Pumping Irony

This time it’s an extended time period Hirelings will be available. The event actually started Wednesday at 2pm EST and runs until Monday morning. Turbine provides a link to a feedback form with each event and while this weekend’s event has no changes to the system, the next event in December (exact date has not been announced yet) will include the following changes:

• Hireling contracts will no longer work on a timer system. Instead, all Hireling contracts will be one-use, and you can carry the contract for as long as you want until you need it! Once summoned, your Hireling will stay with you until you enter a public area. You will still only be able to summon one Hireling between rests, and if you dismiss your Hireling or enter a public space, you’ll need to rest before you can summon the next one with another contract.
• Contract prices will also be significantly reduced. Hiring your Hireling will be more affordable than ever before!
• High level Hireling vendors will be available in more locations.
• Hirelings will support a “Defensive” command, in addition to “Passive” and “Active” commands. Defensive mode will be the new default for all Hirelings when they enter your party. In Defensive mode, Hirelings will remain Passive until enemies attack them or their master first, at which point they become Active to heal (if applicable) and engage in the fight.
• Improvements have been made to Cleric Hirelings. They will be more concerned with healing both themselves and their master. They will also be more responsive to explicit Healing commands.
• Many bugs were able to be fixed related to Hirelings; the full list will be available in patch release notes.

Sounds like some nice changes to the system coming up; I’ll look forward to seeing the full patch notes whenever that goes live. The tweaked Cleric AI especially sounds like a welcome change. One Alesia (Guild Wars henchmen monk who thinks she’s a tank and would rather not heal anyone) is enough…

This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm and is filed under DDO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.