This month on MMO Co-Opportunities we’re talking big changes to Elder Scrolls Online, a Lunar New Year event patch for Guild Wars 2, and pre-orders for World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion. For each of these stories, adaptation and growth are key components.
Big Changes to Combat Incoming for Elder Scrolls Online’s Update 17
Update 17 (which launches today on PC/Mac and on February 27th on Xbox One/PS4) will be bringing a bunch of big changes to the game. The new Level-Up system will make the game more new player friendly by providing new skill information and gameplay tips when characters reach new levels. Players will also periodically receive level-up rewards, which will range from basic things like gold and XP scrolls to more exciting things like mounts and costumes. Speaking of costumes, the new Outfit system will take appearance customization in ESO one step further by allowing players to pay gold to completely change the appearance of armor and weapons. Home storage will be making its debut in Update 17 as well, enabling players to store items in their personal houses. One home storage coffer will be awarded as a Level-Up Reward with the other 7 chests/coffers being purchasable for Tel Var stones, Writ Vouchers, or Crowns.
Update 17 is also going to be overhauling a large part of ESO’s combat system to greater encourage teamwork, communication, and new strategies/tactics. Synergies (special types of skills that allow players to interact with them to get new effects) will now have a clearer visual indicator when available and when the Synergy usage is consumed, that indicator will disappear. On the positioning side of things, the damage cap on area-of-effect abilities will be removed, hopefully encouraging players to stack up less and spread out more on the battlefield. Movement penalties while casting will also be reduced and Heavy Attacks will no longer remove the Off Balance debuff, which will open up more tactical and strategic options in both PVP and PVE. Finally, the base stamina cost of blocking will be reduced along with the effectiveness of Block Cost enchantments. With this change, the dev team hopes to narrow a substantial power gap between regular and hardcore players where players with enough money could become significantly better at tanking due to minimal Stamina Block Cost, thanks to enchantments.
Annual Lunar New Year Event Now Live in Guild Wars 2
The annual Lunar New Year Event for Guild Wars 2 is in full swing now with celebrations for the Year of the Dog. As in previous years, players can try their luck at opening lucky red envelopes to earn essences of luck, special event food, fireworks, valuable vendor loot, or this year’s new Lucky Dog Lantern or Lucky Great Dog Lantern backpacks. The Dragon Ball PVP arena has returned as well with updated and rebalanced skills and reduced match times. Two new activities have been added this year: anl adventure that has participants lighting fireworks under a time crunch and a race event which utilizes Path of Fire’s mounts (players who have not unlocked mounts yet can still temporarily rent them for the event). The event runs until February 22nd. The event patch also introduced many class balance tweaks, focusing substantially on the elite specializations introduced in Path of Fire and the overhaul of the Mesmer profession (specifically, phantasms and alacrity).
Pre-orders for WoW: Battle for Azeroth Now Open
Pre-orders for World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion, Battle for Azeroth are now open in the Blizzard online shop. The expansion has two versions: Standard for $49.99 and Digital Deluxe for $69.99. Both versions come with complete expansion content, a 110-level boost, and early access to four of the six allied races introduced in the expansion. The digital deluxe version additionally comes with special mounts, a special pet, and various cosmetics for four of Blizzard’s other games (Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, and Starcraft II).
For those who have already pre-ordered Battle for Azeroth, the aforementioned four new allied races are now available for recruitment: Highmountain Tauren and Nightborne for Horde and Lightforged Draenei and Void Elves for Alliance. After meeting the unlock requirements and playing a scenario, these allied races become unlocked for character creation. Each allied race comes with its own set of racial traits, a unique mount, and special racial armor that’s unlocked over the course of leveling up. The other two allied races (Zandalari Trolls and Dark Iron Dwarves) will be available on the expansion’s launch (September 21st, 2018).
That wraps it up for this month. If you’re playing ESO, what do you think of the new combat changes? If you’re playing Guild Wars 2, what do you think of the balance patch? If you’ve pre-ordered Battle for Azeroth, how are you enjoying the new allied races?