Hey everyone, Volibar here with our first major update coming soon, and a short recap of the past few days.
tl;dr - despite our hard work, struggles, and love we've put into this project, version one of the demo didn't hit the mark. We're here today with a big update that the team's been working super hard on while listening to all of your feedback.
We're committed to improving the game one step at a time, and we hope you'll keep giving us your valuable time and feedback along the way.
Here's what you can expect in the next update, along with our thoughts on some of the biggest talking points in the community.
Introducing Core Powers Beta
OVERVIEW
As Lotus leads the Luum Sentinels across Lumerea to retrieve shattered pieces of the ancient Evercore, its power grows and grants our Heroes with new enhancements.
As this system is just coming online, Skye and Cloud-EE have enabled the Sentinels to access this power for early Battle Testing!
Core Powers are permanent and will transfer to whichever hero you select in Hero Mode or Co-Op.
CORE KEYS & GEMS
Collect these rewards by completing the challenges behind the teleporters. Keys are used to unlock Power slots, while Gems are used to purchase the actual power. You can earn both in Co-Op or Hero Mode.
MAJOR GAME CHANGES
NOTE: With such major changes to player power coming into the game, we needed to make changes across the board. Early game should be harder now, so be careful out there!
The world of Lumerea is more dangerous! Players and Enemies generally are more deadly now, so use those Core Powers to grow in strength and survive!
Enemy Health has not been modified for Hero Mode, but has been increased across the board in Co-Op, to account for a lot of increased team damage.
Please let us know what you think as we continue to iterate and improve the system!
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Players can now play Hero Mode and Co-Op without having to exit the game.
NOTE: this was caused by an underlying issue that would potentially ruin Co-Op games if you had played a certain type of game prior to entering the queue.
Fixed a wide range of issues with Keyboard Mouse Beta Controls, including not being able to Escape menus all the time, repeated VO lines playing, or activatable shards triggering reliably.
We're continuing to crush bugs as fast as possible, and will keep at it as long as it takes!
Heroes
NOTE: All heroes will generally grow in power, with a bit more differentiation between them. As you progress through the game, we want each hero to have their own identity, and these changes push a bit more in that direction.
FYN:
NOTE: Fyn overall wasn't living up to his big persona, and so has been given a range of changes to make him better at his core role while adding gameplay. We've removed some of his passive Overshield and instead given him ways with two of his abilities to earn temporary Overshield in combat.
LOTUS:
NOTE: We're fairly happy with Lotus in the game at the moment, but want to make her a little more active, and also increase her healing power with the introduction of Core Powers.
CYNDER:
NOTE: We really want Cynder to be the glass cannon of the trio, so we've slightly reduced his starting health, which should make it even more dangerous as enemies now generally do more damage. But we've also increased his damage output directly and through additional improvements to ability power via rewards.
Rewards
NOTE: Rewards in general have been buffed, or in some cases adjusted to be more engaging. We've also done a pass on visual and audio feedback on some shards, and will continue this effort.
Enemies
NOTE: Some enemies were a bit too easy to disrupt, so they've become tougher and late game monsters will be immune to certain affects, making sure you have to stay on your toes when facing them!
Demo Issues Discussion
Here are some of the issues we've heard your feedback loudest on, and are taking immediate steps to start to address!
Keyboard + Mouse Controls
While the Keyboard and Mouse controls are in beta still, we know people found a lot of issues, and we're working hard to resolve all of them as quickly as possible. This patch has a lot of fixes in it, but we're still working on more, along with taking a longer look at how we can improve the responsiveness and feel.
Gameplay Pacing + More Variety
One of the biggest points of feedback we've heard is around game pacing, specifically collecting Luum to fuel your abilities. This mechanic wasn't there to make you have a chore, but to allow higher skill players to get into a flow through the game by killing enemies and keeping going. But we've heard your feedback and are making some immediate changes! All heroes will now have a base Luum recharge!, This should keep you in the action more, but still allow players who can take down enemies at a good pace to flow.
Additionally we've taken a step in increasing variety, with a long list of shard changes and hero tuning. in future versions we'll also be looking at more "game breaking" and "build altering" runs. We've got some exciting plans here and will make it a focal point.
Why Couldn't I Play More than One Round?
In short, we knew this issue was a real detriment to the experience, but we made the decision to get some real hands on feedback even with it in the game. It's a long story as to why that bug existed, but essentially we had to make people quit so it wouldn't ruin Co-Op games. We're happy to say that this issue has been fixed in this build!