The Path Forward

Good Afternoon Patrons!!

With the test in our rear view mirror, we are taking the time to analyze our shortcomings and adjust priorities where needed moving forward. We know this test was much to be desired, and while it was expected, we were disappointed as well. The light at the end of the tunnel however, is that the goals we set forth prior to the test (Testing UE5 and the vision system) were both successful and we found issues in the engine and got a lot of feedback around the new Fog of War and Wards. Moving forward we are putting the pedal to the metal and we have some major upgrades to the way the game is played and how it feels to play coming in the next test. 

New Ability System

We are now in the process of integrating a brand new custom ability system for the game to use. This is a project that has taken quite a long time and its purpose is to make the game feel perfect to fit the mold of what Ethereal should be. Overall the new system has a better flow and feel and should remove all of the visual bugs that many players have been critical over, going back to the very first playtests many years ago.

From a technical viewpoint, the new ability system has no prediction system. Prediction systems are typically found in games such as CSGO and Valorant to allow the shooter precision to reign supreme, and the server will respect the clients aiming and targeting. Doing a full prediction system in a MOBA would lead to players on ping having an advantage and leads to issues such as getting hit by an AOE ability while out of range on your screen because you were in the area on theirs. Furthermore, The prediction system is what makes actions happen immediately on your client. In Ethereal, due to the aforementioned issues of granting players with more ping the advantage, the clients waited for the server to 'confirm' those actions back to you based on your ping. If the server denied that action it would cause a 'revert' of the action on your client, causing misleading behaviors such as seeing hit effects but no damage or animations not playing correctly as you would expect them to. Movement abilities such as blink, dashes, flying, and climbing also no longer will be subject to harsh rubber banding effects caused by your client 'predicting' those movements and the server correcting them later on. 

What does this mean to you? It means that everything as you see it in game now will be because the server has confirmed those actions to you and other players. Player's ping will now be calculated when sending your inputs to the server and the actions will not play on owning clients until the server has confirmed it and sent back the data. Everything you see in game now is as it happened on the server. This leads to drastically improved sound and visual feedback when you hit targets as well as a perfect display of networked enemy and ally locations in order to make aiming and hitting your targets much easier.

This is a system that we thought through the ins and outs of for many months before buckling down and started the coding. Due to the drastic changes made, the large majority of the code has been rewritten taking into account all the feedback over the years from all of our supporters. We are extremely excited to not only letting you get your hands on it but also releasing new Myths at a more rapid pace due to the workflow improvements that were coupled with this massive system update!

New Myths

Speaking of new Myths! Grog'narc and Zero will both be playable in the next test! Grog'narc is a Myth that has been playable internally previously but due to technical limitations at the time, it was best to wait for the new system before fully implementing him into the game to ensure his kit had the support needed. We did learn a lot while he was in testing and made some adjustments to the kit that was previously released for him, so you will see those in an upcoming Patreon post! Zero is the next Skyslayer to release into Ethereal. He is a stance switcher, using his Special ability to swap between stances. Most playable characters in other MOBA's use their ultimate to stance swap but not Zero! And because of this, he will have 2 Ultimates, 1 for each stance. We are very excited for both of these Myths to drop into Elysium and for the progress of creating Myths to rapidly increase!

Animation, light update, save for larger post

A large amount of feedback in this past test was due to the poor animations that saw little to no improvement across the board. And unfortunately, due to the small Dev team and our priorities focusing on the feel of the game with the new ability system, it was something we had to live with for the time being. Moving forward we now have the capabilities to sink more time into creating new animations for our characters. We are going to start researching ways to use AI systems and technologies to speed up our progress and utilize the mocap with AI if possible. We will go into more detail in a later post once we have a clearer path forward and some results to show!

Hit feedback

Over time we have noticed there is a silent majority of players who believe a lot of the games issues have to deal with hit feedback, and we agree. We are going to be looking into ways to improve this including directional hit animations, better camera shakes, camera movements, more impactful VFXs and Sounds. Our team has started researching a wide array of different games including other MOBAs, MMOs, and shooters (3rd and 1st person) to gather the information needed to implement and tune our current systems to perfection. We have spent a lot of time in the past on creating these systems and they function quite well so its time we utilized them fully and captured all of the potential moving forward!

Ping System

The next feature we are going to be adding is the Ping System. Communication is the key to success in any multiplayer game, and we want that success to be a core part of each player’s experience with Ethereal. With the press of a button, players will be able to warn their allies of impending danger, telegraph their movements, and call out opportunities to siege and secure objectives across the map. In addition to implementing an easy-to-navigate menu for the commands, we also intend to add specific sound effects to indicate when you or an ally ping a command and to distinguish between different types of commands. Our plan is to make everything in Ethereal ping-able, including the minimap and any items on the scoreboard.

Account XP

One of the new features we are excited to announce is Account XP progression and Myth Progression. As you play Ethereal, you will earn personal experience points that contribute to your overall account level. Additionally, when you play specific myths in each of those matches, you will earn separate experience points that raise your level for that myth. By reaching certain milestones across your account and with the myths that you play, you will be able to unlock unique rewards that cannot be unlocked any other way, such as player profile icons and myth skins. Keep an eye out for future updates where we will reveal what these rewards look like and what it takes to earn them.

Announcer Packs

Moving forward, in addition to polishing and balancing the gameplay experience, we are going to be implementing in-game currency and a cosmetic shop to allow players to obtain more rewards of their choosing. The first of these rewards will be Announcer Packs. From declaring when minions spawn at the beginning of a match, to when your team successfully secures an objective, to when the Elders are under attack in the end game, you get to choose the voices that echo through the valleys of Elysium! The talent behind each of the Announcer Packs will range from professional voice actors to content creator collaborations, so there is a chance that their voices will be more familiar to you than you would first expect.

Slow Intensity System

Currently the way slows work in game are additive, meaning if you get applied a 30% slow and a 20% slow, they will add together and you will be slowed by 50%. We don't think this is healthy and limits the interactions between Myths and items, ultimately creating slow chains that cause the target to get rooted altogether. We are adding a new system that will calculate the largest slow you have applied to you and only take that into account for your movement speed. This means that if you have a 30% slow and a 20% slow on you, you now will only be slowed by 30%. If the 30% slow expires, and the 20% slow persists on you, then you will be slowed by 20% until you are clear. The same applied if a larger slow gets applied as well, it will be the one that now is calculated against your movement speed output.

Thanks,

Undying Games ~~