Hello Everybody
As always thank you for checking out the latest in the world of Renown.
This dev blog is intended to be a look into our current plans for next patch, and a short roadmap for our current activity. This one is a bit of a longer written number, focused on keeping you up to date with the team's thinking.
Internally, we’ve been working on development in 3 key areas for the upcoming patch. These are:
1. De-Jank
Polish, stability, clarity. This pillar focuses on making Renown feel better to play and improving QoL in game.
2. Content
New gameplay systems, world events, and features that expand the world of Renown.
3. Longevity
Extending wipe cycles, improving systems that support long-term play, and raising the skill ceiling without raising frustration.
Starting with De-Jank, let's chat over what we’ve been doing as a team.
De-Jank
Combat Feedback & Polish
Combat has undergone its largest quality pass since the early alpha. The entire team has been putting the majority of their time into this realm of development. This whole area is better shown and experienced than talked about. However, we want to save a lot of that until it's ready to be pushed in all its glory.
Though we will quickly cover the areas the combat is being improved and polished.
Combat Mechanics Changes and Overhaul
Hit Reactions (Animation, VFX, Screen Effects,Sounds)
New Parry Animations and Reactions
Combat Balance Changes
Overall Sound Improvements
Phasing and Desync Fixes/Improvements
Ping Filter Removal (Official Servers)
Once these changes are finalized we will be creating a more in depth developer update showcasing the changes.
Lighting & Visual Improvements
Kz has been hard at work on our new lighting overhaul. He’s been pushing a full lighting pass using more accurate Lumen settings and preparing the game for a more realistic day/night cycle. This is part graphical enhancement, part de-Jank: better clarity, better readability, and more atmosphere.
Optimization
This is also a major focus area that’s been ongoing since launch:
World Partition improvements
Better instancing
Cleanup of client-side performance drains
AI and pathing improvements
Fixes for falling-through-map spots
Building exploit fixes and general QoL updates
Theres not a ton to say for this area, but we hope you’ll feel it in game.
Bows and Ranged Combat
This area of the De-Jank is currently still in the planning phase; however, it’s been a major point of discussion in the team.
Effectively, the ranged element of the game is entirely off at the moment. Archery is not a fun or satisfying system currently. It can roughly be used as an advantage in base defence, but in almost all other scenarios, the bows are a disadvantage.
Likewise throwing Weapons are hard to predict and are not a flexible enough system to be used regularly in close to mid-range combat.
Its very likely the Ranged Overhaul will see its own Dev Blog. Our current thinking is we want the early game to feature more ranged gameplay, with it being reduced as players get into Full Plate at the end game.
We’re of course still looking at endgame ranged options, but this is more likely to be specialised endgame weapons like crossbows.
Content
While a ton of work has been going into de-janking and optimisation, we’re still pushing for new content as quick as we can.
Traps – A New Layer of Strategy
Traps are finally becoming a fully-fledged system in game.
Trap Types currently being explored are:
Bear Trap
Spike traps (1/4 and 1/2 foundation sizes)
Droppable cage with escape minigame
Possible Crossbow trap:
Single-shot baseline
Reloading / periodic-fire version
Advanced rotating “four-by-four” arrow volley concept
(Let us know in Discord, all your creative ideas about what types of traps you’d like to be added to Renown.)
Placement Rules
This area is likely going to need a lot of balancing to get traps feeling good, without being an overly frustrating experience. We’re actively balancing abuse prevention vs. creative use via:
Inside your Banner: traps persist and won’t trigger on allies. The maintenance system can be used to prevent the de-spawning of traps in the base and banner range.
Outside your Banner: Traps can be placed in limited numbers and auto-expire after a given time to prevent spam and griefing of enemy bases.
Arming / Disarming UX
In an aim to prevent mid-fight cheese, traps will use:
5-second hold-to-interact arming or disarming (time will vary with balance)
Currently uses the existing trapped-progress bar UI
Will be changed over to a more polished UI element in time.
Re-Arm Kits
Each trap has its own internal inventory. You can deposit craftable Re-Arm Kits, which are consumed with each activation. This ensures traps are powerful but finite. This also allows players to create a level of soft offline defence, without traps becoming a default place everywhere item.
Enemy Counterplay Item
Metal Sheet: This is a one-use, higher-cost item that allows one safe pass over spikes or other base-related traps.
Traps are a major part of the Content pillar because they aren’t just “more stuff”. They can act as a soft offline defence layer, a new PvP mind game, and a big marketing showcase feature.
Implementation of the Ferryman:
The Ferryman is effectively complete and ready to deploy, hopefully in our next patch.
This was explained in better detail in a previous dev blog. To be short, it’s a transport method to help reduce the “Walking Sim” nature of the game and allow for greater player interaction over wider areas of the game map.
The Ferrymen system will likely see changes after horses and other transport options are in, but in the meantime, this acts as a quasi-transportation method.
New Events and POI Changes:
We’ve also got several new events in the works.
Sewer System Event:
The first of these is the new Sewer System. KZ has been hard to work, and the programming team has just been able to implement the script for them. Ultimately, we’re looking to add as many new elements to the map as possible while continuing to work on the other key areas of development.
Underground Mine System Event:
KZ mentioned that the new event after this will be the Mines system we’ve had on the back burner for months. This event would see players exploring abandoned mine shafts and other deep places in the world to find Gems and Glory.
We’ll likely see the Mines System coming in a subsequent patch.
Trebuchet Implementation:
We’re very excited that the Trebuchet is ready for this upcoming patch. This will act as our new endgame raiding item, with the catapult being moved closer to the mid-game. This has been the brainchild of Phanzor in recent weeks, and he’s also already programmed a new “Dummy/Tracer Ammo” for the Catapult and Trebuchet. This will allow players to create low-cost ammo, which can be used to accurately get on target, without wasting precious raiding resources.
A ton of work has gone into both the flying Bolder effect, as well as the impact felt in base when under attack via Catapult or Trebuchet. This one is better experienced in-game, but we think folks will be happy with the change.
NPC Life:
Another area we’re currently looking at is giving the NPC’s more life and expression. This includes pathing changes, idle and roleplay animations to make towns feel alive. We’ve also been experimenting with the AI speaking in Old English or Old Norse, but this is still experimental. Currently, the NPC changes will be coming in a later patch.
This is all leading up to greater NPC interaction systems, with the possibility of trading and reputation with specific towns, Player Territory Control and various other PvP-RP elements. This section could also be its own dev blog and will likely be bundled with the NPC Base Worker system we’ve had planned for years.
While the launch of Renown was a bit bumpy, we cannot accurately express how excited we are to be in a position to start adding new content again while being able to fix up the Jank.
The final area to cover in this week's blog is:
Longevity
Extending Wipe Cycles
This is a key area we’ll put our hands up and say, we made a mistake regarding our initial implementation. This was dependent on our Save System rework, but was also something we got wrong in our initial assumptions on 1 week vs longer wipes.
Once safe, we aim to push wipe cycles past a single week. Recent progress already shows really good stability gains. We’re fairly confident on 2-week wipes now, while 3 weeks should, in theory, also function. We of course need to run populated servers for this duration to really tell, however.
We can say, allowing for longer wipes is a prime goal of the team, based on community feedback. The end goal of this would be to have servers that rarely, if ever, wipe, allowing players to really get invested in a server.
We’re hoping the expansion to 2 weeks, then 3 helps with this feeling in the short run.
Map Redesign & Loot Flow
A long-term map pass will restructure POIs and loot progression tiers to create a more coherent mid and end-game experience.
Given that the entire map is effectively made by KZ, we’ve never had a ton of spare resources or time to effectively subdivide and “Make Fun” the various areas of the map. For example, you can see we’ve already split the map into coloured territories. This is partly to play into a future player map mechanics, but it was also so we can split the map into High Tier and Low Tier areas.
We’re currently looking at adding locked zones and keys to the POIs and some basic puzzles to add a bit more interactivity in POIs
We’d also like to introduce newer “Safe Zones” around the map, for player and NPC traders, and to give newer players a place to practice dualing without the pressure of gear fear.
Optimisation for Long-Term Play
Server load, client performance, AI overhead, and network responsiveness all contribute to how long a wipe can run smoothly. These are all under active work as part of the Longevity pillar. Ultimately, there’s not a ton I can say her,e but we hope you’ll feel it after the next patch.
