I played Skaven

Yesterday (or in fact today) I, like a fool, sat up to the early hours of the morning and tried out the playable Skaven on the PTS.

It was very interesting indeed, a lot of fun and I can safely say that Skaven are going to have a big impact on our tried and tested ways of playing WAR. First off let’s be clear, NONE of them seemed to do a great deal of damage to players. If you’re thinking you will be WTFPWNING!!! people with them, sorry folks, but that’s not going to happen. They will however influence fights through their unique abilities and in no small way too, but really from the off you should be thinking of the Skaven as support classes.

There are a few common things between the 4 Skaven classes:

• All of them have very high hit points; I believe it ranged from 17k to 34(?)k depending on class.
• None of them can use mounts, so you’re on foot and legging it around, slowly.
• Rat Ogres can only be healed by the Packmasters, but other Skaven can be healed by other people. So they will require escorting by other players, but they will be worth it. (thanks Anon comment for the correction!)
• You turn yourself into Skaven from a device in the keep and you will remain as Skaven until either you die or you leave the RvR lake.
• When you turn into a Skaven your tool bars change to Skaven abilities, with each class having around 6 different things it can do. These abilities need to be rearranged to your preference and reset each time you change into a Skaven. A minor thing, but quite annoying, so hopefully that will get improved.
• None of the careers have a spamable attack, everything has a cooldown of at least 2 seconds and more often 5.
• There are limited numbers of each type of the Skaven careers available at one time, except it seems Rat Ogres which appeared to be unlimited.

Rat Ogre

The throwing people around is going to be hugely popular. It’s intended for throwing people onto walls, but it’s uses will go well beyond that. Hurling ranged onto rooftops, throwing people over obstacles for shortcuts, all sorts of things… Oh and you can only throw people in your group or warband, so the griefing concerns can be forgotten (except in PUGs…).

Other than using a ram, the only other thing that can damage doors are Rat Ogres. Keeping them alive will be interesting…

For general ORvR fighting Rat Ogres are going to have a big influence by guilds that make the most of them tactically. They have an AoE stagger for a start, but the real imposing (and hilarious) ability is their charge. You can hurtle forwards and quite literally knock enemy players flying. I ran straight through a warband and bodies went everywhere. Didn’t do much damage (if any), but it totally screwed up their postioning.

Packmaster

I had problems with this career. I may have been doing it wrong, but their heal seemed very underwhelming and I had a little difficulty telling when it was working or not. I was getting invalid target a lot, presumably because the Rat Ogre I was targeting already had a heal active? Not sure.

I really liked their summoning rats ability, it was just amusing to use, though how potent it was I’m not entirely sure. Oh and they can leap huge distances to the nearest Rat Ogre, which has to be the best get out of dodge ability in the game. All told I’m just uncertain on this class, I gave it a good go, but it just didn't click for me, but it could have been me being confused. I'd be very interested to hear how other people got on with it.

Gutter Runner

This little bugger is going to be very, very popular. The damage is pathetically bad, but with permanent stealth and a 60% run buff on a toggle, combined with their ability to leap up walls, these are the ultimate scouting class. For example you can easily get all the way into the inner keep and report on exactly how the enemy is setting themselves up. I spent a lot of my time running round watching stuff and it actually reminded me of my DAoC scout and being the eyes of our alliance in the old days.

They can sabotage enemy siege weapons, but I didn’t get to see the end result of that unfortunately. For general warband play they also have a quite potent AoE snare bomb type thing, which when delivered from their uber stealth could well be a right pain in the arse.

Warlock Engineer

I LOVE the look and sound effects from this class, very cool. Unfortunately I didn’t get to play it very much, but from what I saw it seems like the one class that might do some proper damage with its lightning gun and warpfire thrower. It also has some seriously good buffs . But like I said I didn’t get much time with this one, so can’t say too much.

How exactly this will all work out on live we can’t be sure, but these new classes provide some very interesting new tools for warband leaders to utilise. It looks to me like they are going to dramatically change things and we’ve got a lot of new stuff to get the hang of.

BTW sorry the screenies are low quality, was a bit of a rush job and I was tired :P

Like a Lion

I do like themed warbands and groups, they're just a good laugh to mess around with. And I'm not alone there.. Check out this video from Karak Norn's Champion of the Gods.

Order scumbags ofc ;)

Dungeon, Lair or Scenario?

I’ve not been able to test the new Skaven dungeon “Thanquol’s Incursion” yet. Unfortunately real life has clashed with PTS events and given me slim windows of opportunity to get on and when I did manage to sneak, both times there were issues that prevented me getting in the instance. Bloody sods law.

Reading the feedback on the forum from the first test events gives a rather bleak outlook on the dungeon and the direction taken. However since then I’ve also heard some feedback directly from people I know and trust that went to last night’s PTS event. Their feedback was more mixed with a generally positive outlook, but tempered by many major things that need sorting out.

I’m not going to post the details of what was said; since I’ve not got in the dungeon at all I’m bound to get things mixed up. But in general people seemed to have had a good time and are hopeful that if Mythic continue to tweak things (considerably) then it could work out to be a lot of fun.

Bit of vague post I know, but that’s what I’m left with. There’s too much blind sycophantic or mindless hatred opinion being posted for me to trust much of what’s out there right now. With luck I’ll get a chance to test it out sometime before it goes live.

I do think though that from what I’ve seen so far it doesn’t seem to be what I think of as a dungeon (big place, stuff to explore and fight over), more like a scenario with mobs in the middle, or perhaps a RvR enabled instanced Lair would be a better description? Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but I’m trying to get my head round what this place really is.

I think people will have very set ideas about what the word dungeon means, particularly when you put RvR near the word. Memories of Darkness Falls leap to the forefront of your mind and while I think much of them will be rather rose-tinted (particularly on the PvE vs PvP balance), the sense of scale associated with those memories is pretty damn epic and accurately so. The RvR dungeons in DAoC are not dungeons, they are DUNGEONS!

But then new Lair or Scenario isn’t exactly going to set the world alight and perhaps is far underselling what the new Skaven instanced thing is. Maybe its somewhere in between. I’m really not sure yet.

To be honest if it’s fun I won’t care too much and it’s important to note there are both positive and negative things being said about the PTS events, but I do wonder how much the negative stuff is being influenced by expectation related to the word dungeon. If true though I don't think that is a reason to write those negative comments off, since managing player expectation is a big part of running and evolving a MMO. You could probably find all sorts of debate over what RvR means too. Opinions... such a pain.

Solo hero warband legends

I know I should be finishing off my Chosen, but I just can’t help myself and shock shock horror, I’ve got distracted by one of my (far too many) alts. This weekend it was all about my Squig Herder. He’s level 40 and low RR, but it’s a career that can be surprisingly effective with the right choice of gear. Not a patch on a top end geared one of course and obviously you’re the underdog, but you can have an impact, get some kills and perhaps surprise yourself.
 
I spent most of my online Squig time roaming solo, mixed with a bit of PUG warbanding and a few scenarios. Which is how I would always recommend getting the hang of a career in T4, initially at least; put yourself in the shit and learn how to deal with it. And always remember if you lose, it’s just as much you as it is the enemy’s gear/OPness/etc.
 
Also and where this post is leading, is it’s good to learn and enjoy different playstyles. If you only ever play in guild warbands and perfect set ups it will just mean you suck when caught solo. And being caught on your lonesome will happen at some point, unless you’re one of those types that won’t go anywhere without an escort. There are an awful lot of big reputation players that may well be incredibly good team players, but prove to be not all that great when caught without all their group/warband crutches.
 
Having said that, WAR is most certainly a group game and while it’s great fun being a solo roaming hero, you’ll find it a lot harder to achieve much without finding your place in a decent warband. So while I would recommend initially learning the class by solo roaming lots, you will quite quickly need to suss out what you should be doing in a warband and how that can require totally different tactic and ability selection. Those big reputation players that disappoint when solo may well fully deserve their reputation for their understanding of group synergy and being as devastating as possible.
 
For example I know a few people that are incredible solo players, but are an absolute bloody nightmare in a warband; always running off at random chasing things down, not using group beneficial abilities quite so well, etc. When you have a mixed hardcore-casual guild like mine that’s just something you have to live with :P
 
It’s often quite amusing while browsing forums to read solo heroes and the “won’t go out without a warband” players sneering at each other’s playstyles. Yet really they’re both perfectly valid ways of playing and if you want to maximise your enjoyment of the game then you should consider learning both. Unless of course your epeen won’t let you run the risk of losing a fight, in which case you may want to reflect on what epeen is actually worth. Purely playing one style just means you miss out on more ways to enjoy your time playing WAR.

New armour sets adjusted after feedback

Mythic have just posted up adjustments to the new RR90/100 armour sets they revealed earlier this month. These changes have been made based upon the feedback people have left in the focus discussion threads, so as always if you've got an idea and/or further constructive feedback, go post on the official forum threads and you genuinely stand a chance of influencing things. You can find all the relevant threads in this section of the forums.

Here's the details posted:

Hello everybody,


We have been reading through all of your great feedback regarding the new Doomflayer and Warpforged sets. After discussing all of the feedback internally, we have come up with a number of adjustments. As always, if you choose to respond please stay on topic with comments directly related to these adjustments. Also, these are all subject to change.


General Notes
To clarify some confusion as to how these procs work (Sovereign, Doomflayer and Warpforged), they will not refresh themselves. This means that a proc cannot be triggered again while the effect is active. In addition, any proc that is higher level (e.g. Warpforged vs Doomflayer) will overwrite the lower level proc.


As evidenced by the changes below, the support careers now have 1 version of their sets with a proc that affects their entire group and 1 proc that affects themselves. This is meant to reinforce their intended purpose of being a support career.


Tanks
-Chosen and Swordmaster sets will have WS replaced with Init.


-All tank procs will be set to On Being Attacked. The difference between On Being Attacked and On Being Hit is that in order for the latter to have a chance to trigger, it must not be defended. On Being Attacked will have a chance to trigger regardless of whether you successfully defend or not.


-The 4 piece proc will be replaced with the following:
--Doomflayer: On Being Attacked: 10% chance to reduce incoming damage to your group by 7% for 10 seconds.
--Warpforged: On Being Attacked: 10% chance to reduce incoming damage to your group by 10% for 10 seconds.


Ranged DPS
-The BS on the secondary defensive set will be re-allocated, with half of the stat points put into WS (71 BS, 70 WS).


Magic Healers
-The 2 piece proc will be replaced with the following:
--Doomflayer: On Heal: 10% chance to gain 66 Action Points over 3 seconds.
--Warpforged: On Heal: 10% chance to gain 75 Action Points over 3 seconds.


Melee Healers
-The Tou on the secondary melee set will be replaced with Init


-The 4 piece proc will be replaced with the following:
--Doomflayer: On Hit: 10% chance to reduce your chance to be critically hit by 7% for 10 seconds.
--Warpforged: On Hit: 10% chance to reduce your chance to be critically hit by 10% for 10 seconds.

Last nights test didn't go to plan

I couldn't go because of how late it was this side of the pond and tbh I'm glad I didn't sit up for it, as apparently things didn't quite go to plan. ;)

There werea few issues, including one where people got ported to Norsca... And as such there wasn't much time left for people to test the dungeon properly. But even so, that's one big bug discovered. Plus finding silly things like that is what testing is for and you should never go expecting things to be anywhere near perfect.

Thankfully people did at least get to have a crack at the first RvR boss event. Werit has posted a video of it which you can check out at his blog over here.

It looks like a fairly stationary boss with the emphasis more on the fighting with players, but I can't really tell what else was having to be dealt with. We'll find out soon though with the next test on Friday, which I also probably can't make due to RL commitments, but I'll gather any news I can find ASAP.

In other related news, Mythic have confirmed subscribers will NOT have to pay for the RvR Packs to enter the new dungeon. The only limitation is the RR65+ limit, but remember that doesn't mean you'll be able to access all the goodies or rewards from it without purchasing part of the RvR pack, we'll have to wait and see on that one. Also I've no idea yet if that includes access to the playable Skaven or not.

More news as it appears...

Thanquol's Incursion, will folks stay and fight?

OK so I’m presuming everyone has read Mythic’s post on the herald with more info about the new Skaven RvR Dungeon “Thanquol's Incursion”.

I was hoping for an RvR zone more than a dungeon, though I’m not entirely sure what I had envisaged; something huge and open, perhaps akin to DAoC style zones. Yet a while back I came round to accepting that WAR will never be DAoC2 and it certainly will never be UO2 (my other dream game…), but I still enjoy it and play WAR most nights, so perhaps while I think I want a return to those games, maybe I wouldn’t be quite so happy going back. Dunno for sure. WAR does work perfectly for someone like me that is balancing a family and gaming. Being able to log out whenever without hassle is essential if you want to maintain a relationship with a non-gaming wife. WAR is wonderfully friendly to the older gamer doing the hardcore casual thing.

Anyway, part of WAR’s different style is the instanced 24vs24 City siege and it looks like Thanquol's Incursion is very much going to be a similar experience. 3 stages and a focus on RvR, mixed with NPC interaction that isn’t quite normal PvE. The city siege is still a fun experience, at least when people aren’t quitting the instance to avoid tough opposition. Though on that topic it’s a little more understandable when solo queuing and you get into a half way finished instance with your spawn being camped and barely any friendly players there. Plus despite what people’s internet personas and egos may allow them to admit, I’ve seen premade groups/warbands from every single well known guild from both factions drop out when things went bad, actually I tell a lie, there’s one exception and it’s not who Norn players would expect.

OK that’s a tangent, but it’s relevant because if Thanquol's Incursion uses the same system to join as the city, then we will most likely see similar things. Which will mean when it’s good, it’s great and when it’s not so good, it’s a bit meh. Yet, any PvP game will see things like this happen. There’s always a load of people that will always go for the path of least resistance, no matter how dull. That’s why the term leechers is so common in MMOs.

So the big questions for me for anyone that goes to tonight’s (or for me early morning) PTS Skaven event is:

Does joining the dungeon work like the city siege?
And if so how much fun will this instance be to play with erratic opposition?
Or does it work in such a way that people will stay for the fun/fight/whatever?

It’s a tricky one to balance as if you make the Bosses too involving it becomes too much PvE when you’ve got a proper fight on. Maybe Mythic have cracked it though. Mythic learnt a lot from the City siege, tonight we’ll discover how that gets applied. Alas I can’t make this first test, work tomorrow and all that, but I’m looking forward to hearing what people discover.

Other random thought, I bet Warhammer lore fans are wetting their panties about this famous pair below.