Champions Online updated: A rough upgrade

Capping off the first month for Champions Online, a fresh update this-morning has brought in quite a number of changes, fixes and enhancements, but more than a few teething problems.

The patch ran a half-hour overtime, and seemed initially fine. Unfortunately within a half-hour of going live, the character selection service stopped responding, and players were abruptly disconnected from the game servers. At 6:40AM Pacific, a notice went up indicating that Cryptic hoped to have the servers back up in approximately one hour.

That didn't happen, and things blew out another hour, and while servers were reported to have been restored by 8:30AM Pacific, the live servers crashed again almost immediately.

According to the notes, the market's just starting to get an overhaul (and indeed, it seemed pretty basic), and there's been some tuning to pets which should warm the hearts of current pet-owners. The Waterfront Watcher and My Lost Foot missions have been fixed up again (perhaps genuinely working now). Monster Island itself has been padded with more content, missions and rewards, which will make those of you in the 30+ level range a lot happier.

On the other hand, Psimon, and the VIPER Psionic Directors have decided that they should be defensively buffing themselves and not you. So, be careful out there, okay?

General

• Early improvements to the Market. It's now possible to search beyond the initial results, when there are potentially more items.

• Added indicator of the 5 second cooldown between searches.

• The change instance buttons are now only enabled for main zone maps.

• If your mouse cursor disappears, try running "/SoftwareCursorForce 1".

• Builds were improperly switching stacks of items and returning "Inventory full". This has been fixed.

• Fixed a number of memory-related crashes.

• New Steam achievements! These are not retroactively applied currently, however we [Cryptic] are looking into adding the technology to make this possible.

• Headshots were occasionally showing a costume other than your own. This has been fixed.

• Fixed game preferences not saving on new installations.

User Interface and Chat

• Improved resource formatting.

• Fixed bugs where several of the submenus in the chat popup menu sometimes appear partially offscreen.

• Added arrows to expand/collapse team mission.

• Fixed a bug that sometimes made the price of a guild bank tab not appear in the tooltip.

• Clicking empty power slots opens the powers UI now ONLY when you are out of combat.

• Enabled the super group vault log, which will show a log of the last 500 deposits to and withdraws from the super group vault. Click on the right-most button at the top of the super group vault UI to access it.

• Chat channel: As a channel admin, destroying the last channel you are subscribed to will now properly disable the 'leave' and 'admin' buttons in the channel summary.

• Added special type-specific background icons for empty slots for all power and item types in main trays and builds UI to clarify what goes where.

• Added lightning bolt UI indicator for when you have points to spend at a Power House.

• Added target-of-target indicator to UI.

• Added role indicator to team frames.

• Fixed alignment and clipping issues on the stat readout on characteristic and talent descriptions.

• Trade UI is now part of the fixed UI system instead of its own large window.

• Activation bars are now resizable; interaction bars/prompts area now sits above pets tray by default on all resolutions.

• Added targeted versions of all emotes, so if you emote while targeting someone, it will indicate this in your emote message.

• Added a few new emotes (wink, sigh, cry, frown, giggle, nod, facepalm).

• Chat - Long lines with multi-byte characters (such as '?') will now wrap properly.

• Chat auto-complete now properly completes & replaces multi-word character names.

• Chat auto-complete for /tell now includes a list of recent /tell correspondents.

• Chat auto-complete is now annotated by color to indicate where player suggestions came from (e.g. team, friend, guild, local, chat, etc.). A textual annotation can also be turned on by going to Chat Settings > Options and checking on "Annotate Auto-Complete".

• Using the same emote repeatedly will no longer spam chat text.

• Chat text will now replace $player with your name and $target with your target's name. So you can e.g. '/bind y "emote point $$ local Attack $target!"'.

• Names will again always appear over heads when selecting "Always" in the HUD options.

• Auction UI now uses a static cooldown, meaning you won't see crazy cooldowns like 200 seconds.

Powers

• Martial Arts powers: Inexorable Tides: These power now gain bonus damage from the player's Strength (up to +20%), the same as all other melee powers. As a reminder, this bonus is cumulative and not related to the bonus from your Characteristic Focuses.

• A number of changes to pets have been made. All pets attempt to follow with 8' of their owner. Read on for more changes.

• Combat Pets: Attack Mode: Critters attack the player's target and will continue to do so until the target is dead. Then they will immediately target the player's current target and use it as their own target and so on. If the player has no attack target the critter returns to the player. Players can cause the pets to switch targets at any time by pressing the attack button again. Targets for critters can only be set out to 150' from the owner.

• Combat Pets: Assist Mode: If the player initiates combat, critters set their attack target to be the player's target and attack. If the player (or critters) are attacked first, the critters use default aggro rules. Critters return to the player after combat has ended.

• Combat Pets: Passive Mode: Pets follow the player and never enter combat.

• Combat Pets: Stay Mode: Critters stop following the player and do not enter combat if the player does. If the critter takes damage it will enter combat. If this causes the critter to move more than 100' from the spot it was told to stay, it will return to the spot after combat. Critters despawn if the player moves more than 200' from the critter.

• Follow response time improved for pets. Pets also have collision with their owners.

• Fixed bug with Frenzy command for wolf pets that would cause them to not respond if one wolf dies.

• Fixed a case where a long range target could causes turrets in Assist mode to not fire.

• Healing Drones: Attack Mode: If player is targeting a friendly, that friendly will be used as the critter's target. If targeting an enemy, the critter will use the enemy's target as its own target. Drones will heal this target until they are over 90% health and then will return to the owner. Drones will not interrupt their healing to aid the player if their owner is damaged. Drones also do not switch targets if the enemy's target changes. Pressing Attack again will update the target.

• Healing Drones: Assist Mode: Drones will heal the owner if below 90% health. If above 90%, drones will attempt to heal any allies within 50' of the owner. If the owner moves outside of 50', the drones will break off of their healing and follow the owner. If the owner drops below 90% health while healing an ally, the drones will switch to target their owner.

• Healing Drones: Passive Mode: Drones follow the player and do not heal.

• Healing Drones: Stay Mode: Critters remain stationary and attempt to heal any allies below 90% health within 12' (the range of the healing beam), giving preference to their owner. Drones despawn if the owner moves over 200' away from them.

• Common: Block: Now properly reduces your movement speed while flying or swinging.

Archery

• Quarry: Updated Quarry's description to indicate that it does have ranks and what ranking it up does: "Increasing the rank of Quarry increases the amount that the Quarry buff reduces the energy cost of all of your powers by."

Darkness

• Dark Transfusion: Health damage from this power is no longer considered damage, and therefore cannot be prevented or avoided.

Fire

• Flashfires damage increased a bit.

Gadgeteering

• Attack Toys: Known Issue: Cloned toys sometime hesitate to enter combat when first summoned.

Ice

• The Ice Cage component of the Chill effect now procs for high ranking enemies, such as Legendary Villains. They're too powerful to actually be contained by it, but it may be shattered as normal for bonus damage.

• Ice Sheath is now on the same shared cooldown as the other Active Offenses (Fire Sheath, etc).

Might

• Clobber: Sucker Punch: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.

• Defensive Combo: The way this power applies the Defiance buff has been changed. It will no longer stack the Defiance buff, instead, it will apply 1 stack of Defiance if no stack currently exists, or refresh any number of existing applications of Defiance.

• Defensive Combo: Surge of Strength has been changed to function the same way, and now guarantees an application or refresh of Defiant on every swing.

Munitions

• Power Replace: Energy Pistol: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.

• Power Replace: Energy Sniper Rifle: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.

Power Armor

• Chest Beam: Corrected rank 2 and 3 descriptions for Chest Beam. Previously these descriptions were indicating Chest Beam was a column power when it was a single target power only.

• Gauntlet Chainsaw: Fixed a bug preventing it from scaling with Strength, as all Melee powers do.

• Power Gauntlet: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.

Single Blade

• Scything Blade: Swallow Tail Cut: This advantage now affects Master Villains (in addition to players, henchmen, and villains). Additionally, the bleed inflicted by this advantage may now be Ruptured (such as with Reaper's Embrace), though doing so only deals normal bleed damage, not a percentage of the target's life.

• Dragon's Bite: Attack now does damage in two small (dare I say "bite sized"?) chunks. The actual damage per attack is unchanged; this is a purely cosmetic change.

• Dragon's Bite: Cull the Weak: This advantage now deals +30% damage (up from +20%) to enemies that are at 25% or lower health (up from 20%). This bonus damage is now folded into the attack's base damage, instead of appearing as a distinct damage amount. This advantage also inflicts instant kills on Henchmen and Villains that are at 25% or lower health (up from 20%). It no longer inflicts instant kills on players, but it does inflict the bonus 30% damage.

Sorcery

• Skarn's Bane no longer interrupted by damage (actually, this time).

Unarmed

• Lightning Reflexes - Aura for Lightning Reflexes power can now have its color customized.

Critters

• After careful consideration, and much consultation with Medusa, Psimon has come to the conclusion that it would be better tactics for him to use his power, Reflective Psionic Shield, to protect HIMSELF, rather than his enemies. As an act of cross - villain good will, he has passed this idea on to the VIPER Psionic Directors.

• Chimera: Attacks are no longer interruptable. Now has a 100ft range attack.

Devices

• Changed duration on Psionic Storm power used by the Psi Storm Crystal so that it correctly matches the duration of the Storm and shows you the actual range of damage pulses, not what it could get up to at 1000 seconds (not actually possible with the 30 second duration of the item).

Missions/Environments

• Patrol Missions now drop items as loot rather than inserting them directly into your inventory.

• Add subtitles to all flyover cutscenes.

Tutorial

• Updated lighting (made it more neutral, like character creator).

• Non-shareable missions can now be set to the Primary Mission.

• When a Primary Mission is set, teammates who don't have the mission will see the objectives in their mission tracker and will see the waypoints for that mission.

• When a Primary Mission is set, all teammates will only see the waypoints of the furthest-behind team member for that mission.

• You can now see the mission progress of your teammates next to their portraits. If a primary mission is set, this shows the primary mission. Otherwise, it shows the last mission that made progress on.

• Most mission rewards should now be equippable regardless of level so that if you can complete the mission you can equip the reward.

• Defender was given a new expression to allow his Voice Over to originate from his position even while moving!

Desert

• Deadbeat now correctly responds to players that are outside his level range.

• The Uranium Strapped Irradiates in the Desert Crisis correctly re-enter combat after a player leaves the combat radius and a new or same player enters the combat radius while the first bomb is still counting down.

Millennium City

• My Lost Foot: Fixed another bug that could cause Xiress to get stuck or fail to spawn.

• Waterfront Watcher: Fixed another bug that could cause James Harmon to become unresponsive.

• "Jailbreak" - changed the ringleaders to run to a point when they spawn so that they are separated from one another. Also made the critters around the reward bag despawn when the mission is completed.

• "Discord and Harmony": Cleans itself up after the mission.

• Xiress's escort mission will clear correctly on completion so that others can play.

• "Hyperborean Warding": Fixed an issue preventing more than one player from completing the mission.

Monster Island

• A large amount of new content has been added to Monster Island, including new missions, instances, and rewards.

• Burden of Beastmen: changed the cooldown on the open mission to be 30 min instead of 10.

• Swine's Secret: Some of the maps were on top of throwable tables, so the player was prompted to throw the table before picking up the map. The tables are no longer throwable.

Nemesis

• Players should no longer have issues when trying to complete the Nemesis mission, Decrowning the Aegir.

• Fixed a bug preventing the creation of a Nemesis with Sorcery powers.

• Violent Majority: The bug with the open mission not updating properly when the player destroys the door debris before freeing the receptionist has been fixed.

• "Fool's Gold": Field Researcher Viera should have less issues patrollling. The proper Nemesis minions should also spawn correctly now.

• Rocket Hawk and Lady Rocket Hawk were way too strong in the Volcanic Lair. Now you'll actually have to try to beat your Nemesis instead of letting them do the work.

• Fixed issue with Greater Lava Beast in the Volcanic Lair that was preventing players from continuing through the mission.

• "Bunker Buster" should now complete correctly.

• "Bait and Switch" should now update Draysha Canisters properly.

Crafting

• Dimensional Alliance Imbuement no longer generates error message when player attempts to learn it.

• Secondary Upgrades economic/research value reduced to 25% to match their deconstruction component values and relative value to Primaries.

• Custom crafting blueprints will now say that they are custom along with what specialization they are.

• Fixed bug where Timeless enhancement was requiring Arms components instead of Mysticism components.

Costume Creator/Tailor

• Changing genders will no longer clear the costume undo history.

Hero Games

• Hero Games: Increased Hero Games XP and Acclaim rewards for all Hero Games matches (UTC, BASH, and Apocalypse).

• Hero Games matches now give more XP when games last longer (30-minute scenario games now give more XP than 10-minute arena matches). HOWEVER, you'll get more XP per hour if you win your current match and start another than if you drag it out. AFK players still receive no rewards.

• Stronghold Apocalypse: Added pre-game respawn lobbies to Stronghold: Apocalypse, to prevent spawn camping.