Talk:Wilderness bonus
..because everything is better with a decimal place and a 0.
You heard correctly: The bonus has finally been rewritten.
This is live in Platinum only for now, and will go to Prime / TF after a week or so.
Previously the bonus was capable of taking a Ranger to a very negative state as well as a large positive one. We've greatly reduced the negative penalty for having a tanked bonus, but we've also brought the highest potential positive side down to work better with global caps. The maximum negative and positive potentials of the Ranger bonus are now the same, previously the worst negative bonus was much more punishing than the general best possible bonus.
Also, the impact Ranger bonus has on your skills will no longer cause you to drop like a rock immediately upon entering a city. Your bonus will drift over time based upon the room that you are standing in on each pulse, and you will carry that bonus with you wherever you go. So if you have the maximum positive bonus from sitting in pristine wildlands, and you enter the city, you will now still be working at maximum positive bonus, it will just fairly swiftly drop if you don't make your stay in the urban areas brief.
Think of the bonus as always drifting to match your environment, with a speed based on how different your current bonus is compared to the environment you're standing in. If you have a tanked bonus and you stand in pristine wildlands, it comes back fast. If you are Nature's golden child but then go slumming in a metropolis, it tanks fast. Less radical environment changes produce slower bonus drifts.
HOWL verb: If you howl from hiding, you will get many responses as to the state of your bonus, much more than the typical two. This is the best new way to gauge how good (or bad) your bonus is at the moment.
All survival skills got a thorough look-through to make sure they were taking into account the survival bonus, as not all were. In some cases this is going to impact Thieves as well (generally in a positive way!) as anyplace a bonus was lacking, it was lacking for both guilds.
Enjoy, and let us know if there's any problems / issues.
-Z
http://www.play.net/forums/messages.asp?forum=20&category=31&topic=1&message=269