Massive Overhauls Coming to the Game

Hi everyone!

The game has come a long way since I first started working on it and from player feedback, I have learned of some game mechanics that have been there since its conception, which are making it less enjoyable.

• Having to queue for new locations for up to 1 minute.
• Having to wait for a whole 1 minute in the dorm to recover.
• Combat actions being performed in bursts (at the start of each turn).
• In-game days progressing too rapidly.
• In-game turn updates progressing too slowly.
• The in-game year cycle only moving ~20 minutes each day, which causes certain seasonal events to happen at night for some players for days on end.
• Challenging to find players when server populations are low.

All these are related to the awkward way the in-game time progresses. Several are also interdependent, which has made it challenging to come up with solutions that don't worsen other entries on the list: If I make traveling instant, encountering players becomes worse; If I adjust the in-game year by making turns slower, traveling and recovery will become worse.

After over a year of analyzing the underlying issues and trying to come up with possible solutions, and finally, sparing with a professional game designer, I believe I have a list of all the necessary changes and additions to solve these issues and create a much more enjoyable game experience!

Removal of turn updates!

• Attending a turn event will happen immediately.
• Turns events like classes will be moved to a separate tab like faculty locations, where they can be accessed at will and no longer block traveling to the location normally.
• In-game time will progress significantly slower to make encounters last fewer in-game days and improve the year cycle.

Regeneration of health and actions happen in steps

• Health is regained constantly while resting, at a pace where max health is regained over 1 minute (possibly faster).
• Actions are regained each x seconds so max actions are recharged over 1 minute (possibly faster while resting). With 3 max actions, 1 action is recharged every 20 seconds.

Looking for Roleplay feature

• A system similar to looking for a group in a standard MMO, where players can list the sort of RP encounter and partner they are looking for.

Encounter matching is made seamlessly

• Changing locations will happen immediately.
• When entering a location outside the dorms, a server will attempt to pair players while the leaving animation plays and the location instance is created.

Traveling and recovery will be decoupled from in-game time so each can be adjusted independently, and while the matchmaking window for encounters will be smaller, traveling between locations is likely to happen more frequently. Random encounters are expected to be about as frequent without the need for a queue or turn update, while roleplayers can rely more on the Looking for Roleplay feature to find partners reliably.

All these changes should ultimately result in a better-paced game with less stalling and wasting of player's time! And when those are done, I have big plans for how to make exploration much more engaging as well!

It will take a while before all these changes make it into the game, but I think it's something to look forward to!

Cheers,

Tinon