Thoughts on 1.3.2

It’s been a month or so since I wrote about the 1.3.2 patch, and it’s been almost two weeks since it went live. I’ve had some time to tinker around with the changes, and I’m pretty happy overall with Mythic’s decisions. There were a few things that definitely stuck out to me.

Advice Channel

I thought the advice channel sounded like a great idea, and it works as intended. Sort of.

When someone asks a question, they usually get an answer rather quickly. But the rest of the time the channel is filled up with miscellaneous chatter which used to be commonplace in Region chat. The advice channel eventually got so annoying that I switched it off,  as did some other people I know.

A player on the official forums even started a thread in the New Player Discussion area on the topic, requesting moderation for the channel.

AP Regeneration

Action Point regeneration was addressed in a set of hot fix notes that went live five days after the patch. A few bugs in the system after 1.3.1 had been causing users, including myself, to have virtually unlimited AP.

Combat & Careers Team Lead Nate Levy also went over the fixes and explained that the regeneration is now working as intended at 25 AP per second.

I’m glad they fixed this, even though I’m back to seeing “Not Enough Action Points” flash across my screen. Kudos to the Combat & Careers team!

Fortresses

The removal of fortresses was meant to increase city sieges since players would only need to control two of the three pairings to access their enemies’ capital. I had never been to Altdorf, so I was pretty excited.

Unfortunately, multiple city sieges a day has definitely caused the excitement to quickly wear off.

Sure, Tier 4 Open RvR is really hopping on Volkmar, but city sieges are meant to be big things, and that awesomeness is drastically scaled down when a capital is attacked so often.

No joke, here’s what conversations have looked like in my guild:

Player 1: “Oh look, Altdorf is open again.”

Player 2: “Eh, really?”

Player 1: “Yeah. Want to go run a dungeon?”

Player 2: “Sure.”

Player 3: “Count me in too.”

We’re supposed to be pumped up to attack our enemies, but instead we’re just tired of seeing the same thing over and over.

Performance

WAR’s performance has been kicked up a notch with 1.3.2 and it is very noticeable. Technical Director Chad Robertson clarified what changes occurred in a Dev Diary published the day after the patch.

While my computer has handled the game amazingly (I had a copy of the system requirements on hand when I bought it), I used to experience lag in huge combat situations, which was understandable.

However, since the patch went live, I have seen no lag on my end whatsoever. It was smooth sailing even through an awesome battle to lock a zone. I took screenshots of the amount of Destruction that turned out to demonstrate what the game was handling:

So, while not all of patch 1.3.2 makes me want to shout with joy, I consider it a wonderful step forward for WAR. I’ve even noticed the number of my guild members on at the same time has increased, which my guild leader had us document at one point with a commemorative screenshot.

The Murder Junkies (I'm standing behind Schlarpy!)

 

 

Public Test Server and 1.3.2 Patch Notes

The Public Test Server is going live tomorrow, and Mythic has all sorts of goodies for players that dive on in.

There will be an event held on Wednesday at 8 p.m., and participants will have an opportunity to win either an Imperial Griffin mount or an Enslaved Manticore mount, depending on realm alignment.

Then on Saturday at 8 p.m. there will be a preview of the upcoming live event Daemon Moon Rising. Everyone who joins in will get a holiday mask. I, however, will be attending a birthday party. I wonder if my friend will let me commandeer his computer.

I doubt it.

Also, the fine people behind WAR posted the patch notes for 1.3.2 that we’ve all been looking forward to. There’s a whole lot of changes to be had, but here are some of the highlights.

Fortresses

The forts will no longer apply towards the Tier 4 campaign! That’s right, Order or Destruction could be coming soon to a capital city near you. Players will only need to control two out of the three pairings to unleash their fury on their opposing realm’s capital.

On the down side, the fortresses will just be sitting there as huge, empty landmarks that do nothing. Mythic said they do have plans for them, but “are not yet prepared to announce them.”

Keeps

Better loot for better battles. Keeps will start offering snazzier rewards to players who fight off large numbers of enemies. They’ll also drop some great swag when they’re upgraded and pose a bigger challenge.

Stagger

The removal of the Stun effect and the incorporation of Stagger will take place with this patch. Stagger will basically stun players for a set duration, but will immediately break if the player affected takes damage.

New User Journey

Mythic has made some very interesting changes to the process of starting a character. All careers will now begin in the Empire/Chaos pairing, as opposed to their current racial pairings. This change is meant to keep the action hopping in Tier 1.

Also, the game will be introducing New Player Guilds. When your new character enters Chapter 2, they’ll be placed in one of these guilds to “facilitate communication among those new to the game, or those who are rolling up an alt character, and to make finding a group a bit easier.”

Apprentice System

Players will be able to “apprentice” another player, temporarily changing his or her rank, stats and gear to their own. So, this way players who have mismatched ranks will be able to play the game together more enjoyably.

Global Chat Channels

Finally, 1.3.2 is adding two global chat channels: the Advice Channel and Realm War. The Advice Channel is pretty straightforward. Players can ask other players questions, and people can even designate themselves as Advisors, which will be a searchable term in the social window.

Realm War will create a global channel for the RvR areas for all four tiers. While the channels for the first three tiers will be completely open, the Tier 4 channel will be read-only unless a player is a “Realm War Captain.” The title is given to players in a guild, and guilds at maximum level can have a total of three captains.

Well, that’s the patch notes in a nutshell. Don’t forget to check out the career changes as well, there’s a ton of information there too.

Crowd Control Adjustments

It looks like some big changes for Crowd Control abilities are going to be rolling out with game patch 1.3.2.

Two days ago, the WAR Herald put up a Dev Diary entry from Nate Levy, the production lead for the Combat and Careers Team, discussing what the future holds for Crowd Control.

Important to note is the loving that tanks will be getting. Levy is right when he says that players usually bypass attacking those careers to target squishier prey. Seriously, as a witch elf armed with only two skinny daggers, I’ll head toward that mage with a staff over someone in plate armor any day.

Tanks will still be tough to take down, while leaving the DPS to the DPS careers. Instead, the team plans to make them more of an obstacle by giving them more CC abilities of their own on the battlefield. According to Levy, the goal is to give tanks “a more imposing role in the fight and let them grow into the battlefield commanders that we want them to be.”

Another piece of news is the introduction of the Stagger effect. Stagger will restrain a player like Knockdowns and Stuns, but instead of having just a general duration timer, the effect can end early if the player takes damage. The new effect will be replacing Stuns, which will be removed from the game.

While Levy says the effect will break if players affected “suffer any damage,” he doesn’t specify if Stagger excludes harm from Damage over Time abilities. If Stagger doesn’t take that into account, it could be broken immediately after being cast if the player is taking damage from a DoT that was applied earlier.

If that’s the case, I might just come to appreciate all those DoTs that bleed me dry.