Ethereal Myth Roadmap: May 2023

Hey everyone! This is our first public update about the Myths we are working on and have planned for the future. I know a lot of you have been asking for a long time when certain Myths are coming out and I am hoping today I can answer some of those burning questions. 

This is going to be a long post so strap in and lets get started!

The initial plan for releasing Myths was 1 per class, this has since changed as it became evident that restricting a class to a certain playstyle was not healthy for the game. 

As such, this opens us up to creating new and uniquely designed characters such as Sky Slayer Carries, Support Reapers, and so on. 

What does this mean for new release schedule? Ultimately nothing, other than the fact that you may see things such as back to back Cleric releases for Myths that are meant to exist in different roles and fill different niches based on what the game needs at the time. 

We intend to use this plan to bring a variety of both classes and playstyles to keep players intrigued and entertained for years to come. 

The Open test on May 5th contained 3 new Myths: Exiel, Malware, and Kahlea. These Myths add a hyper-scaling Carry, our first assassin, and a mobile mage to the roster. These Myths add depth to the roster in specific places that are required for a wholistic feeling game. 

While the number of Myths currently in the game is something we are always striving to improve at a rapid pace, we believe future Myths should be targeted in such a way to improve the general player experience. 

New Myths are continuously getting added and are at the forefront of our priority list to give as many players as possible the opportunity to connect with our playable characters on a personal level. 

Now lets get into talking about some of the Myths you know about and some new ones we are working on.

Nicholai: Instrument of Hope

Nicholai is a myth that many of you long time fans have come to know and love and were expecting to release as the next Cleric class Myth. 

Unfortunately we have pushed back his release indefinitely for a multitude of reasons. 

His kit and gameplay complexity is too great and we are not able to put in the time and resources into bringing the design goals we have for him to life. 

Doing so would push back other myth releases on a scale that ultimately we are not comfortable with. 

While we are not completely removing him, we do not have a timeline for him at the moment but hopefully in the future we will be able to add him back into the timeline and give him the love and attention he deserves.

Zero: Light's Herald

Angel with a Glock anyone? Zero is going to be switching things up in Ethereal as he brings Judgement to all those who challenge his divine favor. 

While working on Zero's kit, we explored many options but really wanted to focus on a style that was fun and skill expressive. 

What we landed on is sure to Invigorate you and give you a new Myth that will be fairly easy to pick up but leave you learning more every time you load into a game.

One of our goals was to create a skirmishing fighter that keeps enemies on their toes with an ever-changing play pattern as they watch the Skyfall around them.

Zero will be one of the next Myths to release, so keep an eye out for more info about Zero in the coming weeks. 

Grog'narc: Primordial Wrath

The first true tank Myth in Ethereal, Grog'narc, has had a rocky start to development with him being in and out of testing for a large number of reasons. 

From a technical perspective, we did not have the tools necessary to ensure he would not lead to a fundamentally broken game that would almost certainly lead to a negative player experience. 

From a gameplay perspective, the previous iteration of hit kit was overloaded and had some poor mechanics that worked against each other in practice and made him a strugle to play. 

As such, we have done a small overhaul to his kit and have properly worked to develop the tools required to allow him to fulfill his role as a true tank to the maximum potential. 

While he still is going through iterations of development and testing, we are confident that he will be one of the next Myths to release into Ethereal. 

Yara: The Roaming Fury

Born to the Vallah tribe located in the middle of an vast, open tundra on Algor, Yara was trained in the art of hammer combat by her mother after an encounter with a wild ice beast in her adolescence. 

She was trained to be unstoppable, using the weight of her hammer to crush those who would do her people harm.

She became the protector of the Essentian Mines where various Algorian creatures were drawn to the power of the crystals within the mines. 

Stonebreaker, passed down from her mother and her mother before her, was the hammer in which she protects her people.

That is until the living mountain shifted, broken open, and began drawing thousands of beasts to the mountains seeking its crystals, forcing her people to flee and leaving the life they knew behind. 

Now, Yara relentlessly roams the wild tundra searching for a new place for her tribe to call home...

I hope you all are just as excited for the future as we are and we cant wait to give you development updates, kits, and gameplay as we continue to work on these Myths. 

Be on the lookout later in the month for a full scale development update where we will give more updates on some of the systems we are working on! See you all then.

UG Skifter ~~