This post covers all the new or interesting information the developers have shared with us over the past two months. I hope to turn this into a recurring monthly or semi-monthly post, but we’ll see. This post is somewhat lengthy because it contains information from both March and April.
So this one could be anywhere from just chapter 1 receiving a rework to chapters 1-3 getting reworked. It’s hard to tell as Mike’s answers have shifted over the weeks but there’s some sort of rework coming to the early game and it could be coming in patch 0.9.1.
Q: Any plans on reworking the pacing of the existing story?
Mike: So the the starting initial two chapters are getting completely overhauled. That’s been in the works for a while now. It didn’t make it into this [0.9 patch as it] wasn’t ready yet, and there’s also more chapters coming later on as well. Part of that is because the early part of the game is really old now and a lot of the techniques we’ve learned and tools we’ve created for level design and story telling and all these sorts of things weren’t available to the people making the content at the start of the game when we were doing that stuff. So it’s in need of a bit of a glow up.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: We need the other campaign bosses to be up to par with Majasa.
Mike: Yeah I think so. I think there’s…you’ll see a big difference when the chapter Z rework comes out. You’ll see a big difference in the early game. Chapters one, two, and three will suddenly be awesome. You’ll be like, ‘my goodness why couldn’t this have been this awesome to begin with?’ I’ll be like, ‘because we didn’t have the tech or the tools or the experience’.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Will the early game changes be in patch 0.9.1?
Mike: Oh, I don’t know…I don’t know. I’m not really super involved with the development of that but from the stuff I’ve seen of it I hope so.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Last week you weren’t sure but is the chapter 1-3 rework coming next patch?
Mike: Ah, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s one to three. I think the initial batch is just chapter one but I could be wrong on that. Yeah, I don’t know. I think there’s something coming soon. Honestly I haven’t seen it so I don’t know, but I know it was on the “maybe list” for 0.9 anyways for a long time so I feel like it’s got to be getting close, you know.
Source: YouTube Link
This one had already been teased for patch 0.9, as seen above, but got delayed and will now be releasing in patch 0.9.1. This includes more than just the Reaper Form model itself, but also animations and different variations of the model based on nodes selected within the skill tree.
Q: Do you plan on making a Lich Reaper Form MTX on 1.0 release?
Mike: No but Lich Reaper Form is getting a new model next patch which I know I said last patch but it should actually be coming next patch. I saw a preview of it actually in-game running around – not all the animations were done but oh some cool variants for it too. Looks good, looks really good. Um, well I’m sure there’ll be MTX for it post 1.0.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Are we gonna see a new Reaper Form soon?
Mike: Yeah, we actually teased the visuals of the Reaper Form. There’s a forum post about it. It’s actually been even improved since then – it’s very cool. It’s a lot smoother, the visuals are more representative of the base character model but not like…I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. It’s really good, big fan.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: I was wondering if the Reaper Form visuals are final?
Mike: No.
Q: Compared to the Werebear the visuals of Reaper Form and the animations are a bit underwhelming.
Mike: I agree, the new ones are coming. The new ones are sweet. I saw a preview of the actual animations and everything about a week ago and they’re real nice. There’s also some visual twists on the model depending on the nodes you’ve taken which is really nice.
Source: YouTube Link
I was certainly happy to see this topic brought up because yes, sub-skills can be very confusing for players and it’d be really nice to have something like what Mike suggests below – systematic rules that apply to all sub-skills, no exceptions, that are detailed throughout the game and within the Game Guide. Obviously the technical hurdles of the system are something they’ll need to overcome in order to normalize them, but I imagine that’ll eventually happen once high-priority items are completed.
Q: Will sub-skills remain how they are now or be changed in the future?
Mike: Okay, so I have a gigantic response to this that I posted here on Reddit . So the TL;DR of it is that there’s a well-defined rule that we have in place, that we don’t ever tell you, which defines what will be passed on and what won’t be passed on. The confusion came from when I answered a question wrong in the ask-the-devs channel [of our Discord], which does happen because I’m unbelievably far from perfect. [Mike laughs]
[Mike reiterates everything written in his Reddit post, so please read that for more information, or watch the source link]
So those are the rules and the exceptions as they are right now. Now the question I think you’re asking is, ‘how’s it going to change going forward or is it going to change going forward because you don’t like this?’ Fair enough. I think it’s probably frustrating to deal with too and ideally there would be a hard fast systematic rule that would enforce this.
The reason it’s like this is every time we do an enemy target conditional stat we have to write specific code for that specific skill in that specific condition. Anything that’s being passed on to a sub-skill needs to go into – each skill gets something called a mutator and it changes how that skill works when you use it based on what nodes you have selected.
Lots of sub-skills don’t have mutators so, for example, let’s use Kinetic Burst again – Kinetic Burst does not have a mutator that changes it because there’s nothing that affects it that needs to be manually adjusted for that ability. If there was – I don’t even know if there is a target conditional thing in Flurry…I don’t think there is – regardless, if we wanted to we’d have to make a mutator, attach it to Flurry when it gets used so that Flurry would be able to modify Kinetic Burst when Flurry uses Kinetic Burst. Which we can do and which is why the two exceptions that I mentioned – that’s what they do. When we were making them we manually went in and adjusted those.
So what we want to do – I don’t know how we’re going to do this yet, we need to figure out how we’re going to do this – we need to have some sort of systematic way of applying this type of effect that doesn’t rely on us manually adjusting each skill mutator and passing along that stat to each sub-skill as we’re casting. Do I know how to do that or when we’re going to do that? No. Do I know exactly what it’s going to look like, functionality-wise, once we do it? No, I’m sorry…but it’s on the radar and we’ll work on it.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Follow-up about sub-skills, is there technical reason why these rules exist or was it a design decision?
Mike: It’s kind of the way we built those things – this goes back to the design of sub-skills inheriting certain things or not. It’s kind of one of those things that we just didn’t think about, really – the long-term effects of it and the system kind of ballooned.
I think the reason why nothing’s been done to completely normalize them at this point is technical limitations on it. When that style of effect was first added the concept of a sub-skill was pretty early on and we just kept adding those types of effects and we’re just like, ‘okay, well conditionals aren’t inherited’ and then we started adding conditionals based on like players status and that’s when the waters got muddied.
Source: YouTube Link
Mike revealed that a new glyph will be coming sometime before 1.0 that, as far as he knows, has never been suggested and doesn’t really have anything to do with crafting. If anyone’s got theories I’d love to hear them in the comments.
Q: Any plans on adding new crafting glyphs/runes before 1.0?
Mike: Yeah, there’s at least one that I know of that’s planned – a new glyph. So at least one new glyph is planned. This glyph is something that I’ve never seen suggested. There’s been a ton of rune and glyph suggestion threads and this glyph is one that I’ve never seen suggested and I don’t think anyone would ever suggest it because it’s just insane. It kind of doesn’t have anything to do with crafting.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Do you have plans for further/other crafting options, especially for endgame crafting?
Mike: Yeah, I mean, so there are – we’d like to add in more runes, glyphs, and things like that. I think that as you get further into the game – as you get into endgame and your power level goes up the room for improvements is going to go down just because you’re finding really specific things and needing to have those specific affixes on your gear is going to make a big difference.
So, yeah, we’ll be adding more glyphs. I mentioned this last time that there’s a new glyph coming. I think it’ll probably be down here. [Mike points to where he thinks it’ll be displayed on the crafting inventory screen] There’s a new glyph coming right there. It won’t really have anything to do with crafting so it’s not really a good answer but there are things that we’re looking at to expand crafting here and there – some like dungeon rewards are a great way to add in new crafting mechanics.
I’m trying to say things without giving stuff away about stuff we’re going to do here. But yeah, there’s things we’re planning and looking at doing for sure. What am I talking about, the Circle of Fortune is going to be a great way to do that – to help with deterministic item finding and crafting and stuff, so yeah.
Source: YouTube Link
Shard Drops Mike delivers a prepared answer for changes coming to shard drops in the game, as well as a “shard sink” – though, this is likely the shard conversion system Mike discusses later.
Q: Is auto-pickup for shards coming to the game?
Mike: I got a little canned answer I can read out with regards to this:
We believe that it’s important for the feel of the game loop to have enemies fairly frequently drop items that you want to take an active action to pick up, but which you don’t have to take time to inspect to work out whether it’s good for you. However there are times where it feels bad at the moment, especially when it’s just one shard, so we’re planning to have them drop slightly less frequently and in larger groups on average. We’re also planning to add more of a sink for shards you don’t want, so that it feels less futile to have picked up a shard that you aren’t planning to use and already have hundreds of.
Source: YouTube Link
Shard Conversion Mike states that there’s plans for a shard conversion system that will essentially convert one shard to another at a loss.
Q: Any plans to have crafting material combinations, like adding “a” with “b” makes “c”?
Mike: We do have plans for allowing you to basically convert shards from one to another at a loss to deal with that.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Any plans to convert shards we have a significant stash of to others?
Mike: Yes. Yeah, there’s definitely plans to convert them at a loss in bulk. So like 20 strength shards for 5 intelligent shards – I don’t know what the ratio is going to be, but something along those lines in that style.
Source: YouTube Link
Mike provides some minor progress updates being made on the system. Currently the back-end systems they’re working on to enable asynchronous trade are a technical hurdle yet to be overcome and are required before further development can proceed. They also have some UI prototype mockups being made as well. The system is still very early in the development process.
Q: Do you have an expected patch number for the Item Factions release?
Mike: We have a goal for it and it’s going to depend on how the async trade functionality back-end systems come together because those are still in process right now. So depending on when that gets finished and how other things are coming along will determine when that happens. We’re not ready to say when yet. It’s not going to be 0.9.1…I don’t think. Hey, I could be wrong about that but I’d be really shocked, I’d be really shocked – just from where it is right now.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Are Item Factions planned for 1.0 or after?
Mike: I mean, I’d be pretty disappointed if they were after. I would be very disappointed. I’d be surprised and disappointed but you never know. The reason I’m not ready to commit to that one is because there are still technical hurdles that need to be overcome that if they aren’t will delay things.
Yeah, I know I’ve said this a few times for people who’ve been here a lot but when we released that document, that Item Factions document, that was like two weeks after the idea was first pitched internally from Chi to the other design team people. Yeah, they showed up [Mike laughs], ‘I had a dream guys, I got this’.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Have you guys already started coding the Item Factions system into the game?
Mike: Nope, we’re still working on the back-end. We’re working on the back-end system for it for getting the asynchronous trading working and we’re working on – the hardest part for that, weirdly enough, is the search and sort filtering systems. Having that function nicely is surprisingly some of the hardest parts – for performance and just like volume of calls that have to happen for whatever system we’re using back there. We’re also doing UI prototype mockups right now as well. So still early development on the Item Factions.
Source: YouTube Link
Mike talks about small changes possibly coming to the endgame in patch 0.9.1. These may include their plans to more easily reduce, reset, or possibly even lock your corruption as well as some system that increases the speed at which you unlock empowered monoliths for follow-up characters.
Mike has also talked about treasure goblins and maps within maps a plethora of times when describing how the monolith is missing unexpected content, but these may or may not come prior to 1.0. Though, they did just tease a new special echo type, which you can see in the spoilers section, so maybe there’s more to come here prior to launch then they lead on. However, after 1.0 Judd has already stated that endgame content becomes a huge focus for them, especially for the first two cycles which they’ve already drawn up loose plans for.
Q: Will there be any updates to the endgame in the next patch?
Mike: I can’t guarantee anything yet. There are things on the list that we hope to get in for next patch – and I mean 0.9.1 with the next patch, I’m not talking about hot fixes – there are elements for updating some endgame systems that we have planned for 0.9.1. Nothing big but there’s some little things we have planned. I don’t know if it’ll make it in for 0.9.1 or the patch after that.
Our major focus right now with the game is stability – making sure things like accidental rollbacks don’t happen – decreasing load times, improving server performance. Those are the number one priority. Then the number two priority for us is finishing the classes off so that all their skills are finished, adding the final mastery classes, polishing up the endgame, deepening the endgame experience, adding the Item Factions system. These are the high priority things for us right now. So yeah, we’re working on it and then also simultaneously with all that just bug fixes and polish updates – and that’s always happening.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Is there any plans to adjust/fix Monolith progression in co-op. i.e. Monolith side-quests only completing for one player, both players not getting gaze or corruption progress etc.
Mike: Yeah the gaze and corruption progress is intentionally like that, mostly because you can put yourself – right now anyways – you can put yourself into a situation where you can’t progress in your monoliths properly.
If you’re like getting carried hard by someone else and your version of the monolith progresses corruption really heavily you can end up in a situation where you’re just [screwed]. So until we have a way to adjust that properly, or to reduce your corruption manually without having to do something really challenging it’s go to be – because finding a Shade to lower it over and over again will be impossible for a lot of players. If your character can do like corruption 20 and your corruption 300 because you were in this party with these crazy powerful people for a long time and you’re sitting here going, ‘okay, well now I need to find a Shade that’s close enough to the center to do to lower it’ and you just can’t even get past the center nodes [then you’re just screwed].
So because we couldn’t allow people to get into that situation that’s why it is the way it is. However, we do plan to have a way to reduce your corruption, like reset it, a lot easier.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Solution is to allow manual lowering of corruption. Then groups can share increases.
Mike: I agree, that is a good solution for it.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Currently the best way to farm rare Shade drops is to fight an “edge of the web” shade, but this raises your corruption. What if you want to farm rare shade drops but don’t want to raise your corruption (or your corruption is already at the boundary of your capabilities) - you cant farm anymore.
Mike: Yeah, the thing here is to do lower ones in between to balance it out, but I think there needs to be more control on stopping your corruption from going higher and/or just dropping it completely.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: What do you think of lowering the leveling process in normal mono’s? So farming them is meaningful and not just a rush as fast as possible to skip to empowered as right now normal mono’s feel bad after your first character.
Mike: I think that there is room for a system which increases the speed at which empowered monoliths are unlocked at for secondary characters, for follow-up characters that are not your initial first character. That was probably too gentle of wording. I think there’s a need for some system that increases the speed at which you unlock empowered monoliths for follow-up characters. Just straight up reducing the number for follow-up characters is not something we’re interested in because there’s a few issues there. We do have a system planned, hopefully for next patch, that will start the ball on that process a little bit. It’s still a little up in the air so maybe not.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Any plans to shorten the time it takes to get to empowered mono’s? Namely having to do the three different 90 timelines.
Mike: I think that doing the three different 90’s will probably stick around but we do have a plan, like I mentioned earlier, for something that will shorten that time…at least somewhat.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Do you have endgame content that’s coming before 1.0 that aren’t dungeons, like an endless progression system after level 100?
Mike: I mean there’s the arena for that and the monolith for that, so no…but we do have improvements to the monolith coming.
Source: YouTube Link
Current Development Mike provides a few details concerning active development of the remaining masteries – from their skills being designed and prototyped, skills being repurposed or incorporated into other skills, and even some visuals that are being worked on.
Q: Can you describe some ideas for Runemaster or Warlock?
Mike: Not really. I think that – uh, we haven’t released a lot of info about it yet and so there’s not a lot I can talk about when it comes to these mastery classes yet. We do have their skills designed and some prototypes are being worked on right now actually for them. So there’s work being done on them again, which is good news for everyone waiting for those. They will be in at 1.0, I can tell you that much.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Have you talked about adding new or completely reworking spells/skills to existing masteries?
Mike: Yeah, there’s a – here’s something, here’s a little leak for you, write this down, one of the three new masteries is actually going to be getting a revamped version of an existing skill as one of their mastery abilities. Yeah, like there’ll be other – where it’s coming from will have something else put in its place.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Tempest Strike Falconer?
Mike: [Mike laughs] No. One of the abilities somewhere else on that class in general. For example, like one of the either Spellblade, Sorcerer, or Mage abilities is going to be on Runemaster…for example. I’m not saying it’s specifically that one. It could be one of the other two as well.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Will the Runemaster have a pet like a water elemental or something?
Mike: There’s…uh, I don’t actually have an answer for this right now weirdly enough. Maybe. Two weeks ago I would have said no. [Mike laughs] The fifth skill slot for Runemaster is actually back up for negotiation after it got incorporated into one of the other skills.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: When will the remaining masteries be unlocked or become available?
Mike: 1.0. We’re working hard on them right now. I know VFX – our lead VFX artist was doing a ton of work on them this week and there’s some cool stuff coming out. The visuals, the Falconer visuals, are shockingly difficult to get right but they’re coming together really nicely and I’m very pumped for them.
Source: YouTube Link
Rumour Mill Okay, it might just be me but did Mike give a hint as to the playstyle for one of the remaining masteries? I haven’t played Magicka but could this possibly be for Warlock? Maybe Runemaster? Let me know in the comments what you think or if you think I’m reading into Mike’s reply a bit too much.
Q: Any good/bad thoughts about a class/mastery that plays around preparation/burst phases, akin to the wizards in Magicka? (you cast buffs then use incant to cast a spell that depend on the buffs)
Mike: Uh, nothing that I can share with you right now but I think you should, uh, probably remember that a little bit.
Source: YouTube Link
This is an older topic but I figured I’d remind people what’s happening with this skill as it comes up in several dev streams. Tempest Strike is having its role changed to a heavier and bigger hitting skill that scales off of attack speed, with another skill coming in to take the role that Tempest Strike used to occupy. However, this change is not currently being worked on.
Q: Any hints on the remaining Shaman skills or skill updates?
Mike: There’s not really anything I can say that I haven’t said already. There’s at least one new skill…
Judd: Are you talking about Tempest Strike?
Mike: I’ve mentioned…so what I’ve said about Tempest Strike – I’ve said Tempest Strike is going to be a pretty big overhaul, it’s going to have a new identity, it’s not really going to be sitting in the same space as Serpent Strike, Swipe, or Tempest Strike…it’s not really going to fit in that space anymore. It’s going to scale off of attack speed…ahhh, I think that’s all I’ve said about it. Oh, it’s going to be a lot heavier, a lot bigger skill.
Judd: Umm-hmm…Ice Thorns.
Mike: Ice Thorns is going. I know I’ve said that a million times over the years and no one believes me anymore, but it is. [Judd and Mike laugh] And yea, there’s another melee skill coming in to take the place that Tempest Strike holds and there’s…ahh, there’s not much else to say. There’s a new totem skill, I think, at some point. I could be wrong about that one. It’s either a new totem skill or a new branch to an existing totem skill. I can’t remember which one it is.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Shaman 2.0 when?
Mike: There’s a bunch of Shaman reworks in the pipe. Contrary to popular belief, due to a certain video being circulated, we are not removing Tempest strike – never said we were. We are moving Tempest Strike from its current role to a new role and are changing the way it works very significantly, but the ability Tempest Strike and the core idea and fantasy of it will still remain.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: What changes are coming to Tempest Strike?
Mike: Yeah, Tempest Strike is getting a very large overhaul. It will not fill the same skill archetype and role as it attempts to fill now and fails at filling now. So yeah, they’ll be some updates. It’s going to feel a lot better, it’s going to be a lot more awesome…don’t worry.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Is Tempest Strike on the rework list?
Mike: Yes, Tempest Strike is getting its role changed. So it’s not going to be a spammable melee skill early in the tree, it’s going to get moved later in the tree, and have its functionality tweaked – and something else is going to take that place.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: A few weeks ago you mentioned that Tempest Strike is having its general fantasy changed, can you provide any further information?
Mike: No, sorry I meant that the – I don’t know if I said fantasy – the fantasy I want to keep the same but the purpose, the functionality slot, the role it plays in your build will be changing – which is the primary thing. I don’t really have any more info other than that. It’s going to become a stronger ability – like a slower, heavier hitting ability than it is now.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Are you moving forward with reworking Tempest Strike and its tree?
Mike: We have decided that we will move forward with that change to it. However, it’s not in the list of next things that are being worked on for skills. The current skill focus is on masteries.
Source: YouTube Link
Mike discusses plans to alter the severity at which low-level uniques have their level requirements increased when being made into legendary items.
Q: Any plans for an easier alt leveling experience? Making new characters is a ton of fun but it can drag on through the main story and into normal mono’s. Maybe something like being able to add reduced level requirements to items so that you can equip uniques at lower levels, so that I could roll the Squirrel build at like level 25 instead of level 76.
Mike: So we’re definitely not going to reduce the levels of uniques like. That’s a hard no. It just causes way too many balance problems, so no. Currently when you make a legendary item with a low-level unique it cranks the level of that legendary item up based on the highest level between the mods that are transferred onto it if they were on a level zero item what level they would make that item and whatever base level the unique is.
So that’s the way it works currently and we’re looking at changing it slightly so that there’s a more forgiving level requirement for legendary items. So you’ll be able to take low-level uniques and make better low-level leveling items with them. So there’s that. So kind of a yes but not in the way you suggested there.
Source: YouTube Link
Mike announced that there’s a plan to prototype a mechanical change for set items. No timeframe was given for this change, nor has development begun on it yet.
Q: Are there any plans to rebalance set items at some point?
Mike: So sets have – there are some good set items that are a lot more specific and a lot more niche than uniques or rares. They’re generally very specific in what they’re good at doing and in the situations where they are good they’re actually pretty decent, in some cases. There’s a handful of them that are pretty good. Are they good enough for us to not do something with? No.
We actually, for the first time, have a plan to prototype a mechanical change for set items and their place in the item pools. So we’ve landed on a prototype plan for them and we’re going to test it and see how it feels and decide if we want to add it to the game or not. It is something that we’re looking at, and it’s something that we hear the feedback on pretty loud and clear.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Any teasers on what you intend for set items? While I enjoy them they can use some LP type of chase. Maybe a progress tree you can feed other set item drops into.
Mike: That’s a cool thing that we have talked about doing, where you need to find like 40 of this set item to fully power up the set piece or set bonus or whatever – and there’s some real problems there so we aren’t going to do that.
We do have plans for set mechanics and improving of set mechanics and expanding on the possibilities because there’s definitely room for awesome and they’re not awesome yet and we want awesome so we’re going to make them awesome. However, I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to look like yet. We did very recently, last week, agree on a mechanical change for set items going forward that we’re going to test. It’s not in yet, we haven’t touched it yet…so it’s in the “queued for development” column.
Source: YouTube Link
Q: Set items are in generally a bad place (mostly unused), any plans to change them?
Mike: I think this rhetoric around set items ignores a lot of good uses that set items do currently have, which is unfortunate. While there are more problematic set items than there are non-problematic set items, I would argue that the ratio of problematic to not problematic set items is actually pretty similar to Diablo 2, for example, which I would argue has three good set items in it…well five, I’ll give you five – not sets, set items.
Anyways…the answer to the question is yes, we do have plans to change the set system in general such that it reflects a better progression into later endgame content and more customization in your gear.
Source: YouTube Link
This was a quick question and answer but it certainly implies that a movement skill is on the horizon for Spriggan Form.
Q: Spriggan Form movement skill when?
Mike: Did that not go in? Obviously by the question it didn’t go in. Sorry Quiet, I thought that was already in.
Source: YouTube Link
Mike reveals that they’re currently working on adding an option to manually select your server region. They’re also updating how the game automatically picks your server region. So if you get placed into the wrong server region you’ll be able change it. No timeframe was given, but this feature seems like something that’d get added in a major patch rather than a hotfix, though this is just my own speculation.
Q: Any plans for servers in South America?
Mike: There are lots there already.
Q: I tried to play the game last week and got put into a US West server.
Mike: Yeah, so right now there’s no manual server selection. We are planning on adding manual server selection. I know someone’s working on it right now. Once that’s in you’ll be able to pick which server you’re connected to, so it won’t be a problem.
Right now what it’s doing is it is actively polling each server region when you first connect and putting you in the server region that has the lowest ping from that polling session. Now you might say; ‘Well, that’s insane! Obviously South American servers will have a lower ping because I’m in South America. There must be a bug there’.
Well, kind of – turns out the type of polling that we were using can be frequently… [trails off as Mike gets distracted] So the polling happens and we look at the polling results – it pings all the servers and we take the one with the lowest ping and send you there. We have extensively checked this and it is, in every case, correctly placing you in the server that returns the lowest ping in that check.
Now the problem is that the type of ping check that it’s doing – there are many situations where that type of traffic can be basically de-prioritized and in some cases you’ll have some of those checks happening giving you significantly worse results than what is real because they’re just not happening as fast as they can. So this results in people consistently getting put into the wrong server region.
So yeah, we’re changing the way that the polling happens to automatically pick which sever region you should be going into and at the same time we’re also adding in a manual server selection. So even if it does put you in the wrong one you’ll be fine.
Source: YouTube Link
Mike provides some backstory behind the name and character model for this NPC.
Mike: This character is interesting. The Forgotten Knight character – our very first Sentinel version was just called a Knight and it split into Void Knight and Paladin because we only had two mastery classes at the time and the character was actually female. So we had a female Knight character that got ditched. It’s the only class that’s actually been removed from the game and it – well kind of, it was just reworked into the Sentinel and the gender flipped. So yeah, that’s a nod to that right there [in the End of Time].
Source: YouTube Link
Dev Stream Spoilers Below are all the spoilers shown during the March & April dev streams. However, there are still a number of spoilers that were shown in previous months streams that haven’t yet made it into the game. If you’ve missed those you can find them here in this thread . The labels I give spoilers, that aren’t explicitly described to us, are my own assumptions and should not be taken as fact.
Judd supplied some additional spoilers during one of the streams. Also, I didn’t write it down, and forgot what it was, but Judd mentioned a name for one of the new skills coming. If someone knows please leave it in the comments.
We’re working on shaders for water, fur, hair, etc. Here’s a preview of the updated fur shader (left old, right new).
Preview of Progression on Localizations
Social Media Spoilers These are spoilers that have been showcased on their Facebook or Twitter accounts. There’s generally some overlap with these and spoilers shown during the dev streams.
T15 Primalist Armour Set Concept Art
https://i.imgur.com/6g85zus.png
https://i.imgur.com/gjn3sMR.png
https://i.imgur.com/zHrrRLU.png
https://i.imgur.com/3TlJtxS.png
https://i.imgur.com/84ThUVt.png
Special shoutout to @ActionRPG and his team for hosting a stream with EHG’s “lore-master” Kyle. I encourage those that have any interest in the games story to watch it.
Additionally, please let me know if I made any errors or missed anything in the comments.
