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The Secret World nerfs Tokyo mobs and buffs rewards
Players struggling to progress through The Secret World's Tokyo zone will now find it a more pleasurable experience, thanks to today's hotfix that makes mobs easier to kill while increasing rewards across the board. Mobs in Kaidan will now have reduced damage and health, making them easier to kill. Better yet, TSW is increasing AEGIS XP from containers, lowering the cost for memory expansion modules, and giving AEGIS peripherals as part of the Issue 9 and 10 story missions (and will retroactively award these to players who have completed them). [Thanks to Tyler for the tip!]
Destiny nerfs Suros rifle, tweaks exotic upgrades
Bungie may not have made an MMO with Destiny, but it's aping traditional MMO nerf/buff cycles with the game's latest patch. Version 1.1 bumps up the usefulness of the Thorn and Bad Juju guns while nerfing the popular Suros Regime auto rifle. Destiny's gear system has also been tweaked, as exotic armor and weapon upgrades no longer need ascendant materials. Instead, you'll need exotic shards, which you can get from deconstructing exotic gear or buying them outright from an NPC vendor. Click through the links below to read the full patch notes.
DDO beefs up melee characters in Update 23
All hail patch day for Dungeons and Dragons Online! Hear the mighty dragons roar and witness the ancient vaults break open and spill their content goodness! For Update 23 hath arrived to change the game forevermore. Update 23 may not be the largest DDO patch to date, but it does contain several significant improvements. The biggest of these is a large buff to melee characters to balance that playstyle with those of other roles. Melee characters have new stats to help them with their efforts, including melee power, ranged power, and magical resist rating. Turbine has also unlocked the epic version of the Orchard of the Macabre instances, added in a new raid, included guild storage, and offered players the ability to create cosmetic variants of armor pieces with the new Mirror of Glamering.
DDO's Update 23 to buff melee characters and add guild storage
Preview patch notes are on Dungeons and Dragons Online's forums for the upcoming Update 23. These notes paint a picture of a considerable patch that includes a significant buff for melee fighters. "Update 23 brings a series of changes aimed at improving the ability of melee-focused characters to face some of DDO's toughest challenges, and bring increased balance between melee, ranged, and spell-casting characters," the team posted. Also slated for Update 23 are epic versions of the Orchard of the Macabre, guild storage on airships, a special mirror that allows the user to make a cosmetic variant of an armor piece, and a new feat called Epic Power that gives +3 melee power to characters level 21 and up.
Heart of the Valorous now live
So, in case you were wondering where that Heart of the Valorous buff was, here it is. From today (May 30th) till Tuesday, June 10th at 9:00 AM PDT, the Heart of the Valorous buff will be active. It increases all valor points gained by 100%, meaning that (as an example) a daily quest that grants five valor points will now grant ten - it's essentially double your normal valor point acquisition. All you have to do to earn valor at this rate is log on and do what you would normally do to gain it - there's no special item or requirement. So if you're trying to gear up a series of alts, now's basically the time to get on and play them. You have until June 10th, so get started.
EVE Evolved: Mining is broken, but it can be fixed
Mining has a reputation for being the most boring activity in EVE Online, but it's always filled a niche role as a low-effort way to make ISK and play with friends casually. When there's no PvP going on and you can't give your full attention to smashing NPCs in missions or anomalies, mining fills that downtime with something more lucrative and social than spinning your ship in a station. The problem is that mining has slowly become obsolete over the years; alternative mineral sources now supply much of the market's needs, and the risk of flying a defenseless barge just isn't worth the mediocre payout. It's currently more efficient for an individual to buy minerals with ISK made via some other form of PvE, such as level 4 missions or incursions. And on the macroscopic level, such huge quantities of minerals hit the market from alternative sources such as reprocessing loot that the economy could potentially function with no miners at all. CCP has tried to make mining more appealing over the years with buffs and new ships, and the devs recently announced plans to nerf mineral compression as part of a campaign to make mining worthwhile, but I think it'll take a lot more than ISK to get people mining again. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how mining and reprocessing are at odds and suggest some ideas for new mining features that could revitalise this long forgotten profession.
EVE Evolved: Rubicon 1.3 and repainting ships
EVE Online's recently released Rubicon expansion was an important first step toward a truly player-run universe for everyone, allowing corporations to wage empire wars over planetary customs offices and introducing a series of new personal deployable structures. The initial release was a little light on content, but developers have since expanded on it significantly with three major point releases. Rubicon 1.3 went live this week, and the changes seem pretty good all around. This release overhauled the directional scanner, buffed the SoE Nestor battleship's capacitor recharge rate and remote repair range, and nerfed remote sensor dampeners into the ground. Large corporations like EVE University were pleased to hear that the limit on the size of corporations has been increased to 12,600 thanks to changes to the corporation management skills. And in response to an emerging trend in fleet warfare involving hordes of drone ships assigning their drones to an interceptor, developers have also limited the number of drones that can be assigned to another ship to 50. The 1.29 GB patch also included several overhauled ship models and new ship shaders, but the new feature I see the most potential in is the ability to finally repaint our ships. This could eventually help corporations establish their own visual identities and might even link into gameplay or EVE's spying metagame. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I look at some of the Rubicon 1.3 changes and how repainting your ship could become more than simply a cosmetic upgrade.
Speed up level and reputation gains today by stacking holiday buffs
If you're working on picking up levels or reputations on any characters, today there's a confluence of holidays that will help you along the way. But you'll have to act fast, since Pilgrim's Bounty and the 9th Anniversary event end today. Here's what you need to do to get the most out of your grinding: The Pilgrim's Bounty Spirit of Sharing buff grants +10% reputation for an hour. Get it by going to any Pilgrim's Bounty table and chowing down on each type of food 5 times. The Darkmoon Faire WHEE! buff grants +10% experience and reputation for up to an hour. Just visit the Faire and ride the carousel until the buff stacks up to an hour. Alternatively, you could use the Darkmoon Top Hat to get the same buff -- but bear in mind the two buffs won't stack. Use your 9th Anniversary Celebration Package for +9% experience and reputation for an hour. The downside, as you may have already guessed, is that these buffs are limited duration, and the Pilgrim's Bounty buff and Darkmoon buff (unless you use the top hat) both require you to visit places to get them. Still, an hour of bonuses isn't bad. Plus, these can stack with other excellent leveling buffs like the monk's Enlightenment daily buff, heirloom buffs, and the Guild Battle Standard buff. So hurry up and get leveling!
EVE Evolved: Fitting Heavy Assault Cruisers in Odyssey 1.1, part 2
EVE Online recently revamped all of the Heavy Assault Cruisers in its Odyssey 1.1 update, in addition to buffing active shield boosters and armour repairers and rebalancing medium beam lasers and railguns. Last week I put together a new brawler setup for the recently revamped Deimos, a sentry drone sniper fitting for the Ishtar, an extremely effective anti-frigate Cerberus setup, and a sadly underwhelming railgun Eagle. This week I've turned my attention toward the Amarr and Minmatar HACs, with some surprising results. The Zealot and Sacrilege are still as powerful as ever, and the Muninn may see some use as a tactical frigate sniper, but this patch could see many players retiring their Vagabonds. The nano-fit Vagabond was once the unrivaled number one ship for lone pirates, able to speed-tank anything larger than a frigate and still deal over 500 DPS. It engaged safely from outside web range, moved too fast for turrets to track, and absorbed any attacks that did hit with its sizable buffer tank. When CCP made warp scramblers knock out microwarpdrives, Vagabond pilots adapted with dual propulsion module fits that use a microwarpdrive to approach the target and an afterburner to orbit. Unfortunately, the Vagabond didn't fare well in the Odyssey 1.1 patch and players aren't sure if they can adapt this time. In this week's EVE Evolved, I put together PvP setups for the at the Zealot, Sacrilege, Muninn, and Vagabond Heavy Assault Cruisers.
EVE Evolved: Odyssey 1.1 and PvP balance
It's been just under three months since EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion went live, bringing in a new hacking minigame and significantly buffing the underused tier 1 and tier 2 battleships. With a complete rebalancing all of the tech 1 sub-capital ships now complete, CCP has turned its attention to some of the oldest tech 2 ships in the game: Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships. Developers have been testing out changes to these ships on the test server and hitting up players for feedback since Odyssey went live, and the results are finally ready to deploy. Odyssey 1.1 will go live in two days time on September 3rd and contains some pretty big changes that are sure to shake up the PvP landscape. Medium-sized long-range weapons have been buffed beyond all recognition, and a buff to active tanking may soon make it viable in PvP. Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships have been beefed up, the Dominix is getting a small nerf following its absolute dominance in the Alliance Tournament, and the Nosferatu energy vampire module may be about to make a return to PvP setups. In this week's EVE Evolved, I analyse the upcoming Odyssey 1.1 patch and what the new ship balance changes mean for the average player.
EVE Evolved: Fitting battleships for PvP in Odyssey
Tech 1 ships in EVE Online used to be arranged in tiers that determined the cost and power of the ship and what level of the appropriate skill was required to fly it. This gave a sense of progression back in 2004 when all we had was frigates, cruisers, and battleships, but developers have since filled in the gaps between ship classes with destroyers, battlecruisers, strategic cruisers, and tech 2 ships of all shapes and sizes. In a recent game design initiative, CCP has been removing the tiers from within each tech 1 ship class by buffing the lower-tier ships up to the same rough power level as the largest ship in its class. The recent Odyssey expansion saw the humble battleship buffed beyond all recognition. The Megathron, Raven, Tempest, and Apocalypse all became extreme damage-dealing powerhouses, but the Dominix, Scorpion, Typhoon, and Armageddon were buffed the most. Each of them can now fit several monster setups, dealing upward of 1,000 damage per second or completely disabling enemy ships with energy neutralisers and electronic warfare. The build costs of these tier one battleships were more than doubled in the expansion, but prices are only slowly rising due to the existing stock on the market. That makes the tier one battleships incredibly cost-effective PvP powerhouses at the moment, and players are beginning to take advantage of it. In this week's EVE Evolved, I experiment with PvP setups for the newly revamped Typhoon, Armageddon, Scorpion, and Dominix battleships.
EVE Evolved: Get ready for Odyssey
With just two days to go until EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion goes live, players have been scouring the test server for information that can give them an edge. Some have been practicing moon surveying techniques for the upcoming redistribution of tech 2 minerals, and others are hoping to get rich quick by speculating on battleship price changes. Explorers are kitting out new exploration ships, theorycrafters are working on new setups for rebalanced ships, and pirates are setting up base in lowsec areas that are about to become fertile hunting grounds. Odyssey isn't quite the Apocrypha-level expansion I've been hoping for, but it certainly seems set to shake things up. Changes to moon minerals will throw nullsec into chaos and hopefully ignite some big territorial wars, and battleship buffs may change EVE's popular fleet compositions. The Discovery Scanner Overlay will make exploration much easier for new players to get into, but will also give pirates another tool with which to hunt down explorers. A new co-operative hacking minigame will also make exploration more of a team sport. But how can you make the most of the expansion from day one, and what can you do today to prepare for it? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the new exploration system and other changes you can expect when you log in on Tuesday, and what you can do now to make the most of them.
Blood Pact: Combat log kung fu for warlocks
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is finishing out the World of Logs posts while she hunts for BC-era battle pets. Have you ever tried to read the combat log? Maybe you're on the PTR testing a spell change or you want to know how often a new trinket procs, so you open the combat log chat window and start reading. You get twenty-something lines down before you realize something horrifying -- that's only one second of combat. Your jaw slowly falls to the floor and you reach up to pull your hair out as you contemplate reading a combat log for an entire raid fight -- that can sometimes last more than six hundred seconds and includes far more actors than just you and the training dummy. Luckily for us, when events are printed in a specified format without too much variety, computers can read and process --or parse -- these lines magnitudes faster than we humans can. World of Logs has graphs and charts to help us understand our performance, but it also includes what is basically Google for your combat log. Just like there are tips to speed up and pinpoint your browser searches, there are tricks you can use to query events better in the World of Logs expression editor.
The Daily Grind: Do you hang on to boosters?
The other day I had a terrible realization: I'm a complete and utter packrat in MMOs. Easily half of my bag space in Lord of the Rings Online is constantly filled with stuff that I deem absolutely essential. But that's not really true. I have an unhealthy supply of boosters, buffs, pills, and sports energy drinks in there for when I really, really need them. I never know when I might need their artificial aid in overcoming a tough moment, after all. Unfortunately, even when I do face tough situations, I keep thinking that there will probably be tougher in the future and that I still should not use my boosters. So they continue to accumulate and my bags pay the price for my folly. Are you the same? Do you hang on to boosters too long instead of just, y'know, using them? Do they make you feel more secure, just knowing that they are there? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
EVE Evolved: Fitting Amarr cruisers for PvP in Retribution
EVE Online's recent Retribution expansion overhauled many of the game's old PvP mechanics and rebalanced all of the tech 1 frigates and cruisers. These are the first ships new players get into when they start playing, and many found they just couldn't compete with more expensive ships in combat. In Retribution, the basic tech 1 cruisers have been buffed beyond all recognition and now stand a serious chance against battlecruisers and tech 2 ships. New players and veterans alike have found the updated tech 1 cruisers to be a lot more fun to fly and more effective in solo PvP and small fleet warfare. Two weeks ago, I started a new series of ship fitting guides with effective PvP setups for each of the four Gallente tech 1 cruisers. In between hilarious sessions of baiting gankers with my ECM Vexor, I've recently been been getting to grips with the updated Amarr cruisers. The Omen is now a fast tackler that can project damage over 25km, the Maller is a fantastic support DPS platform for fleet warfare, and the Arbitrator has become a great anti-frigate platform. Even the humble Augoror should now be a welcome sight in PvP fleets, repairing almost as much as a Guardian at only a fraction of the cost. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give new PvP ship setups for EVE's recently buffed Amarr tech 1 cruisers.
Incoming hotfix buffs JP gear, nerfs honor point gear
If you thought the item level of endgame PVE gear purchasable with justice points was a little low, Blizzard apparently agrees with you. Bashiok just let the official forums know that a hotfix is incoming, bumping the ilvl 450 PVE rares to 458. Additionally, the hotfix brings down the item level (and rarity color!) of the ilvl 464 epic PVP gear available for honor to 458 and rare. In conjunction with the hotfix removing the reputation requirements to access the JP gear, it should be considerably less of a hassle -- and involve a lot less PVPing -- to gear up for heroics. The downside is that the PVP gear you probably bought just to cheat the queueing system is a little worse. I can live with that. The full post from Blizzard is after the cut.
League of Legends nerfs Rumble, buffs Urgot and Cho'Gath
In addition to getting a new champion every few weeks, League of Legends is continually updated with balance changes and gameplay tweaks based on player feedback. Yesterday Riot Games released its early August patch preview, detailing incoming champion nerfs and buffs in addition to big changes for the player-mediated banning tribunal. Players who are punished by the tribunal will now be emailed a reform card showing the case made against them and highlighting the exact behaviours they need to improve to avoid further bans. Following a bugfix to Rumble's Flamespitter ability in the Jayce patch, his damage suddenly increased. Rumble's Danger Zone passive and Flamespitter abilities will have their damage reduced to compensate for the increase. The previous patch also gave Urgot some heavy nerfs that went a little bit too far, and in the next patch, some of those nerfs are being reverted. Classic champion Cho'Gath will also get a number of tweaks to remove random cast time delays and make him more fun to play. Skip past the cut to watch the full patch preview video in HD.
Star Wars: The Old Republic Q&A talks story, balance, and species experimentation
Another installment of BioWare's weekly ritual of enlightening the masses is up! The first question of this week's community Q&A touched on the selection of races available in Star Wars: The Old Republic. If the future introduction of the Cathar is successful, the team would like to introduce a broader spectrum of species for player characters, balancing things out by adding "clear positives and negatives" for playable species. On the story side of things, lead writer Alex Freed addressed a question about the timing of storylines. Class stories have roughly the same timing across the board, but aren't completely in-step, while world stories are split up by faction and can have much more significant time differences. For the most part, it's best not to worry too much about ordering individual world events unless they actively reference one another--and if they contradict one another, you can assume that we won't be writing future stories that depend on one faction's participation at the exclusion of the other. Senior designer Austin Peckenpaugh tackled some class and skill questions. Recent patches have made some fairly substantial changes to the Marksmanship and Sharpshooter trees; Peckenpaugh says these tweaks are intended to bring the specs closer to the team's original vision and encourage playstyles better fit to the peculiarities of those trees. He also talked about the delicate balance of player control and kiting and anti-kiting in the game. He says that "given the amount of skills and abilities that break and cleanse roots and snares at the moment," the team is not "very concerned" about the possibility of chainable roots.
Runes of Magic weekend event psyches players up for Chapter V
Runes of Magic is counting down the days until its next major update, Chapter V: Fires of Shadowforge, and Frogster is throwing five exciting events to pep up its playerbase during the wait. The Big Five, as the company is calling it, is currently at the halfway mark as its third event that will take place over the holiday weekend. From May 25th through May 29th, Runes of Magic players can visit the Helping Hands in one of several locations in the game to get an incredible buff. This two-hour buff will boost experience, talent point, and rare loot gain for all who accept it. Players can receive the buff once a day for the duration of the event. The highlight of Chapter V is most definitely the addition of a pair of new classes: the Champion and the Warlock. Also coming with Chapter V are the playable Shadowforge Dwarves, a new starter zone, and additional high-level instances. The update will release on June 12th.
EVE Evolved: Rebalancing EVE's ships
Recently we heard the glorious news that CCP will be overhauling EVE Online's entire roster of tech 1 ships as part of the Inferno expansion. The overhaul will start with changes to the skill requirements for destroyers and battlecruisers and culminate in the complete removal of ship tiers and the introduction of new structured ship lines. Countless new ship types have been released since EVE launched in 2003, but there has never really been a unifying design policy on ship skills and combat roles. Now, eight years down the line, adding new ships has become a struggle in avoiding making older ones obsolete. Drastic change is needed, and when the Inferno expansion hits, that's exactly what we'll get. When a new EVE player is ready to get into something larger than a frigate, he's currently faced with the choice of training for a destroyer or skipping it and heading straight to cruisers. Similarly, players often skip from cruisers straight to slow, bulky battleships even though battlecruisers are probably the most effective ship class for new pilots. A new system is on the way this summer, one that aims to fix this problem by introducing new racial versions of the destroyer and battlecruiser skills that must be trained on the way to bigger ships. This change should make training progression much clearer for new pilots and is just the tip of the iceberg of awesome plans in the works for the summer expansion. In this week's EVE Evolved, I examine EVE Online's upcoming ship revamp and tell you how you may be able to get free skillpoints when the patch goes live.
