Month: July 2019

Patch Summary

This patch introduces a major bug fix for disappearing mods in items in the shared stash, which is one of the major items we wanted to fix before beta. Our list of bugs before beta grows shorter, and our ability to modify the game and respond to feedback has grown immensely. Also included are a variety of changes to skills, weapons, content, and loot. As this is still and alpha patch, please do expect these things to change over time, but we are excited to offer some changes that many in the community and on the 2038 team have been hoping for. Additionally, non-elite mode has been removed and non-elite characters have been migrated, in an effort to consolidate the playerbase and simplify the testing and coding process.

As with the previous rate of fire patch, please note most item changes are not retroactive. Existing copies of the items may not see the updates.

This patch is a major step towards the launch of beta, and you should expect to see continued efforts towards bugfixing and mastering the ability to create and modify content in the game going forward. As always, please test each new change thoroughly and report any bugs accordingly.

Bugfixes

• Mods in items in the shared stash will no longer disappear.
• Any mods lost in the shared stash will be returned to the item they were in when lost.
  • If another mod was placed in the slot after the disappearance, the lost mods will appear in the player’s inventory on login
  • If the player’s inventory is full, the lost mods will appear on the ground on login
• The algorithm for picking up and dismantling items with the Piecemaker has been majorly modified
  • Players should see a massive increase in speed and performance when using the Piecemaker, especially with large amounts of loot on the ground
  • Players will no longer be spammed with “no room in inventory” messages when auto-pickup is enabled

Game Mode Changes

• Removed the ability to create non-elite characters
• Existing non-elite (“normal”) characters have been migrated to Elite mode
• HCE and Elite characters are unaffected

Summoner Changes

• Elemental summon skills are now mass summon all available elementals.
  • Known bug: Summoners can summon up to maximum even if the player doesn’t have the required power. This will be fixed shortly
• Dark Lord now has a 100% chance to trigger.
• Dark Lord’s maximum level is now 7.
• Dark Lord has a maximum number of 3 zombies spawned at level 1, and up to 9 at max level.
• Meat Shield now has a cooldown of 15 sec down from 30.
• Enrage now has a cooldown of 15 sec down from 30.
• Hand of Nostrum now has a cooldown of 15 sec down from 30.
• Spellstorm now has a cooldown of 15 sec down from 30.
• Spectral Strike now has a cooldown of 15 sec down from 30.
• Carnagor’s taunt interval reduced to 1 sec from 4.
• Carnagor’s taunt strength increased by 300%.
• Carnagor’s taunt radius increased by 50%.
• Carnagor’s size has been increased.
• Elemental Nova’s damage reduced by 50%. The initial blast damage is reduced by 62.5%. Blast and field radius decreased to 12m from 15m.
• Added the Evoker’s toxic tree to the Necromancy tab of the Summoner.
• Word of fear has been moved above Darkform.
• Blood Surge has been moved above Blink.

Guardian Changes

• Taunt strength of Challenge and Denounce has been greatly increased.
• The maximum level of Challenge, Denounce, Provoke, and Heavenly Condemnation has been reduced to 5.
• Aura of Power is no longer required to take Aura Stability.
• All bosses have had their immunity to Taunt removed, and should now be tauntable, with the following exceptions still being untauntable:
  • Wurm
  • Destructible Hellrifts
  • Talox

Misc Changes

• Revenant pet’s fireball cooldown reduced to 1 sec
• Nautilus’ healing interval has been reduced to 10 sec down from 20
• The blueprint result of the Piecemaker quest should be untradeable from now on.
• Parliament Square side areas should now have music.
• Named monsters like Fat Bully spawn at 100% rate.
• Desiccator spawn at 100% rate.
• Hellrifts, Ancient Bloods and Elite Passageways are more densely populated with monsters.
• Elite passageways have a greater chance to appear.
• Known bug: Talox’s physical minions may appear as unique, although this has no impact on gameplay
• Talox’s minions walk and run speed are consolidated.
• Fulcrum’s totem names are correctly displayed.
• Fixed the cooldown of Venom Armor on Fulcrum’s Venom Totem to trigger at a 2 sec rate, increased from 0.2 sec.
• Hellgates found in Crown Office Row quest are now harder to destroy.
• Known bug: Monster reflect affixes no longer work at the moment. 
• The Big Gundown map no longer scales with player level (Press F to pay respects to HC chars who died there)

Westminster Catacombs Changes

• Westminster Catacombs now has a greater general difficulty multiplier than before.
• Monster level scaling relative to the player has been modified in Catacombs:
  •  +1 level until Level 5
  •  +3 levels until Level 10
  •  +5 levels until Level 15
• All Abyss hellrift types can appear from Level 1-10
• Only Spectral Hellrifts will appear from 11 onwards.
• Brompton Cemetery has greater monster density. This map now spawns with a normal Hellrift 30% of the time.

Rate of Fire Changes

• Peacemaker (all) ~60
• Nova guns (all) ~30
• Swarm Hives (all) ~37
• Infernous ~60
• Abbadon’s Hellstiker rate of fire increased to 300 from 120. Base damage decreased by 15%.
• Charger rate of fire increased to 400 from 120. Base damage increased by 100%.
• TRD’s rate of fire increase to 15 from 12. Base damage increased by 200%.

Weapon Changes

• Changed the XM9X Thundergod’s proc skill to Electric Nova, reduced the proc chance to 12%-15%
• Infernous now does 10 times more damage than before, has an inherent base critical chance of 5% and 150% critical damage. Minimum mod slots increased to 1 from 0. 
• The Cleanser now does splash damage, and its damage has been increased.
• The weapon Hellbore is now scale with content level, it’s field attack has been increased to 3.5m from 1.5m. Base weapon damage has been increased.
• Vigilantes got their base damage increased.
• Force Magnums now also have splash damage.
• All variants of XM666 now deal splash damage and got their base damage increased.
• All variants of XM666 now have an armor value.
• All variants of Grizzly guns got their base damage increased by 100%, splash radius increased to 3.5m from 1.5m.
• Plague Darters got their base damage increased, and now they all do splash damage.
• All kind of Thorn Bolter’s damage increased by 100%.

Loot Changes

• Sydonai and the 5 lies now have a special drop table added, and their drop rate has been increased significantly.
• Sydonai’s first time drop has been added into his default drop pool.
• Sydonai now has 5% to drop a Backpack, which is an untradeable, one of a kind container item (only one per player), with 36 slots, which can contain 1×1 items.
  • Currently consumables are not usable from the backpack, which will be fixed in the future.
• Improved the overall quality of boss drops.
• Pet drop chance from Talox increased to 5% from 0.5%
• Abyss bosses now drop a greater number of general loot.
• General recipes should produce rare or better quality items, up to and including Mythic, with appropriate rarities. This includes the Techsmiths at stations.
• The monster level restriction of mid-high level unique weapons has been removed. (You may find Hu’s or Hikidas from lvl50+ monsters)
• Beast of Abbadon, Bloodblade, The Brain, Wurm and 314 trio should now drop their previously first-drop items every time like it was a first kill.

In the next patch coming soon, the ability to create characters in non-Elite mode will be removed (sometimes called “Normal” mode, not to be confused with pre-Nightmare mode). This decision was reached due to the unfortunate side effect of the two-difficulty system further fragmenting the already modest player base of this private server. Elite was intended as an up-sell to entice players to purchase a subscription back in 2007, and the distinction no longer makes sense in our context. Going forward, every player will experience the equivalent of Elite mode, and the only trade/group restrictions will remain between Hardcore/Softcore and Nightmare/Normal (which is toggle-able).

Hardcore mode remains unchanged, although all Hardcore characters will techincally be Hardcore Elite. Existing non-Elite mode characters will be converted to Elite on their first login.

One note: Non-Elite characters should move all items out of shared stash, or risk losing access to them after the patch is applied. We converted non-Elite characters to Elite as a courtesy, as that functionality will not be necessary after the beginning of beta due to the beta wipe, so we won’t be providing support for lost items for non-Elite mode characters.

There will be detailed patch notes for the upcoming extensive patch, which will include major bug fixes as well as content changes. Stay tuned!

Patch Overview

The team at 2038 has decided to attempt a balance patch for the first time. The result of our research indicated that Summoners and various Rate of Fire levels across many guns needed the most immediate attention. Please read below to find out what has been changed. An important note–some item changes are not retroactive, so existing items may not receive the changes. New drops of those items should contain all the changes listed below. The summoner changes are retroactive, so all existing summoner characters will be modified.

Summoner changes

• The Elemental summon cooldown has been reduced to 0.5 seconds.
• The power cost of all Elementals has been drastically reduced.
• Elemental Nova now has a maximum level of 5.
• Elemental Nova’s cooldown has been reduced to 6.5 seconds at Lv1, and decreases by 20% per level.
• Elemental Nova’s blast and field radius have been increased to 15m from 6m (Note: the skill still displays 6m, but the radius has indeed been updated).
• The base HP of Elementals and Ember has been increased by 300%.
• The base damage of Ember and Fire, Force, Storm, and Toxic Elementals has been increased by 300%. The Spectral Elemental’s base damage has been increased by 700%.
• The base armor of Ember and Force Elementals has been increased by 300%.
• Fire, Spectral, Storm, and Toxic Elementals received some base armor.
• The base HP, armor, and damage of Shadow Minions has been increased by 300%, and they now have a critical chance of 10% for 250% critical damage.
• The Carnagor’s base HP and damage have been increased by 100%.
• The Carnagor’s base armor has been increased by 300%.
• The Carnagor now has a critical chance of 25% for 300% critical damage.
• The Witch Doctor’s base armor has been increased by 300%.
• The Reaper’s base HP has been increased by 100%.
• The Reaper’s base damage has been increased by 300%.
• The Reaper’s base armor has been increased by 250%.
• All Elementals, Demons and Shadow minions have had their movement speed drastically increased.
• Fire, Spectral, Storm, and Toxic Elementals have had their size slightly increased.

Misc changes

• Regular Cricket bats now drop.
• All Peacemaker variants have had their damage converted from direct to splash (4m), and the R. J. Donald’s Diplomat Unique variant has also received additional field damage (4m).
• All Jackhammer variants have had their base damage decreased by ~38%, to balance out the Rate of Fire increase.
  

Rate of Fire Changes

Templar guns

Grenade Launchers: 

• Shockshell – Increased to 120 from 30
• Shockbomber – Increased to 120 from 30
• Shock Cannon – Increased to 120 from 30
• Ashmore’s Reckoner (Unique) – Increased to 120 from 30
• Northwynde’s Arcane Hammer (Unique) – Increased to 92 from 24

Firefield Casters: 

• Firefield Caster – Increased to 60 from 30
• Firefield Catapulter – Increased to 75 from 33
• Firefield Launcher – Increased to 75 from 37
• Fisher’s Fiery Cast (Unique) – Increased to 30 from 15

Pistols:

• Redeemer – Increased to 150 from 50
• Peacemaker – Increased to 150 from 50
• Pacifier – Increased to 200 from 60
• Blessed Revolver (Unique) – Increased to 150 from 50
• R. J. Donald’s Diplomat (Unique) – Increased to 120 from 42
• Mac Kenzie’s Peacemaker (Rare) – Increased to 150 from 40

Electric Nova guns:

• Shockwave – Increased to 30 from 7
• Stormwave – Increased to 30 from 7
• Stormsurge – Increased to 30 from 7
• Leota’s Circumference (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 7
• Novastorm (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 7

Fire Nova guns:

• Flamewave – Increased to 50 from 12
• Fireflux – Increased to 50 from 12
• Firesurge – Increased to 50 from 12
• Hestia’s Vision (Unique) – Increased to 92 from 24
• Infernal Halo (Rare) – Increased to 50 from 12

Toxic Nova guns:

• Grimwave – Increased to 40 from 8
• Grimflux – Increased to 40 from 8
• Plauge’s Halo (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 8

Spectral Nova guns:

• Parawave – Increased to 20 from 6
• Paraflux – Increased to 20 from 6
• Starburst – Increased to 60 from 30
• Trakt’s Illumination (Unique) – Increased to 50 from 10

Physical Nova guns:

• Slammer – Increased to 46 from 10
• Crasher – Increased to 46 from 10
• Yahtel’s Fist (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 10

Afflictors: 

• Afflictor – Increased to 150 from 50
• Plague Spreader – Increased to 200 from 60
• Misery’s Gift (Unique) – Increased to 150 from 50
• Foulrot (Unique) – Increased to 120 from 40
• Pepys’ Darts (Unique) – Increased to 92 from 30

Hunter guns

Jackhammers:

• XMS5 Jackhammer – Increased to 92 from 37
• XMS10 Jackhammer -Increased to  92 from 37
• Aden’s Avenger (Unique) – Increased to 92 from 37
• Gau’s Equalizer (Unique) – Increased to 92 from 30

Cannons:

• XM171 Thermo Cannon – Increased to 60 from 24
• Bunkport’s Tsunami (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 18
• Tyler’s Pistol (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 24

Cannonades:

• Grenade Launcher – Increased to 75 from 30
• Arclight RDX Grenade Launcher – Increased to 75 from 30
• Arclight Cannonade – Increased to 75 from 30
• Fusilier’s Friend (Unique) – Increased to 75 from 30
• Derek’s Divine Equalizer (Unique) – Increased to 75 from 20
• Bouncing Betty (Unique) – Increased to 75 from 30
• Lowber’s Lucky Lobber (Unique) – Increased to 75 from 30

Chrome Bolters:

• XM41 Bolter – Increased to 240 from 85
• XM41 Thermal Bolter – Increased to 240 from 85
• XM42 Convection Bolter – Increased to 300 from 100
• XM43 Chrome Bolter – Increased to 300 from 120
• Vulcan Bolter (Unique) – Increased to 200 from 50
• Illiaster’s Majestic Sun (Unique) – Increased to 200 from 40
• Mac Kenzie’s XM41 Bolter (Rare) – Increased to 300 from 100
• Techsmith’s Phlogiston Emitter (Legendary) – Increased to 240 from 85
• Max’s Molten Metal Projector (Unique) – Increased to 240 from 60
• Jin’s Chromium Dragon (Unique) – Increased to 300 from 120

Surge Cannons:

• Nanodyne Surge Cannon – Increased to 150 from 85
• Jetram Shockgun (Unique) – Increased to 150 from 75
• Thor’s Hammer (Unique) – Increased to 150 from 40

F-S Rail Pistols:

• F-S Rail Pistol – Increased to 120 from 30
• Reaper’s Hell Rail (Legendary) – Increased to 120 from 30
• Nanto’s Third Rail (Unique) – Increased to 120 from 30

Thunderclashes:

• XM909 Thunderclash – Increased to 400 from 171
• XM9X Thundergod (Unique) – Increased to 400 from 171

Combustion guns:

• Arclight Combustion Gun – Increased to 60 from 30
• Arclight Explosive Cannon – Increased to 60 from 30
• The Breath of Shulgoth (Legendary) – Increased to 60 from 22
• Amir’s Arclight Thunder (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 35
• Ether’s Fusillade (Unique) – Increased to 60 from 33

Cabalist guns

Spikers:

• Ethereal Spiker – Increased to 300 from 100
• Celestial Spiker – Increased to 300 from 120
• Lord of the Night (Unique) – Increased to 300 from 100
• Alucard’s Continuum (Unique) – Increased to 300 from 60

Plagueblasters:

• Baneblaster – Increased to 600 from 300
• Contagion Delivery Device (Unique) – Increased to 600 from 240
• Deshpande’s Diseased Devotion (Unique) – Increased to 600 from 240

Hive Crystals:

• Hive Crystal – Increased to 120 from 40
• Hive Shard – Increased to 120 from 40

Chaos Pistols:

• Chaos Pistol – Increased to 120 from 37

Boneshredders:

• Boneshredder – Increased to 120 from 42

Pyrocasters:

• Pyrocaster – Increased to 60 from 27
• Pyrosmasher – Increased to 60 from 33

Tempest Rifles:

• Tempest Rifle – Increased to 120 from 42
• Typhoon Rifle – Increased to 120 from 42
• Shulgoth’s Infernal Storm (Legendary) – Increased to 120 from 33