Hey everyone,
Our playtest has now concluded. So many people joined in and left great feedback for us to dissect and address. I'd like to thank everyone who played and completed our ridiculously large questionnaire. The playtest is just a first public alpha build, with lots of unfinished areas and isn't a polished demo. The full game will have a ton more content, polish, and optimization. I'll be diving deep on some of those topics here. Nevertheless, here are some of the numbers from this weekend.
Over 118,000 players played.
Over 20,000 responses in our feedback form
Hit 200,000 wishlists
91% recommendation rate from feedback
I am thrilled with all of the support from you all. But now that's out of the way, it's time to focus on what's next. So let's start with the exciting things.
Loot and Progression
One of the biggest asks over the weekend was for more loot and RPG elements. So I'm going to listen. I'm planning three systems to enhance the loot and progression experience.
Rings
Rings will come from high-level enemies or chests. They will come in five rarities and have randomized stats and unique traits depending on the rarity. Each player will have two ring slots, one for each hand. Rings will be server-side, so players can trade to their hearts' content. We hope to showcase this at a later date.
Weapons
I'm also looking into unique drops for weapons. Right now, weapons are locked to classes. This part will not change. What will change, however, is how weapons are compared. Like rings, weapons will be able to drop from high-level enemies or chests, in distinct rarities. Weapons can be distinct in their base stats and affinity. Perhaps you're playing Warrior with a set of common dual axes. Then you open a big ol' chest, and a set of rare dual axes with a lightning affinity drop. That's what I'm aiming towards. These affinities will go hand in hand with different enemy types. As well as more weapons for each class, utilizing a different 'subclass' of playstyle.
Leveling Up
I'm also looking into replacing the current level-up system with a skill tree, unique for each class. This should make leveling up a bit more interesting, as well as being more intuitive for building out your character into how you want.
The (small) Downside of These Systems
This does mean that when you start a new save and select a class, I'm going to have to lock that pick in, rather than letting players pick every single time you play the game. This is mostly to prevent issues with unique weapons and rings, fitted for a specific class.
Combat and Difficulty
This one was a bit of a mixed bag in feedback. Most players we're fans of the combat and difficulty (ignoring a few issues), while a subset were disappointed. While I'm never going to please everyone, a lot of the issues reported were legit, and I'm going to address them.
Set Difficulty Options
I'm going to introduce three difficulty settings, with custom modifiers on top. These modifiers may include friendly fire (chaos), no passive healing, and some other fun ones. The difficulty that was set for our playtest was the middle-of-the-road option.
Hitboxes and Jankiness
There was definitely some unforeseen issues with some enemies and hitboxes. Particularly the Skeleton Warrior with a shield and the Pyromancer and some of his abilities. Rest assured, these will all be cleaned up. I'm also looking into the timing, animations, and sound design of combat.
Class Reworks
While I did address some classes in patches throughout the weekend, one class in particular stood out. Priest. Priest wasn't as engaging as I was hoping for, so I'm looking into ways to make her more fun rather than just throwing down infinite healing spells. It's a bit tricky, as I have plenty of ideas in a co-op-only situation, but none that fit both single-player and co-op. A hybrid solution is likely, and I'll update when things have changed.
Performance, Bugs, and Crashes
I purposely didn't make it a secret that this was an early version of the game, and I'm glad that most people we're understanding of certain technical issues. There were a good amount of bugs and crashes, and some performance issues. Most of the performance issues are due to the games CPU bound nature. This will be addressed rather significantly, and I'm expecting massive gains on this front in the near future.
Plenty of bugs and soft-locks were found as well, which will all be addressed as well. A small number of crashes and issues with getting into a co-op lobby were also reported and are being investigated as I speak.
And that's pretty much everything! There are, of course, some things I have glossed over here or haven't mentioned, but rest assured we have enough feedback to make the game special. I hope to see you all across the finish line, and you can wishlist and follow the game on Steam to stay up to date. You can also join our Discord and even reach out to me personally if you'd like.
Thank you,
Marcus