Will there be an Arena rework in 5.0.5 or 5.1? It’s the only mode you haven’t screwed up and I’ve been getting very curious as of late.
This was copied from @Lyrian notes from the official Twitch stream October 2019.
- Will you ever update Treasure Hunt & Arena?
– Treasure Hunt → Not in 2019. Maybe in 2020. Big worry about players with giant stockpiles of maps. Under consideration, but not a top priority. If it happens, it will definitely be after the Arena update.
– Arena → Something is coming. No comment yet. Sirrian teases about Arena Events. Likely Q2 2020.
Edit: The events part will no doubt require some kind of sigil/gem buy in. They can’t seem to help themselves.
Another thing from that stream that I found amusing.
- Are you worried there might be a bit much to do in game now?
– Devs feel that daily schedule is “full” currently.
– Devs want players to realize that they should not have to clear everything every single day to avoid burnout. Sirrian prefers players working on a specific game mode per day, might encourage this in the future.
Side thought: Average player plays 26 games per day, which Sirrian thinks is high.
To avoid any misunderstandings, the bold text are my comments. Not from the notes.
1 Like
Tackling both posts at the same time (likely train wreck of thought incoming),
It’s been confirmed on recent streams that the next update will be 5.1.
So… all the way back in the last ice age of December 2019, when the world was an alternate reality from its current state today, in the 4.7 patch notes was the following sequence of text, emphasis added,
-
We have also changed the Seal Reward for “Perfect Arena Run” to “Complete a Delve” (this applies to a Delve of any level).
-
We have made some changes to Delves to help players who are on high Delve levels go back to do a lower-level Delve (see General below).
-
Arena is getting a rework in a future update, so we have removed the Arena Run task in preparation for this.
-
The arena rework was on the table at that point in time. COVID then happened and the operations of the game was likely significantly impaired. Salty has stated multiple times that all development is being done remotely and there is a skeleton crew at best at the office to keep the server hamsters fed and running on their wheels most of the time.
As a number of forum posters have written, the 5.0 release was perceived to be barebones, and it was significantly late to the point where compensation events were run (such as the boosted gnome rate Vault event), which almost never happens. In the past Salty has candidly stated on stream that when push comes to shove, the order of operations on update content is monetization first, content second, quality of life stuff last. And guess what released in the 5.0 update? Yup, the monetization part of the update. So, if the content portion of 5.0 is missing, then what was supposed to be released? Was the revamped arena supposed to be have appeared in the 5.0 update? No one outside of the devs knows. Given the development situation, it’s plausible that the arena update was delayed until the after the COVID situation blows over given the complexity of what a full revamp would require and may have been deemed implausible to construct remotely.
Is the arena revamp even coming this year? Personal opinion, but I’m solidly pessimistic about it happening this year as it would need to release in 5.1, as the Q4 update is usually a quality of life update because of the holidays (it’s a bad, bad idea to introduce new things during the holiday season). So that would likely mean that arena update is at least three updates away minimum, in the Q1 2021 slot at the earliest.
Treasure Hunt… possibly still this year? In the final days of Taransworld, there was some coding found that could have been interpreted that work on a revamp was finally happening at least on a conceptual level. If all the devs really need to do is to revamp the mode’s content and not need to majorly rewrite the entire codebase of Treasure Hunt to update it, then it’s plausible that such an update could be possible to construct while everyone is still remotely working.
@Tabu , I would expect that if a revamped Treasure Hunt mode occurs, that it would use a controlled currency similar to Vault Keys to limit the number of times players can access the revamped Treasure Hunt in a given time period. Of course, that opens the door additional new Treasure Hunt keys/sigils to be sold via flash offers or through some other similar method.
On the grind… the devs are clearly embracing it now, especially for late-gamers. Expect longer and longer grinds in the future as the next set of upgrades are released.
If we’re talking about GW not having an exclusive week anymore, then my personal viewpoint on the matter is that the change was almost assuredly a purely financial decision in that GW weeks had the least general outflow of gems per player because of the relatively low max cap on gem spending in boosting sentinels compared to events with weekly event shops.
And for everytime a player posts here about achieving some “impossible” grind, task, or achievement, half of me greatly celebrates that the implausible was obtained. The other half of me grimaces because it knows that means the next grind is now going to be that much harder because that the veil of impossibility on the previously unachievable task has now been pierced and that means the bar to clear the next long-term “impossible” task probably just got that much higher on the devs’ whiteboard.
3 Likes
Link:
Fact checks:
Iirc this was for Illithia, not 5.0.
This obviously makes sense, and seems quite possible from the WFH situation, but has anyone from the development team actually stated that development has been impaired or pushed back, as a result? And if so, on forums, stream, global chat, Discord (i.e. – source?)?
It just seems more like a speculated probability more than something “we all know”.
I also remember that it was the publicly given reason. Did some digging and found the relevant thread.
I have little doubt that Salty’s statement is inaccurate and is truthful regarding the art issue.
That said, I’m considerably more skeptical that the art issue was the only issue at play here throughout the development cycle for the update. For followers of Taransworld, art assets in the game file were a generally reliable proxy for when an update had to be released onto the production servers. I seriously doubt that the devs did not know this either, especially since that proxy was openly discussed on the forums by players. It would be an easy low-hanging fruit for the devs to present to players to cover the issue. After all, they probably were not telling an false statement here. The art issue likely did happen. Did they need to provide any more evidence to the public than that a delay occured to be convincing?
As a formal statement, no, and they very likely never will as a matter of policy. There is no reason for them to do that. At best we get indirect references to developmental changes, such as comments like the development schedule is fluid and always subject to change, and so on either on the forums on on the weekly streams. The public doesn’t get to see what’s in the game’s developmental plans and the devs are never going to be obligated to show them to the public either.
So, yes, in the lack of a formal statement from the devs on the matter, all that remains is speculated probability. And if I think really, really, hard, I believe there was some someone who posted somewhere on the forums here that they thought the update was satisfying and complete, which would technically invalidate the “all” statement claim. I’ll modify that sentence to resolve that possibility.
Thank you for adding more information. I don’t like to randomly @ someone, but I figured if you had more than what I had found you would see the mention and let us know what was up. 