PATCH: September 28 – Murderer and PvP Overhaul (General Changes)

Murderers

• When Murderers are killed, if they were in a dungeon, they receive a 2 hour lockout preventing any character on their IP address from entering that same dungeon (this is same handling as before)
• Additionally, when a Murderer is killed, they will now have a 15 minute “Dishonored” status applied to their IP address as well
• While a player’s IP address is considered Dishonored, they will not be able to perform harmful actions to innocents (blues), cannot perform beneficial actions on other players, and cannot cast any Field or AoE spell (except if participating in a PvP event like Town Struggles)
• Dishonored players will be able to enter dungeons, so long is it not one they are currently locked out of
• While a player’s IP address is currently Dishonored, they will have “Dishonored X Time Remaining” set as their custom overhead title, which will always display (even if they don’t have a title displayed normally)
• Players will not be able to make custom guild titles with the word “dishonor” in them, to prevent players trying to “trick” other people thinking they are currently in an aggressive-restricted state

Murderer with normal title

Murderer who has been killed and resurrected: now has Dishonored status and title

Murderer can enter dungeons while Dishonored if they are not locked out of that specific dungeon

Heat of Battle
When any player commits any Criminal action, they have will have a 2 minute Heat of Battle timer started that matches their Criminal Timer duration (since in most cases, being flagged Criminal will already be preventing the player from doing the same actions that Heat of Battle prevents, such as going through Moongates)

When any player commits a hostile action (including stealing) to another player, but the action is not considered a criminal action (such as attacking or stealing from a Red, Grey, or Orange player) they will have a 30 second Heat of Battle timer started

When a player kills another player, and the victim receives any “Do Wish to Report This Murder” gump windows, all players who could be reported for the murder will receive a Heat of Battle timer lasting (1 + X) minutes, where X is the total number of players the victim receives “Report Murder” gump windows for (i.e. this is the number of players involved in the murder)

Heat of Battle now has a maximum duration of 5 minutes, regardless of circumstance

Town Struggle and Stygian Rifts Equipment Handling
For both Town Struggle and Stygian Rift events, handling for equipment, looting, and item consumptions are as follows:

Item Consumption

• Players will not consume Reagents, Bandages, Arrows/Bolts, Refresh Potions while participating in Town Struggles and Stygian Rifts
• Every player gets one free Cure Potion consumption every 30 seconds

Looting / Death

• All equipped and backpack items on a player will be treated as Blessed and stay with them on death UNLESS they are Magical or Crafted with a Colored Material
• Poisoned weapons will lose any poison charges on death (poisoners should bring Poison potions with them in their pack to repoison weapons post-spawn)

Defensive Barding
Players who have barding skills and remain non-aggressive to other players will now automatically receive an Effective Wrestling skill value and Effective Magic Resist skill value, but only for the purposes of defending against attacks/spells, based on their barding skill values

As long as a player does NOT have a Heat of Battle timer active (which is caused by doing aggressive actions to other players), players will receive:

• Effective Wrestling skill value of ((Discordance Skill + Peacemaking Skill + Provocation Skill) / 2) up to a maximum of 100 Skill value, when defending against creatures and other players while unarmed
• Effective Magic Resist skill value of ((Discordance Skill + Peacemaking Skill + Provocation Skill) / 3) up to a maximum of 100 Skill value

If a player already has a printed Wrestling or Magic Resist skill for their character at a higher amount than the Effective Barding skill received for that skill, the player’s printed skill will always take priority

Telekinesis / Explosion Potions
Players now have the ability to use the Telekinesis Spell to make an Explosion Potion they throw stick and follow another player, albeit with several restrictions

If a player casts Telekinesis and successfully targets another player, it will apply a “Sticky” effect to the target player lasting 30 seconds

When a player is hit by the Telekinesis spell, they will be notified who the source of the spell was

If the same player that casted Telekinesis against a player throws an Explosive Potion at them within 30 seconds of the spellcast, the explosion potion will follow the movement of the target player, and when exploding will only damage the target player (and not other nearby players or creatures)

Restrictions

• Each player has a global cooldown for casting Telekinesis in PvP, and can only successfuly apply it at most once every 30 seconds to any player (similar to Wall of Stone casting cooldowns)
• A player can only be hit by the Telekinesis spell (from all players) at most once every 30 seconds
• Whenever an Explosion Potion is “stuck” to a player, it immediately resets the 30 second Telekinesis casting cooldown against them (i.e other players cannot cast Telekinesis against that player for another 30 seconds after that point)

Splashback
If a “Stuck” potion on a player explodes, and both the thrower and the target player are within the radius of the blast, the damage from the potion will be split equally between the two players, instead of being dealt entirely to the target

Strategy

• Players can also cast Telekinesis on themselves as a defensive measure, since once Telekinesis is cast onto a player, no other player will be able to cast the spell on them for 30 seconds, and only the caster of the spell is allowed to stick potions onto a target that has Telekinesis active on them
• Telekinesis is a 3rd circle spell, requiring a minimum of 30 Magery to cast and 50 Magery to cast with 100% success, meaning that dexers who wish to take advantage of this mechanic should fairly easily be able to fit 30 Magery into their templates, and then use Telekinesis scrolls for casting (since casting off a Scroll adds +20 Magery to success chances)
• In some cases, players “stuck” with a explosive potion should consider “running the potion back” to the target to trigger the Splashback mechanic, both to reduce the damage on the explosion potion, but to also damage the thrower and potentially interrupt a spellcast if the thrower is currently casting

PvP Meteor Swarm and Chain Lightning
Chain Lightning and Meteor Swarm are no longer affected by the PvP Fizzle mechanic that would occur when multiple players cast the spell against the same target in a short window

Chain Lightning and Meteor Swarm will now remove Magic Reflect from players in PvP, but will still only inflict 1 damage on the player on the specific spellcast that removes Magic Reflect from them

Chain Lightning now has a radius of 3 against players (radius remains 2 against creatures)
Meteor Swarm now has a radius of 5 against players (radius remains 3 against creatures)

Chain Lightning now inflicts ((10-15) + (4 x Total Players Hit)) damage to each player hit, with a maximum of 30 damage per player
Meteor Swarm now inflicts ((5-10) + (3 x Total Players Hit)) damage to each player hit, with a maximum of 30 damage per player

If a player casts either Chain Lightning or Meteor Swarm, and hits any players, they will have a cooldown of 30 seconds before they may cast either spell again

Chain Lightning also now has a 0.25 second Damage Delay similar to Lightning (previously was 0 delay)
Meteor Swarm also now has a 0.5 second Damage delay similar to most other damaging spells (previously was 0 delay)

Chain Lightning can hit up to a maximum of 8 Players
Meteor Swarm can hit up to a maximum of 10 Players

Poison Tolerance
When a player (or a creature belonging to a player) inflicts Poison, via spells or weapons against another player, the victim’s Poison Tolerance towards the source player increases for 5 minutes, with tolerance amounts cumulatively increasing based on the Level of the poison

Poison Tolerance increases the difficulty for a player (or player follower) to Apply Weapon Poison or Upgrade Spell Poison Levels against other players who have a Poison Tolerance built up against them

Poison Tolerance is expressed as a percentage value and is cumulative: if a player continues to inflict multiple Poison effects against a player, the victim’s Poison Tolerance will keep increasing, up to a maximum of 50%

Poison Tolerance is always on a per-player basis, meaning players will have different Poison Tolerance amounts towards different players, based on what poison each player has individually inflicted on them so far

If a player (or their followers) inflicts a further poison effect against a player who has an Poison Tolerance towards them, their Poison Tolereance duration resets back to 5 minutes

If 5 minutes pass and a player (or their followers) has not inflicted any form of poison against a target player, the target player’s Poison Tolerance towards them resets to 0%

Each time a player poisons another player, the victim’s Poison Tolerance towards them is increased by the following amounts:

Lesser Poison: +2% Increase
Regular Poison: +4% Increase
Greater Poison: +6% Increase
Deadly Poison: +8% Increase
Lethal Poison: +10% Increase

Weapon Example

1) Player A attacks Player B with a Lethal poisoned kryss
2) Player A has a 25% chance to apply Lethal poison to Player B
3) Player A successfully poisons Player B, who now has 10% Poison Tolerance against Player A
4) Combat continues and Player B cures themself
5) Player A attacks Player B with a Lethal poisoned kryss
6) Player A now has 25% * (1 – .10) = 22.5% chance to apply Lethal poison
7) Player A successfully poisons Player B, who now has 20% Poison Tolerance against Player A
8) Combat continues and Player B cures themself
9) Player A attacks Player B with a Lethal poisoned kryss
10) Player A now has 25% * (1 – .20) = 20% chance to apply lethal poison to Player B

For Poison Spellcasting, Poison Tolerance simply adjusts the chance for the caster to Upgrade Spell Poison to different levels

Spellcasting Example

1) Player A is casting the poison spell against Player B
2) Player A has a 50% Greater and 25% Deadly upgrade chance
3) Player A successfully upgrades to Deadly poison against Player B, who now has 8% Poison Tolerance against Player A
4) Combat continues and Player B cures themself
5) Player A is casting the poison spell against Player B
6) Player A now has a 50% * (1 – .08) = 46% Greater and 25% * (1 – .08) = 23% Deadly upgrade chance
7) Player A successfully upgrades to Deadly poison against Player B, who now has 16% Poison Tolerance against Player A
8) Combat continues and Player B cures themself
9) Player A is casting the poison spell against Player B
10) Player A now has a 50% * (1 – .16) = 42% Greater and 25% * (1 – .16) = 21% Deadly upgrade chance

Poison Tolerance will have no effect in the Arena for duels or tournaments

Poison Spell
The Poison spell is no longer resistable

Upgrade Chances
Upgrade chances for the Poison Spell are now as follows:

Greater Poison: 50% * (Poisoning Skill / 100) – previously was 40% –
Deadly Poison: 25% * (Poisoning Skill / 100) – previously was 20% –
Lethal Poison: 10% * (Poisoning Skill / 100)

Casting the Poison Spell against creatures continues to have a 2.0x upgrade chance bonus as before

Lethal Poison
Players can now inflict Lethal Poison in PvP by the Poison Spell

Upgrading to Lethal Poison in PvP has a 40% chance to require consuming a Lethal Poison Potion from the caster’s backpack (compared to the 20% chance in PvM)

If a player does not have a Lethal Poison Potion in their pack when they are able to upgrade to Lethal, the spellcast will instead attempt to upgrade to Deadly (requiring consumption of an extra 2 Nightshade to upgrade, like normal)

Casting Lethal Poison will require consumption of 3 extra Nightshade if no Lethal Poison Potion is required for the spellcast (similar to upgrading to Greater Poison taking 1 extra nightshade, and upgrading to Deadly Poison taking 2 extra nightshade)

Failure to Upgrade: Poison Sting
If a Poison spell hits an already poisoned target, and fails to upgrade the target’s poison to a higher level than what it already has on them (which will always be the case if the target has Lethal poison), the target will instead take 10 * (((Caster Poisoning Skill + Caster Taste ID Skill) * 0.5) / 100) Damage, which will be roughly equivalent to Fireball damage when casted by a Poison Mage template

We’ll refer to this damage as Poison Sting damage

Poison Sting damage itself will not cause an interrupt to the target, but the normal interrupt handling for the Poison Spell will be in place as before (i.e. normal handling for being a 3rd circle offensive spell)

The Poison Sting mechanic will apply when casting the spell onto both creatures and players

Tamed Creature PvP Damage
If a tamed creature is more than 18 tiles away from a player, any damage it inflicts against that player will be reduced to 1 damage

The vast majority of the instances where this will occur will be with Poison, Bleed, and Disease affects where the creature is no longer on the same screen as the player and in some cases may no longer even be in the same region as the player

Tamed Creature Entangle and Hinder
Tamed creatures will no longer be able to Entangle or Hinder players with their Abilities (such as Web) or Traits that improve abilities (such as Clinch)

Instead, any tamed creature ability or trait that previously would Entangle or Hinder a player, will instead Hamstring them, provided the player is not currently experiencing a 30 second Hamstring Cooldown from any source (players / creatures / etc)

Creature-based Hamstring effects will operate exactly the same as player-based Hamstring effects (3 second duration, forced walking, 0 stam during duration) including placing the normal 30 second Hamstring Cooldown on the target (meaning the target cannot be Hamstrung again by anyone for 30 seconds)

Traits for pets that deal increased damaged to Entangled and Hindered targets will now also deal increased damage to Hamstrung targets, to account for their change in handling towards players (such as the Opportunity trait)

Descriptions for Abilities and Traits have been updated to reflect this change

The following creatures are affected by this change:

• Black Widow
• Cave Gorger
• Colossal Black Widow
• Colossal Swamp Slug
• Colossal Trapdoor Spider
• Deep Crawer
• Fire Crawler
• Giant Black Widow
• Giant Spider
• Giant Swamp Slug
• Giant Trapdoor Spider
• Husk Crab
• Komodo
• Monitor
• Sand Crab
• Sand Crawler
• Searing Lizard
• Swamp Dragon
• Swamp Drake
• Trapdoor Spider
• Volt Wisp

Tracking

• Any Tracking attempts made by a player inside of a house will ONLY display search results for players/creatures who are also inside that house
• Players will be notified when making their Tracking attempt of this if they are inside a house

PvP Events: Player Scoring and Rewards
Another change to PvP events is how we will be handling scoring and rewarding players for participation

Team Scores
For all of our events, every team (Faction / Guild / Stygian Rift Team) will have a Team Score

• Whichever team Wins the event by having the highest Team Score, all Guilds belonging to players on that team will receive 3 Prestige Points
• All other Tied or Losing teams will earn 1 Prestige Point for each Guild belonging to players on that team

In the case of a Stygian Rifts event where a single Guild may potentially be present in multiple Rift Matches, each Guild can only earn up to a maximum of 3 Prestige Points regardless of how many matches their members win

Individual Players
For all of our events, each player also has own Individual Score

Town Struggles, Corpse Creek Contests, Dungeon Flashpoints
At the end of these event, all players will be ranked from first to last based on their Individual Score for the event and then given a Rank %, based on their (Rank Place / Total Number of Players in the Event)

For instance, a player in 1st place out of 10 total players would have a Rank % of 100%
A player in 5th place out of 10 players would have a Rank % of 50%
A player in 8th place out of 10 players would have a Rank % of 20%

If a player has a Rank % score between 75% to 100%, they will earn 3 Guild Reward Points
If a player has a Rank % score between 50% to 75%, they will earn 2 Guild Reward Points
If a player has a Rank % score between 25% to 50%, they will earn 1 Guild Reward Point

If the player is on the Winning Team for the event, and earned any Guild Reward Points, they will earn a bonus 1 Guild Reward Point

Stygian Rifts
At the end of this event, all players in each Rift Match will be ranked from first to last based on their Individual Score for the event (but compared only to other players in their specific Rift Match)

The 1st and 2nd ranked players in a Rift Match will earn 3 Guild Reward Points
The 3rd and 4th ranked players in a Rift Match will earn 2 Guild Reward Points
The 5rd and 6th ranked players in a Rift Match will earn 1 Guild Reward Points

If the player is on the Winning Team they will earn a bonus 1 Guild Reward Point

Battle Commendations
Players will still earn Guild Reward Points from PvP events and can still use those reward points to purchase the same items as before (mount tokens, mastery chain links, clothing, etc)

However, we will be getting rid of the existing Reward Chest and Gold Disbursal Rewards that currently exist for our resolution of our PvP events and move over to a universal “Battle Commendations” item system as item-based rewards for all PvP events

For every Guild Reward Point that a player earns during a PvP event, they will also be given a Battle Commendation token placed in their bank

Battle Commendations can be consumed by double-clicking them, which will give the player the option to either 1) receive 2500 Gold or 2) receive a randomized item, similar to the handling on Loot Skulls and Ankh tokens

IP Handling and Daily Caps
For each event, if a player uses multiple characters during the event (even across multiple accounts on the same IP address), only their character with the best overall score will be considered for Guild Reward Points / Item Rewards as well as scoreboard placement and seasonal/lifetime stats. All other character “activity” during the event from that player won’t be used for scoring and won’t show up on the scoreboard

If a player has an MAH (Multi-Account Household) in place, this exemption will be waived for them if their significant others/roommates/family members on the same IP address also compete in the same event

Players are capped at earning at most 15 Guild Reward Points (and Battle Commendations) per day on their Account
Players will be informed when they hit their cap after completing an event
Daily Caps will be reset every day at the start of midnight on the server clock

Battle Records
We’ve recoded and cleaned up the Battle Records page where players can view their previous event scores as well as seasonal and lifetime stats for players

Notably, no matter which Stats Page you are on for any event, the first two columns will be Rank + Player/Guild Name, to make it easier to see who the stats on the right belong to

The middle area now exclusively shows the top 3 Players or Guilds for the current timeframe selected (Previous Event / Seasonal Stats / Lifetime Stats)

Battle Hotbar
We have taken the existing “Town Struggle Hotbar” concept and converted it into a universal “Battle Hotbar” that is used for all of our rotational pvp events (Town Struggles, Corpse Creek Contests, Stygian Rifts, Dungeon Flashpoints)

The Battle Hotbar shows countdowns for upcoming PvP events as well as Location Info/Time Remaining/Scores for players who are actively participating in a pvp event

Anytime a player becomes a participant in a rotational PvP event, it will automatically launch the Battle Hotbar for them

Additionally, players can launch the Battle Hotbar at any time by typing [Battlebar or [BattleHotbar or by going into the Guild Battle page (by typing [Battle ) and then clicking the “Launch Battle Hotbar” button at the bottom of the menu

The [TownStruggle page’s “Launch Hotbar” button has also been converted into a “Launch Battle Hotbar” button

If a PvP event is not currently underway, the Battle Hotbar will display the time remaining until the next event coming up begins

If a PvP event is currently underway, but you are not participating in it, it will display the name of the event, it’s location (if applicable), and how much time is left in the event

If you are currently participating an a PvP event, the Battle Hotbar will show the Location of the event, how much Time is left in the event, along with your current Individual Points total for the event

You can also click the Orb button next to the event’s location name to place a Tracking arrow on your screen that will direct you to the primary Control Zone area of the particular event (note: in the case of Dungeon Flashpoints, this will only “correctly” point to that location while you are inside the correct dungeon level)

If you have been killed during an event, the Battle Hotbar will also show how much time is remaining before you are allowed to be resurrected or respawn