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Zenath - The Beginning [PvP & PvE]

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Aha. I had to look for where it was said that it was an exploit in WU proper, the notion did indeed come from a post of ours so I better respond to that.

 

I wish this was a full-time job of mine, then I could make that code-review, give you some guarantees and do a serious write-up of what happened. Sadly, with holidays and real life it's just not something I can entertain. With the limited time I've spent on it, I'll just say it is probably a modification of ours that introduced the flaw.

 

We have taken steps and of course seen to it that anything that mucks around with login-handling and authentication was all reverted back to stock code for the time being (we are not using anyone elses patches either).

 

But at the end of the day we'll see, I guess. I really hope to get some time to actually dig into all this further, but pointing fingers at WU code was a knee-jerk reaction. It's something that should have been done when we had more proof and not in the heat of the moment.

 

That said, I am not by any stretch ruling it out.

Edited by Friya

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The new npcs seem to wonder around a lot. Maybe you can give them a set tile like uniques, so they turn back around if they go to far?

Day time and night time buffs for vampires would be cool!

Edited by DOE

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I will push a new set of changes later today. The night/day time effects is something that is very interesting, there are differences in place already but all in all I don't have that many ideas around it... So if you have ideas on night time perks, I'm all ears!

 

Tweaks going in today:

- New items/skills/achievements/titles/etc will be available on connected servers, despite vampires not being enabled on that server. The functionality of the items should not be enabled, however.

- Dhampira got a suffix in her name to look a bit more NPCy

- Bloodlust is slowed down (there will likely be a lot of tweaking around bloodlust and the effects it has on other skills)

- Devour had its effect reduced when you have REALLY low bloodlust, there's also an overall reduction due to the change to bloodlust being slowed down

- Orlok should be unkillable

- Sense offspring now works again

- Some human NPC's are now a bit more patient and can stand in one spot

- A few tweaks to the various loot tables (for instance, removal of WMDs! Thanks Fiercefred!)

 

Edited by Friya

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A new patch went live on Zenath last night, the patch notes are below! It's obviously a lot about Vampires since it's very much a moving target still, and probably will be for a while!

 

Vampires (and game play):
[ ] Sprint is now available to everyone, not just vampires (vampires have a reduced cooldown, however)
[ ] Disarmed hunters are valid targets for 60 seconds after the fact (not 25000 seconds)
[ ] Messages with %HIM in them are now fixed
[ ] Sorcery items were completely removed from all loot tables for now (might reintroduce these for hatchlings later on)
[ ] Increased gains of vampire related skills (been tweaking these up and down a bit, hopefully stable now)
[ ] Vampires have a new spell called Assist Slain that becomes available on their body when a vampire was slain,
[ ] Slayers now need to have a bit of skill in order to stake
[ ] Vampires cannot punish targets that are not able to slay, regardless of whether they are wielding or were recently disarmed
[ ] Increased cost of the priest spell Pinpoint Humanoid slightly
[ ] Lowered cost of the priest spell Dispel Shadows slightly
[ ] While having one or more affinities in bloodlust, it will regenerate at a slower pace
[ ] All contents of black pouches should be -really- mailable
[ ] Vampire hunter D at Sol now accept an Ancient Amulet as currency for a Black Pouch
[ ] Reduced chance to steal an affinity when punishing either slayers or vampires
[ ] Vampires have a new spell called "Abort Offspring" (Thanks to an unnamed vampire for the idea)
[ ] Sense Offspring now give Anatomy skill
[ ] Size of black velvet pouch is now more reasonable
[ ] Half Vampires can no longer get more than 50 nutrition from devouring
[ ] Vampires can now consume sleep powders
[ ] Vampires can still not eat source salt (just putting it in here to let it be known that this is intended ... for now)
[ ] The cost of de-vamping as half vampire was reduced greatly
[ ] The cost of de-vamping as full vampire was reduced (but not nearly as much as half vampires; and it was always higher to begin with)
[ ] A few typoes, like possessive suffixes were fixed
[ ] Red Pillar that is left after a vampire was slain now last for 10 minutes (to assist the slain)
[ ] When a hunted slayer log back in they will get a message telling them that (in case they forgot)
[ ] Increased skill steal from biting with higher bloodlust (it was always there, this is an increase from before)
[ ] Amount of skill stolen from biting a hunter or a slayer was also increased overall (but still has the same cap to not take a low skill back to 1)
[ ] A more visible announcement now goes to the vampire when they successfully bite a slayer or hunter
[ ] Bloodlust now gets set to 1 when a vampire gets staked
[ ] Slayers are now hunted for a bit longer
[ ] If a hunted target is a slayer there will be a slight weight to prioritize the skill the slayer stole in the first place. There is still randomness, however. Actions that flag someone as hunter but NOT slayer are: recently disarmed, hit an amulet or wielding a stake.
[ ] Meditation skill gains were increased as a vampire (this was always the case, but the increase is increased)
[ ] Slayers now get another reminder that they cannot stake while being a hunted slayer
[ ] An out-of-character warning was added to Dhampira's dialog that getting rid of the vampiric beast will come at a cost you can feel
[ ] If you had low Perception skill, a leading period in Crown's "find" and "Pinpoint Humanoid" would show up. No more. Tip: With higher Perception more and more details will be revealed about the target.
[ ] Cooldown of 'bite' was lowered
[ ] Slamming a stake into an ancient amulet worn by a vampire will trigger an announcement of a "mini hunt" on the hunter. Unlike a real hunt where a vampire was actually slain, the staker can still stake you so you are by no mean safe from a second or third stake. Just remember that it takes a little while before a hunter can use a stake they have  wielded. During this period you can bite, disarm or simply get out of harms way to stealth and go after them.
[ ] You will find leading animals a lot harder if you are wielding a stake. You can still lead briefly and ride like normally.
[ ] Traited animals find themselves quite distracted by the vampire blood on a slayer's hands and will therefore be a bit slower when their rider is marked. The gear on the mount still work as advertised.
[ ] Some auditing, admining and other boring stuff was removed/fixed/added
[ ] Added a highest rated vampires toplist. This is based on how much success you've had when it comes to hunting down slayers. The toplist can be found by typing either /toplist or right click your body (where the "fly to coven" and "assist slain" actions are). You may want to note this: Every time you punish as either slayer or vampire, there IS a loss of 'skill' to the system, the transfer rate of stolen skill between punisher and punished is not 100%. So it is essentially a huge waste of your time to "cheat" in this toplist (by punishing a friend, an alt or whatever). That said, cheesing it will be frowned upon and will probably result in us simply removing you from participating. I will add a similar list for slayers once there's a need.

Loot tables, as stated on forums earlier this week:
[ ] Sorcery items and drake/scale are completely removed from the global loot table
[ ] A bug was fixed that made creatures sometimes drop loot despite not having a player attacking the creature

Player champions on PvP:
[ ] All champions will be retired as soon as they log in next time
[ ] You can still become a champion, but it will only last for two hours
[ ] The penalties for losing champion status remain the same as they are now, thus making champion essentially pointless -- which is the goal
 

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Patch day coming up tomorrow!

 

These changes are not yet live. They will go live after the next reboot which should be tomorrow (Saturday).

Vampires are still brand new (only been around for a few weeks), they change a lot as can be seen in these patch notes.

Gameplay changes

  • Vampires will take a bit less damage from soulfeed during night time
     
  • Vampire bloodlust is slowed down further
     
  • And likewise, bloodlust is now cut in half if you are under the influence ... of sleep bonus
     
  • Damage done by soulfeed reduced altogether
     
  • A new mechanic is also added around bloodlust's soulfeeding. It is intended to make it easier to AFK but still not make soulfeed irrelevant.
    • Acquire or create an Altar of Souls (create with high level masonry and improve likewise, rock + clay to start). This is a luxury item, really. You don't NEED one.
    • Clear a 5x5 area in a mine (it must be free from any other items)
    • Flatten the area
    • Place altar in the middle
    • Sacrifice corpses at the altar
    • Stand near the altar
    • When soulfeed starts, provided the altar has power, you will no longer get hurt. The vampiric beast within you will feed from the corpses in the altar. WTB old corpses.
       
  • The Altar of Souls in The Coven is always at full capacity when it comes to corpses
     
  • If a vampire hunter got hunted for real during a mini-hunt (triggered by hitting an amulet), we should not announce that mini-hunt is over as it could be a bit misleading
     
  • The vampire command /toplist will now give a very short text explaining what it is
     
  • Bugfix: Was always the intention, but now for real: devouring of tower guards is no longer possible (primarily due to them being an infinite source)
     
  • Crown of Friya will now take a bit more damage when its Find action is used
     
  • Stealth is now INCREDIBLY powerful for vampires, as in: other players cannot detect you. Period.
     
  • Vampires can now get into instant stealth by right clicking body icon and selecting Stealth, this action has a cooldown. When it's on cooldown you can still use the normal stealth.
     
  • Added a couple of new vampire related achievements
     
  • Drop rate of ancient amulet was decreased
     
  • Drop rate of crown was decreased
     
  • A stake cannot be used for 10 seconds after wielding it (up from 4 seconds)
     
  • A vampire slayer's mount will now be harder to lead (just like when you are wielding a stake)
     
  • A vampire slayer can still ride their mount, but the hunted timer will not decrease while mounted. A new message will indicate this.
     
  • Increased skill stealing for vampires when biting a HUNTED slayer
     
  • Anatomy is no longer given to the bitten target
     
  • Slight increase to the required fighting skill needed to stake (and bite slayers). This to be more in line with how the Zenath PvP server is configured when it comes to affinity stealing.
     
  • The /hunted command always gave you your hunted status. It will now also give an approximate on how much longer you are hunted after slaying a vampire. It will round to nearest five minutes.
     
  • Targets getting bitten now get a proper message when they dodge the attempt
     
  • Quality of the mallet when staking no longer plays a role in whether the stake will be dodged by the vampire (this means increased dodge chance for the vampire)
     
  • Bloodless husks now need ritual to bury for everyone
     
  • Dodging a stake is now a less influenced by random and more skill-based, and no longer by just Dexterity. The weights are:
    stakerPower  = (stakerDex  * 1.5) + (stakerStaminaPerCent  * 0.50) + (stakerPerception  * 0.75);
    vampirePower = (vampireDex * 1.5) + (vampireStaminaPerCent * 0.50) + (vampirePerception * 0.75) + (WurmCalendar.isNight() ? 27.5f : 0f);

        ...a vampire will dodge more stakes during night.

Eleven heads-ups and tips

  1. A slayer can only punish one vampire once for a hunt and its entire duration. ALL vampires can punish a slayer repeatedly during a hunt. This is why the amount of skill stolen by bite is less per action than what is stolen with a stake. The skill (or affinity) stolen is random, you can be lucky or unlucky.
     
  2. In case there was doubt: A slayer cannot stake a vampire while they are being hunted. Once they have slain a vampire, they are walking free skill for all vampires. If you can catch them, that is.
     
  3. There are many actions a vampire can perform that does not reveal their name; disarm and bite are just two of them.
    What target and surrounding will see when a stealthed vampire bites is something along these lines:
    [15:37:33] The shadowy form of a vampire pierces your neck with his lethal fangs, feeding on your vital lifeforce!

    Vampires (and slayers, of course) should still be wary of the priest spell "Dispel Shadows"
     
  4. Crown of Friya, while a nasty piece of work in that it will let the one you are looking for know that you are looking for them.

    It might seem useless at first glance. But really, if you are a vampire and you were just staked, you know that that slayer knows who you are and that you are likely looking for them. So, safe to use. The same goes for hunted vampire slayers, of course -- they will want to keep an eye on whomever are hunting them.
     
  5. The bind anything clientside mod is awesome. Add keybinds to your emergency actions, folks!
     
  6. As a vampire you are encouraged to operate from stealth while getting back at a slayer. I'm quite content with the way stealth works now, it may even be on the strong side. You are fast, you can cast it instantly, you can perform actions while in stealth and you can NOT be spotted by being too close to a player. Your enemy is of course priests dispelling you and paved areas. There are certain types of ground that is good for you: floor boards, packed dirt, and there might be a few others you might want to test.
     
  7. You probably want to keep your Altar of Souls hidden behind a locked minedoor as it's a bit of a give-away.
     
  8. Dexterity is important to be able to dodge stakes. It's also important to be able to hit with stakes.
     
  9. Since dodge was changed, I want to disclose this (don't think anyone's found out yet): You can create seryll stakes with ancient amulets, these are undodgable. Ancient amulets will still protect against these too, though.
     
  10. At high Perception skill the priest spell "Pinpoint Humanoid" and Crown-find becomes *incredibly* powerful (it becomes gradually better and better). Good to find slayers and good to find suspected vampires.
     
  11. The Coven is the only place where the game prevent slayers from staking vampires.

Non-gameplay changes

  • GMs will now get message when a vampire was slain (because I am a curious bugger)
  • The Coven channel will now open automatically for GMs when they log in.
  • An unnecessary exception was thrown when biting a target that was not yet hunted
  • Some minor memory saving tweaks (things went static, baby)
  • Some logging was demoted to FINE
  • Removed /vstats

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Someone suggested I posted this because it looked nifty.

 

Mind, this is on my test-server, no animals or players were harmed. That said, it's a prototype of one of the new spells I am working on for the Vamps project on Zenath. The purpose is to temporarily trap a vamp slayer (you become marked for a time period after having slain a vampire, thus become hunted by all vampires on the server).

 

 

It's not trapping as much as it is delaying since every tile in the (fully random) maze is reachable and you are always able to get to the exit. You choose whether you want to wait for it to dissolve and risk getting trapped in there with the caster and his friends or get the hell out of there as soon as possible. It's obviously going to be a bit harder to cast than what is seen in that video. :)

 

But yeah, very much prototyping at the moment!

 

a version with hedges here: https://vimeo.com/200231964

 

There are some opportunities to do other things with this too, if you have ideas, please share...

Edited by Friya
  • Like 2

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immature staff.  I'll leave my comment as is Immature staff on the Zenath server run by kids.

Edited by Abomin

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1 hour ago, Abomin said:

immature staff.

Sorry you feel this way, Ghoul. Though I don't think you actually interacted with any administrators or staff, from what my logs are showing. Anywho, enjoy!

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delete

Edited by Abomin
spelling correction

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I had written a lengthy reply here, curious about timezones, expectations and time online.

 

Then I saw that you created your character on the evening of 1st of February and felt ... oh.

Edited by Friya

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Unlike my beloved (and MUCH more well-behaved) co-admins on Zenath, I have no scruples what-so-ever when it comes to calling ###### in people, so let me just use that privilege and say: I'm ###### glad we dodged the bullet of you becoming CA on Zenath.

 

Thank you.

 

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delete

Edited by Abomin
arguing is getting no where

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I, eh, I am a bit lost for words.

 

What are we talking about here? It looks like you are posting the footnotes of a curriculum vitae. Either way, to make things a little more civil:

 

You logged into Zenath for the first time 4-5 days ago or so, you applied to become CA within your first day. You heard nothing regarding your application between then and yesterday (we're talking a weekend here, basically)...

 

Let me outline how I see a Community Assistant (or CA): First of all, it's not a promotion or reward of any kind. Hell, I might even argue that it's a bit of a curse. It's generally given to people who love to help and are already very present on the various chatlines. There is however one snag here, CA's might not be anyone with power but they will always represent the server in one way or another. And I guess this is the key, if we (the people on the server) do not know you, chances are you will not become CA. Regardless of how long you played the game or if you are Rolf.

 

I hope this goes a little way towards settling this issue.

 

PS. I created this account to post in the mod-section of these forums recently. I have lost access to my old account. :)

 

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@abomin

I think you actually are less patient than my teenage daughter. Well done.

 

 

I still say you dodged a bullet. Good for Zenath that they will now decline your ca application.

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Look, I was mildly entertained when you started posting here. I was even slightly amused when you kept editing your posts with all your after-thoughts. Hell, I was even okay when you decided to delete all your arguments about how experienced you are, and your name-dropping.

 

But really, did you have to reset the conversation and start over again? It feels like Groundhog Day.

 

Please, feel free to advertise other servers in this thread, I don't mind. I trust the people on Zenath being able to make up their own opinion about what is a good or bad server for them. I am uncertain whether the admins of this Anarchy server is pleased that you go around telling the world that you are there, though.

 

But, I really do wish you the best of luck wherever you decide to call home in WU!

 

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