Update 1.06 - patch notes

New Feature: Guild Renown

Guild Renown is a new leveling and reward system for guilds in Age of Conan. Members of guilds can experience their epic adventures as they normally do today while contributing to their guild’s Renown simply by playing the game. There are three types of Renown - Valor (PvE), Glory (PvP), and Artistry (Crafting), which broadly describe three different play styles. As players progress in game, they will be able to progress their Guild Renown for the entire guild and unlock awesome rewards to be shared with each member of their guild. Guild Renown has a maximum of 20 levels to be achieved by the entire guild.

Every week, Age of Conan will rank the top-earning guilds, not only in total points earned (of any kind), but also in the total Valor, Glory, and Artistry earned for that week.

This article here provides further details about the rankings and rewards for each of the 20 Guild Renown levels.

New Tier 3 Raid Instance: "Thoth-Amon's Stronghold"

Thoth-Amon’s Stronghold is our new Tier 3 raid instance. It has seven boss encounters, including Thoth-Amon himself. In addition players will encounter some of Thoth-Amon’s most powerful allies, both new ones and some they might have met, or at least heard of, before - like Hathor-Ka. Thoth-Amon’s castle is located in the city of Kheshatta.

Read this article to learn more about this new raid instance.

New Raid Loot Token System

Update 1.06 also adds something the players have been requesting for a long time – a token system for raid loot. The token system is added to Tier 1 and Tier 2 as well as Tier 3 raids.

More details about this system can be found in this article.

Assassin Revamp

Update 1.06 introduces a number of improvements we could make to the Assassin class in several different areas. We have generally taken a somewhat different approach to the class revamps which have occurred since the 1.05 update, and this was applied to the Assassin during the course of its revamp. Among other things, it involves giving a revamped class some unique set of mechanics that encourage meaningful tactical choice on the battlefield. But also a distinct identity in how the class feels and plays to the player, as well as opponents facing the class and also how the class is viewed by group members.

This article describes the Assassin revamp in detail.

Changes to the Crowd Control System

Based on ongoing feedback from players concerning crowd control abilities, and the impact of these abilities specifically in PvP scenarios, a number of improvements have been made to how crowd control behaves in Age of Conan. These are changes which have generally been evaluated and considered for some time, and we feel 1.06 is the right update to deliver these to players, due to other CC changes also going in the same update.

Read this article to learn more about the changes to the Crowd Control System.

GENERAL
New player emote added - /emote sleep.
The "Skewbald Pinto Horse" by the Mount Vendor in Old Tarantia should now correctly resemble the visual appearance of a Skewbald Pinto.
Aegis of Blood gem proc has been given a buff.
Fixed issues with spellcasting-animations that caused them to play too fast/end abruptly/not match the actual spell being cast very well.
PVP Armor Vendors and Token Vendors should no longer, under very rare circumstances, spawn multiple times.
Fixed an issue which caused raidlocking to not work properly.
Target's target should now work properly again.
There is now a new launcher window with a new look and added functionality.
Fixed an exploit with a tier 2 crafting encounter.
Players should no longer see two characters entered in chat instead of one, on certain keyboards.
The Old Tarantia PvP vendors have been moved into their own instance. Look for the new Tarantia Armory!

COMBAT
Classes that do not use stamina for combos will no longer be able to use stamina potions.
Fixed an issue where damage from offhand attacks was granting too much hate for multi-hit combo finishers
Fixed various issues regarding hate and aggro management.
Pets will now spread in a wider area around the owner (within 6 meters). This should greatly decrease the issues with pets randomly dying.
Combo starter tooltips now show the same damage independent of your state.
Fixed an issue where sometimes effects from buffs and debuffs were getting applied twice, such as with the death penalty.

CLASSES

Assassin
A full detailed list of changes for this class can be read here.

Barbarian
Too Many To Count should no longer taunt guards.
It should once again be possible to trigger fatalities with the Whirlwind-combos.
Blood Crazed is now called Blood Fury, and has been changed to be a clickable which consumes 5 stacks of Blood Rage for a small DPS boost.
Back in the Fray has been slightly buffed.
Changed tooltip for Reaver Stance so it accurately reflects maximum stack size.

Conqueror
Crushing Onslaught will now apply two separate debuffs - one for the snare effect and another for the damage debuff. The snare effect will follow all normal rules for crowd control immunities. This is to support raid encounters where a boss needs to have only one of the immunities.
Thunderhead Banner now does an AoE mana burn (similar to how Fireweave Banner works) in addition to its current effects.

Dark Templar
Blood Hex will now do increased healing when in Frenzy Stance.
Invulnerable Soul should reapply its buff effect after resurrecting from a PvP death.

Demonologist
Reduced the range of the Fiery Torment, Storm Chains, Possession, Gate of Hell, Wicked Bolt, and Detonation spells to 5 meters.
Reduced the range of the Agonizing Jolts spell to 15 meters.
Inferno of Amher and Shockblast will now critically hit like they are supposed to when you have the spellweaving buff Hand of Doom.
Fixed text of Draw forth the Heart. Should now reflect that the caster is indeed a demonologist.
Increased the proc rate of Incinerate from the third rank of Blazing Fire. This should allow Incinerate to always apply when Combustion is feated.
Pets should now have out of combat health regeneration.

Herald of Xotli
Hellfire Breath and Demonic Fortitude have been given a new instant-cast animation that resembles the non-instant casting animations for the same spells.

Necromancer
Reduced the range of the Freeze spell to 5 meters.
Reduced the range of the Ice Shackle spell to 10 meters.
Reduced the range of the Unholy Hands spell to 15 meters.
Necromancers are only able to have one Frozen Hatred. Instead of a new Frozen Hatred spawning, the duration of the pet will increase by 60 seconds for every fatality. This is capped at 5 minutes. To visualize the duration, the Fronzen hatred will grow and shrink based on the time remaining. Larger means longer duration.
Necromancers get a new spell from level 1 called "Frozen Hatred". This spell works like a stance applying a buff that persists over death and can be deactivated by casting it again. This buff needs to be active for the Frozen Hatred to appear when you or your group members do a fatality. This way necromancers can choose when they want these frozen giants to appear.
Touch of Winter should now apply snare immunity when affecting players.
Pets should now have out of combat health regeneration.

Priest of Mitra
Reduced the range of the Eye of Judgment and Condemn spells to 5 meters.
Reduced the range of the Repudiate spell to 10 meters.
Removed the casting time of the Condemn spell. This spell will now apply its stun effect instantaneously.
Reduced the cast time of Repudiate to 1 second.
Repudiate will now follow the normal rules for crowd control breaking (breaks on % health loss instead of a % chance when taking damage).

Ranger
Immolation should do a fire damage hit when executed, as intended.
Traps have been given an overhaul, and should now behave more reliably.

Tempest of Set
Reduced the range of the Cobra Stare spell to 5 meters.
Reduced the range of the Quicksand, Visions of Hatred, and Puppets of Set spells to 10 meters.
Reduced the range of the Thundering Voice spell to 15 meters.
Thundering Voice should now properly interrupt the target of the spell.

PVP

General
When a player is attacked guards will now attempt to protect this player, instead attempting to chase the aggressor.

Massive PvP
Spellweaving players now properly get affected by knockback when getting hit by enemy siege weapons.

Minigames
Hallowed Vaults: The direct passage from the center room to the flag rooms is now filled with Poisonous Gas. It's best to not stay in this area very long, as it can be hazardous to your health.
Totem Torrent: Adjusted some collision walls to improve the gameplay flow.
The amount of PvP XP in the minigames has been doubled. The amount of PvP XP rewarded will depend on the duration of the minigame.
Capture the Skull: Guardians are now able to safely use their Last Stand ability while picking up and carrying the skull.
It should now be more difficult to interrupt players that are picking up the skull.

RAIDS
Kylikki and Leviathus now have a chance of dropping rare unique social pets. This is also the case with the new raid boss Thoth-Amon.

QUESTS

The following quests in Thoth-Amon's Stronghold have been removed:
Traitors to Stygia
Mizra's Lost Child
So Speaks Mighty Set
The Renegade Legion
The Keeper of Artifacts
Apostates of Acheron
Appeasing Crazed Demons
Heretics of Acheron

The following quest in Thoth-Amon's Stronghold has been changed:
The Fall of Thoth-Amon

Här är lite ändringar till cc också.

Based on ongoing feedback from players concerning crowd control abilities, and the impact of these abilities specifically in PvP scenarios, a number of improvements have been made to how crowd control behaves in Age of Conan. These are changes which have generally been evaluated and considered for some time, and we feel 1.06 is the right update to deliver these to players, due to other CC changes also going in the same update.

The changes outlined below will generally improve game-play by reducing the total time a character may exist in a continuously controlled state, and thus address what is known to players as “cc-locks.” This behavior can be seen in certain PvP situations, but also in PvE where mobs in some areas may chain crowd control the player. The following changes do not preclude future adjustments to crowd control.

For organizational purposes, we have thematically grouped crowd control into two divisions. Major Crowd Control, where the character is completely incapacitated, and Minor Crowd Control where only some aspects of character control is impacted. These two groups will now follow slightly different rules for immunities and cc-breaks.
Major Crowd Control – Stun, Fear, Charm, Knockback
Minor Crowd Control – Root, Snare, Silence

Major Crowd Control Rules

As the crowd control in this category include the more powerful varieties, after any player is affected by a Stun, Fear, Charm there will be applied to the player a 3 second global immunity to all forms of Major Crowd Control (Stun, Fear, Charm or Knockback). After Knockback this will be 5 seconds from when the animation starts, because Knockback cannot be broken by anti-cc (so after the animation ends it will be roughly 3 seconds). With the exception of knockback, this 3 second immunity takes affect after the crowd control effect ends, regardless of the means by which the it does so (naturally expires, via cc-break, etc). This 3 second global immunity will be in addition to other type-specific immunities which may possibly be conferred.

In addition, the Major Crowd Control affects have been made mutually exclusive with each other, so that a player cannot be affected by one Major Crowd Control while he is under the influence of another. Note this does not apply to Minor Crowd Control effects.

So for example, a player may be Feared, Rooted and Snared. But he cannot be Stunned until after the Fear has ended (since both Stun and Fear are Major Crowd Control), and of course also until after the 3 second Major Crowd Control global immunity has worn off. But during any of this time, a Silence may be applied, since Silence is not a Major Crowd Control ability.

Before when a player used a CC break which breaks multiple crowd control types, the player lost all immunities he might have had running for any of those types. For example, if a player was feared after the fear expired he had a long term fear immunity. If the player was then charmed, using Agile Mind would cause the player to lose his long term fear immunity. So one other change we have made is that when a combination CC break is used, other immunities than the type which is actively broken will no longer be removed. Thus, under the new system, if a player is hit with a fear and it naturally expires so that the player receives a long term fear immunity, and is subsequently charmed, using Agile Mind will not remove the fear immunity as it currently does now on Live.

Minor Crowd Control Rules

As currently exists, snare, root and silence can always be cross-stacked with each other. This will continue to remain true, as Minor Crowd Control are the less potent varieties and no combination of them will completely incapacitate the character.

The former behavior was that after a cc-break was applied, the subsequent immunity granted to that type was substantially less than what it would be if the cc wore off naturally. Moving forward, abilities that break Minor Crowd Control have had their cc-specific immunity extended to greater than what they were, but still less than the immunity which would be granted if the cc wore off naturally. Note that unlike Major Crowd Control, an effect in the Minor Crowd Control category confers no global immunity, and only confers an immunity to its own type, as what existed before. Other than this, abilities that break Minor Crowd Control such as Escape Artist will continue to function as they do on Live.

Also note that while currently there is no silence break, we have the option of adding one in the future, and such an ability would follow the rules for Minor Crowd Control.

Other Changes

The following changes have been made to class abilities, in addition to the global changes above:

Overwhelming Shout - cool-down reduced to 3m, stun reduced to 5s, fear to 8s, stun and fear now follow normal cc breaking rules. (% of health rather than % chance to break when taking damage).
Condemn – is now instant cast.
Exorcism - cooldown reduced to 1 minute, cast time made instant
Agile Mind – stun break has been added to the other crowd control break functions of fear and charm.

An Extended Example

Note that abilities such as Avatar of Death, Lotus Overdose, and Excellent Balance which confer long duration immunities may "stack" with the global immunity mentioned in the above sections.

So for example, consider a player who activates Avatar of Death (using the revamped Assassin) and is therefore immune to charm, knockback, root and snare for 15 seconds. He may be subsequently stunned, and then activate Agile Mind for the stun break. For three seconds after stun has ended, the player is additionally immune to fear, stun, charm and knockback from the global immunity (although the knockback and charm immunities are already conferred by Avatar of Death), on top of the immunities he already has. Note that obtaining this global immunity does not impact the duration of the immunities conferred by Avatar of Death. Also, the Assassin could technically be silenced at any point (just as an illustration of how immunities work), and the resultant immunity would be in addition to any other immunities the Assassin already has running.