Patch 2.1

Patch 2.1, the Shroud of Ardan Maintenance Patch patch, will be added to the Shadowbane Emulator on January 5^th, 2018.

Stability and Optimization

Largest stability re-write since the launch of Shadowbane Emulator

• Movement/Meele sync greatly improved (pending large-scale testing)
• Full audit of the SBE code to remove unnecessary memory usage and bottlenecks:
  • Removed tens of thousands of unnecessary database calls related to the chat, group systems
  • Cleanup of the combat management, NPC management, city asset management, and warehouse log code
  • Removed many vestigial lines of code that no longer apply to the game in its current state.
• Audit of the server wipe procedure to remove any chance of data carrying from one iteration to the next.

Bug Fixes

• Opening a Tree of Life to the public no longer requires server reset
• Players can no longer grief new characters in the starting cities on newbie isle
• Fixed a bug that prevented looting contracts and other items from player corpses
• Resolved an issue where your items would appear in your inventory, unusable, after death
• Traveler's "Recall to Runegate" power now works all the time.
• The tome version of ID scrolls now functions properly.
• Furthermore, you can now cancel an ID scroll if you haven't clicked on an item yet.
• Tears of Sadron can now properly remove stat runes and all discipline runes provided all points in them have been refined.
• Guild Crests from living players can now be used for the city asset friends or enemies lists.
• An automated /guild message is now generated when a player leaves the guild.
• Inconsistencies with the number of cities allowed in a zone have been cleaned up and made consistent with the world map tool tips.
• Errors caused by attempting to create a guild on newbie isle have been fixed.
• The error message displayed when attempting to create an item with insufficient resources has been fixed.
• Automated messages generated when creating gear or ranking city assets have been cleaned up.
• Automated messages generated when a city's mine is under attack have been cleaned up.
• Players will now always spawn at the correct bind point even if they have changed guild recently.
• Barracks now displays the correct amount of gold needed for maintenance.
• Fixed a visual bug causing guards to appear at a lower rank than they were.
• Expansion pack mines now produce the correct number of resources.
• Closed a loophole allowing players to capture more mines than their city rank allows.
• Elite Equipment now takes damage and may be repaired like all other weapons and armor.
• Issues with several shrine offerings not applying favor have been fixed.
• The Crusader Shrine now properly grants its boon to worthy Crusaders.
• Cleaned up several inaccurate combat channel messages.
• The Blade Mastery power Dance of Ten Thousand Cuts now properly applies its bleed effect.
• The Unarmed Combat Mastery power Thunder Strike now properly applies its stun effect.
  • The /ignore command will now display a list of ignored players when a parameter is not specified.
• Resolved several issues related to city guards:
  • The city guard management window has been fixed.
  • Abandoning city assets now immediately reflects their errant status.
  • City guards will no longer continue to attack the winning nation after a successful capture bane.
  • Abandoning barracks (and similar assets) should no longer cause city guards to become bugged.

Class Changes

• The Rogue's Hide power now recycles in 20 seconds (down from 60).
• All versions of invisibility available to caster classes has had its movement penalty increased from 5% to 20%.
• Bounty Hunter and Black Mask Detect Hidden have been reworked:
  • This version of Detect Hidden now takes the caster out of stealth
  • Duration increased from 20s to 30s. (+10s)
  • Recycle time increased from 180s to 300s. (+120s)

Design Notes: "The largest source of feedback we received in Shroud of Ardan was on the stealth system.

We decreased the recycle timer on hide to make it less cumbersome to refresh the ability. Mage stealth movement penalties were brought down to the same level as rogues.

We also wanted to level the playing field for rogues a bit by rewarding rogues who react to other character's uses of Detect Hidden, and also reducing the potency of Detect Hidden in fighting other rogues, as it will reveal both players, adding a slight amount of risk to the power when used to 'surprise'. Rogues will feel a bit more safe when in Stealth as a result, with greater downtime for this ability."

SBE wrote:

Rogues have seen their stealth abilities change quite a bit over the last few years. For clarification, this is how stealth works now: Hide can be refreshed indefinitely allows movement, but reduces movement speed has a 3-second cast time best to use when out of danger Stalk lasts only 30 seconds at a time allows movement and increases movement speed instant cast best to use during combat or escape

• Ranger's Mend Wounds
  • Heal scaling changed from "18-28 to 53-82 from PR0 to PR40" to "25-29 to 60-70 from PR0 to PR40"
  • Mana cost increased from 40-70 to 55-85. (+15)
  • Cast time increased from 2.0s to 2.5s (+0.5s)
• Ranger's Grasp of Thorns
  • Bleeding component removed.
  • Initial tick damage is no longer doubled.
  • Damage changed from "-10 to -18" to "-12 to -16" - all as Piercing

Design Notes: "Mend Wounds gave Rangers too much sustain in small scale. These adjustments should reduce the healing per second, capacity to spam the skill and widen the cast time to allow the spell to be stunned more easily.

Grasp of Thorns dealt too much damage due to the generally unresisted nature of Bleeding damage. We've removed that, as well as the initial tick doubling and made the damage much more consistent and less 'chunky'. We are considering reducing the Range of this ability and making it more aligned with use on melee Rangers / adding an element of risk to its use on ranged Rangers, but we will keep a close eye on this."

Launcher

• Released SBE Launcher v.2:
  • Improved architecture to smooth the login process and return fewer errors
  • Corrected an issue with forum integration that caused some players to receive incorrect error messages

Realm & Rulership

Fully implemented the Reforged in Flame tax system:

• Rank 8 Cities now automatically receive their cut of the spoils when their vassals loot mob corpses, receive mine production, or when they sell goods and services. The size of the cut depends on the type of charter used.
• A farming tax applies when a player loots gold from mob corpses inside the controlling realm:
  • Belligerent 5%
  • Feudal 10%
  • Mercantile 15%
• A merchant tax is subtracted when spending gold on items or training in any city (including NPC cities!)
  • Belligerent 5%
  • Feudal 5%
  • Mercantile 10%
• A mining tax applies whenever a mine generates resources for a city in the realm (rounded down, minimum 1 unit)
  • Belligerent 5%
  • Feudal 10%
  • Mercantile 15%
• The "Tax Collector" role and mechanics have been removed since they are no longer necessary.

Elite Equipment

• Removed variant armor pieces. Each set piece will now always have the same effects. See Elite Equipment for details.

Discord Integration

• The live game can now communicate directly with the official Discord server:
  • Transclusion of server-wide messages (discipline drops, mine windows, PvP death spam, and banes)
  • Implementation of log aggregation tools
  • Discord integration for admins to reduce response time