Wildmender Alpha #2 Report [Part 1]

Greetings Wildmenders!

Thank you so much for joining us for the second Wildmender Alpha! Because of the milestone and convention schedule, this Alpha was a 2-week compacted version. Still, we’ve gotten a tremendous amount of invaluable feedback and bug reports once again. Without further ado, let’s jump into reviewing the data from this Alpha.

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Player Feedback

The rate of worked-on to total feedback is lower this time than the last Alpha, but do not be alarmed! We had a larger number of feedback reports that pointed to the same issues, and we will continue to work through more feedback going forward. It’s amazing that so many of you took the time to leave detailed feedback for us. We can’t thank you enough!

Play Time Stats

Because we had a compacted Alpha period, the number of participants this time was about 60% of the 1st Alpha. During this Alpha, we saw median play time nearly doubled again when compared to the first Alpha, while average play time increased by almost 2 hours from an already high mark. Two thirds of all participants spent over 2 hours in-game (a 22% increase from Alpha #1) while over half of the players played for over 5 hours (a 37% increase from Alpha #1). About 30% of the players played for over 20 hours (doubling the percentage from Alpha #1), and about 6% played over 50 hours.

Overall tutorial completion rate increased by 7% compared to the first Alpha to 91%. For new players who started the tutorial, 88% of them completed the entire tutorial. While a cause for the increase in completion rate may be attributed to returning players being already familiar with the game, it should also point to the improvements we’ve made based on player feedback from the last Alpha. After all, we had a close to 10 percentage increase in new player tutorial completion rate, and the new player completion percentage is now nearly on par with that of overall tutorial completion rate. After the last Alpha, we systematically looked at the exact points in the tutorial where players had issues with or were confused by, and we made improvements at each of those points. It does appear that the improvements we’ve made are having a positive impact. Of course we’ll be looking for more feedback from this Alpha so we can continue to improve.

Naia completion rate jumped again to 68%, a 20% increase from the first Alpha. 44% of all players completed the Salt Flats progression and overcame the challenge at the Stryge Temple. This was a 24% increase from the 1st Alpha. 40% of the players completed the Canyons progression and overcame the encounters at the Gleb Temple. This was a 26% increase compared to the 1st Alpha. 38% of all players completed the new Mountain zone and all of its progression. Of the players who entered the Mountains, 81% of them made it out with the Time Needle. Overall, 30% of all players completed all zones in the game.

95% of the players who started the Stryge or Gleb temple encounter were able to complete them successfully. With the Naia Temple engagement, the completion rate was even higher, at 100%. All 85 of the players who picked a fight with the wraiths at the Naia Temple were able to defeat them.

During the last Alpha, data and player feedback both told us that the Canyons was more challenging and frustrating than the Salt Flats. People reported a number of ease of use issues. The Canyons also had in-development art assets and progression indicators that made the journey tougher. We have since addressed a number of the issues players reported, and we are seeing Canyons completion percentage now close to being on par with that of the Salt Flats.

With the Salt Flats, players also reported ease of use issues such as the clarity of the shrinking circle at the outpost as well as the storm wall at the Stryge Temple. The ease of use improvements we’ve made to directly address the players’ feedback also seems to have made a positive impact in the Salt Flats.

In the Mountains, the new zone we introduced for this Alpha round, we are encouraged to see that 71% of the new players who started the zone were able to complete it. For returning players, the completion percentage stood at 88%. For the returning players, the Mountains were new content to them as well. Perhaps prior experience with the game had a bit of a carry over effect when exploring the new zone.

Once again, we are humbled by the level of investment and dedication from everyone. Players were able to submit a number of feedback, bug reports, and performance issues that were instrumental in helping us investigate, debug, and improve.

Difficulty Setting

With the new difficulty settings implemented ahead of this Alpha, we were intrigued to see how much the players utilized them. While close to 80% of the players played on Normal (the default settings), a few percentage of the players did switch to peaceful. 2 players decided to take on the ultimate challenge of playing in the Iron Child setting, with permadeath and enemy health regen no less. We salute the brave souls who made the attempts! 16% of the players made custom selections in difficult settings, taking full advantage of the plethora of options available to customize their gameplay experience. It’s great to see this many people making custom selections. In the future, we could try to make the players more aware of the difficulty settings, so they could take advantage more.

Survival Stats

Causes of Death:

What is a survival game without deaths, and what is a survival game in an arid world without death by hunger and dehydration? With the new Mountains zone, with its demand on food and hunger, and flipping the paradigm of night vs. day travel, we were not surprised to see hunger and dehydration as the leading cause of death again. With a bit of improvement in data tracking this time, we are able to segment death by wraiths and enemy outposts better. And unsurprisingly, death by enemies became the second leading cause of death. With some of the tuning and ease of use improvements we made in the Canyons, we are happy to see that poison is no longer having as severe an impact as the last Alpha round. In this Alpha, death was also generally not a deterrent from people to keep playing the game. Only 3.5% of the players quit their sessions as a result of death.

Total Resource Collected

Here are totals of all the resources people collected in the game during this Alpha. In terms of resources collected relative to the number of participants, they track very similarly to the last Alpha. This means that the resources collected per capita during this Alpha is once again impressive. In terms of distribution, it tracks similarly overall to the last Alpha as well. More Frozen Mana were collected this time, likely due to more combat engagements with more Wraiths as players journey further into the game. For as late game as the Honey is during the Alpha, we are glad to see it in play. The same goes with Tarnish Talisman, a new material we introduced that enabled the crafting of a new and powerful weapon.

Total Plant Seeds Collected

While grass seeds and amaranth are still at the top, the distribution of seeds collected during this Alpha continued to improve. Additionally, the collection and consumption of individual plant flower or seed correlated more closely with crafting and survival requirements. For example, Mistberries, a fruit of the Salt Flats, is now a top 5 most collected plant. This makes sense as Mistberries are needed to activate Salt Flats outpost encounters, and they are one of the best food source for the Salt Flats as well as the Mountains. We’re seeing an increase in Acorn collection and consumption as they are needed for not only sigil gates, but for zone revival in the Dunes as well. Glowstick also saw an increase despite being in the crevasses, as it is needed for the crafting of all lamp posts. As more players got deeper into the game, we are seeing the quantities of some fruits collected from the later zones increase, and the distribution even out a bit more.

Items Crafted

With the streamlining of the composting design, we are seeing composts being used more extensively. It’s great to compost! People are also producing large amounts of honey, which continues to be a pleasant surprise. It is exciting to see people finding a wider variety of ways to improve soil and plant growth conditions. Another pleasant surprise is to see how many Blessed Drops were crafted. People are using it to clear corrupted grounds and also revive springs. With the Canyons and Salt Flats being more treacherous to traverse, people are still crafting relatively higher quantities of healing items. With windcloak upgrades, shining feathers also got more use.

Popularity of Trinkets

Jade Ring’s utility greatly increased from the last Alpha, as Canyons zone was more fleshed out in this Alpha. The Wooden Bracelet also got a lot more use as demand for inventory increased along with the scope of the game.

Please head over to Part 2 for a closer look at our alpha survey results and closing statements!