Hello, Monster Keepers!
The game had quite a successful launch, and we received a lot of positive feedback, which we are really happy about. Of course we also received a lot of suggestions for possible improvements and criticism, which we are aware of. Today we wanted to share with you a very rough roadmap we have planned for Monster Sanctuary (which we are currently looking to confirm with our publisher).
Update 1.1
We had a bit of rest during the holidays, but not too much: We are already working on the next update for the game. Ideally we will be able to release it at some point in February.
Difficulty Settings: We plan to add two additional difficulty settings: ‘Casual’ and ‘Master’. You can swap between all three difficulties freely during a playthrough.
- Casual: We received quite a lot of feedback with some players struggling, especially with Keeper Duels or the dreaded Abandoned Tower. We aimed the game to be challenging, but we still want to not completely exclude a certain player base from enjoying the game. The casual mode will slightly reduce the difficulty for wild encounters and Keeper Battles, but will not make those a walk in the park in any way.
- Master: This difficulty is mainly intended for New Game+. It will make the game still quite challenging despite having the tools/advantages of playing on New Game+.
New Game+: You’ll be able to start a ‘New Game+’ using an existing save game, keeping all your Monsters, equipment, and most of the items. The monsters will be rolled back to level 1, will keep their shifts, but will not be able to use their explore abilities until you meet a Monster in the game that possesses that ability, to prevent sequence breaks. All equipment upgrades will be removed.
Matchmaking Improvements: We’re happy about the increased popularity of PvP and plan to add improved matchmaking - you will be matched against opponents that are in a certain average Monster level range to yours. Additionally, it will also look for both players to be in a certain ranking range. If it can’t find an opponent of similar ranking in a certain time, it will extend that criteria. We also plan to have the ability to challenge your friends from the Steam Friend list, but are not sure if we’ll be able to have it for this update already.
Fixing Disconnect -> Loss issue: On consoles, when a player disconnects in multiplayer, both players receive a loss. We are working on a fix for this issue.
Fixing Achievements issues: On XBox and Game Pass, some players encounter an issue that some of their achievements did not unlock. We are working on a fix for this issue.
Version Parity: We plan to have this update out on all platforms at the same time.
Future Updates
This is a list of features we plan to add in future updates.
Player Customization: A feature we promised in the Kickstarter, but could not quite have in the game in time for the full release: The player will be able to choose between a certain amount of different player sprites and different color schemes for each of those. We’ll add some more secret chests here and there in Monster Sanctuary where you’ll find those outfits.
Legendary Keeper Monuments: Certain Backers of our Kickstarter will receive Legendary Keeper monuments found in the game.
Minimap Improvements: Add the ability to put markers on the minimap and also have it display some additional information by itself.
Speedrun Options: Add a Timer, add even faster combat animation speed options, add possibility to skip cut scenes (Those will be available for normal gameplay as well).
Quality of Life features: We received a lot of suggestions for quality of life improvements and we will look into adding some of those into the game over the course of the next updates. Here is a list of the top priority ones:
- Be able to inspect all Monsters, not just the enemies. Additionally, inspecting will display all buffs/debuffs a Monster currently has.
- Sorting Monsters
- Possibility to take back assigned skill points while still in the skill menu
- Improved Monster donation (warning when donating Champion Monsters, be able to donate multiple Monsters at a time)
- Display the number of items already possessed when buying additional ones
- Option to increase all wild encounter levels
That's all for now
That would be all that's on our radar for the time being. However, we also really wanted to use this opportunity to wish all Monster Keepers happy holidays!