This has been on Test a few days, and it goes live tonight. There’s a lot there, but here are a few highlights that caught my eye.
- A full Retcon is available for any character created before 2009-09-10 08:30 UTC. To use it, visit the Powers Trainer, choose “Retcon,” and click on “Use Free Reset.”
- This patch provides a number of changes to various power sets. Please check the detailed patch notes before making any decisions regarding power purchasing (or before redeeming your free Retcon).
Both very important notes. First off, they’ve decided not to finesse the respec to just characters that were created during the Early Start. Either that was more difficult than believed, or they figured they’d just do the right thing and give everyone a respec (which, given it’s a new game, and they’re doing some further power changes this time, makes sense).
So RTFM!
General
- […] Changed the way Strength adds to physical melee damage powers. Damage bonus is still capped at 20%, but this cap is now much easier to reach, and can be reached just through some modest effort at collecting gear, without a Characteristic Focus in Strength. This change has NO EFFECT on damage added from taking Strength as a Characteristic Focus. This is a distinct and separate bonus.
I don’t particularly understand this one, but I don’t understand the normal Strength bonus for melee vs. what it sounds like comes when you take Strength as a Characteristic Focus.
- The help UI now includes an internal game manual.
The more in-game help, the better.
- Reduced quantity of posts to Twitter and Facebook.
Well, that doesn’t explain much, does it? I’ll have to look and see. I wonder if that will address the 408 error that was being generated by Twitter.
User Interface and Chat
- The in-game mouse cursor has all-new appearances based on whether you’re pointing at a friend, an enemy, etc.
Good.
- The minimap now has a settings button on the right side (indicated by a gear). Under settings you can toggle what kind of icons you want the minimap to display.
Useful.
- Added a new social button to the minimap which will open the social window.
Better than using the menu system,
- There is now a sell confirmation for double-clicking an item in the store, and by right-clicking an item in your inventory while the store is open. There will not be any confirmation if you click the sell button at the bottom of the store window.
Yes! I’ve sold several things inadvertently that way. “Hmmm, do I want to sell this? No, let’s put it in my … wait, where did it go?
- Added /itunes and /winamp to set the active music player and open it.
Um … okay.
- Added search button to social UI.
That sounds helpful.
- Large windows no longer auto-close fixed-position windows when opened (they still close other large windows, though).
Powers
Margie observes that “now functions properly” usually means a nerf (if not further explained).
Many Power tweaks. Worth reading in detail.
Crafting
- Added Competent, Skilled, Very Skilled, Highly Skilled to all component descriptions to clarify what band of skill levels they are used in Blueprints.
- If you have no crafting blueprints, you now get basic instructions in the crafting UI when you open it.
Anything they can do to make this more transparent and easier to understand is well worth it.
By the way, is there a way to tell what school and subspecialty in crafting you’ve taken with a character?
Anyway, as noted, there’s a ton more. Not surprising at this stage of the game, and good that they’re responding as quickly as they are to problems.