Jun 15, 2016
Update 1.15.5: Museum of the Occult & Elite Revamp
Secret World Legends - Andy B - Community Manager
NEW!
The Museum of the Occult is a brand-new feature that allows you to collect, display, and customize exhibits of monsters in your own personal Museum. Earn new rewards, including pets, t-shirts designed by members of our community, and consumables that can call upon a monster to assist you! You can even invite your friends to your Museum and let them bask in your glory.

The Museum of the Occult may be found near Temple Hall in London. Tons of new achievements and hundreds of new Lore pieces await your discovery, agents! Good hunting!

COMBAT
General
  • Fixed several tooltip text issues.

Anima Deviation
  • Increased the damage dealt by Anima Deviation. The base damage has increased by around 77.7%.
  • Anima Deviation should no longer be able to trigger multiple times from the same ability.
This damage increase is budgeted to bridge the gap in DPS for elite abilities which have a 25 second cooldown as opposed to the ones which have a 20 second cooldown.

Elite Vulnerability System
  • Specific Elite abilities will now provide a debuff which increases damage dealt of a specific type. For example, the Elementalism ability "Overload" will now cause affected enemies to take increased damage from Melee abilities. This new system does not function in PvP areas.
  • Updated all damage over time and proc effects to have an ability type representative of the weapon it is gained from. The purpose of this change is purely to work with the new Elite Vulnerability system.
Here are the specifics on the new system:
  • Vulnerable to Melee: 25% damage increase for Melee abilities. 15 second duration.
  • Vulnerable to Magic: 20% damage increase for Magic abilities. 15 second duration.
  • Vulnerable to Ranged: 20% damage increase for Ranged abilities. 15 second duration.

Weapons can only provide vulnerabilities for other weapon types. For example, Melee weapons will only be able to provide Magic and Ranged vulnerability. This new system pairs with the elite revamp and the reduced cooldowns there to ensure a coordinated group can keep these effects active over the duration of a fight.

Elite Ability Revamp
In the notes below, you will see changes and updates based on both the cooldowns and damage dealt by elite abilities. For this revamp, we've decided to take a step back and look at all of our elite abilities as a whole. Our focus was to ensure that the elite abilities are something you always want to use and will provide a damage increase when used in a rotation. To that end, we've rebudgeted nearly every elite ability to perform at nearly the same level of DPS over the course of an extended fight. What this results in is a cooldown reduction and damage increase for the majority of elites. However, two elite abilities were negatively affected by this update - Bombardment and Plague. Most of you are probably aware that Bombardment would be adjusted, but in the case of Plague, it turns out that it was very close to where we wanted it already. In fact, if we had left the cooldown at 30 seconds, it would have seen a damage increase. But, since Plague is responsible for one of the new Elite Vulnerabilities, we felt it was necessary to perform the cooldown reduction and damage reduction.

I hope this helps shed light on what our goals and intentions are with this elite ability revamp.

Shotgun
  • Point Blank: Reduced the cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. Reduced the knockback distance to allow better melee follow-up attacks. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Invasive Measures: Increased the chance to trigger to 17.5%. This ability will now perform an additional hit if they were triggered while you were already at full resources. The damage dealt is on par with the bonus damage gained from a 1 point resource consumer.
  • Shield Formation: This passive will now cause you to gain one stack of the Protection effect every two seconds. This has the nice side effect of also giving it to your nearby friends! Form the shield formation!
  • Buckshot: Increased damage dealt.
  • Crap Shoot: Increased damage dealt.
  • Kneecapper: Increased damage dealt.
  • Shotgun Wedding: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. Shotgun Wedding will now build a maximum of one stack per channeling interval. Increased the damage bonus per stack to 25%. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability.
  • Bombardment: Reduced damage dealt. We decided that it was better overall for gameplay to reduce the damage of Bombardment instead of applying the area of denial. We've readjusted our balance stance on this ability to assume that the majority of the attacks will hit, which resulted in the damage reduction. We felt that it was better in this case to say that Bombardment will not perform as well against targets who are mobile.

Assault Rifle
  • Energise: This ability does not trigger and is not affected by global recharge time.
  • No Contest: Increased bonus damage to 10%. The effect gained will now last for 8 seconds.
  • Military Code: Increased resources built to 2.
  • Accuracy: Increased damage bonus to 7%.
  • Short Controlled Bursts: Increased critical hit and penenetrating hit chance increase to 4%.
  • Lethality: Each stack of Lethality will now increase damage by 1.25%
  • Veteran: Increased healing done and bonus leech effect granted when this passive triggers.
  • Improved Bursts: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Slow the Advance: Increased damage dealty.
  • Red Mist: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability. See the new poll for additional Red Mist changes.
  • Shellshocker: Increased damage dealt. This ability will now provide Melee Vulnerability.
  • Re-Animator: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds. Increased healing done. While channeling this effect, your target is immune to death. Upon successfully completing the channel, you will gain a 20% increase to leech effectiveness for 6 seconds.
  • Experience: Fixed an issue that caused it to not modify leech abilities properly.

Pistols
  • Fixed an issue which caused Double Up procs to gain twice as much benefit from mitigation debuff effects.
  • Seal the Deal: Increased damage bonus to 20%.
  • Seal the Deal: This ability will now also increase the Penetration Chance of resource consumers by 5%.
  • Above the Law: Increased the number of resources built.
  • Advantage Me: The cleanse will now trigger on any critical heal. The internal cooldown has been reduced to 2 seconds.
  • Vigilante: Will now also increase the damage of Above the Law.
  • Chain Feed: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Closer: Increased the damage bonus to 10%.
  • Dirty Tricks: Increased damage dealt.
  • Gun Crazy: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability. Also, fixed an issue that could cause this ability to not deal damage in some cases.
  • Bullet Ballet: Increased damage dealt. This ability's damage no longer scales based on resources spent. Instead, this ability will consume pistol resources on all targets at the end of the channel and deal appropriate consumer damage. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Pistol Love: Increased damage dealt.
  • Born Leader: Increased damage dealt and healing power.

Chaos
  • Amor Fati: This ability does not trigger and is not affected by global recharge time.
  • Prodigal: Increased the CC effect duration reduction to 35%.
  • Fixation: Increased the trigger chance to 50%.
  • Gnosis: Increased damage dealt.
  • Paradox: Increased damage dealt.
  • From the Abyss: Increased damage dealt.
  • Domino Effect: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Prisoner of Fate: Reduced the cooldown to 20 seconds and increased the damage dealt. Removed the stun effect from the target while channeling. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability. The reason for this change is that we wanted Chaos to have access to a pure DPS elite to enable any future Chaos DPS builds.
  • Eye of Pandemonium: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability is now affected by Anima Deviation and will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Eye of Pandemonium: Fixed an issue which could cause affected targets to end up in a permanent knockdown state.
  • Gravitational Anomaly: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Fever Pitch: Reduced Major Hit to provide 25% hit chance for 5 seconds. Increased the trigger chance for Fever Pitch to 15%.
  • Fever Pitch: This ability will now only have a chance to trigger once per second.

Blood
  • Vital Fluids: Increased the chance to trigger to 17.5%. This ability will now perform an additional hit if they were triggered while you were already at full resources. The damage dealt is on par with the bonus damage gained from a 1 point resource consumer.
  • Third Degree: Increased damage dealt.
  • Coagulation: Increased the barrier power increase effect to 60%.
  • Clotting: This ability has been redesigned. It will now cause any Blood barriers you apply to instead heal the target for a percentage of the barrier you are attempting to apply if that target has an existing barrier.
  • Cardiac Arrest: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Plague: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and reduced damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Expulsion: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and improved barrier strength and AoE damage dealt.
  • My Bloody Valentine: Increased initial barrier, heal over time, AoE damage, and secondary barrier strength.
  • Torture: Reduced damage dealt.
  • Gross Anatomy: Reduced damage dealt.


Elementalism
  • Live Wire: Critically hitting will now grant a buff which causes your next hit to deal an additional damage hit.
  • Toxic Affinity: This passive will now increase the critical chance of damage over time effects by 20%.
  • Big Bang: Increased damage dealt.
  • Molten Earth: Increased damage dealt.
  • Power Line/Voltaic Detonation: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Whiteout: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Hard Reset: Reduced cooldown to 35 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Overload: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Short Fuse: This ability is now instant.
  • Elemental Force: This ability will now grant 1 stack of a buff when you finish activating any damaging ability (max 1 per second). At 5 stacks, you lose all stacks and gain a 20% Critical Chance boost for 5 seconds. Buff stacks cannot be gained while this buff is active.
Elemental Force has been a staple for a long time and in the end, we felt we couldn't move forward with improving build diversity without addressing the elephant in the room. Our initial change is to allow it to still provide a good critical increase that will stack with all other critical increases which will allow it to be useful in all types of builds. In addition, we wanted to keep the timed element so a good rotation can take the most advantage of the uptime of the new buff effect.

Blade
  • Twist the Knife: Increased damage bonus to 4% per stack.
  • Finish the Movement: Finish the Movement will now build an additional resource every second Focus ability. This ability will now perform an additional hit if they were triggered while you were already at full resources. The damage dealt is on par with the bonus damage gained from a 1 point resource consumer.
  • Flight of Daggers: Increased damage dealt by this passive.
  • Sixth Sense: Increased damage dealt by this passive.
  • Seven and a Half Samurai: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Spiral of Death: This ability should now perform its teleport effect more reliably.
  • Stunning Swirl: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Four Seasons: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability.
  • Master's House: Increased cooldown to 35 seconds.
  • Silver Streak: Reduced cooldown to 35 seconds. Increased the healing per hit to 2.5%.
  • The Art of War: Reduced cooldown to 35 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Fatal Flourish: This ability will now grant 1 stack of a buff whenever you hit a target you afflicted (max 1 per second). At 5 stacks, you lose all stacks and gain a 20% Penetration Chance boost for 5 seconds. Buff stacks cannot be gained while this buff is active.

Hammer
  • You're Next: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Improved Strikes: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Shockwave: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability.
  • Epicentre: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. Whenever you expend a stack of Epicentre, you will gain a 5% critical power boost which stacks 4 times.
  • Eruption: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. Increased duration of the knockup effect to 4 seconds. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Unstoppable Force: This ability will now provide a 15% damage increase while active.
  • Raging Volcano: Reduced cooldown to 30 seconds and increased damage. While channeling this ability, you will gain a 30% movement speed increase. Each time one or more targets is hit by a pulse of this AoE damage, you gain 1 stack of a beneficial effect. This effect causes your next non-Raging Volcano attack to deal additional damage. The reasoning for this is that a lot of time is spent channeling this ability and reducing the cooldown too much would cause too much time spent using this ability in a normal rotation. Instead, we decided to keep the increased cooldown and apply the bonus damage for the longer cooldown in a new on-hit damage proc effect.
  • Forged in Fire: Reduced internal cooldown to 40 seconds.

Fist
  • Killer Instinct: The next attack also cannot glance. Increase to 1.5% damage increase per counter stack.
  • One-Two: Increased damage dealt by the first hit.
  • Ferocity: Increased damage bonus to 4% per stack.
  • Inner Spark: Increased healing done.
  • Kindle: Increased healing done due to change to Inner Spark.
  • Bruising Blast: Increased bonus to 10%.
  • Go for the Throat: Increased damage dealt.
  • See Red: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability. Also, fixed an issue which caused See Red to deal its bonus damage in cases where it should not.
  • See Red: The root effect is now independent of the channel and lasts 8 seconds. This ability will deal its bonus damage if this root effect ends for any reason before the channeling effect ends.
  • Gore: Increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Gore: Fixed an issue which caused Gore damage to be attributed to other players when they refresh your Gore effect. This ability will now deal damage every half second instead of every second. This should cause it to perform more reliably when being refreshed by channeled abilities.
  • Fired Up: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased healing provided.
  • Salt in the Wound: Reduced damage dealt.

Misc.
  • Sleight of Hand: Reduced the cooldown to 25 seconds.
  • Stoicism: This ability is no longer affected by the global recharge time.
  • Do or Die: Removed the root effect and reduced the cooldown to 45 seconds. This ability is no longer affected by the global recharge time.

Auxiliary
  • Increased the damage dealt by all auxiliary weapons.

ITEMS
  • Fixed an issue which caused several of the raid talisman's special effects to stop functioning after death.
  • Reduced the cooldown of Liberation Contrivances to 3 minutes and 2 minutes for blue and purple rarities.
  • Reduced the cooldown of Purification Contrivances to 1 minute for blue and 45 seconds for purple rarity.
  • Reduced the cooldown reduction effect from Time Thief signets to 15%/30%/45% and green/blue/purple rarities.
  • Time Thief signet will now behave more consistently in regards to the ability which deals the killing blow.
  • Time Thief signet can now only trigger once every 10 seconds.
  • Thirst and Equilibrium signets will now trigger properly when using AoE heals.
  • Fixed an issue where Insurance would not get triggered properly when removed by Hard Reset.
  • AP Injectors bought in the item shop will now allow you to bypass the AP cap. Note that you will not gain AP again from XP gain until you are under your AP cap.

CLOTHING
  • Fixed a texture issue with the female Orochi Blacksox - Armored pants, white.

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS
Manhattan Exclusion Zone
  • Rose and Mei Ling have had an argument, and Mei Ling is now standing further away from Rose. This will ensure that their auras will no longer overlap.
  • Adjusted the buff circle effects in NY Raid to 125% for elite and 650% for nightmare.
  • The buff circles provided by Alex, Mei-Ling, and Rose will now provide a multiplicative damage bonus to all damage types. Each buff circle can now affect a maximum of 4 players at once.
The buff circles were not performing as we intended in regards to damage increases to all of a player's active and passive abilities. This led to cases where players would feel forced to use certain builds. We've moved the challenge here from a build challenge to a raid coordination challenge. The buff circles will now affect all types of damage, but will now only affect a limited number of players, requiring a better allocation of where each player will stand.

MISSIONS
Kaidan
  • Choose your Own - This mission will now properly count for the challenge "Investigation Mission in Kaidan".

PVP
General
  • PvP missions no longer count against the number of side missions that can be active.
  • Players may have up to 3 PvP missions active at once.
  • PvP missions will replace side missions in the mission tracker UI when in playfields with PvP missions available.
  • PvP Uniforms will now provide an innate 33% reduction to the duration of all crowd control effects.
  • PvP Uniforms will cause you to deal less damage with elite abilities.
  • Reduced overall damage in PvP by 30%.
  • Reduced overall healing in PvP by 20%.
The purpose of this change is to compensate for the increased damage dealt by elite abilities in the elite ability revamp. Please note that this adjustment is a starting point and we look forward to your feedback on this change.]

GUI
  • Added a new item category in the auction house for museum items.
  • The raid frame will no longer attach to the mouse pointer for movement or resize when right clicked.
  • The raid frame will no longer attach to the mouse pointer for movement when a raid member is directly clicked. This should fix some potential for confusing interactions with mouse over targeting or opening the friendly target menu.
  • Players can now switch team in raids with no raid leader by right clicking a player on a team with an empty slot and clicking "Join Team." This primarily applies to Fusang Projects, El Dorado, and Shambala.
  • Players can now request to swap teams with a player in a raid with no raid leader by right clicking the player and clicking "Swap Teams." The player in question will receive a swap request to confirm or deny the swap. Players will only be allowed to do this so many times in a given time frame, so you may wish to discuss swapping with other raid members before attempting to do so.
  • Removed some notification messages when players change teams in a raid to prevent FIFO spam.

GROUP FINDER
  • Fixed a case where players using the Group Finder would not wind up in the same dungeon instance as the rest of their group.

ACHIEVEMENTS
  • Fixed an issue that caused some Filth Evolved to not count towards achievements.
  • Monsters - Added a new monster kill track for Wisps. This track culminates with 1000 kills. All players will start fresh at 0 kills for this track. Please note that Padurii wisps are not a part of this track.
Jun 15, 2016
Update 1.15.5: Museum of the Occult & Elite Revamp
Secret World Legends - Community Manager (Odonoptera)
NEW!
The Museum of the Occult is a brand-new feature that allows you to collect, display, and customize exhibits of monsters in your own personal Museum. Earn new rewards, including pets, t-shirts designed by members of our community, and consumables that can call upon a monster to assist you! You can even invite your friends to your Museum and let them bask in your glory.

The Museum of the Occult may be found near Temple Hall in London. Tons of new achievements and hundreds of new Lore pieces await your discovery, agents! Good hunting!

COMBAT
General
  • Fixed several tooltip text issues.

Anima Deviation
  • Increased the damage dealt by Anima Deviation. The base damage has increased by around 77.7%.
  • Anima Deviation should no longer be able to trigger multiple times from the same ability.
This damage increase is budgeted to bridge the gap in DPS for elite abilities which have a 25 second cooldown as opposed to the ones which have a 20 second cooldown.

Elite Vulnerability System
  • Specific Elite abilities will now provide a debuff which increases damage dealt of a specific type. For example, the Elementalism ability "Overload" will now cause affected enemies to take increased damage from Melee abilities. This new system does not function in PvP areas.
  • Updated all damage over time and proc effects to have an ability type representative of the weapon it is gained from. The purpose of this change is purely to work with the new Elite Vulnerability system.
Here are the specifics on the new system:
  • Vulnerable to Melee: 25% damage increase for Melee abilities. 15 second duration.
  • Vulnerable to Magic: 20% damage increase for Magic abilities. 15 second duration.
  • Vulnerable to Ranged: 20% damage increase for Ranged abilities. 15 second duration.

Weapons can only provide vulnerabilities for other weapon types. For example, Melee weapons will only be able to provide Magic and Ranged vulnerability. This new system pairs with the elite revamp and the reduced cooldowns there to ensure a coordinated group can keep these effects active over the duration of a fight.

Elite Ability Revamp
In the notes below, you will see changes and updates based on both the cooldowns and damage dealt by elite abilities. For this revamp, we've decided to take a step back and look at all of our elite abilities as a whole. Our focus was to ensure that the elite abilities are something you always want to use and will provide a damage increase when used in a rotation. To that end, we've rebudgeted nearly every elite ability to perform at nearly the same level of DPS over the course of an extended fight. What this results in is a cooldown reduction and damage increase for the majority of elites. However, two elite abilities were negatively affected by this update - Bombardment and Plague. Most of you are probably aware that Bombardment would be adjusted, but in the case of Plague, it turns out that it was very close to where we wanted it already. In fact, if we had left the cooldown at 30 seconds, it would have seen a damage increase. But, since Plague is responsible for one of the new Elite Vulnerabilities, we felt it was necessary to perform the cooldown reduction and damage reduction.

I hope this helps shed light on what our goals and intentions are with this elite ability revamp.

Shotgun
  • Point Blank: Reduced the cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. Reduced the knockback distance to allow better melee follow-up attacks. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Invasive Measures: Increased the chance to trigger to 17.5%. This ability will now perform an additional hit if they were triggered while you were already at full resources. The damage dealt is on par with the bonus damage gained from a 1 point resource consumer.
  • Shield Formation: This passive will now cause you to gain one stack of the Protection effect every two seconds. This has the nice side effect of also giving it to your nearby friends! Form the shield formation!
  • Buckshot: Increased damage dealt.
  • Crap Shoot: Increased damage dealt.
  • Kneecapper: Increased damage dealt.
  • Shotgun Wedding: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. Shotgun Wedding will now build a maximum of one stack per channeling interval. Increased the damage bonus per stack to 25%. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability.
  • Bombardment: Reduced damage dealt. We decided that it was better overall for gameplay to reduce the damage of Bombardment instead of applying the area of denial. We've readjusted our balance stance on this ability to assume that the majority of the attacks will hit, which resulted in the damage reduction. We felt that it was better in this case to say that Bombardment will not perform as well against targets who are mobile.

Assault Rifle
  • Energise: This ability does not trigger and is not affected by global recharge time.
  • No Contest: Increased bonus damage to 10%. The effect gained will now last for 8 seconds.
  • Military Code: Increased resources built to 2.
  • Accuracy: Increased damage bonus to 7%.
  • Short Controlled Bursts: Increased critical hit and penenetrating hit chance increase to 4%.
  • Lethality: Each stack of Lethality will now increase damage by 1.25%
  • Veteran: Increased healing done and bonus leech effect granted when this passive triggers.
  • Improved Bursts: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Slow the Advance: Increased damage dealty.
  • Red Mist: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability. See the new poll for additional Red Mist changes.
  • Shellshocker: Increased damage dealt. This ability will now provide Melee Vulnerability.
  • Re-Animator: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds. Increased healing done. While channeling this effect, your target is immune to death. Upon successfully completing the channel, you will gain a 20% increase to leech effectiveness for 6 seconds.
  • Experience: Fixed an issue that caused it to not modify leech abilities properly.

Pistols
  • Fixed an issue which caused Double Up procs to gain twice as much benefit from mitigation debuff effects.
  • Seal the Deal: Increased damage bonus to 20%.
  • Seal the Deal: This ability will now also increase the Penetration Chance of resource consumers by 5%.
  • Above the Law: Increased the number of resources built.
  • Advantage Me: The cleanse will now trigger on any critical heal. The internal cooldown has been reduced to 2 seconds.
  • Vigilante: Will now also increase the damage of Above the Law.
  • Chain Feed: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Closer: Increased the damage bonus to 10%.
  • Dirty Tricks: Increased damage dealt.
  • Gun Crazy: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability. Also, fixed an issue that could cause this ability to not deal damage in some cases.
  • Bullet Ballet: Increased damage dealt. This ability's damage no longer scales based on resources spent. Instead, this ability will consume pistol resources on all targets at the end of the channel and deal appropriate consumer damage. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Pistol Love: Increased damage dealt.
  • Born Leader: Increased damage dealt and healing power.

Chaos
  • Amor Fati: This ability does not trigger and is not affected by global recharge time.
  • Prodigal: Increased the CC effect duration reduction to 35%.
  • Fixation: Increased the trigger chance to 50%.
  • Gnosis: Increased damage dealt.
  • Paradox: Increased damage dealt.
  • From the Abyss: Increased damage dealt.
  • Domino Effect: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Prisoner of Fate: Reduced the cooldown to 20 seconds and increased the damage dealt. Removed the stun effect from the target while channeling. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability. The reason for this change is that we wanted Chaos to have access to a pure DPS elite to enable any future Chaos DPS builds.
  • Eye of Pandemonium: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability is now affected by Anima Deviation and will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Eye of Pandemonium: Fixed an issue which could cause affected targets to end up in a permanent knockdown state.
  • Gravitational Anomaly: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Fever Pitch: Reduced Major Hit to provide 25% hit chance for 5 seconds. Increased the trigger chance for Fever Pitch to 15%.
  • Fever Pitch: This ability will now only have a chance to trigger once per second.

Blood
  • Vital Fluids: Increased the chance to trigger to 17.5%. This ability will now perform an additional hit if they were triggered while you were already at full resources. The damage dealt is on par with the bonus damage gained from a 1 point resource consumer.
  • Third Degree: Increased damage dealt.
  • Coagulation: Increased the barrier power increase effect to 60%.
  • Clotting: This ability has been redesigned. It will now cause any Blood barriers you apply to instead heal the target for a percentage of the barrier you are attempting to apply if that target has an existing barrier.
  • Cardiac Arrest: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Plague: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and reduced damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Expulsion: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and improved barrier strength and AoE damage dealt.
  • My Bloody Valentine: Increased initial barrier, heal over time, AoE damage, and secondary barrier strength.
  • Torture: Reduced damage dealt.
  • Gross Anatomy: Reduced damage dealt.


Elementalism
  • Live Wire: Critically hitting will now grant a buff which causes your next hit to deal an additional damage hit.
  • Toxic Affinity: This passive will now increase the critical chance of damage over time effects by 20%.
  • Big Bang: Increased damage dealt.
  • Molten Earth: Increased damage dealt.
  • Power Line/Voltaic Detonation: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Whiteout: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Hard Reset: Reduced cooldown to 35 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Overload: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Melee Vulnerability.
  • Short Fuse: This ability is now instant.
  • Elemental Force: This ability will now grant 1 stack of a buff when you finish activating any damaging ability (max 1 per second). At 5 stacks, you lose all stacks and gain a 20% Critical Chance boost for 5 seconds. Buff stacks cannot be gained while this buff is active.
Elemental Force has been a staple for a long time and in the end, we felt we couldn't move forward with improving build diversity without addressing the elephant in the room. Our initial change is to allow it to still provide a good critical increase that will stack with all other critical increases which will allow it to be useful in all types of builds. In addition, we wanted to keep the timed element so a good rotation can take the most advantage of the uptime of the new buff effect.

Blade
  • Twist the Knife: Increased damage bonus to 4% per stack.
  • Finish the Movement: Finish the Movement will now build an additional resource every second Focus ability. This ability will now perform an additional hit if they were triggered while you were already at full resources. The damage dealt is on par with the bonus damage gained from a 1 point resource consumer.
  • Flight of Daggers: Increased damage dealt by this passive.
  • Sixth Sense: Increased damage dealt by this passive.
  • Seven and a Half Samurai: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Spiral of Death: This ability should now perform its teleport effect more reliably.
  • Stunning Swirl: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Four Seasons: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability.
  • Master's House: Increased cooldown to 35 seconds.
  • Silver Streak: Reduced cooldown to 35 seconds. Increased the healing per hit to 2.5%.
  • The Art of War: Reduced cooldown to 35 seconds and increased damage dealt.
  • Fatal Flourish: This ability will now grant 1 stack of a buff whenever you hit a target you afflicted (max 1 per second). At 5 stacks, you lose all stacks and gain a 20% Penetration Chance boost for 5 seconds. Buff stacks cannot be gained while this buff is active.

Hammer
  • You're Next: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Improved Strikes: Increased damage bonus to 10%.
  • Shockwave: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability.
  • Epicentre: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased damage dealt. Whenever you expend a stack of Epicentre, you will gain a 5% critical power boost which stacks 4 times.
  • Eruption: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. Increased duration of the knockup effect to 4 seconds. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Unstoppable Force: This ability will now provide a 15% damage increase while active.
  • Raging Volcano: Reduced cooldown to 30 seconds and increased damage. While channeling this ability, you will gain a 30% movement speed increase. Each time one or more targets is hit by a pulse of this AoE damage, you gain 1 stack of a beneficial effect. This effect causes your next non-Raging Volcano attack to deal additional damage. The reasoning for this is that a lot of time is spent channeling this ability and reducing the cooldown too much would cause too much time spent using this ability in a normal rotation. Instead, we decided to keep the increased cooldown and apply the bonus damage for the longer cooldown in a new on-hit damage proc effect.
  • Forged in Fire: Reduced internal cooldown to 40 seconds.

Fist
  • Killer Instinct: The next attack also cannot glance. Increase to 1.5% damage increase per counter stack.
  • One-Two: Increased damage dealt by the first hit.
  • Ferocity: Increased damage bonus to 4% per stack.
  • Inner Spark: Increased healing done.
  • Kindle: Increased healing done due to change to Inner Spark.
  • Bruising Blast: Increased bonus to 10%.
  • Go for the Throat: Increased damage dealt.
  • See Red: Reduced cooldown to 25 seconds and increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Magic Vulnerability. Also, fixed an issue which caused See Red to deal its bonus damage in cases where it should not.
  • See Red: The root effect is now independent of the channel and lasts 8 seconds. This ability will deal its bonus damage if this root effect ends for any reason before the channeling effect ends.
  • Gore: Increased damage dealt. This ability will now apply Ranged Vulnerability.
  • Gore: Fixed an issue which caused Gore damage to be attributed to other players when they refresh your Gore effect. This ability will now deal damage every half second instead of every second. This should cause it to perform more reliably when being refreshed by channeled abilities.
  • Fired Up: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds and increased healing provided.
  • Salt in the Wound: Reduced damage dealt.

Misc.
  • Sleight of Hand: Reduced the cooldown to 25 seconds.
  • Stoicism: This ability is no longer affected by the global recharge time.
  • Do or Die: Removed the root effect and reduced the cooldown to 45 seconds. This ability is no longer affected by the global recharge time.

Auxiliary
  • Increased the damage dealt by all auxiliary weapons.

ITEMS
  • Fixed an issue which caused several of the raid talisman's special effects to stop functioning after death.
  • Reduced the cooldown of Liberation Contrivances to 3 minutes and 2 minutes for blue and purple rarities.
  • Reduced the cooldown of Purification Contrivances to 1 minute for blue and 45 seconds for purple rarity.
  • Reduced the cooldown reduction effect from Time Thief signets to 15%/30%/45% and green/blue/purple rarities.
  • Time Thief signet will now behave more consistently in regards to the ability which deals the killing blow.
  • Time Thief signet can now only trigger once every 10 seconds.
  • Thirst and Equilibrium signets will now trigger properly when using AoE heals.
  • Fixed an issue where Insurance would not get triggered properly when removed by Hard Reset.
  • AP Injectors bought in the item shop will now allow you to bypass the AP cap. Note that you will not gain AP again from XP gain until you are under your AP cap.

CLOTHING
  • Fixed a texture issue with the female Orochi Blacksox - Armored pants, white.

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS
Manhattan Exclusion Zone
  • Rose and Mei Ling have had an argument, and Mei Ling is now standing further away from Rose. This will ensure that their auras will no longer overlap.
  • Adjusted the buff circle effects in NY Raid to 125% for elite and 650% for nightmare.
  • The buff circles provided by Alex, Mei-Ling, and Rose will now provide a multiplicative damage bonus to all damage types. Each buff circle can now affect a maximum of 4 players at once.
The buff circles were not performing as we intended in regards to damage increases to all of a player's active and passive abilities. This led to cases where players would feel forced to use certain builds. We've moved the challenge here from a build challenge to a raid coordination challenge. The buff circles will now affect all types of damage, but will now only affect a limited number of players, requiring a better allocation of where each player will stand.

MISSIONS
Kaidan
  • Choose your Own - This mission will now properly count for the challenge "Investigation Mission in Kaidan".

PVP
General
  • PvP missions no longer count against the number of side missions that can be active.
  • Players may have up to 3 PvP missions active at once.
  • PvP missions will replace side missions in the mission tracker UI when in playfields with PvP missions available.
  • PvP Uniforms will now provide an innate 33% reduction to the duration of all crowd control effects.
  • PvP Uniforms will cause you to deal less damage with elite abilities.
  • Reduced overall damage in PvP by 30%.
  • Reduced overall healing in PvP by 20%.
The purpose of this change is to compensate for the increased damage dealt by elite abilities in the elite ability revamp. Please note that this adjustment is a starting point and we look forward to your feedback on this change.]

GUI
  • Added a new item category in the auction house for museum items.
  • The raid frame will no longer attach to the mouse pointer for movement or resize when right clicked.
  • The raid frame will no longer attach to the mouse pointer for movement when a raid member is directly clicked. This should fix some potential for confusing interactions with mouse over targeting or opening the friendly target menu.
  • Players can now switch team in raids with no raid leader by right clicking a player on a team with an empty slot and clicking "Join Team." This primarily applies to Fusang Projects, El Dorado, and Shambala.
  • Players can now request to swap teams with a player in a raid with no raid leader by right clicking the player and clicking "Swap Teams." The player in question will receive a swap request to confirm or deny the swap. Players will only be allowed to do this so many times in a given time frame, so you may wish to discuss swapping with other raid members before attempting to do so.
  • Removed some notification messages when players change teams in a raid to prevent FIFO spam.

GROUP FINDER
  • Fixed a case where players using the Group Finder would not wind up in the same dungeon instance as the rest of their group.

ACHIEVEMENTS
  • Fixed an issue that caused some Filth Evolved to not count towards achievements.
  • Monsters - Added a new monster kill track for Wisps. This track culminates with 1000 kills. All players will start fresh at 0 kills for this track. Please note that Padurii wisps are not a part of this track.
Jun 9, 2016
The best MMOs
EVE Online

MMOs are massive in so many ways. Across hundreds of games, they bring in 10 billion dollars a year and have audiences that expand well into the tens of millions. In just World of Warcraft, players have collectively logged more time than our species has spent evolving on this planet—over 6 million years. But beneath those hours is the beautiful ideal that anyone from anywhere can become anything within the confines of these virtual worlds (and grind out some epic loot in the process).

We've come a long way from the text-based multi-user dungeons of yesteryear. So to celebrate that awesome lineage, we've rounded up the best MMOs that you can still play today. Whether you want to kick ass as some sort of human-cat hybrid or conquer the galaxy as a ruthless dictator, the MMOs on this list represent the best the genre has to offer. To make things easy, we've broken this list down into categories that really get at the heart of what makes each of these games exemplary.

Table of contents

The best "theme park" MMOs: Online games all about killing bosses and grinding gear.

The best sandbox MMOs: MMOs that, above all else, embrace freedom and consequence.

The best story-focused MMOs: Worlds that have tales worth telling.

The best PVP-focused MMOs: For when you'd rather kill another player than another monster.

 The best "theme park" MMOs

In the world of MMOs, "theme parks" are that movie you like to put on in the background the one you've seen a thousand times but still love. They don't push you into deep waters like most sandbox MMOs do, instead wrapping you up in a comforting and familiar blanket. They are games that, just like their name implies, are all about having fun as you tour from one attraction to the next. Though they might rely on a time-worn formula, they can still conceal a surprise or two. These are often the most popular MMOs, and they've earned their reputations with every dungeon, every level, and every quest.

 World of Warcraft 

Release Date: November 23, 2004Developer: BlizzardPayment Model: Subscription with DLC

No other MMO has had a greater impact on the genre and the entirety of videogames as a whole quite like World of Warcraft. For that reason, putting it anywhere but first on this list just doesn't feel right. Though it might be getting on in years, World of Warcraft continues to surprise with expansions. Legion, its latest, liberally borrows ideas from Blizzard's other games like with the new Diablo 3-esque 'Mythic+' dungeons. Goodbye to grinding the same dungeon for the umpteenth time, as Mythic+ adds a weekly dose of chaos by giving monsters deadly new abilities as you race to beat the clock for extra rewards.

Whether you love dungeons, raiding, player-versus-player battles, or just exploring a wonderfully charming world, World of Warcraft has you covered. In Legion, Blizzard really drives this home with weekly activities like PVP Brawls with whacky rulesets like no gravity, Timewalking events that let you revisit old expansion dungeons for cool loot, and World Quests that help you accomplish something meaningful even if you only have 20 minutes to play. 

World of Warcraft's problem has always been that people just want more and more of it—and Legion comes pretty close to adding too much to do. The design of its endgame content is superb, featuring bosses and dungeons that always prove why Blizzard is the king of what it does. The path to its throne is littered with the bones of would-be usurpers, but World of Warcraft's unparalleled zeal for bringing the world of Azeroth to life is a force to be reckoned with.

 Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn 

Release Date: August 27, 2013Developer: Square EnixPayment Model: Subscription with DLC

Final Fantasy 14's journey has been a long road full of disappointment. Launching in 2010 to an overwhelmingly negative response, Square Enix refused to give up and rebuilt the whole game with a new team. The second iteration, A Realm Reborn, has done a better job of rekindling the love fans had for Final Fantasy better than any recent game in the series. It's at once unflinchingly dedicated to following in World of Warcraft's footsteps while also introducing a host of refreshing ideas—the best being the innovative class system.

Gone are the days of needing a new character for each class: Final Fantasy 14 let's you swap between them whenever you please and there's even room to borrow abilities between classes, just like in the classic Final Fantasy Job system. But Final Fantasy 14 isn't just about combat, either. Its story starts slow but builds into a grand epic spanning continents in both the Heavensward and Stormblood expansions, easily rivaling any of the classics like Final Fantasy 7 or 10. It's a journey worth taking, if you have the time, but one thing to keep in mind is that 14's endgame, while offering challenging and memorable boss fights, is scarce. Updates come at a steady pace, but you'll run the same dungeons and raids dozens of times.

Tera

Release Date: January 25, 2011Developer: Bluehole StudioPayment Model: Free-to-play

Where some MMOs cast wide nets to catch as many players as possible, Tera's vicious combat has always been its driving force. The overall structure of progression sticks close to the template that World of Warcraft popularized—that is until you step out into the field and try and take down one of Tera's "Big-ass Monsters." These brutes pack a serious punch, and the desperate dance as you dodge and attack set a new standard for action-based combat in MMOs. Even to this day, despite many that have tried to do it better, Tera is still king of the hill when it comes to killing stuff. 

Transitioning to free-to-play wasn't always a smooth journey, but Tera's insistence on delivering great action gives it a singular focus that kept it moving forward when so many of its peers were floundering. It's microtransactions aren't egregious and you can buy most premium items with in-game currency if you have a nose for grinding, which is a welcome change. You might have to put up with playing a weird little girl with bunny ears, but those who can look past it will find one of the best—and most challenging—theme park MMOs.

The best sandbox MMOs

While theme parks can be great, not everyone wants to be led by the hand everywhere they go. Some of us like to take our time and smell the roses, while others want to trample those roses as they build an empire with thousands of real players and become a space dictator. If you're the type of person who likes building a sand castle just to kick it down, sandbox MMOs are where it's at. The freedom and consequence they offer will turn away those looking for a more relaxing experience, but if you truly want to embrace the potential of what an online world can offer, there's never been another choice.

EVE Online

Release Date: May 6, 2003Developer: CCP GamesPayment Model: Free-to-play with a premium subscription

When you think of modern sandbox MMOs, there's only one place to turn: EVE Online. The 14 years that EVE has been around could fill the pages of a textbook (actually, it kind of has)—but only if you're studying How to Lose Faith in Humanity 101. Its reputation for being a callous, uncaring universe was forged over a decade of war, betrayal, and scandal. But that same spartan culture has also given birth to the kind of camaraderie you'll never find anywhere else.

EVE Online is obtuse and complex as hell, and there will be times where you'll stare at the screen, clueless of what to do. CCP Games gone to great lengths to make EVE easier to understand, but your best teacher will always be the sting of failure. The good news is that last year EVE Online started offering a free-to-play option, letting you dive into its sandbox with a limited set of ships and skills to use. They've since expanded the program, giving free players even more choices of what ships to fly.

Those who persevere will find a whole galaxy of possibilities at their fingertips—and really, that's always been EVE's greatest accomplishment. It's truly a living world where those with the will to rise to the top can find a way—even if that means using all those daggers in the back of the people who trusted them as a foothold.

Runescape

Release Date: January 4, 2001Developer: JagexPayment Model: Free-to-play

As the oldest MMO on this list, Runescape should be like a crotchety old man, and yet here it is looking young and appealing as ever. That's because being original never gets old and, despite the rise and fall of popular MMOs, Runescape has never stopped being original. Despite the fancy graphics and new additions, Runescape still values freedom above all else. You're dropped into the world with little more than a few items and a general sense of direction. Where to go is for you to decide. That emphasis on choice gave birth to one of the more varied skill systems in the genre, as players can pursue anything from professional monster slaying to just being a lumberjack. That spirit of freedom is even extended to which version you want to play, giving players the choice between the current version or the "old school" Runescape so many love.

Runescape has also come a long way from its early days of 2D sprites in 3D environments, but that "ugly duckling syndrome" led to a focus on having a great personality over all the fanciest bells and whistles and it doesn't hurt that just about anyone and their grandmother could play it through a browser. Over a decade later, that pursuit of substance over style makes Runescape one of the most endearing and unique MMOs available.

Black Desert Online

Release Date: March 3, 2016Developer: Pearl AbyssPayment Model: Buy-to-play

Korean MMOs are often negatively viewed as brutal grindfests, and while Black Desert Online doesn't break that stereotype it does offer one of the most expansive crafting systems ever seen in the genre. While the active, combo-based combat is great fun, there's dozens of career paths to take your character down in this dynamic sandbox MMO. You can be a merchant, a fisherman, or invest all your time into building a massive production empire of beer.

This is all thanks to Black Desert Online's complex node system. Each region is divided up into nodes that provide various resources, while properties in cities can be purchased and converted into blacksmiths, fisheries, or storage depots. Instead of doing all the hard work yourself, you can hire automated workers who level up and have their own innate skills to do the heavy lifting. It's an intimidating system to learn when you're just starting out, but the freedom it provides is unparalleled. It can be just as rewarding to spend an evening tweaking your farms and leveling up your workers as it is taking down one of Black Desert Online's brutal world bosses. And if that doesn't suit your fancy, the node system is also the foundation for weekly guild wars, where guilds race to conquer various nodes for special bonuses—making BDO a great choice if you're into PVP as well.

 The best story-focused MMOs 

With such an emphasis on huge worlds and freedom, telling a coherent story in an MMO isn't an easy thing. All those pages of pointless quest dialogue are, more often than not, tossed to the side in favor of just getting the job done and moving on to the next task. So when an MMO manages to build a world and tell a story worth listening to, it's a rare thing indeed. Listed below are the best MMOs to play if you just want to immerse yourself in a rich story instead of getting all wrapped up in the vain pursuit of grinding for new gear or leveling up.

 The Secret World 

Release Date: June 19, 2012Developer: FuncomPayment Model: Free-to-play with DLC

When it comes to telling a great story in an MMO, the entire genre has something to learn from The Secret World. Not only does it abandon the generic fantasy aesthetic for a gritty contemporary one, it also ties so many different themes together—from the illuminati to vampires—that it shouldn’t make any damn sense, but miraculously it does. Not too many MMOs can say they've borrowed from the pages of Lovecraft and The Matrix and made it work. And like Lovecraft's best, The Secret World is a bizarre page-turner that will have you digging deep to unravel all of its mysteries.

That love of a tale well told is best demonstrated in The Secret World's investigation missions, which require donning your detective hat to search the internet for clues to decipher puzzles. You'll pour over Wikipedia pages and through backwater websites hunting for that one piece that will make the whole picture come together. Earlier this year, The Secret World relaunched as The Secret World: Legends, revamping a lot of the game's weakest systems like combat. The overhaul doesn't necessarily fix everything, but it does go a long way to making The Secret World more enjoyable for newcomers.

 Star Wars: The Old Republic 

Release Date: December 20, 2011Developer: BiowarePayment Model: Free-to-play with DLC

Early in its life, The Old Republic had a kind of identity crisis that initially turned many away from playing. It wanted to be both a followup to the cherished Knights of the Old Republic while also giving World of Warcraft a run for its money and, at the time, did neither very well. But just like its setting, those days are long in the past and the Old Republic of today is far more enjoyable thanks to a refined focus on what it's always done best: telling a great story.

Where most MMOs offer only a single overarching narrative, The Old Republic has eight different class stories to experience in the main game, and all of them are exciting and fun. Whether you want to sex your way across the galaxy as a seductive imperial agent or just murder everyone as a Sith warrior, The Old Republic has some of the best storytelling ever seen in an MMO. Bioware spent a lot of money making sure that the voice acting was top-notch and it really paid off. The Old Republic's presentation is unparalleled.

In recent years, The Old Republic has expanded on that foundation with a series of expansion packs. The latest, Knights of the Eternal Throne, packs in a KOTOR-worthy cast of characters and a dramatic story that stands tall among the best tales ever told in an MMO.

Final Fantasy XI 

Release Date: May 16, 2002Developer: Square EnixPayment Model: Subscription with DLC

Early in its life, Final Fantasy XI was criticized for not being branded a spin-off when many assumed that the MMO wouldn't have a proper story—a core focus of every Final Fantasy game. Well, those people were wrong, Final Fantasy XI's story is actually one of the best that Square Enix has ever done. It uses the expansive framework of an MMO to tell tales that are massive in scope yet, at times, painfully intimate. Appreciating those stories, however, will require putting up with some poorly-aging graphics and a rather tedious menu system.

While Final Fantasy 14 is undoubtedly the better MMO overall, FFXI's old school sensibilities and its epic story is still worth experiencing. Each of its several expansions is a self-contained tale that demonstrates the kind of heart-felt and sweeping storytelling that Final Fantasy is famous for, but none more so than Chains of Promathia, which on its own feels like the best of Final Fantasy wrapped up into one episode. Recent updates have made progression much easier and more enjoyable whether you play alone or as a group, so experiencing Final Fantasy XI's nostalgic approach to storytelling is easier than ever—really, just ask anyone who tried leveling (and wound up de-leveling on death) when the game first game out.

Lord of the Rings Online 

Release Date: April 24, 2007Developer: TurbinePayment Model: Free-to-play with DLC

Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online is often overshadowed by more popular MMOs, but writing it off as a mere clone of World of Warcraft would be a mistake. Though they share similar combat and questing, The Lord of the Rings Online uses both as foundations to explore Tolkien's Middle-Earth more intimately than any video game before or after. As you follow in the fellowship's footsteps, the world of Middle-Earth comes to life in wonderful clarity, adding a kind of depth to Tolkien's work while still respecting what makes it so honored to begin with.

Even if you just enjoy the movies, The Lord of the Rings Online is practically a must. Each realm that Turbine brings to life is done with a careful understanding of its history and place within the greater world. That kind of love for the source material just isn't found in MMOs based on other media. If you've ever read any of the books and felt that ache to exist in Middle-Earth, The Lord of the Rings Online is a journey worth taking.

The best PvP MMOs 

Questing and raiding are fun, but there's nothing quite like defeating another player in a contest of pure skill. PvP in MMOs is a time-honored tradition that remains a pursuit for those with the iron will to master the mechanics of a game. These MMOs honor that devotion by employing awesome combat systems that go above and beyond the basics, offering competitive-minded players a rewarding place to test their mettle. Whether you're planning sieges on enemy fortifications or looking to spar in a one-on-one duel, these MMOs will satisfy that bloodlust. RIP, Warhammer Online.

Guild Wars 2 

Release Date: August 28. 2012Developer: ArenaNetPayment Model: Buy-to-play with DLC

When it comes to player-versus-player combat, few MMOs can ever aspire to do it better than Guild Wars 2. For those wanting a more traditional experience, structured PvP lets you fight in team deathmatch and objective-based modes in that focus on skill and coordination. And then there's the world versus world mode, where different servers come together to wage war across sprawling maps with hundreds of players at once. Participating in sieges and large-scale battles is the kind of fantastical fulfillment you dreamed of as a kid, and you won't need to grind for a hundred hours before you can participate either.

The heart of what makes Guild Wars 2 fun to play is all in its action combat, which emphasizes dodging and movement instead of memorizing complex skill rotations. You'll weave in and out of range of your opponents while unleashing flashy abilities—of which there are many to choose from. Each class is quite flexible in how you want to play, giving theorycrafters enough material to chisel away at their perfect build. With the launch of the new expansion, Path of Fire, there's no denying that PvP took a hit from various balancing problems, but ArenaNet is already making adjustments that will hopefully continue to keep Guild Wars 2 at the top of the dogpile.

Planetside 2 

Release Date: November 20, 2012Developer: Daybreak Game CompanyPayment Model: Free-to-play

That Planetside 2 is the only game on this list that involves shooting is telling of what a unique premise it is. It's also the only one where the entire focus is around killing other players and prizing territory from their cold, dead hands. War in Planetside 2 is an unending struggle between three nations each seeking to control four distinct continents. If you're not keen on all the distractions of your average MMO, Planetside 2's purity of war is refreshing. You'll spend an evening conquering a whole planet and log in the next day to find you're now on the defensive. And as the cycle repeats anew, small but memorable moments begin to form in your mind; personal Alamos where you held the line against an overwhelming invasion, or the thrill of flanking and devastating an enemy force.

Moments like these are frequent in Planetside 2, and you'll soon have dozens of personalized stories as you spend each day in the purgatory of constant war. While recent updates introduced the ability to build bases, which have had a dramatic shift on where battles are fought and how they unfold while adding a new sense of attachment to your hard-won progress, Planetside 2 is definitely beginning to stagnate and lose its players. It's still a great MMOFPS, but its golden years are likely in the past.

The Elder Scrolls Online 

Release Date: April 4, 2014Developer: Zenimax Online StudiosPayment Model: Buy-to-play with DLC

It took The Elder Scrolls Online over a year to finally find its legs, but now that it has it's quickly become one of the best MMOs on the market. That's in part thanks to the awesome PvP system: the three factions battle to control the continent of Cyrodiil and the fabled Elder Scrolls. It's hard to grasp the sensation of watching hundreds of players storm through the broken gap of a castle wall while flaming boulders crash down from overhead, but The Elder Scrolls Online's PvP leads to these kind of epic moments frequently.

PvP in The Elder Scrolls Online is so fun and engaging because Cyrodiil is more than just a catalyst for endless back-and-forth warfare. The continent has quests and dungeons to complete, which become even more intense with the always looming threat that an army could come marching over the next horizon. At the center is the Imperial City, where PvP and PvE content is mashed together into a frenzy with its own objectives and rewards to pursue. In the end, The Elder Scrolls Online's take on PvP is just as original as it is fun, and its objective-based focus will certainly be the inspiration for MMOs decades from now.

Jun 6, 2016
The RPG Scrollbars: Rise Of The MOBA Heroes
Dota 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Richard Cobbett)

Hello there. This week, I’m writing not just as an RPG columnist, but as president of the newly formed League Of Folks Who Don’t Really Play MOBAs But Are Bizarrely Hooked On All The Trappings. As far as I can tell, our membership is roughly a billion people and counting. That’s what happens when the likes of Blizzard and Riot spend literally tens> of dollars creating gorgeous videos to promote their worlds, yes, but it goes somewhat deeper than that. Have you ever watched a new character reveal for a game you know you’re never going to play? Then the sickness might have spread.

… [visit site to read more]

May 31, 2016
Development Update
Secret World Legends - Andy B - Community Manager


Hey, folks! I’m Andy “Odonoptera” Benditt, your Community Manager, and I’m here to give you the latest details about what’s in development on The Secret World. Most of this information may be found from our latest episode of The Streaming Ones, our live devstream series. Today, we’ll be outlining the upcoming Elite Ability Revamp, changes to Fusang Projects, and the brand-new Museum of the Occult! 
 

Elites, Dangerous?

We’re about to launch one of the most comprehensive reviews of abilities seen in The Secret World, and we would like to extend a huge “Thank you!” to all the players that tested and provided feedback on these changes on our test server. Big things to watch for in this upcoming revamp are: 

  • The base damage of Anima Deviation has been increased by approximately 77.7%. This damage increase is budgeted to bridge the gap in DPS for elite abilities which have a 25-second cooldown, as opposed to the ones which have a 20-second cooldown.
  • Specific Elite abilities will now provide a debuff which increases damage dealt of a specific type, called a “Vulnerability”. Weapons can only provide vulnerabilities for other weapon types. For example, Melee weapons will only be able to provide Magic and Ranged Vulnerability.
  • To compensate for the increase in power, PvP uniforms now reduce the duration of crowd control effects, and the overall damage and healing dealt in PvP has been reduced.

Of course, there’s too many actual changes to list here, so keep your eyes peeled for the full changelog when it's posted with the update.



The Fusang Project

Fusang Projects has been a hot-button topic, and we’ve been listening. Our focus with these changes is focus combat on specific locations, so first, we’re removing Fusang missions other than “Underdog”, and everybody will instead get two new missions. One is to kill enemy players near a facility you own, and the other mission is to kill enemy players near a facility they own; then, capture it.
 
Additionally, we’re adding dynamic events to Fusang Projects. During the initial rollout of these events, here’s what to look out for: “Anima Surge”, and “Supply Drop”.

Anima Surge is an event where a random facility is selected as a target for 15 minutes, and if your faction owns that facility at the end of the timer, everyone in your faction who is in Fusang at that time will get rewarded.

Supply Drop is an event where a supply drop belonging to a specific faction will appear somewhere in Fusang. If the respective faction is able to successfully retrieve its contents and deliver them to a friendly facility, that faction is rewarded. If an opposing faction is able to intercept the drop and destroy it before it can be captured, both other factions will be rewarded instead.
 
We’re also looking into updating rewards for World Domination, and making facilities worth defending. More on that as news develops!




A Night at the Museum

A brand-new feature in development is the Museum of the Occult. Some of you may recall this location in London as a point of interest during some missions, but it was a previously inaccessible building. The doors to the museum are about to open, and you are its benefactor.
 
The Museum features displays based on your collected achievements and lore on The Secret World’s bestiary. It is a personalized space where you are able to display full-size exhibits of monsters you’ve encountered and learned about. Once you’ve set up your Museum, you can even invite your friends to visit and bask in your glory.
 
In addition to offering visual trophies, players will also be able to purchase rewards including new T-Shirts and Grim Glamors, plus all-new “Assist” items that call upon monsters to aid you in combat!

The Museum will feature wings for the current four regions featured in The Secret World (New England, Egypt, Transylvania, Japan), and a fifth “Global” wing reserved for creatures that wouldn’t necessarily be represented by a single area.
 
Hundreds of new Lore pieces on the denizens of The Secret World are being written, and we’re all so excited to be able to introduce this new feature. We’re confident it hits upon a number of requests from our community, and we can’t wait to show you more.
 
Thanks for reading, everybody! Stay tuned.


Cheers,


-Andy
May 31, 2016
Development Update
Secret World Legends - Community Manager (Odonoptera)


Hey, folks! I’m Andy “Odonoptera” Benditt, your Community Manager, and I’m here to give you the latest details about what’s in development on The Secret World. Most of this information may be found from our latest episode of The Streaming Ones, our live devstream series. Today, we’ll be outlining the upcoming Elite Ability Revamp, changes to Fusang Projects, and the brand-new Museum of the Occult! 
 

Elites, Dangerous?

We’re about to launch one of the most comprehensive reviews of abilities seen in The Secret World, and we would like to extend a huge “Thank you!” to all the players that tested and provided feedback on these changes on our test server. Big things to watch for in this upcoming revamp are: 

  • The base damage of Anima Deviation has been increased by approximately 77.7%. This damage increase is budgeted to bridge the gap in DPS for elite abilities which have a 25-second cooldown, as opposed to the ones which have a 20-second cooldown.
  • Specific Elite abilities will now provide a debuff which increases damage dealt of a specific type, called a “Vulnerability”. Weapons can only provide vulnerabilities for other weapon types. For example, Melee weapons will only be able to provide Magic and Ranged Vulnerability.
  • To compensate for the increase in power, PvP uniforms now reduce the duration of crowd control effects, and the overall damage and healing dealt in PvP has been reduced.

Of course, there’s too many actual changes to list here, so keep your eyes peeled for the full changelog when it's posted with the update.



The Fusang Project

Fusang Projects has been a hot-button topic, and we’ve been listening. Our focus with these changes is focus combat on specific locations, so first, we’re removing Fusang missions other than “Underdog”, and everybody will instead get two new missions. One is to kill enemy players near a facility you own, and the other mission is to kill enemy players near a facility they own; then, capture it.
 
Additionally, we’re adding dynamic events to Fusang Projects. During the initial rollout of these events, here’s what to look out for: “Anima Surge”, and “Supply Drop”.

Anima Surge is an event where a random facility is selected as a target for 15 minutes, and if your faction owns that facility at the end of the timer, everyone in your faction who is in Fusang at that time will get rewarded.

Supply Drop is an event where a supply drop belonging to a specific faction will appear somewhere in Fusang. If the respective faction is able to successfully retrieve its contents and deliver them to a friendly facility, that faction is rewarded. If an opposing faction is able to intercept the drop and destroy it before it can be captured, both other factions will be rewarded instead.
 
We’re also looking into updating rewards for World Domination, and making facilities worth defending. More on that as news develops!




A Night at the Museum

A brand-new feature in development is the Museum of the Occult. Some of you may recall this location in London as a point of interest during some missions, but it was a previously inaccessible building. The doors to the museum are about to open, and you are its benefactor.
 
The Museum features displays based on your collected achievements and lore on The Secret World’s bestiary. It is a personalized space where you are able to display full-size exhibits of monsters you’ve encountered and learned about. Once you’ve set up your Museum, you can even invite your friends to visit and bask in your glory.
 
In addition to offering visual trophies, players will also be able to purchase rewards including new T-Shirts and Grim Glamors, plus all-new “Assist” items that call upon monsters to aid you in combat!

The Museum will feature wings for the current four regions featured in The Secret World (New England, Egypt, Transylvania, Japan), and a fifth “Global” wing reserved for creatures that wouldn’t necessarily be represented by a single area.
 
Hundreds of new Lore pieces on the denizens of The Secret World are being written, and we’re all so excited to be able to introduce this new feature. We’re confident it hits upon a number of requests from our community, and we can’t wait to show you more.
 
Thanks for reading, everybody! Stay tuned.


Cheers,


-Andy
May 19, 2016
Welcome to the Jam!
Secret World Legends - Andy B - Community Manager


Score the goals! Win the points! The all-new Gym Bag and Bulk Gym Bag has arrived! Come on and slam with basketball apparel, hit the gridiron with a football getup, or knock it out of the park with the Orochi Blacksox gear! Have a chance at additional headgear to show your spirit, or even the Stadium Wave emote!

For you jockeys out there, you may even get your hands on a faction-specific Race Horse mount and gear!


Every bag you purchase gives you a Lucky Coin upon use. It’s game time!




Click here to open the Item Shop!
May 19, 2016
Welcome to the Jam!
Secret World Legends - Community Manager (Odonoptera)


Score the goals! Win the points! The all-new Gym Bag and Bulk Gym Bag has arrived! Come on and slam with basketball apparel, hit the gridiron with a football getup, or knock it out of the park with the Orochi Blacksox gear! Have a chance at additional headgear to show your spirit, or even the Stadium Wave emote!

For you jockeys out there, you may even get your hands on a faction-specific Race Horse mount and gear!


Every bag you purchase gives you a Lucky Coin upon use. It’s game time!




Click here to open the Item Shop!
May 13, 2016
Issue #15: The Sleuth's Gallery - OUT NOW
Secret World Legends - Andy B - Community Manager
http://store.steampowered.com/app/430091/
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
 


Put on your thinking caps, because Issue #15: The Sleuth’s Gallery is coming at you.



Issue #15: The Sleuth’s Gallery - 16 new missions that beckon you to uncover the truth in a world of lies, and delve deeper into the story of Tokyo including seven new investigation missions and nine new action and sabotage missions await in the largest Issue release to date!

Issue #15 includes all of the previously-released “Sidestories” content.



The Collector’s Edition of Issue #15 includes these exclusive, account-wide rewards:

  • Sleuth’s Deerstalker - An exclusive new head item!
  • Sleuth’s Inverness cape - An exclusive new neck item!
  • Sleuth’s Pipe - An all-new emote, complete with pipe!

The game is afoot!
May 13, 2016
Issue #15: The Sleuth's Gallery - OUT NOW
Secret World Legends - Community Manager (Odonoptera)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/430091/
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
 


Put on your thinking caps, because Issue #15: The Sleuth’s Gallery is coming at you.



Issue #15: The Sleuth’s Gallery - 16 new missions that beckon you to uncover the truth in a world of lies, and delve deeper into the story of Tokyo including seven new investigation missions and nine new action and sabotage missions await in the largest Issue release to date!

Issue #15 includes all of the previously-released “Sidestories” content.



The Collector’s Edition of Issue #15 includes these exclusive, account-wide rewards:

  • Sleuth’s Deerstalker - An exclusive new head item!
  • Sleuth’s Inverness cape - An exclusive new neck item!
  • Sleuth’s Pipe - An all-new emote, complete with pipe!

The game is afoot!
...