DEV DIARY - March 2016

[MrHoot]

Awesome Dev diary You guys are doing such awesome work.

What was most interesting for me, more than T4, was just the commentary on PQs. I always appreciated WAR for actually launching that idea and it's funny how it caught on in almost every subsequent major mmo. Rift, SWTOR, GW2, FF14.
I think RIft and FF14 had the best approach. Rift mostly because of how dynamically it worked and made it into a true "PvE" scenario where the Ai seemed to have a plan of it's own sometimes.
And FF14 mostly because of how it worked in well with the rest of the game (linked to quests, including major ones, and epic chains and dailies), compared to WAR where it was ignored completely past the initial point. It's sad tho that the structure of the PQs in WAR might be too rigid and most of all time consuming to be reworked

I agree also with your comments concerning T4 and resource carriers and such. I wasn't a fan. If anything I would also like to avoid the absurdity it became quite near the end and maybe try to work in a more flat progression system rather than a straight vertical one

[Jaycub]

Thanks for making a video, it's nice to just listen to in the backround.

Spoiler:

t4 better come out in 2 weeks or there will be riots :^)

[Boursk]

I was like "YEEEEAAA" when you announced Torquemadra at the end

[Genisaurus]

Nice dev diary. There is one thing that concerns me: Leaving Renown cap at 40 or 45. Are you planning to raise the renown cap in waves so that everybody can catch up to the maximum until releasing a higher cap?

For me, the primary motivation is content. T4 has nicely striated sections of content based on renown rank, and I would personally prefer to release that content, it's rewards, and the renown ranks required to attain it all at once. This might get messy once cities are in the pipeline, because there's three sets waiting on that one release, but we'll see. We don't have a roadmap set in stone yet.

[tomato]

Allright, going through one thing at a time.
Ade said the original philosophy of the game designers was to make the best gear attainable from ORVR.
To be honest, I kinda have a hard time seeing this.

I'm going to seperate WAR in three "stages of gear":
Let's take a look at the best in slot gear options we had. (Going to do this for dps, as this is the archetype I'm the most knowledgable about).

First stage: The pre-LotD stage.
The best available armor for a long time was Darkpromise (4 parts for the crit) + Warlord (or old Souvereign later on) (3 pieces including gloves for the crit) or instead of warlord inv/conq (2 pieces).
Where did you get this gear from? Darkpromise was only obtainable via PvE in the dungeon Lost Vale. Warlord (souvereign) was available in the city-dungeon stage two (three), so PvE aswell, only needing RvR to get there.
The best weapons: You got the best weapons on exactly the same way (Lost Vale and Warlord (King) dungeon.)

Second stage: LotD stage.
Best available armor: Tyrant from ToVL dungeon mixed with Darkpromise/Warlord/Souvereign. After the nerf to rdps sets the best gear for bw was still Darkpromise+Warlord/Souvereign.
Best jewelry: LotD glyphs. (From ToVL)
Best weapons: From LoTD worldboss or partly still the Warlord/Souvereign dungeon weapons + later on the sc weapons (obainable by afk leeching in scenarios). And sandstorm weapons. (Random LotD pruples)

Third stage: rr100
This was the absolute first time in the game, were the best armor was available through RvR.
Best armor: Doomflayer/Warpforged, obtainable through RvR medallion (war crests) drops and "RvR-dungeons".
Best weapons: Sc-Weapons and bugged LotD soul weapons.
Best jewelry: LotD-Glyphs and renownrank jewelry purchasable through medallions (war crests later on).

To conclude (and tl; dr): The only stage of the game where you could get the best gear through RvR was the horrendous rr100 stage.
The only thing that mattered was how much time you would invest, best armor and weapons were obtainable by beeing afk.

So I really don't see how the original intend was to get the best gear through RvR (which is a horrible idea anyway) when it only was the case in the most hated stage of WAR (rr100).

[Shadowgurke]

For me, the primary motivation is content. T4 has nicely striated sections of content based on renown rank, and I would personally prefer to release that content, it's rewards, and the renown ranks required to attain it all at once. This might get messy once cities are in the pipeline, because there's three sets waiting on that one release, but we'll see. We don't have a roadmap set in stone yet.

One of the primary reasons why I am excited for T4 is that I can finally start progressing in Warhammer once again. Original War being one of the only games that wasn't ruined by making everything easily achievable and thus making people play 20 characters at the same time to even remotely feel like they are making progress.

In the best case scenario you can release content faster than people can get to the required Renown Rank. Worst case is that it will feel like the small level increases we got so far: Nice to level up and get some shiny new stuff but ultimately just a short-lived thing (Obviously you release the level increases for different reasons)

I can't help but feel that saying"content" your main concern is dungeons? We've had that discussion several times already. Dungeons were a great catch-up mechanism as it is. The highest level dungeon will always give adequate gear for high end RvR. Please don't cheat me out of my Warhammer fix because you want them to be an integral part of gearing up. I say this as someone who did every dungeon multiple times and enjoyed them quite a bit.

[Ade]

@tomato The statement was made from a quote that I linked in another thread, it was an article explaining what the entire focus of the game was supposed to be and what should be rewarded etc, it was part of their entire plan to re-haul the state of ORvR which sadly never came in, MJ left etc etc.

Im surprised there were not more questions sent in considering the amount that crop up on the forums, but I enjoyed the new delivery of the diary

Time to put on sc farming boots and hope for a solo q I suppose

[zabis]

Only 3 Advil? You may want to up your dosage for your sanity's sake! Great work on the dev diary

[Dabbart]

Awesome! Thanks! I totally didn't turn on the volume at first. Adn was like, WTF DUDE?! questions but no answers?!

hehe.

Thanks for the answers and updates!

[Zaccar20]

Amazing!