
Greetings Pilots!
Here's a development update for the past two weeks. We've certainly been busy with not only the Wreckage release but also the minor update deployed yesterday as well. Speaking of the minor update...
A Minor Update
We posted patch notes for the minor update earlier this week, so make sure you take a look at them if you haven't already! The primary fix was for Last Eco Winter performance issues but we also included a few adjustments to Wreckage collision and base turret placement. A few game balance adjustments were also included to address some of the hot topics within the community. They're small tweaks and and definitely not all we have planned for balance, but they're important and what we were able to include in a relatively short amount of time. Some of the other balance fixes are higher risk and not good to roll out quickly without more testing.
Economy Changes
We made an adjustment to the economy by removing HC from almost all of our Service Awards and I know there will be questions about this decision. The change was made because our economy has become out of balance and HC has lost value. We rolled out Service Awards in April, Ascension in September and a lot has happened with the game over the course of these past 7 or 8 months. Game changes made with Ascension resulted in players earning more HC than originally expected, especially when the earnings from Service Awards are included. Now yes, balance isn't just about the earning rate of HC and we also must take into account factors such as the cost of goods, number of items available, types of purchases and inventory unlocks which were all impacted by Ascension changes. We have months of data to compare against and the imbalance is quite noticeable. It's also important to remember that after Ascension, 6 mechs can now be unlocked for free by new users simply by playing which wasn't an option previously.
This is not the only change coming that will have an impact on the economy but it's necessary we start leveling out the value of HC as soon as possible so that future changes aren't negatively impacted. We will be keeping a keen eye on earning and spending over the coming weeks and adjust further as needed.
Online Services
As a reminder from a previous Development Update, the occasional connection issues that players are experiencing are not related to the minor update released this week but instead are a result of the work being done on our platform and backend services. It's been a rather large undertaking and we're addressing database performance, improving scalability and giving us some greater flexibility in our hosting options (just to name a few goals).
While we wish these updates could be made without any user interruption, sometimes small hiccups do happen and are a necessary evil. The past week has been a bit shaky for users but was necessary to make the improvements we're striving for. We also switched to a new method of patching to help reduce the downtime by a considerable amount and this week was the first use of this new system, resulting in some deployment bugs. It's good that these bugs did surface and they're all being worked out for the next release.
What's Next
It's only been a little over a week since Wreckage but many of you are already wondering what's next. We are well into December if you can believe it and we have reached the end of the major updates planned for 2013. There are outstanding community concerns about many aspects of the game including gameplay balance, matchmaking, server browser access and skirmish functionality. We see the feedback, we read the feedback and we digest the feedback. On this topic, you have probably noticed the new Mech Hanger subforum that we recently created and this is a great place to share you game balance feedback with us. Keep in mind that most members of the team simply don’t have the time to respond directly to posts and suggestions during the day. So even if you don’t see responses, it doesn't mean we didn’t see the posted suggestions.
What I’m getting at is this; there are revisions coming to the game that are closely tied to community feedback.
There are updates we'd love to share with you right now about what we intend to release in early 2014 but we need to solidify the timeline first. It isn't for any particular super-secret reason or because of some kind of exclusive press reveal, nor does it have anything to do with progress of development. It's about wanting to speak as accurately as possible about the coming months without throwing out loose information. So, the details on what’s rolling out will have to wait for another Development Update. Don’t get the wrong idea either, it’s not a mind-warping monster update like Ascension, we’re just building and improving on what we have. So why did I even mention it in the first place? We feel it’s important to communicate that we are listening to the feedback provided and we hope when we start speaking with you on what’s coming, you’ll agree.
As we close, in addition to what was mentioned in the last Development Update here's more of what's actively being worked on for an upcoming release:
[*]6v6 Party Searches / Scrims:An option will available on the PLAY menu that allows parties of 6 to find other parties of 6. Join in progress and team balancing will be disabled and after the match, players will exit the server with their parties still in tact, ready to play again.
[*]Countermeasures Co-Op Only:We are moving countermeasures be a co-op only feature which will give us the ability to have even more fun with what we can create.
[*]Co-Op Support on an Additional Map:Co-Op will be playable on another map so it won't just be Facility for much longer.
[*]Recent Players List:It will easier to make friends as we will keep a list of the most recent players you've encountered online so if you're back at the main menu you can add people you just played against to your friends list.
[*]Player Emblems:Change your client pilot emblem, see the emblems of others, earn them as rewards. Special emblems will also be rewarded to those who took part in the Vanguard Initiative.
[/list]That's it for now. We'll be keeping an eye on performance over the weekend to see how the servers are doing and make adjustments as necessary. We do apologize for the bumps recently but I assure you we have people working hard at crazy hours on improving the experience.Thanks Everyone!
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