1.3.6 Producer Letter (not 1.3.5 :p)

[Keero]

Hello all and welcome to the June Producer’s Letter!

Through these communications I’ve emphasized how we listen to the community and take your feedback seriously while planning the future of WAR. For the most part, the “P-Letter” (as I like to call it) is intended to be a short term look at the next version or two, giving you a look forward at the months to come. However, it’s very clear that there is a lot of desire to hear about long term planning. We hear these requests loud and clear, and it is our desire to give you a better sense of WAR’s long term plan by the end of summer. Our detractors like to make fun of us for “being really excited” and “itching to tell you about” some “really cool things” (yes, we read the snarky posts), and in this case we want to shout it from the rooftops…but not just yet.


In the meantime, there is a lot going on right now! As you now know, we are working with GOA to transition the European community over to Bioware Mythic (Like the fancy new name? We’re still getting used to it ourselves). We’re overjoyed to welcome our European players and are looking forward to more direct interaction with them. For anybody who is curious about the details of the transition, please refer to the transition post and corresponding FAQs in French, English, and German. At the current time, to ensure that we’re not disrupting too much at once, the European players will be playing on mirrored servers of their current environment, simply hosted by Bioware Mythic at our facilities in Dortmund Germany. This consists of two English, two German, and one French server. We will, of course, continually monitor population levels and will consider server consolidations as necessary. If you have an opinion on that, whether you’re playing from North America, Europe, Taiwan, Tajikistan, or any one of the 200+ countries and territories that is currently playing Warhammer, feel free to hop on over to our forums and let us know.

Speaking of the forums, I’d like to extend huge thanks to everyone who has come out and offered their suggestions for the game’s Loading Screen Tips. The selection process is underway and I’m personally very excited to take a look at the entries.

And now…1.3.6.

I’ve made previous mention of changes coming in this version, in particular talking about the appearance slots that are being added to armor. It is our desire that the players are empowered to have both the stats and look of their choice, without being relegated to whatever appearance we set, simply because of the associated power. A dev diary from Sean Bosshardt is on its way which will give more detail about how the system is intended to work.

Recently, post city changes, we have been taking a long, hard look at ORVR. Given the significance of the feature and our intended changes, we are splitting up the development over two versions, beginning with 1.3.6. While these represent the less significant portion of the work, we believe that the impact on the game will be quite material, with the purpose and goal being to get people back into ORVR. That being said, there are some critical components to these changes to achieve those goals, which include, removal of VPs for PVE and Prior Tier, which will be reallocated to Objectives, Scenarios, and Skirmish. While players who have died recently and are respawning in the warcamp will still acquire zone capture rewards, the idle defenders of the mailboxes will not. Players who wish to receive RVR rewards must engage in some level of risk to receive them.

There are many more tweaks to the RVR experience, which can be referenced in this in-development post by our RVR Design lead Mike Wyatt, but I want to highlight one more significant feature. With 1.3.6, we will be introducing a new feature, called Against All Odds, a rewards incentive program that will reward outnumbered armies within an RVR lake by offering a scaling bonus to experience, renown, and influence, up to 400% for the outnumbered realm. We think that with bonuses this high, you’ll see a lot more people willing to engage in all different types of ORVR, especially when the odds are stacked against them.

Finally, I made brief mention in the last letter about incentivizing city armors. Along with our aesthetic changes to armor, we are also making a major addition to armor sets by adding an armor reforge system for Sovereign armor sets. Armor will continue to drop in the current fashion and at the same rates. However, we will be introducing merchants that contain alternate focuses for the Sovereign armor pieces. This means that if you play a DPS Shaman, you can get your normal drops, and go to this merchant to trade in your Sovereign heal chest for a Sovereign DPS chest. The cost of the new item will simply be the cost of the old one. This process includes a full re-itemization of the Sovereign armor sets.

More on this and all the other things going on in the Summer of WAR next month!

-Carrie

I've seen a few classes complain about Sovereign stats being wonky or out of place, so that's hopefully going to be an awesome change for endgame. ORVR changes, woo woo! No more "rush the PQs for flip!" nonsense. I'm all for absurd exp bonuses too. 1.3.6 seems to be one of the better patches released since launch, can't wait to see what all the changes are in the final notes.

 

[zebedee]

The change to eliminate mailbox guarding is huge. This is a great fix that is desperately needed to increase player activity and decrease lamer tactics. I'm guilty myself of zone hopping just for the zone renown xp tick while doing things such as reading mail or organizing inventories and other non participatory shenanigans.

Thanks Keero for keeping us all updated!