|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
General FAQ
Q: Will siege weapons look different based on your race?
A: Siege weapons will have a race and realm specific feel to them, but they won't have unique abilities based on realm or race. A Chaos ram will function exactly the same as an Empire ram, and an orcapult will function the same as a Dwarfen mortar. We are looking at putting in a method of augmenting siege with different ammo and other treats, but that's not in the works right now.
Q: Will there be a mechanic in place to prevent other players from 'stealing' our siege weapons?
A: When you deploy a siege weapon, you are automatically the one who controls it. If another player tries to take it over they'll get a big fat "no not yours" message until you relinquish control of the weapon.
Q: What incentives, aside from bragging rights, are there for players to assault and capture a keep? Will there be Renown rewards for defending a keep successfully and preventing its capture?
A: Ah, the short answer which begged for more... capturing a keep or battlefield objective will give you Renown Points. Defending a keep or battlefield objective will also give you Renown Points. You will get a base amount of points for taking a keep or battlefield objective, in addition to the points gained from killing players in the area. Stay tuned for more on this subject.
Q: Do you gain any form of PvE bonus, in the form of contribution/XP rewards, for controlling a keep in an area, as opposed to totally controlling an area?
A: We grant XP and Renown Point bonuses across the entire zone for controlling battlefield objectives, but not keeps.
Q: Misfire effects of siege weapons are a lot of fun in tabletop games - especially the ones from Goblins or Skaven. Do you plan to implement a system similar to this (and similar to the mechanics of the sorceress) where your siege weapon will have a small chance to blow a hole into the ground right where it is, get destroyed and damage everyone around?
A: We’re looking into the possibility of misfires and other effects that echo the table-top game in spirit.
Q: Will the elevation granted by keeps and hills increase the range of distance based attacks?
A: Not in WAR, no.
Q: Can a keep be razed, like towers in DAOC?
A: We will not have towers or keeps that fall to the ground or have massive collision changes. This is a game about capturing keeps for your side, not destroying them. However, our keeps will show visual changes when one realm owns them versus another. Things like spiky bits and skulls may be added to an Empire keep when Destruction captures it and banners will switch from Order to Destruction or vice versa.
Q: Will there be something intrinsically different between keep defenses in various realms? For example - Dwarfs get turrets on their keeps, while elves' keeps are x3 taller than all other keeps, etc. And following this concept - will specific classes/races be required for specific siege operations or would anyone be able to do anything?
A: Keeps will have a similar structure across all pairings, but they will have different play styles for each race. A Chaos and Empire keep will look similar in terms of basic geometry, where as a High Elf or Dark Elf keep will have a different look and geometry to their structure. The siege weapons will be universally the same in function, but look different according to race as well. Where Orcs use orcapults, Dwarfs will use mortars. We will not be putting any restrictions on which races can capture different keeps. Anyone can siege or defend any keep.
Q: Will there be any diminishing returns on Renown Points for killing players multiple times in RvR?
A: Yes. Killing a player within a certain amount of time since their last resurrection will result in diminished Renown & XP gains. If you kill a player too fast after their recent return to life, they are worth nothing.
Q: I believe it has been mentioned before that Public Quests will affect RvR. Would it be possible for you to give an example of how?
A: Public Quests contribute to zone control as do standard quests. Every time a PQ or quest is completed, your realm is granted Victory Points. Those Victory Points are fed into a large pool that is shared with Scenarios, open world objectives (keeps and battlefield objectives) and skirmish kills. WAR is a Realm vs. Realm game, and PvE is a part of the war, so of course we include these aspects when determining zone control.
Q: Does siege engine damage scale with the level of the zone?
A: Siege damage will scale with the level of the zone and the player operating it. Only certain types of siege equipment will be deployable with certain zones. For example: You won’t be able to deploy a tier 4 ram on a tier 2 keep.
Q: Will Renown Points be constantly gathered like Realm Points, or gathered and spent like Bounty Points/Honor?
A: Renown will be gained constantly and you’ll get Renown Points for each rank you achieve that you can spend on abilities similar to DAOC.
Q: Will Swordmasters be able to dual wield?
A: Swordmasters will not get to dual wield as their DPS specialization comes from using two-handed "great weapons". They will have access to a Sword + Shield for those wishing to participate as a defensive tank. However, Swordmasters tend to get less shield related abilities and more "great weapon" related ones.
Q: Are there any plans for abilities (either core or purchased) to impact non-combat game play? Abilities such as: (non-combat) travel enhancements, group assembly abilities, downtime reduction abilities, and other beneficial abilities to make the out-of-combat experience more fun?
A: We've absolutely discussed and looked at non-combat abilities, but combat-based abilities are a notably higher priority. We'd certainly like to flesh out ability lists with non-combat / utility / "flavor" items, but in a world at war, keeping the player alive and taking down some other poor sod have to be our primary focuses for now.
Q: 20+ abilities per career is a little low for a game of this size, but as long as there are 20+ different abilities, I guess I would be happy. I hope there's no fire1, fire2, fire3 type thing going on here...If the number is in fact 20 (not saying it is), that's only 5 base/core ability's and 15 ability's gained from spec? Or from spec, morale, and tactics combined?
A: Players will NOT be purchasing the same ability over and over and only getting rank 1, 2 and 3 versions of it. Each career will end up with around ~20 guaranteed unique actions between core and base abilities. After that, they can purchase additional supplemental abilities which will increase the player’s total number of abilities by about 10-25%, depending on how you choose to spend your mastery points. Overall we expect most players to have somewhere in the mid to high 20’s of action activates (this does not include Morale).
Q: You mention a cost to respec. Will this be the only method of respec’ing? Is there any chance of buying it from a trainer? Is there any chance dungeon mobs will drop them?
A: Don't take "cost" too literally - spending coin, investing time, and performing tasks are all "costs" of one type or another. As was mentioned previously, we have yet to determine the cost of re-specialization. For now, it’s free in the beta so that we can get the basics of specialization smoothed out first.
Q: Going by DAoC's specing rules (and it seems that this is the way you guys are describing it) the more we spec in X line, the base spells of X line get better. If X line has a CC spell, by increasing the spec of X, will it make the duration of the CC last longer like it does in DAoC?
A: When you increase your mastery, you'll "generally" see values increase, not time factors. In other words, the amount of hit points returned by a heal-over-time would increase, but the duration would likely remain the same. For effects like CC, it's not likely that you'll see direct increases to the time, but other aspects may increase (for example, a melee attack which stuns would keep the same stun duration, but the damage from the melee hit would keep on increasing). This is not to say we won’t consider increasing duration values, but we are starting with other aspects of the abilities first.
Q: I can understand how hard it would be to create several hundred skills and make them at least semi-original, but is there any fear of funneling people into taking those "cookie cutter" tree specs?
A: Well, here's the thing: we're fully aware that someone, somewhere, will sit down and write up a multi-page dissertation with graphs and numbers to "prove" that one specific mastery layout is "the best", and word-of-mouth will result in lots of people using that layout (for a few weeks, anyway, until the process repeats again). It's simply human nature, and that's fine. The Careers and Combat team's goal, however, is to ensure that every mastery layout is viable and functional, and suited to someone's play style. Trying to fight against the players who are going to actively go looking for "cookie cutter" layouts is fruitless (and as vocal as they may be on forums, they're honestly the minority). Instead, we're simply making sure that every decision is usable, even if it’s not optimal. We’ll constantly be adjusting each of the lines from Beta until the game shuts down in 3011. Also, depending on the type of situation and the current stage of balance, different builds will be considered "cookie cutter" for min/max players. There is very little we can do about that; it’s the inherit flaw in having specialization systems in general, and the primary reason we allow for respec.
Q: Does that mean we will get specific tactics/morale at specific levels (like core abilities) or will we still be able to choose which one we want to pick first?
A: You'll be getting base tactics and base morale abilities at specific ranks, along with your base actions. Those tactics and morale abilities will be given to everyone of each career, and your decision will be more based on which to use. Then, above and beyond those, there will also be supplemental tactics and morale abilities available from masteries, and you'll have to invest in the given mastery before they can be picked up. Also keep in mind the RvR tactics and Tome tactics are optional, so you get further choice with those as well.
Q: Will there be any significant variation in ability number between archetypes or even the classes within each archetype? For instance, in beta there were some classes with 9 or so more abilities than other classes. I know that was a product of some classes being more 'finished' than others, but is there any real variation between the above with mastery abilities? For example, do healers get say 2 mastery abilities per line, because they have more baseline abilities?
A: Base abilities will be roughly the same for each career - around 20. We will add additional actions to the base if we feel it’s necessary to make the class play well, but that is our starting number. Beyond those, every career will have the exact same amount of mastery and supplemental options available. After a career gets redesigned for specialization you should see 90% of the careers having a similar number of total abilities.
Q: Will there be a situation where a gained Mastery ability is clearly superior to a baseline ability, be it through more damage or the same damage with added effects, or same damage with less energy, and so forth. Basically will (certain) mastery abilities replace the existing baseline abilities, or are they intended to be supplementary abilities?
A: The supplemental abilities are exactly that, they supplement the core and base ability set, and are not meant as replacements for those abilities. If they were simply replacements, then they'd essentially be "Smash Rank 2", and that's no fun. =) The supplemental abilities from any given mastery will generally be things that help focus the career more towards the theme of that mastery, provide new tools relating to that mastery, or open up more options for the player. One thing to note is that you might get, say, a heal or a nuke that is a lot better then your base one. However, it may have a longer cool down timer, or require the target to be below 50% health, etc., so it doesn’t just replace your defaults.
Q: Will there be any ways to get mastery points besides leveling up? Maybe add in a few quests throughout the world that let you get extra mastery points or for some other achievements, as well?
A: For now, you'll only gain them via increasing your rank. More than likely, you’ll never get additional mastery points outside of leveling. RvR and Tome rewards have their own ways of increasing player power beyond masteries.
Q: Will there be gear with + to masteries? Will masteries be able to go over level (or whatever they are capped at if it's not equal to level), with appropriate scaling in the power of skills?
A: The system has been designed to allow for flat bonuses to mastery level or bonuses to individual ability levels via items and item set bonuses. How far we take this has yet to be determined.
Q: Will players be able to access individual skills that must usually be purchased within masteries without investing points in that skill, such as through the use of items that have a + to that skill (similar to Diablo)?
A: No. If we hypothetically grant that you'd be able to increase your mastery level without investing points, you wouldn't gain access to supplemental abilities which would otherwise still be locked.
Q: Will all masteries for all classes be meaningful choices, or will there be some classes where the choices between masteries are along the lines of "sword, axe, or hammer", with just marginally different style effects?
A: The masteries all focus around the question of, "how do you want to play this character?", and are meaningful and impactful decisions. The difference between using a sword, axe, or hammer is fairly cosmetic. An example in terms of masteries might be closer to "defensive abilities with a one-handed axe and a shield, versus offensive abilities with a great sword, versus positional attacks and debuffs with hammers".
Q: Do individual skills within each mastery have multiple tiers as well? For example, if under "fire mastery" you have a supplementary skill called "fireball", could you put multiple points in this skill to make it more powerful, or do you just put a maximum of one point into any given skill, and then boost its power through raising the mastery?
A: The latter. You only need a single point to unlock an ability, and then it scales along with your rank and mastery.
Q: Do skills have a requirement on the level of mastery that you must have before you can purchase them? If you're character is max level, but has 0 points in fire mastery, could you purchase any ability in fire mastery, or would you need to first put a certain amount of points into fire mastery to unlock certain higher level fire mastery skills?
A: The base abilities in a mastery are granted to you as your rank increases. The supplemental abilities that are available to you are based on your mastery level.
Q: Along the lines of the previous question, do individual skills within masteries have other skills as prerequisites, creating an overall skill tree structure, or is each skill individual and separate within a mastery, without having any other skills as prereqs?
A: We're currently looking at not having any prerequisites other than the appropriate mastery level, but a cascading tree is always a possibility for the future. We want to see how players respond to these changes before developing any further adjustments to the system.
Q: Will all classes get exactly the same number of mastery points? Or will some classes that are deemed to require a greater number of abilities be given more points (similar to the DAoC system with 1.0x, 2.0x, etc, classes)?
A: Every career has the exact same amount of mastery points (and similar amounts of abilities).
Q: Will masteries contain anything besides actions, tactics, and morale? For example, any background/passive boost effects?
A: The supplemental abilities are currently a mix of actions, tactics, and morale. Remember tactics really are the major passive boosts in the game; you have the flexibility to adjust them on the fly instead of having to go respec your character to change them.
Q: Will certain masteries or certain skills within masteries allow you to unlock access to additional types of equipment? For example, would you ever need to invest a point in say "dual wield" under "weapons mastery" to be able to wield two weapons at once, or anything along those lines?
A: No; neither masteries nor supplemental abilities will fundamentally change your character's equipment options.
Q: How do Swordmasters accumulate Balance? Can you give us any additional insight on how it works?
A: Balance is based on three basic levels - Open Balance, Improved Balance, and Perfect Balance. Successful attacks will step Balance up to the next level resulting in what is effectively a 3-attack combo that ends with a brutal Perfect Balance attack. This then resets the level of Balance to Open. This allows players to build custom "chain attacks" by mixing attacks from different Balance states.
Q: Can a Swordmaster’s Balance be interrupted in his progression from move to move? If so how? And how does he defend himself from that?
A: Currently Balance cannot be interrupted and players cannot be "knocked out" of their Balance state. We have toyed with the idea of allowing this, but we are holding off on this until we can see how they perform in larger play tests first.
Q: Swordmasters appear to be different from other tanks in that their defense is based on avoidance. How do you ensure that they will be able to compare to their tank counterparts even against the most difficult enemies?
A: The Swordmaster possesses the same basic core tools that every other tank does for avoiding damage. They are in heavy armor like all tanks, can equip shields, and should have no issues performing in the traditional tank role if they choose that play style. The avoidance aspect of the career comes more from the fact that they are generally more effective when using great weapons than other tanks. They take less of a defensive hit when doing so. The trade off here is that they may not be as good as the shield specialist tanks when they choose to go with that play style.
Q: Since Swordmasters are using a dance in combat, has any special care been given to their animations in terms of smoothing them or blending them together to make them appear graceful and fluid as they should?
A: This is ultimately our goal, and we are still working on animations for all careers. However, it is our hope that you’ll be able to see an obvious difference between attacks launched from each point of the dance.
Q: Archmages are a support class and appear to wear light cloth armor. This concerns me a bit because I've played other games that have cloth based healers. In PVP cloth and healer has meant a very soft target that is easily slain and a primary target. What is being done so that this isn't a problem for Archmages?
A: Archmages (as well as 4 of 6 of the other healers) are in light robes. This means they are very much a juicy target for melee careers with high physical damage. This doesn’t mean they are just fodder for the grinder however, since their magic resistances can be as good as (if not better than) even the heaviest armored tanks. Not to mention they can heal large quantities of damage which can work better then armor in some cases.
That being said, in a one-on-one situation you will always be at a disadvantage against somebody that can put out high physical damage, and at an advantage against those who can put out high magic (since you can heal yourself and a Sorceress cannot). That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
In a group situation though there are a number of team play options that will increase survivability significantly. These range from tank guards that can absorb up to HALF the incoming damage, to knock-backs which can be used to push players away from soft targets and into hard targets, which can then tie them up. And let’s not forget that collision detection allows a caster to literally stand behind a wall of allies that must be breached to reach him.
On top of that, you can sacrifice your healing power to improve you’re offensive or defensive abilities through specialization & tactic selection. Overall, we’ve found that healers have been quite potent in most cases (sometimes too potent), especially when they have the support of a solid group backing them.
Q: My question concerns the Archmage and its 'magical reserve' mechanic. There seems to be a lot of confusion over how this works exactly. Some people think that it works in a similar way to the Shaman 'WAAAGH!' mechanic, each spell you cast builds up your magical reserve, which in turn can be spent on casting more powerful spells. Others think it's a sort of 'see-saw' mechanic, where casting attack spells gives you a reserve for healing spells and casting healing spells gives you a reserve for attack spells. Can you clarify how this mechanic works?
A: Casting certain offensive spells will generate a store of extra energy, called High Magic, the Archmage can then use to power defensive spells. The more High Magic stored (points built) the less Action Points it costs to cast a defensive spell. In some cases, the next defensive spell could be free if you had enough High Magic reserved. This makes High Magic very similar in function to WAAAGH!, We purposely designed the two careers to be similar in nature with a complimentary mechanic so players have this casting option available to them when playing for either Order or Destruction. We don’t want a scenario where a player LOVES to play a certain mechanic, but cannot because all of his friends play for the other side.
Q: In Warhammer lore, Archmages are some of the most powerful spell casters in the world. Are you creating the spells with this in mind?
A: Obviously from a balance standpoint, we have to keep the relative power of the Archmage in check. This will mean that the standard High Elf Archmage will not be a towering beast of a spell caster, rending apart mountains as he sees fit and raising the dead at the same time. However, their power is reflected in the fact that Archmages get access to a wide range of potent abilities in healing, damage, and support lines. Many of the other careers have a much more focused specialty.
Q: Will Career Mastery paths for Shadow Warriors allow players to customize the feel of their character and enable them to be more melee focused or more ranged focused if desired? An earlier video makes mention of the Shadow Warrior taking a path to become an "Ambush Specialist" and he can use his bow to soften targets before assaulting. Can you elaborate?
A: The Shadow Warrior is first and foremost a ranged DPS career. As such, an effective Shadow Warrior can never just be a melee character; they just don’t have the breadth of options and abilities available to a pure melee DPS or a tank. However, Shadow Warriors will be able to fine tune the amount of melee combat they are capable of based on how they wish to support their ranged abilities. A Shadow Warrior who wishes to focus on more of a skirmish or caster killer role will naturally gravitate towards move & shoot abilities with a good helping of melee (mages HATE when you get in their face). Whereas a Shadow Warrior who prefers more of a scout role will gravitate to long range attacks with some move & shoot attacks for when things start to get close. They will rely on melee only as a last resort. The much rarer "assault" Shadow Warrior will use ranged attacks to soften up an opponent before entering melee combat. The "assault" Shadow Warrior is still viable, but in general will be much harder to play since it’s not playing up to the Shadow Warrior’s strengths.
Q: Other classes have WAAAGH! or Grudges and other systems that make a specific class unique. Can you give us some insight on what Shadow Warriors bring to the table that makes playing one unique?
A: The Shadow Warrior’s most unique feature is the ability to move & shoot. Couple this with strong long range and melee options, and this makes for a very potent fighter. In addition, the Shadow Warrior has a stance-style mechanic. They can choose which stance they are in to unlock different abilities. Therefore, their challenge is not in managing a special meter, but in managing which sets of abilities work best at what ranges, and toggling stances at the proper times to be effective.
Q: What are some unique abilities Shadow Warriors can use their bow for?
A: The most unique bow abilities available to the Shadow Warrior revolve around his ability to move & shoot. These are powerful tools, but have only half (or less) the range of his long range attacks.
Q: What is your favorite or the "coolest" Shadow Warrior ability?
A: Vengeance of Nagarythe, it’s the icing on the cake for the Shadow Warrior and is essentially a miniature Berserk. When used correctly it can greatly affect the outcome of a battle both at range and in close combat.
Q: Will Shadow Warriors have to purchase their ammunition?
A: Nope.
Q: Will Shadow Warriors have "traps" or some kind of utility that compares to squig pets and engineer turrets?
A: No traps or pets. Giving a career that can move and shoot a way to root, or otherwise tie down an opponent, would greatly overpower him. However, he has a number of abilities he can use to momentarily stop or slow an opponent so he can get back to range. The Shadow Warrior relies more on hit-and-run then he does on set-up a trap and pound them before they break loose (like the Engineer or Squig herder).
Q: Will the Shadow Warrior have some skill to use if an enemy gets too close? Something to daze, blind, or cripple them so they will be able to put distance between them and their target?
A: Yes. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
