Hello Universe Architects,
Recently there was a significant change to the boost power of Explore Event badges. We hear all feedback and concerns from players regarding this re-tune, so we're here to provide some extra information about what changes were made, why we made them and how this will affect the game moving forward.
What did we change?
Once a player reaches 200% badge boost in an event, there's now a dimensioning boost that comes with each earned badge. Dimensioning in this case means that after reaching 200% in an event, a badge earning a 10% boost now earns 8%. Then the eventual power of the badges will reduce to less than 1% per badge over time.
Previously players had a total of 300%+ badge boost, which have caused balancing issues as the developers continue adding significant gameplay changes to Explore Events. This brings us to:
Why did we make this change?
There are a couple major reasons why we went ahead with this change.
- We've been continuously working towards making the Research Race more fair for all players. We've received feedback that it isn't fun for new players to play against late game players, in addition to cheaters. This feedback has been in the forefront of our minds when we make important tuning changes that affect the Research Race.
- Speaking of cheaters— this recent change has, for the most part, mitigated cheaters in the Research Race. Explore Events are designed to take around 40 hours to complete, while cheaters are able to beat an event in less than 15 minutes due to their unusually high badge boosts. In addition to shadow banning and time flux caps, we were hopeful that this change would improve the quality of Research Race against cheaters. There has already been a significant drop in cheater complaints following the change. We are always open to player feedback and we want to continue hearing about your individual player experiences.
- Explore Events have changed a lot from what they originally were. What's now a core feature in the game was once a bare prototype that left us unsure about its potential success. They were also originally designed without any multiplayer mechanics in mind. As we continue to tune Explore Events with a focus on multiplayer mechanics, it means that other parts of the events will need to be re-tuned in order to accommodate for future changes.
What are our plans?
We are currently looking into reducing the dimensioning curve a little for higher level gameplay among other solutions. We are also exploring new multiplayer modes that would be more collaborative and less competitive.
For more information about this, watch our latest livestream that’s now available on YouTube. There we first introduce the team’s thoughts behind the dimensioning badge boosts. We’ll also be sharing even more information about our plans for multiplayer mechanics in our upcoming dev diary.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our internal process regarding the dimensioning badge boosts. Please let us know your thoughts and we look forward to hearing more feedback from players as we continue multiplayer development and Explore Event tuning.
As always, stay cellular!
~ The Cells Team