We have been extremely happy with the community’s reaction to Release 41 so far, and want to hear more of your valuable feedback. Join us Monday, May 8th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 UTC) on Twitch for this month’s R41 Postmortem Livestream!
Once you get a chance to check out Release 41, post your questions in the comments section below. Only one post submission per player allowed, and keep questions to 3 or less. This will allow us to get to as many questions as possible.
As always, we will be giving out rare artifacts of immense power and glory. For a chance to win an artifact, or to speak your voice on the latest game changes, please be in Discord chat during the livestream. There will be multiple chances to win throughout the broadcast.
Follow @ShroudofAvatar to keep updated as the postmortem approaches!
Is there a time of day or day of the week effect that affects success rates when crafting or master-crafting?In the same vein, does the position of the celestial bodies play a role in the success rates and improvement amounts for crafting and master-crafting?
Can we get the functionality to switch to any deck, rather than a primary and alternate?
Is it possible to allow us to continue to access to chat window/friends window (all windows) when a scene is loading?
Q: Are rewards still being given out for bug testing on QA?
* I have not received any and my messages about their status have never been responded too.
Q: Can you please break more stuff for R42 so I can report them?
* You guys did far to good of a job in R41 not breaking anything to report
Q: Can we refine artifact musical instruments farther? Can we get more, consider 1 minute buffs?
* I think the change you just made was FANTASTIC, but its still a bit clunky (clicking between instrument and combat).
Why are many scenes still marked as “solo/group”, when they are clearly a group experience for survivability?
Will there ever be scenes more appropriate for solo only?
Why is there so much copper in the game, and iron is rare, in lower skull scenes?
Will you ever put more silver ore in random encounters?
Q: can enchanters and masterworking at higher levels be a to see more options? Right now no matter what level of either you are, only 3 choices are available for selection at any given time. Would be nice if this could scale with the level of the skills.
Q: when you log I or out of the game it would be nice to know the total XP gained that session. We are able to see what is in our pool, but loose track of what’s being applied. Would be nice to see and meausre progress in this way. Can we get something like this or a better idea, so that XP gain leaves you with a feeling of accomplishment? At level 95+ it’s hard to find a win
Q: Are there any current plans to add some sort of benidits to specialization? For example 110% effectiveness in one skill tree 100% in the next , 80% for the third, 50% for all after?
Currently, Sieges just sit outside a town and seem to be no threat to the town being sieged.
Will there be a point, when a town will be taken over when no Avatars are there to save the day? If enough towns are taken over by the Obsidians will the lands of Novia be thrust into “Darkness” and storm of sorts?
Are there any plans to put in a search tool for the recipe book or choosing alphabetize them so we can find a particular recipe?
Recipe vendors – are there any plans to set it so that the player can see which recipies they have not purchased, or having an option to hide previously purchased recipes? An idea to change all the purchased recipies to a lighter gray.
Collecting water – would it be possible to collect more than one bucket of water at a time? Perhaps like the crafting where you put in xx number and hit collect?
+1 to all three of these questions
+1
+1
Are the One-Man Band Fancy Shirt and Hat recipes currently in the game?
If they are not currently in the game, why not? And when will they be re-added?
Given that r41 had many welcomed combat balancing changes, can we expect more of a focus on combat balancing in the coming days?
The new Moon spells are absolutely wonderful additions, so what’s the horizon look like for additional new spells (or even abilities within other trees ex. melee?)
The UI fixes have been well-welcomed, and how does the future seem for movable and re-scalable HUD elements?
Can we remove the Decoration item number limit in POT? POT should give players the best possible layout, but not as limited as houses.
Are we going to have creatures that are higher level than and more in number than Obsidian Wolf and Obsidian Bear in the game?
1) Just a follow up from your previous post, are POT tools on the horizon?
2) Any new Wax Cylinders on the horizon?
3) I’ve tried to illuminate rooms with floor lamps but they have a very short range. Is there a reason these cannot be considerably brighter?
Question 1: Would it be possible to configure entry points in a POT base on the location the Avatar is traveling from?
For example, should the Avatar be traveling to a POT from the overland map, they would spawn at the main entrance to the scene. If, instead, the Avatar is traveling from another scene via Boat, they would spawn at the docks.
Question 2: Could you let Mr. Kinnear work on Leaf Armor to accompany the wonderful shield weapons he produced for the Spring Telethon?
It would be wonderful if there were sets for all 4 armor types, but at least do Leather and Plate. All of them, but especially the Shield and Spear are beautiful. I’m altering the plans for one of my characters based on these items.
Question 3: With the introduction of the Ancient Columned City Home, and it’s Greek inspired architecture, might we see Greek inspire armor in the form of Greek Muscle Armor, vambraces, greaves, a crested Corinthian helm, and Greek round shield?
Please see my Denis Loubet portrait that you placed in-game a few releases ago for the reason for this question.
Request: Please provide the Town Crier and Banker in the Grasslands Templates some shelter. I feel for them every time I wander down to the docks in the rain.
1. Will there be the ability to mount ducks in flying and standing/sitting positions?
2. Will there be the ability to craft full body mounts such as a grizzly bear standing on its hind legs?
3. Will dust cloth covered furniture become available as decoration? As in covering the furniture while leaving the home vacant for an extended amount of time.
Excuse me while I try to erase this image of mounting ducks in a variety of interesting positions from my mind…
Were you reading the quackmasutra?
I was just waiting for someone to say something about mounting ducks
Question 1: Is the only source of patterns going to be through salvage? It seems like crafting patterns directly would be much preferable to destroying countless items to get patterns for common items, like book covers.
Question 2: Additional effects, like procs, are on hold for ranged weapons until after the ammo refactoring. Do we have a timeframe for this, and why can ranged weapons not use the melee ones until then?
Question 3: When will public buildings begin to come online? This includes the Stage from the Kickstarter stretch goal, but also things like an NPC library, observatory (a publicly usable moondial), etc. This would enhance the flavor of the towns where they are located, and provide access to these for players without housing.
Q1 – What determines the dodge rate or miss rate of spells? DEX or is it INT based? Please elaborate.
Q2 – When will wands have a functionality like other weapons and how will they work in the future *AMMO BASED, FOCUS COSTS?* ?
Q3 – Will castle siege scenarios be part of a sandbox feature for guilds claiming/owning those castles, or will they just be another PVP zone/arena like the ones we currently have?
Q1: do you still honor the pledge reward 2 weeks early access to new skills?
Q2: how many tags do Chris gets each day (i guess he is in the lead)
THANKS FOR ALL YOU GUYS ARE DOING!
1) I believe you guys said you were working on a specific house for merchants (so we don’t have to leave our poor employees outside in the rain in order to be seen). What is the status of that project?
2) When will we be able to have our housing shutters STAY OPEN? *losing my mind*
3) Are there any plans for a way to send gold to another player in-game who is offline? Like a check or something?
1.- When will the map feature be available on Linux?
Can we have a (toggle) setting to make the map stay opaque and not fade, so we can have it always visible? It fades to near invisibility unless I keep my mouse hovering over the map in interactive mode, and then I can’t steer my avatar. This is not useful.
you can already do this . Its in the options tab.
Thanks very much. I must have been blind.
Can you make the /whisper and /local text colors not such a similar shade of blue, or let us assign different colors to different people’s /whispers and let /local stay blue? It’s annoyingly difficult to tell /whisper from /local, or to tell one conversation from another at a glance.
Are you planning any simple additions that would help players create their own quests (e.g. an NPC that will repeat a single paragraph when engaged in conversation; a chest that will allow removal of one item per player)?
Q1: Can we have different armor give different set bonuses? +10% damage resistance for all of them seems too bland and pretty useless for light armor.
Q2: Can we get more cooking recipes or perhaps make the current ones more varied in effect(different balance with regen and stats, maybe add more things like dodge, resistance etc.)?
There’s a lack of a tier4 food that gives +int and would love a Mystery Stew rare drop recipe that uses all the boss ingredients for some crazy buffs and debuffs(random?).
Q3: Penguin critters/pets plz <3
1. Can you please implement that Private (!) Vendors take their charge only after a successful trade and not when I enter the offer?
The way it is currently done, I never dare to put anything into my vendor. Due to the distance position of the vendor I will only sell 1/10th of my goods while I have to pay 1/10th of all goods already in advance.
2. When can we see multiplayer quests (not tasks) that allow to explore dungeons with actual context/plot like Necropolis.
Question 1 – Why are slows and stuns in magic schools not int based? Everyone can use them as good as a pure dedicated mage. They don’t need to be higher, but a high int char should cast better slow spells etc…
Question 2 – Will magic attacks also deal more damage when cast from behind in the future since they now can also be dodged and missed?
Question 3 – If int doesn’t effect spell effects (slow, stun etc) duration, magnitude etc could maybe in the future wands improve those to distinguish pure mages from hybrid casters?
Per DarkStarr on April 26th, 2017 (R41 Patch Release Notes): Refining/Smelting isn’t in-game as yet and is only “possible” for Q3. Would it be possible to get a short-term temp bonus from skill like 2% speed per 10 skill or something like that until it can be fully implemented? (If I’m smelting for 90 minutes a week with a useless GM skill, it appears I’ve wasted hours over the past several months that could have been put to better use.)
Q1: Can you please remove or reduce the 20 second timer from the player mode selection? It already takes a hot minute to switch from friends online to multiplayer without an additional time delay being added. If this is some mechanic to stop players fleeing a situation – do it in the background via a loading screen – I rather not have the reminder of how long it takes to load.
Q2: The recent ramp up of Decay seems to be having a negative effect on getting casual players to participate in group adventures. Currently, the XP loss at high level can equate to many hours of grinding, which some of our casual base find daunting. Would it be possible to incorporate a kind of XP refund for a death via the Resurrection mechanic? For example: A GM Skilled Resurrection might return 50% XP and at 120 skill it might return 60% etc.
Q3: Now that we’ve started to see some new skills come into existence, (Meteor Shower, Fireflys) Can we expect to see some fantastic new combos as well?
1. Im running out of good questions to ask about underground biome population indicators, could you provide me a couple that I could ask in future post mortems?
2. Is there a eta on sota map working in underground biomes?
Love the much needed changes in r41 ill give u a break on #3
Glad you like the changes, sounds good :).
Q1:
The Village size Home “Small Old Keep” which is an in game version of the “Stone 2-Story Keep with Corner Turret Village Home” From the Add-On Store is a much less polished version and I understand that, However there are no mountable surface areas on the outside which makes it hard to decorate. Will this be fixed at some point?
Q2:
Harvesting Crops and the “Sowing Seed” Crafting Box Dialogs are both very slow and for some reason tax my System more than fighting in large groups with a Party, is this slowed intentionally to limit the speed of Agriculture?
Q3:
Will there ever be discounts on Player owned Town Size Upgrades? Maybe as a choice on the Wheel in the next Telethon?
Question: Are you guys open to adding a No Loot option to PvP? What are your thoughts about it? Thank you.
Sorry to jump in here… when battle grounds come id like them to cater to the softcore pvp group, via no loot drop just pure repeatable fun with mabey some in game rewards akin to how wow does BGs.
Question: The game currently has Ignite Weapon, a skill that engulfs a weapon in flames. Can we have Freeze Weapon, a skill that covers a weapon in ice and Shock Weapon, a skill that makes a weapon discharge electricity?
Or a death weapon, with wispy smoke?
When will the placement of items be fixed so they can stand up gain. My backpack storage system looks stupid now with them all laying down. When you made packs wearable it messed with the placing of packs on the ground and shelves
2. Will we ever be able to place wall shelves on crafted walls. Would love to put shelves on my walls that i use to seperate rooms.
Thats all i have right now
1) With the implementation of book covers, will the Sojourner’s Tales Printing Press gain it’s intended functionality and grant books copied on it the Sojourner Tales covers?
2) On the topic of the printing press, would it be difficult to make the printing press change the “By” name, or add a “copied” tag? Currently a player can spend hours writing a book to sell and publish it, only to have another player buy one copy, make 2 gold copies of the book and give them away for free without any known differences.
3) How many stars would a Darkstarr darken, if a Darkstarr could darken stars?
1. Will refining skills like Meticulous Refining be added prior to launch?
2. Any plans on showing an XP Decay value in the UI so people will know how much they can lose?
3. Any plans on looking a Blades for bugs since accuracy seems lower for me compared to Ranged.
Q: When can we get a refresh mechanism for the map?
As a POT owner that is constantly updating sotamap, it’s painfully slow to exit and come back in to see changes.
Q: When can we expect a POT tools, features, and bug fix pass?
Plant removal, row lot alignment issues, moving claimed lots, etc. I know we’re a small subset of players. But, we are putting a lot of effort into building the community.
Q: When will stone based craftables (pavers, blocks, etc) be salvageable?
With the number of iterations it takes to go from granite (which seems to be harder to find than gold/silver ore) to 4x roadway pavers, it’s painful to find a 3x roadway paver is really what you needed.
QUESTION:
When can we see the Chaos Magic that was promised? Hardest to level, very powerful and not resistable ;)? The school needs a lot of work and more ways to deal damage!
Question:
Will there be any animal tending abilities in the crafting area such as rearing livestock for resources?
Will there be a method of guild members training combat skills with each other like we did in UO (including risk of killing each other) but for mutual skill gain? (just that it’s more fun than hitting a dummy)
Q1 What improvements are planned for private vendors and when can we expect them?
Q2 For public and private commissioned vendors, will you consider allowing listing price reduction without re-listing cost?
Q3 When listing on a public vendor can you show min, max and average price of the same type of good sold there during the past month? e.g. Raw Cotton min 4 gold, max 8 gold, average 7 gold.
Q4 When will we see UI improvements for agriculture to allow planting / watering entire containers?
Love Chris’s daily dev blog! Makes us appreciate what you have to tackle / balance throughout the week. BUT!
Q1 How about some combo love for polearms? Been mentioned several times since last fall.
Q2 Can we get some in-game purchasable homes in single player offline mode? Totally get that you need to wait for balancing most single player aspects (combat, economy), but a nice home base is needed…
Thanks!
Sir Grant (Dorquad in game)
Q3 When will the other companions be available in offline single player mode?
Q1: I know brewing g is not in yet hence I am asking now. Can you add a location tag to the name of the item brewed. Ie Brittany wine, Beran’s Reach Beer or even down to more established taverns like FireLotus Spirit or Bear Tavern Mead. I think this would add to regional economy.
Q2: When will we get snow covered roofs for snow biome towns.
Q3: When can I get a quarter staff.
Another question.
Q4: People have been talking about joining multiple guilds, now I disagree with this but what I would like to see Is the ability to make our own friends list.
1. Can you make automatic rolling animation when player character falls high enough to ground? Addition to falling always on feet or dying.
2. Is it possible to have flavor/descriptive text for dialogues? And what is the general opinion on that. Reference: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/sota-needs-to-learn-from-ultima-vii-dialogue.88186/
3. Are we going to see visible consequences for our actions, at least in the single player offline mode? I have understood it’s problem for online modes because of housing, but how about offline?
Is it possible to allow us to be able to fish sitting down on a dock or pier, on in a boat…besides standing?
Q3: Do monsters also have max resist %?
Q1
Is there any plans on adding casino themed decoration?
Usable by player Pool tables, slot machines and so on (great gold sink too)
Q2
I remember reading about crafted gear being able to “level”
Or get a name after killing a certain amount of mobs or special boss.
Is this still being worked on?
Thanks for making a great game. keep it up!
1. What advantages and disadvantages will crafted robes have over other types of armor?
2. What’s the ETA on NPC Guards?
3. When will player body parts no longer be a part of the ransom system? (meaning you can’t pay the ransom to get them back)
Q: When a POT owner makes changes to biome or template can you make it so all player lots get automatically moved to the owner of the lot’s magic mover slot? That way you don’t have to coordinate with a lot of people to make sure they have their house in a magic mover slot prior to a change.
Q1: The starter clothes (Leggings, Gloves and Boots) are already dyeable.
Would you add the feature to the Magic Mirror to choose the colors of your starter clothes when creating a new character?
It’s very boring to see new Avatars with identical clothing running around the starter areas.
In DayZ Standalone, you can choose the colors of the starter clothes of your character.
Q2: Would you add more variety to the clothing of the spawning Bandits?
The colors of the Bandits’ clothes should be randomized to some extent upon spawning.
It’s very boring to fight endless supply of clone Bandits.
Q3: Would you improve the Conversation System to support multiple NPC participants in conversations?
Currently the game supports only one-to-one conversations without allowing any other NPCs to jump in.
Multiple NPC participants in a conversation would be necessary for immersive storytelling.
In Ultima 7, multiple NPC participants are able to take part in conversations with NPCs.
Q1: Would you trigger the Water Death animation to play also for the Avatars who die in hot tubs?
Q2: Would you create a Fire Death animation for the Avatars who die from Fire Damage?
Q3: Would you add rockable baby cradles to NPC buildings?
There are baby cradles in Ultima 7.
1) Would it be possible to remove or at least extend the resurrect time limit on tamed creatures. I’m asking, because it’s not like they are super powerful, so why is there a limit to resurrect them. Also, can’t mages always re-summon elementals, which I believe are more powerful then tamed creatures, so why do I have to resurrect my tamed creatures in a certain timeframe when they die?
2) Will there ever be craftable belts that I can enchant and/or add enhancement jewels to (e.g. Jewel Socketed Belt)?
3) Would it be possible to replace the need to use silver to masterwork both carpentry and tailoring to some other ore or resource? It’s already hard enough to find silver ore let alone enough to masterwork armor and weapons at the rate they decay now.
Okay, casual player – have been running a two avatar party in Twins – making good gains in xp, without too many deaths.
I logged in yesterday – died – and my xp went from 18K+ to 11K+.
That may not be a lot for some players, but for me that was massive, especially as that amount of xp will take me weeks to make up.
Why is the death penalty so high now? Was this a bug?
As a mouse mode clicker.. Any thoughts to giving a better visual indicator of the mouse cursor? I often lose it in intense battles with all the scenery and colors and find myself often wiggling to find it before I can click that glyph I want.
A highlight or alternate color mode on it perhaps? It’s very light in contrast and tends to blend in certain times of days or colors at times.
Q: To add option to “Lock on Target”, instead of “Next Target” in combat.
Q: Ability to Un-Socket weapon if it was done after enchanting (or at least changing attunement).
Q: Add visibility of Exp pool in Character Sheet or as a separate HUD, like “Skill Avancement Tracking”, OR add experience tab/option in chat window.
Q: Renaming storage containers without adding them to inventory.
Q: Color or Icon separation of added Potions in Combat Hotbar.
Q: Craftable Basements?
Q1. Will Graff and etceter mines be nerfed (redesigned) as part of the uncloning or are they safe for the moment?
Q2. Why does portalarium hate miners?
Q3. With skill decay discouraging high level skill gains and exploration, what is the long term plan for players in terms of what they can do?
Since the doubling of the already far too punitive “decay” system we are now seeing players unwilling to group up due to the harsh penalties for death and the need to re-grind hours of experience – still done faster solo in almost every scenario. We’re also seeing people unwilling to go attempt new content or explore where death and subsequent setbacks are a possibility. Are there any plans to tweak the decay system so it is actually serving its purpose, currently it just seems to be functioning as an obstacle to doing anything interesting and as an obstacle to group play.
Q: Can we please have some sort of ‘toggle’ on equipment to lock it / make it safe from accidental vendoring/salvaging/etc? I’d love to take advantage of the link-gear-to-deck funcionality, but I pick up so much stuff when I’m out and about that I’m always afraid I’ll accidentally lose something so only carry what is safely equipped!
Q: In the past, broken tools and ingot molds changed name to “Broken xx” which made sorting and finding said items straightforward and easy. Now the name stays the same and you have to go and cherry pick all the broken ingot molds and such out which is time consuming and anonying – As the crafting seems to just ‘grab whichever mold’ it tends to use them at random so you end up with several all partially broken. The question is, is this intentional, and if so why, and if not, can we please have it back the way it was?
Some are variants to existing questions:
1) Are there plans to make refining crafting activities more interesting? Smelting hundreds of ores is quite boring right now, especially in the limited batches of 20.
2) Are there plans to allow mixed materials in crafting? For example, I’d like to mix and match bronze and meteoric iron coils in my chain crafting. Would allow for more gear buff combos.
3) Are there plans to add tips on estimated material buffs based on the materials on the table and the players proficiency level? That would really help prevent accidental crafting errors and potentially reduce the vast amount of stale and random gear for sale at many vendors right now.
Has there been any metric done on how many people visited Verdantis and serpent spine before and after the re-design has been done and how much has the traffic changed?
Q1 can there be time stamps in the in-game chat
Q2 an in-game mail system to leave messages when players are offline.
Great Game look forward to R42, r43, etc
Q: Can we get an ETA on when we can expect “Next Target” to function as it is described in the instructions, where it says it begins with the closest target ?
Q: Do our accumulated Crafting skills count towards death Decay, ie how is death Decay calculated, exactly ?
More of a suggestion than a question – Can we have recipe tooltips explain that they rely on the “Proficiency Level” and NOT the “Skill Level” in order to be learned?
Many newer (and seasoned) players are writing bug reports because they think the requirement is XX skill level… but Skill level does not = Proficiency level with the progressive curve.
Question:
Since attention has been diverted from 2 popular systems in the game recently. When can we expect attention to be refocused or on the side focused to fishing and agriculture?
I’m hoping the plan is to include more fish types, higher tier fish recipes, weight of fish, fishing quests to discover fish and fishing contests, weight or other, types of bait catch certain fish, some fish are rare, interesting fishing loot, fish lore. Please if you could comment ?
ETA on bounty boards / PvP leaderboards and better guild warefare?
Can you talk about what you use for dice rolls? if just relying upon /dev/random wrappers, Will you consider switching to a true random number generator (hardware device) instead of a software pRNG?
Why can’t we use /afk on the overworld map? Also, could you please make the /afk flag darker, or somehow more visible? Nobody ever seems to notice when it’s turned on, and they think they’re being ignored.