Patch 31: Jan 19th 2013 Combat Changes, Archery & LJ Update

This patch was made possible with testing and quality assurance assistance from Upgrayedd, Rand, Kali, SneakyT, and several other players.

• Anti AFK Gathering System
  • Added a gate that will allow a player to leave jail when their sentence is up.
    Normally the first time a player is flagged under the system a staff member had to let them out.
    Now players may use the gate to leave, determine when they can leave, or get more information about the system in general.
    
• Ball of Summoning
  • Resolved a problem that would cause the ball to attempt to summon the wrong (unbonded) pet in certain situations.
  • Disabled the ability to use these items during events, should a player somehow smuggle one in.
• Blacksmithing Bulk Order Deeds
  • Adjusted the chance to get a small armor bulk order deed vs a weapon deed to 70% for armor and 30% weapons.
    This is a change from the existing system of 50/50 to account for the lack of colored weapon bulk orders.
  • Adjusted the chance to get a large armor bulk order deed vs a large weapon order to to 55%.
    This is a change from the existing system which was only a 37.5% chance to get a large armor order vs large weapon order.
• Bulk Order Book
  • Added a public flag to the bulk order book item.
    This will be used in the future for our online bulk order book system, allowing players to flag their books as public or private.
  • Updated the Bulk Order Book gump to add a few new features.
  • You can now select 3 additional book colors to help players keep track of what type of BOD's are in each book.
  • You can also assign each book a name which is displayed on single click, and when opening the book.
  • Added a clear filter button to the main page of the book to allow for easy clearing of filters when reviewing books on vendors and elsewhere.
  • Cleaned up the book security for vendors, on the ground, and when held in your backpack.
    
• Carpentry
  • Add house ladder deeds as craftable items for carpenters.
  • In order to craft these items you will need the following;
    • 100 Carentry
    • 100 Tinkering
    • 100 Oak Boards/Logs
    • 20 Iron Ingots
    These items follow the same rules as other craftable items. They can be chopped and replaced up to 24 hours after they are placed.
    This item can be found in the other section of the carpentry menu.
    
• Combat Mechanics
  • Created a new playermobile only system of handling the combat process.
  • After extensive research of OSI documentation, OSI staff comments and concrete documentation we have determined the faults in the Runuo system related to player vs player combat.
  • Player damage is now calculated by a more accurate formula that directly equals the results you would expect based on the weapon used during the Renaissance era.
  • The magical weapon damage bonus, exceptional damage bonus and lumberjacking bonus are now applied correctly in the process.
  • Players will notice much more stable damage over time, however keep in mind weapon quality (durability) still affects damage based on the condition of the weapon.
  • Armor and shield absorption levels remain unchanged and could still require additional work.
    However damage by armor cannot be absorbed below 50% of the weapons base damage.
    Parry however can still reduce the final applied damage to 1 point.
• Combat - Archery
  • Reduced the movement delay for making an archery attack from 1.0 second to .25 seconds.
    To fire a bow on the run now only requires a small pause in which to shoot. This small pause is necessary for combat balance.
  • An archer at a 1 to 1.5 (diagonal) tile range from the target will have their chance to hit calculated by comparing their archery skill to the targets defensive wrestling skill.
  • An archer at a 1.5 to 13 tile range (depending on the bow used) will have their chance to hit affected by three factors.
    • Recent Movement
    • Range to the Target
    • The Targets defensive wrestling (this makes up 1/3rd of your ranged defense)
    Code:

       
    if (DateTime.Now < (attacker.LastMoveTime + TimeSpan.FromSeconds(.75)))
    {rangemod = 24;} 
    else
    {rangemod = 12;} 
    
    defValue = (distance * rangemod ) + (defWeapon.GetDefendSkillValue(attacker, defender) * .33);
    

  • If an archer has moved recently (.75 seconds) and fires they will face a penalty to accuracy modified by their range to the target.
  • The closer an archer is to their target the greater their chance to hit the target, except in the situation listed above.
  • The farther an archer is away from their target, the less their chance will be to hit the target.
  • Players wishing to experiment with this system can log onto the Renaissance test center and using a combat log book run their own tests versus players and monsters.
• Combat - Lumberjacking
  • Lumberjacking was converted to a static damage system versus the existing percentage based system that was subject to halving.
    This was resulting in massively varying damage ranges depending on the combat roll.
  • The lumberjacking damage bonus is now calculated using the following formula.
    
    Code:

    ((Lumberjacking Skill / 10 ) -1) +  (Lumberjacking Skill == 100 ? 1:0)
    

  • At 100 Lumberjacking a 10 point bonus will be applied to your combat damage.
  • At 99 Lumberjacking a 9 point bonus is applied
  • at 50 Lumberjacking a 4 point bonus is applied.
• Combat Log Book
  • Created a new item that can be used to log the combat effectiveness of a player, their skills and a weapon.
    This item will be accessible to all players on our test shard to assist with character builds and combat testing.
    This will also be used on the live server by staff, and in testing situations with players.
    To Learn more about the combat log book click here
    
• Dye Tubs
  • Allowed black dye tubs to be used when locked down by anyone. However they cannot be re-dyed
  • Allowed normal dye tubs to be used when locked down by anyone. However they can be re-dyed
    Charged dye tubs such as leather or furniture tubs can only be used by the owner of the house when locked down.
    For any existing locked down tubs, they will need to be released and locked down again for the changes to be applied.
  • Converted the furniture dye tub to a charge based tub.
  • Created a new palette menu for the furniture dye tub to conform to the Renaissance server's color palette. (Thanks Rand)
    
    Colors available from the furniture dye tub (not shown: ore colors)
    
• Explosion Potions
  • Restored the proper function to explosion potions when thrown properly.
    Explosion potions will now detonate properly when thrown, and if thrown at the right time will hit even a running player.
  • Added the proper z axis range limitations to explosion potions. Potions will now only hit targets within +/- 5 z axis range of the potion.
• Factions
  • Adjusted the total amounts of faction guards that can be hired per town to address the issues of lag that the guards patrolling has been creating for some players.
  • This is a temporary fix until adjustments can be made to faction guards to reduce the lag they cause for slower connection players.
  • Restored the faction guard prices to their previous standard levels.
    Patch 32 will address more clearly the issues with factions, along with the addition of some new faction vendors.
• Houses
  • Resolved a problem with the 2nd floor doors in a log cabin house opening in an incorrect direction.
  • Implemented the proper Renaissance era mechanics for taking into account the steps of a house in relation to other items and houses.
  • Implemented the proper Renaissance era mechanics for taking into account the wings of towers in relation to other houses.
    The interaction of tower wings to tower wings will still require additional work.
• Items
  • When trying to use bandages to resurrect a player, a check of the targets elevation and your elevation will be made.
    If the elevation difference between the two players are too different you will not be able to resurrect them at that location. (+/- 4 z axis)
  • Both types of wheat sheaf's can now be fed to animals that should normaly consider them as food.
  • Resolved a minor problem with one of the items that is obtainable from the boss monsters as loot. (Thanks SneakyT)
  • Converted oil cloth's to stack able items. (Thanks Steel Reserve)
  • Holiday Tree Deeds will now be usable year round. However only trees placed in December will have ornaments.
  • Lockpicks now have the correct action delay of 10 seconds.
• Khal'dun
  • Resolved a bug that was allowing marking, recalling and gating in/out of Khal'dun
  • Players can no longer mark,gate or recall directly into Khal'dun.
  • However you may recall and gate out from inside the dungeon.
• Mobiles / Creatures
  • Added a fire breath attack to Krackens (Thanks Darkwing/Zagyg)
  • Added a few missing items to the food lists for grains (Thanks SirLancealittle)
  • Resolved a problem in which monsters were despawning in 3 days regardless of player activity
  • Monsters in the wild, that have not been tamed or sheared in the last 72 hours will automatically despawn.
  • Monsters in a house region will despawn in 24 hours unless they are sheared or tamed.
    An analysis of refreshing creatures via other methods will be done in the near future, but for they are only refreshed by taming and shearing.
  • Adjusted the shearing action when applied to sheep to refresh the related timers to keep the pet from decaying for another 24 hours if in a house, or 72 hours if in the world.
• Moongates
  • Adjusted moongates so that the use of a moongate resets your last movement indicator.
  • Using a moongate will also add a 5 second delay to firing any ranged weapon that is equipped during the passage through a moongate.
    If your bow is charged, and you use a moongate, you will have to wait 5 seconds to fire the weapon, not the full charge cycle
• Players
  • Removed the general code that was causing players to lose stamina based on their dexterity, weight held and damage given.
    This section of code has been placed under review by the Renaissance staff.
  • Adjusted the stamina drain of maces to use the proper formula and base stamina drain based on the same factors.
    This applies to maces and staves.
• Skills
  • Added the proper mechanics to the stealing skill, requiring that players be on a similar elevation when stealing items from another player.
• Spells
  • Added an elevation check to the Resurrection spell.
    If the elevation difference between the two players are too different you will not be able to resurrect them at that location. (+/- 4 z axis)
  • Added a 1 second damage delay to the lightning spell (Per Ezekiel, Confirmed via UO Demo)
• Stealing
  • Players willl now only perma-flag when a criminal theft from a player has been attempted with a remote chance of success since your last death.
    This was causing players, not in the thieves guild, or who had ever successfully stolen an item (but tried) to be flagged as perma grey in combat. (Thanks Rand/Kali/Sneaky)
• Vendors
  • Vendors will now respond to a player at a range of 5 tiles
• Wandering Healers
  • Wandering Healers will no longer resurrect players anywhere within a house region, including the courtyard of larger houses.
• Wands
  • Wands use delay has been adjusted from 4 seconds to 1 second as is correct for the Renaissance era. (Per Ezekiel, Confirmed via UO Demo)
  • Wands now determine their effectiveness based on static value of 60 magery and 0 evaluate intelligence.
  • Resolved a bug where you could gain magery or evaluating intelligence skills when using a wands.
• World Resources
  • Increased the respawn time of trees from 20-30 minutes to 40-50 minutes.
    Lumber regions are in rectangles of 3x4 tiles.
  • Increased the respawn time for mountains and ore bearing regions from 10-20 minutes to 40-50 minutes.
  • Adjusted the maximum spawn for ore bearing regions to be accurate for the Renaissance era.
    Mining regions are squares that are 8x8. So if your vein runs out, just move 8 tiles.

Re: Patch 31: Jan 19th 2013 Combat Changes, Archery & LJ Upd

Correct, we didn't change the resource zones but we restored the proper respawn times for the zones. We wanted to be clear to players as to the size of the zones. If you find a corner where 4 zones meet (just like fishing) you can mine/chop 4 spots at once.

As for the wand changes, extensive research was done to try and find any information indicating how OSI handled wands in the era. The basic understood mechanics are wands have a 1 second use delay, and that they are based on a magery of 60. I searched 5 years of patch notes to find any notes that OSI had made any change deviating from the original wand functions and did not find any precedent to support
their default behavior in the RunUO code.

The standard mentality of the staff on Renaissance is a series of steps, once of the first steps in perfecting the UOR era is to determine how something functioned during the UOR era. At the moment wands were simply reset to the known mechanics of the era. If you, as a player, have a differing opinion feel free to start a discussion in our era discussion forum