ArenaNet:Developer updates/Archive Sept-Dec 2007

[Dev Update] Guild Wars: Eye of the North Trial and Blow-Out Event -- 7 December 2007

As you may have read in the Visit the Eye of the North for the Holidays event page, we are offering a five-hour, free trial of GW:EN, and will also enhance the fun by offering a bunch of special, in-game benefits starting at Noon Pacific on Friday, December 7, and running through 11:59 PM Pacific on Sunday, December 16. (These hours are -8 GMT.)

The five-hour trial begins when you enter the access key provided on the event page. The timer will run for the next five hours you spend playing Guild Wars, whether in GW:EN or one of the campaigns, so we encourage you to make the most of the trial by spending your time playing Eye of the North content. Go ahead—get up close and personal with the Norn, Asura, Dwarves, and even a Charr or two!

Players wondering about what will happen to objectives they accomplish and items they acquire during the trial period need not worry. After the preview, players will retain all items they found during their time in Eye of the North, along with any progress they made toward title tracks, and will receive credit for all completed quests. GW:EN Heroes and skills, however, will no longer be accessible until a Guild Wars: Eye of the North retail access key is added to the account.

Special note: during the trial, players who do not own a retail version of Guild Wars: Eye of the North can venture into the Hall of Monuments and display tapestries on their monuments, however they will not be able to register achievements on those monuments because that is a feature of the retail game. Players who make progress toward accomplishments and later enter a GW:EN retail key will receive credit for those accomplishments in Guild Wars 2.

When the trial ends, you will receive a message stating that the trial period has ended. At that time, or at any later date, if you wish to purchase Guild Wars: Eye of the North, you may go directly to the in-game store or the PlayNC store to add a GW:EN access key to your existing account. Alternatively, you may visit your favorite retailer and acquire a copy of Eye of the North. All options are shown [here]. Once your GW:EN access key is activated, you can resume your adventures in the lands of GW:EN.

[Dev Update] Post-Searing Items in Pre-Searing -- 17 November 2007

Player have requested clarification of our policy on items within the Pre-Searing area of Guild Wars. We're happy to provide that information:

Our policy is that Post-Searing items, skills, and other elements should not have an impact upon Pre-Searing Ascalon. Back in 2006, there was a guild hall glitch that allowed some players to bring Post-Searing items into Pre-Searing. More recently, a few items appeared in Pre-Searing due to a different, short-term bug. Both of these loopholes were closed promptly. In the case of the recent issue, we investigated and dealt with the majority of the items and accounts individually. In the case of the earlier guild hall glitch, we chose not to research accounts individually. This does not mean such items were permitted, only that we were not actively researching individual accounts, but rather dealing with each case as it became known to us.

Whenever a player is discovered to have skills on his character, or items -- such as weapons, tomes, foci, etc. -- from Post-Searing in Pre-Searing, we require that player to move the item and/or character to Post-Searing. That is and has always been our position: No skills, items, runes, tomes, weapons, or anything else that is exclusively available in Post-Searing should be found in Pre-Searing Ascalon, no matter when or how they made their way to Pre-Searing.

If you have a character whose skills were impacted by the use of Post-Searing tomes, you need to move that character to Post-Searing immediately. If you have an item, weapon, rune, tome, or anything else from Post-Searing – no matter when you acquired it or when it appeared in Pre-Searing – that item or weapon needs to be deleted or moved to Post-Searing right away.

[Dev Update] Skill Balance -- 08 November 2007

Assassin

• Recall: when this Enchantment ends, it now disables all of the caster's Skills for 10 seconds.

Recall has single-handedly removed tactical movement from Hero Battles because combatants can use it to both easily flee and to quickly gang up on opponents. By disabling skills after using Recall to Shadow Step, we hope to maintain this skill's value for retreating and for general maneuverability while diminishing its offensive usage.

Dervish

• Mystic Healing: Decreased heal amount to 5..65.

With Mystic Healing, a Dervish/Necromancer can provide party-wide healing while powering physical attackers with "Orders" Enchantments. Since we are reducing the power of Light of Deliverance (a more general purpose party-wide healing skill), we felt Mystic Healing needed to be brought down a notch to prevent this character (and the extreme focus on physical attackers that it encourages) from becoming the only way to play.

Elementalist

• Shell Shock: Decreased recharge time to 8 seconds. This skill now has 25% armor penetration.

Overall, we're looking at ways to improve skills that apply Cracked Armor. Shell Shock should be one of the premier ways to do this, but it was strictly inferior to even averagely powered Air Magic spells like Enervating Charge. We adjusted this skill's numbers to see if it can become a viable way to create more synergy between Elementalists and physical attackers.

Mesmer

• Conjure Nightmare: Decreased Energy cost to 15.
• Shrinking Armor: Increased Health degeneration to 1..4.
• Signet of Illusions: Fixed a bug that allowed this Signet to stack with itself.

Conjure Nightmare had two issues. First, it could be used to fuel Auspicious Incantation to power the Energy costs of Illusion skills (especially Clumsiness, which is limited much more by Energy cost than recharge time) endlessly. Secondly, compared to Conjure Phantasm, Conjure Nightmare granted only 33% more Health degeneration but at 150% of the cost (without Auspicious Incantation). This change should restore balance to Energy-limited skills such as Clumsiness while making Conjure Nightmare's Energy cost more closely match its effect.

Because Cracked Armor is a less powerful condition than Deep Wound, Shrinking Armor (which applies Cracked Armor) was clearly underpowered compared to Phantom Pain (which applies Deep Wound). The increased Health degeneration for Shrinking Armor should help balance these skills out.

Monk

• Blessed Light: Increased heal amount to 10..140.
• Cure Hex: Now affected by Healer's Boon.
• Glimmer of Light: Decreased recharge time to 1 second; increased heal amount to 10..115.
• Healer's Boon: Instead of an upkeep cost, this skill now has a duration of 10..55 seconds and no longer ends after a number of Spells are cast.
• Healing Breeze: Increased duration to 15 seconds; increased Health regeneration to 4..9.
• Healing Ribbon: Now affected by Healer's Boon.
• Heal Party: Increased heal amount to 30..90.
• Light of Deliverance: Increased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased heal amount to 5..70; now affects all party members regardless of Health.
• Restful Breeze: Increased duration to 8..18 seconds.
• Vigorous Spirit: Decreased casting time to .25 seconds.
• Word of Healing: This skill can now target the caster; increased non-conditional heal amount to 25..150; decreased recharge time to 3 seconds.

Monks have received what is quite possibly the most experimental set of changes we've ever made to the profession. The efficiency of Light of Deliverance completely removed the need for most other healing skills on a team, causing it to invalidate a large number of those skills. This aggressive change is meant to explore Light of Deliverance's overall effect on the game, as well as the impact of players using alternate methods of party healing. To accommodate this goal, we've also slightly increased the healing amount of Heal Party. Because simply reducing the power of Light of Deliverance would have effectively reduced the power of Monk healing overall, we improved several other Monk elites that were not up to par; Blessed Light, Glimmer of Light, and Word of Healing all received significant updates to encourage their use.

Another goal is to support non-primary-Monk healers and encourage split tactics. Thus, we greatly increased Restful Breeze and Healing Breeze to be much more efficient, as these are attractive to characters who do not have access to Divine Favor. In addition, Vigorous Spirit received a casting time decrease for a small, overall effectiveness boost.

Necromancer

• Oppressive Gaze: Conditional effect now only triggers on foes who are below 50% Health.
• Weaken Armor: decreased Energy cost to 5; decreased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased recharge time to 5 seconds; changed the skill type to a Spell; functionality changed to: "Target foe has Cracked Armor for 5..20 second[s]."

Oppressive Gaze has become the central skill in a powerful Necromancer spike build, so we wanted to add another conditional element to limit its spike potential. Weaken Armor has been reworked to take advantage of the Cracked Armor mechanic; thus it no longer needs to be a Hex spell.

Ranger

• Energizing Wind: Increased Energy cost to 15; decreased duration to 30..90 seconds; decreased Spirit's level to 1..6.
• Fertile Season: Increased Energy cost to 15; decreased Health bonus to 50..150; decreased armor bonus to 8.
• Magebane Shot: Functionality changed to: "If this attack hits, it interrupts target foe's action. If that action was a Spell, it is disabled for 5 seconds. This attack cannot be blocked."

Most of the Ranger changes revolve around decreasing the effectiveness of the common "Spiritway" build in Heroes' Ascent. This build typically slows games to a standstill by cluttering the screen with an overwhelming number of minions, Spirits, and pets. Energizing Winds is the lynch pin to the effectiveness of the skill Rampage as One for the Ranger/Warriors on the team, allowing this otherwise defensive team build to deal a lot of damage. Fertile Season, on the other hand, can be used to stall the game when a team is losing. As a result, both of these Spirits have taken an overall hit to their effectiveness. Finally, Magebane Shot has been improved to provide Rangers with a new option for interruption while not encouraging Ranger spikes.

Ritualist

• Ancestors' Rage: This skill is no longer considered an Enchantment.
• Spirit Leech: Fixed a bug that swapped duration and effect time.
• Weapon of Warding: Increased duration to 5..10 seconds.
• Splinter Weapon: Functionality changed to: "For 20 second[s], target ally has a Splinter Weapon. Target ally's next 1..5 attacks deal 5..50 damage on up to 3 adjacent foes."
• Sundering Weapon: Increased duration to 5..20 seconds.

Ancestors' Rage is featured in a new quick spike build involving the Elementalist skill Ride the Lightning. When used with a caster item that increases Enchantment duration on the target, Ancestor's Rage could be used by teleporting Elementalists for instant kills on targets. Changing this from an Enchantment spell to a skill prevents this particular interaction without otherwise decreasing the skill's effectiveness.

Splinter Weapon has turned the Victory or Death period in Guild vs. Guild matches into an NPC bloodbath. This in turn has lessened importance of early tactical maneuvers to kill NPCs earlier in the match. The new target limit should keep its power in check for this situation. Even so, we know that Splinter Weapon has been a favorite skill in high-end PvE and will be watching this change closely.

In the past, Weapon of Warding has supported interesting character builds and split-tactics in Guild vs. Guild play. We're encouraging that interaction again with a duration boost. The duration increase on Sundering Weapon was made to further support the application of Cracked Armor.

Summary This balance change is quite experimental, especially considering the nature of the Monk profession changes. We will monitor this update closely, possibly making other changes in reaction to the game's evolution after players get a chance to try out these updated skills. Our goal is not to remove healing or force additional defense into the game, but rather to promote diversity in the Skill Bars of healers, and push active defense (as opposed to passive) further into play.

[Dev Update] Bonus Mission Pack Verification -- 26 October 2007

Some time ago, players asked us if we could enable a feature that allowed them to verify that they had qualified for the Guild Wars Bonus Mission Pack. They asked this so that they could be sure that they had met the qualifications of the promotion which meant that they would receive access to those four special missions upon the release of the pack in November of this year. At the time that this request was made, it wasn’t possible for us to give you that information. We had the records, of course, and those who qualified were certainly going to receive the access they had earned, but we were not able to display the information for you to see.

However, due to the contributions of a few members of the programming team, we can do that now. Here’s how it works: On the first screen of the game after you log in, you will note an option in the lower left corner that says “Edit Account.” If you click that option, you will see a screen that says “Manage Access Keys.” You will be able to review that screen to see that the Bonus Mission Pack has been enabled on your account.

However, please note the following: This verification system does not update automatically. So even if you make a purchase, that purchase will not show on your personal account screen until we run a program that updates the database. Therefore, we will be running periodic updates to the database over the course of the next five or six days. The first update will be run at approximately 12:01 AM Pacific (-7 GMT) on October 27th (as I write this, that is “tonight” for North American players, and “this morning” for players in Europe.) This update script could take an hour or two to complete. We will run another update on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. Even if you “squeak in under the wire” by ordering at the last minute, and even your purchase does not show up when you check your account, once you meet the requirements ($29 USD/€26/£17) you will receive the Bonus Mission Pack.

If questions arise after the promotion ends -- at 11:59 PM Pacific (-7 GMT) on October 31st -- we encourage you to contact your regional Support Team, and they will be happy to assist you.

[Dev Update] Further Information on the BMP Verification System -- 28 October 2007

Some players have not received qualification verification for the Guild Wars Bonus Mission Pack. We will be running a secondary verification script that will expand the verification list. That script will be run the very next time that the process is undertaken, which I believe will be at 12:01 AM Pacific (7:01 GMT) on Tuesday (so Monday night for those in the US).

No data has been lost; no one will suffer ill effects from the delay, and we do apologize for your having to wait another day to check your verification. You will be able to check your account on Tuesday morning and on Wednesday morning, as well. If you find that your account does not show verification of your having qualified for the Bonus Mission Pack on Tuesday after Noon Pacific (19:00 GMT), please feel free to contact Support.

However, there is one exception: The Bonus Mission Pack is only available to those who own at least one of the Guild Wars campaigns. If you own only the PvP versions of the game, you will not be able to access the BMP, since it is not PvP content. However, we will go ahead and add the key to your account now, and if at some point in the future you do add a campaign key, you will have access to the Bonus Mission Pack content as well.

We hope that this information is helpful, and our Support Team will be ready to assist anyone who has an issue with their verification starting Tuesday afternoon.

[Dev Update] Skill Balances -- 12 October 2007

In this update, we addressed the melee-overload-versus-block-overload struggle we're seeing in Guild Battles right now. Some of our goals were to increase the viability of split tactics, reduce the effectiveness of a defensive "block web," decrease the effectiveness of some spike-oriented melee skills, and reestablish caster pressure and area-of-effect damage, while not overpowering pure spike builds.

The specific changes are as follows:

General

• Decreased the Health of all Spirits by 50; allowed Burning to affect Spirits.

The existing specific counters to Spirits were too narrow. This change allows area-of-effects to more effectively neutralize Spirits. It also means Spirit-users may have to place Spirits more strategically.

Assassin

• Death's Charge: increased conditional Health to 65..200.
• Golden Fang Strike: fixed a bug that allowed the use of Golden Fang Strike without a lead attack.
• Shadow Refuge: increased duration to 6 seconds.

The Assassin's ability to strike, retreat, heal up, and move back in for the kill was limited by the lack of solid basic healing. Shadow Refuge played second fiddle to Feigned Neutrality or non-Assassin self-heals for some time, so we increased the unconditional heal portion of this staple skill. Death's Charge has a very conditional heal that yielded too little Health for its situational nature; the healing has been raised accordingly.

Dervish

• Wearying Strike: decreased damage to 5..20.

As part of our effort to decrease melee damage slightly, we made Wearying Strike less powerful to adjust the ever-popular Avatar of Melandru/Wearying Strike combination.

Elementalist

• Ash Blast: increased damage to 35..65.
• Chilling Winds: increased damage to 25..50.
• Conjure Frost, Conjure Flame, and Conjure Lightning: now directly increase the damage you do when you hit with an attack (previously, they dealt damage as a second, additional strike); decreased damage to 5..20.
• Ebon Hawk: increased damage to 45..100.
• Enervating Charge: increased damage to 25..50.
• Glyph of Swiftness: fixed a bug that increased the projectile speed.
• Ice Spikes: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
• Searing Flames: increased Burning duration to 1..7 seconds.
• Steam: increased conditional damage to 40..100; increased damage to 25..70.
• Stoning: increased damage to 45..105.
• Ward Against Melee: increased Energy cost to 15; decreased duration to 5..20 seconds.

As part of our movement to augment caster pressure damage, many Elementalist Skills obtained raw damage boosts. The Conjure Skills have been changed so they hit as part of the attack, rather than a separate damage packet. This reduces their power versus Reversal of Fortune. Searing Flames received a boost with longer Burning duration, which we hope will empower the choice to bring one copy of it without creating teams consisting of nothing but Searing Flames Elementalists.

Mesmer

• Air of Disenchantment: decreased casting time to .25 seconds.
• Drain Enchantment: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased Energy returned to 7..15; added a heal effect of 40..120 when an Enchantment is removed.
• Enchanter's Conundrum: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased casting time to 1 second; increased damage to 30..120; fixed a bug that caused multiple hits of damage when stacked.
• Energy Burn: increased damage multiplier to 12.
• Energy Surge: increased damage multiplier to 12.
• Extend Conditions: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
• Hex Eater Vortex: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.
• Illusion of Haste: decreased Energy cost to 5.
• Ineptitude: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
• Keystone Signet: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
• Mantra of Recovery: decreased recharge reduction to 33%.
• Power Drain: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
• Power Leak: decreased recharge time to 12 seconds.
• Power Spike: decreased Energy cost to 5.
• Shrinking Armor: fixed a bug that prevented the Health Bar from turning purple.
• Signet of Illusions: increased the number of Spells affected to 3.
• Signet of Midnight: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.

Mantra of Recovery has dominated Mesmer Skill Bars in Guild Battles. We reduced its raw effectiveness to remove the complete reliance on it, then we adjusted the recharge times of a few skills to compensate and make them more attractive without Mantra of Recovery. To further encourage diverse Skill Bars, we increased the effectiveness of most Mesmer elites. Hex Eater Vortex was proving to be too powerful at dealing with Hexes, so we lengthened the recharge time to favor more precise Hex removal. Power Spike is a staple Mesmer interrupt that was inferior to its bigger brothers, so we lowered its Energy cost to 5, making it a more readily available choice. The Drain Enchantment change creates a second Mesmer Skill for self healing, while Illusion of Haste seeks to increase Mesmer split potential.

Monk

• Reversal of Damage: fixed a bug that caused this Spell to stop all damage instead of the max damage listed.
• Shield of Deflection: increased recharge time to 10 seconds; increased duration to 3..10 seconds.
• Shield of Regeneration: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.

The 1/4 second cast time of both Shield of Deflection and Shield of Regeneration made these skills too easy to maintain on a constant basis. We countered this by increasing their recharge times. Enchantment removal should now be a more viable counter to these popular elite skills.

Necromancer

• Angorodon's Gaze: decreased Energy returned to 12.
• Chilblains: now works on target foe instead of having a point-blank area of effect; decreased number of Enchantments affected to 1; increased casting time to 2 seconds.
• Gaze of Contempt: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
• Putrid Bile: fixed a bug that prevented the Health Bar from turning purple.
• Rend Enchantments: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
• Rigor Mortis: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; decreased casting time to 1 second.
• Rip Enchantment: decreased Health lost to 15..5.
• Strip Enchantment: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

We enhanced Necromancer Enchantment-removal options so they wouldn't be so overshadowed by Mesmers. Chilblains, in particular, received a powerful increase to better fit its hefty 25 Energy price tag, while Strip Enchantment, Rend Enchantments, Rip Enchantment, and Gaze of Contempt all received more conservative power increases. Rigor Mortis was improved as another counter to the blocking metagame, while Angorodon's Gaze had its Energy return component reduced to halt the infinite Energy engine.

Paragon

• Aggressive Refrain: now causes Cracked Armor for 20 seconds when applied.
• "Go for the Eyes!": increased recharge time to 4 seconds.

We increased the recharge time for "Go for the Eyes!" because it was generating near-limitless Energy, especially when combined with "Watch Yourself!", for Paragons from the Leadership attribute. Aggressive Refrain's tradeoff of 25 Energy had very little consequence, as it was rarely activated more than once per battle. The addition of self-inflicting Cracked Armor should create more interesting choices for this skill.

Ranger

• Nature's Renewal: decreased Spirit levels to 1..10.

Nature's Renewal was a lot tougher than other Spirits and was getting far too large an armor bonus for its additional levels. We've reduced the level to bring it down to size.

Warrior

• Agonizing Chop: increased activation time to 1 second.
• "Charge!": increased movement speed to 33%.
• Critical Chop: increased activation time to 1 second.
• Disarm: reworded skill description to explain that it is an interrupt.
• "Watch Yourself!": increased recharge time to 4 seconds; increased duration to 10 seconds.

Critical Chop and Agonizing Chop now have longer activation times to reduce their raw spike potential. Without a recharge time, "Watch Yourself!" was like an Energy buffet for Paragons, so we limited its rate while making it last longer so that it is still useful. Finally, "Charge!" was improved to keep up with the newer speed boosts and increase the viability of split tactics.

[Dev Update] PvP Editions

In the near future, we're going to be offering you more choices through the Guild Wars In-Game Store related to purchasing skill unlocks and PvP access. We will be modifying the PvP Editions of Guild Wars to split out the access portion from the unlock portion. This means that you will have the option to purchase a PvP access key by itself, or you can purchase Skill Unlock Packs for the individual campaigns. By offering these as separate options, you only pay for access once, no matter now many different campaigns you may want to play, and you do not pay for access at all if you already own Guild Wars and are simply interested in buying some skill unlocks.

In order to assure that we offer new purchasers the greater number of choices, we will be removing the option to purchase the existing PvP Edition this week and we will offer the expanded list of choices in early November.

[Dev Update] Expanded Payment Options

As you are likely aware, in our Update Notes of September 27th we announced the upcoming addition of payment options for certain European countries. Unfortunately, the roll-out of the new payment methods will need to be delayed a bit beyond the anticipated rollout date, due to technical reasons. As soon as possible, and perhaps as soon as next week, we will be adding the following payment options:

• United Kingdom: SMS and IVR Payments
• Germany: IVR Payments

Please note that we will continue to expand options for making purchases through the Guild Wars In-Game Store as well as through the PlayNC system. It is our intention to make it as easy a possible for you to make the purchases that you choose to make. So look for more information about this in the future as we continue to expand options across many countries and regions.

[Dev Update] Anti-griefing and Gladiator Title - 27 September 2007

We are releasing an anti-griefing system for game types that use randomly formed teams, such as Random Arenas, Alliance Battles, and Competitive Missions. We hope to accomplish two ends: first, to deter players who leech rewards while not playing; second, to limit rewards for players who leave games prematurely. The system uses "dishonor points," which work as follows:

• An account may be given dishonor points for leaving a PvP match prematurely, for leeching experience or faction, or for falsely reporting teammates for leeching.
• Players who leave a PvP match prematurely will receive 5 dishonor points.
• If a player is reported for leeching, that player will receive 2 dishonor points for each report against him. Players who report a team member for leeching without a third of their team also reporting that player will also receive 2 dishonor points.
• Any account that has accumulated 10 or more dishonor points is given the Dishonorable status, which is displayed as a buff icon on screen. While affected by this status, no characters present on that account may enter any PvP missions.
• The Dishonorable status remains in effect for 1 minute for each accumulated dishonor point. This status cannot be removed by logging out or changing characters.
• When the duration of the Dishonorable status has expired, characters on that account may once again join PvP missions.
• Dishonor points will remain on the player's account for a total of 60 minutes. If further dishonor points are acquired during this period, that account is once again given the Dishonorable status, though for a longer period of time.
• To clear dishonor points from an account, a player must go 60 minutes without accumulating any new dishonor points.

This system is intended to reduce rewards for players who ruin the PvP experience for their teammates. Instead of continuously leaving and rejoining until you are on the optimal team, it should now be faster to earn rewards by completing the game you join. If a player is unhappy with a team's composition, that player can opt out after the match has resolved with no penalty. This is more acceptable as it doesn't detract from other players' enjoyment.

Away-from-keyboard leeching has become problematic in Alliance Battles and Fort Aspenwood, ruining these battles for many players. The new /report command is meant to deter these behaviors, as getting reported repeatedly will slow or halt rewards for leechers. The goal is to create teams with players who are actively playing, and reward those players, instead of rewarding those who go AFK.

Gladiator Title Revisions

After reviewing and discussing the feedback received by players, we've decided to make the following change to the Gladiator Title:

• Players will now receive 1 Gladiator point for every 5 wins in an arena.
• Each additional 5 wins after the initial point is earned will give players an added bonus Gladiator point. Thus, players who win 10 consecutive matches will earn 2 Gladiator points, those who win 15 consecutive matches will earn 3 Gladiator points, and those who win 20 consecutive matches will earn 4 Gladiator points.
• The Gladiator point bonus is capped at a maximum of 4 bonus points. This means that players who continue to be victorious after 20 consecutive wins will continue to earn 4 Gladiator points each time they win 5 additional matches.

To compensate for the adjusted difficulty of the Gladiator title, players' current Gladiator points and Gladiator title ranks will be adjusted.

• All current Gladiator point totals will be multiplied by 6. Thus, if a player had rank 5 of the Gladiator title with 350 Gladiator points, that player will now be rank 6 with 2,100 Gladiator points.

The adjusted Gladiator title ranks are as follows:

Title rank	Points needed	Title name
1	100	Gladiator
2	200	Fierce Gladiator
3	400	Mighty Gladiator
4	672	Deadly Gladiator
5	1120	Terrifying Gladiator
6	1864	Conquering Gladiator
7	3100	Subjugating Gladiator
8	5184	Vanquishing Gladiator
9	8640	King's Gladiator
10	14400	Emperor's Gladiator
11	24000	Balthazar's Gladiator
12	40000	Legendary Gladiator

This change has several goals:

1. Reduce the requirement of a "perfect team" in Random Arenas.
2. Allow more regular progress toward the title.
3. Utilize more ranks of the title to provide separation between hardcore and causal arena players within the same title track.
4. Implement a title track that still applies to both Random Arenas and Team Arenas.

Compared to our earlier proposal, this new system is more balanced for both Random Arenas and Team Arenas. Also, it validates the title for the hardcore players while maintaining overall accessibility to our most popular PvP mode. Since points will be essentially easier for veteran players to earn than before, we wanted to compensate them for their earlier efforts with a 50% boost in their current points (for all those "almost!" nine-win streaks).

We hope this week's update will revitalize the random formats and remove the fear that a team will either abandon a player or just not participate at all. As always, we'll be monitoring these changes and apply updates as needed. --Andrew Patrick 19:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)