Patch Notes/2005-11-16

11/16/05 Patch Notes

COMBINED NOTES

Powers

• Changed the Long Help Description on the Shivan Shard to reflect that it can only be used while you are near the ground. (Shivans don't fly!)
• Police Bots and Arbiter Drones will no longer apply XP Debt if they defeat a player.
• Police Bots and Arbiter Drones will now grant ally players a perception buff to help see stealthed targets.
• Fixed Dark Miasma/Howling Twilight so it won't resurrect enemies in PvP. (Known Issue: enemies will still be prompted to ask if they want to be resurrected. The power will not work on them, however.)
• Fixed Fearsome Stare: after enemies went into cower animation, they would continue to attack normally.
• Mynx, Luminary, Aurora Borealis, Infernal, Silver Mantis, and Barracuda have been upgraded from Elite Bosses to Arch Villains/Heroes. This change will affect any missions that these signature heroes/villains may appear in.
• Smoke now has slightly different functionality. In PvE, the power is unchanged and automatically hits foes. In PvP, however, the power requires a To Hit check.
• Added Accuracy Enhancements to Smoke and Smoke Grenade powers for the Archetypes which have those powers.
• Added Resistance powers to Control, Energy and Medical Destructable Objects for Bases.
• Circle of Thorns Spectres and Spectral Lords Smite and Midnight Grasp powers were doing the incorrect damage type. These power both have a Psionic component now.
• Powers that increase your Max HP, like Dull Pain, and Earths Embrace will now be affected by Heal Enhancements. That is, Heal Enhancements will improve how much the target's MAX HP is increased.
• There was an inconsistency in the debuff duration for the following powers: Devices/Smoke Grenade, Fire Control/Smoke, Trick Arrow/Flash Arrow. The ToHit and Perception Debuffs are now set so they last 60 seconds in PvE and 20 seconds in PvP.
• Increased the effectiveness of Warburg reward temp powers.
• Modified Invulnerabiity/Invincibility and Ice Armor/Energy Absorption. for both powers: Max number of affected targets have been reduced to 10; The first target you affect grants you more defense than before; Additional defense gained for each affected target after the first is at a reduced rate. This change will ensure the powers grant a reasonable defense bonus when facing few foes, while making it more challenging to get a massive defense bonus.
• Modified Invulnerabiity/Invincibility so it goes off every second instead of every half second. This was for performance reasons. This does not change the effectiveness off the power, but it will cause the Endurance Cost to occur every second instead of every half second.
• Force Field/Personal Force Field now protects the caster from enemy Teleportation.
• Kinetics/Increase Density now protects the target from enemy Teleportation.
• IR Goggles brought more in line with other Sirens Call Temp powers.

City Zones

• Added new Warzone Liaison NPCs near the entrances to all PvP zones. Added new Mission Contacts to all PvP zones.
• Modified NPC dialog in PvP zones to make it clear whether a zone is Hero vs Villain or Freefire.
• Warburg: Players can no longer get inside the geometry of one of the buildings and shoot at players outside.

Tasks

• You can no longer target enemies during cutscenes.

Arena

• Pet Arena: Pets will no longer remain in a match after their owner leaves.
• Fixed bug that prevented the Arena from working on some servers.

Tailor

• Fixed bug that made some older characters be charged for costume changes when no changes were made.

CITY OF HEROES

Powers

• Nictus Dark Dwarf now has power FX that match the Nictus.
• Added Endurance Reduction Enhancements to Blaster Charged Bolt. Other versions already had this.

City Zones

• Croatoa is no longer restricted to characters level 25 and higher. The zone itself is unchanged, and remains quite dangerous to lower level characters who are not sidekicked.
• Founders Falls: the Trainer Infernal's name does not appear as Infernal Leader any more.

CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

• Changed Long Description for Succubus Hellish Bolts power
• Removed reference to Knockback in Brute/Fiery Melee/Cremate short help. The power is unchanged.
• Reduced Self-Damage on Stalker/Energy Melee/Energy Transfer when used outside of Hide. It now does only 2/3 of previous.
• Fixed Mastermind/Robotics Drones and Protector bots Laser and Heavy Laser Blasts not doing damage in PvP.
• Reduced Knockback distance of MasterMind/Necromancy Lich Torrent power. The was to prevent your lich from uncontrollably sending enemies into other spawns.
• Mastermind pets will no longer automatically target and move towards an enemy that resurrects in PvP.
• Improved the effectiveness of Triage Beacon and Spirit Tree.
• Improved the effectiveness of Cold Domination/Frostwork.
• Energy Aura/Entropy Shield now protects the caster from enemy Teleportation and Repel.
• Boosted Smashing and Lethal defense for Stalker Energy Aura/Kinetic Shield.
• Boosted Energy defense for Stalker Energy Aura/Kinetic Shield.
• Boosted Energy damage resistance for Stalker Energy Aura/Energy Protection.
• Corrected an issue with Brute/Energy Aura/Energy Cloak: It was not giving any Defense to Fire Attacks.
• Several Brute Attack powers did not have their Inherent Taunt ability disabled in PvP. This gave them a substantial advantage in group PvP encounters. These powers should no longer apply Taunt to PvP targets.

Powers effected by this change:

• Dark Melee
• Shadow Punch
• Smite
• Shadow Maul
• Siphon Life
• Dark Consumption
• Soul Drain
• Midnight Grasp
• Fiery Melee
• Scorch
• Fire Sword
• Cremate
• Incinerate
• Breath of Fire
• Fire Sword Circle
• Greater Fire Sword
• Super Strength
• Jab
• Punch
• Haymaker
• Knockout Blow
• Hurl
• Foot Stomp

City Zones

• St. Martial: Fixed multiple geometry holes
• Nerva: Fixed several graphical errors with boats in this zone.

Tasks

• Fixed errors on many Longbow and Arachnos mission maps.
• Fixed several text errors in missions given by Arbiter Leery
• Changed Broker missions: In a Heist, all characters in a group that have a full Broker contact bar will get credit for completing a Heist, and be able to get a new Contact from the Broker.