Wednesday, February 29, 2012

1.4.6 Detailed

With Warhammer Online's 1.4.5a patch due out next week, Mythic went ahead and posted their plan for the 1.4.6 patch.  If you remember, this patch will be focused on bug fixing.  While that may sound a bit boring, their plan shows some very important changes in the mix.

You can check out the full list here.  Here are a few of the changes which stand out to me...

Change Tier 4 lakes to bolster to 45

This one is a pretty big change.  The levels above 40 are considered hidden, in that only the combat formulas know about them.  By increasing the bolster, you will put all Tier 4 players on an even playing field as far as these levels are concerned.  Gear and renown points will still matter, but this should bring a closer balance.

Change scenarios to bracket by RR rather than CR

This is another interesting change.  By using RR to determine who fights who, it could bring a lot better balance to scenarios.  It's not clear how this will affect queue times yet, but it is definitely something worth looking in to.  

Player-damageable Keep/Fortress doors

This is always an interesting topic.  Before the RvR overhaul players did not really like whacking on the door.  Now that it is gone, a lot of them want it back.  I guess Cinderella was right (the band).

Change the way decay timers function on talismans

I was never a big fan of decay timers, but they do serve an important purpose when use on powerful items.  There are some bugs with LoTD talismans which this should address.

Change the way rams get repaired

The ram is an important part of RvR and has been known to get a little buggy when a lot of people are beating on it.  Personally, I don't like that the ram and siege equipment can repair itself (with player interaction).  I'd much rather see heals come from player abilities or consumables.

Remove flight animations when using Flight Masters

Turns out, these cut scenes are just fluff.  they never really bothered me, but I won't be sorry to see them go either.

This is just a small sample of what was in the list, so do go read the rest.