Editing Announcements - 2002/08 - Atonement (section)

== Letter to the Players ==

{{Microsoft Zone
 |  Link = <nowiki>http://zone.msn.com/asheronscall/news/ASHEletter0802.asp</nowiki>
 |  Date = August 15, 2002
 | Title = Letter to the Players
 |  Text =
August is another exciting month for players of Asheron's Call! Here is a summary of the changes and additions for August.
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<font color=#FFFFFF>'''Armor Changes'''</font><br>
'''Covenant Armor:''' This month marks the appearance of a new style of armor for players. In addition to being visually appealing, this armor is quite powerful, with protection values far beyond that of currently existing armor. However, this increased power prevents the armor from being tinkered, dyed, or even enchanted! Players looking for a suit of Covenant Armor will find it as treasure from higher-level treasure sources.
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Tassets: We've had a breakthrough in armor technology. Players will now find upper leg armor, called tassets, as treasure at all levels of play.
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'''Armor Coloring:''' Both the tassets and the Covenant Armor have unique abilities to allow players to customize their appearance. The Covenant Armor pieces have the ability to take on the color of the character's shirt and pants and use those colors as highlights. Players will be able to change the appearance of their armor simply by changing or dyeing their underlying clothing. Tassets also have the ability to take on another color, but in this case, they take on the color of the character's greaves. However, there is a restriction on this: the tassets only take on the color of the greaves if the tassets and the greaves are of the same type. If both pieces are metal, the tassets will take on the color of the greaves. The same is true if both pieces are leather, yet if the pieces are of different types, with one being metal and the other leather, the tassets will not take on the color of the greaves.
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'''Areas Protected by Clothing and Armor:''' A long-standing issue in Asheron's Call has caused some confusion about what areas of the body are protected by various pieces of clothing and armor. When examining a piece of clothing or armor, a line of text detailing this item would appear in the examination panel. However, instead of stating what areas of the body this item protected, this was only a list of the areas of the character's body the item covered. For example, when examining a pair of boots, the examination panel would display that they covered the feet and lower legs. In reality however, the boots only provided damage protection for the character's feet. We have modified the examination panel for all pieces of armor and clothing so that it accurately displays the areas of the body these items protect.
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'''Areas Protected by Clothing and Armor:''' A long-standing issue in Asheron's Call has caused some confusion about what areas of the body are protected by various pieces of clothing and armor. When examining a piece of clothing or armor, a line of text detailing this item would appear in the examination panel. However, instead of stating what areas of the body this item protected, this was only a list of the areas of the character's body the item covered. For example, when examining a pair of boots, the examination panel would display that they covered the feet and lower legs. In reality however, the boots only provided damage protection for the character's feet. We have modified the examination panel for all pieces of armor and clothing so that it accurately displays the areas of the body these items protect.
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'''Armor Protection Caps:''' Each piece of armor and clothing in Asheron's Call has seven protection modifiers that affect the amount of protection it provides. These seven modifiers correspond to the seven types of physical damage found in game. The armor value of an item is multiplied by the modifier, which results in a modified armor value for that particular type of physical damage. While these modifiers are actually stored as numbers, when the item is appraised in game they are displayed as descriptions. The following chart breaks down descriptors to numerical values:
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{{{!}}style=background:#000033;color:#cc9900 border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0 width=200
{{!}}style=color:white;background:#996600{{!}} Descriptor
{{!}}style=color:white;background:#996600{{!}} Modifier
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan=2 style=background:#996600{{!}}
{{!}}-
{{!}} Poor
{{!}} 0.1 -- 0.4
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan=2 style=background:#996600{{!}}
{{!}}-
{{!}} Below Average
{{!}} 0.4 -- 0.8
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan=2 style=background:#996600{{!}}
{{!}}-
{{!}} Average
{{!}} 0.8 -- 1.2
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan=2 style=background:#996600{{!}}
{{!}}-
{{!}} Above Average
{{!}} 1.2 -- 1.6
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan=2 style=background:#996600{{!}}
{{!}}-
{{!}} Excellent
{{!}} 1.6 -- 2.0
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan=2 style=background:#996600{{!}}
{{!}}-
{{!}} Unparalleled
{{!}} 2.0
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan=2 style=background:#996600{{!}}
{{!}}-
{{!}}}

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The Item Magic Bane spells modify these protection modifiers by increasing the multiplier and making the armor more resistant to that form of damage. In the past, these spells could increase the protection modifiers on some items far beyond the originally intended limit of 2.0. To address this, we've instituted a 2.0 cap on the protection modifiers. Any item that naturally or through spells had its protection modifier increased over 2.0 will now treat this modifier as though it had a 2.0 modifier.
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Example: A piece of armor has a 1.3 protection (Above Average) against fire damage. Previously, casting Flame Bane 6 on this item would raise its protection to 2.8. Casting this spell now will only raise the protection to 2.0.
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<font color=#FFFFFF>'''Enhancements for Player Killers'''</font><br>
'''Timers:''' In the past, many Player Killers have complained that a character in danger could escape an attack by logging off or using one of the "Portal Sending" spells. To address these issues, we've added two new features that effect Player Killer characters only.
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The first feature is a new log off timer. Player Killer characters now take an additional 20 seconds to log off. During these 20 seconds the character is unable to move, chat, or otherwise interact with the game. After 20 seconds the normal log off animation will be played. It should be noted that any time a character is logging off, PK or not, all physical attacks against them become automatically critical. (Note that spells do not share this behavior.) We hope this will stress the need to log off in a safe place.
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The second feature is a new timer added to the "Portal Sending" spells. Portal Sending spells (such as "Aerlinthe Recall" and "Recall the Sanctuary") and the spells cast by quest gems (such as Shendolain Portal Gem), now delay by 2 seconds before transporting the character. This 2-second delay is the normal delay seen in other portal recall spells.
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Please note that these timer changes only affect Player Killer characters.
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'''Hollow Weapons:''' In the August event, we've made some revisions to Hollow Weapons to make them more effective and provide players with more options in PK combat. To make these weapons more effective, the maximum damage for all Hollow and Deadly Hollow weapons has been increased. In addition, players will now be able to craft Deadly Hollow versions of all Hollow racial weapons. Another revision provides a new version of the Ravenous weapons, called Phantom weapons. The damage dealt out by these Phantom weapons ignores all armor values on a target. This includes the armor values provided by armor worn on the target as well as armor spells cast on the target. The only factors that reduce the Phantom weapon's damage are either the target's Natural Resistances or Life Protection spells.
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Although we had hoped to provide Hollow and Phantom missile weapons for this event, we lacked the time to properly implement them. However, they will be available in a future event.
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<font color=#FFFFFF>'''Wield Requirement Changes'''</font><br>
Last month saw the addition of high-damage melee weapons with a 325 weapon skill wield requirement. After some thought, we determined that an additional level of skill-restricted weapon between the 250 requirement and the 325 requirement would be beneficial. That being the case, we have modified the treasure system to generate some melee weapons with a 300 requirement. Although these weapons will not have the maximum damage possible for that weapon type, these weapons would have come with a 325 requirement last month.
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Also, we have added two new levels of wield requirements for missile weapons and adjusted the existing level of wield requirements to be more equivalent--in terms of invested experience--with the melee requirements. Missile weapons can now spawn with weapon skill requirements of 250, 270, or 290, depending upon their damage modifier.
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Note that these changes only affect new weapons generated this month. Existing weapons will not be changed at all.
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<font color=#FFFFFF>'''War Magic Changes'''</font><br>
'''Skill Based Damage Bonus:''' As we previously announced, this month War Mages will begin seeing bonuses on the amount of damage their war spells inflict. This bonus is a percentage damage bonus on top of the normal war spell damage. This additional damage will be a constant percentage of the minimum damage value. The percentage is determined by comparing the level of the spell against the buffed war magic skill of the character. As the level of the spell increases, so does the potential for increased damage, although these higher percentages require more skill. Note that creatures do not receive this bonus.
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'''Critical Strikes:''' In addition to the skill-based damage bonus, each projectile spell has a 2% chance of causing a critical hit on the target and doing increased damage. A magical critical hit is similar in some respects to melee critical hits (although the damage calculation is handled differently). While a melee critical hit automatically does twice the maximum damage of the weapon, a magical critical hit will do an additional half the minimum damage of the spell. For instance, a magical critical hit from a level 7 spell, which does 110-180 points of damage, would add an additional 55 points of damage to the spell.
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'''Arc Spells:''' August also sees the addition of a new type of projectile spell, the Arc. While most projectile spells fly straight at their target, these spells arc similar to an arrow. They also differ from projectiles in the fact that they do not "track" like other spells. While a typical bolt spell will estimate where the target should be and aim for that location, an Arc spell will land where the target was when the spell was launched.
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'''Slayer Wands:''' Projectile spells also now benefit from the "slayer" quality that first appeared on melee and missile weapons. While wielding slayer wands, players will see an increase in the damage dealt by projectile spells to the creatures that match the slayer type of each wand. Other effects of other types of spells, such as life magic transfers and harms, creature ineptitudes, or item enchantments, are not enhanced by this quality.
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<font color=#FFFFFF>'''Magic Item Tinkering'''</font><br>
The first three Magic Item Tinkering effects make their appearance this month. These effects are completely unique and add properties to items never before seen in Asheron's Call. Unlike other Tinkering effects, these effects can only be applied to a weapon once, and an item can only have one effect at a time. Due to these differences, these effects could more properly be labeled "Weapon Imbuing." In the future, more standard Tinkering effects (i.e., those that can be applied more than once) may be available for Magic Item Tinkering.
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'''Imbuing a Weapon:''' Imbuing a weapon with a new property involves many of the same steps as other Tinkering operations. As with other operations, one hundred units of a material have to be salvaged before the material can be used to imbue a weapon. The difficulty of the operation is also based on the same factors as other Tinkering operations. This means that the quality of the salvaged material, the quality of the target item, and the Magic Item Tinkering skill of the character all still affect the difficulty of the operation. It should be noted that imbuing is more difficult than other Tinkering operations, and in this tricky process the chance of success is never great. The other restrictions also still apply, so an imbued sword or dagger cannot be hilted, and these imbuing operations count against the total number of tinkering operations that can be performed on an item.
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'''Effects:''' The following three effects are available in August:
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'''--Critical Strike:''' Applying this effect to a weapon or wand increases the chance of inflicting a critical hit when wielding this item. The percentage of increase is determined by the base skill of the character wielding the item.
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'''--Crippling Blow:''' This effect increases the amount of damage a weapon or wand does when it causes a critical hit. Again the higher your base skill, the more damage you will do when causing a critical hit.
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'''--Armor Rending:''' The final Magic Item Tinkering effect allows a weapon to ignore a portion of the target's total armor, including the value added by a shield. The effect is similar to the effect of Phantom weapons. The percentage of armor the weapon ignores is based upon the base skill of the character. This effect is not available for wands because war magic already ignores physical armor and armor spells.
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<font color=#FFFFFF>'''The Future'''</font><br>
Next month's event is promising to be one of our biggest yet, providing players with quests and content unlike any seen before in Asheron's Call. We'll see you next month, and thanks for playing!
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