Jeff Skalski 1.3 2 Producer's Letter - Discussion

Hey Everyone,

It’s been one week too long for me pulling together this letter. Theteam has been pounding away at making sure our upcoming 1.3.2 patch isnot only full of great features and improvements, but is set up to beone of our smoothest version deployments to live yet. By now youshould have had a chance to check out the 1.3.2 patch notes for ourPublic Test Server. If not, check them out here. I’ll still be herewhen you get back!

Read the full article on the WAR Herald!

Please remember to keep discussion civil, contructive and on topic.

Thanks!


Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source

[Andy_Mythic]

From the Herald:

"AP should be a pool, not an ocean." - Gett of Dark Crag

Action Points are something that effects everyone who plays WAR.Healers, Damage Dealers and Tanks all use Action Points, so it is onlynatural that when something changes about the way the system works,there is going to be concern, discussion and possibly confusion.

Tohelp better explain what's going on with the current state of ActionPoints in WAR, the Community team reached out to the Combat &Careers Team Lead, Nate Levy, for insight into the recent bug fixesaffecting AP Regeneration.

For more information, read on!



So Nate, something seems different with the way my Action Points Regenerate since 1.3.2.

Nate:As most of you know, we fixed some bugs relating to Action Pointregeneration recently, correcting a problem which had temporarily ledto many people having "infinite AP." Action Points are a core combatmechanic in WAR, and the bugs which prevented a character's AP frombeing correctly paced lead to undesirable reductions in kill times,making combat less about tactics, timing, and coordination, and moreabout simply slamming a single ability as fast as possible. These bugfixes will create a much better game-play experience for everyone, andwe realize that many of you have concerns and questions, so we wantedto take a moment and address some of them.

What were the bugs that we fixed, and how did they affect game-play?

Nate:Since 1.3.1 went live, we discovered two major bugs relating to ActionPoint regeneration. The first was causing Action Points to regenerateduring the Global Cooldown in certain situations, but unfortunately, itwas very difficult to detect because the second issue masked thefirst. This second issue was a bug which caused server performance andload to drastically impact AP regeneration rates—so, while ActionPoints would sometimes be regenerating when they weren't supposed to,the AP-regen rates were also slower all-around, especially inhigh-stress situations such as Keep captures. The combination of thesetwo factors essentially resulted in a wash, with AP on the whole beingno faster or slower than intended overall.

However, patch 1.3.1brought significant performance improvements to the game, and we begangetting reports of players with "infinite AP"; it was the investigationof these reports which resulted in the discovery of both issues. Dueto the severity of the issues, we wanted to get them corrected asquickly as possible, which meant that we aimed to get the fixes pushedto the Live game as soon as they passed internal testing. Thatultimately corresponded with patch 1.3.2. It is important to note thatthese bugs were largely affecting players who were constantly withinthe Global Cooldown, while players who were primarily using abilitieswith buildup times or channel times were not affected, since AP regenwas properly paused at those times.

How does Action Point recovery work in version 1.3.2?

Nate:Right now, Action Point recovery works exactly as it was designed: Yougain 25 AP per second (and we fixed the issue which heavily tied APrates to server performance, so that fixes the second bug and means APwill be more consistent), and you do not gain AP while you're in themiddle of a combat action (which fixes the first bug). Specifically,"combat actions" include building up abilities, channeling abilities,and being within the Global Cooldown. In essence, if you're usingabilities back-to-back without pause, then your AP will go down, whileif you stop for a brief moment, your AP will go up.

How does this affect my game experience?

Nate:Fundamentally, these fixes affect everyone, since nearly every actionthat you can perform uses AP. However, the biggest personal impactwill be felt by anyone who strongly relied on constantly usinginstant-cast abilities without pause, which put them constantly withinthe Global Cooldown. This is because those players were previouslygaining the most from the occasional recovery of Action Points duringthe Global Cooldown. Since AP regeneration was already correctlypausing during buildup and channel times, anyone who was primarilyusing those types of abilities should see minimal-to-no impact.

How does this impact the overall game balance?

Nate:These changes touch on several aspects of the game, and many of whichare very positive! The areas of impact include the following:

• Increasingthe amount of time that you survive in RvR, since some enemy attackerswere previously churning through instant-cast attacks virtually withoutend. These bug-fixes mean that someone who "bursts" a rapid string ofinstant-cast attacks will bottom out their AP correspondingly quickly.
• Increasingthe value of Action Point-modifying abilities and Tactics, bothbeneficial and hostile. Managing your own Action Points is a moreimportant issue to pay attention to, and effects which deny AP to yourenemies will once again be impactful and worthwhile.
• Making APefficiency a factor in ability decisions. A high-cost ability shouldbe, literally, exactly that - the cost to use it should be noticeablyhigh, and the choice of when to consume a larger chunk of AP is animportant decision to make. Previously, these bugs resulted insomewhat of a "cost doesn't matter" feeling for some players, whereasin truth, an ability's damage is simply one aspect, and its AP cost,cooldown time, etc. are also all factors which can not simply beignored.

So, where will we go from here?

Nate:These fixes allow us to get the game back on track where we expect itto be, letting us move forward with continued adjustment and balance.In particular, the fixes will let us take a good overall look atAP-related abilities, which were otherwise very difficult to tune whenthe underlying system was not working correctly. As with every facetof an MMO, remember that nothing is set in stone. We're going to bemonitoring the results of all of1ff8 our 1.3.2 adjustments, including thecorrected AP regeneration, and if anything needs to be adjusted, we'llwork those tweaks into future patches.

As always, your constructive feedback is welcomed and appreciated!

Note: Please keep feedback on topic and civil. We will be heavily moderating this thread.


Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source

[Andy_Mythic]

Originally Posted by Testpig

AP issue.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93MEw3KqQxM

please don't just claim AP is fine.. when it still clearly isn't.

don't get me wrong, i'm all for the AP fix, however, it's broken. I'm all for AP adjustments, but AP has hurt caster classes far more then it has hurt melee classes.

casters don't have an autoattack other then staffing. Maybe give casters some form of ranged auto attack from their staffs such as how engs/sh/sw have a ranged auto attack.

casters such as BWs and Sorcs can't really do anything without AP, and just that everything they do do, cost them life, they are in a constant lose lose situtation.
Message Edited by Testpig on 10-26-2009 04:17 PM

I've already forwarded this along to the CnC team for investigation.

Bugs are different from the way things are intended to focus. The jist of this article is still valid, as bugs exist outside the parameters of intent.


Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source

[AdamG_EAMythic]

Couple of quick notes for everyone

• We tracked down the client bug that players have been reporting that causes AP bars to behave oddly. We're working on getting a fix up as soon as possible. As always client stability is a major concern so we will test this thoroughly before releasing a fix.

• We are expecting to see players change tactics and re-discover old strategies using AP managment tools. As such we're also expecting to have to put a bit more focus on AP managment skills and bug fixes in the next couple of patches.

• The team is carefully watching the high end encounters. Even though many of them were designed and tested before AP regeneration became significantly bugged we realize that many were already very difficult and as suchthey may need some additional tuning.

-Adam

Adam Gershowitz
Design Director
Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning

Source

[Jess_Mythic]

Hi everyone!

It's that time again! I'm putting together thequestions for Grab Bag #24, which will be wildcard Grab Bag filled withanything and everything WAR. So, I need your help! If you have any questions relating to WARthat you'd like to see in the Grab Bag, please post them here. I'll bechoosing the questions that will go in next week's Grab Bag (and possibly beyond if I get a surplus of questions) directlyfrom your replies. I need all questions in by Thursday morning at10:00 AM EDT.

Please keep your questions civil and on-topic (meaning, things that are currently in WAR or announced). Also, please remember that Grab Bag questions can also be sent via the feedback form. Just be sure to select "Grab Bag" from the drop-down menu!

Thank you!

Source

Hi everyone!

It's that time again! I'm putting together thequestions for Grab Bag #24, which will be wildcard Grab Bag filled withanything and everything WAR. So, I need your help! If you have any questions relating to WARthat you'd like to see in the Grab Bag, please post them here. I'll bechoosing the questions that will go in next week's Grab Bag (and possibly beyond if I get a surplus of questions) directlyfrom your replies. I need all questions in by Thursday morning at10:00 AM EDT.

Please keep your questions civil and on-topic (meaning, things that are currently in WAR or announced). Also, please remember that Grab Bag questions can also be sent via the feedback form. Just be sure to select "Grab Bag" from the drop-down menu!

Thank you!

Source

[Andy_Mythic]

Player concerns over RvR are being heard loud and clear. We understand that while there have been many improvments to the RvR experience, specifically in Tier 4, there is still room for further work.

Some of the areas that we are currently focusing on internally are:

• The City Siege experience: We acknowledge that there are areas of frustration within the city siege experience. We understand that some players start to lose interest after the first hour of stage one.We also understand the current feeling that some players have about stage 2, which contributes to the next area of concern.
• Frustration over cities deranking: These frustrations have been communicated to the development team and are being taken into consideration.
• Lack of options: We acknowledge there are some players who do not want to participate in the city siege. These concerns are being communicated and the dev team is aware of these sentiments.
• Repeated City Sieges: We are aware of the current rate at which Cities are being sieged. While expected after the 1.3.2 removal of Fortresses from the campaign, it is none the less more frequent than we would like. Please stay tuned for more information regarding the underdog system soon, which will help to mitigate the frequency at which Cities are being sieged.

So these are just some of the things we're currently taking into consideration right now. The Community team is currently working with the Developers to bring you information about how we're approaching these situations as soon as possible, so please keep your eyes on the Herald and the Official Forums for more information.

Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source

Player concerns over RvR are being heard loud and clear. We understand that while there have been many improvments to the RvR experience, specifically in Tier 4, there is still room for further work.

Some of the areas that we are currently focusing on internally are:

• The City Siege experience: We acknowledge that there are areas of frustration within the city siege experience. We understand that some players start to lose interest after the first hour of stage one.We also understand the current feeling that some players have about stage 2, which contributes to the next area of concern.
• Frustration over cities deranking: These frustrations have been communicated to the development team and are being taken into consideration.
• Lack of options: We acknowledge there are some players who do not want to participate in the city siege. These concerns are being communicated and the dev team is aware of these sentiments.
• Repeated City Sieges: We are aware of the current rate at which Cities are being sieged. While expected after the 1.3.2 removal of Fortresses from the campaign, it is none the less more frequent than we would like. Please stay tuned for more information regarding the underdog system soon, which will help to mitigate the frequency at which Cities are being sieged.

So these are just some of the things we're currently taking into consideration right now. The Community team is currently working with the Developers to bring you information about how we're approaching these situations as soon as possible, so please keep your eyes on the Herald and the Official Forums for more information.

Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source

[Andy_Mythic]

To address one thing

• Cross Server Scenarios: Yes this is an idea we have discussed, and we would like to do it, however it's not feasible to expect it in the immediate or even near future. There is a significant amount of engineering involved with something like this and it will take a similarily significant amount of time to accomplish it.

Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source

[Andy_Mythic]

...

I was also wondering how the 3rd-Party-Program blocking is going, or if it is. 3rd-party-program users are fairly common and the educated can easily tell the difference between using them and using skill. With the unlimited free trials, I can see those users running absolutely rampant in Tier 1 because losing their account wouldn't cost them any money.

Thanks for any info.

We actually have a Dev Diary going up this week talking a little bit about our approach to "h4x0rz".


Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source

My post earlier in the week was an acknowledgement of some of the areas that we recognize as concerns for the players about the City siege changes. As was stated, we have been in "observe and report" mode for the last few weeks. So what's the short term results of all that observing and reporting?

Well, we are planning to make the following changes by the end of this week

• Guild Hall access and functionality will no longer be tied to City rank. All privileges granted by the Guild Halls will be available in a 1-Star City.
• Cities will now start to recover rank more quickly. We have drastically sped up the effort required to rank your City back up.
• Access to the Citadel and the Imperial Palace will no longer be tied to City Rank. You will now have permanent access to the quests and vendors that lie within.
• We are retiring the two Scenarios formerly available when a City is under siege: The Undercroft and the Altdorf War Quarters. Ok, this is nothing new since 1.3.2, but this paves the way for...
• During Stage 2 of the City siege there will now be two scenarios permanently available for those of you who do not wish to participate in the City siege experience, depending on which City is being seiged: If Altdorf is under attack, then Reikland Factory is enabled. If The Inevitable City has fallen to the armies of Order, The Twisting Tower will be active.
  • These two scenarios will not contribute to the Victory Points of the City siege in any way however they will offer a 10% bonus to Renown and Experience gained.
  • Anyone from Tier 2, 3 or 4 may queue for these scenarios. For this Scenario only, everyone is Bolstered to 40 for some face smashing good times.
  • You may only queue for these Scenarios from outside of the City instance.

So wait, during Stage 2 only?

So that's 6 hours of Reikland Factory or Twisting Towers. Well, we've heard the players loud and clear on how long the City sieges last for. Which brings me to our next short term change, which we plan on implementing at some point next week after a Mass PTS Event hosted by yours truly and the WAR Dev Team:

• We will be halving the duration of the City siege experience.
  • Stage 1 will now last only 1 hour.
  • Stage 2 will now last only 3 hours.

Obviously we had to redo the VP values for the city, hence the reason for a Mass PTS Event. Also, we felt like giving away some more Griffons and Enslaved Manticore mounts since we had so much fun doing it during the 1.3.2 PTS Phase. So be sure to watch the Herald and the official Forums for more information about a PTS event next week!

So there you have it. Our short term plans for the City siege experience. Obviously there's much more information we'll have for you in the coming weeks, don't forget the planned Underdog System, and there are some more very cool improvements to the city that we have in mind for the long term, but it's important that all of you know that your concerns are important to the Dev team and we're working hard to make your experience in WAR a great one.

We'll see you on the battlefield!

WAAAGH!


Edited by Andy on 11-04-2009 07:02 PM



Andy Belford
Community Coordinator
Mythic Entertainment

Source