State of the Game #1 May 19th 2023
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Hello Warriors
It has been 3 months since we have launched our game into Early Access and we wanted to give you guys an update on where we are at and the plans for the next several months. Firstly, we want to say thank you to everyone who has submitted bug reports and feature requests since our launch. We have addressed over 100 tickets that have been submitted by you guys. Your feedback and support has not only helped us fix major bugs but also shape the future of our game, so once again thank you!
For those that don't know we are a two man team and this is our first official game release. During this time we have learned a lot as game developers. One of the key take-aways we have is pacing. When we launched our game, we were initially trying to commit to a patch cadence of 1 minor patch every 2 weeks and a major patch on the 13th of every month. Our original mindset around this was trying to commit to a consistent patch schedule so that our community could expect content updates from us, but also to make sure we are constantly pushing ourselves to improve on the game.
This worked for our first few major patches, but as we approached our third major patch we were not able to address every bug in the patch by the 13th of the month. This caused us delaying the patch a week, but even with the delay the patch still had bugs. This previous mentality of 1 major patch a month made us feel pressured to release the patch unfinished. While this wasn't the end of the world, it left a sour taste in our mouths as new game devs. This is something we are wanting to avoid going forward.
As we approached the 13th of May we realized there was no chance we could release a patch this month. For those that don't know we aren't full time gave developers quite yet. Our lead programmer Darbs has been working 60 hours a week at his full time job as his department has been slammed with turnover and extra work, and constantly on call now. This combined with the fact that we were already behind from the last patch we have decided we are not going to be able to release Major Patch #4 this month. We are scrapping the major patch on the 13th of the month schedule. While we want to make sure we are committed to giving you guys consistent content updates, we want to make sure they are up to quality as well.
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What does this mean for Major Patch #4?
While we don't have an exact plan ironed out quite yet for the summer months I do want to let everyone know we are working on a road map to give you guys a general idea of what content to expect. We are hard at work on the upcoming features and changes to patch #4. We are super excited about this next patch! Here are a few things to expect:
Early Game Overhaul - We are completely overhauling the early game unlock system. The gold system has been scrapped and you unlock units by clearing the base maps now. By the time you clear map 6 on +0 you will have unlocked the full 50 unit roster. Warriors, Units, and Upgrades are all unlocked through achievements or talents now. Our main reason for this change is that we wanted to streamline the early game unit unlocking process. We didn't want people spending too much time on base maps and wanted people moving on quickly to difficulty scaling clears. With the introduction of the talent system, we felt the gold system had little place in our game as it stands currently.
Talents - Earn a talent point after you clear a map on any difficulty for the first time. Talents can then be placed into Utility, Offense, or Defense talent trees. Rerolls, Towers, and Nuke are all being moved to talents. Talents can be anything from simple damage upgrades to adding cool features like a moat that slows enemy units as they approach your castle.
Artifact Overhaul - We have noticed our community enjoys playing with fun unit compositions and stacking factions. Artifacts are getting an overhaul so that they are less generic and can push to you play interesting gameplay styles. We are removing the artifacts that are straight generic buffs to all units (Damage increase, speed increase, and health increase) and adding artifacts that target specific unit types. Examples would be 100% HP increase to melee units or 50% damage increase to a specific faction.
Major patch 4 will also feature a rework to the Elf and Dwarf warriors, +5 maps, a few other quality of life changes and bug fixes. As far as the release date for this patch, we don't have an exact date yet but our plan is to release the patch before the end of June. We would like to release it during the first half of June, but do not want to make any promises to that quite yet.
We understand that transparency is key with a developer and its community. We apologize once again about the delay. We are both incredibly passionate about this project and the feedback and reviews you give inspire us to work harder. Keep your eyes out for in the coming weeks we will have more details on our next major patch!