War of the Vikings

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Nope, still early access. 

They've dumbed it down a bit more.  The in-game chatter was all in Old English (Saxons) or Norse (Vikings) but they've added a bunch of English in now as well.  I guess some idiots out there needed a voice prompt in English to remind them that they were nearly dead and should bandage up because that's all in English now.

They've also increased the grind even more.  You need even more XP to gain levels.  Not that it really matters as gaining levels only unlocks new weapon and equipment tiers and you can't buy any of them without gold and gold trickles in very slowly.  Much more slowly than XP.  I really hope they don't go the "wanna buy coins?" route but I bet they're going to.

[Nefaro]

They've also increased the grind even more.  You need even more XP to gain levels.  Not that it really matters as gaining levels only unlocks new weapon and equipment tiers and you can't buy any of them without gold and gold trickles in very slowly.  Much more slowly than XP.  I really hope they don't go the "wanna buy coins?" route but I bet they're going to.

Sweet christ on a stick, they're cranking the grind up?  Dunno why since there are so few differences between weapon types.  Guess they hope to get people to buy in-game currency to buy some flashy bling? 

Didn't they start selling game currency in one of the later WotR updates?  So you could just wallet warrior your way to whatever weapon you didn't want to grind to?  I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case here.  They're trying to be World of Tanks without the variety?  WoT's grind definitely drove me away, especially when they lengthened it after release.

[Toonces]

Guess they hope to get people to buy in-game currency to buy some flashy bling? 

^ This.

I'm sitting this one out.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

They added some more maps and set up the gold awards so that you get a bonus that increases the longer you play.  If you play 2 battle, you get a 10% bonus, 3 battles gets you 20% and so on.  I finally reached a high enough level to get a second tier weapon.  It does do a little more damage, but nothing really noticeable.  If i wind up fully and do a spinarama with my axe, I can dish out 170 damage with the new axe.  Before, max was 160.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

New patch is out along with the new Shieldmaiden class that you have to buy as a separate DLC.  I thought they'd said the Shieldmaiden was going to be included free but I might be misremembering. 

Anyway, here's the changelog.  I'm pretty much done with this game already though.

Changelog - Patch 1.1

[New Content]
- New Map: Strand (TDM, PB)
- New Map: Northbound (CON, PB)
- New Heads: 3 Viking, 1 Saxon
- New Sword: Rune Sword
- New Shield: Snowflake Shield**
- New Shield: Gilded Snowflake Shield**
- New Helmet: Saxon Aide Helmet (Promotional exclusive)
- New Helmet: Viking Hird Helmet (Promotional exclusive)
- New Helmet: Herja**
- New Helmet: Brynhildr**
- New Helmet: Saxon Steel Helm**
- New Helmet: Aidith**
- New Beard: Tyler (Competition Winner)
- New Beard: Jenik (Competition Winner)
- New Spear: Shieldmaiden Spear**
- New Spear: Warriormaiden Spear**
- New Class: Shieldmaiden
- New Option: Historical Battlechatter
Front-Line Class

Characteristics:
Stronger when using shields, Special Stance, Can use large Shields*

Allowed Weapon Types:
One Handed Swords
Spears
Throwing Weapons

*Larger shields reduce backward movement speed
**Only select-able in customization with Shieldmaiden DLC

[Design]
- Added Vote Kick option when clicking on a player in Scoreboard
- Added progress bar to interactions
- Added text when a squadmate is bandaging you
- Added Admin Kick/Ban options when clicking on a player in Scoreboard if user is logged on to Rcon (/rcon /login)
- Added new custom slots for Shieldmaiden DLC (1 free, 2 for owning the DLC)
- Added descriptions to weapon types (on mouse hover)
- Added descriptions to classes
- Reworked How to Play screen
- Moved Shield Paint Editor to top of loadout editor
- Reworked certain shield paints to avoid unintended design possibilities
- Added "Already Equipped" text to weapon categories already in use
- Added Server option to set spawn times based on game mode
- Developers now have Golden text in chat, and a few other secrets


[Balance]

BOWS

Background:
There were no real drawbacks of choosing to play as a Warrior rather than a Skirmisher when using hunting bows. This is a problem as the Skirmisher is supposed to be the bow specialist. So, to be able to tone down the hybrid warrior build a bit while still retaining the potential of the hunting bow we effectively lowered the draw speed of the hunting bow for warriors. This was done by giving the Quick Blood perk a draw speed bonus and then lowering the draw speed of all bows to cancel this out for skirmishers. The stamina cost for firing the hunting bow has been rebalanced to take into account the lower speed for warriors and to make it interesting to the skirmisher.

Changes:
- Decreased draw speed of all bows by 20%
- Added a 25% draw speed bonus to all bows to Skirmisher perk "Quick Blood"
- Increased hunting bow stamina consumption per shot to 31.25%, from 25%

TWO HANDED AXES

Background:
Due to the two handed axe side swings having a built in charge time, the rest of the animation was playing way too fast resulting in where it to other players looked like the axe hadn't even swung before hitting. To address this, swing times for the side swings have been increased and the minimum charge up time has been slightly decreased to maintain overall balance. Dodge attacks where also swinging very fast and dealing damage very late in the animation. Dodge attack swing speeds and damage window have been toned down to remedy this.

Changes:
- Decreased minimum charge time for side swings to 0.275, from 0.375
- Increased uncharged swing time for side swings to 0.45, from 0.40
- Increased charged swing time for side swings to 0.60, from 0.50
- Increased swing time for all dodge attacks to 0.55, from 0.47
- Reduced the duration where the dodge attacks deal damage by 5% off the end of the animation

ONE HANDED AXES

Background:
The one handed axes were lacking a special trait like the swords' cleave, to make them more competetive they now do 10% extra stamina damage to shield blocks to reflect their historical signifigance in dealing with shields.

Changes:
- gave one handed axes 10% extra stamina damage against shields.

STAMINA

Background:
To make repeated quick attacks slightly less viable and easier to defend against, attacks when the player is at very low stamina become slower. This will also reduce the rate of situations completely out of stamina and give added feedback to the player that his character is running out of stamina before it happens.

Changes:
- All swing times increased at low stamina, up to 25% slower.
- All minimum charge times increased at low stamina, up to 50% slower.

COIN GAINS

Background:
Players were not receiving coins quite as fast as we have wanted, so this amount has been increased.

Changes:
- Coin gains increased by 100%
- Increased coin gift amount to 5000, from 1000 coins. All founders club members have this redeemed and will get another 4000 coins from this.
- All current players receive a one time 10k coin bonus.


[Fixes]
- Fixed an issue where the "Saxon Dogs!" and "Byrhtnoth" achievements weren't being properly unlocked
- Solved several issues where the server and/or client would momentarily freeze
- Fixed an issue where Ulfberht swords weren't dealing damage when thrown
- Fixed a crash which could occur when leaving the Loadout Editor
- Fixed a crash when using the /vote_kick text command without an ID
- Fixed a number of issues where the player character would attempt Godlike Ascension in odd locations
- Fixed a number of locations where characters could get stuck

Regards,
The War of the Vikings Team