2018 is behind us.
The RoR team wishes everyone a happy new year. May 2019 bring you sweetness and peace in your real life. May RoR offer you pleasant time with your friends.
Last year we were very busy with lot of good and « not so good » things, but we are still here, moving on and still trying our best.
We thank you for your support and your patience in this long term journey (the finish line is still far…).
In the February 2018 Developer Diary we announced lot of things and most of them have been done. Client control? Done. Instances? Done. ORvR rework? Done (even it will need a second pass soon), new content? Done. In fact, all have been completed, except one: Fortresses. However this will be rectified in the next couple of weeks, we are just tying up some loose ends before deploying it for the real test.
Testing. A very important concept in the RoR project. Probably the most important. As a reminder, everything you experience, any change you enjoy or not, must be considered as a test. Nothing is engraved in stone for eternity. Our motivation is always the same: Making this project better. Some will argue we don’t. Some will say we are making wrong choices. Some will say we betray the original game spirit. My answer as « owner » will always be the same: We are trying our best, on our free time, without wanting for anything in return. We have no personal interest for a faction or the other, we have no personal interest in this project except to give it life.
Many aspects of the project are still set aside, like progression for exemple. We are aware of that, but those complaining about it, must keep in mind we can’t focus on all aspect of the game at the same time, and every part of it is important. Some are neglected atm, some pushed forward even they don't seem to be critical, but behind these choices, there are lot of reasons ; from inability (los, pet management, IA…) to act on at the moment, to lack of time (We all have IRL responsibility). Every week, we discover new things, new solutions, every week, we are deploying new content, leading to new issues.
It seems to be an endless project, we could spend years and years, and giving the feeling we are not moving on, but just consider all the path done these last years. Remember your enjoyment when we were all in T1 killing each other for no purpose, with everything broken, and compare.
Today, lot of people see RoR as a finished game and have forgotten it is clearly not. Expectations have never been so high, and each detail or missing content is source of passionate behaviour.
Passion. This is another important word in this small community. We are all animated with it. Why in 2019 this game still alive? Why so many people focused on this old dead project when anyone can find thousand of incredible games all around? Cause this game is for you as for us, THE game. We love it, and we want the best, whatever this best can be. Sadly, passion is destructive and leads to strange behaviours and dramas as we experienced last year. Without going back to past events, we all must keep in mind this project is based on dedication. Yours, as players, spending your time on it, enjoying and raging, ours, doing EXACTLY the same at another level with the same result. But in the end of the day, like Alice says in wonderland, « this is just a card deck ». There is nothing important in it.
The road ahead is pretty long and tons of things have to be done before taking some rest for us and finally say: « It looks almost fine and acceptable». Cause you know, sometimes, some of you may be very severe about our work, they will never be as severe as we will be to ourselves. But please. I beg you to never forget we are trying our best. I beg you to never forget we are not a professional company. Just old kids, doing some crazy stuff. For nothing but you.
This is why we wish you again a sweet and peaceful 2019 and to start it under the best omens : Let's start with a X2 WEEKEND.
[Guild Standards]
Guild Standards make a return to battlefronts. A Standard displays the bearers guild heraldry and can have a customisable post. Each type of Standard can have up to three guild tactics on it (these are locked for 24 hours when changing them). A Standard Bearer can deploy their Standard which will share the bonuses of their guilds tactics to every player on their realm who is within range of their standard. You must be a Standard Bearer to use a Standard, you must have the correct guild permissions and use the ".standard" command.
A Standard can be planted. You can pick up your standard again after interacting with it for 3 seconds. A friendly player can recover your standard after interacting with it for 10 seconds (and it is mailed to you), they will however receive a moral debuff. Enemy players can capture your Standard if they can interact with it for 15 seconds, players in the enemys realm within range of the banner will be rewarded with renown and a moral buff. They will not be able to gain more moral from capturing standards with this buff active. If you log out without fully stowing your standard it may be lost.
Guild Tactics have been reset for all guilds and all Standard tactic assignments have been reset. Only the first level of tactics is currently available during this phase. You can only Respecialize a Guild Tactics when all of your banners are not locked.
[Guild]
- Fixed an issue where players could move things from the guild vault to the crafting bag which should not go there.
[Scenario]
- Hides SCs from the SC list when the group does not meet the requirements (for example less then FG and premade SC or more then 2 in party and PUG SC).
[Abilities]
- Auras should now only show the strongest one unless you are the caster as then you will see your aura regardless.
[Witch Hunter and Witch Elf]
- Stealth abilities cooldowns returned to 30s CD (from 35) and convoluted cooldown reduction based on enemy around you when you strike removed.
- Hastened Expurgation and Shadow Runner removed.
- Slice and Razor Strike returned to single target
- Broad Severing and Sweeping Razor returned to effecting an additional 2 enemies and a 10% damage reduction.
- AOE function on Trial By Pain and Ruthless Assault removed.
Note - The above is not a balance pass but a restoration for technical reasons.
- The following abilities can now be used while stealthed.
- Blessed Bullets of Confession
- Blessed Bullets of Cleansing
- Blessed Bullets of Purity
- Sigil of Sigmar
- Feinted Positioning
- Seal of Destruction
- Shroud of Magnus
- Van Horstmans Speculum
- Kiss of Death
- Kiss of Agony
- Kiss of Betrayal
- Fleet Footed
- Feinted Positioning
- Elixir of Insane Power
- Elixir of Blades
- Elixir of the Cauldron
[Witch Elf]
- Sacrificial Stab is now "You offer up your target as a sacrifice, stabbing them twice and healing yourself for all damage that you dealt. For the next 10 seconds your autoattack damage will be increased by 10% for each resource point spent on the attack.". Ability has had its positional requirement removed.
- Frenzied Mayhem - This tactic has been reworked and will no longer give a flat 3% critical rate per resource points held, instead it will increase the damage of your finishers by 5% per point used on them. For example if you have 1 finisher point and use Puncture, it will do 5% more damage, if you have 5 finisher points then use Puncture it will do 25% more damage. (Witchbrew is not affected)
- Mark of Morathi - New tactic - This will increase your Autoattack speed by 50% upon the use of a finisher ability for 10 seconds.
- Broad Severing - Tactic moved to core, attainable upon hitting level 17
- Bleeding Edge - New tactic - Upon the use of a finisher you increase your Armor Penetration by 50% for 3 seconds. Placed at 11 points Path of Carnage.
Note - The Witch Elf was a very different beast at launch with a very separate playstyle from the Witch Hunter, it had some broken things but instead of doing a balance pass Mythic made it "WH lite" and gave all their finishers at perplexing 30ft range. Not overly terrible but unfortunately a very strong tactic existed (Frenzied Mayhem) which gave the WE significant benefits for NOT using their class mechanic or finishers, indeed it punished you if you did. So we had an odd situation, where the Witch Elf had some very interesting abilities but the most "efficient" play was to basically eschew using their finishers and be a Agonizing Wound spammer.
As a result we are trying a few systems to see what works best to pull the class from a AW spambot into a more fun and challenging class.
[Witch Hunter]
- Sweeping Razor - Tactic moved to core, attainable upon hitting level 17
- Bleeding Edge - New tactic - Upon the use of a finisher you increase your Armor Penetration by 50% for 3 seconds. Placed at 11 points Path of Confession.
[Archmage and Shaman]
- Hurried Restore and Dat Makes me Dizzy will now self stun the player regardless of whether they have immunities already and will not grant any immunities in any case. - Bug fix.
[Bright Wizard and Sorceror]
- Flames of Rhuin, Flameshield, Daemonic Chill and Frozen Touch have had their cooldown removed (snuck out last patch)
[Engineer and Magus]
- Crack Shot and Perils of the Warp (specable disarms) have had their cast times reduced to 1 second (from 2 seconds) but their damage has also been cut in half.
[Classes]
[White Lion]
- Lion will now spawn to the side of you instead of on top of you.
[Engineer]
- Turret will now spawn to the in front of you instead of on top of you.
[Squig Hearder]
- Squigs will now spawn to the in front of you instead of on top of you.
[Magus]
- Demons will now spawn to the in front of you instead of on top of you.
[Quests]
- The next quest in a quest chain will be automatically offered to you on completion of the previous stage.
- A Norse Bargain: Quest line has been corrected and reworked
- A Little Compensation: Whole quest line is now available and reworked
[Tickets]
[12793] Quest marker now fits with the location of the NPC
[13041] Quest marker for the Sewers entrance has been set
[12980]/[12981] Corrected all quest markers
[13009] Quest can now be obtained again
[13004] High Pass Cemetery and Reikland Factory counts now for order and destro
[12979] Removed the second objective
[12984]/[12985] Corrected all quest markers and removed the second objective
[12992]/[12993] Some of the Arkaneth try to flee, you can now slain them
[12839] Reduced the armor to a normal values - NO MORE TANKY DPS AMs
[12994] The Ballista got his old stength back
[12996] Unicorn Giblet Soup is back on the menu
[12995] whole quest line is now available
