Greetings Mortals,
On January 31st Henrik revealed the results of our most recent community roadmap followup poll, and talked about the changes you can expect to see in upcoming patches, such as a rework of the TC Guild Defence mechanics, balance for tower shields and an overhaul to the mount stamina system.
You can watch the full stream archived over on our YouTube channel:
Community Roadmap Followup Poll Results
After our first Community Roadmap poll, we asked you to help us narrow down some specifics of some of the top voted items, such as for the ‘New Creature’, whether or not you would like to see a new “Opponent” AI you can fight, or a new dedicated mount instead, as well as which class the new armor set should be in, Light, Medium or Heavy.
Here are the results of your votes, and what we will be using to guide our hand in future patches:
Shore Prower Armor
Here is a little sneak peek at the Shore Prower armor the artists have been working on, let us know what you think!
Territory Control Guild Defence Mechanics
The main change we will be making to Territory Control in a future patch, is a rework of the Guild Defence mechanics.
Our current approach is to remove the global affect of Guild Defence obtained from Supply structures, and instead localize it to within an area around specific Supply structures.
For example, the Supply Lines close to keeps will no longer apply globally, but will instead apply within a small area around them.
Supply Storehouses will also only apply their defence bonus in an area around them as they currently do, however the main change we are making is that this defence bonus will be stored in every house and Territory Control structure individually.
This means that when the Supply Storehouse is destroyed, the defence bonus it was providing to surrounding structures will not vanish instantly as it does currently, but instead will tick down over time using the same mechanics as the current global Guild Defence.
This ensures we can maintain our intended balance for the length of time it takes before structures become vulnerable after the surrounding Supply Structures have been destroyed, which may also be tweaked. Additionally we want to show a structures current defence bonus in the structure panel UI, which you can see when inspecting a structure or house, so you can see how vulnerable it currently is.
In the future we may make Supply Lines only ever apply to the keep they are connected to and its walls, as this was the original intention for them, however this has not been fully decided yet and comes with its own complications which need to be worked out.
Supply Towers are also planned to receive some changes, however the exact nature of these is also not final yet, so we will talk about them more in a future update.
Tower Shield Balance
Tower shield balance changes have been one of the most commonly requested things for a long time now.
As such, we have been working on updating not just tower shields in isolation, but the mechanics of all shields as a whole to improve the viability of smaller and lighter shields.
This rework will come in three main parts,
- Reintroducing stamina gain when parrying with a shield, where the amount of stamina gained scales with the weight of the shield.
This will incentivize using a lighter shield, as you will be able to gain more stamina through actively parrying, especially when you can not rely on receiving too many equipment hits to a shield of smaller size. - Introducing stamina drain when taking an equipment hit to a shield.
The amount of stamina drained will scale with the damage of the equipment hit, after the incoming damage has been reduced by the defences of the shield, but before it has been reduced by the defences of your torso armor. This will result in shields of higher quality having less bleed through damage, and therefore less stamina drain for the person holding the shield.
As smaller shields such as round shields are lighter and can be made of stronger materials without becoming too heavy, this means smaller shields should take less stamina damage on average than larger shields. - Further increase Tower Shield crafted weight.
This weight increase is intended to bring tower shields more in line with their original design goal of providing the player with a choice, to either use a smaller shield such as a round shield which doesn’t provide substantial coverage in addition to respectable armor underneath, or to choose to use a larger and heavier tower shield which provides much more coverage, however requires you to make a sacrifice in the kinds of armor you are able to wear underneath.
This combination of all three changes should result in larger shields such as tower shields offering more coverage, but less mitigation for equipment hits due to them needing to be made of lighter materials on average so as to not be too prohibitive when it comes to armor weight, as well as offering little to no stamina gained when parrying with them due to their weight.
While smaller and lighter shields on the other hand, offer less coverage, however can be made of much better materials while remaining light in weight, therefore taking less damage and stamina drain from equipment hits, in addition to gaining stamina when parrying with them.
As with all substantial combat balance changes, we will be keeping a close eye on this and will be ready to make any necessary adjustments to ensure the balance of shields is where we want it to be.
Mount Stamina Overhaul
We are overhauling and rebalancing the mount stamina systems to be more intuitive, less tedious, and more engaging.
As part of these changes,
- All mounts will drain and regenerate stamina at the same rates.
- All mounts have received changes to their maximum stamina and individual speeds.
Before these changes, it has been impossible to tell what the maximum stamina number of a mount really meant, as every mount had different stamina drain rates and regeneration rates. Meaning it was possible to have for example, a mount with a higher maximum stamina number, than runs out of stamina faster than a mount with less stamina.
Now that all mounts drain and regenerate stamina at the same rates, with the only thing changing being the maximum stamina number, you can reliably see the real difference between mounts in how long they can run for relative to each other.
- All mounts will no longer drain stamina in third speed.
- All mounts now regenerate stamina much faster in first and second speed.
- All mounts now only drain stamina while ‘boosting’ in fourth speed.
- All mounts now gain significantly more speed while boosting.
These changes remove some tedious elements of traveling, such as the most efficient method being to dismount when your mount is low on stamina and sprint forwards while it regenerates, then remounting to continue traveling.
The ‘boost’ mechanic is now a much more significant and tactical element to mounted gameplay, as you will not only ride much faster while boosting, but will also drain stamina at a much higher rate, meaning you must decide when is the right time to use it.
However, once you have run low on stamina, you must drop down to the second speed to recover stamina quickly before you are able to use it again. Riding in third speed will not gain or lose any stamina.
- Certain heavier mounts, such as Molvas or the upcoming Bears, have been balanced to have faster sprint speeds than other lighter mounts, however they also have less maximum stamina, meaning they may be able to sprint faster than a horse, however they cannot maintain those speeds for a long time.
One of the primary goals of this rework is to make sure all rideable creatures are viable mounts with their own unique pros and cons.
We are very excited to get these changes into your hands when they are ready on an upcoming PTR, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback about them.
As with everything else, and especially so with such a substantial rework of a core system, we will be monitoring this closely and making any necessary adjustments as we gather feedback over time.
Whether you’re a longtime fan of Mortal Online 2 or a newcomer in the world of Nave, dive into the vault with Henrik every second Wednesday at 8:00 PM CET to get your questions answered by the CEO and game designer.
See you in Nave,
The Star Vault Team