R45 Postmortem Missed Questions

Here are the questions that we did not have time to get to during the R45 Postmortem. I tried my best to answer these (with help from the rest of the team) but some we just don't have details yet to provide. I probably won't have time to do any follow ups to these. The community did a great job assisting us this telethon to make sure we didn’t miss a single question.

Please note I deleted a bunch of duplicated questions and also deleted any questions that we answered with the Q3 post or with the release of R45. I also deleted questions that were super open ended, were super vague or were needlessly confrontational.

Roxanne: Will we ever be able to craft blank paper?
Yes

Randbo: Will you fix the true bronze crafting tools. without them i get 29% exceptional chance with blessing and table. with them it drops to 27%. used to be the other way around.
This sounds like a bug that should be submitted to bug forums.

Viper_Poison: Can we get prosperity tools for ingot molds and other molds or recipe to craft our own which have more durability?
We do not plan to create any more prosperity tools at this time

Viper_Poison: Can you make the default for ingot molds and other molds to use the mold with the least amount of durability first? Often I have half used molds all over in my inventory and it doesn’t make sense someone would actually do that.
Yes we hope to fix this

Amarious - When I press F the Social window comes up. In that window are player names and locations that they are in. We can sort players by alphabetical order by clicking on the large white Player Name text. I was wondering if we could get large white text next to it that says Locations and when clicked on it it would put locations into alphabetical order just like when clicking on the Player Name text.
Yes we hope to provide this level of polish for this UI

Amarious - The great minds of the Kobold kind have made a device where… if you step in it and pull a lever.. after 30 seconds every item you wear that has taken durability loss is now repaired. It would act as a coin operated device costing much more than it would to use repair kits, the price of convince is a good one.. How likely is it that the Kobolds could create such a device and could we put it in our homes? (if you haven’t noticed from my questions I, for some reason, really find repairing my items very tedious.) : )
We will consider

Tiina Onir: As I’ve noted elsewhere, In completing the main questline it seems less “story complete” then “outline complete.” Will these be getting dialogue improvements, real choices, divergent paths, etc? (see https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/spoilers-observations-on-truth.97952/#post-863486 )
We are going to continually polish the questlines with additional side quests, dialogue polish, etc. For instance in R46 we are doing an overhaul of Malice to make it more accessible (removing creature respawn and having an NPC actively help you through the dungeon) while revisiting the dialog to make it clearer and easier to follow.

Tiina Onir: Can we go back to the quarterly telethons (even if that means multiple releases per telethon)? I feel like doing them at this rate is just contrived and we don’t get to see the items from one before the next. I’ve heard at least a little grumbling in the community about it as well.
I am very sorry that you feel this is contrived and that the delivery schedule is causing you frustration. Regarding the feedback on pacing if you look at historical delivery data we are actually delivering at the exact same pace that we delivered for the quarterly telethons, if not actually faster than those. Regarding “grumbling” we have actually gotten much more positive feedback on the monthly model than we have gotten negative feedback. Would be interested to know why you feel this is “contrived”. For us as we stated with the R44 Post Mortem we had a very concrete reason to move to a monthly format: shorter length meant more focus and less fatigue. Also worth noting 3 months of 4 hour telethons equals 12 hours every 3 months.

Malimn: When will the Enchant “Weapons / Armor” skill be looked at? Currently the success rate on the third attempt fails in the 85 to 87% range. Please do not use the standard RNG excuse because I can MW items and have the standard breakage at 45-47% success rate on those attempts. HOWEVER when you go to enchant the third time, having the same success rate as Masterwork, it breaks more like you have a 15% chance to enchant item. I have spent the last 2-3 months testing this and YES it is broken, Lace has mentioned this as well and nothing has been done to fix this issue.
We will look at the math.

Sara Dreygon: Any chance of adding a crit damage modifier (an additional 25% damage when they do crit) for polearms to balance out with swords higher crit chance?
Polearms will be getting a bit more of a tweak in R46 but likely not critical hit damage. Polearms already have a higher max hit than blades and increasing the critical hit amount could push them a bit too close to 1-hit kill territory for a lot of situations. The current advantages that polearms have over blades are reach, max charged hit amount, slightly better strength bonus, not being blockable by shields, and a high max target hit value.

Sara Dreygon: Any chance of updating Absorb Impacts to last longer like other combat buffs?
Yes. Planning on making this longer duration but also cause greater damage to armor.

Sara Dreygon: Any chance of updating Knight’s Grace to… be useful (if you look at metrics it’s never used and for good reason)?
The next change that will be coming with Knight’s Grace will be to make it also grant a lasting stun resist buff when used to clear a stun. This will be a response skills, like riposte, where you only get the bonus if you actually clear a stun value.


FrostII: Why has it been left in OUR hands to come up with an alternative to our current system of making death “meaningful” by skill decay? Does death really need to have “meaning” beyond having to leave the battle and find an ankh, plus losing all buff’s
I do not understand this question.

Browncoat Jayson: For molds, etc, is there a reason for them to have max durability (instead of just be 100 uses and break)? It costs more to repair them than to buy a new one.
Good point

Paladin Michael: Could we find a newspaper in the taverns with OUTLANDER news each Release/Month?
Cool idea

Faceman: Why is the first floor of the Elven Tree town sized house considered outdoor deco? That seriously limits lighting, container count and decorations able to be placed for a large portion of the property.
We are going to fix this for R46

Draugur: The new Gust FX looks great but makes it hard to see for the players and the audience oh Gustball. Instead of changing the fx for Gust could you add a new skill in game that could be used JUST for gustball? Something with just a little bit of fx.
This is of course an unintended side effect. We will dial back the VFX to not obscure gameplay.

Bella Bones: Can we please have the ability to use inner strength while on the map to carry heavy items between towns?
The decision to not allow a lot of spells on the overworld is an old one that needs to be rethought. While offensive spells and movement spells have legitimate reasons to not be used, most others just don’t make sense. I’ll try and take a pass on what can be used on the overworld map for R46.

Bella Bones: Can we have the ability to close the chat box until we decide to open it again, instead of it popping up everytime something happens during combat?
Yes

Bella Bones: Can the potted Rose Bushes have titles with the color of rose they are in the inventory list? As of right now it only says planting pot after growing a rose bush in it.
Yes

Bella Bones: Can there be more spins for discounts now that the telethons are only 4 hours. Like 2 spins per hour?
We were actually doing spins approximately every 30 minutes and there were on average 4 sales active at any given time so not sure how we could get any more frequent without putting everything on sale.

Bella Bones: Can we please decorate with gems and jewels and quest items? Otherwise these question items like the Highvale Sword are taking up space in my backpack or bank.
Yes to gems and jewels. No to quest items because they are flagged no-trade.

Bella Bones: Can we have a painting called The Five Man Nightmare?
Haha! We will think about it

Bella Bones: Can we have a, The Last Day Painting, and it's a painting of the last day before the wipe, or some kind of destruction happening to everyone when the wipe happened?
We will consider

Sharp Courage: When will we be able to dye leather? We really need this! Lol
No ETA

Sharp Courage: Can you add better descriptions to recipes when moused over for a better informed idea of what we're getting before buying?
Yes

Sharp Courage: Can you separate the training dummy and vendors from the pets eventually so we can place more pets per lot size?
No because they both require AI to work properly

Kigu Starfish (Kor): How many guild wars have been fought since persistence? How many kills was the biggest Guild War?
Eek! Sadly, it looks like we don’t have good metrics for this yet! Creating a task for it now.

Kigu Starfish (Kor): Can you force all [Visitors] to show their data in the public API so that the community can help analyze what trial players are doing?
No. There are laws regarding privacy that prevent that.

Hemswal: Will you guys be creating content for Twitch Prime members?
Yes, eventually.

Hemswal: Will recipe drops be increased for new players? If not, will anything be done to make this recipe situation more bearable?
We are constantly evaluating the balance of loot and our 2nd highest priority for Q4 is improving loot.

Hemswal: When will taming get some better functionality?
Post launch.

Taffi: Will there be a more effective targeting for pets in combat like the ability to use the f key maybe twice to get someones pet .
Targeting polish is something we periodically work on.

Wolferines: is it planned to work on an improvement of the crafting IU to improve the crafting?
We periodically improve all aspects of UI but not sure what specifically you are requesting be polished. The crafting system involves many different UI elements.

Wolferines: is it expected to increase the maximum number of craft? because frankly 20 items at a time is boring
Unfortunately significantly increasing these numbers increases the opportunities for bots and farmers so are being very conservative here.

Wolferines: is what is expected to hand over the prosperity tools for sale?
Lonig (Eisign Kerioth): tool bundle ever getting added back? Or just part of other bundles
We expired these items last year and do not plan on selling them outside of bundles any more.


Johnwick: how long will i be able to keep poisoning my bludgeon weapon?
Hah! Great question! This is a tough one to balance as removing an expensive consumable way to buff something is not really comparable to just adding DPS. Bludgeons already have high strength bonus and stunning. I’ll see if I can come up with an alternative modifier that still feels balanced.

Illaren: will there be changes done to the combat pets? ... I really want a ranged combat pet and i want to tame a huge corpion
Post launch

Liz_the_wiz: can we please get the option on deleting a toon not to reset all the options it resets? real annoying if you have multiple accounts as it resets it for all accounts (not per account which would make sense)
Yes

Liz_the_wiz: can we get a shaggy dog (like my icon) as non combat companions but can the non combat companions also get a few more hp so they don't insta die all the time if you go out adv
We will consider.

Liz_the_wiz: will the travian guys be contacting euro players for input
Yes

Liz_the_wiz: can we get in game tea sets (both british and japanese?)
Yes

Liz_the_wiz: can we please have dyes for internal walls!! so we can at least alter some of the decos
Eventually perhaps

Liz_the_wiz: have artifact drop rates gone down in the non extra high level zones? such as I've been in a 5 skull for weeks now, few supply bundles and no cotos and no artifacts
Rates have not been adjusted in at least 3 releases. This release they actually are a bit more common because they also have a high occurrence rate in supply bundles which were added on top of previous loot tables.

Liz_the_wiz: How many of the store stone dragon statues have been sold - cos they are pricey and no matter how much I want one even the smallest is darn expensive
90 of all sizes (not including table top)

Liz_the_wiz: can we get some more pot specific decos, like plants/flowers, etc that won't break my bank?
We tend not to make POT specific very often because of their very limited application (i.e. only for POT placement). Instead we make items that can be placed on both lots and in POTs.

Daxxe Diggler: Will there be any other ways to use the dread artifacts "spells" besides typing the words in chat? (Drag to hotbar? - Right-click on paper doll? - etc.)
Yes

Amarth: I hope you guys are doing an UI revamp anyway, but meanwhile, could we please get a way the resize the NPC chat window? This would improve questing (immersion/usability/readability) greatly.
We continually make polish passes on the user interface and UI resizing is one of the planned features.

Amarth: Will we be getting climbing? I'd like to climb the ladders instead of conveniently teleporting w/ a double-click
Yes, post launch.

Amarth: Are you ever going to release a truly massive zone/map, such as what existed in EverQuest, Fennin Ro? Currently, there's colossal statues, but not a map which would really take time to go through?
Maps like the Outskirts and Blood Bay are about as massive as our maps will get at least for now. Any bigger than that and we will likely run into significant performance issues, at least for now.

Cordelayne: Will "Swamp Boots" ever make it into the game?
Yes

Mia Sway: will Cabalist loot become deco at some point?
They already are

Mia Sway: do cabalist robes give a pattern when scrapped?
Yes

Mia Sway: any plans to balance the heavy and light armor trees?
We continuously balance combat

Mia Sway: dragon scale armor for chainmail?
We have considered this before yes.

Mia Sway: can i ask why the oktoberfest tent is yellow and green?
Because when we were looking at all the pictures of the interiors of Oktoberfest tents that was a common color scheme along with blue and white (which will also be an important color of the tent. https://www.google.com/search?q=okt...ppbWAhUL12MKHbsEBIoQ_AUICigB&biw=1513&bih=737

Mortanius: Isn't Scottie supposed to have some wax cylinders with him telling stories ingame?
Yes we have discussed this but just haven’t yet had time to do it.

Mortanius: can we get different wands too
Yes different wands are on schedule but we just haven’t gotten to them yet.

Dereck Vissard: Starr acknowledged that new basements are needed at the last telethon. Can we please get an ETA on when we’ll have those? Many of the current basements are not tenant/rental friendly (lack of doors and rooms, disproportional room size to common area size, etc). Yes, there are some that work, but we'd like more!
We hope to have the first basement inn done for R47

Dereck Vissard: Since doors are the anchor for room permissions, will we see new elven and viking row homes that have room doors (or an option to enable them at the lot maker), and/or will we get craftable doors that can bridge the gap for existing home types?
We do not at this time plan on making stylistic version of row homes for renting but we might in the future.

Dereck Vissard: Can the wooden numbers and ornate numbers for addresses/inns be repackaged please? We currently get 2 sets of each number 0-9, but the reason they were introduced (according to release notes) was for inns that have 15 rooms. The way they are packaged means that I need 4 sets to count to 15! And then I'll have several wasted numbers. That doesn't seem right.
Very good point and total oversight on our part. We are going to seriously consider changing this by adding a bunch of 1's to the package.

Merrick Dragon: when will us Edelman/women be able to make beer?!? Gah!
Soon we hope

Merrick Dragon: when will we be getting some +fishingskill waders?
Soon

Merrick Dragon: can we get Chris to wear funny hats for the telethons? and maby see more bunny suits?
I will work on that

Merrick Dragon: can we get @matpsch to work some more on sitting emotes? i mean to include sitting on the ground... i can't idle while sitting on the ground
Yes eventually

Merrick Dragon: is Richard and the team talking to / helping the guys over at "Legends of Aria"?
No we are not

Merrick Dragon: when is chris cutting off his hair cause he cant get my computer to 30 FPS?
Haahaa <sob>

Merrick Dragon: how can i get some virtue Rum/vodka Richard was drinking on the one telethon before persistance? (bottle with ankh on it)
https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/2820/isle-of-jura-superstition

Haradlr Skjaldarberi: When will we be able to craft the moving curtain for privacy areas, and will that curtain be able to be locked?
No ETA and unlikely it will be lockable.

Angel Mhor: could we have a larger storage amount for inns to reflect the extra people living in them
We do not yet have the tech to special case buildings like that.

Draggin: When can we please get some INTELLIGENCE food added to the Buff Foods? Only 1 very low level right now. Would Suggest making the Venison (Obsidian Stag) Surprise the take the Intelligence spot.
There are multiple recipes with intelligence buffs but they are much rarer than the dexterity and strength buffs because focus increases are so powerful.

Draggin: Will we ever be able to drag and drop items on bags, such as those in our backpack, instead of having to open then drop in them.
Perhaps

Draggin: is the opening filled for web developer/admin?
Not yet

Browncoat Jayson: Cloaks or other clothing for Travian and Black Sun partnership?
Yes

Browncoat Jayson: Can we get a (hopefully crafted) wooden version of the statues from the Add On Store, like the horse, elemental, dragon, etc?
Good idea!

Browncoat Jayson: Suggestion: 100k stretch goal - pet boar (just to bump up how quick we get the wild boar ingame!)
Wild boar is definitely on our list to make happen at some point

Browncoat Jayson: Any progress on the blue lights for the light it up blue campaign in the make a difference store?
Well the juggle wisps emote is blue lights but we are looking at making a juggle blue flame torches for the next light it up blue campaign. However since the campaign isn’t until April we probably won’t work on it until next year.

Browncoat Jayson: Will LB consider expanding Words of Power to more than "one syllable per tier", to make spells more readable? Ultima spells has internal consistency, but had multiple syllables even for first circle.
Richard is considering

Browncoat Jayson: One of the Unity asset packs was a set of steam pipes, however we never got those as in-game decorations. Can we get a deco pack to plumb our lots?
Cool idea

Kaffien: Will there be a smaller 'platform' or 'dock' you can place around a village type water lot?
We will consider

Steorrawulf: Now that there are cannibals in the game, will there be related recipes?
No comment

Steorrawulf: How do we make virtuous decisions in game when there is no feedback mechanism to our actions? (Things like stealing from a vendor are pretty obvious, but there is no feedback for an action like killing a doe)
We can look into providing more feedback but killing a doe does not hurt your virtue so most things that hurt your virtue are fairly obvious.

Xog: With the advent of PoT Water deeds thru the add-on store, when will we see bundles that include tax-free water deeds?
Probably not because tax free water lots were an exclusive promise for the original pledges which expired in 2016.

Sulfur Blade: Can we get either an improved visual for Chainmail Pants or the ability to dye them or dragon scale mail heavy armor pants that are similiar in ability to chain... Or even Kilts to put over the pants...
We do plan to provide more chainmail options

Griffler: Could you guys please, for the love of all things holy, remove the ability to empty the Entire contents of a container to your backpack when you press "E" with it open, or give us a way to change it!!
Yes

Eagell: can we have chariot's in the game
Perhaps when we add mounts after launch

Raistlyn: Can we have the option of returning everything after a pvp win, but keep the player's body part?
Yes you can already do this through the secure trade window

Raistlyn: The current agro system works pretty good, throwing in a completely random aspect to it might be a interesting addition?
Completely random might not be fun but more variety or sequential changes are things we have planned. For instance at certain times during a fight a creature might decide to switch targets to the healers but ideally would signal that he’s about to do that so players would have time to adjust strategy if they are paying attention.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Will the role and interaction of the development team change when Travian takes over the website? If so how?
Still working on this plan. We are not planning on reducing our staffing (just the opposite!) so any areas Travian helps us out will free up more time for community interactions.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Can we please remove the /follow command or develop a solution that would prevent them from exploiting it. It is essentially automation (that would otherwise be against the Terms of Service) used to make exploits like muling with multiple accounts easier, while providing very little benefit to the game.
We’re not fans of removing features people actually want just to deal with some exploiters. In some situations we have no choice but to change up features but I think in this case, it is best to just try and deal with the handful of exploiters.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: When we change decks, weapon and armor are correctly removed from whatever bags or backpacks they may be in. However when we change decks again those items are put into our general inventory. This causes a problem because the purpose of sorting items into bags has been ruined. Can we please make it so the weapons and armor equiped after changing decks will be returned back to where they came from if you switch decks again?
We are working on fixing this.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Do we still have plans to create anti-virtue devotionals? ETA?
We don’t have current plans for this but maybe after launch we will consider.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Can we hire an extra AI guy so more stuff can get done and not bottle necked?
Our current funds do not support this.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: What can you tell us about future plans to encourage/reward specialization in combat and crafting? Any plans to encourage players to GM skills and not just go to 80 in everything?
Apparently most players feel there is a reason to go beyond 80 already or there wouldn’t be so many concerns with decay being too punishing! We do still have plans to let players specialize in one or more schools. We’re trying to get things balanced and all schools meaningful before making a big change like this though.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Why don't players with 100's of GM's take more decay (like Millions of XP) when they die?
They do!

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Do we have plans to revamp magic resistances so that you can't be invulnerable to everything? For example, not allowing the stacking of all the resistance potions, etc... Maybe making it so your resistance only works if you're actively using that kind of magic.
Yes, on the short list we published of upcoming changes.

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Will we ever be able to enchant the Shroud of the Avatar and the Cabalist Robes?
We are discussing the possibility of allowing artifacts to be enchanted but at this time it is still only a remote possibility

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Can you please consider making a recipe that helps "extract" eternal patterns from an item? Basically giving the crafter a much improved (but expensive) way to get an eternal pattern.
We will consider but highly unlikely

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Can we please get basements that look like spider caves?
Cool idea

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: WHY must every amazingly cool looking scene like this have tons of mobs running around? Please, consider making scenes where LESS is MORE and if there are mobs they're not there to farm, they're there with purpose. That wizard tower scene is COOL! Putting a bunch of mobs everywhere makes it annoying.
What would draw players to a scene without creatures in it? If we put resources to draw players in without creatures then it would just lead to inflation.

Dayero: Any news on the Seedinvest status and perks? Why is the investment round not closed yet, still some peoples money stuck? (can't be on twitch btw, text answer would be nice)
We just closed the first round and emails were sent out.

Sean Silverfoot: Can we get an "Elaine" Dance (Seinfeld Show)
Hilarious suggestion

Arkah EMPstrike: A while back in the stand-up notes i saw devs were working on "campfires". Can that be elaborated on? >.>
That was just fixing some bugs with campfires

Arkah EMPstrike: Are there changes planned for Vanish and Shadowform and can they talk about them??
The current plan is to make the moon magic versions of the spells persistent. So for instance with Vanish, if you move and break the spell, it will re-Vanish you a few seconds after you stop moving.

Wandering healer: until there is time to do a full pvp battleground or arena, could there be something simple like a checkpoint flag in a shardfall that gives a reward every 10min instead of spawning mobs?
Sadly this would be too easy to camp until our player population increases post launch. We’ll announce a plan for making PVP more meaningful in an upcoming release schedule.

Lace:There used to be hanging sausages for deco on the the various butcher npcs that we could place on walls etc. They have been missing for many releases. Can we have them back please.
Richard feels strongly about non-functional food decorations so these were removed until we have actual sausage that can be created, cooked, and eaten in the game.

Humbert Humbert: How many additional creatures do you plan to add before release?
No exact number but at least 2-3

Malakie Tesarn- [USNC]: Are there plans to rework new player combat and growth? I have a couple people I introduced the game to that have both given up. They found the game too tough to get out of newbie stage and too much of a grind to get up levels. I personally also think it is way too hard to grow a newbie character.. finding reasonable weapons, armor and so forth is near impossible or so expensive it takes forever to afford. The two that had tried the game at my behest have not been interested but I can ask them to try again.. BUT that being said, I played since the patch and found combat harder and my own personal player is a newbie in terms of combat.. I spent a lot of my time building my home, wandering around etc.. Now I am moving into more combat play and finding it near impossible to get anywhere without decent weapons, armor or leveled enemies that I can kill without being mobbed. And trying to make gold without doing some 'known' quick way to just level up and get rich, i.e. play within my character, is slow slow slow…’
We are constantly examining and adjusting balance.

Malakie Tesarn- [USNC]: Will we be able to place more LIGHTS in our plots? I bought the lighted lamps and mushrooms.. but can't place them outside because the number of placeables is extremely limited for lighting..
Osric: when will you increase the number of decoration in the PoT?
We plan to increase decoration limits (including lights) but only after we increase performance significantly

Osric: Would you like to activate the payment plan again for those who would like to buy big bundles?
Yes

Osric: when can we grow oysters in the water spots for black pearls ??
No ETA

Osric: can we imagine a day a search agent who would record all the items of the sellers in order to help us to find an item more quickly to buy?
Yes

Cryodacry: Will you make a Mouse lock feature for keeping the mouse cursor inside the game window. This is particularly important for people with multiple monitors
Yes

Cryodacry: Is there any plan to make taunt affect AOE targets? as is the Single target Taunt is not enough.
Taunt should hit up to 5 targets already.

Cryodacry: When can we expect a balance pass on Taming and when can we expect some more NPC's that would be Tameable?
We recently did a balance pass on taming so not sure what you consider still unbalanced there. More tameable creatures might not happen until after launch.

Cryodacry: Why in the stretch goals are the female outfits always before the male outfits.
As a whole we actually have more gender neutral or traditionally masculine outfits so we tend to prioritize the more feminine outfits first so that we can start to get a more balanced catalog. Once that balance has been achieved we will try to get better at alternating between which outfit is listed first in the telethon stretch goals.

Cryodacry: Is there ever going to be a point to Repairing using Crafting stations? With them consuming Repair kits it seems pointless
Yes we want this eventually to be affected by repair skill and at high levels not use a repair kit.

Cryodacry: Is there any plan to update the stances so that the negatives do not outweigh the positives ? As is stances like Reckless Stance and Passive Stance are not worth the negatives. Reckless stance is just an under powered Berserkers Stance. The other option would be to make the penalties of the stances scale with the benefits ? As is the low level skills of Stances completely discourage the use of the stances.
All stances are getting some balance love in R46. Some will get better, others, like defensive stance, will have their role change somewhat. All will be added to the 100% untrain list of skills in case anyone is unhappy with the changes.

Cryodacry: Is polearm going to have anymore options for the weapons it uses ? currently all the other melee classes have 4 or more options while polearm only has 2.
I know at least one more pole arm option will be arriving before the end of the year. I hope we can get more of these in because these are easy wins for us to increase diversity of player visuals.

Durriken: Will there ever be more npc towns?
Not for Episode 1

Falcon Rainfeather: When can we get other elemental effects for our weapons or even shields?
Soon we hope

Jack Knyfe: Can we have Denis Loubet do an in-game portrait of Bob the Bunny for purchase in Ardoris from Caravaggios Wolf?
Hahahaha! Awesome idea

Jack Knyfe: Can we PWEEZ have gingerbread houses for Yule this year? (actual POT living spaces) Followup: with all manner of gingerbread house candy deco?
Full size unlikely but love the idea of the smaller deco

Jack Knyfe: Can we add a natural disaster relief section to the Make A Difference store to help victims of natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and such? (Example: Red Cross)
Good suggestion. However finding good disaster relief charities is challenging.

Jack Knyfe: we need Virtue and Chaos CUCKOO CLOCKS....the Virtue one can be fancy, and the Chaos one can be all like something out of American McGee's Alice
Good suggestion.

Lockey Abernathy: When will the clocks chime the time?
Good idea!

Lockey Abernathy: Would the team ever consider allowing us to have memorial plaques for those we love who have passed?
We already have customizable signs and tombstones

Lockey Abernathy: When will we see Karate/Judo in game?
Pherik: Are there any plans to expand Pugilism or add Hand to Hand weapons/modifications for armor so it can be viable for combat?
We just added pugilism but full unarmed combat that is viable against armed combat is something not scheduled for Episode 1 launch.

DevilCult: Are we going to have real raid soon?
Highest priority after Episode 1 launch.

Krullen: Regarding Doors. If we die in a room and the doors are closed, we're trapped in. Can you let us walk through the doors when we're ghosts to get out of the room? Also, we're seeing living NPC's walking through door, what's up with that?
No because then people would use ghost mode to get through doors in dungeons.

Spinok: When slayer weapons will be implemented ? Will it affect weapons which already kill 1000+ species?
Post Episode 1 launch. Unlikely that it will affect weapons that have already done these events since the game would have no way to go back and retroactively track that data.

Grimbone: Will we ever see Wandering Merchants in game that visit towns? These merchants could show up 1 day a month to different town with exotic merchandise.
Cool idea!

Xog: Will light armor users have an interesting choice between similarly leveled Flurry and Reckless Stance abilities? They used to stack, now... they overwrite one another.
There shouldn’t be any stacking haste skills and it was an oversight that they stacked before. The result was players attacking so fast it looked broken and DPS WELL in excess of target numbers.

Jarikith: As the Legendary Bowlord I'm wondering: When will Novia develop the super advanced hightech methodology needed to have arrows that are on fire when you shoot them?
When we refactor ranged weapons to work with different ammunition types

Stryker Sparhawk: Can a decay waiver be granted for a specialized class of skills (like a tree or maybe up to 6) so that people can specialize and if they want to change these, a high cost is associated when they change it to another skill to keep from skill hopping?(edited)
There will be several ways to mitigate decay in future releases. One of the options will likely be schools that allow specialization. One of the advantages of specializing will likely be reduced decay on all skills that school.

FuzzyFox: When will there be a Hurricane Starr area?
hahaha!

Presto/BridgeTroll: can we get more wall decor spots in the druid treehouse
Unlikely because of the shape

Paulie Walnuts: Can we get an epic mushroom like the other epic trees? For underground Biomes
Cool idea

Horton IronGate: can we get more Greeko Roman housing ?
Yes

Aular: Can you consider a way to allow for a Paladin archetype? Perhaps a deep into Heavy Armor that lowers fizzle on life spells only?
Life spells already have reduced fizzle rate in heavy armor but I’m aware that right now, full plate can still cause some fizzles at inopportune times. I’ll take another look at fizzle rates in life magic.

Macnlos: Can I get a text list of the recipes in the game? I'm willing to go exploring and documenting where they are at.
We will consider

Emperor Borg: Craftable or Sale on Store.....GIANT FLOOR MAP of WORLD (we could then put small Statues of beasties etc on floor like a battle map location or ie (like Game of Thrones floor map) Can we have that? Items be able to be placed on it.
Cool suggestion once we get the final final final map

Tailz Suvorov: Will we be able to dye the quiver feathers like other cloak items?
Ozzy: Was wondering if we will be ever able to color the Fletching of the arrows in the quivers would be awesome to match are outfit colors to be unique
Cool suggestion

Zyxe: Will we (can we please) get an option to remove weapons from our housing list, even though they're placeable, because we don't want to see that huge list while decorating?
Agreed that you need a better way to filter.

Zyxe: May we please get another pass over houses to ensure vertical and horizontal surfaces accept placement of items more easily? (i.e. for the village knight founder's house, the horizontal ledge at the front,running above the front door when looking at the house from the outside, cannot hold items at the moment but it should, along with the roof deck not accepting large items for placement)
We do bug fixing and polish passes on houses every release. Please submit any of these as bugs with screenshots in bug forums

Omegaflux: just got on, not sure if anyone has asked - Will we be able to reshape the Stag hat like the wolf and Bear hats anytime soon?
Belladonna Rose: Will they be fixing the reshaping aspect to stag hats. Currently cannot reshape stag hats
We have fixed this issue.

Athena: are the rest of the vile weapons going to be turned into deco? Some are and some are not.
Please submit bugs for any that are not. We believe that all of them can be placed as decorations.

Diego.DG: Can we get high heels, that change the height of the Avatar. I was waltzing with a lovely petite lady and had an awkward line up. Of course there should be a move rate penalty along with a boost in charisma, with enhanced ability to charm multiple targets. Some new paired couple dance steps would be great also.
We will consider but unlikely because anything that affects the avatar height/scale will affect animations.

Solazur: when will we be able to fly our hot air balloons?
Perhaps in Episode 2 along with ships, boats, and airships.

CrazyPhil: When an NPC sees you steal you get fined, but could we flag folks for PVP when a guard sees you?
No

Numa: Will we be seeing more weapons that reflect the Asian theme such as Naginatas, Escrima sticks, Kukri knives and Sais
Yes

Numa: Can we have other containers for planting such as square planters, narrow single-row planters, small flower pots, windows boxes and hanging planters, as well as aeroponic options that can help maximize greenhouses?
Yes more planter shapes in the future.

Numa: Can we have Wall Safes or Vaults, with capacities that vary according to size, as space-saving storage options?
Yes

Wind Silvermoon: are we going to get other color roses for dying our clothes? really wanting blue however other colors = good too
Yes

Rhiannon: are the dye recipes going to change and when!
Yes, no ETA

Lained: Can the crystal sword hilt be tagged with the mob it slayed so it displays on the tooltip of the converted replica decoration?
Cool idea

Peabo: ask Atos to do the most dragon kills and how many for the month
Sounds like a great achievement for me to announce at the next postmortem! You saw it here first! Person with the most kills of Dragons between now and the next postmortem will be gifted a legendary supply bundle bag! These are currently not in the game and are a step above even the rarest loot bundles that exist only on tier 10 creatures and beyond!

 

I wouldn't mess with this at all, since there is always a chance that a special mold is introduced in the future that might only be found 'out in the wild' and repairing becomes a viable and even necessary option.

 

yes please! or this!

maybe something in-between, like the stretch goal garden shed: not an actual building, but the size of one?

 

AWESOME!!!! I cannot say how much this makes my sentimental heart happy! Thanks Darkstarr and Port team!

*EDIT*
Now we just need filled bookcases that act like containers, for those of us who want libraries and to cut down on item limits!

 

This is a fair question.

Quests:
If it's a quest scene, then the lure is that you need to go there to finish the quest. There's really no need to have mobs or resources in every quest scene. There's certainly no need to have them respawn, that only leads to farming which also increases inflation.

PVE:
If it's a PVE scene, then the lure is that you can go there to grind and challenge yourself vs. monsters. But this too leads to farming which is bad for inflation, so I question some of the respawn rates in a lot of the scenes that we currently have. I don't know what neverending respawns do for the game other than reward the types of min/max behaviors that ultimately make it more difficult to balance in combat and for our economy.

PVP:
But if it's a PVP scene, that's where this all breaks down. The mixing of PVE and PVP has not been successful, and that's because the more involved you are in PVE at any moment in time, the less of an advantage you have in PVP during that same moment in time. In other words, if you're farming XP and loot you can't also be ready to avoid being ganked when you're at low health.

So back to your question, why would anyone go to a scene if it doesn't have monsters, resources, or quests? They wouldn't. However, that doesn't mean that PVP scenes couldn't be redesigned to add new challenges that do not involve PVE as we know it today. It doesn't mean, for example, that we couldn't devise new ways to reward players that visit these scenes and accomplish some goal that doesn't require them to take on more risks than the people that would be hunting them in the same scene in order to collect the rewards.

I can think of all kinds of ways to do this, but it would require development time and effort. It would not be as simple as recreating the types of scenes we have today.

PVP is essentially a children's game, much like any of these:

King of the Hill
Tag
Cops and Robbers
Capture the Flag

I'm not talking about arenas here. I'm talking about linking the rewards to a rule set that must be followed in order to get the reward. Games must have clear rules so that everyone that is playing can have fun. For me, this is what the PVP scenes should be like. The rewards are gained when the rules are followed and one side wins. Open PVP is great too, but that is something that has to be integrated into the core of the game to work correctly. If we just think that people are going to show up in a POT or a Shardfall where they take on an absurd amount of risk just so they can pvp, that's not a sustainable model. People will either quit the game or at the very least quit pvp. We have to balance out the risks and the rewards for everyone involved, and the best way to do that is to develop mini-games that create environments where meaningful pvp can exist.

We have selective multiplayer, let's use it!
1v1 scenes
2v2 scenes
5v5 scenes
20v20 scenes

Scenes that have objective based goals, yet have meaning far beyond a single match. So that groups, guilds, and towns will be impacted by the aggregate results.

For Example:
Conquest of Territory (contributing buffs to players that live in those areas)
Establishment of Trade Routes (faster, cheaper, rates for moving goods long distances)
Ability to Tax other guilds, players, and towns (opening up the need for diplomacy)


So yes, there's nothing really to bring players to a scene unless it has monsters or resources at the moment. And PVP is really suffering from that because the more monsters you put into a PVP scene the more exploitable that scene is to people only looking to gank people farming in those scenes. So the real question is how are we going to fix that? What will we do to make PVP more meaningful and less connected to traditional PVE mechanics?

 

"Stryker Sparhawk: Can a decay waiver be granted for a specialized class of skills (like a tree or maybe up to 6) so that people can specialize and if they want to change these, a high cost is associated when they change it to another skill to keep from skill hopping?(edited)
There will be several ways to mitigate decay in future releases. One of the options will likely be schools that allow specialization. One of the advantages of specializing will likely be reduced decay on all skills that school."

Great idea!

 

This answer is somewhat unsettling...

What about solving mysteries, finding someone, having been lost and find a way out of a maze, exploration, finding some legendary item, solving puzzles?
How about some adventure elements? I mean why are people playing adventures, when there are no creatures to fight?
How about a survival scene in which players have to survive a desert or a snow landscape by making fire, finding food, making clothes etc.?
How about a horror scene with scary sounds, moving objects but no actual monsters?

Firewatch is great game about story and exploration whitout any combat in it and it sold over a million copies!

There are so many incentives to explore a scene besides combat...

 

@Berek
Just a note so that this makes it into the weekly update.

 

@Randbo
Are you swapping out a prosperity or pledge tool for a bronze tool?

 

What I had asked Richard about was a set of ground lights, basically panels that pointed at an angle and emitted blue light that we could shine on walls. This would allow us to use our white walls to "light it up blue", and get more out of a single light source.

What about only allowing ghosts to pass through doors you could normally open? Locked doors would still prevent you from going through.

 

Can you explain what causes truth virtue to drop? Apparently I'm one deceitful SOB even though I've never lied nor stolen anything. Definitely not getting a fairly obvious on that virtue hit at all.

 

@DarkStarr
My question got missed in the telethon (I asked this in telethon because I've never had a response in previous bug reports. I reported it as a Bug last year but not sure if that has disappeared into the ether.

When placing a Blood Fountain, it automatically turns the POT waters red when placed. This, regardless of whether it is placed on a lot or placed as a POT decoration. The Blood package states you have the option to turn your water Blood Red, it does not state that you are unable to place the Blood Fountain without turning the water red. Any player with this bundle living in a POT is in conflict with the owner if they want to display their Blood Fountain.

My telethon request was if this can be made an option to -not- have that is not contingent on avoiding placing the decoration - perhaps Blood Fountain when interacted with can turn Blood Red Water on/off. This would allow you to place this decoration without changing the default character of the POT it is placed in.

Blood Themed Items:

• Blood Fountain
• Blood Reliquary Home Decoration
• Option to have your Player Owned Town Water turn Blood Red
• Blood Elemental Pet
• /bloodrain emote
• Blood Red Darkstarr Cape

 

General exploration? Quests that take you there? Treasure hunt? Fishing spot? Can think of a few other good reasons to visit if needed.

Also, he didn't say remove all of them, he said lessen the amount that is there so there is a reason for them.

 

@Chris @DarkStarr Apologies for tagging you two but THANKS FOR DOING THIS!

I love reading these and know they take a long time to do.

 

Are "legendary" bags the orange ones that were already discussed, or the gold ones that were hinted at but not yet added?

 

Can we increase ankhs then so this is not such a frequent issue? Currently, being stuck dead in an area with no accessible ankhs is beyond frustrating.

 

This happened to me recently in Ardoris, I fell in the water as a ghost and had to wait

 

Kigu Starfish (Kor): How many guild wars have been fought since persistence? How many kills was the biggest Guild War?


Eek! Sadly, it looks like we don’t have good metrics for this yet! Creating a task for it now.
--------
That.... didnt answer the question.

As for specialization.. its a needed change but im curious why this isnt more of a priority? Its going to completly alter peoples play styles and make you re evaluate all balancing once its in.. shouldnt this be done sooner rather then later?

 

If we want hotel style numbering (first digit is the floor number, second digit is the room number) then that requires 8 x #1, 8 x #2, 8 x #3, 3 x #4 and 3 x #5.

 

I didn't even know that was a thing yet.