Greetings all! This week I’d like to shed a little light on what we have been working on and a few of our current plans for the game’s future. We have spent a lot of time going over the feedback from the free weekend and with this new information are even more confident in the “game” plan (haha!). As the level designer, this blog will be mostly focused on that side of things, but don’t worry because more information on the rest of the game’s future will be coming out over the following weeks.
One thing we heard quite a bit was that each round of Conquest took too long. With the performance problems on some maps and just the nature of some being better/more popular than others (and the fact that we now have 5 maps) it makes sense to increase the pace of the game by shortening the time to victory. We are still working on the exact values but what this essentially means is that holding control points will be more valuable and map changes will happen quicker. In addition to this game pacing change we will be experimenting with the middle points on each map requiring 2+ players to capture.
In addition to pure game mode feedback we also gathered feedback about the maps themselves and with that I have a few changes coming soon. These changes include a reduction in the overall number of paths, reducing the size of some maps, and various performance tweaks (Especially on Slums). The reduction in total number of paths will be seen on almost every map and the main intention here is to focus combat more effectively, reduce the amount of non-visible flanking, and make it easier for newer players to navigate. The map size changes are fairly self explanatory but one of the main reasons is due to the nature of our small community. Smaller maps means less total players required to play it and will also hopefully encourage more teamwork rather than huge chaotic spell spamming battles. The ideal total player counts on each map will now be 10-14.
These are by far the least exciting of the changes we have coming over the next months. These future changes may include (but are not limited to) map specific events, new character models, improved bots, countless bug fixes, additions to the dev team, a tutorial, more sound effects, updated spell effects (Nature is up next), music, improved environment art, and many many more. A detailed Development Roadmap will be coming out once we decide on the best order for these changes. As always I’d like to thank our awesome community for all their help and for giving us the motivation to make this game great.
-Brent
