

First

Second

Third

Fourth



Biological Horror and the Rapture



"Is that a chest? … Really? I'm not sure I'd use any items that came from that."



"Wow, it doesn't, oh, OK, that is actually disturbing."



These are just a few of the statements I get to hear as the art assets get hooked up for the final levels of Act 4.



The art for these areas, and the large fights included, add a lot to the experience. The artists have really pushed the boundaries, of their own skill, and the level of unpleasantness and horror.



We are still a couple of weeks away from having this added to the beta. Next patch we will be adding the Rapture device in. Looking at other content, we have only a couple of monsters, a couple of new skills and a lot of end game maps to complete.



Melee vs. Caster



For balance, the big question of last week was where do caster builds stand vs. melee builds. It is something our players have been discussing, with many being concerned about casters being left behind melee in the new version.



We have done a lot of testing and have made some changes to improve things for casters. As part of this, we have scaled back some of the experience needed to get level 20 gems.



We are making sure we are being careful with these improvements. Casters tend to have better tools available, and can appear weak in early testing, with players having a lot of room to improve them.



We have been looking at the power of the characters in a variety of ways - clear speed, combat damage, levelling, power at different points of a league. Things are looking good, but we know we have a lot of balance tuning to do before it is ready to go live.



The Big Leagues



The other important content to get ready for release is the new challenge leagues.



Mark (Neonspyder/Mark2) is leading the standard league and Chris is leading the Hardcore league. I can't tell you anything about them yet, but they are both working hard to make sure the leagues are going to provide excellent experiences.



We should be able to show you more details in late June!



Are we still on track?



Number of issues: 629 (Including 91 new issues from last week)



I have spent a lot of the last week looking at each team member's issues and the overall feature list. This is important for making sure people are working on issues required for release, and also to make sure all the features have issues created for them.



We are on track for the early July release. There is a lot of focus on polish. The question for most features is not, "can we get it ready on time", but "what else does this need to make it the best it can be". Earlier State of the Beta posts:"Is that a chest? … Really? I'm not sure I'd use any items that came from that.""Wow, it doesn't, oh, OK, that is actually disturbing."These are just a few of the statements I get to hear as the art assets get hooked up for the final levels of Act 4.The art for these areas, and the large fights included, add a lot to the experience. The artists have really pushed the boundaries, of their own skill, and the level of unpleasantness and horror.We are still a couple of weeks away from having this added to the beta. Next patch we will be adding the Rapture device in. Looking at other content, we have only a couple of monsters, a couple of new skills and a lot of end game maps to complete.For balance, the big question of last week was where do caster builds stand vs. melee builds. It is something our players have been discussing, with many being concerned about casters being left behind melee in the new version.We have done a lot of testing and have made some changes to improve things for casters. As part of this, we have scaled back some of the experience needed to get level 20 gems.We are making sure we are being careful with these improvements. Casters tend to have better tools available, and can appear weak in early testing, with players having a lot of room to improve them.We have been looking at the power of the characters in a variety of ways - clear speed, combat damage, levelling, power at different points of a league. Things are looking good, but we know we have a lot of balance tuning to do before it is ready to go live.The other important content to get ready for release is the new challenge leagues.Mark (Neonspyder/Mark2) is leading the standard league and Chris is leading the Hardcore league. I can't tell you anything about them yet, but they are both working hard to make sure the leagues are going to provide excellent experiences.We should be able to show you more details in late June!Number of issues: 629 (Including 91 new issues from last week)I have spent a lot of the last week looking at each team member's issues and the overall feature list. This is important for making sure people are working on issues required for release, and also to make sure all the features have issues created for them.We are on track for the early July release. There is a lot of focus on polish. The question for most features is not, "can we get it ready on time", but "what else does this need to make it the best it can be".

Last edited by Qarl on Jun 1, 2015, 1:51:42 AM

Posted by

Qarl

on Alpha Member on