What is up everyone! I know we dropped a lot of news on you to digest yesterday, so thank you all for taking the time to read it and provide initial feedback. I want to let you know a few key points to help clear up any confusion, and hopefully ease some of your (valid) concerns. I also want to go into a bit more detail about the future of the game.
Now, if you don't have time to read the post in its entirety, at least walk away with these 3 points:
- Attachments are not coming to H1.
- The spirit of H1 will be respected.
- This is the future vision and is not going to be in the build for TwitchCon.
I'm sure many of you are wondering how these changes came about. Let's start with the goal and the purpose behind our ideas. Our goal in H1 is to embrace our quick pace of play, push our limits when it comes to the action, respect and maintain the spirit of H1, and take this platform that launched the BR genre into a place that it deserves to be. We want to add more depth to a H1 match by offering the player more choices and more tools so they have additional ways to craft their destiny as a match plays out. We want to create a BR game that is fast and entertaining, start to finish. H1 is a competitive game first, and we want to put more emphasis on skill and strategy, reward aggression to keep the match fast, and reduce the RNG of loot. With these goals in mind, we started to evolve the design of our current game.
Now, onto the design. We think that increasing the number of airdrops and adding in-game power progression adds another layer of strategy (brains over aim) and reduces the downtime in the middle of the match. I know our initial post and batch of images raised a lot of eyebrows, so I want to clarify some things on attachments, vehicles, tiered weapons, and loot.
Attachments: We agree that looting for attachments have no place in H1; that was never the plan. Attachments go against the DNA of H1Z1 -- they slow the looting phase and how they spawn is RNG. Plain and simple, they aren't going in.
Match Progression & Airdrops: We want to escalate a match while giving the player more options to chose how they want to play, while driving conflict and increasing intensity. We think this can be accomplished by evolving our airdrop system. By making drops more meaningful and impactful, players will have to decide how they want to engage: go for it first and take the chance, hang back and capitalize on someone else taking the risk, or keep pushing with their current loadout.
In the airdrops, there could be an array of items in the crate, including different types of armor, health items, tiered weapons, even new types of weapons are within the realm of possibilities. There are many ways we can achieve this and we’ll be working with you to see which system best fits H1.
I know there are some conversations regarding tiered weapons and we want to encourage more discussion around the feature, so let me give you a bit more context. We want tiered weapons to add utility, not provide a direct addition of crazy power. A tiered weapon isn’t going to have an 80X scope (too powerful of scopes add unwanted distances to fights and promote camping) and it won’t remove the required skill needed to efficiently operate a weapon. What it will do is add a bit more benefit to the weapon and how it functions. For example, an AR with a red dot sight awards the player easier visuals without promoting camping, and makes the gun more enjoyable to use. A T2 or T3 AR will still do the same amount of damage as a T1 AR.
We see a game with the evolved match progression unfolding like this: You’re geared up with basic guns and suddenly a wave of airdrops start to fall from the sky. You know that this round of drops will include a more powerful weapon. Do you risk going for the drop or do you wait for others to approach, pick them off, and loot their dead body for the item? With fewer people remaining, the next wave of airdrops is even more contentious. Again, you’re faced with a strategic decision. Does aggression win you the match or will that be your downfall?
Vehicles: Movement keeps the game fast. And while we want people to be mobile, have the ability to explore and engage in combat, we don’t want every match to end with a bunch of cars driving in circles. Vehicles speed up the pace of the game, but we know they need a counter. We want to combat Car1Z1. We have some additional improvements coming to weapons like explosive tips that will help stop cars dead in their tracks.
Loot: Right now loot is 110% RNG, which kinda sucks. You can run through the game, hit up 10 houses, and find zero helmets. Then, on your 11th house, you find 10 helmets and it results in you being frustrated at the game (rightfully so). We have been working on a new loot system to take the RNG edge off of looting, provide a more consistent experience, and get you out of the looting phase and onto the killing phase in a more efficient manner. Now, there is still some level of RNG with loot, but our goal is for you to never feel screwed by the loot distribution. This will also provide players with the tools to push forward and contest those airdrops we’ve talked about.
So, we’ve spoken about loot, match progression, and our ideas for the future of the game. This is where you come in. We will be testing extensively on our Test server and even before it hits Test. We aren’t going to just take this idea and send it live; we will take our time, get feedback, improve, iterate, and get it right.
Circling all the way back to the beginning, the stuff we’ve talked about is not going in before the Invitational. The H1Z1 Invitational build will be based on the current Combat Update with some additional QoL improvements and some further weapon tuning. While we've made some huge strides forward with the game with the Combat Update, we know that it’s an adjustment. Rest assured, we will lock the Invitational build early enough to give you ample time to practice.
Thanks to everyone that made it this far and took the time to read it all the way through. We're proposing some big changes to the game that will help move us forward, but we aren't going to do it without you. Without a doubt, H1 has one of the most passionate and dedicated communities and we’re looking forward to going through this journey together.