The Secret World Patch 1.2 : Lairs For All!

Funcom have posted a nice little teaser for patch 1.2 on their blog. They’ve given some insights into their aim to make end-game content a real drawcard for casual and hardcore TSW players alike.

First, the cited changes:

• Lairs are now for groups of 5 players. The new Looking for Groups (LFG) tool in patch 1.2 should make finding those groups of 5 a little easier than before.
• Each Lair’s distance from nearby Anima Wells has been evaluated. Lairs deemed too far have had a new Anima Well added. This should ease the punishment of wipes, and players can also use this Anima Well to “meet up” and get started with their Lair more quickly.
• Each Lair is launching with a new item mission in it, and we will expand to three missions total. Each of these missions will reward you with Ritual Fragments to help you summon the Playfield Bosses in the Lair.
• Lairs now provide loot progression; everything you need for your next stage of the Lair can be found at your current stage. To be specific:

• Standard Lair mobs are balanced for a full set of greens and signets. They have a chance of dropping BoP blues, as well as green signets and Playfield Boss ritual fragments.
• Playfield Bosses (3 in each Lair) are balanced for mostly greens, with a few blue talismans. They are guaranteed to drop a few Bind on Pick-up (BoP) blues, a blue signet, and Regional Boss ritual fragments.
• Regional Bosses (1 each in New England, Egypt, and Transylvania) are balanced for a full set of blue gear. They are guaranteed to drop a few BoP quality level 10 purples, a purple signet, and few ritual fragments to make these bosses easier to resummon.
• Regional Bosses also drop strange and powerful ritual fragments- even though the magic of this ritual doesn’t yet function, who knows when their latent power might activate again…

There’s also one crucial thing that won’t be changing: Nightmare mode will remain damn hard and will deliver better rewards than the easier modes.

For me, the LFG tool is a major win as I tend to play in periods of an hour or so only. More broadly, it’s great to see the ongoing planning for end-game content – I just need to spend some more time getting to a stage that I’m competent to tackle it. September’s going to be an even better month by the look of it now…

Over to you: do you like what you see for 1.2? Anything missing that you’d hoped for or a surprise you hadn’t expected?