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Tabula Rasa is a peculiar game compared to many in that the difficulty of enemy encounters usually isn't measured by enemy strength, but by their numbers and composition. Man to man, your typical AFS soldier is more than a match for even the toughest units the Bane can throw at them. While that would seem to make the game a cakewalk, this is balanced by the fact that the enemy usually travels in roaming packs, containing enemies of different types that complement and balance each other. The difficulty of the game is largely derived from finding ways to pick apart these units before they can burn you down.

Among the many changes to come to Tabula Rasa in the most recent patch on the public test server is a new, enhanced enemy AI. For whatever reason, the Destination Games team decided to amp up the difficulty of enemy encounters by increasing so-called "aggro sharing" between enemy monsters. Having given the new build some time on the test server, we've got some thoughts and criticisms.

In a welcome change for Tabula Rasa's Feedback Friday, we got a little pep talk and look at the future from lead designer Paul Sage. The stately Sage ruminated about many common points of interest for Tabula Rasa players, including clan-owned CPs, personal armor units, and multi-squad instances. From the tone of the discussion, we get the vibe that none of these things are going to see the light of day in patch 1.7, as we might have hoped, but they're still being worked on internally. It's definitely required reading if you're a fan.

One thing we were really surprised to see was that attack and defend tokens as they currently exist are going to be merged together and expanded to be used as a reward for a whole array of different achievements. The principles will likely remain the same, with certain respec and crafting rewards available for purchase with a certain number of tokens, but you'll soon be rewarded for new things like certain missions, killing certain world bosses, or even just reaching a full experience modifier.

When patch 1.6 hit the live servers, Tabula Rasa's grinding game as we knew it was shaken up. Experience modifiers were bumped up as high as 6x the normal rates and a new system was implemented that allows players to collect universal CP assault and defend tokens in exchange for worthwhile items like attribute respecs and 50% experience boosters. With these changes, grinding capture points has never been a bigger part of the Tabula Rasa experience.

While battling our way from zone to zone, we've seen a lot of players falling into the same mistakes and meeting their untimely demise. In an effort to assure that everybody enjoys the CP capturing experience as much as we do, we've assembled a two-part guide to Tabula Rasa capture points, with tips, strategies, and common etiquette that should help take your TR experience to the next level. For part one, we'll give you some useful tips for that always difficult task of assaulting enemy CPs.

Tip 1: Prioritize your targets and take them out with hit and run tactics

One of the mistakes that most frequently leads to a player's early demise is rushing in to assault a capture point without properly assessing a situation. Sure it looks like there's only a few lightbenders guarding the gate to the base, but if you swing a few degrees closer to the door, you'll see they've got a whole slew of buddies waiting just inside the force field to come make hamburger out of your face. The smart player will identify the enemies he has to deal with and, if he's alone, attack in a series of hit and run maneuvers, taking out a few enemies at a time. Start with the healers and shield drones, and work your way down the order of importance. Those Thrax might be easier to kill, but it doesn't do you a lick of good killing them if a Caretaker just rezzes them right after you run away.

Tip 2: Turn solitary shield drones against the enemy

One of the most loathsome sights in the game is seeing a huge mob of Bane running towards you completely protected by a swarm of shield drones. While shield drones are generally a huge pain in the ass, and fairly high on the hit list, that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them to your advantage when you can. If you're inside their yellow dome of energy, you receive the same protective benefits as the enemy. So instead of destroying that lone shield drone sitting in front of the base, consider using it as a staging area. They'll only be to scratch you once they're inside the bubble too, so wail on them before they can close range.

Tip 3: Don't rush to capture that CP

One of the rookie mistakes a lot of people make is immediately rushing in and trying to capture a CP when the force field comes down. This rarely works because all it takes is one enemy shot to interrupt the capture process. And there's usually at least one enemy lingering around waiting to take a pot shot at you. Do your clean up first, then capture. One should also consider their surroundings and whether that CP is even worth capturing. If other people were assaulting a CP before you got there, make sure to ask if they're grinding for assault tokens. It would be awfully rude to rush in and snipe the CP they've been working on. If you hadn't considered farming the CP yourself, you should. Capturing a CP basically cuts off enemy reinforcements, meaning that your experience modifier and your supply of assault tokens comes to an abrupt end.

Tip 4: Kite away big targets like bosses, Kael, and Striders

While a lot of players (especially Spies) seem to pride themselves in their ability to take down hard targets quickly, it's usually a much wiser decision to kite these guys away from big groups and take them on by yourself or with the help of other players or AI troops. Kael, Striders, and especially boss characters (as denoted by their white aura and unique name) can be extremely tough nuts to crack,. It's hard to even out-damage their considerable regenerative abilities, especially when you've got a group of ten other guys plunking away at you in the meantime. So pull those big guys from the crowd and take them out before going back in and cleaning up the dregs.

As a secondary point, don't be afraid to run away! Even specialists with their repair tools equipped can be quickly and efficiently downed under sustained fire from a boss and a big group of lackeys. If it looks like things aren't going to go your way, high-tail it out of there and save yourself the rez sickness.

Tip 5: If you need more guys to kill, just knock on the door

If you're running around outside a CP and find yourself needing enemies to kill, just plunk one or two shots into the force field covering the gate and you should get a fresh supply of enemies to come out and try and make paste of your face. If they don't try and drop-ship down on your head, they should come rushing out of the base like bats out of hell. We're not sure if they have some sort of psychic connection to the door or if it's got some sort of doorbell function we weren't made aware of, but it works. Still, it's a crucial point of order in keeping your experience modifier alive.

The Tabula Rasa community team sent out another bulletin this Friday, specifically concerning the changes that should be coming to the public test server some time between now and next week. Among the tweaks they mentioned for patch 1.7 are tweaks to the way enemy spawns and high-level AI is handled. In the Palisades, Torden Incline, and the Plains, they're looking to smooth out enemy spawn patterns, in addition to alleviating some of the tougher spots in Divide and Wilderness, where enemies that you just finished killing will often pop right back in and shoot you in the back.

They also mentioned some exciting changes the group mechanics, including the clan owned CPs (finally!) and some a new LFG system that should make the quest to find a group considerably less arduous, or so we hope. Tabula Rasa still strikes us as a solo-centric game, so we'd like to see group play pushed to the forefront, even if it means they have to beat us over the head with it.

Also, one final announcement for the especially dense among us: the Skitterin hybrid class was an April Fools' joke!

With Tabula Rasa already on the ropes with recent reports of financial failure, the last thing the TR community wanted or needed to have to deal with was the awfully-implemented patch 1.5 that rolled out onto live servers yesterday. Pushed out of testing a scant five days after it was revealed on the public test server, the patch was bugged by resolution issues and big changes to the Spy class weren't accompanied by a respec to make them worth the trouble. Morale among the AFS-faithful was not terribly high this time yesterday morning.

Evidently, the developers actually paid notice and took a rare opportunity to break their usual Monday/Friday announcement schedule to address these concerns. They're working on a hotfix for the resolution problem, and suggest in the meantime that players run the game in windowed mode. Not that doing so addresses the fact that the resolution resets every time you load the game, but at least it doesn't crash. They've also revealed that part of their plan in patch 1.6 is to make respecs a more readily available resource. Instead of the crummy awards players currently get for defending and attacking CPs, players will soon be able to collect talent and attribute respec credits for their trouble instead. It's a good idea, and enough of a distraction that most of the doom and gloom has abated, albeit temporarily.

Richard Garriott, founder of the legendary Ultima series and Executive Producer for Tabula Rasa, gave a lecture this evening to the Washington D.C. chapter for the Association of Computer Machinery. Of course, being your personal guide into the complex world of MMOs, we were on-hand to cover the event. While you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the full write-up, we couldn't resist posting this juicy bit of information that fell from the lips of one Lord British.

Addressing the issue of the near-constant feedback cycle that MMOs enjoy by virtue of being in a persistent state of development and refinement, Garriott cited Tabula Rasa's PvP as an element of the game that was being moved up the ladder of development priorities. PvP in the game's current state essentially amounts to guilds camping teleporters and hospitals, waiting for members of warring clans to appear, where they can be taken by surprise and slaughtered.

Garriott's vision for the future of the PvP system is set to feature TR's popular Capture Point gameplay mechanic. Clans will be to capture CPs for themselves, generating money based on the activities of the NPCs within the CP. This will have the dual effect of giving warring clans something to do besides spawn-camping as well as give a context for PvP that makes slightly more sense within the lore. It's always been a bit of a rough sell having fellow members of the Allied Free Sentients slaughtering each other, but the idea of clans trying to control commerce is somehow more palatable.

Again, we'll have a full write-up tomorrow.