Elliot Cannon, Creative Director
This week’s theme: more Abyss Lord, more Hero Deck, and more Strategy Revamp. Did hardcore and detailed battle testing on Abyss Lord over the last five days and got that out. He’s getting close. Can’t wait to jump on him again after the team has had a chance to nail the refinements to his visual effects, sound, and feedback. Active defending is fun. You can always tell when a Hero is starting to click because you start pulling off little tricks and combos in a risky way, so when you get away with it, it’s fun. I love the synergy between the Knight of the Abyss PBAOE and the Abyss Stones.
Collins and Brett’s strategy revamp is gaining momentum with internal playtesting. What they’re doing really brings strategy back to tower choice, placement, and hero loadout. Playing it today with Jason and Phil made DD2 feel like a new game all over again, with a neat blend between tactical puzzle solving and responding to lanes overrun with baddies. It’s much more interesting mixing thinking and plotting with mass destruction!
Daniel Haddad, Design Director (@Blacksmith)
With each passing day we get closer and closer to the Abyss Lord’s release. My primary focus is making sure the Abyss Lord is as fun and entertaining as possible before you all get your hands on him… her… erm… Not entirely sure what the Abyss Lord is as a matter of fact. At the same time I’m working with a handful of people on our upcoming heroes beyond the Abyss Lord and helping out with all the other initiatives we’re working on from shared experience for the hero deck and hotswapping.
We had our Remote QA and Remote Playtesting Group teams play the Abyss Lord this week and we are just now looking through their feedback and making some changes based on what they and people internally are saying. I’ll be having a one-on-one call with RQA later this week to talk to them directly about the Abyss Lord.
Jason Yu, Associate Producer (@urfyness)
Thank you all for your interest and participation in the Abyss Lord playtests. There were limited spots available, and it filled up way faster than we thought. For those that made it into the playtest, please fill out the survey and share your thoughts. While we may not respond to every piece of feedback, we definitely spend the time and read through them. There is another update to the playtest build later this week so keep an ear out for that one. Also wanted to give a quick shout-out to two of our fans Cord McLennan and Grier Eutychus who helped us test an updated Abyss Lord build.
As some of you may have heard on the stream, we decided to go with the shared hero experience across the Hero Deck and combat hotswapping rather than moving forward with implementing account leveling. Thanks to Javier’s hard work on the account leveling prototype, we were able to test out the changes early. Although we shelved the prototype, we really loved being able to try out some of the things we’ve been wanting to do for a while.
The shared experience across the Hero Deck and combat hotswapping are currently being implemented, and we will be playtesting these changes internally this week. To give a sneak peak at the test we’re running this week on the hero deck, the XP earned is awarded to the other heroes in your deck as well as your active hero. That means, if you got 100 experience at the end of a wave for your active hero, the other 3 heroes in your deck will also get 100xp each. As for combat hotswapping, we’re testing out things such as ability cooldowns ticking down when the heroes are swapped out, having a global cooldown for hotswapping, and mana not regening while the heroes aren’t active. I make no promises that we’ll keep these changes, but I wanted to share a bit more details of the really cool happenings here in the studio.
Tim Shannon, PS4 & Live Producer (@TimmyTrashTier)
In live land, we think we found one reason why people randomly stop being able to play the game after certain patches, so we’re looking into reproducing and resolving that. This week’s hotfix should also help out with ping spam and reduce the amount of bot farming going on in Onslaught matches.
In PS4 world, we’re cranking on UIs for the Carnival and trying to get everything fixed up. It’s slow but steady going because we’re trying to sort out some of the quirks in the game as we go along.
Steven Collins, Lead Level Designer (@Esorath)
Watching and listening to all the feedback about the strategy revamp. We are just as excited as you guys to get some more strategic options in the game. With the removal of resistances, we can move forward with some more interesting tower / enemy relationships. Hoping to get a sneak peak next week into some of the more specifics.
James Reid, Software Programmer (@Driscan)
Now that the Hero Deck UI flow has been hammered out, I’ve been heads down cranking these UIs out. So far, things are moving along nicely. Got a couple of screenshots to share with you. Most of the big pieces are finished, and now it’s slotting everything into place and iterating on look and feel.
Chris Flores, QA Lead (@likethatwhenigothere)
Been working on finishing up test plans for the current milestoness for PC and PS4 as well as preparation for the upcoming weekly patch. I can’t hold all these builds.
On the testing side, we’re starting to get some fixes in for the Abyss Lord so hopefully that’ll open up more to test with him and get him a bit more functional. We’re in full swing with the shared XP feature and eagerly awaiting the implementation of the new UIs.
Jesus Diaz, World Builder (@N3oDoc)
We are already done with our first Dungeon type level! For those who didn't notice looking at previous pics of the level (or missed the image at the top of the blog), it's a remake of DD1 Foundries and Forges level but with a DD2 look!
Now we are doing some visual tests before we start working on the next level.
Daniel Diaz, World Builder (@DanielKaMi)
Working on a new visual test level. For this test I'm building some modular assets: arches, walls, columns and stairs to test some ideas. An old decrepit castle is awaiting you!
Dani Moore, Remote QA Manager (@Dani)
I’ve spent the past week in the testing trenches with some of the finest and generous testers the community has to offer, and I want to thank them for all the help and support they have given so far and the support they will give until we finish playtesting.
Apologies to any later signups. We’ve hit our target numbers and our hands are full. We’ve created a preference list for late signups that didn’t make the cut-off point, and if we expand to include more testers we will hit up those of you that have pitched an email offering to help.
I’ve always been proud of the community we’re lucky to have, and yet again I am impressed by your dedication and support. The Abyss Lord is gonna rock.