Hey folks,
Next week, we’re expecting to publish the full release notes for Update 6.2, as well as the Update itself. Ahead of its release, we thought we’d give you a heads up on what to expect in this update, direct from William Håkestad, Senior Game Designer on Total War: WARHAMMER III.
In Update 6.2, look forward to extensive revisions to Magic Items, an introduction of the AI Improvements tested in the proving grounds, the introduction of a few new Magic Items, and the arrival of two new units: The Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower, and Blood Knights.
Sit tight for the full release notes next week with all of our improvements and fixes, and more on those two new units, but in the mean time here’s William with the Sports and Weather (and plenty of insight on our revisions to Magic Items).
Adam Freeman // Head of Community
Greetings!
Alongside the item balancing changes that we have on the horizon, the Magic Item rework that I’ll be talking about today is a pretty comprehensive effort from all of us on the team to unify our design approaches to generic magic items across the entire game. It’s helped us to build a consistent framework that ensures that the items you get meet the expectations you have for its rarity. If it looks cool, it should feel cool when you use it in your loadouts.
But why now? Well since the release of our first entry in this series, Magic Items have generally been added in line with each major release (WARHAMMER I, II, III), with some further additions made alongside the release of new races (Bretonnia, Chaos Dwarfs, Tomb Kings etc.), which as many of you have no doubt experienced, we haven’t then taken on enough of a duty of care to keep them updated. Additionally, while each iteration was always made with the very best of intentions, none of these iterations ever shared a balancing framework. Over the years, this has understandably caused a significant disparity between items in a variety of locales.
We’ve had a particular problem with items appearing as one rarity, but being significantly stronger or weaker than the rarity they were given (10% spell resistance for a rare item? What a bargain!), so we got to work on setting things into a more consistent order.
So what have we done? Well, at the heart of our solution is a cost/budget matrix. Under the hood, items have always had what’s called a “uniqueness” score, which helps to determine what rarity the item should appear in, and how commonly that item should drop.
For example, an item that had between 0 and 29 uniqueness would appear as a common item.
As a part of this work, we’ve weaponised that score to also derive our closest approximation of the true value of an item, treating it as a budget to spend on cost matrix, point for point on its effects.
For example, we might take an item with a budget of 45 uniqueness points (a decent common in our new ranges) and dole it out as follows.
15% fire resistance at 1.2 points a piece = 18
8 bonus vs large at 3.5 points a piece = 28
Total value = 46
This is a very simple item with no modifiers or more complex stats, but showcases the general idea that items have a consummate “power budget” that is equated with how rare they are.
Additionally, we have a variety of modifiers that take effect to apply these calculations, such as Strong Synergies, Applied at all Units in Force or Excessive Stacking of a Single Stat which further affect the final scoring of an item.
It’s very much our intent that this new system gives us a platform to effectively (and more regularly) iterate on our existing colossal backlog of items, as well as ensure that we have the right tools at hand to balance new Magic Items that we come to add in the future too.
When designing revisions of this nature, we always look to set goals that help us to measure the effect of our changes. When you get hands on with the update itself next week, we’d very much like to hear from you on how you feel we’ve met these standards:
Provide strong guidelines for general item design, with a little bit of wiggle room for special cases.
While this aims to standardise our approach, it does not establish it as an iron rule that can’t be broken. If an item ends up 10-15% outside the bounds of our rules, we’re ok with it so long as it enhances your campaigns.
Populate the item pools with all-new effects.
Plenty of effects have never been used in items before, such as generic sources of barrier, or battle healing cap. Expanding the effect pool lets us reduce the overlap of common choices, and pushes the identity of each item even further.
Make item rarity translate with item power level.
Item rarity drives how commonly an item should appear as part of random generation. Ideally this means that the items you see more rarely should generally be much more interesting, or at least a lot more powerful.
Reduce UX overload of item management by raising impact, and lowering frequency of interaction.
We receive regular reports from players who find that the management of excessive amounts of items frustrating, or boring. We’re aiming to reduce the number of decisions being made, but make each of the decisions that you do make a bit more notable.
It’s a lot of pen and paper work, a lot of which we know doesn’t always look flashy out of the gate, but based on our own playtesting, and the feedback we’ve received so far, we know that this is a massive positive step forward in this area of the game.
The eagle eyed among you may have spied that we looked to rework Magic Items much earlier than next week’s update, but when we play tested many of the changes that we originally had in mind, we realised that the scope we had was way bigger than we initially thought, and our internal feedback caused us to hold back on deploying an earlier version of these changes until we could solve for the best possible version of this rework.
Our original scope wasn’t big enough. Originally we had a shortlist of around 80 items that we knew needed a good pass to bring them up to our new standard, with the intent of making further iterations over several patches. That alone never felt quite right, so we went back into the kitchen and ensured that our rebalance didn’t just apply to 10% of our items, but the over 800 common, uncommon, and rare items we have in the game today.
We also knew that we didn’t originally have sufficient gaps in the min/max ranges of power when evaluating items based on their rarity. Items that were valued at 29 uniqueness (our highest value for a common item), and 30 uniqueness (our lowest value for an uncommon item) were pretty much indistinguishable. It made the common feel really powerful relative to its tier, and the other feel super weak when compared to other items in that tier.
We don’t like that either, so to fix that, we rebalanced the distribution of item uniqueness so that all rarity tiers now sit much higher up on the scale overall, but with a tighter focus on their range as well as higher minimum power levels. For example, a common item used to be between 0 and 29 score, but will now be found between 35 and 50.
We’ve also introduced air gaps between our rarity tiers. Common items no longer end at 29, and Uncommons no longer start at 30. When the changes go live, we’re setting a 30 point gap between these two tiers, so with Commons now ending at 50 uniqueness, Uncommons will re-appear in the pool starting at 80, helping them to feel much more valuable by comparison.
In our iteration we also realised that the value of specific effects was out of proportion with what was actually perceived as valuable, so we completely scrapped our original matrix, and rebuilt the entire thing based on internal feedback. For example, we knew that some of the original effects didn’t feel great when they were the only effect on an item (think Spell Resistance, or Charge Bonus), so we’ve used the expanded budget and revised scoring matrix that we have now to make sure these effects never stand alone (unless they’re being given in excessive amounts).
Of course there are certain items that were considered iconic (partially due to having very powerful effects) that were brought too low by the balance adjustments. Since that initial version we playtested, we’ve revised that to ensure that our new systems apply a “Status Quo” ethos to the changes that we’ve made. Previously, if an item was powerful for its tier, we’d have brought it down to an appropriate power level, but on review, we’ve taken a hard stance of pushing the item up instead, helping to keep the core of what made certain items special firmly intact.
So if an item was a common with the power level of a rare, we’ve made it a rare. If the item was instead finding itself in no-mans land, caught somewhere between categories (too strong for an uncommon, too weak for a rare), we’ve again pushed that item up, adding more stats in order to help it sit right within its new tier.
But what if an item was rare previously, but really felt quite weak and truthfully was more like a common? There are some items that we’ve looked at and opted to make it a common, and some that we’ve opted to keep it as rare but given it a rare’s budget worth of stats. This one’s a little more vibe driven, some items SCREAM powerful by name and description, and so those one’s were more likely to have been pushed up. It’s a pretty loose rule of thumb on these niche cases, but in general if you liked an item, it will at worst be rarer, but it will never be weaker.
Some items have been completely reworked if we felt that they didn’t quite have legs in their current for, but this didn’t affect many of the stronger items you’ve come to know and love.
Here’s a look at some examples of what this translates too in game.
On the item availability side of things, the first topic we want to address is item spam. In any given standard campaign, we generally find that a player will wind up with tens of unused items, going into the hundreds in the much longer campaigns. This extreme amount of items can cause knock-on's to other systems, especially the UI. We often find that equipping items can become much more difficult and tedious given that you find yourself having to search through too many items in order to find the one’s that you may want to actually use. That means extra scrolling and hovering over tooltips in a UI that’s not really designed to feature such a breadth of items. In areas such as item fusing, a large amount of items also degrades the usability of this feature, given that you’ll require two items per fusing, creating a lot of clicking just to rid yourself of unwanted items.
So what have we changed? In general, there’s now a lower drop rate for all items, reducing the amount that you’ll gain across a campaign. We’re confident that this is a positive change given the huge amount of items that you can currently acquire. The drop rates are now at a much more sensible level, which when paired with our approach to make items generally more powerful, getting less items is the best balancing consideration we could look to make.
It is worth noting that all item drop chance effects remain unchanged across the game. So if you like, you can still build your faction around becoming an item dropping machine if that’s your style and if your faction choice makes that possible.
We’ve also moved to ensure that there are smarter, and more player centric item drops. This is a fancy way of saying that the items you receive in your campaigns are now pseudorandom instead of true random. It’s no secret that almost all games slightly modify outcomes to provide the best possible gameplay experience (we’re entering this is how the sausage gets made territory here so if you’d rather preserve the magic of game development, maybe scroll on a few lines!).
Until now, item drops have been completely (true) random. Going forward however the game will understand which items have already dropped in your campaign, what items you are and aren’t using, offering up items that we can see you don’t have already, instead of giving you more items that are similar to the ones we can see are just sat as unused in your item pool. We ultimately want to provide you with the ability to build whatever playstyle you like from across the entire range of items in the pool, and to prevent you from getting your 50th drop on an item that you really don’t like, and never wanted in the first place.
It’s worth noting before I move on to talk about Item Fusing that the even with the above change, that the system won’t ever hinder you. Meaining that if you really want a particular item equipped on all of your characters, then providing that you are actually using those items that there is no limit, nor any effect on drop rate for those same items. Really this change will only ever effect the unused items, in essence shifting your drops in the direction of more varied items until eventually it finds ones that you start to use more of.
With Item Fusing, one of the core issues has always been that the sheet amount of items that you had really impacted the usability of the feature. As such, we didn’t make any real changes to the item selection functioanlity when fusing, purely because we feel that these issues were symptoms of the problems listed previously in this blog, and weren’t as much core issues. Generally we now think that you’ll find that you’re fusing far fewer items (given the reduction in items received), and much less of the time (given the increase in each items potential usage).
What we have done is make a couple of fundamental changes to Item Fusing however, which are aimed at providing a bit more usability and gameplay functionality.
First, a fused item will now provide an item of the same category. This means that if you really want a nice piece of armour than you should simply fuse your existing armours. It’s never really made much sense to turn two necklaces into a piece of armour, and equally so if you had wanted to gain a specific type of item, the system we had wasn’t really providing a reliable enough way to guarantee getting that. There are of course some pro’s and con’s to both implementations, however we felt that this one is a bit better, so make sure you let us know what you think of that change when you get hands on with it next week.
Second, rare items can now be fused into unique items. Much like we have elsewhere in Update 6.2, you’ll find that we’ve been adding a bunch of new Unique tier (Purple) items over the previous patches, and where possible we’d love to keep doing that. Now you currently have a very low chance of gaining these Unique items as post-battle loot, but you can now also gain them by fusing Rare (Blue) item. The major caveat here is that there is only a small chance of success when fusing your Rare items and failure will result in producing a completely useless piece of scrap. Quite literally, just an item that is scrap which can only be salvaged. Good luck!
Before we get to talking about some of the new items that we are bringing in Update 6.2, a note on removing banner restrictions. This one’s a very simple change, but we think it’s something that's super positive. You can now equip any number of the same ancillaries to characters (providing that they themselves provide a banner). This means that if you’ve got a favourite banner, well now you’re no longer limited to 1 per army, allowing you to customise your forces a bite more neatly and evenly if you wish.
There’s very good balancing considerations as to why limits exist for other followers given the possibility of stacking effects (so we won’t be making that change), however for banners, the balancing implications are far less.
NEW UNIQUE ITEMS
Spoilers Ahead – If you’d prefer to discover new items in the game yourself, thanks for reading! We appreciate you, let us know what you think of the changes next week! For the rest of you degenerates, follow me.
Unique items are always fun to create. These powerful and sometimes weird items add some really interesting gameplay choices and the Warhammer lore has no shortage of such items for us to play with. In previous patches, we’ve been adding new unique items not linked to any specific character and we’re following that same approach once more in Update 6.2. We’ve taken the opportunity here to add some new items, with one in particular being extremely unique and very powerful indeed.
Wyrmslayer Sword
A sword famed for its ability to slay large foes. Any character wanting to bring down the biggest of enemies will find this sword more than capable, however one will have to be aggressive and forgo the ability to fight masses of infantry as easily.
Scintillating Shield
A shield polished to extreme levels now able to reflect almost anything, be that the charge of their enemies, or magic itself.
Accursed Armour
An extremely powerful piece of armour that offers it wearer immense defensive ability and even the ability to cheat death. However the armour is not without its curses...
Briarsheath
One of the most unique piece of armour found anywhere in the world (if one can even call it armour). This mass of brambles and thorns, while not immensely useful as a means of protection, instead protects its wearer by virtue of being unrivaled in keeping them hidden from foes.
The Fellblade
Wait a second, that’s a rare item, I’ve seen it!
We felt that the iconic weapon that brought low the lord of undeath himself deserved to be more than a regular item. Wielding this blade makes you vulnerable to its foul curse, sure to eventually perish, but every strike causes monstrous degenerative damage and executes the weakened.
The Eight Burning Books of Khorne
Legend tells of Eight Burning Books of Khorne spread across existence, with any who may one day hold all of them able to access an immense power of destruction unlike any other. Should fate ever curse you enough that you stumble across one of the 8 volumes of this dreaded Book then a fateful choice awaits, should you pursue all further volumes at immense risk and cost to your faction, with an aim to eventually combine them all into one complete all-powerful book? Or simply play it safe and let this legend remain just that?
The first of these 4 new magical items (each constituting 2 volumes of the eight burning books) can be discovered with an extremely low chance in your campaign, and each item offers the ability to discover the subsequent volumes of the book when equipped. When all 8 volumes have been collected then they can be combined and, providing you are not a Khornate faction, a big decision awaits as you will have the ability to decide what exactly to do next. Be aware however that each volume will take a terrible toll on your faction, only growing more difficult to manage as you discover each volume - it is up to you alone to decide if the risk and cost is worth what lay at the end.
Note: As a Khornate faction you can of course still find and combine the books, however certain gameplay elements will be different, with some negatives naturally being positive given your links to Khorne.
Oh, just one more thing.
With 6.2 you’re also getting two new free units, so here’s a bit of a lowdown on what to expect.
Don’t look, the placeholders can’t hurt you if you don’t look
Hobgoblin Bolt Throwers
Cavalry beware!
Swanky!
A bit less rickety than the Goblin equivalent. (and with better spelling, no less!)
Hobgoblin Bolt Throwers represent a uniquely accessible siege weapon for the Chaos Dwarf faction. Being the product of cunning Hobgoblin ingenuity rather than the work of hellsmiths, these affordable engines are not bound by the usual capacity restrictions for the faction.
More accurate than their more haggard Goblin counterparts, they’re the perfect tool for cheaply fitting your secondary armies with some firepower, while keeping the good stuff for your main force!
Blood Knights (Sword and Shield)
Infantry, you’re in for a scare!
Trading in their powerful lances for shorter blades, these terrifying cavalry have immensely improved staying capability. With a powerful anti-infantry profile and the hunger, they can mulch through a near limitless amount of enemy infantry, slaking their thirst on the field of battle.
This does come at a significant loss of performance versus other cavalry, making them a more niche specialized infantry crushing machine, suited for taking low casualties again and again on a long campaign.
And that’s all from me and the team today! We’re really excited for you to get hands on with this update next week, sit tight for the full update notes, and look forward to plenty more from us in the future. We’ll naturally have plenty to learn from your new experiences with these changes, and we’ll keep you updated on any further improvements that we look to make here.
Take care!
William Håkestad // Senior Game Designer
