- We have a new system for handling loss of experience points (XP) when dying. XP lost will be placed in a pool, and not lost forever. Each time you get XP, you will get a bonus that is pulled from this pool, until the pool is empty and you have regained all the lost XP. The bonus is given as a percentage of the XP you gain by normal means, and starts at 30%. Thus, if you have lost 30000 XP, and get 1000 XP per monster killed, you will get a 300 XP bonus per kill, and have all the lost XP back after 100 kills. This percentage can be increased, e.g. by Bureaucrat nano programs.
Skills
- A change has been made to the way skill is calculated to determine your damage multiplier. This kicks in at 1000 Attack Rating. Each profession now has a different multiplier scale above 1000 AR, so two different professions using the same weapon with the same AR will not necessarily do the same damage.
- The Martial Arts combat templates (used when you fight with bare hands) have been updated, and now continue to improve when going above 1000 in Martial Arts skill. Martial Artists (the profession) have received a boost to their barehanded attacks compared to other professions.
- Parry now has a higher chance of success. However, it also requires that you wield a weapon suitable for parrying, and that the incoming attack is performed with a weapon that can be parried.
- Riposte has become an automatic skill, just like parry. If you succeed in riposting, you will block the incoming attack and perform an attack of opportunity on the attacker. This attack is instant and free, not interrupting any other actions you may be performing. Riposte is checked before Parry, has a lower base chance of success than Parry, and has the same requirements to defender and attacker weapons as Parry.
- New special attack: Backstab. This is available to Adventurers and Shades only, and only when reaching 340 or 110 in base (non-buffed) Sneak Attack skill, respectively. A backstab can only be performed on a target that's not paying attention to you, and only when located behind the target. A damage multiplier is added at 540 (Adventurer) or 235 (Shade) in skill, and a critical hit modifier will be added at 625 (Adventurer) or 420 (Shade) in skill.
- The rate of increase for doing a critical with Sneak Attack has been lowered when the Sneak Attack skill goes above 1000. It still goes up, only more slowly than below 1000 in skill.
- Dimach now increase in power above 1000 in skill. Martial Artists will also notice the attack recycling faster above 1000 in skill.
Nano Technology
- Nano programs have new rules for stacking (working together) and overwriting (more powerful programs replacing weaker ones).
- Nano programs belonging to a program line will now have this line displayed in their description.
- There is now a hard cap on the effect you can achieve with nanopoint reduction items. This cap is based on your breed, and is as follows: nano 55%, solitus and opifex 50%, atrox 45%.
- You can no longer be teleported when rooted or stunned. This includes evacuation programs.
Combat
- The aggression slider (also known as AggDef, or Def / Agg slider) now has a bigger effect on defensive skills.
- You can now switch combat target without ending combat, by pressing Shift + 'q'.
Teams
- When entering playfields that might exist in several copies, all members of the team will end up in the same copy. An exception is when the playfield is already well above its normal population limit, in which case team members will end up in different copies.
Pets
- Player controlled pets are no longer affected by fear nano programs.
- You can select you pets (including service tower) with Shift + F1-F4.
- Modification to the Meta-Physicists' pets whose attacks "confuses and clouds the mind". They should now be operating correctly, and work in the following way: When used against a mob, they will prohibit that mob from moving or fighting while the pet's attacks continues to land. When used against a player, they will prohibit the player from moving, but the player can still attack (you are not getting the ability to perma-stun a player).
- Damages received and dealt by your pets can have their own colour and can be muted separatly from other damage types.
Miscellaneous
- It's now possible to crawl. While crawling, you can only attack with ranged weapons (no modifiers though), and the only way to end a crawl is by standing up.
- You can now relax in style by doing a /lounge command while sitting. Return to sitting by pressing 'x'.
- The maximum number of missions a character can have at any time has been increased from 3 to 9.
- A jump limitation has been put in to prevent players from jumping too high.
- The amount of items an apartment can contain has been increased from 10 to 30.
- We have reduced the chance of taking damage when falling.
Performance
- We made our Level of Detail (LOD) system a bit more intelligent. Objects in the world will change LOD more correctly.
- Several improvements have been done to performance in indoor areas, including lighting calculation, visibility checks and objects fading into and out of view.
- If trying to zone into a playfield whose server is under heavy load, the zoning will fail. When the server frame rate improves, you will be able to zone.
Nano programs
- All start-up nano crystals have had their requirements to use lowered. You will no longer have to set any skills before uploading and using them. This step is part of our ongoing process to make the game easier to get into for newcomers.
- Some nano programs might have a minimum execution time. This means that no matter how high initiative skills you gain, the execution time will not go below this value.
- Programs designed to knock out people in Grid Armor now checks whether Grid Armor is worn, not the value of the target's AddAllDef modifier.
- Nullity Sphere now checks whether they're already running, not the value of your Field Quantum Physics skill.
- Several programs performing a nano shutdown effect on the user have had their shutdown values increased, and now debuff all nano skills with 4000 points.
- Adventurers' direct damage programs (nukes) now check whether the needed polymorph is running, and no longer debuffs the Matter Creation skill.
- Meta-Physicists' programs for reducing the chance of being interrupted while executing programs now actually do that, instead of increasing the chance.
- Meta-Physicists' Infuse with Knowledge buffs now last for 50 minutes as they were intended.
- The Meta-Physicists' Evocation line of pet buffs has been increased in duration somewhat. They start at 2 minutes in duration and scale up to 7 minutes. MPs are seen to need to continually 'pump' their anger into their pets, but this longer duration will mean they only need to do an Evocation at the start of a fight, and not continuously during it.
- Executing them again will now recharge Fixers’ NCU buffs.
World
- You are no longer allowed to summon players into Condemned subway.
Monsters and Non-Player Characters (mobs)
Combat
- Mobs see sitting and heavily injured characters as easy kills, and are very likely to attack them.
- Mobs will use all special attacks their weapons can perform. The amount of damage they can do with these attacks is limited, to prevent them from becoming too tough.
Other changes
- Mobs no longer take damage from the environment, e.g. acid pools and lava
Items
Tweaks and corrections
- You might find items that buff a stat called "Skill Lock Modifier". This is not a new stat - we just haven't used it much before. This stat reduces the time your skill is locked by 1 percent per point. On e.g. a First Aid Kit - Skill Lock Modifier 15 would decrease the First Aid lock time from 20 seconds to 17 seconds. A lock can never be reduced by more than 50% of the original time.
- We have fixed some misleading element in the description on the Bracer of Pacifism.
- Martial Arts special attacks can now be used while wielding martial arts weapons (weapons with Martial Arts skill as requirement).
- Cluster Bullets now require that you are in combat, and that you are using a sub-machine gun.
- Some weapons might have minimum attack and recharge periods. This means that no matter how high initiative skills you gain, the weapon won't attack more often than the total of these minimum periods.
- All weapons in the game have now got a new stat. It is called "Max Beneficial Skill". You have probably noticed that the higher skill you have with a weapon, the higher damage you do. "Max Beneficial Skill" is a cap that we have placed on all weapons for balance purposes - to give us better control with the damage weapons do. We have tried to make sure that this doesn't make many of the old weapons less effective, but there are many hundred weapons in the game (many thousands with all the variations), so glitches might have happened. In a few cases we might also consciously have reduced the effectiveness of certain weapons. The full skill is still used for determining your chance to hit with your weapon.
- Parrying now depends on the weapons used by the attacker and the defender. Parrying is only possible if the attacker's weapon can be parried, and the defender's weapon is useable for parrying.
- Forms used to change side to clan or Omni-Tek requires those with the Shadowlands expansion pack to not have a negative faction rating with the side you're attempting to change to. They have also had their description corrected with regards to time between using two forms.
- A change has been made to the Bloodleech and Bloodslave rings. The amount of health regained when using these rings is now based on the amount of damage inflicted (75% returned for the Bloodleech and 67% for the Bloodslave, as before). If the target of the ring effect lowers (through reflects, for example) the amount of damage inflicted, the amount you are healed will also be lowered.
- The problem with zoning in a vehicle when you exactly match the requirement and still dropped you out of the vehicle has been fixed.
- Nano Technicians can now use the Primeval Skull.
Technical
- New Graphical User Interface (GUI)! We have added major parts of the new GUI, which we will continue to expand on in the updates to come. To activate the new GUI, go to Options (F10), open the Misc window and select "Enable new control panel". You'll need to exit the game and log in again for it to be activated.
- When shots fired from ranged weapons miss their target, the visual tracer now takes a more appropriate direction.
- Some bugs in the Short Transfer Uniform Controlled Kick system (also known as /stuck) have been fixed. The system will now work while swimming, provided you don't move around, and provide better arrival locations. Omni-Trans would like to apologize for any inconvenience the bugs may have caused.
- Fixed so that using chat refs and %t commands work on the same line of chat.
- 640 x 480 resolution is no longer supported. The minimum resolution is now 800 x 600.
- Your character will turn transparent when you move the camera close to him. This can be disabled/tweaked under he Option/Environment panel.