27 aprilie

Rise of Legions - Roadmap to Full Release

Hey guys!

After our recent gameplay iteration, which saw lots of positive feedback, we think it’s important to get back on track for getting the game ready for release. So today, we’d like to share more information on our future plans with you, to keep everyone up to date on where the game is going. To do this, we’ve prepared a rough roadmap with all the important milestones to come, and some information on why we are working on each.

As a disclaimer: We see these as our most important goals, and plan on working on them in roughly the order listed below, however, as often is the case in game development, these things are still subject to change.

Now for the list, let’s jump right in!

1) Client Performance / Compatibility
In terms of performance, we think there is still lots of room for improvement. Our goal is to allow the maximum number of people to enjoy the game, no matter the power of their system. This will not only allow players with low-end systems to play the game, but also make the game smoother for everyone.

2) Server Stability
Servers are the backbone of any multiplayer game. We constantly need to keep working on these and improving their performance and stability. While this is not visible from the outside, it does take a lot of work and effort. So please be aware that things may occasionally seem slow, while we are actually hard at work behind the scenes. Another important point: All of our servers are currently located in Germany. This is very good for development purposes, but unfortunately leads to high pings for players in countries further away. So one of our big goals is to set up more servers spread out across the globe, so you can enjoy the game with good ping from anywhere.

3) Improvements to the User Interface
The User Interface is an important aspect of the game, especially for any new players. After two months of feedback and playing the game with lots and lots of players, we have a good idea of what needs to be done to make the most out of the UI for everyone. This will include usability overhauls and probably one or two system redesigns (I’m looking at you, ascension popup!).

4) 2v2
2v2 is still our highest mid-term priority. All previous milestones are really just the necessary preparation for getting 2v2 up and running smoothly. Like a lot of you guys, we are super excited about getting it going as soon as possible, but we need to lay the required groundwork first. Once the technical foundation is laid with the previous points, we are going to start testing of 2v2 and want to get it out to players soon after.

5) Cards and Skins System Iteration
We put a lot of thought into how cards and also how skins should work before going into Early Access. Nevertheless, we think there’s always room for improvement, especially in areas so central to the game. We will likely iterate on the cards and skins system at least one more time before going into full release.

6) Bugfixes and Balancing
Fixing bugs and balancing the game is of course an ongoing process. While we work on these milestones for full release, we will always be fixing bugs and improving the game, as well as keeping an eye on the meta.

And finally...

7) Blue Legion
This is it, the big one! Once the scene is set, and everything is prepared, we are going to put all our efforts into getting the Blue Legion ready for showtime. Release of the Blue Legion will most likely coincide with the game leaving Early Access and going full release. When that time comes, we are going to put all our energy into making the biggest splash possible and getting as many players as possible into the game. It’s going to be a blast!

We hope this list helped everyone get a clearer picture of where we are, and where the game is heading. We’re super happy to have such a great community, and we believe that you guys want the best for the game, same as we do. With this roadmap, we’re very confident the game is going to have the best chance of success, and we’re very happy to have you guys on board :)

As always, you can keep up to date by following us on Twitter and Facebook:

https://twitter.com/Rise_Of_Legions
https://www.facebook.com/RiseOfLegions

We’re always curious to hear what you think! Join us on the Discord to share your opinion, chat or just hangout!

http://riseoflegions.com/discord

18 aprilie

Rise of Legions - Lots of Balancing and Heating up the Action!

Hey everyone,

we skipped last week, so this week’s patch is extra big and extra juicy, with lots of gameplay improvements! The focus was to make games more dynamic and action-packed, and stop certain tactics that could make the game boring, both for the winning and the losing player. We also did some unit and spell re-balancing, with the same goals in mind, which should make games a lot more fun and enjoyable. We also added two new skins plus two more that will be available as rewards soon!

Part of the goal this week was to make fighting between towers less static. By reducing the tower reload speeds, players can now continue an attack on a tower over multiple waves instead of always being faced with a fully reloaded tower each time they approach. Another goal was to shorten drawn out games, so we’ve reduced the Nexus ammo across the board. Your Nexus can still hold off one pretty big push, but it won’t draw out the game forever.

The effects of Summoning Sickness have been greatly reduced. The duration is shorter and units no longer take double damage while being summoned. This allows a lot of interesting tactics, like summoning units directly on the battlefield, that weren’t really possible before. Summoned units are still vulnerable though, as they won’t be able to defend themselves during summoning.

Another goal for this patch was to stop certain semi-exploit strategies that relied on getting double spawns and/or saving up lots of Mana while simply not doing anything. To get this done, we’ve both reduced the Mana caps and increased the income rates. After these changes we saw much more action-packed games, while still not changing the general game feel too much. To address the double spawn strats, we’ve changed the mechanics of the spawners to now only immediately spawn a unit if the spawning field is active, and then not spawn another until the next spawning cycle.

Especially at lower levels, there could often be situations of big blobs of high damage/low health units forming, that were impossible to counter, which could be extremely frustrating. To balance this, we’ve given one low-tier spell of each Legion a moderate damage effect, which can be used to break up these “DPS blobs” and should allow players to get back into the game in these situations.

On top of that, we also did a bunch of unit balance changes, which are mainly based on community feedback. So thanks to all of you who contributed feedback and ideas! In that vein, a few of you might also have noticed a certain flying unit getting a new ability... Hats off to all you “Wisp Defenders” out there, you made it happen! :)

Whew, that was a lot of text! So without further ado, here’s the full changelist:


Base Buildings

• Reduced “Nexus” Ammo to 31 across all tiers
  
• “Nexus” is now spell immune
  
• “Lane Tower” reload speed reduced by 50%
  
• “Lane Tower” and “Nexus”: Main target of projectile now only gets single target damage, not splash damage as well

White

• Increased “Heavy Gunner” Lightgrenades Splash-radius from 2.5 to 3.0
  
• Reduced “Archer” damage from 21 to 20
  
• Increased “Archer” health from 23 to 25
  
• Increased “Monk” health from 205 to 225
  
• “Light Pulse” now also deals 15 damage
  
• Increased “Light Pulse” cost from 80 to 130 Mana

Black

• Reduced “Shatter Ice” damage from 1000 to 200
  
• Increased “Soul Cauldron” health from 155 to 190
  
• Increased “Vecra” health from 345 to 375
  
• “Frost Shock” now freezes units as well as buildings and fires 12 shards at nearby targets
  
• Increased “Frost Shock” cost from 80 to 130 Mana

Green

• Increased “Rootling” health from 190 to 200
  
• Increased “Rooted” effect damage from 1 to 2 each second
  
• Increased “Entangling Roots” cost from 80 to 130 Mana
  
• Reduced “Woodwalker” health from 170 to 115
  
• Reduced “Rootdood” Mana cost for "Dood Root" from 2 to 1
  
• Increased “Rootdood” range of "Dood Root" from 8 to 11
  
• “Wisp” has a new ability: Depleting Bounce (Attacks bounce and hit up to 6 random targets; each hit reduces the damage of the next bounce by the damage dealt)

Blue

• Reduced “Gatling Turret” health from 250 to 210

• Reduced Summoning Sickness from 2.5 to 1 second. Units also don’t receive double damage anymore while being summoned
  
• Reduced Mana Caps (Stage 1: 400 / Stage 2: 500 / Stage 3: 600)
  
• Mana gain increased to +2 instead of +1 with every income upgrade
  
• Stage times Stone are now: Stage 2 starts at 3 min, Showdown starts at 6 min
  
• Stage times Bronze/Silver are now: Stage 2 starts at 3 min, Stage 3 at 6 min, Showdown at 9 min
  
• Stage times Gold+ are now: Stage 2 starts at 4 min, Stage 3 at 8 min, Showdown at 12 min
  
• Spawn Tiles now glow when they are ready for instant spawning. If a Spawner is placed on a glowing tile, it spawns instantly. If the tile is not glowing, the unit doesn’t spawn until the next spawning cycle

• Added Cultist (Monk Skin)
  
• Added Predictor (Oracle Skin)
  
• Added WIP Priest (Limited Reward)
  
• Added Rainbow Skeleton Archers (Quest Reward)

While this round of balancing was very important for the current state of the game and also for future features (we always have 2v2 in mind), we can understand that many of you would like to know more about our near-term plans. We're planning on releasing more information on the game's roadmap soon, so the community knows how things are shaping up on our way to full release. Keep your eyes peeled on our social media and Discord to hear more about that soon!

You can keep up to date by following us on Twitter and Facebook:

https://twitter.com/Rise_Of_Legions
https://www.facebook.com/RiseOfLegions

As always, we’re curious to hear what you think! Join us on the Discord to share your opinion, chat or just hangout!

http://riseoflegions.com/discord