Pit People's UPDATE 1 Potential Roadmap Roundup

Hey everyone!



First off, please know that the changelist -- the changelist that does not exist yet and is NOT this post -- will be the ultimate determining list on what WILL be in UPDATE 1, UPDATE 2, and beyond. Please note STORY and CONTENT are separate from this list and always being worked on along with this stuff.



This list is for what might be and probably might be... and of course to keep everyone in the loop or get discussion going about them sooner than later. We'll release the actual, official, and concrete changes in an announcement of a more official changelist capacity rather than just some little daydream post by myself once it's all concrete.



Secondly, at this time, these updates DO NOT HAVE A DATE SET. Update 1 should not be very far away, thankfully, but we aren't 100% sure. We're finalizing a lot of the changes that'd be in it and making sure it doesn't break your game when it lands 'n stuff, and then it's all yours!!! Please note these changes MAY NOT OCCUR, MAY NOT OCCUR IN THE UPDATE, AND MAY OCCUR AT A LATER DATE AND/OR WITH DIFFERENT DETAILS.



So after all that SUPER CAPS disclaiming please allow me to share just a few priorities and focuses straight from my delightful design desk:



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House Menu clarity, control, mouse control, and stat info

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Using the Mouse in this menu will be improved with what we feel can be much more welcomed/expected for a variety of ways. This also includes a more in-depth look at what chance something has of exploding, freezing snaring, blocking, etc. etc. with at least a partially cleaner display. Tooltips for humans will exist over sub-categories if you hover for a bit, to give more answer as to what strategic advantage something might offer.



The 'lower house' area is going to have a simple but cool attempt at having its placement-swapping changed out to feel much more natural, better and clear for both mouse and controller. We're considering (at some point) trying an auto-sorting of the characters in the 'lower house' by species for those of you who've collected hundreds of fighters and are getting lost in the mess.



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'Region' searching Online options

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It's not technically region searching at all, but it feels like it. Users will be able to lessen the restrictions when searching for matches. This will be in the Options menu and can be changed between Normal Distance and Far Distance. Hopefully this will greatly improve anyone's experience that might be playing at a non-peak hour or is in a region that's rather far from other players in a region that has more activity. Please note that we don't think it's in everyone's best interest to just go turning this on, as it no longer guarantees a higher quality match anymore, and could potentially delay between turns if the connection is bad or even disconnect unexpectedly.



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Balance changes

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I've heard you all, I've checked the metrics, and I've tried the stuff out myself. But hang on - everyone breathe nice and easy. Think about the beach and how delightful it is first :)



There's a lot of areas that could stand to be slightly massaged in numbers - and I do mean slightly. Most (if not all) changes will be completely unseen and as a result the game should still feel similar to how it does currently. However, strategic choices should feel a little stronger here and there as a result without all the numbers lighting on fire and destroying the game. I've tried to promote better roles for some of the creatures and either raised, shaved, or offset their numbers as appropriate. Things that may have been a little too reliable are slightly less reliable perhaps - but still extremely reliable in their result. Some changes are made to systems that are deep, deep inside of the math, not evident to the player, that are literally 0.1's and 0.2's of change.



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The leveling, it does nothing!!!!!

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Well, it does do something, but it's a minor gain per level. I've adjusted the benefits for an overall stronger level 99, which means stronger per every level up to it - and it should perhaps feel a bit better. This change should roll out with everything else.



If you compare a level 1 to a level 30 or higher, you should see a bit of a boost in health, damage, and maybe even defense right now - but it'll be nicer soon.



At some point or another, I'd like to have fresh recruits start at a randomized level within a certain range. This will make finding a recruit early on that's strong really be something significant for people, and will make finding level 1's not reliable at all.



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Arena Lobby stuff

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I've heard quite a lot of times the urge people feel to do the Unfair Challenge with fresh recruits to maximize sustain/heals while charging through somewhat mindlessly. While that's a neat tactic many who employed the tactic felt like they had to do it just because it was the best strategically sound choice, and that they lost their sense of challenge. Well, we can't have the Unfair Challenge not feel Unfair, can we?



The Unfair Challenge will, when updated with the change, require an average level of 15 between all fighters to enter, whether it is on Insane or Normal Difficulties. I may raise this a certain degree if people still skirt the rule once they have a very high level character or two. We'll feel it out and see how that one goes.



Online/Offline box in the main Lobby has been changed to be much larger and prominent so players don't go into lobbies while offline accidentally. Spectator button has been moved out of the way but is still there and as available as it always has been.



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Possible Alternate Mouse control scheme

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For anyone wishing they could click on their fighters and then the destination the longer and more manual way you may be pleased to hear that we're looking into supporting that option. It would not be the default so you'd have to go and set it if it gets thrown in. It seems like something that might be in UPDATE 2 or later, but if things go smoothly maybe we'll all get lucky on this one.



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Loot and fun stuff

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This is much more likely to hit in UPDATE 2, but due to the success of the Pit Tournament Loot being such a hit we're finding that we feel the pool of cool items may be getting burned through a bit too quickly. We hope to add some more awesome things to find, as well as adding awesome gold/diamond stuff for the Troll Moms, Rainbow Horses, and Kobolds - they don't have that much, if anything, to find in terms of Pit Tournament Loot.



Versus battles will have more maps in rotation and some more variety / unexpected layouts.



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Easy Access Early Access Survival Guide

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For many, the Survival Guide was a mystery on how to get it back. The Survival Guide will be accessible from the Pause Menu, along with an overall game progress bar in the Pause Menu so you don't have to pull up the book to see the overall completion.



The Survival Guide will, in later updates, be more fleshed out and cleaned up. If you want to know all the knitty gritty about that Mascot Buff or the chance a Gorgon has for spawning snakes, it will be listed in here eventually and creatures hopefully won't be quite so curious. For the next moments, though, they'll have to remain a little mysterious if the Survival Guide doesn't get the big sweep yet.



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Replay minor confusion

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For anyone looking to open their Replay Folder and finding it isn't there, we'll have the folder get created upon pressing the button. Eventually I'd like to have the ability to rename replays, but renaming is not slated as priority.



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Oops, I gave away our strats

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Chat in Versus battles would have the defaults swapped from T and Shift-T (for All-Talk and Teammate-Talk) reversed to avoid having to keep holding Shift-T to avoid blowing your cover. For matches where everyone wants to talk together, I can see this becoming an issue, so we might rehaul the system a little more if that tends to be the case and makes people sad.



STAY TUNED for the official changelist, and again, please DO NOT consider this the official rollout.



SEE YOU IN THE PIT!!!

Dan