Another test build has just arrived, and it seems the pendulum may be swinging back slightly, as the 4th and 3rd rates gain a little bit of target tracking, and the Hercules lose some.
64-gun ships are having the number of line bundles they require reduced from 8 to 3. I’m trying to figure out exactly what ships this means, but it seems to mean the 3rd rates, and maybe the Couronne. The patch is not yet live on the test server, so I’ll update when we know precisely who’s affected. (Update: It turns out the decision to only change the Valiant was deliberate.) The intent would seem to be to make the 3rd rates closer to the Pirate Herc in cost and overall power. A worthy goal, and one which I think will do a lot to reduce the National’s current indignation.
Cutthroats have lost their entire Evasion path, bringing them down to the same number of skill paths as everyone else. Fair, but going to be quite a painful pill for them to swallow.
Patch Notes continue below:
We’ve fixed most of the top priority Known Issues listed in the Release Notes for the last build. Also Taelorn has been busily tweaking every dang skill yet again. (The QA folks trying to test these changes are just about to hang him up by his toes.) And, while that was going on, a number of other bug fixes occurred also.
Release Notes for 1.4.25.0 can be found here.
Known Issues:
* Reinforcements spawn into ad hoc encounters in the wrong place. Sadly, this is not new with this build. We’re working on it.
Differences between 1.4.25.0 and 1.4.28.0 include but aren’t limited to:
Ships / Outfitting:
* Alexander: Tracking 9 -> 11
* Arcadia: 16.1 speed -> 15.95
* Bahamut: Now shows in the help doc
* Couronne: Upgunned 5lb -> 7lb, 10lb -> 12lb, bow 4lb -> 8lb
* Heavy Hercules: Fixed a bug that prevented Freetraders from using this ship. Armor Bonus 35% -> 30%, Reload Bonus 10% -> 7.5%, Structure Bonus 35% -> 20%, Tracking 16 -> 13
* Mastercraft Hercules: Tracking 18 -> 16
* Sleek Hercules: Tracking 21 -> 17
* Mordaunt: Tracking 9 -> 11
* Mastercraft Tigre: A bug was giving this ship a weight bonus to its topdeck instead of its gundeck. Fixed. New loadout: 14x9lb, 24x16lb
* Valiant: Tracking 9 -> 11
* Wenden: Tracking 9 -> 11
* Expert Sailmasters: Speed 5% -> 2%, repair 10% sails
Ship Combat / Skills:
* A couple people on Testbed lost certain skills due to the order we did certain operations. In particular, we tested skill purchase requirements before running rules. We’ve fixed that bug and added a set of rules to give those players their skills back.
* Reduced the range of bar shot by 5%
* Some NPCs were using too much dismantling shot, making certain missions incredibly frustrating. Now Merchant NPCs will damage sails to a point, then concentrate on crew and hull damage. Similarly, they’ll damage crew to a point, then concentrate on hull damage.
* You can now always exit a Duel.
* Sinking a Buccaneer didn’t reward MOTs and MOVs. Fixed that.
* Fixed a whole bunch of toggle skill conflicts that were causing problems in 1.4.25.0, especially for Naval Officers.
* Death’s Embrace: After acquiring this skill, you could get the next two out of order. Fixed that.
Buccaneer
* Career Base: Speed 2% running -> 4% battle
* Dark As Night: +5% OS, battle speed
* Defense: Resist 6% -> 5%
* Disorienting Shot: Is now a per-hit debuff, 15% less attack damage
* First Blow: 35% damage -> 30%, 15 accuracy -> 10
* Inspiration: 40 morale -> 45
* Scrapper: Speed 20% -> 12.5%, Duration 240 -> 150
* Shred Armor: Morale 30 -> 40
* Survival Instincts: 40 duration -> 45
* Survivor: Removed speed bonus
* Will to Survive: Morale Recovery 5% -> 7.5%
Cutthroat
* Removed Evasion chain.
* Black Market: 2% running speed -> 7.5% OS Speed
* Drink and the Devil: Duration 3 min -> 2 min, Reset 12 min -> 6 min, 30 morale
* Flog Gunners: 15% reload -> 12.5%
* Plug Leaks: DR 7 -> 6
* Rum Ration: Reload Rate 15% -> 10%, Morale 20 -> 30
* Sacrifice for Speed: 12.5% speed -> 15% speed
* Sacrifice for Victory: Turn Rate 20% -> 12.5%, 15% reload, 30 morale
* Slaughter Their Crew: Reset 3min -> 5min
* Vaporing: Now has a 4 minute reset and a 175 yard range
* Wolfpack: Reload changed to Turn Rate
Privateer
* Agile Rigging: 5% OS speed -> 4%
* Burst of Speed: 25% speed bonus -> 20%, Reset 2.5 min
* Concentrated Fire: 35% damage -> 30%, DR ignore 40% -> 35%
* Improvise Sails: Repair 40% -> 37.5%, Resist 25% -> 20%
* Rapid Reload: 40% reload -> 30%
* Ride the Wind: 7.5% OS Speed -> 4%
Freetrader
* Smuggling chain: Ranging Shot – Smuggled Cargo – Give the Slip – Misdirection – Running Dark
* Trade chain: Tax Evasion – Rescue Me – Before the Wind – Optimal Rigging – Sailhandling Drills
* Hasty Fire: Fixed duration (2min)
* Running Dark: Fixed reload rate (20%)
* Tax Evasion: +5% armor integrity
* Travel: This is now a passive skill.
* Work the System: Now has a 20% chance to provide 1 pennant, a 40% chance to provide 2 and a 40% chance to provide 3.
Naval Officer
* Last Resort: Speed: Now a click buff that lasts 90 seconds. You cannot attack while this is active.
* Military Communications: 2 acc -> 3 acc
* Show of Force: Now uses a per hit multiplier. Reduces target reload by 12% +1% per additional hit, maximum 25 hits.
* Speed Increase: 7.5%/7.5% self/group -> 10%/5% self/group
* Warning Shot: First Hit Bonus 1 -> 7, Max Hit Count 24 -> 13, reset time 6 minutes
Missions:
* Career missions for the Buccaneers are now available! Give ’em a whirl!
* French Tutorial: Fixed some text bugs.
* Business and Pleasure: Added a “journal” to help you track your progress. Also, fixed some text errors in the dialog.
* Piper Gets Paid / Get a Clue: These two missions shared a door which led to two different rooms. Fixed that.
* Swampcats Bounty: Demanded you sink Jaguars. No such thing so good luck with that. Now demands Panthers.
* Amalgamation: Was directing you to board a Sharktooth Raiders ship when there wasn’t one present. Now there is.
* Dividing Loyalties: Text explaining where to go could be misleading. Removed the misleading part.
* In Like Flynn: Attempted to clarify the situation so players don’t get stuck fiddling too slowly.
* Offers They Can’t Refuse: The NPC would keep the ? over their head after they no longer needed it. Fixed.
* The Master’s Craft: Corrected grammar.
* Island of the Monkeys: This mission will fall off your mission list if you have it. The standard encounter was tweaked to correct a problem with a conversation with an NPC. This mission had several other changes also.
* Money in the Bank: Corrected the instructions so you’re not sent to the wrong bar.
* Vendetta’s End: Fixed the destination line.
* British East India Company: Become Esteemed: The stated goals didn’t match what you actually had to do to complete the mission. Fixed that by fixing what you actually have to do so that it matches the stated goals.
* An Ill Wind…: The map was sometimes embedded in some crates. Fixed that.
* You Are What You Eat: Fixed the sword impaling the chef. “Fluffy” guys need special weapons placement.
Economy:
* Economic Unrest: Added info services to the Garrison Commander and Rebel Agent NPCs.
* 64gun: Reduced the lineship structure bundle requirement from 8 to 3, bringing it more in line with the costs of comparable ships.
* Mastercraft Oliphant: It wasn’t possible to make this ship. Fixed that.
* Ship deed tooltips had a requirement, “You must be in Location Not Known.” Now they say you must be in port.
* It was possible to build 11 warehouses. Fixed that.
* Only Cutthroats could build Careening Camps. Now Buccaneers can also.
* Fixed a problem that prevented acquiring the special FT recipes
* Added some economic restrictions to trial accounts. Trial accounts only have access to two structure slots and cannot use certain structure deeds (All ‘Advanced’ Structure deeds, Draughtsman’s Office, Master Draughtsman’s Office, Logging Camp (Ironwood), Logging Camp (Teak), Master Shipyard, various Mines, Provisioner, Quarries, Recruitment Office, and Large and Medium Shipyards).
Open Sea:
* Ad Hoc Invisibility wasn’t working. Fixed that.
PvP / Port Contention:
* Sinking ships wasn’t creating unrest. Fixed that.
Art / Sound:
* Charlesfort: It was difficult to click on the Privateer Trainer. Fixed that.
* Pointe-a-Pitre: Trainer NPCs weren’t showing up. Fixed that.
* Tortuga: The Crime Lord’s Office longboat didn’t glow like other doors when moused over. Fixed that. Also, it’s now possible to get to any smuggler tunnel from any other smuggler tunnel.
* Mystique Polacre: Decreased the resources required by the low LOD version.
* Fixed bugs in some of the names of Buccaneer clothing items.
* Fixed the hand on sword idle so that hand doesn’t clip pommel as it had been.
UI:
* Radar / Compass: Removed the wind indicator in avatar spaces.
* Inventory UI: There was a bug where the Junk Dealer’s sell pane sometimes had broken items (couldn’t right-click on them and other problems). Fixed that and we’re hoping it fixes a similar bug in Inventory UI also.
* Using healing and repairs would show floating 0’s. Now it shows positive numbers like +2 or such.
* Help: Some ‘Captured’ ships are not listed in the ‘Ship Deeds: Captured’ category. Fixed that.
* Unrest Supply UI: The UI wasn’t really valid for defenders. Cleaned that up. The bars were turning green too soon. Fixed that. Also, rearranged titles so that long port names don’t overlap other strings. And added right-click Help.
* There’s now a UI for Trial Accounts that explains the process a little bit.
Stability / Performance:
* UC flags have been downloading truncated on some machines, causing memory corruption crashes. Fixed that.
* Cache Server: Fixed a crash we saw as a result of a player deleting a character. We only saw it once but crashes are bad and cache server crashes in particular can cause data loss. We don’t want data loss, even on deleted characters.
Misc:
* New localized text from SOE.