Not long ago, but it does feel it, we asked for your questions about TADO, its design, where it is going… and we obviously underestimated how many we’d get!
Well we’ve gone through all of them, where there were similar themes or answers we’ve tried to group them and rewritten the question to encompass the whole theme rather than just the original. So if you see something that looks like your question, it probably is, even if its worded a little differently to cover another answer at the same time.
We’ve tried to answer all the ones which aren’t just "will this be fixed type questions?".
Hope you all enjoy and thanks for all your questions.
We have had lots of questions around how the various different weapons work. The below outlines our current philosophy around weapons and the differences between the different weapons we have.
All the weapon types should add up to the same capabilities, some weapons do this by having a higher critical rate e.g daggers and some have more consistent hits e.g. maces. There are also weapons that favour channelling values which may be more beneficial for players who use magic.
This isn’t currently well represented across all weapons, but is the position we will get too. All weapons should broadly be as good as each other, but will go different routes to get their (including different skills)
There are also some unique / odd items which bend the rules and can create slightly different paths to build a character around.
Will you introduce full controller support soon?
You can currently play the game on a controller and can rebind most keys. Better controller support, particularly around the UI will be implemented in the future. We want to be able to tag the game as having partial controller support, which pretty much means you should be able to plug in a controller and play the game almost completely from just the controller with only odd interruptions for things such as menus.
We have had a few updates since launch targeted at removing blocking issues that prevent non-querty keyboards and some controllers being unable to bind all their keys.
At the moment, this is pretty doable, but we require the player to bind all their controls which doesn’t feel like a great way to jump in.
How does the current Experience curve for crafting/gathering currently compare to how you envision it in the future? Is it something you want to take hours and hours of grinding or something easily accessible so long as you continually engage with it.
We don’t want to make crafting overly inaccessible; the current design is broadly the fundamentals for creation of an item which you would then enhance further.
That said, the current curve of experience gain in all crafting skills will be adjusted as the higher level unlocks. We don’t want crafted gear to fall behind its usefulness to a new player who finds themselves level through many tiers throughout the main story quest.
We will also have the ability to dismantle items in game soon, which will let you get more out of your resources when you craft something you're not particularly interested in keeping, along with a variety of Cargo Packs you could make with surplus gear to deliver for experience and trade related gear.
What do you picture the End-Game loop of the game entailing?
There are lots of activities that will be available to players to continue to progress at ‘end game’. Essentially there are a variety of ways to continue to progress your character and these loops will be something that allows players to have many different activities to engage int. Hunting, crafting, cargo pack deliveries, world events, treasure hunting, PVP battlegrounds, fishing and more. You will be able to continue these long after you have completed the story.
Character power progression moves more towards acquisition of items and wealth to empower your items and continue to level them. How you acquire that wealth and resources is aimed to be more a choice for you.
How do you see equipment in the future? Will armours stay with their current stats or will we see them start getting other stats? If we do start seeing other stats how complicated do you think things will get? Simpler like most MMOs or more complex like PoE/diablo style games do? There are some things like Skull Cracker that give a bunch of skill stats, but most equipment right now is pretty bare so not sure what to expect, there are also different damage types but nothing interacts with them yet. Will there be the ability to 'socket' any gems into armour / weapons?
Our general philosophy around armour types is heavy armour provides more health, medium more attack speed and stamina, and light armour more mana - there are/will be exceptions around things like light plate or armours that use more than one armour stat.
We intended the game to launch into EA with our prefix / suffix system generating items not dissimilar to what you might see in an ARPG, this didn’t happen, but it will be live very soon.
Our enhancement system also allows you to force the acquisition of a prefix or suffix onto an item using rarer resources along with just boosting the base level of the item. The idea being you can seek out the ‘best’ stats for what you’re trying to build, or you can seek to work them into you items as you go.
Things like skull crackers are interesting, uncommon drops, there will be lots of stuff like this, but won’t necessarily be on the core power curve /expected path. We also have the concept of items which fundamentally change the behaviour of particular skills which people may seek to build their character around.
We’d like to add more interesting things like skill-gems that modify other skill gems giving you more ways to customise your character or focus on improving particular linchpin skills in the future.
We have received feedback around overcrowding and resource competition, along with questions around instancing.
We are not intending on having private zones, there may be some exceptions such as battlegrounds and key story areas and possibly housing depending on where we go with that (not decided), but the world is meant as shared space and we don’t want everyone hidden away in their own instances.
There have been issues around overcrowding and we’re looking at better ways of dealing with this including adjusting how we decide kill rewards/tagging, how we share experience between party members etc. As we get more content out – particularly when we hit the first major content patch with the opening of the Southern continent there should be a lot more space for people to chill in.
However, if this becomes a problem in the long run we would more likely add channels rather than private instances.
How will the unlimited levelling not invalidate content?
We had a few questions in this area, people concerned that by having infinite access to power, you can explode anything at some point.
Some of this is based on seeing people at level 200 with tier 2 gear (who should be much higher gear really if it were available!) where most of their power is coming from being over-levelled, and will naturally dissipate as the later game content starts to become available.
But that said, it is true that in theory, being able to level infinitely and scale your damage infinitely would in theory mean, someone who grinds for millions of years may be able to one-shot the hardest creature in the game. This isn’t our intent or design, and the reality is you will hit a soft cap where the time investment to increase your damage by 1% is just too long / not comparable to improving your equipment.
There will be group content, that having everyone be 100 levels higher for will help, but won’t be as different as it might feel currently.
Will there be an unarmed skill added at some point? the classic monk style gameplay is appealing to a lot of players.
We cut two stat lines from our EA launch, one was Muscianship, the other was Spirit – which provided fist weapon and Monk like Ki energy skills. We do intend for both of these to arrive at some point.
Is the goal to have each zone in a specific level range (Genmire for low levels in its entirety), or to have a zone have multiple levels of content (Mansion might be for 'high' levels, as well as Gazers).
We don’t want to make any of the world unusable and will be providing all level content throughout the world. That said, we also don’t want to make low level people feel crowded by higher levels.
All main areas will have content and reason for high level players to go there though.
What’s the plan for zone sizes in the future? Are we going to get more of the great sea and its tiny islands or more sizeable areas like the starting island?
We have two other Genmire sized continents in the pipeline which, with the Great Sea also finished, will take us to our Version 1 launch position content. Beyond that, we have a fourth continent scoped and will be continuing to add smaller islands to the Great Sea (or other Great Seas).
With the giant spiders being where they are does that indicate you guys intend to put things in hard to reach spots for explorers/climbers to hunt for?
We are all for creating reasons to explore the game, something we have already opened players to with the advent of the Kami Shrines, hidden skill gems and item discoveries. Things like finding the giant spiders weren’t necessarily something we were expecting, but we do try and hide things away for people to seek out.
Is TADO a Theme park or a Sandbox MMO?
We think TADO is closer to the theme park model than the sandbox model of games, but more like the earlier theme parks. That said, we are highly influenced by sandbox games and are trying to bring a lot of the feel of adventure and free form gameplay into a more structured model, trying to avoid some of the pitfalls of player experience in 'you make your own fun' / what am I supposed to be doing? that sandboxes can encounter.
I don’t think you can really put games in neat little boxes quite like this, so we’re trying to draw as much of the fun as we can and make the most of it.
Do you intend to have group boss fights?
We intend to provide small and large group fight design bosses, all of which are optional/outside the main quest chain. Some will be at the end of dungeons, and some of will be world events.
We have a few very placeholder bosses and mechanics you can find in game now, and you can probably see where we’re looking to go with it. When we get a chance to spend some time on them, they will provide interesting encounters for groups and potentially raids alike.
Could we have an interactive map, where we can add our own custom marker's / notes?
We will include in game world maps in the future, adding notes to it isn’t planned for now. We’ve been enjoying the maps people have made so far.
When will mounts be added to the game, I had one in the demo was pretty cool
Horses should be returning very soon, there’s a few issues we still need to resolve before giving them to the masses. You’ll get them a little later than they were in the demo though!
Other mounts will follow.
With regards to mounts, once they become available - is there any view on whether we will be able to tame creatures in the future as rideable mounts / as well as companion - like summoned wolf/skelli - maybe based on a skill to develop, like with the crafting??
We will add more animal summons for the Druid stat, along with a variety of non-stat restricted mounts (although we may do some stat restricted ones to!). We don’t intend for Combat Summons to be earnt outside of the skill gem system, but there will be more ways to get some then just getting getting lucky killing a wolf.
Will there be a 'player economy' / trading hub?
We are keeping the idea of an auction house under review, it’s more of a design decision than a technical constraint. We would be interested in the communities' thoughts on this as it has both a positive and negative social interaction impact.
Is there likely to be scope for player housing / building in the future?
This is something we would love to introduce and are exploring options. We are also considering the potential of houseboats. Its not planned we will do this as part of version one though.
Are you considering an 'arena' aspect, for any gladiatorial style events, rewards and for PvP - maybe with restriction of level by a range?
At present we have a PVP battleground where players can go in to try it out. We are likely to expand the current battleground system to provide more reasons to try it and make the experience more interesting including some rewards/experience points. We will likely add duels too for people who want to quick scuffle.
What's the team’s stance on scripting/bots, and mods (ex. UI)?
Like any game, we aren’t happy with players using programs/tools to make autoplay or unattended play viable. At the moment we are being relatively light touch and only disrupting botting with mechanics such as the 'bot cage' but we won’t hesitate to ban repeat offenders. We’re also gradually smoothing out some of the design elements which particularly favour/encourage these play styles.
We had a few questions around the intent when it comes to shields, the below outlines our philosophy around it.
Broadly the premise is that you should be as effective as someone with two weapons or a great weapon. Shields are both offensive and defensive, smaller shields for are more offensive and larger more defensive.
Shield skills also generate high threat and have access to 'taunt' skills.
You shouldn't feel weak when soloing with a shield.
How much in the way of passive skills that are tied to the different skill groups can we expect to see? I've seen a couple passives but they've all been general use
You can expect to see passive skill gems that do more interesting things other than just bonus stats.
Are there plans to do a reset in the long term?
We don’t intend to wipe people’s characters before launch. We may reset people’s stat points and force them to redistribute them at various points in EA if significant changes to levelling occurs; like for example levelling gives your 5 points rather than 3 - but that's not the plan.
Can we get stat resets please?
There has been lots of discussions around stat resetting, so we'd like to share our plans for this.
Resetting your stats in not a core part of the game design and it would be equivalent to changing your class in another game, not swapping talents. That said, we have heard people’s concerns about players feeling they have wasted points and feel bad they can’t ever do anything about those. To combat this we will be providing mechanisms to allow the continuous gaining of unlearning points as you level which means in the long run you could completely remove any unwanted points, but it will take time.
This isn’t a fixed design, and we currently don’t have an implementation strategy but we’re looking at something like you gaining several unlearning points every 10 levels or so, along with the shrine points which will continue to grow as we open more areas.
In the longer longer run... when your experience level has got to the point where you feel levelling takes forever, we will look at awarding unlearning points between levels as well, so you will be able to continue to grind/adjust your build even when you're well past the point that levelling is a common thing.
So 'fixing' / modifying builds, sure, reallocating all your stats on demand, not so much.
Is there a patreon or somewhere where people could help support the game?
The best thing you can do to support us is get your friends playing. Every new player and every new review is more exposure for us and a chance to continue to grow.
We will also be opening the supporters shop soon, that will have a variety of cosmetics which will be another way you can continue to support the game. We will get a post out on that soon as we start livening it up.
We have also been discussing potentially some sort of premium status or battle-pass style system, although we haven’t come to a design which that feels both useful to the player but also not generally feel wrong / unfun to others.
If you got this far, thanks for reading and we'll see you in game!
Team TADO