Hello everybody.
Over the course of the last weeks we received huge amounts of
player feedback through a number of channels:
- Nearly 500 people filled out the survey we sent out after summer alpha.
- Over 750 people got in touch with us via the F3 form in the game client.
- At least 1000 people played The Exiled at gamescom while we watched.
- Dozens of people streamed themselves playing or put videos up on YouTube.
- Many of you sent us your long-form feedback via the forums and emails.
- And of course we have a number of analytics tools running that tell us the numerical side of things.
First off:
Thank you for all the feedback! It took me a good while to parse it all but today I feel like I have a good grasp of the current state of the game and what you would like us to work on next. So without further ado, here are the highest priority items on our development to-do list:
1.) Server lag and collision problems will be fixed first.
This was - not surprisingly - the most common feedback we got. And we agree fully. In order for a combat-focused game like The Exiled to really work, the
core gameplay needs to be 100% solid. With the unprecedented scale of summer alpha we noticed quickly that we have to make sweeping changes in both our scripting and collision detection systems in order to get server performance to the level we want it to be at.
During gamescom we saw massive improvements on the performance side but we are not yet fully done with re-implementing the collision system. Once this is done and once we have fixed the last lingering position-out-of-sync-bug we’ll torture our game servers with tons of bots to simulate the player numbers we expect for our next alpha. And next time
we’ll be prepared.
2.) Login queues will get solved through server clusters.
While we’re pretty sure that we have
fixed the main reason for the login queues during summer alpha (collision detection and the new tutorial) we still know that we need to drastically change the way that game servers behave during their inception. While a player number of 100 to 150 CCU is very realistic for a server that ran for a couple days we now know that we have to expect a multiple of that number for the first few hours.
So we are currently designing a system in which we group all physical game servers (”
shards”) that end at the same time (”
clusters”). We will automatically create new shards whenever we see that the current shards are too full. To prevent having a large number of low-population shards later in a season each shard will have to donate a minimum amount of resources in order to keep the jailor attacks at bay. Every shard that fails to donate enough resources will get attacked and destroyed by the jailors and the remaining players and clans can migrate to another shard - bringing some of their old resources along. And yes - we will make sure that you start on the same shard as your friends.
3.) There is not enough to do for new players.
As you know, the newbie and solo gameplay in The Exiled is based around a
large number of on-map events. These are the main reasons to fight, explore and deal with other players. The current problem is that we have only implemented a few very basic events - and those implementations are pretty rough and - in many cases - not super interesting in themselves. It’s now time for us to get our hands dirty and script
many more events with more interesting dynamics for you to experience. And yes, this means reworking the carcass, meteor, caravan and resource camp events. This also means that we are going to make our NPCs (mobs) more diverse and interesting to fight.
4.) Solo players feel disadvantaged versus larger clans.
This is a tough one. Since we do not (and will never) force players into pre-made factions there will never be a classical “matchmaking” system in The Exiled that leads to a “balanced” PvP experience. There will always be solo players, small groups and large clans in the same game world competing for fame and fortune. But with that being said: We are going to work on making all those playstyles equally feasible.
Solo players will get more small-scale content. Larger clans will eventually notice some drawbacks when recruiting more and more players.
We will also make it way easier for new players to find friends, maybe even a clan of their own: Our next features to implement include a
mentor system (to get 1on1 coaching), a
clan finder (to join a bigger group), a
group system (for impromptu alliances) as well as a
friend list and a proper
whisper chat system. This is one thing I believe in strongly: It pays off to build relationships with other players - especially when you can pick with whom you want to play.
5.) And so many more small things …
Of course when you poll a couple thousand people you get a lot of feedback. Here are some more things that are not in the highest priority but will still be worked on soon:
Some people got stuck / confused in the tutorial. -> We’ve already improved this a lot for gamescom. The next alpha will have a lot more useful UI to guide you through this.
Some people dislike the free camera system and get dizzy. -> We’ll eventually let you turn on “camera lock” for those players who want their camera to always be focussed on their own char.
“You should only have one character per server, else spying becomes too easy.” -> We agree. Experimenting with three characters per account was interesting but since you can now so easily change your skill loadout this is not needed anymore. We’re going back to one char per account.
“Dragging donations out of tent instantly is too strong.” -> It is. This was an oversight and we’ll make sure that getting resources out of donation tents will be a “slow move” action in the future.
“Balance is off. Leather > Robe.” -> Agreed. We have already tweaked energy costs and cast timers for most armor abilities to get this balanced. And we’re definitely both watching the survivability of Splint Mail and the DPS of Spear/Shield.
“Newbie and solo players need more storage.” -> Agreed. The current system with one stash per player is unnecessary annyoing. We will increase the number of stashes you can have - but they will not turn into global banks.
“You need better graphics / animations / VFX / UI / SFX / more music / a larger game world etc.” -> Totally agreed. That is going to be worked on by our artists all the way through alpha and beta. And probably also after launch. We’re on it.
6.) And then there are some things we’re not going to change.
Of course we often also get feedback that we have to ignore because making those changes would violate the core experience of the game. Here are three examples. If those are point that you brought up then please accept my sincere apology - but some things are just not a fit for our game.
“I did not like the WASD controls. Make it point & click like LoL.” -> Not going to happen. We love the direct controls you get from WASD and free targeting. There are a lot of great point & click MOBAs and MMOs (
Albion Online) out there. Give those a try!
“I did not like the sandbox / open pvp / full loot experience.” -> We know that it is tough when starting out in a un-directed sandbox with open PvP and full loot. We’re going to improve the newbie experience but we’re not going to add safe zones and a quest-based progression. Again: There are great games out there with those features.
“I did not like friendly fire. I always hit my friends.” -> Friendly fire is here to stay. We feel that it makes for a completely new combat experience that you miss in all other MMOs. We’ll make sure to take lag and input problems out of the equation - but player skill in targeting will continue to be a requirement for The Exiled.
Alright - that’s it from me for this week. We’re now going back into focused development mode. Talk to you soon!
Alex
