The Buff Status Bar now shows your combat stats and hides behind game windows. Several damaged armor drops moved to new bosses, plus Player Journal and race fixes.
Banks now open a side-by-side inventory and bank window. Plus clearer forge labels, simpler recipes, spell duration and balance changes, and a Buff Status Bar toggle.
The Bank of Arda moves into the Player Journal with a faster, roomier interface, plus smarter monster AI, Sauron tweaks, spell fixes, and Buff Status Bar improvements.
The Bank of Arda store/merchant interface is now retired. It has served us well, but the merchant objects are limited & bloated when used for this purpose, and larger banks were causing noticeable performance issues and lag. It has now been replaced with a full NUI interface in the player journal:
Much more performant & significantly reduces bank-related lag when players access their bank storage, exit the server, etc.
Item storage capacity increased from 1,000 to 2,500 items per account.
Added item icons & the ability to examine item descriptions directly from the player inventory & bank tabs in the journal.
Identical items will typically group together in the same row, except when the stored items differ in stats, properties, etc.
Forge requirements are highlighted in blue in both lists & marked "Forge Item" in the examine window.
Plot items and empty bags/containers can now be stored via the journal.
You must still remain near a Bank of Arda location to withdraw or deposit items & gold.
Now using scroll-based loading for improved performance for longer lists of data. E.g. inventory & bank items, bank transaction logs, lore entries, etc.
Fixed several spells not appearing in the Buff Status Bar, including spells that have both beneficial & hostile effects.
Active combat modes (expertise, power attack, rapid shot, etc.) now appear at the front of the Buff Status Bar with a gold border, & no longer flash in NUI Quickslots.
Improved reliability of buffs appearing for equipped weapons, armor, etc.
Improved reliability of custom quickslots updating remaining spell/item uses.
Corrected base-item descriptions for several weapon types to properly show custom Arda changes. E.g. proficiency, critical threat/range, damage types, etc.
Epic Spell: Leech Field: Now affects only enemies and grants temporary HP based on health drained each round. Constructs grant none. Description fixed.
Skull Trap: Now deals 1d6 negative damage per caster level, capped at 20d6, and detonates when approached or after 30 seconds. Fixed saving throws, spell resistance, reincarnate bonuses, and caster kill credit for XP. Description fixed.
Meteor Swarm: Description fixed to reflect uncapped caster-level damage and the six-foot protected area around the caster.
Shroud of Flames: Fixed missing splash damage and incorrect Reflex and spell resistance checks.
Mordenkainen’s Force Missiles: Fixed progression to one missile per four caster levels, up to seven, and fixed Maximized damage.
Ruby Ray of Reversal: Dispel strength now scales with caster level, up to +40. Replaced the misleading Time Stop visual with beam and dispel effects. Description fixed.
Storm of Vengeance weather changes are less intense & transition more gradually.
In addition to his usual end-of-round teleport tricks, Sauron now has a chance to use a new unique ability, one that may turn the strength of his enemies against them.
Teleport-related attack penalty (interposing hand % chance) duration reduced slightly.
Fixed the Moria door transition between the 2nd & 1st Great Halls of Khazad-dûm.
Minimap fixes for the default rural, Forodwaith, and Mordor tilesets.
Fixed several seamless transitions in Outer Mirkwood & Mûmakan.
Slipping/falling messages now use private floating text, reducing chat clutter.
Added a new NUI status bar near the player portraits, beneath the base-game effect icons
Displays active buff spells and duration-based feats affecting your character, weapons, gloves, and ammunition
Supports effects from characters, scrolls, and items
Duration-based feats now appear here instead of flashing in their quickslots. Toggleable modes such as Expertise and Power Attack continue to appear and flash in NUI Quickslots.
Hovering over an icon shows its name, caster level when applicable, and affected equipment slot
Icons disappear when their effects expire or are removed
Identical item abilities now share one slot and combine remaining uses even with different charge costs, such as 10-use and 16-use Rods of Resurrection
All existing instruments remain unchanged & will not receive any of the changes below beyond a few minor bug fixes. You can choose to keep the old versions or upgrade to the new versions.
All new instruments are now their own new base item type for better filtering in Player Journals & the website, are medium misc. size, & have new icons.
All new instruments have new gold values assigned relative to their stats & difficulty to obtain.
Updated instruments are Bard-only & consume 1 Bard Song on successful use. Failed Perform checks do not consume a song.
Updated instruments affect the Bard & all nearby party members, & effects generally do not stack with themselves. Legacy versions affect only the Bard in most cases.
Lingering Song adds 5 rounds to applicable buffs; Lasting Inspiration adds 10. These bonuses stack.
Updated abilities (some similar or the same, with the added fixes/changes noted above):
Mothras (S. "Dusk Drum"): DC 15 Perform; +2 attack for 10 rounds
Cherry Mandolin: DC 15 Perform; heals twice per round for 10 rounds. Each recovery restores one-fifth of the user's Bard levels, minimum 1 HP.
Wooing Lute: DC 18 Perform; invisibility for 10 rounds
Great Horn (Boromir's Horn): DC 18 Perform; 10-round sonic damage shield dealing 1d10+1 damage to melee attackers
Tinculin (S. "Dream Harp"): DC 21 Perform; Spell Resistance equal to 10 + Bard level, maximum 42, for 10 rounds
Redwing Harp: deals 1d6 magical damage per Bard level, maximum 25d6, to hostile living creatures within 10 meters. Fortitude halves the damage; failure also applies -2 attack & Fortitude saves for 5 rounds. Constructs & undead are unaffected. Usable 3x/day.
Silent Harp: affects enemies within 10 meters of a selected location. Spell Resistance applies & Will negates. Failed saves cause 1 round of knockdown & Perform-based silence, up to 3 rounds. Most bosses cannot be silenced. Usable 3x/day.
Epic Spell: Magma Burst: initial damage increased from 20d8 to 30d8, and ongoing damage increased from 10d8 to 12d8 per round. Fixed a bug that prevented the petrification effect from triggering; see the spell description for details.
Epic Spell: Animus Blast: damage increased from 10d6 to 20d6. Maximum Oathbreaker summons reduced from 5 to 3.
Magic bags and other container items now show an "Empty" or "Contains Items" line under their name in the bubble text on hover, depending on whether they contain any items
All items that are forge requirements are now marked with a blue "Forge Item" line under their name in the bubble text on hover. This is done dynamically on module load to ensure accuracy with any future changes or additions to forge requirements.
New AI dragon behavior tweaked again in an attempt to fix bugs from the last patch (undead dragons incorrectly using their normal harms to heal, poor behavior/reaction time, etc.). Needs more testing.
Spawn timers in Barad-dûr increased to be more in line with standard reset times (no more 15-minute respawns). More coming soon on this.
New limits on extreme dungeon camping, point-based Container of Arda scaling, and storable forge quivers. Plus AI tweaks, a stronger Firestorm, and Minas Tirith retextures.
Camping is allowed in most dungeons within reason (see server rules), but:
It should not be done so excessively that it frequently interferes with players trying to run the full dungeon
Mechanics clearly intended to prevent camping in certain dungeons must not be bypassed
A few changes have been made to reduce the more extreme or repeated cases:
In restricted areas, Army Unfallen ("Epic Resurrection") must now be used fairly soon after death to remain at the same location; otherwise, the character will be returned to their bindstone
Login/reconnect grace periods have been shortened & other related safeguards added
Several areas that should have been restricted are now properly marked as such
Other behavior adjustments with locked doors and other dungeon mechanics
Most players likely won't notice much difference from these changes.
Players running a full dungeon may still find parts of it already cleared by campers. These changes are intended to reduce frequent or excessive disruption, not eliminate camping entirely.
This is not the direct result of any particular players. This issue tends to become more common whenever server activity increases, so some of these changes were simply overdue... will adjust as needed!
Container spawn chances now have a clearer & wider spread between lower and higher tiers
Encounter scaling now uses a point system based on party size, player level & reincarnation tier:
Scaling requires at least 2 players
Reaching higher point thresholds removes lower container tiers from the spawn pool
Added safeguards to prevent excessive farming or repeated spawning of containers in short periods of time. Each account can still spawn multiple containers within a 24-hour window solo, and there is no cap when in a party.
Moved the Yellow Mountains Stronghold container spawn from Veryal en Cimoniemor to Karmarac of Bur Esmer
Removed several high-level scrolls from merchants that should remain unique to Wizards/Sorcerers (Time Stop, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Black Blade of Disaster). Existing scrolls on characters will not be removed. These scrolls may still drop from loot.
All dragons now use the new AI and a rare nameless key turns up on high-level bosses. Plus Greater Rod of Spellcasting fixes and Storm of Vengeance weather effects.
Website player accounts launch, letting you view characters, inventories and bank storage online. Plus new voicesets, a combined Advanced AI, and spell fixes.
The first patch notes we kept, builds v1002 to v1338, from the move to NWN: Enhanced Edition. Arda has been running since 2002, but older patch notes aren't available.
