Jun 25, 2024
MythForce - BeamdogOlex
Hey Adventurers!
It’s been a while since we’ve given you an update on what we’ve been cooking up over at MythForce HQ, so here's the rundown.
First off, we want to give a BIG shoutout to the entire community for your amazing feedback to our 1.0.5 Harder, Better, Faster, Story Update, and recent Hotfixes. This feedback has been invaluable in shaping a lot of the design decisions being worked on for our next major update, which we are now calling 1.2 (formally 1.0.6). The name change reflects the extensive changes to the overall game loop and the significant amount of work involved compared to our previous updates.
While working on our upcoming overhaul the team noticed that there are parts of the game that seem to run counter to what we want to accomplish with MythForce. We’ve put together a plan to revise MythForce over the next while, which will see some systems completely go away, others changed and some new systems introduced. We are iterating as we go, trying to realize the potential that started us on MythForce years ago.
Big picture, We will be removing “inner loop leveling” which is what we call the gaining of levels within a gameplay session. Instead, all level progression will be moved out of session and into the outer loop. Playing an episode will give you XP, Gold and rewards which are then spent outside the episode to improve your character, your gear and open up new options.
To facilitate this we will be introducing character profiles at startup, giving you slots for your characters. This will allow players to have multiple builds across characters that they can instantly swap to without the fear of losing progress on a specific hero. Our aim with this system is to allow players to experiment freely with different build combinations across a variety of playstyles.
Constellations and star shards are going away and will be replaced by a skill tree system which allows much greater personalization and customization of character builds. The skill trees will allow you to build from a greater variety of abilities and power ups to better realize the character you want.
While our current constellation system allows for huge bonuses to stats, it doesn't offer much opportunity to vary how you approach gameplay outside of weapon selection. This creates some extreme challenges to game balance, as we have to allow for stats with hundreds of points difference in the same encounter, making many much too easy or hard. Our ultimate goal with this new system is to make the core gameplay loop for each hero feel unique and give players the freedom to experiment with different playstyles.
The armory and weapons as a whole will also be receiving a lot of attention as we examine elemental effects, potential elemental combos, and weapon enchantments to further weapon enhancement and customization.
As we make major changes to many systems, we are going to focus on the PC build to implement, polish, and iterate on those changes. Once we are satisfied with the state of the game, we will evaluate our timelines and resources for other platforms. Since we are a small team, this process will take some time, but the changes will be profound and worth the wait.
We are making numerous other changes throughout the game that aim to extend the overall replayability of MythForce and make each run feel unique. For example, we're looking to introduce more interesting encounter objectives into the mix. We are also working out a mechanism to ensure those who have spent a great deal of time unlocking progression in the old system are able to carry some benefit to the new system. We are just getting started on this large scale rework, so we ask for some patience as we dig in and revamp a large number of major systems. This is going to take some time, so we are holding off on providing an estimate, but the changes will be worthwhile.
We are eager to start teasing out some of these changes and talking about them, so stay tuned to our Steam page/socials in the coming weeks for a look at what to expect!
It’s been a while since we’ve given you an update on what we’ve been cooking up over at MythForce HQ, so here's the rundown.
First off, we want to give a BIG shoutout to the entire community for your amazing feedback to our 1.0.5 Harder, Better, Faster, Story Update, and recent Hotfixes. This feedback has been invaluable in shaping a lot of the design decisions being worked on for our next major update, which we are now calling 1.2 (formally 1.0.6). The name change reflects the extensive changes to the overall game loop and the significant amount of work involved compared to our previous updates.
While working on our upcoming overhaul the team noticed that there are parts of the game that seem to run counter to what we want to accomplish with MythForce. We’ve put together a plan to revise MythForce over the next while, which will see some systems completely go away, others changed and some new systems introduced. We are iterating as we go, trying to realize the potential that started us on MythForce years ago.
Big picture, We will be removing “inner loop leveling” which is what we call the gaining of levels within a gameplay session. Instead, all level progression will be moved out of session and into the outer loop. Playing an episode will give you XP, Gold and rewards which are then spent outside the episode to improve your character, your gear and open up new options.
To facilitate this we will be introducing character profiles at startup, giving you slots for your characters. This will allow players to have multiple builds across characters that they can instantly swap to without the fear of losing progress on a specific hero. Our aim with this system is to allow players to experiment freely with different build combinations across a variety of playstyles.
Constellations and star shards are going away and will be replaced by a skill tree system which allows much greater personalization and customization of character builds. The skill trees will allow you to build from a greater variety of abilities and power ups to better realize the character you want.
While our current constellation system allows for huge bonuses to stats, it doesn't offer much opportunity to vary how you approach gameplay outside of weapon selection. This creates some extreme challenges to game balance, as we have to allow for stats with hundreds of points difference in the same encounter, making many much too easy or hard. Our ultimate goal with this new system is to make the core gameplay loop for each hero feel unique and give players the freedom to experiment with different playstyles.
The armory and weapons as a whole will also be receiving a lot of attention as we examine elemental effects, potential elemental combos, and weapon enchantments to further weapon enhancement and customization.
As we make major changes to many systems, we are going to focus on the PC build to implement, polish, and iterate on those changes. Once we are satisfied with the state of the game, we will evaluate our timelines and resources for other platforms. Since we are a small team, this process will take some time, but the changes will be profound and worth the wait.
We are making numerous other changes throughout the game that aim to extend the overall replayability of MythForce and make each run feel unique. For example, we're looking to introduce more interesting encounter objectives into the mix. We are also working out a mechanism to ensure those who have spent a great deal of time unlocking progression in the old system are able to carry some benefit to the new system. We are just getting started on this large scale rework, so we ask for some patience as we dig in and revamp a large number of major systems. This is going to take some time, so we are holding off on providing an estimate, but the changes will be worthwhile.
We are eager to start teasing out some of these changes and talking about them, so stay tuned to our Steam page/socials in the coming weeks for a look at what to expect!
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