particularly. Berserkers still have the speed advantage of charging in to battle first, but other fighter subclasses have been improved based on each sub-class, so the difference between sub-classes is not quite so huge (a pure berserker group is now not quite the "be all and end all" of combat).
* Armour weights affect some subclass attack and move speeds slightly less - particularly footmen and knights (they are still affected by armour, but not by as much).
* Elven Knights can now be recruited.
* Halfblood Peasants can now be recruited.
* Dwarf Berserkers can now be recruited.
* Recruit chances of certain subclasses tweaked slightly.
Spells & Miracles
* Mage prime skill now affects damage done, effectiveness or power of many combat spells.
* A number of miscellaneous hostile combat spells have been tweaked/improved/fixed, to ensure all have a genuine impact on combat in some way. Many mage spells have been made more powerful than any similar-in-nature priest miracles, especially on a powerful mage.
* Characters take a set period of time at the start of combat before they are ready to start casting.
* Mage combat spell cast times are faster (by varying degrees per spell level).
* Priest combat miracle cast times are slightly faster.
* Out of combat healing of spells/miracles improved slightly (especially mage healing).
* Strength miracle no longer increases fighter skill.
* Know Party miracle will now also tell you the subclass of the randomly focused member... but a party with a dedicated/set alignment ("SA") to Fleyshur is immune to the 804 miracle.
* Map Wilderness spells (and buying a "map" item) have the same effect whether you finish your turn in a settlement or not.
Items & Inventories
* All magical rings now work as expected, with a few having their previous effects buffed... they also give more descriptive feedback when first wearing them.
* "Minor Healing" potions now heal for a more useful amount.
* Magic potions now support the new "max stat limits".
* "Random" items (torches, mirrors, furs, bottles etc.) that are laying around loose in dungeon rooms (dropped by groups) now get picked up when doing an "I 0" order - previously these sorts of items would stockpile forever and eventually crash a dungeon room.
* Armour permanent enchant chance brought in line with weapon enchant chance.
* Religious books/magic books on priests/mages now have a practical use.
Turn Files
* Doctype of .HTM turns emailed out fixed.
* Filenames of turns emailed out are now in the format; "Q<game>-<party>-<turn 0-padded to 5 digits>" eg "Q20-1234-00666.htm", with hands-free turns being appended with an "h" ("Q20-1234-00666h.htm"), or a "u" for an automatic update turn. You can now save all of your turns to the same folder without older turns ever being overwritten!
* Slightly increased the max line-length for emailed html turns.
* "Messages to players" now have HTML codes removed for safety.
* Unnecessary top-of-turn event messages such as "Rumour card enclosed..." and "To start a new party..." no longer appear.
--------------------
- Azzer.
Quest Online - The 2011 Overhaul!
Core Game, Engine & World
* Whole new map, whole new world! And bigger than before - now a brand new 250*250 map with DOUBLE the landmass of the old world, plus more dungeons than ever - over 80 dungeons and 150 caves & lairs! Because of all this, everything and everyone has been wiped - it's a whole new beginning! Sign up a new demo party for free, play 20 turns, and then transfer it in!
* New shop restocking system in place. Many item types can now go out of stock, and most rare or unusual items now have much less stock available. Shops will sometimes remove lines that aren't doing well, or they can be cleared by visiting NPCs. Shops will bring in whole new lines of stock from time to time, and can replenish old stock. A number of the more 'unusual' items not previously seen in shops are now sometimes stocked. Shops can even occassionally stock one or two +4 items! Be sure to "I"nvestigate shops regularly to find all of their hidden items.
* The behind-the-scenes engine that powers QOL has been completely re-written! What was an old 16-bit set of applications has been re-written and optimised to run on 64 bit machines - as a result the game engine is much more stable, the game supports higher limits of many things, and turnaround time is much faster!
* The Quest Online Website has had a facelift - it is now easier to find what you want, and turncards have been improved - with a new "popout turncard" (available at the top of the turncard pages) to make playing for extended periods much easier.
* The "free play time" hours have been changed to be much more playable for all! QOL is now free to play between these UK times;
Saturday morning: 09:00-12:00
Sunday morning: 09:00-12:00
Wednesday night: 18:00-21:00
If you're doing nothing on a weekend morning or a Wednesday night, why not play some free QOL!
Groups, Characters & Stats
* Character stats now go all the way up to 500 toughness, 250 awareness, 250 charisma and 250 max health, and have new effects! Note that maximum health only raises above 99 once you take toughness above 250.
* Charisma now reduces the amount of magical damage taken (less so in PVP).
* Awareness now reduces the amount of physical damage taken.
* Toughness/awareness above 250/99 limits will improve weapon speeds slightly.
* "Injury" code has been rewritten to support the new higher health maxes - having a max health over 99 won't make it easier to trigger flee factors or receive loss of movement points/be considered "seriously injured" (a character at 130 out of 250 health won't be running away or slowing you down!).
* Weapon skills can reach 250, with weapon skills above 99 improving critical hit chance. Weapon training from shops is still limited to 80/60 max limits for fighters/non-fighters - reaching the new max 250 limits can be achieved through other means (eg critical hits have a small % chance to naturally raise skills all the way up to 250).
* New weapon skill rating "Master", listed at 200+ weapon skill.
* Encumbrance routine has been re-written. Two mounts of the same type no longer confuses it (one of the mounts will now carry stuff), and toughness above 250 now affects encumbrance (now on a logarithmic scale rather than a linear scale).
* The handling of mounted characters has been re-written to fix a number of bugs, eg a single character on a mule with everyone else on arabians will no longer cause the entire party to move at mule speed.
The mount used most takes priority, for example with 15 characters - 6 on arabians, 5 on mules, 4 on drafts - you will move as if all are on arabians.
A single unmounted character will cause your group to travel at unmounted speed.
Draft horses no longer grant "arabian" speeds when mounted - they now give no speed benefit (they are purely for carrying your stuff!).
* Mule movement speeds have been improved in most terrains. Arabian movement speeds improved slightly in certain terrains. Arabians still have the speed advantage overall, but mules are much more useful as an alternative now, particularly on tougher terrains.
* Maximum amount of moves allowed per turn increased from 24 to 26 squares (allows you to use all of your MP when sticking to roads with a fast movement speed).
* Taking any skills/stats above the old 99/250 limits costs much more experience per level to raise, than it cost to reach the 99/250 levels.
* Strength/awareness/charisma training no longer costs exp if a character is already maxed out (but the gym can still charge you gold for your guided tour!).
* You can no longer teleport directly to a dungeon level unless your party has been to that level before.
* You now get a hint of "more creatures" if there are monsters stacked on top of eachother in a dungeon room.
* Parties stay 'active' in the world without turns for 48 hours, rather than vanishing within an hour of stopping play, and the "OH" on holiday special order has been disabled. Be sure to end your play somewhere safe!
* You can no longer drop flee factor by more than 25% per turn (no more "hit and run" tactics flitting between 100% and 0%!).
* All items sell back to shops for considerably less gold than previously.
* Having a scout already in your party no longer prevents a Knight from joining (Knights appreciate a good scout!).
* "Know Party" 804 miracle works even on groups not currently 'online' in the game (previously only worked if the group had been online that hour!).
* Anti-Annihilation routines (both for PVE and PVP) don't kick in quite so easily - it's now easier to lose characters to tough encounters!
* IF 'P 0's get "stuck", tithing large amounts of gold several times should help, or you can try miracle 304 - but be aware that the higher your priest skill, the less likely a random skill rise becomes with a "P 0" - the final push from 90-99 can sometimes feel to take a long time!
* Too many robs on a shop should no longer crash the engine.
* "Postal address" is no longer displayed anywhere (eg meeting another group) - only email address is given.
* Parties are no longer "anonymous" by default, to aid and encourage communication and activity between players.
Orders & Abilities
* "H 16" hand from plunder now supports codes 81-89 in the item code slot (instead of using 99). This defines a minimum/maximum + level of items to deal with;
If using "H 16 0 8x" to dump/sell plunder, 81-89 is treated as a 'cut-off' point for gear to sell/dispose of, 81 being +1 gear, 89 being +9 gear - eg using 85, your group WON'T sell any items of +5 level or above.
If using "H 16 <char> 8x" to give all plunder to a character, 81-89 is treated as the "minimum requirement" of gear to hand - eg using 85, your character will ONLY take gear of +5 and above from plunder.
* "E 0" - You can now "E"ngage a target of 0, to engage the first NPC group found in your current location (will NOT work for PVP!). This is to help situations where there can be stacks of monsters on top of eachother (particularly in dungeons) - just issue a couple of "E 0" orders in your current location.
* You can now "VA" request an Arena fight immediately after accepting one, without being told the arena is too busy, so you can "return the challenge". You can still have only one actual arena fight per turn, and only one group can be set as "challenged" by you at a time.
* If the "U"se command is given the format "U <char> <char 0-15> <item>" it will work as you meant it to, to keep the order in line with the "H"and item order (otherwise it is still the usual "U <char> <item> <target>" sequence).
For example "U 1 203 0" and "U 1 0 203" will both work to make character 1 drink a potion.
* The "U"se command can now be given an item of 0 to train hand to hand - for example to have character 1 learn hand-to-hand from character 2;
"U 1 0 2" (can also do "U 1 2 0"), or to try and teach themselves "U 1 0 1".
A target character of 0 will cause the character to select their fists as a weapon - eg "U 1 0 0" will set character 1 to use hand-to-hand combat, rather than any held weapons.
* "AG 100000" - Alliance Give gold ("AG") now allows give 100,000 gold per turn (up from 15,000 in QOL).
* Alliance HQs can now stock lockpicks (with sale price able to be set between 75 and 150 per lockpick).
* Item codes in orders are no longer restricted to 6 digits (no longer impossible to interact with items beyond number 999,999).
Monsters & NPCs
* Monster "swallow" attacks are now no longer a simple D20 roll with no influence from anything (other than your ability to kill it quick!) as they previously were.
The monster's size, power, magic and abilities... plus your character's own abilities and buffs, now all influence monster swallow chance.
Be warned, monsters (especially the toughest ones) can now swallow lesser characters much more easily than the old D20 check... but extremely tough and agile characters (particularly when protected with certain spells, miracles and items!) can reduce swallow chances to much lower levels than the old D20 check.
* Gear has a chance based on magic level to survive being "swallowed" - so you might get lucky if you managed to slay the monster that swallowed your stuff!
* The "not weaker" monster consideration for spellcast ASL has been re-written, and should reflect monsters being tougher/weaker than your own group much more accurately - and genuinely only cast on monsters that are actually tough (compared to you).
* Killing some of a monster group but losing the fight no longer means the "random loot generator" on the ones you killed is wasted. Now if you fight 4 dragons, kill two but retreat, the remaining two will get loot generated on them from the two you DID kill, ready to be retrieved!
* Majority of monster group max sizes increased (eg 50 orcs, 50 goblins, 40 elves/dwarves, 5 giants and 5 dragons now possible!).
* Most monsters have been rebalanced, and generally made tougher - particularly mid and high level monsters... be careful!
* Loot for many monsters has improved (many monsters that never gave loot before can now drop loot, and tougher monsters have better loot chances).
* Item drops from monsters have been tweaked - +9 items can now drop from the toughest monsters, and chances of slayer/protection items have also increased.
* Loot list after a fight mentions "And more..." if there were more than 20 items looted (the list of all the items still cuts off at 20).
* Monsters may dump some of the 'junk' items they loot from dead players, rather than always keep everything.
* "Serious Injury" description for monsters now also takes a monster's maximum HP into consideration (it takes a lot for a dragon to be seen as seriously injured!).
* Having stats above 99/250 will not increase the chance of certain monsters draining those stats - draining has been re-written to allow for the new higher stats.
Weapons, Armour & Combat
* A number of (largely minor) legacy bugs throughout the combat engine have been fixed. Eg under certain circumstances, move speeds could be used as hit speeds and hit speeds used as move speeds. Move speeds could be treated as 0 (instant move) immediately after casting a spell, incorrect stats used to defend against certain combat spells and various other similar oddities.
* Flame, poison and bless effects are no longer "cleared" every combat (they now last all turn).
* Combat summaries (PVP and PVE, including Arena fights) now list all characters , not just those that hit something, in the combat summary - along with the health characters finished the fight with next to their names.
* Arena fights now give a total number of kills each group achieved at the end of the fight, to quickly and clearly see who 'won' other than simply who ran away first.
* "Body Armour" now has a damage soak range of 60-100% of the body armour's AR rating per incoming hit (helmet and shield soak is still at 0-100% soak). Critical hits will treat armour to be the old 0-100% soak.
* Body armour "Base" AR's have all been reduced by 1 (so basic cloth is now 3 AR not 4, plate is 13 not 14).
* An item's "+" level on BODY ARMOUR now grants 2 extra AR per level for body armour (still 1 AR per +level for helmets and shields), eg +1 cloth will grant 5 AR, +2 cloth will grant 7 AR, etc.
* Shields now have more impact on combat other than just their AR - the larger the shield, the more critical protection it grants, but larger shields also slow characters down in combat. Small shields grant little extra critical defence, but have next to no impact on speed, whereas large shields do affect speed but give good critical hit defence. Note that a character always automatically holds the highest AR shield they have on them.
* Weapon ranges are now all equal - melee weapons all have a range of 3 and missile weapons a range of 9. However, all weapons now have a new "first swing/shot" variable - an added amount of time to the FIRST swing/shot of a weapon per combat. So a 'longer reaching' weapon such as a halberd (which has a very low "first swing" time) will still get the first hit in over a dagger (which has a very high "first swing" time) despite the old "range stat" now being the same. In effect, this change allows much more fine-tuning and balancing between the weapons than the old ranges, whilst correcting some combat oddities due to the old range system.
* Weapon speeds all re-balanced for all classes, subclasses, terrains etc. - now more fairly balanced between all the types, races, terrains, with focus on preventing any single weapon of a particular class being better "in all situations and terrains". Racial preferences are now much more more noticable.
Note that no weapons have received "the nerfbat" - instead less effective weapons have been improved for various races/terrains/classes.
* Weapon's "+" level grants higher 'max possible damage' (gives more reason to switch from one weapon type to another for an upgrade in + level).
* Weapon skills above 100 now affect critical hit chance correctly, and now also apply to hand-to-hand fighting (not just melee/missile weapons as it used to).
* Critical hits have a (small) chance to naturally raise weapon skill, all the way up to the maximum 250 skill limit.
* Character subclass types now affect their critical defence/attack abilities in monster combat too, not just PVP.
* Fighter prime skill has more influence on combat than previously.
* Spellcasters interrupted by hostile missile fire in PVP combat now have an increased delay before switching to their melee/missile weapons.
* Baldor call spirit in PVP combat now works correctly.
* Too many items on a character/group and engaging in combat no longer crashes the combat engine.
Classes & Class Balance
(details of differences between all races & professions can be found here)
* Paladins and Battle Mages combat cast times are now not affected by armour as much their 'main' non-specialist class.
* Paladins and Battle Mages have reduced base combat cast times.
* Regular unspecialised fighters (no subclass) now have some natural physical damage resistance on all received hits.
* Knights & Footmen now have some armour penetration with their melee hits, based on their prime skill.
* Highly skilled brawlers can now hit normally "non-hittable except by enchantment" monsters.
* Brawlers have a much higher hit-speed than before.
* Brawlers now get some armour penetration with hand-to-hand, depending on their prime skill.
* Archers now get some armour penetration with missile weapons, depending on their prime skill.
* Scouts and Archers do slightly more damage with missile weapons than any other class/type.
* Scouts can scout out more monster groups etc. per turn - with highly skilled scouts being able to investigate many more groups per turn. Scouts also have a better chance of revealing hidden monsters on the map.
* Fighter subclasses have all had their move and hitspeeds tweaked - move speeds particularly. Berserkers still have the speed advantage of charging in to battle first, but other fighter subclasses have been improved based on each sub-class, so the difference between sub-classes is not quite so huge (a pure berserker group is now not quite the "be all and end all" of combat).
* Armour weights affect some subclass attack and move speeds slightly less - particularly footmen and knights (they are still affected by armour, but not by as much).
* Elven Knights can now be recruited.
* Halfblood Peasants can now be recruited.
* Dwarf Berserkers can now be recruited.
* Recruit chances of certain subclasses tweaked slightly.
Spells & Miracles
* Mage prime skill now affects damage done, effectiveness or power of many combat spells.
* A number of miscellaneous hostile combat spells have been tweaked/improved/fixed, to ensure all have a genuine impact on combat in some way. Many mage spells have been made more powerful than any similar-in-nature priest miracles, especially on a powerful mage.
* Characters take a set period of time at the start of combat before they are ready to start casting.
* Mage combat spell cast times are faster (by varying degrees per spell level).
* Priest combat miracle cast times are slightly faster.
* Out of combat healing of spells/miracles improved slightly (especially mage healing).
* Strength miracle no longer increases fighter skill.
* Know Party miracle will now also tell you the subclass of the randomly focused member... but a party with a dedicated/set alignment ("SA") to Fleyshur is immune to the 804 miracle.
* Map Wilderness spells (and buying a "map" item) have the same effect whether you finish your turn in a settlement or not.
Items & Inventories
* All magical rings now work as expected, with a few having their previous effects buffed... they also give more descriptive feedback when first wearing them.
* "Minor Healing" potions now heal for a more useful amount.
* Magic potions now support the new "max stat limits".
* "Random" items (torches, mirrors, furs, bottles etc.) that are laying around loose in dungeon rooms (dropped by groups) now get picked up when doing an "I 0" order - previously these sorts of items would stockpile forever and eventually crash a dungeon room.
* Armour permanent enchant chance brought in line with weapon enchant chance.
* Religious books/magic books on priests/mages now have a practical use.
Turn Files
* Doctype of .HTM turns emailed out fixed.
* Filenames of turns emailed out are now in the format; "Q<game>-<party>-<turn 0-padded to 5 digits>" eg "Q20-1234-00666.htm", with hands-free turns being appended with an "h" ("Q20-1234-00666h.htm"), or a "u" for an automatic update turn. You can now save all of your turns to the same folder without older turns ever being overwritten!
* Slightly increased the max line-length for emailed html turns.
* "Messages to players" now have HTML codes removed for safety.
* Unnecessary top-of-turn event messages such as "Rumour card enclosed..." and "To start a new party..." no longer appear.
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- Azzer.