AC2:May 4, 2005

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Issue 1: Archetypes Growing Ever Further Apart

The original Hero system is not especially solo-friendly. This is not surprising based on how the game developed up to that point -- the content in the 30s and 40s was intended to wean players away from the solo-oriented gameplay and into grouping gameplay. This is a classic problem with many MMOs, old and new. Changing the gameplay mid-stream causes player unhappiness, whether it's a soloing game that turns into a grouping game, a grouping game that turns into a raiding game, or a PvE game that turns into a PvP game. Some players will come along for the new ride, but others will not. In our case, we seemed split pretty evenly between soloers and those who enjoyed grouping. So a while ago we took a step back and attempted to infuse the game with a more even blend of solo and group content, and that's what we're doing to this day. AC2: Legions has a great mixture of solo and group content, and the bimonthly updates will follow this trend of providing lots of solo content along with exciting group content. We can have the best of both worlds.

But the original Heroes of Dereth system is not intended to encourage soloing. In fact, quite the opposite. The Hero 1 game systems reinforce grouping to ever greater amounts as you level up. One way it does this is by overpowering different archetypes towards their intended grouping behavior. The effect isn't terribly noticeable in the 50s, but becomes much more pronounced as you ascend in level. A tank at level 50 is very hard to kill, but that's nothing compared to a level 80 tank, who is nearly impossible to kill. However, tanks at level 80 have a hard time killing anything themselves... they're expected to have a damage-dealer along. And in the opposite extreme, damage-dealers become ever better at hurting creatures, yet ever more frail and killable. The intention here was to reinforce the need for a tank and a healer. This extremist view of classes doesn't allow for much soloing content at the very high levels. The only classes that can solo well at those levels are damage dealers, because they are able to deal enough damage to kill the solo creature before it kills them. We needed to address the issue before the majority of players reached this level range.

In Hero 2.0, we've kept the different class roles alive and well, but not to the same extremes as in the old system. The different class archetypes are quite alive and well, but not to such extents that they are unable to solo.

New Passives

The main reason that the different class archetypes grew further and further out of control was because of the passive skills such as Major Bonus Damage and Major Max Health Increase. These skills have been changed, and sometimes removed.

We also noted that when we presented sub-par options to players (such as offering the weaker Damage Boost passive to tanks), we weren't really giving them a viable option. The weaker versions of the passives were generally too weak to be worth spending XP on. So we've removed the weaker versions of passives. Instead, we simply GIVE players the effects of these weaker passives automatically. The passive descriptions will give more details.

We also redid the XP curves for the altered passives. In general, they are significantly cheaper than in the Hero 1 system. For instance, it is possible to buy 10-15 points of Health Increase for the same cost as 7-8 points in the old system.

Health Increase: this passive is available only to tank classes. It increases health by 3 per point. This passive is cheaper than the old Health Passive, so you can buy more points of it with the same amount of XP. In addition, ALL players automatically gain 30 health every level above 50, whether they are a tank class or not.

Vigor Increase: this passive is available only to healers and sages. It increases vigor by 3 per point. This passive is cheaper than the old Health Passive, so you can buy more points of it with the same amount of XP. In addition, ALL players automatically gain 10 vigor every level above 50, whether they are a healer class or not.

Damage Pool: this is the default passive, given to all classes who don't get Health Increase or Vigor Increase. Tanks and Healers do NOT get this passive.

The Damage Pool is a new game mechanic. For each point of skill purchased, the Damage Pool increases by 1. The Damage Pool has a percentage chance to be added to an attack. Different attacks have a different percentage chance to apply the Damage Pool, but they generally follow this system:

Auto-attacks: 10% chance to add the Damage Pool to their damage.

Weak attacks (which do 75 damage at level 50): 40% chance to add the Damage Pool to their damage.

Medium attacks (which do 200 damage at level 50): 60% chance to add the Damage Pool to their damage.

Strong attacks (which do 260 damage at level 50): 80% chance to add the Damage Pool to their damage.

Hero attacks (which do 340 damage at level 50): 90% chance to add the Damage Pool to their damage. (More on Hero Skills later in this document.)

Other skills which fall in between these numbers have appropriate percentage chances. For instance, the Berserker skill Avalanche, which does 100 damage at level 50, has a 45% chance to add the Damage Pool to its damage.

Note that the Damage Pool only gets added once per attack. So a multi-hit attack will only add the Damage Pool to at most one of the hits. However, if the first hit in a multi-hit attack doesn't add the Damage Pool, each subsequent hit has a chance to add the Damage Pool, until one of the hits succeeds in adding the Damage Pool.

Damage Pool is cheaper than Major Damage Boost was, so you can buy more points of it with the same amount of XP.

Let's look at an example. Say a Zealot raises their Damage Pool passive to 100. Now if he uses Shred Hope, the first attack has a 40% chance to add 100 extra damage to the roll. (This is done before the weapon's variance is taken into account, much like the old Bonus Damage passive was, so in effect the result is likely to be less than 100 exactly.) Now, because Shred Hope has two swings, if the first swing doesn't get the Damage Pool added to it, the second attack also has a 40% chance to get the 100 extra damage.

Damage Pool is not as potent as the old Major Damage Boost passive. However, passives are not the only way to increase your damage output. It is now more profitable to raise individual skills past 50. (This applies to all skills that scale past 50, including the skills of tanks and damage dealers.) In general, skills scaled like so:

Old Damage at level 150: New Damage at level 150:

300 500

600 1000

780 1300

Arcane Lore: this passive is unchanged. It costs the same as before and has the same effectiveness.

Heroic Mastery: this new passive allows you to increase your accuracy and evasion. Each point purchases improves accuracy and evasion by 1 point. It covers all three damage types (melee, missile, and magic). All classes have this passive.

Note that you NO LONGER receive automatic accuracy and evasion points just by leveling up. The only accuracy and evasion points you receive are from the Heroic Mastery passive. Monsters have been reduced so that they receive fewer points per level. The result is that players can still hit things their level by the same amount (assuming they buy the appropriate amount of Heroic Mastery), but because the difference in evasion scores between levels has decreased, it is now easier for players to hit monsters that are higher level than they are. This change also has positive results for PvP, because it reduces somewhat the importance of level when two players are fighting.

Heroic Mastery is the cheapest of the passive skills; keeping your accuracy at the same level as it was in the old Hero system is easy, and it is not difficult to increase it much higher than before.

We expect players to purchase at least 10 to 15 points of Heroic Mastery per level. Players will be able to get a feel for how effective this passive is because the game now displays your percentage chance to hit a given target in the examination panel.

Max Focus: The passive that granted Focus has been removed. It is no longer possible to increase your maximum Focus, except through Perks. (See below.)

The changes to the passives dramatically alter how the game is played at higher levels. Because all players now receive additional health, vigor, and damage (by raising skills) at higher levels, classes are less divergent. This is further compounded because the passives that allow specialization are less potent than in Hero 1. In the end, we still have strongly defined classes: tanks are still near-unkillable, damage-dealers are whirling death, etc., but these class specializations are no longer taken to excesses that limit soloability.

Each of these skills will cost 75 hero skill credits to train.

Monster Changes

Of course, players were not the only ones who changed in Hero 2. Monsters have been rebalanced and adjusted as well.

Solo monsters have changed the most. Instead of having one-size-fits-all solo monsters, there are now several types of creatures. So-called "Protector" monsters are heavily armored but weak-hitting, while "Conqueror" monsters have very little armor, but deal high damage. There are also various creatures in between these ranges, as well.

Several AI bugs and glitches were fixed, and many monsters have new powers, plus better logic that lets them use their powers at the right moment.

In addition, all monsters affected are now worth more XP - at least 10% more, and often much more than that.

These changes affect monsters on Linvak, Arramora, and Knorr. Monsters on Osteth and Omishan have not been changed (except for some bug fixes).

All classes can now solo high-level creatures of at least their level (and usually at least 3 levels above them). However, you have to pick your battles a bit more carefully, especially when fighting monsters far above your level. Since there are now more differences between monsters, there are certain creatures that will be easy for a given template, while other creatures of the same level might be much harder for the same template.

One other change is worth noting - all monster debuffs now use Magic Accuracy, even if they are melee or missile-oriented creatures. This means that mage classes have a better chance to avoid these debuffs compared to other classes.

Issue 2: Focus System Not Exciting

In the original Hero system, the Focus bar suffered from several problems. Most hero skills were not worth spending Focus on, so players tended to collect a vast amount of Focus and only use it occasionally (such as in PvP). On the other hand, a few classes had skills that were extremely powerful and also very cheap, so that Focus management was rarely an issue - they could essentially use their skills whenever they wanted. In either case, it was very rare to even look at your Focus bar before entering a fight. Focus was a very minor bookkeeping issue as opposed to a key gameplay factor. We wanted to dramatically increase the importance of Focus.

New Focus

The Focus bar now has a maximum size of 100, rather than 1000. This change helps to underscore that the new Focus rules are very different than the old ones! Easy come, easy go: that's the motto for the new Focus bar. Because it only goes to 100, it's very easy to fill up on Focus, and any additional Focus you gain is lost. So naturally, this means you will want to use your Hero Skills more often.

Focus is easier to find than ever before. All solo monsters that are no more than 4 levels below your level will give 20 Focus on death, while group monsters no more than 4 levels below your level will give 100 Focus (divided amongst the fellowship). You can also regain your Focus just by logging off for the night: you regain a point of Focus for every ten minutes of time spent offline. This lets you log in ready-to-go each game session.

The Focus costs for Hero Skills have been adjusted dramatically downward. Hero Attacks tend to cost 25 to 40 Focus per use, meaning that you can use them every couple of fights. Hero Buffs tend to cost 50 to 80 Focus, meaning you can use them every three or four fights.

Issue 3: Lack of Choices for Development

One of the major motivators for writing Hero 2.0 was to offer more than the cookie-cutter options available to players in the original system. Because skills were given to players automatically, every player of an individual class was essentially the same, with only minor variations in Arcane Lore or other passives. Cookie-cutter classes aren't fun. Worse, the original system had too few skills to look forward to. We needed a system that provided additional options for growth.

Hero Credits

In order to provide Heroes with additional options for advancement, we needed a new currency for buy skills. Thus was born the Hero Credit. Unlike regular Skill Credits, Hero Credits are used in bulk. A typical hero active skill costs 300 or 400 hero credits! You earn 100 Hero Credits per level that you are eligible to be a hero. So you earn 100 hero credits at level 45, another 100 at level 46, and so on. If you become a hero later in life (say at level 50), you retroactively earn all the hero credits you would have earned in the earlier levels.

But there is another way to earn Hero Credits, too. Monsters now occasionally drop Tesserae, tradable objects that grant a Hero Credit when used. Tesserae can increase your Hero Credit count, up to a certain limit based on your level. For instance, at level 50, a player will have automatically earned 600 hero credits, but they may have earned up to 150 more by using Tesserae. (If a player reaches the maximum number of Hero Credits, and they find another Tessera, they can either hold on to the Tessera until they level up, or they can trade or sell it to others.)

The following table shows how many credits you are given automatically, plus the maximum number of theoretical Tessserae you could find at your level. However, this is a very fanciful number, at least for the lower levels - because Tesserae are hard to come by, it is essentially impossible for a level 50 player to have found 1500 Tesserae (though they may be able to purchase that many from others...). It is also EXTREMELY unlikely that a level 60 player will have found 2425 Tesserae through the course of playing. (Though again, perhaps they are given extra Tesserae from vassals and friends...) In general, it is only very late in the game, say level 100+, when levels take much longer to complete, that the cap on max. Tesserae per level might come into play.

Player  Total Automatic     Max Possible       Max THEORETICAL
Level     Hero Credits      Tesserae Used    Possible Hero Credits
45            100                 25                  125
46            200                 50                  250
47            300                 75                  375
48            400                 100                 500
49            500                 125                 625
50            600                 150                 750
51            700                 200                 900
52            800                 250                 1050
53            900                 300                 1200
54            1000                350                 1350
55            1100                400                 1500
56            1200                450                 1650
57            1300                500                 1800
58            1400                550                 1950
59            1500                600                 2100
60            1600                650                 2250
61            1700                725                 2425
62            1800                800                 2600
63            1900                875                 2775
64            2000                950                 2950
65            2100                1025                3125
66            2200                1100                3300
67            2300                1175                3475
68            2400                1250                3650
69            2500                1325                3825
70            2600                1400                4000
71            2700                1500                4200
72            2800                1600                4400
73            2900                1700                4600
74            3000                1800                4800
75            3100                1900                5000
76            3200                2000                5200
77            3300                2100                5400
78            3400                2200                5600
79            3500                2300                5800
80            3600                2400                6000
81            3700                2500                6200
82            3800                2600                6400
83            3900                2700                6600
84            4000                2800                6800
85            4100                2900                7000
86            4200                3000                7200
87            4300                3100                7400
88            4400                3200                7600
89            4500                3300                7800
90            4600                3400                8000
91            4700                3525                8225
92            4800                3650                8450
93            4900                3775                8675
94            5000                3900                8900
95            5100                4025                9125
96            5200                4150                9350
97            5300                4275                9575
98            5400                4400                9800
99            5500                4525                10025
100           5600                4650                10250
101           5700                4775                10475
102           5800                4900                10700
103           5900                5025                10925
104           6000                5150                11150
105           6100                5275                11375
106           6200                5400                11600
107           6300                5525                11825
108           6400                5650                12050
109           6500                5775                12275
110           6600                5900                12500
111           6700                6050                12750
112           6800                6200                13000
113           6900                6350                13250
114           7000                6500                13500
115           7100                6650                13750
116           7200                6800                14000
117           7300                6950                14250
118           7400                7100                14500
119           7500                7250                14750
120           7600                7400                15000
121           7700                7550                15250
122           7800                7700                15500
123           7900                7850                15750
124           8000                8000                16000
125           8100                8150                16250
126           8200                8300                16500
127           8300                8450                16750
128           8400                8600                17000
129           8500                8750                17250
130           8600                8900                17500
131           8700                9075                17775
132           8800                9250                18050
133           8900                9425                18325
134           9000                9600                18600
135           9100                9775                18875
136           9200                9950                19150
137           9300                10125               19425
138           9400                10300               19700
139           9500                10475               19975
140           9600                10650               20250
141           9700                10825               20525
142           9800                11000               20800
143           9900                11175               21075
144           10000               11350               21350
145           10100               11525               21625
146           10200               11725               21925
147           10300               11925               22225
148           10400               12125               22525
149           10500               12325               22825
150           10600               13400               24000

Again, it's important to reiterate that you should not expect to find 125 Tesserae during the course of hunting at level 45. They appear on corpses about as often as Lodestones do now. There are additional ways to earn them, however -- you can receive them as rewards from quests, though the Tesserae earned from questing cannot be traded. And it is even possible to find Tesserae while mining, though the chances are slim, and they can only be found by players who are level 45 or higher.

Tesserae are a bonus reward mechanism. They are NEVER mandatory. The Hero Credits that you earn automatically by leveling will be enough to keep your character viable and interesting. The credits you are granted by level 50 will give your character power similar to what they had in the previous system, and by level 60, the automatic hero credits will make your character much more powerful than existing level 60 characters. Tesserae can make your character even more powerful over time.

Issue 4: Group combat not exciting/rewarding enough

As we slowly developed more solo content, we found that the group content became less appealing. This is unfortunate, because our desire is to find the perfect balance between solo and group play. The monster changes discussed earlier help a lot, because now monsters have more tricks up their sleeves, and are worth more XP, making group hunting more fun.

In addition, we have added a new system that rewards organized groups.

Chain Combos

Chain combos are a system whereby three players working together can increase their effectiveness. Each player uses a particular skill, one after the other, and the result is a special attack on the current monster they are fighting.

There are many dozens of Chain Combos, but we aren't going to provide a list of them to you. You will have to figure them out on your own! (You can tell when you have discovered part of a Chain Combo because the target monster will become “energized” – they will have a unique graphical effect on them.)

However, as an example, let's reveal one of the Chain Combos: Subjugate+ Ritual of the Heavens+Queen's Defender=Scorching Storm. So how do you pull this combo off? Each member uses their skill in order on the same target. First the Lugian uses Subjugate, then the Hieromancer uses Ritual of the Heavens, and finally the Hivekeeper uses Queen's Defender. If done correctly, you will hear the game's announcer say “Scorching Storm!” and the enemy will be hit with a whirlwind of fiery energy.

So what do the chain combos do? Well, different combos do different things, such as vigor draining or direct damage. But all combos have an additional effect: they stun the target very briefly (for about 2 seconds). This stun works even if the target has already been stunned in the past minute – it is an unavoidable stun. While the creature is stunned, it's time for everybody in the fellowship to pile on all the damage they can, because if the creature dies while affected by this special stun, it will be worth 25% additional XP!

Most chain combos work on players in PvP as well as they do on monsters. (Though of course players are not worth any XP when killed, so the 25% XP bonus doesn't apply.)

As we've said, we won't be listing the individual chain combos, but here are some hints for you to find them: - all chain combos consist of three skills; - all chain combos require three different people (so it's never possible for just two players to cast all three skills); - all chain combos end with a Hero Skill; - not every skill is applied to the enemy… sometimes you have to apply a skill to another player instead; - you will see a graphical effect when you've completed the first two steps in the chain.

Conclusion

As you can see, Hero 2.0 is composed of a lot of pieces. (You've already seen some of the pieces in the game already: the Damage Type system used by Harmonic Weapons was designed for Hero 2.0.) Taken separately, each system provides improved gameplay for high-level players. But it's when all the parts of Hero 2.0 are taken together that it really shines. We're very proud of this endeavor, and we are excited to see you try it out!

I would like to thank the Vanguard team and the Preview testers for providing ample feedback and suggesting major improvements to this system. For instance, it was a Preview tester who suggested that Focus should regenerate while offline, and it was a Vanguard tester who suggested that there should be a chance to earn Tesserae while mining. And preview testers' balance feedback was crucial to making this system fun. Thanks to all of you! (You know who you are!)