Developer Let's Play with Q&A - Transcribed [April 2nd Stream]

https://imgur.com/E2HzEYZ

In case you missed them, here are the previous Dev Stream Transcriptions:

This is the sixth dev stream, hosted by Mike Weicker, which originally aired on April 2, 2021. I’ve transcribed the video below, but you can watch it for yourself here. I’ve done my best to capture Mike’s responses as accurately as possible (nearly word for word in most cases), but please consult the video for precise phrasing and/or context.

Currently, these streams take place every Friday at 4pm EST on Twitch. You can check the schedule here to see when it starts in your region.


Q: What can I offhand with a Scimitar? Nothing seems to work.

A: If you have the correct talents for the given class that you are you can offhand different things. So, for example, Rogue if you get the Twin Blade passive node of the base tree you can offhand a Sword or Dagger. I don’t know all the other classes off the top of my head. I assume the Primalist is Axes and Swords – yep [as Mike hovers over the Harmony of Blades passive node of the Primalist base class]. Sentinel is likely Swords only, Mage is likely Swords only, and I don’t think Acolyte can do any.
Timestamp: 6:38-7:22

Q: You should play the endless damage Abomination build for us before you guys patch it out.

A: I think we may have already patched it out. It was a pretty easy fix.
Timestamp: 7:24-7:32

Q: Have you thought about modify minions speed? Sometimes they feel slow.

A: Yeah, for sure. The minion AI – I know we’ve talked about this a little bit – but the minion AI is getting reworked so how the minions work, like how they move and react, really dictates how efficient they are in combat, and this really helps them feel faster. There’s lots of abilities you can get, like linking them to your Leap so that they actually move with you helps a lot to keep them in the fray. There’s a lot of other minion helping abilities for speed – I think Frenzy Totem has some speed stuff for minions.
Timestamp: 9:58-10:56

Q: I heard wolf AI is the first of the new AI.

A: Yes, wolf AI was the first to receive the new AI.
Timestamp: 10:57-11:00

Q: I noticed, Mike, that the Primalist art is based on you after last week’s stream. Also the comment “I will not die here” fits you very well. My question is; are all the character/class art based on people in/close to the dev team?

A: No, they’re definitely not. Ah…it was loosely based off of a picture of me, I think, that someone took. They’re like, ‘we want it to have a beard and kind of be a bigger dude’ and it was a picture we already had lying around and someone just went with it, but it’s changed a lot since then. I’d like to think that I look like this in real life and my arms are that big [Mike laughs]. They’re not.
Timestamp: 11:30-12:10

Q: Please tell me your views on masochist HC SSF mode / ladder and game difficulty, I heard it won’t be on release.

A: Ah, heard what won’t be on release? The only thing that might disappear is masochist mode. Masochist mode was originally put in the game as a bit of a joke. Some of us who were making the game early on were bugging Trasochi about how certain things were way too easy so as a joke he’s like, ‘oh here’s masochist mode, good luck’ [Mike laughs]. Some of us actually really liked it so we kept it as an optional mode. Also, it’s a way we can test what it would be like if the game was way harder really easily. It helps give us a little tool for balancing and we see some people really like the additional challenge. If it becomes something that is popular and people like there’s a better chance that we’ll keep it. So if you are interested in keeping it than just say so on the various social platforms we monitor. A lot of our decisions are based off of – or at least influenced by – what the community gives us as feedback, for sure.
Timestamp: 12:12-13:34

Q: Any plans to make enemies more engaging than they currently are?

A: You mean like having more in-depth mechanics to engage with? Or more aggressive? I think a lot of the newer enemies that show up in the later acts, like these ones [Mike is currently playing in Chapter 7], are a little bit more engaging to work with. They have different abilities that they react to different scenarios a little bit better which I think is appropriate that enemies get more mechanically in-depth as you progress through the game. Yeah, it’s something we expand upon every single time.
Timestamp: 13:55-14:35

Q: Follow-up to the question: More variety and aggressive.

A: Yeah, I think things are going that way…a little bit. We try to make as many new enemies each patch as we possibly can, and sometimes that means slipping something new in older zones because there’s still some zones earlier in the game that don’t have that great of a variety. Most of the new zones we put in we developed an entire new suite of enemies for those zones. Sometimes we’ll grab a couple enemies from other zones and change them a bit, but usually we just try to go fresh for every new area that gets added. Yeah, the content is better when it’s new enemy models and it’s made custom for the game rather than being taken from somewhere where it’s premade or something like that. Years ago when we first started out on Kickstarter a lot of the models and stuff were not custom made for the game, but now most of them are…which is great.
Timestamp: 14:36-15:32

Q: Is there going to be a trade system? And if yes, how?

A: Yes, there will be a trade mechanic – a way you can get new gear from other players, or give your gear to other players for an exchange of some sort of currency. I’m purposely being very vague here because we don’t have all the details worked out for it yet. It’s something we will adjust throughout our testing. It’s not going to be anything like you’ve seen before, I don’t think.

We have a few odd goals we’re trying to achieve with our trading system and weirdly enough one of them is not making it too easy to find the gear you’re looking for, or too easy to sell the gear you have. There’s a sweet spot of convenience we want it to have where it’s a fun and engaging thing to do, but it doesn’t take up a ton of time and it’s not instantaneous. So you can’t just say, ‘okay I’ve hit level 40…I can now use unique item X and I have enough of currency Y so I’ll just go buy it and get it and I’m good to go’. This works really well in several other trading systems, for sure, but we’re trying to build it a little bit differently from scratch. That sort of interaction is something we’re trying to curb a little bit just so that it’s not instantaneous and guaranteed, I guess, so that there’s still a bit of interaction – like you’re interacting with a community and you’re playing with other players.
Timestamp: 15:58-17:45

Q: Truth be told, I wasn’t masochist HC SSF mode to be legacy and be granted a ladder like any other mode. It requires theory craft and in depth knowledge and I love it.

A: Yeah, the only reason we haven’t given it a ladder is because it’s a little bit crazy in difficulty and does require a lot of game knowledge to even get past the first boss – in some cases [Mike laughs]. This is also the reason why it’s not available when you first make a character because we don’t want peoples first experience with the game to be, ‘oh yeah I can do it, I’ve done this sort of thing before’ and then just get absolutely stomped on and suddenly they don’t want to play anymore. We purposely do this to curve that sort of negative experience from the start.

As far as having a ladder for it, it’s a similar sort of thing where incentivizing such a difficult mode is tough. Suddenly it becomes like, ‘you’re not really doing it unless you’re on masochist mode’. It’s such a fine line to walk and we don’t want to encourage it too much because it’s not what we balance the game around.
Timestamp: 17:56-18:55

Q: Any plans to improve the DPS tooltips, like showing more details?

A: The tooltips themselves will likely not get much more detailed than they are currently. Chances are the detail you’re likely looking for are going to show up as a sub-panel within the Character Stats Sheet. The Character Stats Sheet is getting reworked. I know I’ve shown a lot of prototypes for new panels on these streams, but I don’t have another one to show you for this panel right now. That said, there’s going to be an extra panel that shows more detailed information with skill specific information on there.
Timestamp: 18:56-19:22

Q: Is there any information about when we can expect the last few masteries? I’m most interested in Warlock at the moment and would really love it has some additional melee skills for the Acolyte.

A: Yeah…umm…additional melee skills for the Acolyte…I don’t – not a lot. Ahh, I’m trying to think if there are any [Mike laughs]. I might be forgetting one. The Warlock will not be available in this patch or the next patch – I can tell you that for sure. Other than that I do not know when it’s coming out.
Timestamp: 19:25-20:02

Q: I love the crafting system in-game. So far the fracture chance seems a bit high though.

A: Any time in a game when you show the exact chance of something to happen or not it’s a really tricky thing to reconcile in how we perceive chance and randomness in a system, and there’s no normalizing event. So if you fail 80 times in a row it doesn’t make your next one any easier or anything like that. You could fail a thousand times in a row – it’s just really bad RNG, really…or really good RNG depending on how you look at it I guess [Mike laughs].

We are looking to change crafting, in general, coming up here. I can’t tell you the exact change we’re making because we don’t know exactly when we’re going to drop it, but I think you’ll generally be happy with it. When I say we’re changing the crafting system – the core crafting mechanics are not changing.
Timestamp: 20:04-21:20

Q: Any plan to add more and varied affixes, especially suffixes for certain weapon types? Feels a little shallow at the moment.

A: Yeah, we add new affixes every patch. I don’t know how many we have planned for this one, but I’m sure there’s a few coming. It’s tough because a lot of these things we have a meeting on it and we write everything down and someone gets assigned to implement it. As soon as the meeting’s done a lot of the details are like, ‘okay next thing’ [Mike laughs] – so I don’t always remember them
Timestamp: 21:24-21:50

Q: As long as you don’t make it so it’s more optimal to play using 3rd party tools instead of the game to acquire gear I’ll be happy.

A: That’s a really good point – regarding the trading system. We really want the trading system to take place in-game. We want you to feel like you are going through actual game content to trade, if that makes any sense, so that you’re not going through a third-party site. I don’t know if a third-party site will be possible, but we’ll see. I think that keeping it in-engine is a really positive thing for how it feels, really.
Timestamp: 22:02-22:53

Q: Do you all plan on keeping skills based around mana gainers and mana spenders to limit skill spamming?

A: Yeah, though not all skills are like that and each class has a different relationship with mana skills – in their spending and generating type category. I think the general philosophy is around keeping them relatively tame, might be a good way to put it. We’re not planning on changing that any time soon.
Timestamp: 23:00-23:35

Q: Do you plan to include puzzles in the game to get some high level loot?

A: That’s a really interesting thing. I want to answer this question in more detail, but I’m just too sure behind in chat. It’s unlikely, but maybe some minor ones. It’s tough because usually they just end up getting – like the solutions get spoiled and if they’re randomly generated puzzles they can sometimes get too tough for people…and that sort of stuff.
Timestamp: 23:38-24:10

Q: Are there really only 4 skill buttons?

A: There are five, actually.
Timestamp: 24:12-24:18

Q: What’s the ratio of crafted vs found gear you’re aiming for?

A: I think – it really depends on the build. I’d say most people are going to be wanting a combination of both, roughly 50/50, of like Unique, Set, and crafted gear but it can it can be anywhere from a range of 90/10 – either way type thing…depending on the build. I’d say it’s likely that every piece of non-Unique or Set gear you find you’ll do some crafting on, if you’re going to use it.
Timestamp: 24:20-24:56

Q: Can you recommend some good beginner builds?

A: Yeah, for sure. Honestly, the guys that do the build videos on YouTube and our forums – they have so many amazing builds out there that looking up one of those is not a bad idea. Basically anything – I’ve picked arguably the worst skills you can take on Primalist and I’m doing pretty well with it [Mike laughs] – so it’s kind of hard to screw yourself over and not have any fun with it at all. Keeping things thematically similar is really useful.
Timestamp: 25:00-26:09

Q: How’s work on the Falconer coming along?

A: Falconer is coming along great. Falconer is going to be an awesome class. Once again, it’s going to be something that’s very unique. We’re going to release the Falconer and people are going to assume they know roughly what it’s like, and I think people are going to be a little surprised…which I’m excited for. Now that I’ve just said that people are going to start thinking about how they could be surprised and might figure out what it’s going to be anyways – I don’t care [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 26:22-26:48

Q: That sounds very difficult to implement. If the end goal/result is that you get the exact item you want through trade, but it’s somehow difficult, it might just end up feeling tedious?

A: It will be difficult to achieve. If it all comes together exactly how we want I think people will be extremely happy with it, but it will be very difficult to do. However, we’ve never shied away from a challenge so we’re going in [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 26:56-27:15

Q: I’m really excited about Runemaster. Am I right in thinking that it will play a little like a trapper in other ARPGS?

A: Ah, not necessarily. There will be more battlefield control mechanics in there, but trapper is probably a little bit too far.
Timestamp: 27:25-27:40

Q: How do you guys plan on doing seasons? Will you push content updates with new seasons?

A: Yes, we will. We’re going to do ladder resets, new seasons with new content – but there’s a lot of different ways you can provide the content so it’s difficult to say exactly how we’re going to implement it. Is the content going to be available in the standard league right away? Is it going to be available first only in the new league? It’s safe to say the details of these seasons have yet to be fully ironed out.
Timestamp: 27:42-28:15

Q: If you release seasons you should stagger them between the PoE releases in order to keep a higher player base.

A: I think it would be foolhardy not to. There’s a really clear wave pattern in the playerbase of PoE, and they’re a huge game. We’ve already seen that wave happen when we release patches around new PoE leagues, and we have nowhere near as many people. I think there’s a huge amount of overlap in our playerbase and I think if we were like, ‘okay we’re going to release it a day after PoE or a day before or same day’ I think all it’d do is split the playerbase between the games. There’s so much more to do in PoE, I don’t think we’d come out smelling too great there [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 28:25-29:28

Q: Would it be possible to add some kind of DPS meter to the training dummy?

A: Ah, we’ve been talking about different things to do there. I know we’ve had a lot of requests recently about more accurate DPS meters. There’s good and bad things about having really accurate DPS calculations available. It would present a really clear way of comparing builds against each other – and that happens with the ladder already – but once you get say, ‘this build has ten thousand DPS and this build has eight thousand DPS’ suddenly you get a lot more pressure from players to play the highest DPS build. This tends to homogenize builds, and it’s something we’d prefer to avoid if we can. I think having forty different, fun, and playable builds out there is a really cool concept.
Timestamp: 30:18-31:16

Q: When are you planning to release passive trees for Sentinel stances?

A: Ahh…yeah, I’m sorry – bad news bears. Don’t hold your breath for them.
Timestamp: 31:35-32:02

Q: Is there a plan to add an undo button when allocating points to skills and passives, and maybe extend the tooltip to show what the next point actually does?

A: We’ve talked about having a system in here [Mike has the passives window open] where you can like click, click, click, click – figure out exactly what you’re going to do – and then like a confirm button. Same goes for the skill tree nodes of your specialized skills. We haven’t implemented it yet, but we’re working on it.

Also, a similar thing with respec’ing – especially in the passive tree where you have to confirm each point you remove – being able to respec and you can take points in and out and then confirm once you’re finished. So maybe you could use left-click to add passives and right-click to remove passives and a little counter that says, ‘this respec will cost this much gold’. I think this would be a better way to do it, and we’re still working on it as well.
Timestamp: 32:05-33:01

Q: Are there any plans for a character creator or more robust character options?

A: Yes, but not before launch though.
Timestamp: 33:03-33:08

Q: Will maps for Monolith of Fate be procedurally generated at some point?

A: Having procedurally generated maps with how we’ve set up multiplayer is really tough to do. We are working on getting those in because we do like some content in that type of category. Having handcrafted levels lets us really make sure that the quality level is there for a lot of different scenarios. We probably won’t have any soon, but it’s something we’re working on.
Timestamp: 33:10-34:02

Q: Do you guys have plans to do leagues/seasons with new changed gameplay like PoE or release DLC with new content?

A: More similar to PoE style – it won’t be exactly the same, but more similar.
Timestamp: 34:35-34:44

Q: Will classes get new skills before release and is there the possibility of a Werewolf form for the Druid?

A: The third form for Druid – which I know a lot of you have seen that there will be a third form – is not Werewolf form. I’m not saying we’ll never have one but the third form is not Werewolf. I think you will be quite pleased with what the third form is. In general, yes other classes are getting new skills. Each class will have the same number of skills all with skill trees when the game launches. I was going to say it’s going to fit on this screen [Mike has Skills & Specializations screen open] but this screen is changing so it’s not really a great showcase of how many skills are going to be here. I don’t want to say exactly how many there’s going to be, but we’re pretty close on a lot of classes. There’s already a few classes that are maybe already at the right number.
Timestamp: 35:06-35:58

Q: Are there any plans on dealing with spammable action skills? I know some users are using the Num-Lock trick. Are you planning to disable that or provide an in-game alternative?

A: Umm…yeah, the Num-Lock trick is something that we, I’d say, tolerate right now. It’s not how the game is meant to be played, but it’s also not really that debilitatingly broken so we’re not trying to take action to stop it right now. I know a lot of people feel that because they don’t have the right keyboard that their hardware is putting them at a detriment and suddenly they think, ‘oh I have to pay money to buy the hardware’. We’re really cautious to say certain software versions are okay because software can start doing all sorts of crazy stuff. There’s a post on the forums that has a very carefully and clearly worded statement on how we feel about anything like this, and I don’t remember exactly how it’s worded so I don’t want to try again [Mike laughs].

I’d say if a skill performs best by using the Num-Lock trick then that is a failure by us in designing how the skill works more than anything. If you always want to press a skill right after its cooldown no matter what then we’ll likely try to address that through a design solution later, and not a solution that involves trying to detect key presses or anything like that because there’s so many ways to do it that don’t involve Num-Lock. There’d be no point in trying to detect for all of these right now.
Timestamp: 36:08-37:58

Q: I just wanted to add that poison leveling with daggers is painfully slow at the moment. Also can we get a Gunlance in the game?

A: Well, there’s no gunpowder invented in the timelines before the Void just completely obliterates everything. Research tends to slow to a halt when you’re being absorbed by an unstoppable force of nature like that. So I mean – it’s a time travel game – so who knows. Not pre-1.0, I’ll tell you that.
Timestamp: 38:06-38:44

Q: Do you plan to make leagues or seasons with a mechanic or something like that in this game?

A: Yes, for sure.
Timestamp: 38:50-38:53

Q: Can you please add a “tik” option above every skill for auto-cast? I try to use the Num-Lock trick but it gets disabled every time I Alt-Tab.

A: Yeah – like I said earlier – it’s not something we’re really interested in as a mechanical thing. It almost feels like a failure we’ve made in the design of it – and I say failure as a loose term…I’m not saying we completely failed the design of a skill, but a mistake was made. However, if we change our minds on it, I could see that as something that might get added in, but certainly not right now.
Timestamp: 39:08-39:44

Q: Are there any animation changes planned for Tempest Strike?

A: Yeah, I mean the animation is a little quick and he only uses one hand there – it’s kind of weird…maybe, but I kind of like it though. It’s distinct from Swipe though which is something I do like. The Swipe animation is so much nicer though. Something I always forget – when people say animation do you mean VFX? They are two very different things.
Timestamp: 39:46-40:14

Q: Would it be possible to add something like a DPS meter to the training dummy?

A: Possibly. There are problems with that, like I’ve said earlier.
Timestamp: 40:18-40:24

Q: Do you have plans to add stack counters to the enemies, like bleed/poison stacks?

A: There are some technical problems with that that we have not yet overcome yet, so not yet.
Timestamp: 40:40-40:47

Q: Will the game offer HDR support?

A: Ah, changing the render pipeline is really a big thing. We might do it eventually, but it’s not in the process right now.
Timestamp: 40:48-41:00

Q: What’s your future plans regarding itemization? More stats, more items at all level break points, etc.?

A: Yeah, we add in new items all the time. We’ve got new swords – I’m trying to remember what’s coming since last patch – I think swords are the next thing to get updated…that’s coming. There’s some pretty sweet ones, and some other stuff too. There’s lots of new Uniques and new Sets and new affixes that get dropped in all the time, and they all have to exist in the ecosystem of the game that’s already there but they all have to bring something new to the table that makes it more interesting and deeper. Not necessarily more complicated though because sometimes adding more complexity doesn’t actually help the depth or enjoyment of the game.
Timestamp: 42:06-43:01

Q: What are your thoughts on Glyphs? It feels like their drop rate is so high that it just becomes extra clicks and diminishes their value.

A: Part of the problem there, first of all, is that there’s not enough different types of them yet either. I think we’re going to see a pretty significant change in Glyph rarity, use cases, and quantity – I guess that’s rarity. Once we get the new crafting changes in and updates there’s going to be lots more Runes and Glyphs added to the game – maybe not tons more. We want there to be more than there are now – reasonable enough that you can remember what they all are, but not so few that there’s only a couple options.
Timestamp: 43:04-44:00

Q: The one thing I’m not a big fan of is that there’s no map quantity and the low mob density of echoes. Are you going to keep it this way or change it?

A: A lot of the map density stuff has to do with performance. We are improving that all the time. There was a post recently about adding lighting to skills now because we just found a huge performance wind that was causing lighting to just wreck framerates. So I can see that being something that gets added in and expanded upon, for sure, with more enemies. A lot of the newer ones have higher density.

Having a way in game to increase that density that’s stacking and potentially stacking really high has the potential to be very bad. We always have to look at the edge cases. If there’s a way that most players are going to increase density by 50% – that’s not bad, that’s not going to do a ton of stuff. If there’s that person who’s pushing high-end content and their build is really awesome and can increase density up a 1000% then it’s going to provide that worst case scenario, and be very difficult to deal with – framerate wise – and the whole quality goes down. It also becomes so chaotic that there’s really no consideration that goes into the combat. I’d rather have a balance of difficult enemies and the amount of enemies. Sometimes it’s nice if there’s a lot of them but I think there’s such a thing as too many [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 44:04-44:58

Q: Is there going be an offline mode for like Steam workshop to have mods similar to Grim Dawn with their custom classes and changes?

A: We don’t have any plans to directly support mods at launch. That’s not to say that is won’t ever happen, but it’s scope creep and we’ve got to keep scope creep under control so that we can get to launch as quickly and smoothly as possible. So for now there will not be specific mod support from us. But never say never [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 46:00-46:30

Q: Are you focused on trying to make a game with many “viable” builds or only a handful of “meta builds” that are required to get specific endgame gear?

A: I mean, ideally, I’d like to see there be ten awesome builds per class that are super viable and can beat the final boss and all that sort of stuff. So yes, I’d love to see there be a big variety of builds to can do all endgame content nicely. I would be foolish to say that I didn’t think that certain things will have an influence on what those builds are [Mike as the ladder window open as he says this, and laughs]. We’ll be working to balance the game such that there’s as many viable builds as possible. We want you to be able to look at a class and its abilities and say, ‘hey that would be really cool if I could do – whatever – and make it possible’.
Timestamp: 46:34-48:02

Q: Will LE seasons be more akin to Diablo 3 seasons or PoE seasons?

A: I’d say they’d be more similar to PoE seasons, but I don’t want you to take that as everything’s going to be exactly the same. Given the choice between the two of them, we’ll be more similar to PoE.
Timestamp: 48:08-48:20

Q: In most cases weapons have “damage/utility” affixes as prefixes only, and utility/status as suffixes. Will that change in the future at all?

A: I mean, it’s changed in the past so I feel like it changing again is possible. It’s one of those things where we look at the balance of affixes and distribution all the time. We don’t have any major changes for it coming in this patch so far – doesn’t mean it won’t happen – but as of right now most of them are relatively similar. The vast majority of them are the exact same, I should say.
Timestamp: 48:30-49:07

Q: Do you plan on having different variations of the Arena (timed, challenges, etc.) to give variation to the meta and give more endgame time wasters?

A: Yep.
Timestamp: 49:09-49:16

Q: Will you replace the “white” art in the inventory panel by which you place your items atop?

A: Oh, remove your armour…the white art. Yeah…okay, these things [Mike removes equipped chest armour to reveal the white chest armour art that is displayed behind it]. Yes, that’s a really old image [Mike laughs]. It’s actually – some of you may actually have the old gear in your inventory if you played a long time ago – but all of these images are actually just cut-outs of gear that were or are in the game still. Yeah, I’m sure those will get updated at some point.
Timestamp: 49:19-50:01

Q: Will there be a Dex/Crit form for Druid?

A: I mean, that’s kind of a gap in it right now…I think, right? [I believe Mike is hinting that the new form may be filling this gap upon its release]
Timestamp: 50:05-50:12

Q: Do you guys work on the game and its future updates literally every single day of the week or?

A: Ah, yes…we try to strive for that work-life balance. I’ve got a new baby at home so I like to spend as much time with him as possible but I like to think we’re pretty dedicated to this. There’s lots of times you’ll see answers show up at random times. I sit on my phone a lot and try to answer as many questions as I can in the Ask-the-Dev’s section of our Discord. So if you are asking a question about a specific node or item it helps to include a screenshot of that node/item as I don’t remember exactly what every node/item does and the backend environment doesn’t show node names so it helps to include a screenshot so I know what you’re talking about.
Timestamp: 50:14-51:28

Q: Have you analyzed how Wolcen managed to launch to such great success and get some ideas for your inevitable launch in the future?

A: Yeah, I mean, I’d say the vast majority of us played Wolcen when it launched and have played it since then. Yeah, we play and look at all the other games in the genre. There’s lots of good things that all of them do really well, and so we like to learn.
Timestamp: 51:31-51:55

5 Likes

Continued...


Q: Is this game only playable through the Steam client?

A: We do have a standalone client that use can use if you’ve purchased through Steam or our website. You can play on Steam or through our standalone client. You do not need to have purchased it in any one location to play it on either platform. It is openly playable for all people who have bought it on both platforms. I will tell you this though – the Steam one updates way faster [Mike laughs]. So unless you have a real hate on for Steam – which I know a lot of people do – I would probably recommend using the Steam version.
Timestamp: 52:12-53:20

Q: In continuation to the question about the passive tree. Can we maybe get an opt-out to confirm point allocation for speed running?

A: Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t put it in initially is because a lot of people will just want to slam those points in as quickly as possible. That sort of thing would likely come with an opt-out option, in a sense.
Timestamp: 53:22-53:42

Q: What are your thoughts about the ability to get 100% critical strike avoidance?

A: I think that getting 100% of anything that is a binary stat once you have 100% of it is – it can quite often be a fun thing to get to and work your build towards and achieve. I think it should be something that is difficult to do and there should be sacrifices along the way. If you’re incidentally getting 100% critical strike avoidance by doing something else – I think that’s not great design. I think if you’re able to really focus on it and maybe you have to give up damage or health or resistances or something like that – you have to give up something – and it’s something you really have to work towards…I think that’s a cool thing.

This is especially true of different classes – and on theme as well. Something like a Sentinel I think would be more appropriate to get 100% critical strike avoidance than an Acolyte.
Timestamp: 53:44-54:52

Q: How does the Rogue make shadows?

A: There are several different abilities that create shadows, and you kind of need to look through them all to find the ones that do it. My advice to you would be to keep leveling and come into here [Mike has a skill tree window open] and search “shadow” and it will highlight any nodes with “shadow” in their name or description. There’s quite a few – I’m trying to remember the names of them because we changed a lot of the names part way through the development of the Rogue, and I still call them by their old names [Mike laughs]. Umm…yeah, just look through them. There’s a bunch that do it – most of them are Bladedancer specific.
Timestamp: 55:00-55:46

Q: Can you make it so that if your belt is full of HP potions that they won’t be picked up from the ground as HP? It’s killing my low life character.

A: Yeah, we’ve looked at this a few times. Honestly I can’t remember the exact reason why we haven’t done this yet. However, I will say that if you’re at full potion slots the potion drop rate is significantly reduced. I know it’s a tough thing to do, but there’s ways to convert potion health into ward instead so there’s a few gameplay ways around it. We’ve definitely considered it, and it would have to be an opt-in system and be on a character by character basis. Ahh, no immediate plans I don’t think.
Timestamp: 55:55-56:44

Q: The auto-cast feature is mostly about auras. Maybe you can add a mana usage similar to PoE to be always enable instead of auto-cast?

A: Ahh…yeah, there’s a reason we weren’t – we talked about having a reserved system, but I can’t remember the exact reason why we avoided it. It was some system that it conflicted pretty heavily with. Sorry, that was a long time ago that we talked about that…we’re talking years.
Timestamp: 56:50-57:18

Q: People compare it to 100% delirious maps in PoE and I think while it’s a natural comparison to make, the endgame here is Arena, Monoliths are there to farm gear to push arena. So I actually rather not have insane density.

A: Yeah, it’s something that we work on and having players be able to – one really positive thing about giving players a way to specific opt-in to more density is that certain builds that do really well with more density can then stack the deck in their favour a little bit which is an interesting thing to do. There are typically certain map modifiers you need to avoid for certain builds and that, in a sense, is the same thing but it’s sort of the inverse so it doesn’t feel as good. But yeah, we’re still looking at it.
Timestamp: 58:08-58:52

Q: Will you surpass level 100 on a character?

A: Very, very, very unlikely. If anything we might stretch out the leveling a little bit more – make it a little bit harder to get to level 100, that sort of thing. I know that I really like the idea of almost never hitting level 100. I played so much Diablo 2 that I had characters that I finished them…completely finished them, but it was over the course of like years.

The difference between having a level 99 and level 100 character is really tiny. It’s one out of 113 passive points, and once you’ve unlocked the highest skill point you are going to use in the passive tree – really every skill you point in there afterwards is less important than the one you put in before…by a percentage of your damage and likely just how good it is for your character. So that amount that you’re getting each level actually slows down as you progress. But level 100, that’s the max.
Timestamp: 58:56-1:0052

Q: Are there any plans for more in-depth stash/storage organization? Like the ability to dictate which items can go into which tabs, or better sort functionality.

A: Yeah, so having items go to specific tabs I think is a really awesome that PoE just added. There’s a few other things we’re looking at doing with the stash – like reorganizing it better. I was lying in bed a couple nights ago and I think I figured out a way to do it, so that’s good [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 1:0053-1:01:22

Q: What are some of the biggest pitfalls of PoE that you’re trying to avoid?

A: That’s a really tough question. I don’t think there’s any really big PoE pitfalls that we’re really trying to avoid. PoE is a different game. First off, I think it’s a really great game overall – they’ve done fantastic stuff with it. A lot of the systems we have wouldn’t work well in that game, and a lot of the systems they have wouldn’t work in our game. They’re different games – we each do things differently.

I think we are trying to keep things a little bit slower, a little bit more deliberate, and that’s really difficult to do when you’ve been extending a game for ten years. I think we’re looking to keep things a little bit less trade dependent. It’s really hard to say because we don’t think of things in terms of, ‘how do we do things differently than PoE?’ We look at things in, ‘how can we do things best for our game?’ Our experience from playing PoE does come into those decisions, but it’s definitely not the starting point.
Timestamp: 1:01:25-1:02:44

Q: Is there any kind of rough timeline for when multiplayer will release?

A: I don’t have anything I can give you on a timeline for multiplayer. Every day it seems we have some kind of big internal breakthrough of tech that’s getting better for it, but it’s a really incredibly complex thing to do. Until we’ve got a really clear – like this is what we’re going to release, this is roughly when we’re going to release it and candidate builds almost – we’re kind of just saying, ‘when it’s ready’. I can tell you that the community testers are not testing multiplayer yet. They don’t have access to it, so you don’t have to be that jealous of them yet [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 1:02:48-1:03:45

Q: Is there any timeframe for the next big game update?

A: Ahh…yeah, I think it’s – I know I’m saying this live on the stream – don’t quote me on this [Mike laughs…and I’m sorry Mike but I am :sweat_smile:]. I think we’re roughly, approximately, about a month out…maybe more – question mark. I think Sarno may have actually said something at some point that actually said more accurately when it was so that’s why I’m being super vague. If someone saw that comment, please repeat it.
Timestamp: 1:03:50-1:04:28

Q: What will happen to my SSF HC character once the game goes multiplayer? Will I have to remake my character?

A: All characters that are being made right now are in what I’d call ‘offline mode’ – they are not multiplayer characters and you will not be able to play them in multiplayer on our servers when multiplayer goes live. This is mostly due to security reasons and partially due to wanting to have everything be a fresh start when multiplayer goes live. So they will not be able to be played online, I’m sorry. I know it might feel like you’re playing online already because of the ladder, chat, and things like that but no they are offline characters for the moment.
Timestamp: 1:05:38-1:06:24

Q: Any plans for an Xbox release?

A: I think an Xbox release would be awesome. However, we will not be doing it before we launch the game.
Timestamp: 1:06:24-1:06:40

Q: Are you guys still on track to release co-op before end of August/Q3?

A: We’re not ready to put dates or timeframes on it. I don’t know where you heard that date or time, but it was likely a guess from someone.
Timestamp: 1:07:04-1:07:15

Q: Any plans to add or update Legendary items? A lot of them seem kind of bad or not super helpful, especially at lower levels.

A: So there are no Legendary items in the game yet. We have Unique items in the game – that we will be adding more to and updating as we go along. I wouldn’t say that there’s that many ultra high-end chase items in the game yet. Honestly, there’s a lot more leveling Uniques, I’d say. We are adjusting their power level and it’s a tough thing to get right because if Uniques are too strong then it kind of invalidates crafting for the most part, and if they’re too weak then it makes crafting the only thing possible. We do plan to have that balance be a little bit more even than it is now because I think people generally rely on crafted items more than anything.
Timestamp: 1:07:17-1:08:05

Mike brings a concept design for the new Skills & Specializations panel on screen:

https://imgur.com/R5FC8Q9

Oh, what’s this! This is a concept art for an updated skills layout – it’s a little bit clearer. [Judd messages Mike saying, ‘NO, NO, NO, DON’T SHOW THAT!’ Mike quickly takes the image off the screen and begins to laugh hysterically as he realizes he’s been had. Judd replies in chat, ‘Got him :smile:’]

[Mike puts the panel back on screen] Here’s the skills panel we’re working on guys [Mike is still laughing]. We’re working to keep things clearer – we’re doing away with some of the…oh, I’ve got to calm down a little bit…doing away with some of the extra screens – so like when you click to specialize a new skill, instead of it taking you to a new screen it just highlights the ones you have available here. There’s going to be a search bar in this screen that lets you look into skills a little bit more clearly. It also lays out how you unlock them a little bit better – so the ones that are unlocked through your passives and the ones that are just from your character levels.
Timestamp: 1:09:00-1:11:12

Q: Are there plans to streamline crafting mats? e.g. auto pick-up/auto stash?

A: No immediate plans at the moment, but we’re still considering it. It’s a really easy thing to – as far as player reception – it’s a really easy thing to add and people would be happy about it, but it’s a really hard thing to take away and people wouldn’t be very happy about it. So we’re still considering it, but no immediate plans.
Timestamp: 1:11:26-1:11:49

Q: Are there plans to update skill tooltips to show how much of what damage type it deals?

A: We did actually consider having it split. We really want the tooltips to be useful at a glance instead of requiring too much reading. So if there was a little thing that popped out that said Alt for more info and it had the exact details of all the damage types or something like that – we considered that. I think we’ll likely be putting more of that in this screen [Mike has the Character Stats Sheet open].
Timestamp: 1:11:52-1:12:34

Q: How does ignite work, and what is the affix chance to ignite with fire skills on hit for the Mage class because they don’t seem to increase my ignite chance on my character sheet with spells like Fireball and Meteor?

A: Okay, so there’s a few things here. Usually the ignite chance – if you have ignite chance listed in a skill tree it will not reflect in your Character Stats Sheet. If you have ignite chance in your passives that is global it will reflect in your Character Stats Sheet. The ignite chance in your Character Stats Sheet is a global ignite chance –so if you have ‘melee ignite chance’ or ‘spell ignite chance’ it won’t show up here. That’s something we’re looking to expand as well. The base damage does not affect your ignite chance – so if you have Fireball and you get ‘increased damage’ or ‘+20 fire spell damage’ it’s not actually going to increase your ignite chance at all.

If you have over 100% ignite chance it will potentially apply two stacks of ignite – so if you have 101% ignite chance you have 100% chance to apply one stack and 1% chance to apply a second stack.
Timestamp: 1:13:35-1:14:44

Q: Are there plans to add increased functionality to the loot filter system? Such as showing items with at least the chosen number of selected affixes?

A: Ahh, not specifically that immediately, I don’t think, but that is a request we get enough that I’d say the chances of someone working on it pretty soon are pretty high. We are going to be expanding the loot filter functionality – possibly getting some more logic in there, some AND’s some OR’s…things like that. We know people are creating humongous filters with so many rules to get specific interactions to work and it’s a little tedious sometimes. We’d like it to not be that tedious.
Timestamp: 1:15:00-1:15:43

Q: What are the differences between purchasing from your store vs the steam store?

A: The Steam store does have, I believe, region specific pricing on it – just because we go through Steam’s purchasing system – and I think that’s about it. I don’t think there’s any other major changes. By default, you’re presented with the Steam launcher rather than our standalone launcher, but if you buy from either place you get access to either launcher so it doesn’t matter.
Timestamp: 1:15:48-1:16:22

Mike shows off the tooltip for a new skill being added to the game, Summon Storm Crow:

https://imgur.com/jQUpIYg

Here’s a tooltip sneak-peek for a new ability coming. Someone last stream asked me if there’s any new summons coming and I said, ‘I know there’s at least two’ – well here’s one of them.
Timestamp: 1:17:05-1:18:12

Q: Will you have a system against multi-boxing planned for multiplayer? Because I think it’s kind of damaging for the game economy.

A: I agree. Multi-boxing is not great to have around. We’re not really going to go in-depth on this sort of thing – on, I guess, network security things we’re talking about – but yes I would agree with your sentiment, that multi-boxing is not great to have. Especially if it becomes rampant and then it becomes where it feels it’s required to play the game. That would be bad.
Timestamp: 1:18:15-1:18:51

Q: Any ideas for like “dungeons/raids” kind of like Lost Ark has but most aRPG’s seem to avoid? Basically content bosses designed for multiple players.

A: One thing that we do really want is that we don’t want content to be mandatory to be in a party for. However, I think content being more interesting in a party or slightly different in a party is a really cool concept. So having something like a boss that gets new abilities or maybe a boss who, when you fight in multiplayer, like part of the arena comes to life – I’m literally making this up on the spot guys so please don’t think this is something we’re working on [Mike laughs]. So it could be a big boss that you fight in single player, but in multiplayer part of the arena itself that you’re fighting him in stands up and starts fighting you as a second boss simultaneously. I think that’d be pretty cool.
Timestamp: 1:19:00-1:20:00

Q: Is there an option to have NPC dialogue put into chat?

A: Not right now. We do have pretty tight functionality for adding – we do have functionality for doing things like that already built in so it’s not out of the question.
Timestamp: 1:20:02-1:20:32

Q: Is there a benefit to full clearing a Monolith vs. just rushing boss? Are there going to be any map/UI improvements to better track map completion?

A: There are advantages to clearing a map for gear – as you clear more enemies in the Monolith you do get more gear from that Monolith. It’s not linear and I wouldn’t recommend full clearing it, but killing stuff on your way to the destination is probably going to give you more stuff.
Timestamp: 1:20:48-1:12:38

Q: Are you guys going to add new skills regularly or going to stick to a core?

A: We’re going to keep adding more skills. We don’t have an exact timeline on it, and I’d say after release we’ll likely end up in a scenario where some classes have more skills than others. Though, at release each class will have the same number of skills. Yes, we’re adding more skills. I think new skills are a really interesting way to add more content without adding more content – if that makes any sense. Having new ways to do existing content I think is a lot of fun, and this game focuses a lot on – well, the whole genre – focuses a lot on different build options and the amount of build options expand with each new skill.
Timestamp: 1:21:40-1:23:08

Q: Will you allow people to change their Mastery?

A: We have no plans of allowing that at the moment. I will not guarantee it will stay that way, but we have no plans at the moment. I would consider picking your Mastery more akin to picking your class at the start of the game, if anything else.
Timestamp: 123:18-1:23:36

Q: I have come to notice that Acolyte is pretty awesome, but in some ways it feels like to do relevant endgame content it pretty much forces you to go Reaper Form and Death Seal. Would you agree? If so, any plans to change this?

A: Yeah, I think Reaper Form is a little too intrinsic to Lich specifically. I think there’s lots of ways that the Acolyte can do endgame. Reaper Form is what is focused around the Lich, in general, partially because it’s something that you can still use your other skills in. It’s a pretty core part of that class – maybe a little too core for most of the builds.
Timestamp: 1:23:58-1:24:44

Q: Will there be a death penalty? I think PoE is too steep, especially the last 4-5 levels. It discourages players from doing challenging content because you can lose hours of gameplay from just 1 death.

A: Umm, I think my personal opinions on this differ from a lot of the other designers here. I don’t think we’re adding a death penalty of experience loss anytime soon.

My personal preference would be to have some experience penalty. It is really frustrating when it does happen. It’s kind of like having a soft hardcore mode, if that makes any sense, where you have this penalty for dying so you really don’t want to and it creates that tension a little bit. I don’t have enough free time usually to constantly be playing hardcore and lose all that progress, but I really do love the tension that it brings. Personally, that’s why I enjoy it. We know adding experience loss wouldn’t be overly popular and it might not be mechanically relevant, really, so we’ll see what happens.
Timestamp: 1:24:46-1:26:00

Mike shows off a teaser for an upcoming area:

https://imgur.com/F5Oy50l

A little teaser of an upcoming area coming to the game.
Timestamp: 1:26:18-1:26:25

Q: Poison stacks that reduce poison resistance, how does damage work for each minion (like if one minion reduces the resistance for -10 and the other for -20, they both deals damage for -30 resistance?)

A: Yes, that is how it works.
Timestamp: 1:26:28-1:26:40

Q: Is this game aiming to have endgame content like PoE? I mean, a final boss or something after completing some sort of requirement.

A: Yeah, I’d say the hardest challenge coming from Last Epoch is not available yet.
Timestamp: 1:26:54-1:27:12

Q: What about adding AND/OR to the filter rules?

A: Yes, we’re working on it. It’s not available yet.
Timestamp: 1:27:30-1:27:34

Q: Why did you decide against a specific slot for lower body armour and instead went for a full body armour slot?

A: That’s a really long meeting. I’d have to get the notes for it [Mike laughs] and then the eighty meetings after that. I guess it partially boils down to reducing complexity a little bit – would be the short answer I guess.
Timestamp: 1:27:36-1:28:04

Q: I see that you’re team is huge Zelda fans. What we can find in LE that was inspired by Zelda?

A: Ah, there’s a node on – there’s actually something directly inspired by Zelda that I know of because that was brought up in the meeting – ah…I’m trying to remember the node. There’s a node in Rive that if you’re at full health there’s an energy wave that gets shot out and that is an homage to – in a lot of Zelda games, especially the old 2D ones, where at full health there’s a magic energy wave that comes out of your sword. So there’s a little node to Zelda in there, a single node. I would suspect that the amount of Zelda that I’ve played – yes I do love Zelda, my wife got me this [Mike points to Link’s shield hanging on the wall] for Christmas – I think just by the nature of being human that things from your past…the games you’ve played will slip in subconsciously.
Timestamp: 1:29:00-1:30:14

Q: Will Tempest Strike get an update in the upcoming patch?

A: There’s no major changes to it planned right now. We’re looking at other newer skills, trying to get abilities – Tempest Strike, I agree, is not as awesome as other skills such as Swipe. Part of that has to do with the interaction it has with other skills. I believe there’s some interaction from Tempest Strike coming – not this patch but the next patch – so that there’s some incentives to use it by those interactions. I’m sure we’ll be updating it in general, but haven’t made any huge changes to it. The skill tree isn’t…I do like the skill tree, but it didn’t ever click so we’ll be reassessing and reorganizing it and probably be doing a few passes on it. I do think there’s other skill trees that might need love first [Mike opens the Summon Sabertooth & Summon Bear skill trees as he says this] before we take a look at Tempest Strike. Wink, wink, hint, hint [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 1:31:10-1:32:10

Q: Thoughts on having melee skills stop when a target dies? It feels a bit awkward on Werebear when you use mana by accidentally swiping too much.

A: There’s a lot of stuff done for performance sake in the ability use – like mechanics and holding buttons down and things like that. There’s a lot of things like if you’re just holding a button down and you go to a zone exit it will just click and take you through, or if you hover an NPC as you’re running past it will start talking to them – and those are actually the same problem as what you’re talking about. We’re working on things like that still, because we want that to feel really good. Having the combat feel tight is like the most important thing in a game like this.
Timestamp: 1:32:13-1:33:02

Q: Do plan to add any specific skill panels with more details in the Character Panel so I could see specific on-hit chances instead of just global stats for say the Meteor skill?

A: Yeah, so having like, ‘this is your poison chance for this ability’ [Mike opens Character Panel and hovers over poison chance]. Yeah, we’re going to add more detailed information in the Character Panel – I think that’s not this patch, but next patch is the plan there.

We’re doing a ton of UI work right now. Shout-out to the UI designers – it looks so awesome, like so awesome and I’m really excited. I’ve been working on implementing it. It looks and feels a lot better. We’re kind of taking a pass over almost everything.
Timestamp: 1:33:04-1:34:00

Q: What is the planned release date?

A: We do not have one [currently].
Timestamp: 1:34:37-1:34:40

Q: Will the cosmetic store be out before 1.0? I would love to support this game more and look good doing it.

A: Yeah, I think the cosmetic store is something that will be – we still need to work out the details on how that becomes available. Any time there’s extra MTX in Early Access games we have to be careful about how that’s presented and all that sort of stuff, but once we have more MTX that looks awesome – because we have a separate MTX pipeline that’s working really hard to make really cool stuff for everyone to wear. Once we have more of that that’s ready to go, and likely when multiplayer is in we’ll be looking at doing that more. They’re not directly tied to each other, but I’d say it’s more likely to happen closer to that timeframe.
Timestamp: 1:34:42-1:35:42

Q: Any reason for the Captain’s Ring that’s on the ground in the starter area? Has like 90 something stun avoidance and is always in the same spot. I haven’t found another static item like that.

A: There is one other static item like that. If you kill the first beetle looking enemy – it’s like the third enemy in the game – it always drops a bow. This is specifically so that Rogue’s can start with a bow from the very beginning. It’s a bit of a hint – so a lot of people were having problems with being stunned early on and we wanted to be like, ‘here’s a tool to help with stuns, and this tool’s in the game’ So it’s basically a hint, hint, wink, wink type of thing. It’s part of the tutorialization. It’s a little subtle maybe, but that’s why it’s there.
Timestamp: 1:35:54-1:36:51

Q: Will you be able to duel friends when multiplayer drops?

A: Yeah, PvP is one of my favourite things in games like this. We are working on PvP. I would say there’s likely – oh, I don’t know if I want to say that – there’s probably conditions under which PvP happens that’s a little more static than just, ‘hey you, fight me!’ but we’re still working out those details so I don’t really know for sure what it’s going to end up being.
Timestamp: 1:36:58-1:38:10

4 Likes

Continued...


Q: Are there any mana quality of life changes coming to Marksman soon?

A: Ahh, possibly. There’s a lot of little changes that happened to nodes and there’s some changes coming that will affect every class in the mana category – especially ones that use a lot of medium to low mana cost skills instead of really high cost skills, but it’ll also help those ones too. I think it’ll have the most impact on people who use a lot of medium cost skill.
Timestamp: 1:38:24-1:39:02

Q: When multiplayer comes will we have a new online stash or will we keep the same stash?

A: It will be a completely new online environment so you will not get to keep anything you have here. You’ll be starting from scratch online because, really, we just can’t trust you.
Timestamp: 1:39:12-1:39:36

Q: With the proposed new Idols panel, will 1x4 & 4x1 Idols be receiving balancing changes to account for the fact that only 2 of either Idol type can be equipped?

A: Yeah, so most of the effects that appear on 1x4’s and 4x1’s also appear as lesser power on 1x3’s and 3x1’s – not all of them but most of them. So you’ll still be able to use those versions of a lot of them. We’ll be taking a look at them. Every time we make a big change like that we rebalance a lot of stuff. I’d say there’s a good chance they’ll get some bigger ranges put on them – I’d say is a guess. We haven’t actually had that meeting yet, but I’d say bigger ranges would be a good guess…if you were going to make a guess.
Timestamp: 1:41:00-1:41:46

Q: I really like boss fights, they are awesome, but I wish I could fight them more often. Any plans to add boss rush or target farm bosses?

A: This is a question I actually get a fair bit. I think that’s there’s going to be some new endgame modes eventually that will let you to interact with this a little bit differently, and hopefully help with what you’re hoping for. We don’t have that system ready to go yet. I could see an easier way to access some boss fights coming in. The new Monolith changes, on average, will make it quicker if you want to just rush the boss – it’ll make it a little bit easier to do that.
Timestamp: 1:41:48-1:42:40

Q: Is there any reasoning behind Void/Necrotic/Poison affixes/shards being more common than Elemental/Physical ones?

A: I don’t think they are. I think they have the same drop rate. If they are different drop rates than it likely because there’s less classes that can take advantage of them, in general.
Timestamp: 1:42:50-1:43:24

Q: I feel like Attunement across the board could be a little stronger, as usually any other attribute is just better. Any plans on buffing or is it meant to be niche?

A: Ah, yeah…it is a little less awesome than some of the other ones. I could see it possibly getting some buffs. Yeah, attunement does feel like it might be the weakest of all of them especially because of the interactions with other stats – the way that they work – is a little bit inherently better for the other ones, typically.
Timestamp: 1:43:26-1:41:15

Q: Any intention on changing the AI of minions to attack enemies while your character is moving?

A: Yes, there are changes coming to minion AI next patch.
Timestamp: 1:44:18-1:44:29

Q: What are your thoughts on endless monster scaling in an endgame system? In my opinion without some type of cap it won’t feel as rewarding or deliver a sense of achievement.

A: I think there’s a place for infinite scaling in games like this. I think if it’s the main endgame system or the only endgame system it can feel a little like a treadmill or a hamster wheel or whatever. I think there are times when it’s really fun to see, ‘what are the limits of my character?’ – like take me right to the limit, let’s see what happens. I think that’s a really positive thing to have, in some cases.

You’ll notice that this philosophy already exists in our campaign – you go to a level and maybe you’re too low level or your character isn’t good enough or whatever and you struggle, you fight, and you can’t really do it. So you say, ‘I can’t do this, I’ll come back’. You go farm a boss few times and you get better gear and you come back, and now you can do the content. I think that character progression to the world is really important – is a sense of power. So I think they’re both very positive things to have.
Timestamp: 1:44:30-1:46:10

Q: Will there be craftable cosmetic items in the game?

A: I don’t know. I don’t think we have any, like, hard plans for them right now. Maybe…it’ll be kind of cool.
Timestamp: 1:46:28-1:46:45

Q: Is there a story behind the bug where some potions are called beer?

A: It is not a bug. It’s a fun little thing we’ve got in the game. This is the story behind it – someone was like wouldn’t it be cool if, and then someone did it [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 1:48:40-1:48:57

Q: Are there items that are going to be gated behind PvP?

A: Umm, that’s a good question. There’s a possibility I could see that happening. If they were they’d either be mostly cosmetic or not very useful for things other than PvP. I don’t think we have any concrete plans like, ‘yes, this is going to be gated behind PvP’ or anything like that, at the moment.
Timestamp: 1:49:04-1:49:34

Q: What engine was this game developed in?

A: Unity
Timestamp: 1:51:30-1:51:31

Q: Where can I get API info to build apps such as a planner? There’s already a planner now, but I don’t know where they are getting all the API info from.

A: I know Sarno’s been working on getting that to actually be public. We’ve been on and off working on an API now for a while. Getting that information out of the game smoothly is difficult to do, because the format that it’s in changes every time we add a new feature. So like, for example, there’s affixes – as soon as we added affixes that could have multiple stats, just the way they’re stored and exported had to be changed again. So the API has to constantly be updated every time a new feature is added to the game which creates what’s called technical debt – we start an API and then every time we add a new feature we have to make sure that it’s compatible with the API and update that as well at the same time. We’re working on it.
Timestamp: 1:51:32-1:52:50

Q: Are there any plans for mod support?

A: We do not have any plans for mod support at the moment. That’s one of those things that we know a lot of people really like modding games like this, and there’s so many awesome ideas that come from the community. One day it’ll be a cool thing for us to have, but for the time being it’s a little out of scope for us.
Timestamp: 1:52:51-1:53:10

Q: Will we see Marvel Heroes raid-like content in LE?

A: We don’t have any plans for huge multi-party bosses or things like that at the moment. I could see there being some sort of community event or something where every time someone beats the boss – again, off the top of my head kind of making this stuff up. Let’s say that every time someone beats Lagon a counter goes up a little bit more and depending on how high the counter gets in the course of a week maybe some content is dropped, etc. I don’t know, but things like that are much more feasible for us than getting 40 people in a room and fighting a single boss – partially from a mechanics standpoint, but also a technical standpoint.
Timestamp: 1:53:12-1:54:22

Q: Is the loot in multiplayer going to be instanced or party loot?

A: It’s going to be instanced loot.
Timestamp: 1:54:28-1:55:50

Q: What are your endgame plans, beyond Arena and Monolith of Fate modes?

A: Yes, we’ve got several endgame modes planned. We’d like to ideally have an easy way for people to hop into the game and play different ways depending on how they want to play endgame. So someone who really like pushing Monolith style content or Arena style content or endgame mode three style content or endgame mode four style content or whatever – we want to have that variety available so that there’s lots of different things to do right off the bat.
Timestamp: 1:57:36-1:58:08

Q: Speaking of multiplayer, how large are the party sizes planned?

A: I don’t know if we’ve made an official statement on that. It might be changing as well. I would suggest a reasonable number in the range of four people would be an accurate guess, if you were going to make a guess. That said, it’s not set in stone yet – so maybe more, maybe less.
Timestamp: 1:58:24-1:58:50

Q: Support Classes have typically broken the game for most ARPGS. It becomes bring one geared character and 4 support follow bots. How do you plan on approaching this issue?

A: I think that’s really going to depend on how those builds emerge. I think having support builds be viable is a really cool way to do things. Having it be the only viable method is not really that cool. If it’s possible to do the game that way, but it’s also possible to do game with a full group of just straight DPS or a tank, DPS, and a healer or whatever – if it’s possible to do it all the different ways we probably won’t touch builds like that very much. However, if we look at the group ladders and the top thousand entries are all just parties of one DPS and the rest support then we’ll take a look at that and it’ll probably center around what’s the interaction with that and try to make something that stacks not stack. Let’s say – I’m going to use Diablo 2 as an example – you could get the bonus from eight Oak Sage’s then your health could stack to the moon, but only one of them works so it only matters to have one of them really. So having effects like that not stack really helps with that.
Timestamp: 1:58:52-2:00:40

Q: I would love to see an Uber boss that drops an Idol (similar to the Hellfire Torch or Annihilus in Diablo 2).

A: Yeah, like getting your first Torch ever or getting your first Anni ever is such a great experience. The only downside with them is that they are indisputably the best item to get in that slot. There’s basically no time ever where you don’t want a Torch or you don’t want an Anni in Diablo 2. They’re great in the sense of finding one is amazing, but they kind of suck in the sense that until you have one your builds never done.
Timestamp: 2:01:02-2:01:48

Q: Will you have seasons? Like in PoE?

A: Yes, but they won’t be exactly the same. They’ll be similar – I’ve talked about it a fair bit here. Yeah, we’ll be doing seasonal style content, and it’s more to have a way to theme larger content packs as a big drop – almost like mini expansions than anything else.
Timestamp: 2:02:30-2:03:00

Q: What are your thoughts on character boosting? Will you have to do the campaign every single time you make a new character?

A: This is still something we’re working out – how multiplayer quests will specifically interact. One of the downsides to having character boosting be possible – and I’m not saying this is enough to just kill the idea or whatever – but one of the downsides is you get third-party websites that will start selling services like character boosting. This isn’t ideal, to say the least for us. There’s lots of pluses to having it as well – like for someone who has done the campaign 80 times in a row or something like that, doing it one more time is probably not going to be the most enjoyable experience. Hopefully we can make the campaign cool enough that it’s still fun to do, but after enough times completing it I can see it becoming maybe a little mundane…who knows.
Timestamp: 2:03:05-2:04:20

Q: With PvP, have you entertained the idea of making a game mode like Capture the Flag or Arenas (like Battlerite)?

A: We’ve definitely talked about different types of PvP modes – I think there’s even some mention of it in our Kickstarter campaign page. I think it’d be a ton of fun to have a capture the flag style mode, or a king of the hill, or one person gets like 100% to all stats and is three times as big but it’s like an eight person arena or something – you know, just weird stuff like that. You could almost do like a Gun Game type thing where every time you get a kill you unlock a new skill or something and they get worse and worse or something…I don’t know. There’s lots of room for innovation and experimentation in PvP, I think. There’s a reason why a lot of games don’t do it for this genre, because a lot of those PvP modes probably work a lot better with different camera angles, really. However, I think we can have some fun with it. I think the important thing will be to not take some of those weird PvP modes too seriously. Who remembers the battle royale in PoE? That was a ton of fun, right? It started out as a joke.
Timestamp: 2:04:30-2:06:25

Q: Since recent patches have increased player power, will you be bringing up the mob power as well?

A: Yeah, we’re constantly looking at player power versus mob power, and classes compared to each other. I think certain classes have recently spiked a little bit and others have not so it’s created a little bit of disparity there.
Timestamp: 2:07:55-

Q: Will there be future classes?

A: Probably, yeah. Not at 1.0 launch – at 1.0 launch you’ll be seeing the classes that are currently available. There’s still three more Mastery classes we’re working on. We’ll be expanding that. We have plans for potential new Masteries and base classes, depending on a few things. I’m not going to tell you which ones are coming first because I don’t know [Mike laughs].
Timestamp: 2:08:48-2:09:24

Q: Golden key like key/method for skipping story when?

A: I don’t know. Maybe never.
Timestamp: 2:09:25-2:09:32

Q: What do you think of doing seasonal content that stretches over a year instead of a new league every 3 months like PoE? So have a year long league that has 3 or 4 parts released every X months, kind of like what Magic the Gathering does with their card sets.

A: Yeah, that’d be cool. The way Magic the Gathering does it where they have the storyline carry over from set to set – making up a block – I think is something that’s really cool. While we don’t have specific plans for it right now, I could see there being value in that…so maybe.
Timestamp: 2:09:52-2:11:10

Q: How do we feel about an incredibly rare Rune that would allow you to swap affixes to a different base? Given the rarity levels of a good single or even double T6-7 and then having them show up on the right base for the right class.

A: That’s an interesting proposal. We don’t have any plans for two items being able to go into the crafting system at the same time…yet, I guess you could say. We also don’t have any plans for shards having a tier on themselves…yet, either. But that’s a cool idea, and we do have some different crafting runes coming down the pipe – so yep, maybe.
Timestamp: 2:11:55-2:12:42

Q: Last question you mentioned something about Monolith changes. Anywhere I can read about these or can you explain them a little?

A: We haven’t really told much about it. We hinted a little bit at a few things here and there in some of the streams, but we haven’t really gone in-depth on the changes we’re going to be doing to it. They’re also not done yet so I can’t give you much information there yet, but I’m sure you’ll see more teasers as we get closer to the patch.
Timestamp: 2:12:46-2:13:10

Judd posted this in chat with the description, “Mike doesn’t want to show the new rogue skill???”:

https://imgur.com/2N7mUQk

The link to this video actually downloads a file with the name: “Shade_of_Orobyss_23_Giant_Void_Meteor_01.mp4”. So a possible Shade of Orobyss attack? Seems quite likely.
Timestamp: 2:01:01

6 Likes

Thanks for the hard works, keep it up my friend

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.