State of the Game: Producer's Letter April 2016

[Justg]

Howdy folks!

We’ve had some great discussions with you over the last couple of weeks about the state of the game, and I’m here to tell you about some of our conclusions and efforts that will be arising as a result. Special thanks to Carapace and STS-Vroom for helping me wrap my head around all of this.

Gear Progression:

The #1 request players have is more power. The challenge here is we need to progress power in a measured and predictable fashion. The main times we can release more powerful gear is around level cap raises. In the past we have released some extremely powerful items (Arcane Ring, Planar Pendent) as well as bumped items up in power without raising the level cap (Glintstone items over Halloween and Winter, for example). The problem here is that the best items in the game started to exceed a normal power curve. Our recent round of items have attempted to correct this and recover some headroom. This is why the latest Mythic and Arcane items have not felt as powerful. We feel that the curve has been restored to normality and we can start releasing more powerful items as the level cap raises again. You’ll start to see this with the release of Level 52-56 items coming up very soon.

Loot Distribution:

We’d like to inject a lot more loot into the system, and have it be available via a wide array of mechanisms, including farming, crafting, and chests. Starting tomorrow we’ll put a set in the game that can be gained through a combination of crafting, boss drops, and chests. Future loot will also be obtainable via a variety of means.

Better Drops from Bosses:

We’re making some changes to the loot tables that will allow bosses to drop Mythics and Arcanes. Previously they would only drop chests that may or may not contain these items. The rate of drop will be very low, but expect to see bosses dropping better items in the near future.

Original and Better Looking Stuff:

A large request is for less recolors, so we’re bringing back some of the old art team to help crank out more new and unique items for you. Expect to see this starting as soon as our next push later this week.

Inventory Management:

As the game has aged, the inventory system has been strained with more and more items. Stacking has been discussed many times, unfortunately it is a rather large effort due to the way we have architected the database. A shorter-term solution is on the way though. We are working on a mass-liquidate function, which will sell all of a specific class and rarity of items (example, all common necklaces). Expect to see this very soon.

Game Balance:

PvP: This is such a hot button with the community, and extremely difficult to objectively look at, but we want to take some steps here as well. You are probably aware that we nerf PvE damage in PvP. In typical Cinco-loco style, my partner wants to conduct an experiment this weekend where all class-specific PvP nerfs are removed. This weekend will be a free-for-all, we look forward to seeing how it shakes out!

PvE: This is a little more quantifiable, and we’ll be taking a bit of time to run analytics on kills, deaths, , damage, mitigated and dealt, etc.

We’re also planning on making some changes that make it easier for Warriors to hold aggro. More on this as it develops.

Party System:

We’re making some loot changes that will increase gold and pot drops for full parties. More as this develops.

Scaling Elites:

We’re considering this. Our challenge is that we need to populate them with items that make it worthwhile. One of the systems we are talking about is a Boss Bounty system, that will randomly roll up a series of bosses to kill, with appropriate rewards. More on this as it develops.

Leaderboards:

We’re examining which of these work and which do not. We may remove some of them and attempt to better police the ones that tend to have controversial participants. More on this as it develops.

New Skills:

We’re going to table this for now until we get a better handle on Game Balance.

Bottom line is that we are committed to reinvigorating this game. Expect to see many things happening very quickly, starting with later this week. We really appreciate the open dialog we have with you and look forward to your thoughts on these things, as well as other things you would like to see.

Best,

- g