So I decided to put this up here to let folks know what all I have planned to cover, but also figured people could use this as a request section as well.
I didn’t get too much of a chance to test this out during beta (although I did notice NPCs and my soldier being a little squishy) but there have been some pretty significant changes behind the scenes on how tanking will work. Now I don’t so much mean the agro part of it but the mobs you’re trying to tank have been changed. They hit harder and crit for higher percentages making it more important to keep them on the appropriate person. To help combat this, Guards, Champs, Captains, and Wardens all get bonuses to their crit defense as a passive skill however they are not all equal as the bonus is tied to the class, the stance (for champs), and the size of your shield: (Dev Diary Here)
So, looking at this your best statistical tanks will be Guards, then wardens, then heavy shield wielding Glory stance champs. And from the comments on the beta boards, fervor tanking champs get hit REALLY hard and are not viable options.
I really like this change as again, it makes the game more complex – you can’t just toss more DPS on the fight to win it. This was one of my biggest issues with most of the Moria content, you could out dps any content and not have to really think too much about it, not to mention some fights were just pure DPS races. You’ll need to have a tank and work together to make sure that tank keeps agro – minnies, RKs, and hunters will most likely get hit very hard. I think it also helps champs define their roles a bit better – if they want to tank, they need to trait and equip for it.
Yes, I rolled another toon on DA:O this week – a dual wielding warrior as I really want to see if this will actually work now that I know a little more about the game.
This was announced earlier in the week but I didn’t quite catch it nor really follow what was going on. But Bioware has announced not only a new download pack coming this holiday season but an in-game reward item. The pack is the Retrun to Ostagar and allows you to meet up with one of the survivors (would be cool if it is Duncan, but I highly doubt it) and also re-claim the king’s armor and weapons. I’m pretty excited about the armor as it looks awesome, and I’m going to get it to play through the stories. I loved the Warden’s Keep and the Golem stuff was pretty fun too – even though I don’t use Shale that much in my party.
Also announced was that if you buy the game before Nov. 30th, you’ll receive a bonus dagger, called “The Edge.” After reading through the boards, it appears that the easiest way to get these is to manually download them and use the DA updater. You can also grab “The Wicked Oath” and the “Mark of Vigilance.” Follow the links below to download the files, the bring up the DA Updater which is in your install directory.
The Wicked Oath – Ring – +1 armor penetration, +1 stamina regen, +10% crit/backstab
Mark of Vigilance – Amulet – +6 defense, +2% spell resistance, +5 mental resistance
The Edge – Dagger, 26 Dex – +5 damage, +3% crit, +4 attack, 2 enchantment slots
Worked for me, and now I have those items available – and they’re pretty nice items!
It does feel a little like they’re trying to nickel and dime us here with the add-ons, but I really enjoyed the other ones and $5 is a pretty decent price point for me. So I can see it both ways, but I will be buying Return to Ostagar once it is out.
So the official pool breakdowns are posted for all the classes. Overall, I think the changes are a good step – the system isn’t totally fixed but you have a better chance of knowing early whether your LI will be worth keeping around. The legacies from Pool A will be chosen from at the initial identify with a small chance of them happening on the 10-30 reforges, with all other reforge legacies coming from Pool B. And the 40-60 reforges are upgrades on the legacy tier. One thing that was answered in beta (assuming it hasn’t changed) is that those 40-60 reforges will not grant new legacies even if you have all tier 6’s on your item. The thought process being that with the tier upgrade scrolls, it is a little too easy to grind those out to get everything maxed out and “abuse” the system.
The diary starts here walking through all the classes – link. Warden specific are here – link. But I figured I’d post them and add my thoughts on them as well.
Javelin Pool A
Javelin Pool B
Melee Weapon Pool A
Melee Weapon Pool B
So, first the new/changed ones. Our 2 regen buffs now have a lower starting value but a MUCH higher end value. On my javelin the values ranged from 48.4 – 94.8 (60 2nd Age) on ICPR and 77.6 – 175.6 (55 3rd). The javelin toss range now applies to all jav skills, not just our default toss. And for the ones that say some line, the power reduction applies to that whole chain of gambits – so the tier 3 through tier 5. The range for these reductions are from 1% to 10% power reduction on the gambit itself.
The power reductions are nice, but really our main power drain is on the builders so it is a nice bone, but really won’t make that big of a difference for us.
Overall I do like the changes, I guess how much I like them will depend on how rare those Pool A legacies are on the reforges as there are 9 legacies in Pool A. Basically I’ll go for a threat club for the attack speed debuff and a damage spear or axe. I’ll probably just have 1 javelin though with ICPR and conviction as musts with the other heals, the power reduction, and ICMR as nice to haves.
I knew some of the information but couldn’t figure out a way to explain it – SneakyHobbits does a really good job of breaking it down. Check it out over here.
My first online gaming experience (as I’m sure many other will remember) was playing MUDs or Multi-user Dungeons. For those of you who don’t know, MUDs are text based online games. Being text based does allow them to focus on other areas as they don’t have to worry about the graphics. This allows them to have really in-depth and well thought out systems that other MMOs can’t match. The MUD I started with and continue to play has been Avalon, the legend lives. You can tell the Avalon certainly has been influenced by Tolkien, but pulls in influences from a whole host of different areas. Recently Acheron’s Call celebrated their 10th anniversary which is impressive, but shortly there-after I got the message about Avalon’s 20th and I was amazed. More impressive for me was that there are many of the folks around that I remember from when I first started, similar numbers of players online, and lots of new folks.
I first started playing Avalon with a friend of mine in college and was completely hooked as it allowed for my imagination to fill in the pictures and the depth of the world was amazing. We just stumbled upon it looking for other games and it didn’t take long to get hooked. There’s crafting, city politics, guilds, divinities, open PvP, wide-scale warfare, farming/labors, and an amazingly detailed combat system. Just touching on crafting for a moment, there are herbs, poisons, weapons, armor, potions, runes, food, and probably a few others that I’m missing. Each of these categories has around 30ish options and different ways they can be paired together that not only apply when you start but also are used at the higher levels. There are options for those who don’t want to fight and there are so many things to do that I more find myself struggling to pick what to do when I log on. I ended up getting a lifetime subscription at some point and that has allowed me to come and go when either I needed to or wanted to, and as such I’ve been off/on playing Avalon for 15 years now.
I’ve actually started back up again this week as with the 20th anniversary they announced quite a few new features and systems which I wanted to try out. Despite my current gaming (Dragon’s Age and LOTRO) there’s still a part of me that misses a detailed PvP system. I enjoy PvP with LOTRO but it is too quick and there’s really no risk there and as such not the same reward. Basically PvP with LOTRO is usually over quite quickly and for Freeps there’s really only bragging rights as a reward. With MUDs however (I’ve played a couple, but this mainly based on Avalon) the fighting has a much faster pacing and there’s a good amount of risk/reward. I really have to be on my toes and there are so many attacks, defenses, buffs, de-buffs and all sorts of ways to counter them. Fights usually last on the order of minutes not seconds like in MMOs and are full of counter-punch moments. Momentum plays a key part in fighting but it certainly it is possible to counter it. Also, numbers aren’t on the same magnitude as most MMOs so the battles are usually on smaller scales so small groups/teams not huge zergs.
There certainly is a part of fighting that’s just for bragging rights, but it also gets involved in politics and warfare, and there is a world-wide contests for crowning divinities that are mainly combat oriented. Team based fighting becomes key in many areas and the ways the different classes interact adds a whole other level to the combat system. I play a Ranger which is more of a stealthy class so for me its really helpful to have some heavy hitters around such that I can disable foes and they can smack them around.
I’m still in the process of remembering all the things I forgot and getting my equipment all squared away but expect to be up and running for real here shortly. It will be a very nice play balance for me as Avalon scratches a different itch that currently just isn’t there in LOTRO and vice versa.
So I’ve already knocked this and posted my thoughts but Turbine has posted a dev diary on this topic. Essentially it sounds like they just had too much on their plates to get everything done, and something had to slip. I still don’t like it and am generally disappointed by this but hopefully there’s more stuff coming with Volume 3. Not to mention, I still think most of these are crap if not skills we should be getting for free – I’m looking at you warden/hunter port.
Anyway, I do appreciate them trying to explain their position and the thought process behind it – take a read over here.
I saw this note and wanted to send it along for those have missed it – Bullroarer will be up this weekend for folks looking to check out Skirmishes. If you didn’t get a chance to get on earlier this week, I highly recommend it. I will warn you though, they are highly addicting 
Here’s the post from Sapience for more details – forum link.
This is a cool gesture from the Turbine folks due to the issues they ran into on the test earlier this week. I think this might be one of my favorite things about Turbine, they do make mistakes but usually do a good job of finding creative ways to re-pay us.
So now that the NDA has been lifted, I can share a little more openly on my thoughts for this expansion. I mainly focused on the warden and skirmishes but didn’t do any group instances or the raid. I did work through a couple of the questing areas in Mirkwood and overall really enjoy the zone. It is quite big and there’s a very good set of quests through there. So I’ll try to cover the areas that I saw and what I focused on.
Skirmishes
By far, this is THE feature that makes the expansion for me. These are all sorts of fun and provide a good option for alternative experiences. One option that I haven’t seen talked about as much is that in addition to the normal skirmishes there’s a “survival” mode which really are lots of fun. Basically you’re in a losing battle and try to last as long as you can – basically a skirmish made especially for us wardens I really enjoy the mark system and I think it is a good balance of the rewards. Without skirmishes there’s no way this counts as an expansion, but with this system in place and them using it going forward in the Epic line it is really exciting for the overall game-play mechanic.
Combat Revamp
This was a bit of a roller-coaster but overall I like the new feel. Wardens are basically a tad faster on the gambit builders but I didn’t feel as much of a difference on that toon as I did on my captain. Power was a bit of a concern with the new system but I think you just need to adjust a bit with the new flow. The weapon normalization is rather disappointing as I would’ve liked some options for my toons. Essentially now classes will use the weapons that they (or their race) get bonuses for. I really don’t like the fact that a dagger hits as hard as an axe – I really was hoping they would’ve kept the DPS the same but changed the variance such that a dagger does more constant damage but the axe can have bigger crits. The other good news for wardens is that the spear bug is fixed, and I honestly don’t see a reason to use any other weapon due to the DoT proc potential.
Character stat Changes
One issue that hasn’t been discussed as much (that I’ve seen) is that incoming melee damage is now capped at 15% (equivalent, it now is a rating). In addition some items/traits have been reduced to be not as effective. So essentially it is possible to hit that cap and we might need to re-consider our traits (again). Tanis on the LOTRO boards posted another good analysis of the builds during beta and I’m sure he’ll update that again (if he hasn’t already). The main difference is that innocence, zeal, and discipline are no longer as dominant as they used to be. I’ll have to play around a bit more and see what Tanis has to say after some more data.
Also, stats have some different impacts on toons as Will now effects outgoing healing potential – which unfortunately doesn’t apply to us wardens. And you’ll see a pretty good morale boost as our vit now add +5 to morale per point as opposed to +3 currently. Other classes get other similar bonuses, but I forget what they all are.
Character progression
Across the board, this was the MOST disappointing part of the expansion – if I remember there was only 1 skill mildly useful (minstrel dread removal now applies to the whole group) but otherwise most people won’t even buy it. I know I won’t buy my captain skill (withdraw isn’t even on my toolbar). Now wardens (and hunters) did make out better as we get a port but this is a very cheap skill as well since the Moria port was just a purchased rep reward. No trait progression, no class traits, no new legendaries, nothing for progressing to 65. This part of the expansion is really hard for me to swallow – I just don’t like getting 5 levels for no reason at all.
New Armor Sets
So Az beat me in posting pictures, but mine are a little different in that you’ll notice you can now zoom in on the dressing room. So I won’t post the individual pieces (go to Wizard of Azz for those shots) but the final looks. Also in doing a little stat comparison – here are the numbers between the Mirkwood set compared to my current armor (4 spear-hurler, 6 piece shoulders, and the helm from the mirrors instance)
Total Difference (Mirkwood – current)
So there are some nice boosts, but overall nothing terribly exciting for me. I have mixed feelings about the look, but the set bonus is horrible. And I think this sentiment is pretty much across the board – the set stats are underwhelming and the set bonuses are worthless.
On the plus side, I absolutely LOVE the look of the head and shoulders of the 3 piece set! And the ranger hood is full of win
Summary
For the most part, when it comes to Mirkwood I’m looking forward to it for the skirmishes, epic story line, and the new zone BUT the lack of real character progression in both skills and equipment is a HUGE letdown. Also the new stats and such are another hit for us and will take some time to get used to. This feels very similar to the re-vamp with Moria so I’m sure we’ll get used to it, but it will be a bit hard to get used to at first. It is almost like we’re being moved to 65 to force us to get new weapons and armor to replace mistakes they feel they made with those initial sets. I think I’ll hold off on being totally let down until we see the next step of this progression – notice the armor set is only purple compared to the teals we now have, so we might get something better quite quickly.
Enjoy the snaps, and I’ll see ya in game!
So I’m pretty behind in a lot of this, and others have done a pretty good job of covering the latest news, but I did want to summarize a bit on things in a brief manner. Also, I was in the beta and I will be posting my thoughts on other items here as we go. I will also post my thoughts on beta in general as I’ve been in quite a few of them.
Latest WarCry Dev chat (Link)
A couple of notable things on the good side first :
But on the bad side:
The first 2 on the bad side for me are really bad. Sadly I knew this was coming as I was in beta, but I was really hoping this would get addressed and we’d see something better. There’s really no excitement for me to level my toon other then the content.
Developer Diary on the new raid cluster with Mirkwood – Link
Developer Diary on the combat changes – Link (more in my upcoming beta post)
New Lorien Gold Leaf quests are coming with Mirkwood! – Link
New version of Cstats is up, which will allow for better parsing taking into account DoTs – Link
So I mentioned it in twitter, but I’ll mention it here as well – I have 4 invites left for the first 4 who post a comment to this post. Make sure you provide a valid email such that I can get you the invite.
Just an update, all my invites are used up. If I get anymore I’ll re-post.
A Casual Stroll to Mordor’s Blog Bundle
