The patch notes for Riders of Rohan update 8.1 are now available here. There are a couple of things of interest to us:
Open Tapping
From the patch notes:
Initially, we were expecting that resolving those issues would be sufficient in getting the system where we wanted it. However, at the end of the day, we felt like our intention for the system was being lost in the miasma of it behaving noticeably different from the way people were used to playing, making it a discomforting switch for people to adjust to.
As such, we have decided to change it back so that while in a fellowship/group, your nearby group members will get full credit whether or not they have contributed in any useful manner. It is our hope that even with this change that is being made to help people avoid having to change their play style from the old world, people continue to work together beyond their small personal groups rather than simply grouping up and spreading out in a locust pattern to try and game the system. Going forward, we will continue to tweak the system as we see the need which may involve tweaking the rewards structure to take this redesign into account.
Please note that no other changes were made to the open tapping system. While playing solo it continues to function as before.
I’m not really quite sure why this wasn’t how it worked from the get-go. Open tapping was meant to encourage players who weren’t grouped to help each other. As it was, it sort of encouraged folks to not group at all. The only reason Mossie and I continued to group during Rohan was so we could see each other on the map. That was the ONLY benefit.
Warsteed system changes
- The Goblin Riders in Rohan can now emote correctly when out of combat and idle.
- Fixed a broken 1-handed attack animation for human NPC riders.
- Using Quick Stop or double-tap to stop your war-steed while walking or trotting will no longer cause the character to animated into the mount.
- Fixed an issue that could have caused some Urukhai riders to not play a melee animation.
- Riding monsters will no longer drop into their mount when falling.
- Fixing mount enemies pathing outside of the boundaries of an instance.
- Some minor changes have been made to the mounted combat tutorial space to resolve issues that could cause flags to be missed.
- Slightly modified the base Turn Rate on the War-steed when in the two highest speeds (Cantor & Gallop).
- War Steed update! You may now use Rohan CRAFTING NODES and QUEST ITEMS from horseback!
- Medium War-steed trait “Arise” now grants power to the steed rather than the player.
- Toggle skills which are suppressed when mounted are now suppressed immediately instead of after a few seconds. Those same skills are also now reactivated immediately instead of after a few seconds.
- Burglar skill Strategic Strike no longer adds a Fervour effect to the character.
It sure would be nice if we knew what this modification to turn rate entailed. I’m guessing it’s increasing the turn rate slightly, or tightening it up. Again, just a guess. I can’t imagine them making the turns wider.
There are some other things in the notes of interest but nothing standing out other than the lack of any mention whether this will address the Warsteed lag/slingshotting that is affecting so many people. And what about my tracking target? Has it been found?
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Although it seems like parental evasiveness when release notes say “adjusted [thus and such]” online game developers have been doing it for over 20 years for a reason. They’d prefer to give an exact number. Most are engineers after all. Problem is, when you do so the discussion dissolves from game play into a battle over numbers. While numbers are the very root of everything digital (or otherwise) you cannot know precisely how they’ll affect the ineffable qualities of game play. It is here the ongoing conversation should best be focused in most cases. However, the phrase, “…now drops the correct number of [thus and such],” is worrisome. There is no such thing as a correct number for such things.
I don’t need numbers, or really am asking for them. In this specific case numbers are useless to most people. I just want to know in what direction. “Turn rate has been adjusted” can go one of two ways. It’d have been nice for them to indicate which way. We have to guess it was adjusted towards a tighter turn radius, because a very loud and common complaint was wide turns… but Turbine has been known to make some bonehead adjustments in the past.
I think it should have remained the same… too many people are getting credit for other people’s work… It’s ridiculous how many times I see people triple/double-boxing and getting all the XP for it because they are grouped. Open-tapping was a way of managing this.
A group isn’t about getting credit for someone else’s kills, it’s a way of socially saying “we’re together”, for using FMs, for teaching people, etc. Saying there is “no other benefit” is a small-minded view of Fellowships.
Cheers.
Understand your point of view on the matter but I can’t wholly agree with it from my perspective as someone who primarily plays fellowship content in a small fellow or duo. My “only benefit” comment is about benefit to me specifically and not grouping as whole in the game. The only reason we found it was worth the time to invite, reinvite, etc., etc., after every solo quest that made us disband was so we could see each other on the radar. If it weren’t for the mapping benefit we never would have bothered fellowing up.
In my mind it’s totally about receiving credit for the kills, not necessarily for the xp or loot reward. We teamed up against a warband. While I was burning down the boss, Mossie was controlling the adds. She never tapped the boss and never got quest credit for the kill. How is it fair that she did what is most likely MORE work against the warband but not get credit for defeating it because she never got the tap on it? At that point we didn’t know how open tapping affected fellowships and we adjusted how we played things, but it was a real pain in the rear for us at times making sure everyone has tapped everything so we can get things done.
In my opinion, leaving fellowship play as it has always been and leaving open tapping the way it is on the outside of the fellowship is how it should have been done from the start.
Regarding multiboxing, I don’t do it, and the people who do don’t affect me, so I don’t care one way or another. Open tapping may have been a way to stop people from dual boxing, but that is not what it was intended to do. I think it succeeds at what it was intended to do: get people working together.