Dev Q&A Session (Spring 2021)
Stream Summary Recap
Questions:
What’s Coming in the 5.5 Update?
Heroic Gems - New Gem types with special powers
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Heroic gems are a way to shake up the traditional core gameplay.
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Heroic gems can be turned on and off by devs for special events.
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New troops will use heroic gems, which will be tied to campaign specific themes.
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Themes will differ from campaign to campaign.
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Lycanthropy gems and troops will use/create them will be featured in Campaign 5.
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Lycanthropy gems will be purple gem replacements.
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During Campaign 5, Lycanthropy gems will skyfall at 1 out of 20 of all Purple gems that skyfall onto the board.
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Future campaign Heroic gems mentioned: Mana Potion gems (Campaign 6, gem generators) and Wildcard gems.
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Heroic gems are a concept that has long has been something the devs wanted to do.
Uber-Doomskulls - Stronger Doomskulls
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+10 damage and larger explosion radius
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Devs can turn on and off Uber-Doomskulls for various events.
Why weren’t there a lot of new features in 5.4 Update?
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Unity version upgrade. Upgrading the game to new versions of Unity to allow new features to be implemented, breaks many internal game functions which require significant time to repair.
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Unity version was upgraded to enable support for PS5/XBX.
What’s the current progress with the Guild Wars Scoring Issue?
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Problem is related to Mongo database issues.
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Issue is caused when two players complete a match at the same time and is an unresolvable flaw with Mongo.
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Issue may be resolved by future upgrade to a SQL database (in consideration for feasibility currently).
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No planned compensation for issue.
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Guild War bracket movement issue long-term resolutions currently under consideration for a future update.
Is there anything coming in the future that you can discuss yet?
- “Gnomes for Days” - 5.6 update
- New gnome types
- New music for event
Treasure Hunt revamp still on the to-do list…
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Side comments: The Vault was originally planned to be a kingdom with a banner and pet, never was implemented. Still looking at ways to make this perhaps happen in the future.
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Specific Pet Hunting - Still thinking on how to improve specific pet hunting for a future update, in active discussion on how to implement this.
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Pet Gnomes and Full-Day Pet Rescues - Pet gnomes cannot cannot spawn during 24 hour events because of limitations on how pet rescues work.
Is there any area of the game you’d like to focus on in a future update?
What’s the rumour I’ve heard about new Kingdoms?
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Releasing classes that are still unreleased (Wargare, Elemental, Construct) via new kingdoms
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PvP/Guild Wars
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Treasure Hunt
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Side Comment Trivia - Most hacks of the game occur via Treasure Hunt because of how old it is.
Will we see any more Kingdom Reworks?
- Nim - Divinion Fields, Sword’s Edge, one more she can’t remember off-hand; kingdoms with no real “theme”
What’s happening with the affixes on Doom weapons?
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They are FIXED, to be released during the upcoming Tower of Doom event
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Sirrian is asking for feedback on additional weapons that have similar issues that need to be addressed (make a new thread for this feedback)
What’s going to happen when the Underworld fills up?
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New kingdoms mean additional factions to be released, delaying the “finishing” of the Underworld.
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Currently considering extending maps to allow space for new factions.
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Heroic gems are a way to add variety to new factions.
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Side question - Devs are interested in investigating ways to buy/get potions outside of faction events.
Will we get more Books of Deeds?
- It is intentional that they are scarce currently.
- As time progresses, more ways to obtain books (and in in greater numbers) will become available from existing (ex: Campaign Pass) and future sources.
Can we see more Tower of Doom events?
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Tower will be eventually be a weekend event. Required coding changes to recreate the event as a weekend event. Planned for a future update; unknown ETA currently.
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Tower still planned to be a week-long event between campaigns.
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Devs are open to considering not running Towers during Guild War weeks.
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Devs are considering alternate (non-flash offer) ways to get forge scrolls currently.
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Side comment - Devs are looking at creating new collaborative events with guilds (like Tower) in the future (planned, somewhat distant update away)
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Side comment - Devs know about issues with communicating World Event scoring in-game. Perhaps a limited web browser for this in the future? Sirrian is intrigued by the idea.
Don’t you guys ever run out of ideas for troops?
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Nope. Not even after 1000+ troops.
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Side comment - World events are sometimes intentionally designed around a theme or specific planned troop.
Open QA Questions
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Warcoins and availability - Adventure board tasks for them are Epic/Legendary and have not been rolled yet (very bad luck). Planning ability to add them to Special Event rewards to address bad luck streaks in the future.
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Warbands - Two more Warbands being planned for 5.6. Maybe 10-15 Warbands planned long-term.
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Revamping Old GUI - Perhaps, when old systems are revamped. PvP is cited as a good candidate for this in the future.
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Epic Vault Keys availability increasing - Unlikely? They were meant to be very rare drops.
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Heroic Gems in Guild Wars - Yes, if a troop that creates them are used on a team. Devs will seek to not run a Heroic Gem event during a Guild Wars week.
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New Boss Troops coming? - Yes, via campaigns.
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Other ways to farm Explore tokens (Nysha)? - Unlikely (read: no).
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Campaign pets after campaigns end? Yes, at some point to be planned. Perhaps in a Saturday pet rescue slot.
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Better Arena weekend rewards? - Under consideration. Perhaps considering adding an Epic Vault key for 3 full reward laps.
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Lycanthropy overpowered? Devs will watch the effects of this in 5.5 and will adjust as needed.
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Lycanthropy and Valravens - Known issue, it is NOT resolvable because of the interactions of deathmark and transform. Don’t use Essence of Evil on Valravens.
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Lowering costs of Epic Tasks? No.
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Bonus traits on troops during events? Support is there (was used in first World Events), but was not used further because there was no good way to display this information to players. Might be revisited in future.
Bonus PQ3 Questions
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Mini-games to be added? Likely in the future, not at launch.
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PQ3 dedicated streams? Yes, once the game fully launches.
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Changing color modifiers on gear to better present information? Unlikely. Changing elemental attunement of gear planned post-launch.
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Respec player citadel? Yes, but not at launch. May be free respecs.
Next Dev Q&A planned before 5.6 launches.
Next Salty Stream announced to double up as 5.5 preview stream.