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.