Patch Notes 09/03/2022

[dwyur]

Some really good, arguably long over due changes here. Obviously I'm unaware of the rate as which you can acquire War Crests and how it relates to the previous gear grind, but I think the scheduling of city firing which has been a problem day one, fort changes/zone lock changes are very good idea as well, will by default assist people in playing the game occasionally and being able to make progress. Keeping in the armor lockouts but making them into tiers is positive but could've just removed them fully. I really like that (even as someone whose played maybe 5 ranked matches) that there is a ring only acquirable through Ranked insignias. I think this patch is attempting to fix and balanced out a lot of the issues related to RvR progression and gearing in the right way, while providing incentives to play all of the endgame PvP modes.

edit; I guess it's important all of this positive viewpoint is dependent on the rate at which players acquire War Crests with these changes. If it's the same grind as before or somehow worse & longer with one currency, none of the other changes really matter since it won't keep new players or bring more players back playing characters competing in endgame PvP.

Bold strategy Cotton let's see if it pays off for 'em

[dwyur]

To the people complaining about cities firing on a schedule; cities have fired at like 1am-4am for the longest time besides weekends maybe, or am I wrong here?
I think the concerns about "what's the point of entering RvR/no priding aspect of pushing" I think are valid, but fighting for zones is still going to be the experience it always was. Cities already went off at terrible times, and I don't think everyone was ORvR'ing to push or deny a city only.
In fact people always yelled about people "throwing" the zone so a city would fire. This eliminates that yes?

[Aethilmar]

Bold strategy Cotton let's see if it pays off for 'em

Reaction after every patch

[Skullgrin]

Oh joy, feedback time again! If you actually bother to read this then strap in, it's gonna be a long one.

First off, regarding the currency change - prices for pretty much everything are too high, and your conversion of the old currencies was flawed. I had 65 Royal crests before the change (I was 10 away from my final Sov. piece) along with 160+ Invaders, 140+Invader shards, over 5k Vanq and 2.5k Conq. Not to mention large numbers of scenario tokens also. For all of that I only received around 10300 war crests. Buying that final single Sov. piece cost a whopping 20% of the converted currency I received. Insane doesn't even begin to cover that kind of price markup. I feel sorry for anyone that has to grind out anything under the new system, even if the currency drops more often (which I'm not sure that it does, more on that later). Thankfully I've purchased all 3 of the 2H scenario weapons already, along with full Sovereign and Warlord, so I won't have to deal with any of that.


Next, on to the currency drop rate - here is a screen shot from my first kill after the patch -




A little background on this. I log in and head to Praag, go to Kurlov's Armory to cap the BO. Hotspex runs in and waves hello to me, and I take advantage of his friendliness by killing him. Partway thru the fight a WE shows up and must have done enough damage so that I don't end up getting any rewards for the fight. Bummer, but I get the killing blow, so I should get credit toward the weekly 150 kills, right? NOPE! And checking the Killboard later on shows that I didn't get credit there either, so somethings broken somewhere. I guess I should be thankful that I at least got credit for capping the BO.


Next screen shot -




I've moved on to Etaine, deep into enemy territory, and go to solo cap the Siege Camp BO. I run into a level 38 Knight. I kill him easily (and feel kinda bad about doing it, but I wanted to see how the new currency system works when you kill someone lower than you). And the answer is, YOU DON'T GET NOTHIN'. No currency at all... At least before if I killed a noob I'd get an Officers medal that I could use to buy a cheap AP potion with. Now, nothing.


Third screen shot -




This time I've gone to the Chaos Wastes. Moving to cap Thugamond Massif I run into a more worthy opponent (according to the Killboard he is RR79). I dispatch him and my reward for my combat prowess is... 2 War Crests. The new cost for a Officers Healing potion is what, 7 crests? So, the reward for solo combat with a decently leveled opponent is --- 1/4 of a mid range potion. Underwhelming doesn't even begin to cover it.

Now I know what people are going to say, that finishing the weekly event will get you more War Crests. Which will make up for the reduced amount of currency you get from open combat now. Problem is, that assumes you have the time to grind out the weekly event on a consistent basis. If you don't have that time then you're pretty much screwed because you don't get any significant rewards from casual play.


And the cherry on top of it all if you do actually have the time to grind out the weekly event? If you're really good at grinding out RvR tasks and earn the elite rewards, you end up getting a Soulstone. An item that is COMPLETELY unusable if ALL you do is RvR. The only way to get the rings that it is used with is via -

1. PvE - grinding thru Gunbad to get the wards and then grinding to get the Sentinel set.

2. Ranked Group Scenarios - ranked solo never pops during NA prime time, and I doubt that the group option does either (not that I currently have the time to spend to become part of an organized group).


So does this mean that you guys are going to add a Jewelry Slot 3 ring that is comparable to the Sentinel/Triumphant rings and can be bought solely with RvR currency? Because if not, the whole idea that the currency and campaign changes were made to free you up so you only have to play the content that you want to is laughable. Making the elite reward something that has nothing to with tasks you perform to get it is just bad design. At the very least remove the Bind on Pickup aspect of it so that it could be sold on the auction house.


Now on a final note I wanted to address a couple things that are posted elsewhere in the thread that I feel are less than completely honest and forthcoming. No disrespect is meant, I just think that when you have the opportunity you should speak truth to power.

The exact hour the city siege will happen randomized with a weighted random based on population stats. So while it can occur at any hour of the day there's a higher chance it will occur at times with a higher population online.

You should have just phrased this as "You will never see a City or Land of the Dead unless you can play during Europe prime time. North Americas prime time population is too low to actually affect when either of these events will occur." So far both of the 'random' scheduled times for the next City and LotD according to the in-game UI widgets are happening during EU prime time, and I'd bet money that they all will be for the foreseeable future.

We understand that grinding for a gear tier that you won't use, just as a prerequisite to unlock a higher gear tier is annoying. We'll review this requirement and amend it.

Does this mean you're gonna remove Gunbad as a pre-requirement to getting actually useful gear PvE side? Somehow I doubt it.

[dwyur]

Yeah clearly the conversion seems pretty horrible based on that assessment. You just lost what would've been weeks and weeks worth of time spent grinding out royal crests.

Based on that alone why would these changes assist anyone with getting gear faster.
If the rate of acquiring War Crests is as slow as has been discussed in this thread, again none of the changes will do anything but lower the population long term anyway. Most casual players definitely did not log in and spend every single royal or invader they had to get a gear piece, and with the conversion you just cost them a ton of time in value they had already spent trying to get gear pieces.

[shoelessHN]

Server would benefit from a rollback to Tuesday at this point.

[Emissary]

Any thoughts on the randomness of cities and lotd for us EST primetime players?

[shoelessHN]

Yeah clearly the conversion seems pretty horrible based on that assessment. You just lost what would've been weeks and weeks worth of time spent grinding out royal crests.

Based on that alone why would these changes assist anyone with getting gear faster.
If the rate of acquiring War Crests is as slow as has been discussed in this thread, again none of the changes will do anything but lower the population long term anyway. Most casual players definitely did not log in and spend every single royal or invader they had to get a gear piece, and with the conversion you just cost them a ton of time in value they had already spent trying to get gear pieces.

The rumors of 10-20% price increases turned out to be 1000-5000%. If you were busy and thought 15% oh well I can live with that, you just got bent over. The exodus won't begin immediately but slowly as people realize everything below vanq is insanely priced there will be very few new players that stick around. Guess all the people that logged in after not playing a year are happy though, full sov with all their old vanqs. Catering to a group of people that already left the game or are already running around in end-game gear is an amazing strategy.

[Kaelang]

Yeah clearly the conversion seems pretty horrible based on that assessment. You just lost what would've been weeks and weeks worth of time spent grinding out royal crests.

Based on that alone why would these changes assist anyone with getting gear faster.
If the rate of acquiring War Crests is as slow as has been discussed in this thread, again none of the changes will do anything but lower the population long term anyway. Most casual players definitely did not log in and spend every single royal or invader they had to get a gear piece, and with the conversion you just cost them a ton of time in value they had already spent trying to get gear pieces.

The rumors of 10-20% price increases turned out to be 1000-5000%. If you were busy and thought 15% oh well I can live with that, you just got bent over. The exodus won't begin immediately but slowly as people realize everything below vanq is insanely priced there will be very few new players that stick around. Guess all the people that logged in after not playing a year are happy though, full sov with all their old vanqs. Catering to a group of people that already left the game or are already running around in end-game gear is an amazing strategy.

1000 - 5000%? Hm.

Anyway - as you can already see from the feedback and changes we've already implemented within the week - this is a live development and is being monitored daily. We're taking all feedback onboard and are actively changing prices (see potion change already implemented).

People like to play the doomer whenever we have a change - granted this is a substantial one, but I ask that you refrain from being overly dramatic. IF something isn't tuned correctly and attention is brought to it in a concise matter, nothing is 'off the tables' when it comes to evaluating options.

[dalen]

Yeah clearly the conversion seems pretty horrible based on that assessment. You just lost what would've been weeks and weeks worth of time spent grinding out royal crests.

Based on that alone why would these changes assist anyone with getting gear faster.
If the rate of acquiring War Crests is as slow as has been discussed in this thread, again none of the changes will do anything but lower the population long term anyway. Most casual players definitely did not log in and spend every single royal or invader they had to get a gear piece, and with the conversion you just cost them a ton of time in value they had already spent trying to get gear pieces.

The rumors of 10-20% price increases turned out to be 1000-5000%. If you were busy and thought 15% oh well I can live with that, you just got bent over. The exodus won't begin immediately but slowly as people realize everything below vanq is insanely priced there will be very few new players that stick around. Guess all the people that logged in after not playing a year are happy though, full sov with all their old vanqs. Catering to a group of people that already left the game or are already running around in end-game gear is an amazing strategy.

if you count that way you could also say that currency drop rate has increased by 312500% in lower tiers.

What previously gave 1 recruit medallion now gives 1 war crest, worth 3125 times more per the conversion.