Warhammer Online Patch 1.04 Witching Night – Fixes

Posted on October 28, 2008
Filed Under Games, News, Rambling, Warhammer Online

Halloween is almost upon us, and like most online games nowadays, Warhammer Online’s first Halloween Live event will start Wednesday Oct 29th, 2008. Are you ready for what’s to come? Servers are goinging down Tuesday night to prep for this event it seems, and also along with that quite a few hotfixes on this patch 1.04 for Warhammer Online.

Also it looks like some new so-called improvements to the game are going to be put in this upcoming patch. Some of them are:

We have added three new guild rewards in the form of dungeon teleport scrolls. Each scroll can be purchased from a guild quartermaster, and is a single-use item that will teleport the player to a dungeon:

Gunbad Teleport Scroll – This reward is unlocked at guild rank 29, and will teleport the player into the entrance lobby area of the Gunbad Tunnels.

Bastion Stair Teleport Scroll – This reward is unlocked at guild rank 32, and will teleport the player into the entrance lobby area of the Bastion Stair.

Lost Vale Teleport Scroll – This reward is unlocked at guild rank 35, and will teleport the player to just outside the entrance to the Lost Vale.

While I applaud Mythic’s idea of giving guild’s these scrolls to make going to these instances less of a hassle. These requirements are certainly for lack of a better word, DUMB. Why place these reward scrolls at such a rediculously high guild rank for such low level areas. Currently the highest guilds are guild level 29ish after being a month in with many level 40s. So to get these scrolls you’ll need to either A) Join a zerg guild or B) Level your guild up soo high that you’ll outlevel the need to go to these instances.

I think the guild ranks for the scrolls should be as follows:

Gunbad Teleport Scroll – This reward is unlocked at guild rank 9,
Bastion Stair Teleport Scroll – This reward is unlocked at guild rank 17, and will teleport the player into the entrance lobby area of the Bastion Stair.
Lost Vale Teleport Scroll – This reward is unlocked at guild rank 20, and will teleport the player to just outside the entrance to the Lost Vale.

Give or take a few levels, and depending on how big your guild is, I think the above Guild Rank numbers are about right for the areas they teleport you to. The only people these scrolls will help with ever is alts, and new players joining an established guild.

Tier 4 zones now require fewer scenario victory points to be captured. The mechanics of capturing a zone have not changed however. Zones which have no scenario opposition can still be captured if players join the queue for scenarios based on that Zone. Victory points towards zone control will be granted if a realm has enough players in the queue to launch the scenario and the other realm doesn’t. If players in those queues join a launched scenario or leave the queue, the victory points towards zone control will be forfeit.

In other words, using “Join All” to queue for all available scenarios is still the fastest way to get into a scenario, but joining the scenarios in a specific zone will have the greatest impact on control of that zone, and by extension the greatest impact on the campaign in that pairing.

Awesome news here in my opinion. This definitely gives incentive for people to stay in a scenario instead of leaving it. While I know getting stomped by a premade in an RvR can suck, and I’ve had my fair share of those. What I hate even more is when people don’t even have the will to fight, and just leave or give up so that the scenario can end faster. Kudos to Mythic for this one. Now just fix the # of players that join a scenario so that its not 18 vs 6 when we join. Oh wait they did:

The minimum number of players required to launch scenarios in Praag, Dragonwake and Thunder Mountain has been equalized to ensure even population distribution between all scenarios available when the campaign is in its default state.

I really hope that will be the case. However doesn’t these RvR fixes take away from what they are trying to do with the problem of lack of open world RvR? There is a pretty big discussion going on over at Keen and Graev’s blog about the lack of open RvR, and what can be done to fix it. Alot of the commentators on that post I have to agree with. Especially about having no, zero, zilch, nada, nothing for incentives on defending an open RvR objective.

Defending a keep – 100 reknown every 5 minutes or so. Big whoopty freaking doo. Defending a RvR Battlefield objective for 3 minutes, 500 reknown. Whoopeee. Its true, there really isn’t a penalty or incentive to really defend them, especially when you can just go back 15 minutes later to claim an even greater RvR Renown Bonus.

I know there are bonuses like merchant bonuses, renown bonuses, exp bonuses, but those I barelly even see nor do I even care about once I had hit 40. The sergent bonuses are pretty nice, but why give PVE buffs like more gold/increased crafting skills etc off of a PvP obj?

Also:

Tooltips for Tome of Knowledge tactic rewards have been revised to be more clear and helpful.

Looks like I’ll need to do some adjusting to the words in my Tome Tactics Guide. Though there’s no mention in this fix of a -50% reduction in exp gain from the Manly Meddling Tactic. Boo Mythic. Boo.

Last of all Witching Night, with Mark Davis had given us some ideas of what to expect. For example some RvR bosses that drop loot so that both factions will have to fight for them. I think this is an awesome idea. Especially considering how World Dragons in World of Warcraft brought some nice open world PVP to that game.

You know what would be cool? What if we combine the two? In the skirmish areas around the entire world during the Halloween holiday, there will be boss monsters lurking for players to kill. They’ll have cool loot on them, of course, so players from both sides will want to take them down. I’m sure Order and Destruction will play nicely with each other and share equally with each other for the spoils of the fight – yeah right! What else would you expect from a Warhammer holiday? Trick-or-treating? Nah! Beating people over the head? Oh yeah!

I think this is a step in the right direction atleast. Now I should probly get some game time in before the server shuts down tonight.

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3 Responses to “Warhammer Online Patch 1.04 Witching Night – Fixes”

Exile (8 comments.) on October 29th, 2008 9:07 am

Hey again.
I was wondering what your current spec was for your lvl 40 runepriest. I just specced to my AoE line and I am having one hell of a time trying to say alive. I am guessing you might of shot over to your Direct heal/dmg line?

Just curious

Exiles last blog post..Leaked Diablo 3 classes?
Mitch on October 29th, 2008 9:22 am

My guild has been trying to run some Warpblade Tunnel instances lately so I spec’d fully into aoe healing (0/8/17). Mainly since those damned cleaves, or aoes are nasty. I use the Blessing of Grugni tactic along with that shield proc one.

I can stay alive pretty well, and I think I’m pretty decked out for the most part. I have different sets of gear so for RvR I sit at around 6k HP, 250-350 toughness(depending on buffs), 700-800 willpower(depending on buffs). With that I can usually walk into the middle of destro and aoe knock back a healer back to our party and live.

For Pve, I have had bad luck with Blood Lord drops so I wear Annihilator 2 piece for the wards. 800 Willpower, 5k hp. Toughness means crap when I only get cleaved or aoed for 1k-5k a hit, so I stack will power to try to keep the tank up.

For RvR Farming though I prefer 15/10/0. To get the single target stun, and improved Grugni’s Gift (the spammable single target heal) I live the longest I think with that spec. The single target stun helps alot. Seriously though, I get more renown from damaging people instead of healing people still =P.
Exile (8 comments.) on October 30th, 2008 8:28 am

I know, and isn’t that a god damn shame. the way they had it for healers was perfect. I saw a whole bunch of little purple numbers flying up when I just hotted off everyone in my team. Now it’s almost like there is no incentive to heal.

Helllloooooooo WoW BG’s. =P

Exiles last blog post..Leaked Diablo 3 classes?