Mythic developers just fixed a major bug
that has been in
Warhammer Online since launch and it's having a big impact on players. Action points (AP) are the one-size-fits-all resource used to cast spells, perform damage attacks, and tank. Suffice to say, a change to the way AP works affects every class in the game. This bug fix makes it take a little longer for AP to regenerate
as originally intended.
Many players claim that the time-to-kill in beta was much higher than it turned out at release, and while a dozen or more variables play a part in this (e.g., better gear, higher crit rates, newer strategies, etc.), AP regen can be counted among them. You see, after
the game released game update 1.3.1 came out, players had a nearly limitless AP pool. In fact, AP regen potions were useless aside from getting a quick boost after sprinting. This led to many players getting in the habit of button-mashing their abilities without fearing a complete AP drain.
Now that the issue has been corrected, there's been
a bit of an outcry from players who have become accustomed to playing
WAR not as intended
for over a year.
Mythic stresses that this change is for the better but will continue to monitor the situation and adjust accordingly. Check out
Nate Levy's
developer diary for all the details.
Update: This bug was discovered in 1.3.1 but we are unsure of when it originally made its way into the game. We apologize for jumping to conclusions based on our own experiences.
Oct 27th 2009 at 6:00PM
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ivasen said on 6:09PM 10-27-2009
I won't lie, this fix is kind of annoying, even if it is for the better.
They could increase the AP regen just a tiny bit.
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CCon99 said on 7:07PM 10-27-2009
That is truly disgusting, how could such a major game changing bug go unchecked for well over a year now? They really don't play their own game do they? Noting else to say but total incompetence.
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Stupid said on 7:34PM 10-27-2009
I have to agree, both as a first-round beta tester of WAR, and as a player of many other MMOs. But I don't think it has anything to do with "playing" their own game, but speaks volumes about the development and QA teams.
If such a globally affecting bug was known about, it should have been pushed to the very top of the "must fix this right now" list. A producer that assigns development assets to bugfixes needs to have the "big picture" in mind at all times, and this seems to be a pretty "big" issue. I would say that this type of an issue is as severe and game-affecting as a major crash-bug that locked people out of the game. The only thing that could possibly take precedence over something as large as this would be a server crash issue.
It's not like this will change one class or affect a small subset of the playerbase. (Although it could be argued that ANY change will only affect a small subset of the playerbase these days, since the playerbase itself is so small.) Sometimes the designers have to suck it up and accept that things are the way they are, even if that wasn't the original intent. It would have been better for them to "fix" this in other ways than simply roll out a completely revamped AP regen system.
Seriously, the game has been released for over a year now. How could such a fundamental game-affecting bug have gotten past QA testing, much less gone un-noticed by the development team for nearly a full year?
I love Mythic and their games, and I still have an active DAoC account. But I have no ill feelings about closing my WAR accounts.
Nelson said on 7:45PM 10-27-2009
It's easy, CCon99! See, the major game changing bug was unnoticed because it was masked by the major game-destroying server lag!
Nym said on 6:13AM 10-28-2009
As much as this bug may seem 'game breaking' in all honesty it's comparatively a C- or D-list bug. These are the "it'd be nice to have it fixed but the game is still playable" and "this bug mostly just bugs me, but it can get a pass" lists.
The game was still perfectly playable and there may have been some higher list bugs to sort through. Not having actually played WAR though, I couldn't say. Just giving reasons why this may have gotten a pass for so long.
Joshua Przygocki said on 7:59PM 10-27-2009
Well, I was thinking of re-activating my sub but...
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GaaaaaH said on 10:58PM 10-27-2009
...You've decided that not being able to spam everything is too hard?
Kim said on 8:01PM 10-27-2009
This certainly ruins it for my favorite class in WAR: the Chosen... unless they fixed that class since I last played about 10 months ago.
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Aelith said on 8:19PM 10-27-2009
Chosen have no AP issues at all, they have a tactic that gives them 10 AP for every aura that is up, you can (and should) run 3 auras at a time. so no AP issues at all.
Also this issue only came about after 1.2 which was 4 or 5 months ago - it hasn't been around for a year.
sugewise said on 8:55PM 10-27-2009
that is what i thought to Aelith, but according to the article it has been around since launch. but to be honest on my chosen and kotbs, i seriously could just spam people till they died. so it's most likely for the better.
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LaughingTarget said on 8:57PM 10-27-2009
Hmm, when I played it sorta already worked like intended. I found out that I quickly drained my AP if I spammed my skills but if I let the cooldown finish before hitting off another attack, I would last a whole lot longer. I probably wouldn't notice the difference if I went back.
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Hardy said on 9:57PM 10-27-2009
It's funny how some of you are mad at War for having a bug for so long... No other MMO has ever done that, not even precious WoW... Nope, no long lasting bugs ever... Just don't talk to Rogues when you bring this up.
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SicJake said on 11:37PM 10-27-2009
Fucking Vanish! After four god damn bloody years! :p I laugh when NE's got their racial retooled and people bitched about the same bug as vanish. Ah if they only knew
Brian! said on 12:23AM 10-28-2009
Rogues, heh, try Druids. Worse, there were bugs that slowly became "working as intended" even known way back in the day they were stated as bugs.
Wjowski said on 4:04AM 10-28-2009
Sorry but I don't recall any 'infinite mana' bugs in WoW.
Yavvy said on 1:02AM 10-28-2009
The bug has NOT been in since launch! It surfaced sometime around 1.3, I think... I went out of AP a lot before that.
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misk said on 3:36AM 10-28-2009
Yup, even in 1.2.x as a shaman I still had some use for AP drain skill because I would run out of AP fairly quickly. Around 1.3 it changed that I never ever even came close to having no AP. There are some classes that have a hard time with AP and it was a great defensive skill combined with detaunt.
More fixes and I might resubscribe. Right now I gave WAR as much chance as I could.
Skenska said on 10:31AM 10-28-2009
Please correct this article!
As a few commenters above have already said the ‘infinite AP’ bug (a bit of an over simplification) was not there from launch but arrived in 1.3.1, deployed in August). As the article goes on to mention there was a further AP bug, affecting regeneration during high lag situations that had been going on since launch (and it was pretty annoying, but not game breaking like the newer issue).
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newskooltrooper said on 11:11AM 10-28-2009
Way to spread the WAR FUD, Massively. Good job on feeding the WAR trolls, as well.
Game "journalism" FTW.
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Turlagh said on 11:46PM 10-29-2009
The writer must have confused this bug with all the other bugs that have been in the game since launch.
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