Hail to the redundancy! Autoreblogging for the win!
“This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend, some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue singing it forever just because this is the song that never ends…”
I just wrote down a summarized version on F13 of what I already wrote here and that I finished to like so much more than my previous attempt. So I decided to archive it as well. More concise, more effective, straighter to the point. And without the excessive preaching.
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Not really trying to ressurrect a thread that has been derailed in every direction, but the last patch that is going live in December is way, way, way more interesting than the fluff that was in Darkness Rising and that originated this thread. It’s not as crazy as what is happening to SWG and not as significant as the development in Eve-Online, but at least they are trying and I (mostly) like what I’m seeing.
The patch is branded “Realm vs Realm and Class focus” and should focus on some significant (I hope) changes to the classes (tanks in particular) and larger RvR, but for now the first piece we got on test is a rather HUGE and further nerf to ToA:
– The locked versions of all artifacts will no longer drop from encounters. Players will now only need to have encounter credit and the scrolls to receive the unlocked artifact.
– The location requirements for leveling artifacts have been removed. All artifacts now earn experience from all enemy player and/or monster kills anywhere and anytime.
– Many artifacts now level at a faster rate.
– The drop rates for all scrolls have been increased and the rate is the same for scroll one, two, and three for each artifact.
– Artifact encounters that spawned less than twice a day have had their spawn frequency increased.
There’s more to it, in particular generous nerfs to many encounters. This seems to effectively solve most of the complains about ToA (have – have not) but we are left with the other critical flaws of the standard servers: buffbots, damage scale out of the roof and clumsy interface to trigger the powerful effects bound to the artifacts (drop out of combat, right click on icon, left click on macro, reenter combat). So they removed most of the accessibility barriers of ToA but we still have the negative impact of its other parts.
About the rest we have only hints through a letter from the producer:
Heavy Tank Enhancements: We are looking at a variety of improvements to make heavy tanks more fun and interesting to play. Our goal is to reinvigorate tanks to enable them to perform better in their role of taking damage, safeguarding their realmmates and leading the charge into battle.
RvR Enhancements: We are implementing several new systems that will help to focus the players on larger RvR contributions to the realm, instead of small scale PvP. We already have a large number of rewards for PvP but your feedback has indicated that you want to see more rewards for other RvR activities. Activities such as siege engine destruction, and repairing walls and doors, are being looked at for Realm Point rewards (as well as many other activities).
The process for class enhancements will definitely take several patch cycles, and serious testing and revision. We have some very interesting things planned for upcoming versions and think that you will be excited about all of them. We will keep looking at all classes as we move forward to better enhance their gameplay value and fun. We are currently gathering more feedback and will be taking more polls in the near future. This feedback will help to guide us for future versions in the upcoming year.
Everything from our polls is important to us, and we appreciate your assistance in helping us to determine the priorities. We will of course continue to make other improvements and bug fixes to the entire game as we move forward. Thanks again!
Which is all good, I just would like to see some significant enhancements, features or systems that don’t come just as a bonus, timesink, timeout or a mix of all these… Something that even a brand new player could see without reading the patch notes and feel motivated to play.
I’m not really sure if I like this Jeff Hickman or not, but at least he seems driven by consensus (which is again both a good and bad thing).
I blame and praise in (nearly) equal quantities.
Tomorrow we should be served the second part that should be more “on topic” with the title. I’m curious to see what they are planning.