After one year of coding, theorising and testing I'm pleased to announce that 2.02 v8.5 is officially launched.
Unlike recent patches that have worked on several issues that have been festering in the game since its launch such as XP bug or the armour bug, this patch is focused entirely on bugs and balance changes. It is our hope that this most recent patch will address several key issues to specific MUs that will help progress RotWK.
Click here to download 2.02 v8.5The bug and general fixes to this patch are fairly self explanatory and are mainly due to the hard work of Nameless, some notable ones are the slight nerf to Industry, this has been a dominate 10pp for years now, hopefully this slight nerf will promote some PP diversity along with the changes to Mordor and Isengard mean they are less dependent on a "hold on until 10pp" playstyle. The 25pp Dragon has also seen a slight nerf, it was easy to see that the Dragon's fire breath was too easy to use. Another general change I wanted to highlight is the Blackbar, since 2.02 launched over 10 years ago zoom has been changed a number of times by the development team, in an attempt to preserve competitive integrity players will have a max zoom of 600 now. It's worth highlighting the nerf to statues too, this should make statues less oppressive in 1v1 choke points and also more tactical in team games.
Factions
Men of the West
Seeing as tier 1 Motw Infantry fell off too soon in previous versions, it receives several buffs to durability as well as a cost decrease to the barracks itself to promote a more central role
Elves
Elves were the most called for faction by the community to be nerfed, mirkwood archers are have seen a significant nerf, the gap between them and other elite archers has now been closed. Mirkwoods will still be the best archers in the game though given the Elf playstyle and access to leadership and a buff. While it was great to see players discover the destructive potential of Arwens Flood ability, we decided to trade some of its damage with an hp buff, as it was just a bit too easy to continuously get rid of high level enemy infrastructure.
Dwarves
Dwarves also see a change to their economy power to be in line with the evil factions industry, again hopefully this will promote some PP diversity. The biggest change is that of battle wagons, the base unit is cheaper which will help dwarves early game but the cost of the individual upgrades has been increased. The cheaper battle wagon will help Dwarves with early mine protection. The slight cost decrease to the hall of warriors coupled with the price changes to battle wagons mean we could see some more variety with early game build orders.
Isengard
The changes to Isengard are less significant, the torchers upgrade for wildmen was too strong vs early game units and both the economy 10pp have seen a slight nerf. Lurtz cripple strike has seen its 3rd nerf in a row now for 2.02 patches, hopefully he will still be a top tier early hero but slightly easier to counter.
Mordor
Trying to make all of Mordor's different playstyles equally viable has always been a challenge. In v.8.5 we hope to have toned down the recent strength of the Orc spam with Troll support enough to achieve just that. On top of that, we took away the ability of the Witchking to apply his Dread Wrath while riding a Fellbeast in order to help factions without elite archers deal with Multiple Flyers
Goblins
Goblins have quite a few changes to digest, in 8.4 we saw a decreased use with half troll pikes with people opting to using the swords more, the changes aim to close the gap between the units whilst also promoting their situational use. There is a scalar for poison arrows against flyers, trolls and ents to help Goblins late game as they struggle to deal with late game armies without elite archers. SpiderRiders now feel like elite cav, they are more capable in bow mode and slightly more durable during combat. The cost of the fissure has been decreased and both the level 3 units, giants and fire drake broods are now cheaper, we feel this change better fits the faction design for Goblins but more importantly will help the faction deal with late game big army clumps and harassing cav armies.
Angmar
We've talked as a team for a while about adding fear resistance to Angmar, there have been a number of good suggestions but we've agreed to add fear resistance to Karsh, hopefullly this will help Angmar in tricky situations and team games while also promoting a little hero diversity for Angmar. There is also a nerf to spiked collars, dire wolf spam was too prevalent on 8.4 and I'm anticipating seeing more orcs for Angmar, especially as thralls have a slight buff vs towers (just the thrall, not the summoned battalion).
This patch was a community effort and special thanks goes to BraBox, SpecialGuest, Nameless and Miraak on the patching side, Urby, Solas, Talos, MrSmokkk, Ahwehawe, Eternal and DJPremier on the balancing, also a thanks goes to everyone who took time to play beta games!
