SDF Q&A (SDF IS THE HEAD DUDE)

[ALUCARD]

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkAndDarker/comments/1ed3lw3/dark_and_darker_dev_interviewqa_with_sdf_july/ OG POST

Sdf has not been home all week and is currently staying in a hotel because his wife has corona.

He has also been busy all week with gathering materials for the court case. As well as handling customer service issues. This has caused issues with things being a bit slower than usual the latest patch was done last minute.

He admits they have been slow and lacking on balance for the game. But states "we might be the hardest workers in Korea maybe even the game industry" reaffirming their dedication to this game and playerbase also mentioning he did not get home from the studio until 1:30 am.

IronMace has expanded to a total of 97 employees.

August 13th or 19th they will be at the court arguing. He wasn't able to finish his sentence on which day precisely.

September 10th ironMace will be in court arguing their legal battle once again And it might be their last appearance there.

September 6th maybe wipe day.

SDF's right hand man the individual who most helps SDF with designing and creating the classes is also very helpful in the legal battle. Him constantly getting caught up having to help out with the case is the reason things like druid took so long.

SDF once again mentioned that the case in the united states has been dismissed.

In Korea ironMace in the public perception is considered the devil "we are considered the rogue" no one is taking ironMaces side publicly in Korea.

Not a single article in Korea was written about the charity event that ironMace participated in.

They now have 5 server people upgrading it from the previous 1 individual.

The original server guy ended up in a car crash. Although he is recovering well and is mostly fine. this is what put off the new matchmaking system from being implemented sooner. SDF would really like to do random generation and they are trying to figure it out.

SDF and the team tried arena the other day and enjoyed it saying they are excited to see it implemented. also mentioning that random generation could prove to give it a much longer life. It's a big task and not easy for them to do tho.

He believes random generation is something they can do but procedural generation might be off the table.

He mentions that even if they add random generation. game modes like high roller will still suffer from third partying as the spawn points will be the same, and he believes players will quickly figure out once they enter a map how to find others. Saying it might be a problem with the size of the map itself.

He goes on to mention that he can experiment with changing the spawn points and altering other aspects to better help things like this out.

The entire process is difficult thanks to resource management as they have a lot of things to think about and are still by their own definition a small company.

A fair portion of map layouts were removed to lower the difference between experienced players and new players. SDF goes on to mention how new players already have to deal with item gaps/skill gaps/knowledge gaps.

Stating that lowering the amount of map layouts was so new players and intermediate players could actually learn them so this change was done to make it easier for steam players.

The reason they are still pursuing random generation despite this thought process. is because then all players who start on the map are on an even playing field. as opposed to hardcore players having even more advantage over new players.

He mentions considering adding the additional layouts back to high roller as a way to compromise. SDF states the gear score brackets are band aids.

he would like to remove random modifiers saying that it brings many issues to the game from being hard to understand to drastically Changing the price of an item. he doesn't like how much people have to spend for BIS saying that he simply cannot compete.

the game lacks any end game goal.

SDF only has the time to play the game for 12 to 15 hours a week.saying that he wants to play the game fairly and Normally like everyone else.

SDF believes there should be gear gap. saying the problem is random modifiers and the time required to get BIS items.

He believes the overall price of items would lower with the removal of random modifiers. he will try it next season although he is worried about players getting angry.

He might accomplish this with the gem and socketing system saying you can take a gem and put it in an item to get a roll so it will no longer be random. Saying it will make getting rolls for items easier hopefully lowering the price and the stress players feel when dying. The system itself will not be available until next season.

Items might in general move more towards how crafted gear currently functions with built-in static attributes like armor pen on cobalt.

he believes there is too much grind in the game currently.

SDF enjoys how the class balance is currently although he mentioned in his previous interview how he did not care about balance. He reiterates by saying that in the general team he actually is one of the people who cares about balance the most.

He further reiterates he simply doesn't have enough time to test things.

SDF was prepared for a 10 year fight when he started up the company saying he can't be certain things will be better after September > IronMace holds "game days" where employees encouraged to play whatever games they want Whether it be dark or darker or something else.

SDF believes a problem with big game companies is the higher ups don't play games.

IronMace held on their latest game day an arena tournament saying it's something they would like to do for players.

Arena was two by two. Contained points of interest and monsters. Gear will not be dropped on death. Utility items consumed will not be returned.

Counter strike is a big inspiration for arena as SDF is a huge fan of it. Citing how the buying system works in that game and the ability to buy equipment to give yourself an advantage being potentially something that may make it in.

Utility items might not be replenishable either in arena. Creating situations where you may throw your last axe at somebody to win the round, but not have anything to chase down others the next.

Arena will not be out until next season.

The mode is still work in progress and everything could change.

The water map will come out the season after next. So two wipes away in total counting this one. Maybe around December if everything goes according to plan.

Swimming has already been developed and may be added at a later date. even creating enemies that operate in the water like jellyfish.

SDF is not happy with the current state of high roller and wishes to make it better he acknowledges there is also a cheating problem in the game mode.

SDF wants to add a system that if you kill somebody in high roller that has legendary items and above equipped those items cannot be sold for 3 days. And if the individual who got the kill was cheating the items in question will be returned to their original owner.

The timeframe items are locked from being sold may change in the future depending on community reception and how fast they can catch hackers and ban them

Stating this is a way SDF wants to kill the motivation of hackers. SDF is proud of the anti cheat team but says there are so few of them compared to how many people there are trying to hack in and out of the game that it is difficult.

There are many different things they are considering to combat hacking. from things like player mods that can review matches to a button in the menu. that allows players to randomly spectate a high roller player. there are many things they would like to try if they get the time to implement them.

Arena will contain a spectator system but it may not be available to general players the decision has yet to be made.

Arena might feed into the main game. SDF mentions he would like to add more to the general cycle of the game saying it is kind of boring at the moment.

SDF considers arena to be end-game content for PvP players he also mentioned they will utilize the arena to better help balance the game.

SDF wants Arena to be a place for players to spend their wealth of items and gold on.

Religions will most likely be in next season there will be a way to offer gold to your respective god in exchange for "conversions" or "blessings" there will also be a way to tell in game what god a player is supporting. with a system similar to escape from tarkov armbands.

There will be a total of four religions, each one competing with one another if it ends up being too toxic or creating problems they will adjust accordingly.

He expects there to be wars similar to red lizard versus green lizard when the system is added.

The next race they are working on is cat people they are also considering raven people.

Quest cosmetics will be coming into the shop, they will be on a cycle where it's every other season.

They're trying to make a lot of cosmetics and will be coming out with an entirely new type of cosmetic possibly a soul heart skin They may allow players to make cosmetics for the game in the future, putting them up in the shop and giving players a percentage of the profits earned it's just an idea for the moment.

SDF hasn't thought about doing custom games but will consider it.

SDF would like to do LTMs but worries splitting up the players too much.

There will be guild wars when guilds are added it may be something like 10v10 and more out of the normal ideas like capture the flag may end up in the game mode.

SDF believes arena will accelerate the skill gap in the game between that and it splitting up the playerbase it may only be available on weekends that is something he is considering.

SDF wanted to remove solo and duo but because so many people enjoy the game modes decided to keep them as a part of the game.

The new matchmaking system will more dynamically gather players SDF states he hates dead lobbies. The new system will allow for finding parties automatically.

Along with adding in a system that enables item recovery for premade teams who may have had to deal with a random team killer.

Arena will contain an MMR system.

SDF doesn't have time to watch the various podcasts and settles for summaries given to him by Terence or Graysun.

SDF wanted to just warlock/ranger and rogue this week but simply ran out of time.

SDF mentions he spent a lot of time in the hotel watching streams and he dislikes how often people end up having to spam things like light orb just to find rogues.

He does not believe rogue needs a rework but believes the class needs more playstyles mentioning he believes the problem with rogue is they have a bit too much damage along with how easy it is for them to "cross over" to other players.

He admits that "it was just a bandage sorry to rogues" > SDF personally believes although it is not the opinion of the team. that faster time to kill would eliminate 3rd parties as people would be dead quicker so less likely for it to occur.

SDF may try things to adjust the ttk later but acknowledges that people like how the game feels currently. saying that it feels mostly okay right now to him and how fast you refresh hp might be the problem instead.

SDF doesn't like 1 to 2 hit TTK.

SDF prefers counters over directly nerfing things things get nerfed more often simply because they don't have the time to create counters.

SDF intentionally made cleric good stating he "wanted to see the character become the best class this season" which is why the character has been adjusted so subtly.

SDF believes the biggest issue with cleric comes from plate now that they are much faster with it.

When mentioning anti heal SDF brings up the fact that he thought about giving rogue a poison utilizes it

They no dedicated class designer or combat designers.

SDF dislikes how the only way to play solo wizard is with staff mastery. saying the perk itself is too strong but wizard as a class feels weak. Going on to say in general he would like to add more variation for wizard.

Sorcerer may receive blink.

SDF acknowledges that some characters are better at trios compared to solo and vice versa. But says that some characters will just be better at other things. "It is a class based game there will be no perfect balance."

SDF would like sorcerer to come out next season but they need to focus on the legal case because their opponent is doing well.

If the character does come out, it might be similar to how bard or warlock originally released much less complete than how druid was at launch.

Arena will be on the test server and if things go well players may see it at the end of the season but it won't be reaching live before next. SDF is still talking to the legal guy about potentially adding some form of betting to the game.

The reworked gathering hall that players will enter may have a mini game that players can sit at a table and play with the potential of betting being added to it.

SDF is only playing druid this season.

"Druid is over nerfed" he mentions this will be adjusted next patch.

They may add more gap closer in the future to characters such as barbarian.

SDF made bola slinger for barbarian but never added it. Other characters like rogue may get a sling but he's generally not decided on how he wants to implement it yet.

SDF wants to make a new skill system for ranger. like skill charges. for example you can use backstep twice in a row and then both recharge to be used again. Currently there is not a system like this in the game it will be coming soon.

Quiver is still a long time away. they will try and make it next season but it may not get implemented depending on time.

*SDF doesn't mind fighters or bards using bows as it makes them "happy"

SDF seems to have realized during the interview that weapon mastery could be an issue. but did not concrete state how he felt or if things would change. SDF enjoys ranged meta but says it doesn't work for the game because players don't enjoy it.

The rushed structure of dark and darker that has caused so many issues was brought on due to them constantly facing bankruptcy and SDF pushing for things to be implemented quickly as opposed to good foundations.

They are aware of the issue where the game will slightly stutter or lag if players are nearby And well fix it eventually.

they want to make bigger maps but the monsters would cause it to lag so until they figure out how to fix that they're going to hold off.

At the moment SDF is holding off on designing full maps that break the traditional modular design they currently have. The design of current maps makes it easier for them to do random variations in the future.

ruins will bring a little bit more lore to the game with its reimplementation.

ruins will have a new boss.

In the future SDF want bosses to require more tactics in the future. similar to the monster hunter series.

SDF believes warlock healing is a problem and wants to add counters to it. by giving characters ways to deal with it instead of directly nerfing it.

The original vision was for every boss to be doable solo.

SDF wants to make penguin 1st as there will be water soon. but "it is not druid's time it is sorcerer's time."

SDF admits every character bring something unique to the table but it makes it hard to balance.

"thank you for all the players if you are not there we die."

Please keep in mind SDF was most likely sleep deprived during this interview and English is not his 1st language. so there may have been some errors. In places I struggled to understand what he said or meant so if there are any errors please let me know. Edit 1 for those unaware this comes from "jaygriffyuh" SDF spontaneously asked him if he wanted to hop in a discord call to talk about the game.

[=[*PoS*]= The Predator of Death]

thank you for this post do more like this in the future if it's needed

[Aldain]

Man that's a lot to go over.

The whole "Opponents in a good position" in regards to the court case is also a massive concern imo, especially for anyone that has bought in to the game.

[NittNittNitt]

I completely forgot about the lawsuit, but saying the other side is doing well explains the rush to get things out and band aid fixes.