Chapter 6 Notes for May 22 2007

'''Chapter 6: “Masters of the Wild” Publish Notes, May 22, 2007'''

Storyteller
Enhance your player-driven stories and adventures with a new series of props, effects, and attackable NPCs. You may place these objects in player cities or in the wild on non-adventure planets. You will have to invite other players to your story before they will be allowed to attack NPCs or open containers you have placed.

To begin telling your story, purchase storyteller tokens from Storyteller Vendors located in NPC theaters across the galaxy. To find a theater near you, open your planetary map (the V key by default) then from the right-hand menu choose Guild Halls and then Theater. Right-click the theater nearest you and make a new waypoint to guide you to your destination. Use the storyteller button in your command browser, or type /storyteller, to list all the Storyteller commands!

Beast Master
Beast Master Expertise is an exciting new feature in Chapter 6. These are new creature-centric abilities available to all players, regardless of profession or level, through a third expertise tree. Harvest DNA from the wild, obtain and craft enzymes, and incubate your fully customizable creature! Adventure in the wilds to learn abilities and level up your pet. See the Friday Feature posted on April 20th for detailed instructions on Incubation.

Beast Incubation

 * Players are limited to one active incubator unit per character. Incubators must be placed in a player structure to activate. Picking up the Incubator unit will cleanse any active experiments. The length of time between experimentation sessions is based on Incubator Functionality rating and purchased expertise boxes.

Beast Loyalty and Happiness

 * Make sure your pet is kept happy through craftable foods, tricks, and planetary travels. Keeping your pet happy in the long term will enable it to learn more abilities.

==Beast Toolbar=


 * All Beast commands that your beast is eligible for will be automatically added on the pet toolbar. Right click an ability to toggle it as an auto-repeating attack. The beast will perform the ability if it has enough action and the cool-down has expired. Two beast dispositions on this bar toggle your pet between defending you if attacked and ignoring attacks on the master. You must have training in Beast Master to use any ability beyond ‘stay’ and ‘follow.’

Beast Leveling

 * Beasts level on the master gaining combat experience. The enemy NPC must con green or higher for the beast to gain experience. If you wish to keep your pet at their current growth level, use the radial option to toggle beast experience gain off.

Beast Death

 * If your beast perishes in combat use the "Revive Beast" ability granted in the first expertise box of Beast Master.

Creature Mounts

 * Calling a creature mount will now place you upon its back automatically. Dismounting from a creature mount will now auto-store the mount.

Legacy Pets

 * All legacy pets in player datapads now have an option to "stuff" them for display in your home. Stuffed pets may also be used in the Incubation process if you wish them to live again. Stuffed pets receive bonuses in the Incubation process.

Wild Creature Special Abilities
Going hand-in-hand with the new Beast Master system, wild creatures have new specials attacks and combat abilities. Some of these abilities are learnable by the player when attacking these creatures. These abilities can then be trained to your Beast if they have the appropriate number of skill points and are of the correct creature type. Be wary going into the wilds!

Rebel Theme Park
New adventures await those who work for the Rebel Alliance! Visit C-3PO on Corellia to begin them.

Foraging
Foraging has been updated to work with Beast Master. Rules of Foraging


 * After attempting to forage in a location, you must move at least 5m to another location before attempting forage again.
 * After a successful forage, you cannot forage in that spot again this session (per character).
 * You have a 50% chance to successfully forage an item and a 50% chance to get nothing.
 * Foraged items include Bait, Lyase Enzymes, and Treasure Maps.

Treasure Maps
The major differences between this version of treasure maps and the treasure map functionality available to players at launch in 2003 include the following:


 * The enemies scale to the combat level of the player attempting to extract the treasure unless the player is below or above the map max level.
 * The enemies scale in number and combat level based on the player attempting to extract the treasure while in a group.
 * The treasure extracted is actually valuable to players between the treasure min/max levels.
 * Credits are not part of the extracted treasure and nothing is divided between the player and other group members (unless manually traded).

The Azure Cabal
Look for your contact at the cantina in Theed to learn more about the Azure Cabal, a new quest series.

Mounts and Vehicles

 * Mounts/vehicles: You can no longer call a mount or vehicle while rooted.
 * Vehicles: You can no longer enter a vehicle while rooted.

Combat Changes
There have been significant changes to the internal workings of our combat engine. Game play for the end user should remain unchanged, but some new results are possible once you pull the trigger.

New Values
NPCs and players with ranged weapons in Auto-Aim mode have a base 5% chance to miss their target. Factors such as debuffs and movement increase the player’s chance to miss. Buffs and the strength stat reduce the chance to miss. The base miss chance for melee and Manual-Aim mode is 0%. Dodge is a defensive attribute that gives a chance to avoid incoming damage. On a successful roll, the attack will be treated as a miss and no damage will be applied. Block is a defensive attribute that has a chance to mitigate additional damage based on the defender’s block score. Block mitigation is applied after armor so it is possible to reduce incoming damage to 0 with a high enough Block Value. Parry is a melee defensive attribute that will allow the defender to negate a successful attack. Normal parry can only block other melee attacks, though Lightsaber weapons can parry ranged attacks as well. Strikethrough is a type of critical which instead of adding damage will bypass a percentage of your target’s armor. The Strikethrough amount is based on the attacker’s Strikethrough Value. Evasion is a defensive attribute that will allow the target to avoid a percentage of damage from an Area Effect attack. The amount of percentage evaded is determined by the defender’s Evasion Value. A punishing blow is a type of critical only available to NPCs that do 150% damage. Elite and Boss category NPCs (as well as those higher level than the player) can land a punishing blow.
 * Miss
 * Dodge
 * Block
 * Parry
 * Strikethrough
 * Evasion
 * Punishing Blow

Updated Values
The damage reduction from a glancing blow has been reduced from 96% to 60%. In addition, Elite and Boss category NPCs (as well as those higher level than the player) have a natural chance to receive a glancing blow. The Commando heavy weapon attribute Devastation damage bonus has been reduced from 200% to 150%. Base Heavy Weapon damage has been reduced from 115% to 100%.
 * Glancing Blows
 * Devastation
 * Heavy Weapons

Damage Over Time
Damage caused by Damage Over Time (DoT) effects are now reduced via armor protections as indicated below:


 * Bleeding - Cold Protection
 * Poison - Acid Protection
 * Disease - Cold Protection
 * Fire - Heat Protection
 * Acid - Acid Protection
 * Energy - Electricity Protection

There is now a secondary resistance check on each DoT "tick" that will give a chance to resist for partial damage.

Armor
Different armor types add an increase resistance to certain DoT types based on the number of slots covered by that armor type. The effect becomes most pronounced when wearing a similar type of armor over all slots that normally offer protection.


 * Bleeding - Recon Armor
 * Poison - Battle Armor
 * Disease - Recon Armor
 * Fire - Assault Armor
 * Acid - Assault Armor
 * Energy - Battle Armor

PvP Damage Reduction

 * The Player vs. Player damage reduction has been reduced from 25% to 0%.

Direct Target vs. Area Effect Combat Results

 * Hit Types for a direct target attack are Miss, Dodge, Parry, Block, Glancing, Hit, Strikethrough, Critical, and Punishing Blow.
 * Hit Types for Area Effect attacks are Glancing, Block, Evade, Critical and Punishing Blow.
 * Note that most Heavy Weapons are treated as Area Effect attacks.

Player Attributes
The way in which player attributes feed into the combat formula has been altered:


 * Stamina and Constitution remain unchanged.
 * Precision: Affects Parry, Block Chance, Critical Hit Chance and Strikethrough Chance.
 * Agility: Affects Dodge, Parry and Evasion Chance.
 * Strength: Affects Block Chance, Block Value, Hit Chance, and adds a damage bonus to melee attacks.
 * Luck: Affects Dodge Chance, Evasion Chance, Evasion Value, Critical Hit Chance, Strikethrough Chance and Strikethrough Value.

NPC Combat

 * Creature-type NPCs now have the ability to perform special attacks.
 * NPCs will now be less inclined to leave the area while fighting indoors.
 * The idle time between decisions for NPCs has been removed.

NPC Statistics

 * Normal class NPCs above level 10 have gained an Armor Rating.
 * The Armor Rating gain scale for Elite and Boss class NPCs has been increased.
 * The Damage Value gain scale for Normal, Elite and Boss class NPCs has been increased.

Other Combat Changes

 * Personal Shield Generators (PSGs) will now take armor diminishing returns into consideration.
 * Personal Shield Generators (PSGs) no longer errantly double the protection you receive against any damage that has an elemental component.
 * Enabled root and snare resistance for a number of high end creatures.
 * Area Effect attacks now have a chance to trigger reactive procedural effects.
 * Reactive procedural effects are now normalized based on attack speed.
 * Jedi robes are counted as "Recon" armor for the purposes of DoT resists.
 * The DoT absorption cap has been lowered to 65%.
 * You no longer lose action or activate cooldown timers when attempting to use a self-only heal while you are at full health.

Traders

 * Geothermal Survey Device draft schematics added to all traders.

Structure Traders

 * Geothermal Energy Generator draft schematics have been added to structure traders.

Munition Traders

 * Added 14 new draft schematics. These are "Dietary Supplements" for beasts.
 * These supplements are used to greatly increase a beast’s experience gain.
 * Only beasts under level 75 can benefit from these.
 * There are two experimentation lines, one for charges and one for the actual experience bonus.
 * Bonus is a straight percent. If you craft a supplement that had 500, that means the beast will get 500% bonus.
 * Each supplement works on different types of creatures. The description for each supplement lists what beast types it works on.

Domestic Traders

 * 1 new draft schematic added. This is a sub-component needed for crafting Beast Dietary Supplements.
 * Domestic Traders can now create 12 new food substitutes used to feed animal companions.

Content

 * Changed quest reward for quest "Tasty Dried Critters" to give 90% quality Chuba DNA.
 * Mustafar: Koseyet Mining Camp: Players can no longer damage mining structures.
 * Mustafar: Koseyet Mining Camp: Updated buff effects for High Morale and Low Morale.

GCW

 * Reduced proc chance on the GCW reactive health and action restoration stims.
 * Periodic bonus from GCW regions should be granted more reliably.

Miscellaneous

 * Buffs: The Favor of the Elder buff has had a particle and audio effect added to its activation.
 * Bug Fix: Abilities that consume a percentage of action will now use the player’s base action value.
 * Bug Fix: The Jedi Expertise “Anticipate Aggression” now correctly reduces damage by the stated amount.
 * Chat: a default BeastMastery chat channel has been created.
 * Droids: Droids can only guard their master.
 * Droids: Guard command should allow droids to auto-defend their master.
 * Loot: Added Chu-Gon Dar recipe for the Domesticator, Subduer, Subjucator, Tamer and Master Taming Necklace.
 * UI: New elite target status window.
 * UI: Target, self, and pet status displays can now display two rows of buffs/debuffs.
 * UI: Target and self status displays can now display ten buffs/debuffs in a single row.

Professions

 * Bounty Hunter: Intimidate Marks 2 and above now should have particles and sound associated with them.
 * Commando: Base of Operations now works on Jedis wearing Jedi robes.
 * Commando: Flame throwers now produce devastating hits.
 * Commando: Cryoban Grenade 2 changed to use a cryoban grenade and particle effect.
 * Jedi: The ability “Saber Block” will now increase parry chance by 10%.
 * Jedi: Expertise “Improved Saber Block” will now improve chance to parry by 5% per point.
 * Jedi: Expertise “Stance Saber Block” renamed “Defensive Fighting”. “Defensive Fighting” is a passive 10% increase to parry chance independent of stance.
 * Jedi: Defensive “Stance” line improves chance to receive a glancing blow.
 * Jedi: Offensive “Focus” line changed to provide a Strength bonus, and increase critical hit chance.
 * Jedi: Expertise Reactive Response returns action based on the unmitigated damage value.
 * Medic: Stasis now increases dodge and evasion chance instead of a glancing blow bonus.
 * Medic: Stasis now also applies a short "Cure Affliction" DoT removal effect when used.
 * Medic: The Nerve Gas Canister, Baleful Miasma, and Trauger Gas Canister no longer use a dust devil particle effect. They now use a yellow miasmic fog.
 * Medic: Bacta Bomb was using too many particles. The particle count has been lowered.