Breach Hotfix #1 Info

[thomasmahler]

Hey folks,

As you might imagine, we spent the entire time today analyzing what's going on and addressing some concerns that came up for the Breach Update.

Our goal was initially to get this hotfix out tonight still, but we've been working on quite a lot of things at the same time until now and we'd like to still have our Quality Assurance team test the hotfix before we release it - so we'll release it tomorrow instead, probably around 5pm CEST.

I wanted to summarize some of the changes that we've made based on the data we're seeing. The goal here as always is not to dumb down Wicked or to appeal to one crowd or the other. Instead, we're doing what Early Access is for: We're carefully evaluating all data and are making changes based on actual telemetry to ensure that people get the experience we're after!

So here goes:

1) For now we'll remove the interval we have on weapons and armors. What that means is that if an item had a base value of 10, there was a 30% chance that the item could drop from 7-10. We wanted to remove this for quite some time and instead introduce 'superior' items at some point anyway, but given that people reported issues with weapon damage and armor, we decided that we're changing this now already. With that, any weapon and armor you find will be exactly what the designer intended it to be :)

2) We've also made adjustments to the 'gear score' system, so there's gonna be a higher chance that a REALLY nice item drops for you every once in a while.

3) For Breach, we tried to do something smart that would encourage players to put armor into all equipment slots, but that's backfired since a lot of you apparently want to run around without pants. Fine then, we reverted this to what we had on the previous LIVE build. That should fix the issues people reported about getting killed too easily.

4) A lot of you were bothered about archer builds using focus again for their arrow skill instead of stamina. I tweaked this stuff today so that the arrow skill is quite a lot cheaper now. Please try it and leave feedback if this alleviated your concerns! On a side-note, we will definitely put a LOT of love into Archer builds within the upcoming Combat Update!

5) We saw that you folks are often starved of the earlier herbs, so we increased the drop rates on Artemisia Herbs.

6) We fixed an issue reg. elemental damage affixes on enemies. Some of you tried to make builds around elemental damage and it didn't fire the way you expected and the way it should've worked, so that's fixed now.

7) There was a bug that snuck in that didn't allow players to backstab enemies while they were in certain states. We fixed that and also adjusted the backstab angle to be a bit more forgiving again. We also made the backstab icon appear and disappear more rapidly so that players get clearer feedback.

8) We fixed that silly Blade Oil Description bug :D

9) We increased drop rates on rarer enemy spawns like Sirens and Wolves.

10) We adjusted the parry window a bit. We even had a slew of our non-parry players internally try it and even they felt it was 'challenging, but good!'

11) There was a poise issue with Witches and the Pickaxe Nith enemies. They'll now be instantly interruptible with any weapon, as originally intended.

12) We added some text on the main menu for now to clarify to everyone what's going on with their legacy saves.

13) We fixed the issue where people couldn't exalt items anymore with items locked in their house chests.

14) We removed the XP Cap on higher level enemies. We saw some of you just absolutely determined to beat enemies that are at a far higher level than yourselves and if you manage to do that, that should be properly rewarded!

15) We had an initialEnemyLevel mistake in Nameless Pass that resulted in too high of a difficulty spike once you went from the Pass to the Quarry - Now enemies in the Quarry will be Level12 instead of Level15 to allow for a smoother progression.

16) Medium Roll got a few extra iframes. Keep rolling, rolling, rolling!

17) We lowered the level increase in the later Orban Glades areas a bit so that the difficulty jump for Darak and the enemies in that zone isn't as abrupt.

18) There was a bug that artificially increased the Enemy Levels after the Servant of God and Of Rats and Raiders Quests were completed. We fixed that now.

19) There was another bug that made the enemies in the Prologue too tough to beat. They needed 11 hits or so, which wasn't intentional. Now they're fairly weak again as they should be for the tutorial :)

20) We saw that a lot of you like the Fallen Embers and what they can do for you, but you're using the system a LOT and run out of embers a tad too quickly. Thus, we increased the drop rate of Fallen Embers accordingly.

21) There was an issue with the drop rates of weapon and armor shards that's now fixed.

22) We decreased the drop rate of Plagued Items a bit since for Breach, they were balanced to be more advanced weapons for advanced players that like the challenge of making an entire build around them. Try to be creative with them, don't immediately dismiss an item if you don't immediately like the negative enchantment that's on it - you might just be able to get something out of it ;)

23) We also drastically increased the effects of conditional enchantments. If an enchantment requires you to perform a backstab, a parry or has any other condition like that, the reward should be significant, so that's adjusted now.

And that's just a few of the changes - There's quite a bit more being discussed and we'll have more detailed patch notes for you tomorrow!

And lastly, let me apologize that the Breach Launch might not have went as smoothly as we all wanted it to be. No Rest for the Wicked is an enormously complex project and we tried to squeeze as much new stuff as possible into it, which ultimately meant that some late-stage testing that should've happened didn't happen anymore since we ran out of time.

But we're very carefully listening to all your feedback, we're constantly watching streams, we're looking at all social media channels and we'll be fixing things as fast as humanly possible. We are listening, so please keep sending your feedback our way and we'll promise we'll try to make the perfect ARPG experience for all of you out there!

- Thomas

[uiu]

Good job guys, keep on doing the great work, game is amazing and is really nice to see that the Devs are giving attention to our "crying" lol, keep it up !

[潜伏]

我想开发者和玩家的关系不应如此紧张。但是作为付费玩家我们有为我们钱包和感情发言的权利。我无法想象目前只需要扩大地图和增加敌人就能获得好评的游戏为什么会变成这样？我想目前最重要的可能不是发布补丁。最重要的是开发者要先从零重新开始体验一次这个游戏。好好想想那些原本没有什么差评的机制为什么要被修改。而那些有许多差评的机制却被保留。远程武器的基础攻击为什么不能使用体力？最起码应该增加一个回复专注的被动吧？难道你非要让玩家拿法杖去敲敌人的头吗？如果做一件事没有正反馈，那为什么要做呢？还有，角色动作没有之前灵敏了，请尽快了解原因。 当然制作人这次积极的回复值得肯定。

[saev]

LETS GOOO

[coward]

Your intentions are so obvious that the balance of difficulty after the last patch has become appropriate, but you suddenly force a 100-fold increase. Inexplicably, you forcibly increases the difficulty of the game, greatly increases the scarcity of resources, and forcibly changes the protagonist to baby who has to take a break after four swings of the sword. Forcibly increasing the scarcity of items in this way should be for the sake of later PVP trading services.
But you guys didn't think about the player's feelings at all, and we're disappointed that we've been waiting for the update for so long. The goal is wrong, no matter how fast you are, you won't reach the end, and if you don't change your mindset, no amount of hot patches will be useless.

[[RM] Thunderhunt]

does the breach update wipe our existing chars or make it so we need to use new ones? or can i use my existing char to play the update?

[Jonathan911217]

I just love these devs! They work so hard and they do listen to feedback, while also have their own vision for the game! I'm so excited about the farming stuff, I wonder if we will buy farm land? within sacriment or is it farm plots without our houses and we have different sizes?! Man I love this game, I die a lot...but it's so rewarding when you beat an enemy and then you get better gear and things get easier but things won't get too easy because what's the fun in that?!

[wizardt]

Originally posted by RM Thunderhunt:

does the breach update wipe our existing chars or make it so we need to use new ones? or can i use my existing char to play the update?

the breach doesnt delete it. the save file still exists, the game just doesnt load it on the new version anymore.

[Sera]

Good to hear on some of the issues reported...

Still abit meh on Bows using Focus. thou I get making Arrows, and some of suggestions not being easy quick ones.

As a Bow Main, I wanna say the changes to focus pots, removal of focus on damage, Helped a ton to remove there OP powers.
Stam cost was pretty decent before Breach Update. Felt like it was in a good spot for pew pew pew and charge shots. I had to over invest to get a 4th shot. It felt like it was in a Good spot. It was Skill Spam that really made it OP (which seemed fix)
More Enemies have range attacks and rush/closer. (they have 100% caught me charging heavy shot now)

Stam Cost would make them usable more often. Just keep more/new enemies with a range to counter spell/bow users. I think it be pretty golden.

Also... can be we put it in Main hand Slot. (always weird to see my character with both weapons out)

(also... hide helmet option) You all might not be wearing pants.. been rocking no helmet. XD

[MrGrumpi]

Find a way to let us use our original character and tell us the real reason why you cant load an old character. Was it because so many players item duped using previous saves and made the in-game economy and gathering irrelevant? I have not seen anyone talk about the item duping that went on in the last version.

[oO PsyteK Oo]

Originally posted by RM Thunderhunt:

does the breach update wipe our existing chars or make it so we need to use new ones? or can i use my existing char to play the update?

Mine doesn´t appear, I had to create a new char

[527952895]

Really looking forward to this hotfix, its good to have a team with dignity but also takes players views into consideration. keep it up team

[[RM] Thunderhunt]

Originally posted by wizardt:

Originally posted by RM Thunderhunt:

does the breach update wipe our existing chars or make it so we need to use new ones? or can i use my existing char to play the update?

the breach doesnt delete it. the save file still exists, the game just doesnt load it on the new version anymore.

so we need to make a new save to play?

ur basically sayin our old saves are bricked.

[maxikg]

I'd like to use my character I played all this time (62h) - he's a fiery claymore user and I specifically defined his abilities the way he's a fast one with this weapon - no fat rolls. I REALLY don't like the idea of wasting all this time I played the game.

[Buck Wilder]

Thank you, I've been having a blast even with the little issues I've run across. looking forward to the hotfix tomorrow!

[Alacod]

Originally posted by thomasmahler:

which ultimately meant that some late-stage testing that should've happened didn't happen anymore since we ran out of time.

- Thomas

Thank you for listening, these are some great changes. However there is something in this post that bothers me. "ran out of time" how? You are independent now yes? You only ever run out of time to satisfy investors. Gamers are a different beast especially with EA games, do not release things unless they are ready, please. Better to get flak for taking your time from impatient people than to release an untested update that upsets far more people.

"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad" -Shigeru Miyamoto

''Late is just for a little while, Suck is forever right?'' -Gabe Newell