10/05/2021—October 5 Release Notes

Living World

Halloween

Once again, the gates of the Mad Realm have opened, and Kryta’s most infamous monarch, Mad King Thorn, has returned to hold court in Lion’s Arch! Loyal vassals of the king are strongly encouraged to enjoy the festivities: meet the denizens of the Mad Realm in events across Kryta, tour the Mad Realm itself in the labyrinth and fearsome clock tower, compete with your fellow mortals in Lunatic Inquisition, Reaper’s Rumble, and the Mad King’s Raceway, attend to the king’s whims in his notorious pastime of Mad King Says, or match wits and blades against royalty in Ascent to Madness.

*Disturbing reports have reached the Durmand Priory regarding changes in the Mad King’s Labyrinth. Adventurers are encouraged to meet with Magister Tassi of the Durmand Priory in Lion’s Arch to be briefed on a fact-finding expedition.

**The Lion’s Arch Captain’s Council wishes to remind its populace that they are not affiliated with the Krytan monarchy and cannot guarantee the safety of any citizens who choose to dabble in dangerous realms, mad or otherwise.

• A new visitor has appeared in the Mad King’s Labyrinth, interrupting the Bloody Prince’s prolonged rebellion. Several new achievements have been added to guide adventurers in investigating the unvarnished true story behind this latest development in the Mad Realm.
• The annual Halloween Rituals meta-achievement has been updated with a fashionable new reward, the Grasping Gaze Shoulders! Earn this spooky new armor piece by completing a variety of Halloween activities and show your allegiance to the Mad King’s court with pride. Last year’s meta reward, the Lunatic Court Cape, can now be purchased from Halloween vendors if you missed it.
• Three new weapons are now available as rare drops from Trick-or-Treat Bags. They can also be purchased from Sparking Stone in Lion’s Arch.
• New rewards, including a festive new miniature and chef’s recipe, have been added to Halloween vendors.
• New Halloween-themed guild decorations have been added.
• Added a new weekly Halloween achievement, Halloween Festivities. Earn progress by participating in a variety of Halloween activities.
• Two new boss encounters have been added in the Mad King’s Labyrinth!
• The Grand High Viscount of Candy Corn, Skeletal Lich, and Labyrinthine Horror have been updated with improved skill warnings and rebalanced skills.
• Door icons in the Mad King’s Labyrinth are now split based on the enemy type; boss events use a different icon than monster waves.
• Slightly increased the enemy count of veteran haunted-door events in the labyrinth.
• Mad King Thorn has been updated in Ascent to Madness with improved skill warnings and rebalanced skills.
• Adjusted the timing of the Mad King’s Clock Tower to reduce tragic miscalculations on the final jump.
• Reduced the delay time before intermediate chests in the Mad King’s Clock Tower can be looted for a second time.
• The services of a court tailor can now be commissioned in the Mad King’s Labyrinth by adventurers seeking armor repairs.
• Removed Trick-or-Treat Bag rewards from the Lunatic Inquisition Regular repeatable achievement.
• Added a Lunatic Boatmaster to the Eye of the North to allow easy travel to the Mad Realm.
• Many small bugs have been polished to ensure a more fun festival than ever for all visitors to the Mad Realm.

The gates to the Mad Realm will be open for a treat-filled five weeks, from October 5 until November 9. Have a happy Halloween!

Halloween Bonus Bash

As a special kickoff to the festivities, adventurers will enjoy bonus experience, magic find, and reward-track progress across Tyria! In addition, adventurers at or above level 10 who seek out the Mist Stranger in their starting map during the Halloween Bonus Bash event can receive a once-per-account choice of class-appropriate main-hand weapons that scale in power as they gain levels. Whether you’re a new player or a veteran, it’s a perfect chance to jumpstart an adventuring career!

This bonus will only last for the first week of Halloween, from October 5 until October 12, so be sure to jump in!

General

• Fixed several bugs relating to interactions between the Dye and Wardrobe sections of the Equipment tab in the Hero panel. The character preview now consistently reflects selected dyes and skins, before and after clicking Apply.
• All level-80 equipment granted by the Level-80 Boost is now of the Celestial (all attributes) stat set. This is not retroactive; only Level-80 Boosts used after this update will receive Celestial equipment. Previously, most professions were given Soldiers (power, toughness, vitality) equipment. The intent of this change is to ensure that all characters using a Level-80 Boost are given a serviceable equipment set that will allow players to experiment freely with their skill and trait choices and not result in situations in which their chosen traits and skills are entirely unsupported by their equipment.
• After a visit from a friend, a merchant in Lion’s Arch has now had their proper name revealed.
•   As of September 21, the effect reset that occurs when players begin a raid or strike removes the same effects as the reset that occurs when players change traits or templates.

DirectX 11 Beta

• Fixed bugs with textures that dynamically change resolution.
• Fixed world rendering issues caused by a problem with a postprocessing effect.
• Fixed an issue that caused some ground-cover props to appear with incorrect colors.
• Fixed an issue that caused the map to look slightly burry.
• Fixed an issue that unchecked the Enable DX11 Rendering (Beta) check box when players used the Autodetect preset.
• Added better support for uncapped frame rates when in fullscreen and windowed fullscreen modes.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Phoenix Glider from rendering correctly.

Items

• Platter of Delectable Birthday Cakes: The Nourishment effect from this feast now has the correct icon. It can now replace other Nourishment effects, and it can refresh its own duration.
• Fixed a bug in which the Mist Offensive Potion would mistakenly increase the condition damage stat total by a percentage, in addition to the intended increase to outgoing power and condition damage. This bug allowed condition builds to “double dip” on the benefits of this potion.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the benefits of multiple “on weapon swap” sigils that added an effect to your next attack (Sigils of Leeching, Doom, or Vision, for example), to be used simultaneously under certain circumstances.

Profession Skills

General

• All effects that provide a percentage reduction to incoming damage have been standardized to stack multiplicatively.
• Fixed a bug causing duration-stacking boons to be affected by a hidden stack limit of 9, which in some cases could come into effect before stacking to that boon’s expected duration cap. This resulted in some boons having a lower total duration than expected. This hidden stack limit has been removed for duration-stacking boons that also have a maximum duration—alacrity, fury, protection, quickness, resistance, resolution, swiftness, and vigor.

Engineer

• Medic Gyro: Fixed a bug in which the visual indicator for the water field created by this skill when traited with Gyroscopic Acceleration was smaller than expected.

Mesmer

Mirage

• Chaos Vortex: Fixed a bug in which alacrity was being granted in a circle around the targeted enemy rather than around the casting mesmer.

Ranger

Druid

• We’ve observed that in strikes and raids, it has become common practice for druids to ask someone in their group to use the /gg command so they can fill their Celestial Energy resource by reviving them before engaging the boss. If you’re going to have full Celestial Energy anyway, we see no point in making the group wait for this! Now, when engaging a raid or strike boss, the druid’s Celestial Energy resource is automatically set to 100%.

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Black Lion Chest

• The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Reaper’s Vision Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.

Late Notes: October 5, 2021

10/05/2021—Late Notes

General

• Fixed a bug in which players who prepurchased End of Dragons™ and did not own any other expansion were able to create revenant characters but were unable to enter the game with them.

DirectX 11 Beta

• Fixed a client crash caused when players viewed some vistas while using certain graphics settings.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the client to freeze.