| Patch Notes - 08/30/2018 - Raiding and Siege Balance Changes, Server Crash Fixes, AI Improvements & More Posted: 30 Aug 2018 11:14 AM PDT  Hello Wizards and Witches of Ignus! We've been working away the last 2 weeks to introduce many balance changes and programming fixes to Ignus. We've been focusing on rebalancing raiding and siege and we've also implemented a number of programming fixes to address server crashes, AI responsiveness and more. See below for detailed notes on what to expect with today's update. Balance - Raiding Patch Notes To implement raiding changes effectively, spells first needed to be rebalanced. During our audit, it was discovered that a few "free" spells such as arcane blast and arcane missile were able to do far more damage than the vast majority of other spells, especially when weapon types were taken into account. Since these spells are the crux of early gameplay, it made more sense (in most cases) to buff most other spells to increase their usefulness, rather than nerf arcane blast and missile. There was also no clear hierarchy for damage based on spell type and the weapons they can be equipped on. - Blast Spells: Cooldown reduced on pounce, base damage increased on Condemn, Concentrated Storm, Vortex, Fire Blast. Mana cost decreased for Pounce, Condemn, and Concentrated Storm. Health cost increased for Vortex.
- Projectiles: Cooldown of Roots of Wrath and Arc decreased. Cooldown for Dark Bolt increased, base damage for arcane missile decreased. Mana cost reduced for Roots of Wrath, Arc, and Dark Bolt (health cost). Mana cost increased for Ice Bolt and Fire Bolt.
- Beams: Base damage (or healing) increased for Arcane Beam, Nature's Touch, Petrify, Ice Beam, and Flamethrower. Mana cost decreased for Nature's Touch and Ice Beam. Mana cost increased for Arcane Beam, Conduction, and Flamethrower.
- AOE Spells: Base damage increased for Geyser, Calamity, Blizzard. Cooldown increased for lightning strike. Mana cost decreased for Arcane Storm, Geyser, Lightning Strike, and Blizzard. Mana cost increased for Sanctuary and Calamity.
TO SUMMARIZE: Theoretical DPS/HPS increased for Pounce, Condemn, Concentrated Storm, Vortex, Fire Blast, Roots of Wrath, Arc, Arcane Beam, Nature's Touch, Petrify, Ice Beam, Flamethrower, Geyser, Calamity, and Blizzard. DPS/HPS decreased for Arcane Missile, Dark Bolt, and Lightning Strike.  Balance - Siege Patch Notes Once spell usefulness had been normalized, siege was also adjusted. The goal was to keep players' bases protected appropriately with respect to time required to build their structures, as well as keeping PvP raiding a useful mechanic that isn't overly cumbersome to those with careful planning and preparation. The metrics considered focused primarily on structure health, spell energy, siege energy percent, and the siege damage spell modifiers. The general categorical hierarchy for spell types is intended as follows, from most damage to least: blast spells, projectiles/beams, AOE (due to the collateral damage they produce as well). - Blast Spells: Energy increased for Arcane Blast, Pounce, Condemn, Vortex, Ice Strike, Fire Blast. Siege energy % decrease for Arcane Blast, increased for Condemn, Concentrated Storm, Ice Strike, and Fire Blast.
- Projectiles: Energy increased for Roots of Wrath and Arc. Siege energy % decreased for Arcane Missile, increased for Dark Bolt, Ice Bolt, and Fire Bolt.
- Beams: Energy increased for Conduction and Flamethrower, decreased for Arcane Beam and Ice Beam. Siege energy % increased for Conduction, Petrify, Ice Beam, and Flamethrower.
- AOE Spells: Energy increased for Arcane Storm, Geyser, Lightning Strike, Blizzard, and Fire Grenade. Siege energy % increase for Sanctuary, Lightning Strike, Calamity, Blizzard, and Fire Grenade.
- The returns for building marble and ornate were deemed too-diminishing regarding structure health. As a result, marble pieces are now roughly twice as strong as stone, and ornate piece are now roughly twice as strong as marble.
TO SUMMARIZE: Some spells are more effective than others at siege, but the differences should be more normalized with this rebalance. Since the top-damage-dealing spells were only barely adjusted (if at all), the total damage a player can deal to a structure should be relatively unchanged from the previous balance, and previously less-effective spells should now be buffed into an appropriate range.  Programming Patch Notes Apart from raiding and siege balance changes, our programmers have also been working away to fix those pesky server crashes some of you have been encountering recently. Read below for details on the changes made. - Fixed crashes related to memory corruption (we've put the server in a memory configuration that will help us catch more crashes at they pop up). We've managed to fix a memory corruption so far but if you happen to experience otherwise, please let us know.
- Fixed a bug where AI would sometimes not respond to a player's attacks.
- AI responsiveness made snappier by refactoring EQS queries of NPCs.
- Introduced building rule for thrones and respawn stones (cannot be colliding with other meshes or too close to terrain/props). This was introduced to reduce exploitative base building inside/beneath terrain and background props.
- Added a sphere trace method to Arcane/Flame Obelisks to eliminate griefing of turrets to drain mana.
- Fixed a bug where gauntlets disappeared in first person while using self buff spells fixed.
- Fixed a bug where cooldowns for consumables don't display on action bar HUD fixed.
- Added House permissions/roles tooltip to House menu.
- Fixed a bug where items in the inventory screen could appear broken/on cooldown.
- Reduced frame loss when opening the inventory screen,
- Added command /setwelcomemessage [message] to admin commands. This message can be set by server admins and will display on the player's client each time a player logs in.
There are a number of other tweaks and fixes included in this week's patch, which we've listed in full below. Take a moment to look them over while you wait for the servers to come back up with the latest version of the game. We want to thank you again for the feedback, patience and support! We look forward to hearing your reports after you've had a chance to get your hands on the update. More Patch Notes - Elixir of Destruction now crafts on the player. This is intended to slow mass-production of siege reagents, making raids more calculated and deliberate, and less griefable.
- Swapped confusing production of Rowan Wood for new farmed ingredient Frostwood. Swapping Frostwood for Rowan Wood in recipes.
- Reformation Stone healing nerfed from 400H/s to 250H/s, to mitigate structure invulnerability.
- Improved effectiveness of Obelisk of Protection and Warding Obelisk. This should encourage players to have fewer, but far more effective upgraded shielding.
- Adjusted Soul Binding Scroll VI tame time down one minute, so it automatically protects tame time properly.
- Many improved item descriptions, including updates to farmed ingredient descriptions to guide newer players.
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