Mythic feeds me more patch notes

I just finished to comment the latest patch notes from DAoC that a new one arrived on the test server. And no, I won’t follow Sanya’s “suggestion” (Read, Test, THEN Post) :)

I pretty much confirm the comments on the previous notes, the patch looks solid and well thought. I could go nitpicking but overall they are doing a good work.

The most relevant changes are about the classes, as expected, with another MUCH NEEDED change to the UI so that the effects on the armor and weapons could be actually usable. This last change is one I ranted about for a long time and some of the work already began with the previous patch, even if the system wasn’t finalized.

Before the change in order to use an effect/power on your equipment (think to the usable trinkets in WoW for an example) you had to exit combat, target an enemy, open the inventory, right click on the item with the effect, type “/use” to finally fire the effect and reenter combat to resume your normal attacks. While it was possible to cut some of this “micromanagement” by adding an “/use” macro to a quickbar you can still clearly understand how absolutely broken, unusable and frustrating was this system. I never tolerated it because this is one kind of design that should have NEVER made to a live game.

With the new change they streamlined the whole process and even tweaked a few other elements of the UI. The effects/powers on item can now be used simply by pressing the correspinding icon, as it should have been from the start. I’m not sure about the combat/out of combat thing because I never actually used these powers (I always refused to waste my time on ToA artifacts). Other minor, but appreciated, changes are about the addition of an “info” button to the items mini-window that would open directly the complete ‘delve’ window with the detailed informations. I still think that using three different windows (tooltips, mini-window and ‘delve’ window) to have complete informations on a item or skill or spell is a bit too much and the UI could use a more consistent and radical rework. But at least, even if not perfect, these changes make sense and are serviceable. It’s always better to clearly show buttons than requiring the player to know the keyboard shortcuts. In this case the ‘delve’ window could be opened only by pressing a key.

Beside the UI and minor bugfixes there are the class changes as I said. Here I’m cautious to make comment because I don’t know the classes well enough and I don’t have the competence to comment about the balance.

In the case of the assassin classes (Nightshade, Infiltrator, Shadowblade) the changes are exactly as largely anticipated by the community. They mostly affect their performance Vs caster classes since the most relevant and shared change is the possibility to “destroy” with a stealthed attack the bladeturn defensive spell (and “brittle guard”, a ToA skill) that some casters use. Beside this, the damage of these stealth attacks has been raised “slightly” and the damage of the Shadowblade when using these skills with a 2H weapon increased “significantly”. The “Remedy” skill of the Nightshades was also nerfed but this is tied to more upcoming changes so it’s actually pointless to comment it while it’s still unfinished.

So pretty much what everyone was already expecting, without many surprises or new interesting possibilities.

There were other “minor” tweaks here and there. Some changes to some Master Level skills that I have no clue about and a “nerf” to the Warlocks by making it chain spells on a longer timer (three seconds instead of two). There was also a change for the Bainshees, instroducing fall-off damage the further you move away from its cone spells, which makes sense.

The rest is about the three hybrid classes. Even here it’s easy to group the changes. Friars and Wardens got two new instant spells with a duration of 30 seconds and recasting time of 30 seconds, also. Yeah, it’s odd but it may make sense. Why add an instant spell that, with those recasting and duration timers, can basically remain always on? My guess is to add a degree of “twitch” since using and keeping these spells alive will involve directly the player instead of remaining a passive effect to cast only in preparation of a battle. The second reason was coming from a misunderstanding of the mechanic that could actually make a fun idea that I’ll explain below.

These instants give the caster a 15% of possibility, when hitting a target in melee, to heal for a really low value his allies within a radius. There are two versions of this skill, one working within a 1000 unit range (only on the group) and the other within 250 (for every player within the range), but with a bonus on the healing varying from 40% to 20%, depending on the level of the spell.

I always welcome defensive skills because DAoC TRULY needs to slow down the combat and make it more satisfying. So every buff of the defensive skills is always appreciated. In this case I’m kind of sceptical because it happens rarely that Friars have many points on the rejuvenation line and the odds of this spell having an actual relevant impact are very, very low. I’m not even sure if I would bother to use it if I was a Friar.

My suggestion is to give some depth to the system, also following the misunderstanding I had while reading the patch notes. So the idea is about making the change in the way I wrongly assumed it worked. There are two different possibilities:
1- Make the two spells stack together, raise both recasting times to 60 seconds and boost up the healing effect.
2- Do not make the two spells stack, raise both recasting times to 60, and “double” each spell, making each copy stack together but not one with the other (the PBAOE and group heal).

The idea is to give really a “twitch” choice to the caster. Instead of just cycling the spells to keep them alive, the caster has now a tactical choice: use one after the other to have the effect “always on”, or both together to have them stacking, but expiring after 30 seconds without the possibility to “restart” them (due to the 60 seconds recast timer).

In the first case both would have a recasting time of 60 seconds and a duration of 30, so you would need to trigger one and the other only as the first expired to have an “always on” effect. With the alternate possibility (the choice) to use them all at once to have them stack but for a shorter period of time. The second possibility I suggested is a little more complicated but does just the same, it only doubles the spells so that the player could still have the choice to use exclusively one version or the other (PBAOE instead of group heal).

My guess is that in Mythic’s implementation and purposes the skills don’t stack and the player will only have to choose between one or the other. My idea (the first) could be simple enough to implement and offer some more “active gameplay” (the choice to stack the skills together OR use one after the other). So possibly more fun.

All these comments were about the shared changes between Friars and Wardens. Beside these the Friar had its heal over time spell boosted up (both in healing done and double duration) and a self-buff heal proc added.

The Thanes had the casting times progressively lowered and the ranges progressively increased on some offensive spells (bolt, AOE and instant DD) and three spells added. The first is an energy debuff, the second is another energy debuff but castable on its weapon and the third an odd high level energy DD that seems to disarm the caster for 10 seconds (it basically throws its hammer on the target, but working like a ranged spell). Plus some tweaks to the RR5 skill, removing the casting time and making it another instant while nerfing its damage after the first target (it’s a lightning bolt that jumps from a target to another).

This should be everything. As I said at the beginning the changes look good enough even if they don’t really add much to the game. Lots of retooling with the same stuff, lots of mixing, but not much when it comes to add some consistent new systems, so I’m not sure if these changes will actually bring some more *fun* to the game. I think the changes to the heavy classes in the previous patch were more creative and offered more direct gameplay, while what we got for this patch is more in line with the old balance tweaks, offering less occasions to actually enrich the combat system.

Beside this I actually found some time to log in Pendragon to test the newbie stuff I commented in the other entry. I have so-so feeling about it.

As I logged in the game with a new character I was basically dumped into an house from the roof, in Cotswold. Not exactly my idea of “polish”. The house is small and you have an NPC right beside you. You would expect it to give you some newbie informations but the NPC is just passive and it does absolutely nothing. The house is empty beside that NPC. The lightmaps work this time but they aren’t really well done. There’s a fireplace and if you turn off your torch the fire seem just sitting there, in the middle of an absolute darkness and without casting some light itself. So the lighting with the torch on is good, while the lighting with the torch off is broken.

As I exited that house I saw the new layout of the village, which is good. All the buildings now are put at the perimeter of a circle, so it’s better organized, with a new, pretty bindstone in the center. I still wish I had some more indications because again, as a brand new character, there was nothing leading me along the way. I was just dumped in one of the houses with no clue about where to go. Which is very bad for a newbie experience. The trainer for my class (and starting quests) was actually inside one of the buildings. Here the lightmap with the torch on is broken again (the floor is too dark).

I looked around for a while, since I was looking for the Darkness Falls new mini-dungeons. The entrance is actually just by the village but not so easy to find. It’s right behind a building so you have to bump against it to notice and there aren’t any new NPCs leading you there. Plus it looks more like a pile of rocks than an entrance to a dungeon and its entrance is not even facing the village. I don’t think that a new player would find it easily.

All these minor things could use some more work. The player dumped by an NPC who can give some directions, the lightmaps fixed in those few cases and the RvR cave moved in a more visible place, with its entrance facing the village and with some dedicated art so that it actually looks more like a portal than just a clump of rocks.

The dungeon itself is really beautiful since it uses the Darkness Falls art that was redone for the last expansion, even if I think you can see the new art only if you have the expansion. I think the idea is wonderful overall. You won’t hear anymore the players complaining about having to kill rats. In fact the environment is rather intimidating for a new player, even too much.

In this case the lightmaps are really, really well done, both with the torch on and off, but I still have a few critiques to make on different aspects:

– The first is that the dungeon is way too big. Mythic always exaggerates when planning the new zones and here they repeated the mistake once again. It’s not huge, but I would remove at least some of the rooms to make it more streamlined.

– Another change I would suggest is to make the mobs drop some loot instead of just gems to resell to vendors. In the first levels of every game the loot is really important for a new player because it provides incentives to continue to play and explore the game, instead of just focusing on the repetition of the combat (since you basically have no skills to use). So I would work to add more interesting loot tables to ALL the mobs in the dungeon (not just the leet stuff noone will ever kill in a newbie zone) and let the players equip themselves without the need to buy junk from vendors.

– The third suggestion is to add a bind point inside the dungeon so that the players don’t have to zone in/out when they die. This may be a minor point since the entrance is so near to the village but I think it would add to the fun, in particular when these newbie zones are so terribly deserted. You definitely cannot plan them as expecting hundreds of players within.

I also noticed that there’s a deep purple named mob inside. All good, but I would tone it down so that it’s actually doable with not more than four players. It just won’t happen that the dungeon will regularly see more than an handful of players. And I would consider already rare the fact that you aren’t alone. So, for god’s sake, plan the content and the spaces accordingly to the players that use them and not on an arbitrary preconception so distant from the reality. It could have been also interesting to reuse the same art but “recompiled” and rescaled to not just use the same sets of DF. Like a poket version of DF not only in the number of rooms, but even in their scale. Making these dungeons more unique instead of simply reused art (which also kills the variation and the expectations of the players since you play in DF at level 1 in the same way you’ll play in DF at level 49. Guess why DAoC’s PvE is boring?).

It’s still a very good idea since the game would show its best profile right out of the box. With the possibility to get involved in RvR from the first level in the case you happen to find another player lost in there.

So, overall, these newbie changes are very good ideas that could still use a more careful and polished implementation. It’s mostly about tuning and reorganizing what is available more than creating new stuff. Mythic is doing a decent work, but they could improve when it comes to the actualization of these ideas. Too often these things are thrown in without much thought.

Uff. I write endlessly again without saying anything. I also collected a few screenshots that I’ll add here. The new layout in Cotswold and that newbie dungeon. I still love DAoC’s artists, I wish Mythic would use their talent better :)




 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 

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