On July 10th capsuleers will be greeted with the July 2018 Release 1.0 patch, and with it an interesting collection of changes. You can read the full Patch Notes here: JULY 2018 RELEASE 1.0, but we are going to cover the Top 5 changes.
#5 – Duel Wager System Removed
Players will no longer have the option to wager over the outcome of their duel. While I have never used this feature, I do wonder why CCP would remove it. Some have hinted this is to allow the game to be friendlier to new players, as the forums have a fair number of pilots claiming to be witness to, or victims of, a wager laced duel from a seasoned pilot. I am not a great fan of removing content, but it could be a temporary removal prior to a larger change, and making the early game more approachable to new bodies is not a bad thing in the long run.
#4 – Ship Balance
While the balance changes were very small and focused mostly on Abyssal Deadspace issues, which should have kept this in the Honorable Mentions section, the idea that CCP is monitoring for, and taking player feedback, is great! The Retribution takes a nerf to its Max Velocity, reducing it to 300 from 328 m/s (base speed). The Claw sees a shift from Small Projectile Turret Damage to Rate-of-Fire. The largest buff going to the Zealot, now able to field a full complement of light drones (25 Mbit/sec, small typo from CCP) along with 50m3 of Drone Bay. The Zealot has seen some serious use in Abyssal Deadspace and the ability to add drone based DPS to clear some of the final rooms, these changes even tempt me into trying one.
#3 – Unanchored Structure Theft
After the patch players looking to scoop an unanchored structure not belonging to their corp will need to set their safety to a minimum of “yellow”, but this only applies to High and Low Security space. Should they succeed in scooping, they will be flagged as suspect. As a veteran POS smasher, I would hope that war declarations are taken into account, if not it adds another level of difficulty to removing the past, hint hint CCP. As of this post, the author has not tested if a war dec with the structure owner prevents the suspect flag from being applied.
#2 – Faction Starbase Module Blueprint Drops Removed
Exploration sites will no longer drop faction starbase module blueprints. If you are still hungry for these rapidly out of date blueprints (copies mind you) they are still out there until Tuesday. Losing an item from exploration sites’ loot table hopefully will be offset by the chance to get more relevant items. Upwell structures are designed to eventually replace starbase structures commonly known as a POS.
#1 – Missile Visual Performance Improvements
This may seem like a flop for the top spot in the patch notes due to a lack of additional content, but it is actually a great bonus to playability and usability for missiles. Large fleet engagements will benefit the most, but even players at the low-end of the required specs should see this change as a beneficial one, maybe even allowing them to use missiles and not run at sub 30 FPS.
Honorable Mentions:
Here are some additional good changes but not Top 5 worthy. The new “Resource Harvesting, Core”, and name changes to the “Fighters” certificates as it signals CCP attention to smaller game information. The Bounty Office icon is being removed from the station services panel, but can still be found in the Neocom. Should a job in an Upwell structure be paused or cancelled due to a service module being offlined or removed the installer will be sent a notification.
Did you enjoy this Top 5 style of article, or would it have been better under a different design? Let us know your thoughts and if you feel I undervalued a change, tell me about it. You can contact me on discord Navyman#2369.
