Breaking News - 1.3 Not to Include Combat/Career Changes, only Land of the Dead

[PhoenixRed]

Thanks to Werit of Werit's Blog for the helping hand finding this, and community member Rhissa for posting this on our forums.

Word still need to be posted on the US forums or Herald, but on the EU WAR Forums, Community Manager Magnus posts the following from Adam Gershowitz regarding the 1.3 patch:

Hello Everyone,

Over the past two weeks, we have been extremely busy working on our Public Test Version (PTS) in preparation for the launch of the 1.3 patch, which includes our first major free content expansion, feature enchantments, career balance adjustments, and a numerous bug fixes. As you are all aware, our PTS server is used not only to test upcoming content for major issues, but to get player feedback on how new features and balance changes will affect how people play WAR. Specifically, we pay careful attention to balance changes and how they affect individual players and the careers they play.

Version 1.3 introduces numerous positive career changes, such as the ongoing Archmage / Shaman revamp, reductions in AoE effectiveness, and smaller targeted improvements to the Rune Priest, Zealot, Marauder, Magus, and White Lion careers; however, we have also found a number of changes to be controversial within the community, including the adjustments to Stat Factors, Healing Effectiveness, and concerns about the Warrior Priest and Disciple careers. Due to the complexity of the changes, it becomes very difficult to simply separate out specific items from the patch without altering other changes in unexpected ways. As a result of this, and to ensure the very best possible patch content, we have decided to split the Career balance changes out of our 1.3 patch. This will allow us to continue working with our Public Test community to further shape the upcoming career adjustments into a more stable, understandable, and fun experience for all.

Career balance changes will be removed from our PTS server starting in Phase 3 of version 1.3 testing, allowing players to focus on testing and feedback for our new Land of the Dead zone. We plan to re-open balance testing for career changes shortly after the release of our 1.3 patch so that we can continue working with the community on these changes and improvements to WAR.

As always, your participation in our Public Test program is a valuable part of developing WAR into the best game experience it can be. Thank you for all of your feedback in phases 1 and 2 of PTS!

WAAAAAAGH!!!

We'll be keeping you posted on further details, but for now, it appears that Combat and Careers changes are going to have more time to be tested, tweaked, and tuned. Be sure to get on the PTS, because feedback is immensely important to making sure this stuff gets the best testing possible.

Source

[Azhul]

Originally Posted by PhoenixRed

Be sure to get on the PTS, because feedback is immensely important to making sure this stuff gets the best testing possible.

Source

Because Mythic clearly isn't testing it. Nor are they giving us the tools (templates) to test it properly.

[Erelath]

Bah, have to wait even longer to make my shammy more fun to play.

[PhoenixRed]

As far as my personal opinion on this, I have to give kudos to Mythic for this decision. While Combat and Careers is something that someone will always have something to complain about, the bigger issue with such changes in the 1.3 patch has been their scope and widespread effect. And by effect, I mean both player perception and actual data.

I have combat logs from some of the changes, and the PTS numbers are a bit staggering - with large crits from certain spells, a toughness increase that made some toons extremely difficult to kill, and the healing reduction, there were just way too many cooks in the kitchen as far as the changes go. As a technology professional, one of the things you learn is that when you patch something, you do not add too much into the mix - because the more you add, the more likely something will break and the less likely it is you will be able to efficiently find the cause of it.

Mythic has taken some heat for shorter testing cycles that haven't given the time to truly test and gather the feedback that is needed, so to see these changes pushed back and a more cautious approach taken is a good thing. The patch is already going to be huge with 1.3's new Land of the Dead content, and with the launch of that needing to be as smooth as possible, removing career changes is a good step towards that.

So Mythic did good as far as I can tell with this decision. But that being said, the introduction of their "controversial" changes should really give them pause as to the scope under which they should be changing stats and dealing with existing issues. I am personally hopeful that they will take a more surgical approach to the changes, but in lieu of that, more testing of them is sufficient.

I urge all of you who are still subscribed to get on the PTS and test, test, test. As customers, Mythic is obligated to give us the best experience ever, but as players, we also need to do our part and provide the data needed. If you have a problem with the changes, or want to make sure things are as good as they can be, get your butts on the PTS and test. Take an active part and don't take the easy route out of "it's not my job to test". Cynics may say it may do no good if the developer doesn't listen, or you're not receiving the tools, or your not getting results, but frankly, I'd rather test, post, and have a 1% chance of being heard than not do anything and have a guaranteed 0%.

The Combat and Careers changes are significant, so the more players they have testing, the better.

[Reaver330]

I'm dissapointed with this, I was looking forward to the balance changes being made but instead we are now just getting the new land. So instead of it all being large and refreshing I can look forward to facerolling out my group heals again? Awesome.

Just hold the entire patch until it is all completed properly, I'm sure people would be much more grateful and those players who wish to come back will experience the new stat changes too. Don't treat this content update the same way you launched the game, give it some time to be perfected, no one wants a half assed attempt.

Edit:

Unfortunately we CANT test the career changes now as stated in the post:

Career balance changes will be removed from our PTS server starting in Phase 3 of version 1.3 testing, allowing players to focus on testing and feedback for our new Land of the Dead zone.

They should have been left in for further testing, by the looks of it they have just decided "Oh, this is a big mistake" and have withdrawn it entirely to go back into the planning stage. Yes fair enough it is better that it was done on the PTS rather than live but it really does feel like they just wasted a lot of time in which they could have actually applied some real changes.

I've enjoyed the start of Land of the Dead but this new content isn't going to fix the games current problems.

[Talc]

I'm very happy the combat/career changes are being delayed.

HOWEVER, This does not mean they can not fix gamebreaking balance issues. I'm tired of premades being overrun by teams of PBAOE bright wizards. It's completely game breaking and it requires 100x the skill to counter it than is does to actually DO it. We should know, since half my guild has BW alts on other servers.

There are still tons of BUGS that are in LIVE and on the PTS that they can be fixing while the testers play around with the combat and careers changes.

[Xi0s]

They were going to actually fix the zealot marks so they stack in the patch, and i assume that they will lump this FIX in with the rest of the 'class balance changes'. I hope they include this in 1.3 because it was the only thing that i was looking forward to (other than the DoK and WP nerfbat).

[Aeternis]

I have to agree with PhoenixRed. While I would love to start shredding backs with my 1200+AW crits as soon as possible, it would only delight me for so long before I realize that everyone else in my Dark Elf group is still doing more or as much DPS than me, because they essentially got the same adjustment.

Making sure the new content is stellar, and that bug fixes and animation issues are fixed are a much higher priority. Give us a stable and safe playground, then worry about the warrior priests bullying the goblins in the corner.

[trellen1]

Totally, totally, totally the right thing to do. I'm glad they came to their senses and realized you can't do sweeping changes. Way to go Mythic and very good decision! Cudos to you. I look forward to small, yet correct changes made to careers, one at a time, in order to carefully test and avoid nerfs/huge changes down the road.

[Deathain]

This is exactly the same feedback I gave Mythic. That they should pull the class changes from 1.3 and just release the LotD content.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the buffs my BW, WH and AM got and was ok with the changes to the Slayer since I decided to play him as a single target mdps. The bigger issue for me was going to be the increased whining that my BW and WH would have generated because players would no longer find it fun to die in less than 5 seconds after I targetted them.

They absolutely need to test the class changes thoroughly over a period of a few months and not have it artificially tied to the release of the LotD content. Making over 50% of their playerbase unhappy with the changes because they were not tested enough could potentially have doomed this game especially at this juncture. I actually applaud them for doing the right thing.

[Siberwulf]

My two bits is that it came down to New Content vs Balance.

I wish they had postponed the first part, rather than the last part.

Instead of having a balanced game overall (and no new content), they've just pushed the imbalance into a new area. While I'm thrilled that we'll have new places to kill each other, I'm not excited that it will still be the same broken way of doing things.

Originally Posted by PhoenixRed

As a technology professional, one of the things you learn is that when you patch something, you do not add too much into the mix - because the more you add, the more likely something will break and the less likely it is you will be able to efficiently find the cause of it.

That's true in probably 90% of the cases. It breaks down though, when your product has many moving parts. Another example is framework development or even OS development. With a billion tiny moving parts, changing just one thing can have a cascading effect. For example in WAR, you can't up the ST damage without toning down the AoE damage. Those two, while decoupled for some classes are incredibly coupled for other classes. And with a bump in ST damage, you're going to see some pretty outrageous TTK unless you do something to make defensive stacking more effective. Just my opinion of course. Some things just can't be decoupled, and I think what was on there right now, while in need of some tweaks, was generally heading in the right direction.

[PhoenixRed]

Originally Posted by Siberwulf

My two bits is that it came down to New Content vs Balance.

I wish they had postponed the first part, rather than the last part.

Instead of having a balanced game overall (and no new content), they've just pushed the imbalance into a new area. While I'm thrilled that we'll have new places to kill each other, I'm not excited that it will still be the same broken way of doing things.

Now this is an interesting point, and one that I can get behind. A decision to focus on the Career Changes and not LotD would have probably been better for the game.

Unfortunately, with all the marketing push and buzz for Land of the Dead, we all know that that isn't the way MMO companies tend to work - they always push new content because new content is what gets a general gamer excited. I wish this was not the case, and hope that a paradigm shift (whether it comes from Mythic, or one of the other MMO companies releasing an MMO this year or next) will happen in the future.

[Siberwulf]

Originally Posted by PhoenixRed

Now this is an interesting point, and one that I can get behind. A decision to focus on the Career Changes and not LotD would have probably been better for the game.

Unfortunately, with all the marketing push and buzz for Land of the Dead, we all know that that isn't the way MMO companies tend to work - they always push new content because new content is what gets a general gamer excited. I wish this was not the case, and hope that a paradigm shift (whether it comes from Mythic, or one of the other MMO companies releasing an MMO this year or next) will happen in the future.

Yeah, I don't see the shift coming either. It is the carrot on the stick. Someone adds a bigger carrot, and people stop realizing the stick they are carrying is covered in fire ants. The ants will eat the carrot and then bite your hand.

[Gaugamela]

Originally Posted by Reaver330

I'm dissapointed with this, I was looking forward to the balance changes being made but instead we are now just getting the new land. So instead of it all being large and refreshing I can look forward to facerolling out my group heals again? Awesome.

Just hold the entire patch until it is all completed properly, I'm sure people would be much more grateful and those players who wish to come back will experience the new stat changes too. Don't treat this content update the same way you launched the game, give it some time to be perfected, no one wants a half assed attempt.

Edit:

Unfortunately we CANT test the career changes now as stated in the post:

Career balance changes will be removed from our PTS server starting in Phase 3 of version 1.3 testing, allowing players to focus on testing and feedback for our new Land of the Dead zone.

They should have been left in for further testing, by the looks of it they have just decided "Oh, this is a big mistake" and have withdrawn it entirely to go back into the planning stage. Yes fair enough it is better that it was done on the PTS rather than live but it really does feel like they just wasted a lot of time in which they could have actually applied some real changes.

I've enjoyed the start of Land of the Dead but this new content isn't going to fix the games current problems.

Did you ever thought that they want the players to focus on testing the stuff that will be released now and that clearly lacks testing?

The career changes can wait while they make adjustments to it since it is going to be released later than the LoTD.

In a unrelated note, i believe that having new content will also help to distract the players from many issues in the RvR campaign right now. Having new stuff to do is good while they revamp the RvR campaignn system and prepare those career changes.

Another interesting thought that came to my mind is that to make the PvE content in LotD, balanced parties need to be created for each instance. Therefore, when the area becomes contested the invading side will also face much less of those AoE groups that owned everyone since i seriously doubt those will be effective to complete the PvE content in LotD.

[Azhul]

Originally Posted by PhoenixRed

Unfortunately, with all the marketing push and buzz for Land of the Dead, we all know that that isn't the way MMO companies tend to work - they always push new content because new content is what gets a general gamer excited. I wish this was not the case, and hope that a paradigm shift (whether it comes from Mythic, or one of the other MMO companies releasing an MMO this year or next) will happen in the future.

It will - when and IF the customers stop falling for the ploy. Polish over shineys.

I think this game will be a fine example for the next faction-based PvP game. Both what works, and what doesn't. The remarkable thing is that so many PvPers stuck with this game as long as they did, given its state. That should show some company that a functional and well-designed PvP game can do big business. I no longer think this game wil get there.