Closed Beta = "Hard mode engage!"

OK... OK... the new difficulty curve might have been a weeeeeee bit too aggressive.

Meanwhile, under Yulgar's Inn: "OMG! The slimes are one-shotting me!"

Hey! I did say a weee bit too aggressive O_O... OK, maybe there is a reason people started calling it AdventureDarkSouls 3D this weekend. The funny part is, some of you are such insane hard core players that you managed to play through it anyway. And if you were one of the people who did that without the weird Dragon Crystals XP glitch (which we are working finding) then you have my jaw dropping respect.

I was playing too :D

So, I deleted Artix and made a fresh level 1 character with no perks or upgrades. Meet Wobbles.... he likes long walks in the dungeons, getting killed over and over by slimes, trouble understanding some of the quests, and being too low level to kill the monsters requires to craft items for his level. Good news for Wobbles, your friendly neighborhood game dev team is already at work on the "real solution." Because it is not that the monsters are too tough, it is that he is under geared to properly go all lawnmower on their fanged, snarling faces. Want to talk in depth about where to start fixing?

How many things are there to fix?

In any big video game, at any time, there are no less than an infinite number of issues that immediately need fixed. I know this FOR A FACT because any time I log into any big game I can come up with an infinite number of things that need fixed... and need fixed right now. From graphical issues with the grass to the size and roundness of the server selection screen. Fortunately, building our previous games has given me the wisdom of knowing we need to target the single most important thing first-- and send our entire fleet into attack mode to fix it as quickly as possible. Then move to the next more important, and then the next, until the problems seem to magically start solving themselves.

The #1 Most Important thing to fix

So what is the #1 issue in the current Closed Beta release? Well, your character needs to be more powerful. You need gear. Right? Yup, sounds right. But wait, but what if we look even deeper? How do you get items and get more powerful? *thinks* Killing monsters? Sure... but why do we kill monsters? Quests & Crafting. Quests are the most vital system for teaching players how to play, and getting them the right gear, and progressing from area to area. Crafting is currently the essential system for obtaining more powerful gear. But, I think if we fixed quests, we could get you base-line gear to make you competitive... and that would also magically fix a good portion of crafting. Time for us to dive in...

Questing System

I am going to do a pretty hefty critique here.. but notice when I critique, I ALWAYS offer a solution along with it. In all things, spend 10% of your time on the problem and 90% on the solution. Playing as a new player, the intro quests were pretty confusing. Most of you skipped them entirely and headed straight to the town of Battleon. There are no level 2 or 3 items that can be easily obtained... the first item upgrades were in Greenguard Forest but the frogzards were so hard for me to kill that it was hard to complete the crafting quest. So let us tackle these...

1.) Quest System Improvements

Most Important #1: Quests need to give you rewards for your current level so that you meet the base amount of power you need BEFORE proceeding to the next area. So you should be walking out of the intro with a few level 2 items. Every zone should be per-preparing you for the next area.

Second, how the questing system works needs polished. Currently you can get quests from the button in the upper right of your screen, area quests can also come from an NPC in the current area, AND you can get bonus quests from other NPCs in the area. In the very first intro, we need to teach brand new players that the quest button at the top right of the screen is the best thing in the universe and pressing it is like hitting a pinata of love and candy. Right now we have a few different interfaces, so I redesigned the Quest Screen on Friday and Zhoom is working on putting it in now. No matter where you are in the game you should be able to look in the upper right and have something fun and rewarding to do.

Third, I sat with the team and solved the "Go talk to an NPC" issue. One thing we kept noticing was new players never even saw that there were crafting shops on NPCs like Robina in Greenguard Forest. This was because they would get there and turn in the quest, then immediately get a new quest and move on. While those of us who played AQWorlds are used to this, players who did not play that game just assumed that our game was like almost every other where every NPC only does a single thing. (We were a little shocked to realize this too.) That is, in most games, all NPCs only serve a single function. Like there is one NPC who is just a shop... and another who just does quests. I remember older games I used to play being like ours, but when I went back to check I was surprised that they had changed the system.

Items from Shops, Crafting, Quests, and Rare Drops

I do not like "hard rules" because predictable math is boring. But guidelines are essential for setting expectations. So here is how I think you should find items...

Shop Items - Average Power (+0 Levels) Quest Items - Above average Power (+1 Levels) Crafted - Awesome Power with power based on difficulty to craft (+1 to 2 levels) Rare Drops - Awesome Power! (+1 to 2 levels) Crafted from Rare Drops - BEST OF THE BEST! (+3 levels)

When you enter a new area, there should always be a shop with "starter items" that you can buy for gold. For example, Robina needs a shop with level 2 items that are affordable for the amount of gold a level 2 player has. Even if you skipped the intro, you should be able to kill a few frogzards and start gearing up your hero... which will feel pretty awesome.

Crafting with DragonCrystals

Ooooh... heated debate time! Just kidding. Put down your pitchforks. I think we agree on a good solution for this one. I have read both sides of this argument about using DragonCrystals to bypass crafting. You will be surprised that it has prompted us to make a change. There is a lot of pride in working crazy hard for something. It feels cheap if someone can just buy it without doing the work. It was like my black belt. I worked REALLY HARD for my black belt in martial arts. It was a real one. I mean, failed tests for color belts. I trained for four years, took bonus private lessons, and pushed myself harder than anyone else in the class. I started with 40 other kids and was 1 of only 2 who made it to Black Belt.... and the only one of them to make it to 3rd Degree. So when I saw my first "McDojo" where kids passed no matter what as long as the parents paid... yeah, it stung. And that is the heart of what we are talking about here. Epic Weapons and Armor that are YOUR Black Belt. I could care less if people buy the lesser common items. But for weapons like the NightLocke Waraxe/ScytheBlade/WarStaff it NEEDS to be earned!

Solution: The easy fix for this is for us to code the crafting shops so we can "turn off" the ability for some items to be crafted with DragonCrystals. Epic items should have to be quested for through worthy, grueling, hard game play only. That is what we are going to do.

"But Artix, that is your entire financial model... that will hurt the game, right?"

Uh... yeah. There are some ways we can fix that though. We can sell alternative items that are slightly less powerful or comparable. We could also just sell one of the ingredients for people to speed up a part of the creation process-- knowing that players would still have to run the dungeon to do the core part of crafting. These are compromises I could live with.

The Nightlocke Weapons-- we are going to remove the ability to buy them with DragonCrystals. (If you already got one this way, you are Grandfathered in.) Then, we will add some other weapons that you can buy from the shop to help you in the dungeon.

Power Curve

Even with quests giving out more items it is possible that the power curve is set too high. Zhoom has a special setup where I can sit down and fight monsters at each level range. I will be doing that later today or tomorrow to make sure.

New Player Experience

From the data, it is clear that we need to fix serious issues impacting players who are not used to the way quests and things worked in AQWorlds. We are going to take a few days and rework the entire intro area to make a smoother, more rewarding experience.

Other Bugs/Exploits/Glitches

The team is on fire fixing up the existing glitches and issues. Expect several hot fixes this week.

Open Beta will have to wait

It is clear to the players, testers, staff, and to myself, that AdventureQuest 3D is not ready for Open Beta... yet.

If we were baking a cake, we just opened up the over, stuck our finger in and realized she is not done cooking. You thought it would be done, but it is not yet. You would not tell your friends to rush over and eat unfinished cake. I mean, sure, we could release anyway-- but it would be a disaster. I look back at Oversoul and Herosmash and think to myself, "NO. NEVER AGAIN! NEVER EVER AGAIN!" This game is too important. We have made massive progress, but we need to fix all the current issues and make sure it is an amazing experience for new players before we release. I am going to meet with the team and do a time table and post it for you... but as we are missing the Summer launch window, my best guess (off the top of my head) would be Fall. The Android Beta will continue on schedule and be releasing next. I know a lot of people still want to join in the testing, so we are going to reach out to the gaming news sites and see if they would be interested in doing some BETA KEY giveaways (with more capes?) very soon.

Check back tomorrow for news about the Time Table and Dragonslayer Class Design

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