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|  | Posted By: Sanya Thomas | 2002-10-25 20:16:37 |  |
| |  |  The usual mixed bag, pardon the pun:
Q: What does condition/bonus/ quality matter on jewelry?
A: Condition – at or below 70% you stop getting stat increases or specific benefits. Bonus – (the bonus field, I should say) at this time, nothing. Quality – at this time, nothing, with one exception: all items including jewelry with a quality of 99, or 100 have extra “hidden” durability past the displayed 100, and thus those items last longer than items of lower quality.
Q: Any chance we can recopy characters to Pendragon? I’d like to test using a more recent version of my character.
A: We’re looking at changing the system to allow you to update your character copy after this next patch goes live.
Q: How do I as the guild leader remove a character (named, say, Bob) from my guild?
A: Type /gc autoremove Bob and then wait 24 hours.
Q: Is there a stat I can boost that will affect my miss ratio with my bolts? (I am not talking about the in-combat penalty that a bolt takes, strictly talking about misses.)
A: No, no stat affects that. The to-hit chance is based strictly on your level vs. the level of the target. The damage that you do is based on a number of factors, including but by NO means limited to your spec level vs. the level of the target, and the armor absorption rating of your target’s gear.
Q: Why do shouts not have a “critical” factor? There are critical heals, critical melee hits, and critical direct damage spell attacks.
A: You can’t really compare heals in this case; a critical heal is a realm ability. (Critical DOTs are also a realm ability.) But the other things – all melee attacks have a chance to critical, and all direct damage spell attacks (including bolts) by a “robe” or “list” caster (a caster whose spell book is organized into drop down menus) have a chance to critical. No other magical attacks have the chance to critical – it’s just the design.
Before anyone asks, the request to have all spell lists fixed up like that of the “list” caster has been passed on.
Q: Okay, I understand now why an enemy miss still has the chance to interrupt you, but why does a successful intercept or guard also have the chance to interrupt you? What about bladeturn?
A: Because someone just charged towards you with a nasty weapon and someone threw themselves in the path of the nasty thing to save you. Bladeturn – it would help if you thought of bladeturn not as a bubble of protection, but as extremely special body armor that fits like a second very hard skin. You aren’t standing inside a safe little room – the safety margin stops a millimeter from your tender flesh.
Our system is very different from the one used by other games. If you need a refresher on exactly how our interrupt system works, go to the Herald search function and type “interrupt.” Select the July 12 grab bag and scroll to the bottom (or select “Edit” on your browser and use the “Find on this page” option. Remember, the Herald can be searched in this manner for the answers to all sorts of questions.
Q: I heard this is the patch where you get a free level 20 if you have a 50th level character.
A: It’s not, we’re still discussing the specifics of that. To be perfectly frank, that’s probably a couple months off, we have a lot of other changes (the four extra character slots, for example) that we’re going to put in first.
Q: If I have 800 in my current craft and I decide to do the reset quest and switch to spellcrafting, do my 800 points get switched to spellcrafting or do I start at nothing? If my points get wiped, will I get back the money I spent in my current craft?
A: Oh dear. I must have not been clear. The tradeskill reset is a RESET. It is not a reSPEC. If you decide to wipe out your points in your current tradeskill, they are gone, gone, gone. You will not get them back for any reason. We are putting in a reset more for the benefit of the people who truly feel that they’d rather be spellcrafters or alchemists but didn’t have the choice back when they originally picked a trade, and for the benefit of the people who have a handful of points in a skill they don’t care about at all. If you want to sacrifice 800 points, that is your choice, but you will be starting from zero in the new skill.
No, there are no refunds. So, please, I beg of you, think through your decision. If there is the TINIEST chance you might not like the new trade, roll a new character or wait for the expanded character slots.
Q: What is the formula for how dex affects parry, block, and evade?
A: I can’t give you the exact formula, because there are just too many variables. Dex is the only stat that matters as far as stats go in the formulas for parry and block, so buff the heck out of dexterity to get the maximum benefit (again, the maximum benefit as far as personal stats go).
Evade is not a skill, and it works very differently from parry and block. Primarily, the effectiveness of evade is related to your level of evade (and of course, your level versus the level of your target). There are many minor factors, of course, but that is the big one. The stats that affect evade are dex and qui in equal proportions, just not in as large a proportion as they are in parry or block.
Q: Does a critical arrow shot hit for 1.5X or 2X normal damage?
A: I had a simple answer, but you know, our Scout Team Lead has a document with about ten billion times the detail as I was going to include, and he kindly offered to let me direct traffic to him. Go read his page. Thanks, O!
Q: I am missing (insert style) and I play (insert class that does not get the prerequisite for that style, although the class can get access to the line that the style is in).
A: You aren’t missing that style, technically. If your class doesn’t get the prerequisite ability, then you will not get the style. (You will also not get followups that use that style as an opening move.) In a few cases, you will get the “missing” styles when you get to the level where your class gets the ability. Regular readers of this little column will notice this question is a repeat, but your friends in CS tell me we’re still getting a number of appeals on the subject.
Q: Wouldn’t it be cool if you could check appeals while you were offline?
A: Heck yes. We’re not there yet, but we’re starting to add more functionality to the support site. Go to the top of this page, and click “Camelot Support” (the little man with the red cross on his shield). The left hand column is entitled “Get Help” – click the last option on the list, “Appeal Information.” Click the top option, “Appeal Statistics.” You can read the global results, or select for your favorite server.
This information used to be released to you in the form of Jeff Hickman’s Customer Service Report, and now you can see it whenever you like. A few notes about the system, however:
- Be sure to check the time stamp so you can tell when the information was reported to the website. The numbers may fluctuate depending on time of day – for instance, when lots of people get home from work or school, the “offline” numbers will drop like a rock as those people log into the game and take their place in the line depending on the age of their appeal.
- Bear in mind that the times are ONLY for non-escalated appeals. If you are stuck, being harassed, or you were told that your appeal had been escalated to a supervisor, then your appeal is not being counted as part of the queue, and you should be hearing from someone much sooner than the average time mentioned.
- If you sent a bug appeal, you will not hear back from anyone. Your appeal is being read by a human, who will then go test whatever it is you’re talking about. Yes, a real human. The humans are named Jason, Chris, Aileen, James, and Jen. And anyone who complains that they’ve got nothing to do ;)
- Even if you're offline, our fabulous customer service people may be able to help you and email you the answer. So it's EXTREMELY important that you have the correct email listed on your registration information. We do not sell or share your email addresses with anyone - please take that leap of faith and give us a real email address.
My big project has been reading all the “The One Thing” threads around the fansites and forums, and I feel like a kid in a candy store. Too many terrific possibilities, and too few hours in the day! I will get to all of them, however – if your favorite board has a thread on “the one thing I want to see most,” make sure the moderator sent me a link!
Our Shrouded Isles testers are in overdrive, and I hear that next week they’ll be working even harder. Which means it’s probably a good thing that we’re raising the limit on the number of testers admitted each week. We’re also drawing from the general server population now, so watch your mail! Matt K. from Minnesota, your beta CD came back to me marked “Addressee Unknown.” Y’all might want to drop me a line, because if you don’t, I can name about twenty six thousand players who’d like to have it.
That’s it for the bag this week! I’ll be seeing some of you on the battlefield. You know what they say, don’t bother running because you’ll only die tired =) And with that little piece of smack talk I’ll probably live to regret - Thanks all, and have a wonderful weekend.
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